CHRISTOPHER NOLAN SZN!

FOLLOWING *SEASON PREMIERE*

For Season 12 *Nolan Void*, TGTPTU continues its iconic practice of pairing bookended movies from a director’s filmography, first and last until we pair the middlemost. This season we cover the twelve movies of the granddaddy/infant son of the temporal pincer movement himself Christopher Nolan, starting with his inaugural feature: the independently-made, London-shot B&W film FOLLOWING (1998)

Initiating a series of noir films leading to greater projects, the technically-minded Nolan leans into his budget limitations, writing a script whose three timelines will allow him to edit around missing or unusable footage filmed on weekends with novice actors (excepting his uncle and future Wayne Enterprises board member professional British actor John Nolan) and crew from University College, London where young Nolan studied English Literature (and met his future wife). Aside from working fulltime for a commercial film agency creating corporate videos, the other reason for weekend shoots was the self-financing pool of limited funds available after each paycheck to purchase and develop more 16mm B&W film with Nolan operating the camera and his wife Emma Thomas serving as an extra in addition to her professional role as producer. Sensitive to budget and realism, Nolan states in Criterion Collection commentary that the choice of a hammer instead of gun was due to fake guns when wielded in indie films often looked fake but a fake hammer has right weight.

Nolan would end up moving to the States to enter Following into festivals where it received much buzz but no distributors, leading Steven Soderbergh at the time to comment: “And I watched it and came out of there thinking ‘That’s it. When a movie this good can’t get released, the [the 1990’s independent movie wave is] over.”

Special thanks this week to Ryan for returning to the podcast to discuss this film (and less so for its paired OPPENHEIMER coming next week) as well as extra editing by co-host Ken for splicing back into linearity other co-host Thomas’s bit of jumbling up his commentary into three styles of slurred speech: his normal, as he’s increasingly intoxicated, and after biting (literally) his tongue while making a “Stop, Hammer time” joke.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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Our Darren Ssarfinale!

Season 11 of The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly concludes on an odd note, both mathematically and colloquially, as the boys wrap up their Darren Aronofsky season with Episode 9 covering PERFECT BLUE (1997), joined by frequent guest Ryan.

The debut film of famed anime and short-lived director Satoshi Kon released one year prior to Aronofsky’s debut (PI), Perfect Blue is an adaptation of an edgy YA thriller novel popular in Japan. Taking liberties with plot, Kon deepens the twists of the source material, adding in his own layers of the nascent internet anxieties and troubling the idea of identity visually and thematically, and in so doing turns what was meant as a Japanese OVA into a feature released worldwide.

TGTPTU takes on directly the movie scuttlebutt sites posting slander since Requiem for a Dream (with a resurgence after Black Swan) and claims Kon himself on occasion supported (although he would die at age 46 months prior to Black Swan’s release), that The Scarf lifted shots and scenarios directly from Kon’s first masterpiece, and the strident conclusions the hosts and guest reach are definitely not going to stun and probably won’t impress you, our listener.

But stay tuned afterward for Ken, Thomas, and Ryan’s rankings of Aronofsky’s eight-film filmography, a teaser for next season, and this season’s bestowal of the much-coveted Squeaky Chair Award.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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DARREN ARONOFSKY CH. 4 E2: THERE'S A LITTLE BLACK SWAN ON THE SUN TODAY

Season 11’s temporal pincer movement by The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly draws to a close with tricky reflections on BLACK SWAN (2010). Listen to our opinions double, pirouette, and morph during Chapter 4, Episode 2, covering our final Darren Aronofsky movie but not our season’s finale, with No-Longer-Special Guest Ryan and his squeaky chair understudy.

Long-time Aronofsky collaborator and pod-fav cinematographer Matthew Libatique returns to shoot this tale that’d be like if Dostoevsky’s “The Double” mated with Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake” and their kid was kept in a Barbie-pink child’s room as her mother painted her portrait and put mittens on them to keep them from scratching at the feathers erupting from their skin when they won the part of Odette and Odile.

Reality fractures (as do opinions during the pod) for Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers in her Oscar-winning performance, causing consternation for one host and glee for others. Ambiguities extend and multiple as Aronofsky claims the ending tragic while Portman believes it triumphant and Host Thomas in front of a car. Is this a story about womanhood and autonomy? The dangers of obsession? The need for a well-balanced meal?

Trigger warning for hangnails and those who have allergies to shattered glass.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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