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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WHICH WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.

TGTPTU returns to its regularly scheduled Squib Games (S15) with the earlier of its latest temporal pincer movement pairing, TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA (1985).

Directed by William Friedkin, this is another Big Willie movie but not a Wyler: the second William has the credited surname of Peterson and this is his first film. William Peterson was so new to film acting that he called his fellow Chicagoan thespian buddy John Malkovich to see what he should quote as his asking price to play the lead character of Richard Chance, a thrill-seeking Secret Service agent who’ll lose his partner only days from retirement (red-shirted partner’s, not Chance’s) and will get a new partner in John Pankow’s Agent John Vukovich to pervert in his (Chance’s) vengeful pursuit of a counterfeiter played by Willem Dafoe. (Next year Peterson would play another officer of the law in Manhunter as covered during TGTPTU’s Mann Aged Season {S5,E5}; as an EPISODE CORRECTION Pankow did not portray Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus but had done so at the Broadhurst Theatre, replacing Tim Curry.)

Because it’s a Friedkin flick, there’s an epic car chase meant to top The French Connection; because it’s shot from a Friedkin script (adapted from a novel by former Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich, who receives a cowriting credit), there was a lot of improvisation on set driven by the actors, with both the ending and opening scenes re/written during shooting. Mentioning actors, the film is stacked with supporting roles by Dean Stockwell, John Turturro (who’ll get more mention later in Season 15), and the Michael Mann-created film noir for television Crime Story’s very own Darlanne Fluegel (listen back to S5,E6 for insights on this TV series).

TGTPTU hosts become split on the merits of the film. Thomas describes the movie as The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) on neon cocaine, but—no spoilers—you’ll have to listen to the ep for whether he believes this is a good thing. Also, Jack lets out the three-legged dog and Ryan, while finding it impossible to resist singing the title, has issue with William Pederson. Ken convinces everyone to Wang Chung tonight.

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TWO HUNDRED EPISODES AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS 200TH EPISODE

The Good, the Pod, and the Ugly boys take a break from their ongoing Squib Season to commemorate the pod’s 200th episode. With over 400 movies covered across 14.5 seasons, this also marks a great entry point for new listeners as hosts Ken, Thomas, and Ryan reveal the three films they consider as the most influential to their cineast lives.

Exclusive to this episode: Chapter breaks to conveniently skip or relisten to your favorite host’s/s’ divulgences.

Bo-Bo-Bonus: The three hosts (two of which are put on the spot) throw in three influential musical artists and writers.

Extra bonus material: Ken reveals previous host Jack’s top three.

Another fun episode to skip unless you’re a former prime minister of Britian enjoying her time in hell, the creepreditor (portmanteau of “creep + creator+ director”) of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men movie franchise, the listener from the end of time, or any of the pod’s legend and bits mentioned throughout this bicentennial ep. In that case, mbe listen.

Cut from this celebratory episode are the hosts’ selection of their three horniest movies (i)“Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” (ii)“Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” & (iii)“Hillbilly Elegy”; (i)“Cats”; (ii)“The Dark Crystal,” ¶ “Chicken Little”; and (i)“Incredible Shrinking Woman,” (ii)“9 to 5” & (iii)“The Late Show,” attribution not needed.

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This week’s moving picture was selected by guest host (and Season 15’s Squib Games curator/raison d'être) Jack, canonically a Ted Kaczynski stan, as confirmed by his pick CLEARCUT (1991).

And so the pod returns to Canada (a.k.a. America’s sombrero) and Canadian lore with another émigré director’s first North America feature-length film (see Hard Targét ep from two weeks ago for our prior), this time with a story originally told in the Canadian novelist M. T. Kelly’s A Dream Like Mine about Canadian First Nations people fighting to maintain the sanctity of their land against industry and classified in the movie’s hard media BluRay release as “folk horror” by Sevrin in its 15-disc All the Haunts Be Ours collection. Cold War Polish-famous director Ryszard Bugajski was chosen for his political provocateur Polish pictures (after a stint directing Canadian TV) and modifies the 1987 novel, moving it from mercury poisoning and mining to the timber industry after the recent Oka standoff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis) and hence finding a title, which at least one host this ep finds oxymoronic. Bugajski also credits himself with cutting a lot of the dialogue from the screenplay to let the film visually provide exposition.

The film stars Graham Greene--which is why host Ryan’s grandfather saw the limited release film that by the 2000’s had only two extant prints (one copy was about to be disposed and why the transfer on the BluRay and streaming has 35mm film’s cue marks, a.k.a. cigarette burns)--as a trickster spirit or actual human person (depending on whether lead actor or director was asked) who challenges the film’s White protagonist and lawyer played by Ron Lea who’s failed to protect the land against mill owner Bud Rickets played by Battlestar Galactica’s (the newer, good one) own Michael Hogan (not to be confused with Jack Nance who concurrently white haired and sporting a moustache by a river was at this time portraying Pete in Twin Peaks, you know, “Wrapped in plastic.” and “There was a fish in the perculator.”). Greene’s Arthur (no last name like Cher or Prince) as either/both/neither water spirit or direct-action First Nations radical coerces the lawyer to kidnap the mill owner, which leads to a few deaths and some skin peeled off Rickets’ leg. The film is lensed by François Protat, who’d shot Weekend and Bernie’s two years prior for First Blood director (and Canadian for sneeze sound effect) Ted Kotcheff. The entire folk horror or eco terror or supernatural revenge or suspense film resolves with an expected but undelivered whip pan to Rod Serling smoking a cigarette whilst giving an enigmatic, summative moral of events witnessed.

This ep goes big on host Tall Ken trivia as he finds his notepad; reveals his chainsaw approach to episode editing; sees in Greene’s jeans and sneakers attire the spirit of Jerry Seinfeld (contemporaneous character, rather than actor or comedian or present-day Netflix movie director); and explains how he identifies people and sizes them up. Additionally, Ryan, Thomas, and Jack have sane things to say.

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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.

This week TGTPTU guns down the second half of our Lance Henriksen double feature with an episode recorded in the past and sent to the listener in the future as a digital file encoding the three core hosts’ discussion of writer Harlan Ellison’s (please, no more legal action, ATTN: Ellison’s Estate) sci-fi/80’s action/quasi-horror flick THE TERMINATOR (1984).

Director James Cameron (and co-writer Gale Anne Heard) broke onto the cinema scene with this low-/mid-budget, high octane film and its titular, iconic creation. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays the killer robot (technically an android but called a cyborg) Terminator sent from the future to eliminate Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor but followed by scrappy future soldier Kyle Reese, played by Michael Biehn, and you know the deal having seen T2 (1991); this first film is when Connor gets preggers and has awesome 80’s style and learns of the future badass she must, and does, become.

Future fellow Cameron android player Lance Henriksen plays a cop, who may or may not die in the film, when Schwarzenegger’s T-800 delivers on his iconic promise to the precinct’s desk officer that he will return. (Schwarzenegger, as we learn this episode, did not want to deliver Cameron’s line as written as the English word “I’ll” was difficult for the bodybuilding immigrant.)

The hosts this week (no Jack, no special guest Shannon) speculate on Cameron’s CB sexy talk when he was a truck driver, discover where Jack got his fashion sense, and express awe as how stripped down and fast-paced the story is. Ken fondly remembers the short-lived TV series Manimal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manimal), Ryan reveals the film to secretly be an 80’s slasher, and Thomas, bummed, reacts with atemporal microaggression by introducing earlier into the pod the concept of Roko's basilisk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko%27s_basilisk but don’t click!). A least one Cameron shows up while a confused former prime minister of England makes a brief off-mic appearance. Harlan Ellison also enters the chat, and the listener owes us $1.

Hasta la vista, absent special guest Shannon Connor. May your mission down Mexico way to find and protect Chaplain Amy be met with success.

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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.

This week, a pleasant return to cinema gun violence (after last week’s entry of Gus Van Sant’s school shooter film Elephant) as TGTPTU covers John Woo’s American directorial début HARD TARGÈT (1993). The pod’s temporal pincer movement again gets fudged this pairing to bring to you a Lance Henriksen double feature (next week’s The Terminator), skipping the late- and mid90s (good film, btw, but Jonah Hill uses no squibs in his 2018 directorial début so it won’t be covered during Season 15) and Way of the Gun (covered in a future pairing and now’s not the time or place for reactions).

Hard Targét features Jean-Claude Van Damme in the rôle of Chance Boudreaux, a spicy Cajun seamen stranded and out of work needing $$$ so he can pay dues to ship out again and a former military badass and nephew to Coonass bootlegger Uncle Clarence Douvée played by Wilford Brimley who enters over halfway through the film in an almost surprise cameo appearance that outstays its welcome until the happy ending in a Mardi Gras float storage facility deep in the bayou where the final standoff between gooddée JCVD against baddée Henriksen (playing an inflammable globetrotting businessman in the business of orchestrating homeless veteran hunts) results in his (Brimley’s) seeming death only to be saved by his flask (yay!) but loses the last of his final stills batch (sad!) before the abrupt conclusion of the film. Oh, and there’s a woman character played by Yancy Butler looking for her daddée, whom we learned was homeless and we learn was played by the writer of the film in its opening manhunting scene. If you haven’t surmised, the plot is basically “The Most Dangerous Game” minus the island and Cossack and charm of the short story and adding in Woo’s vision of a Western and JCVD’s kicks (but, sadly, no splits).

The majority of Henrickson’s performance in what was written and shot to be a two-hander was cut out (just like 70% of the digressions and Frenchifications in this week’s Show Notes), allegedly, by JCVD who worked with his own editor because, at the fin de la journée, this is a JCVD film and il est “aware.” (For Francophiles, please search the video interview of JCVD entitled “Jean-Claude Van Damme ‘Aware’”.)

Listen this week to hear if host and Brimley fan Ryan will remained un-Woo’ed after seeing his Quaker Oats forever old riding a horse; see how easily host Tom is derailed by mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer; and find out if any of Ken’s conspiracy theories are what have gotten this podcast shadow banned yet again.

Core hosts (les deux daddées et un Zoomer) only this week as Jacque is with his stepmom and her Nugget League of Mayhem adding glitter bombs and confetti to their Mardi Gras float this week.

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ELEPHANT (1st)

SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.

Episode 8 of TGTPTU’s Squib Games (Season 15) is a meditation on the film ELEPHANT (2003) written (in scare quotes) and directed by former Portland, OR native Gus Van Sant. Guest host Jack returns to discuss with Tom and Ken, each a generation on either side of the Columbine H.S. shootings, the 1999 impetus for this Van Sant slow cinema film.

Originally conceived as a HBO documentary and titled in misunderstanding as an homage to Alan Clarke’s film of the same name (to be covered later this season), Van Sant’s Elephant concerns a single day cut short by a school shooting as it follows different high school characters’ lives leading up to the active shooting event that will conclude the film.

The picture was shot at and edited in a studio built inside a Portland, OR public school, now demolished, along host Ken’s former running trail. Ken also brings to the ep extracurricular watches of the preceding JERRY (2002) and first quarter or so (more than most people can get through) of LAST DAYS (2005), the trio of which form Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy,” an improvised set of mumblecore-adjacent films based on real events and made outside of the Hollywood system, all lensed by Harris Savides whose scarf in his Wikipedia profile rivals any neck covering worn by legendary scarf enthusiast and Season 11’s subject Darren Aronofsky.

Follow us on the socials! Ken will follow you back, as we learn this episode that he likes to follow people. And not creepy at all! As promised in ep, Wikipedia strangely uses a photo of Ken in one of his gray suits as an image link for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_LGBTQ_people_from_Portland,_Oregon.

Host Ryan is off this week playing piano and videogames but will return for 1993’s Hard Target.

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SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.

Season 15’s temporal pincer movement is inverted with this week’s pairing to present its earlier film first. So, one week early, we present to you SCARFACE (1983) with returning guest Erik Van Der Wolf from the Blood & Popcorn podcast filling in for Jack who had a boat to catch.

After last week’s meager showing with First Blood, we return to the blood-filled squib in full force in a movie whose violent reputation Erik disputes, taking a chainsaw to arguments by contemporary critics and noting the various cutaways and reaction shows in lieu of direct onscreen violence. He also makes a case that director Brian De Palma shows uncharacteristic restraint in camera flourishes. What’s unrestrained— agreed then and now—is the profanity, clocked at 1.32/minute “f’s” given, timed by some film nerd and diligently regurgitated by one of your chin beard hosts who watched the Blu-ray commentary.

Typically, we make a halfhearted attempt here in the show notes for a plot recap, but we all know the story of Scarface who’s got his word and his balls. This 1980’s remake marks a rare confluence of film and actual contemporary events as its Scarface, aka cocaine cowboy Tony Montana played by Al Pacino, is a Cuban refugee, mapping the original immigrant story of the 1932 movie onto real Florida violence. The film is also credited as giving Michelle Pfiefer her breakout role (if one discounts Grease II) in portraying coke whore arm candy. And actual Cuban immigrant and total hottie Steven Bauer plays Montana’s bestie (and friend’s sister-fucker) Manny Ray.

Blood packets explode during a hotel drug deal gone wrong and again when Montana promotes himself over his boss’s dead body and then again when given cocaine super powers at the end of the film as Scarface holds off a mercenary army of hitmen, but surprising no squib explodes when Montana shoots Ray in a fit of rage for what could be interpreted as incestual cockblocking. But you knew the plot already.

Listen as adult boys who grew up in the VHS era (and Thomas) discuss a film that guest Erik loves and the others find a lesser entry in the De Palma 80s filmography. Guest Erik brings a reread of the Oliver Stone screenplay and filmic muscle memory to recite scenes from the formative flick; Ryan stays bullish on the original black and white gangster picture (and on the film Two of a Kind, the 1983 feature that reunited John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John after Grease I), mainly wishing the De Palma film was closer to the original film’s runtime; Ken warms to the film and to Erik; and Thomas might have an opinion after his first watch but is more interested in the sequel videogame for the PS2 and prequel novels by comic book and erotic vampire author L.A. Banks.

Next week, Jack returns to discuss the school shooter film Elephant.

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FIRST BLOOD

SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS.

FIRST BLOOD (1982), a.k.a. Rambo I! Surely the best possible pick for TGTPTU’s Season 15 – Squib Season. An‘80s action flick, special forces, small town cops, a M60 machine rifle capable of firing 600 rounds a minute… Unless… Perhaps… Could it be the sequels changed the original movie, that actually the Rambo series starts not as the rah-rah patriotic killer of anonymous foreign brown peoples with knife, machine gun, and explosive-tipped arrows?

Affirmative. (Yes.)

After years in development hell trying to adapt an early 70s anti-war novel about a young returning soldier-drifter (perhaps even younger than pod host Thomas and season guest Jack) with PSTD from his time as an elite killer in Vietnam, the movie First Blood went through three production companies and eighteen screenplays--including pod fav and former 4x4 season director John Frankenheimer attached at one point and Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Steve McQueen (who liked the jailbreak+motorcycle chase), Eastwood, DeNiro, Nolte, and Michael Douglas all considered for the role--as a nearly a decade passed from the actions of the undeclared war in ‘Nam contemporary with the novel and the protagonist subsequently aged up in the movie’s contemporary Regan-era world. Other elements in adapting the book for the screen included giving Rambo a first name (John); omitting alternating storylines between Rambo and Sheriff Teasle; reducing the vet’s body count from intentional dozens killed in the forest and back in town to one confirmed death falling from a helicopter after John Rambo throws a rock (with three additional possible from a vehicle wreck and gunshot wound), and giving Rambo a good cry at the film’s end.

But while changes made, one thing unfortunate for the pod was maintained adapting the book into movie: Neither has blood squibs.

While a tree gets shot and a wall explodes in simulated gunfire, few people get plugged on screen in this action film, and those who do are sans exploded condoms of red liquid and juicy matter. Despite the franchise reputation to be parodied in pod fav Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993), this initial entry in the Rambo film pentalogy is relatively bloodless. (Here might be a good place for a parenthetical on how this film was selected by bookworm Thomas who’s expressed subversive reservations about the violence inherent in this season of the pod.)

This ep: Jack returns to the pod, Thomas presents the book report, Ken postulates that shooting the picture during an unexpectedly cold Canadian autumn might be why the sequels take place in warmer climes, Ryan continues his disgusting habit of recommending other film podcasts, and Sidney Poitier’s Ghost Dad (1990) reenters the chat.

Note: Former presidential candidate Ross Perot’s involvement with Vietnam War POW/MIA in the 80s, playability reviews of the NES and arcade Rambo video games, and episode-by-episode recaps of the 1986 Saturday morning Rambo cartoon series were all cut for brevity.

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