The Good, The Pod and The Ugly – Details, episodes & analysis

Send us a text

THE LONGEST YARD

This week, the TGTPTU boys return to prison for more fun and games, this time stopping this 4x4 season’s first round drafted director Robert Aldrich’s run with inches to go. For the final film of the first four and to cap the Aldrich coverage, Ken drafted THE LONGEST YARD (1974). 

Following Ryan’s fumbling the intro and benched as provisional cohost, this season’s four host run the tape back to explore Aldich’s plays in prototyping the sports underdog movie and somehow manage to avoid speaking too ill of the Sandler 2005 remake.  

 The first of the four initial films of Season 13 not to be based on a novel, The Longest Yard was a smashing success and a standout in an era of cinema that defined both the sports underdog and spirited prisoner genres. As Ken and Thomas cover this ep, Aldrich needed the win after the failure of Aldrich Studios (introed last episode). 

 For your amusement this episode, Ken spits fresh lyrics during his Burt Reynolds Rap (hopefully not censored by the parole board) before providing summations on Aldrich’s career and films accompanied by odd ambient squeaks this week provided by Thomas’s dog.  

Note that next week will not be the start of four films by Lars von Trier but will instead be Rebels of the Neon God (1992), Tsai Ming-liang’s feature film directorial debut. 

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegoodthepoda1
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias

Send us a text

THE DIRTY DOZEN

Season 13’s 4x4 marches on with the most ill-mannered, ill-disciplined hosts that it’s ever been you’re your displeasure to meet, sergeant. That’s right, the dirtiest voices in the TGTPTU’s army are getting filthier covering Robert Aldrich’s THE DIRTY DOZEN (1967). 

It’s a story of twelve convicted army men, who don’t bath, until they do and the man chosen to whip them into shape: Corporal Lee Marvin fresh off an Oscar win in the role of Major Lee Marvin a.k.a. Major Alcohol a.k.a Major John Reisman. Their mission: to kill Nazi officers, women, and, if you got them, children and cute puppy German Shepherds too. 

 The WWII picture was immensely successful for Aldrich. Wade through episode commentary and takes about the movie’s plot structure and whether this is secretly a sports movie and how Aldrich recast around actors who were leaving the film and declining scenes to get to a teaser at the end of the episode for a further discussion of Aldrich Studios, the endeavor this film allowed Robert Aldrich financially when he sold his stake in The Dirty Dozen for an endeavor that will run (and run into the ground, spoiler!) in the interval between, and be cause for, next week’s film, The Longest Yard. And then wait a week for more information. (Or use the internet, ya geek. Or get a book from your local library {shout out}!) 

 For those familiar with the bit, famously Francophobic Jack takes exception to the line “free the French, kill the Germans.” Meanwhile, the boys snicker and make references to Ernest Borgnine’s secret to eternal youth (available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I_PeLNzxNQ). And for major stans of the cast, Ken pulls back the curtain to reveal the pre-record ritual rhyme the hosts chant as a mnemonic to execute a perfect show. 

 And where is Donald Duck?

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegoodthepoda1
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias

Send us a text

BATMAN BEGINS

Cast aside your Batnipples! As a certain Patrick Bateman lookalike once said, “Well, a guy who dresses up like a bat clearly has issues,” and this week, TGTPTU tackles these issues in Sir Christopher Nolan’s entry into the franchise that would define his middle career with BATMAN BEGINS (2005). Former cohost Jack returns from France to talk Bat and comics with a Gen Z take. Meanwhile, Ken, Thomas, and Ryan grapple and claw and melee in difficult to parse action sequences to control the mic and effuse about this first of the three Batman films covered this season of NOLAN VOID.

After Insomnia, Sir Nolan’s efforts to get his and Jim Carrey’s project (a Howard Hughes’ late-in-life insanity film) off the ground (or out the hotel penthouse) were stymied by Michael Mann developing The Aviator, a film that would take off with Scorsese as captain. Without a script of his own or film in development, Nolan would meet with the Warner Bros (and maybe their sister Dot) to launch a “reboot” of the Batman franchise with Hollywood’s resident comic book aficionado David S. Goyer.

Together with production designer Nathan Crowley who’d worked with him on Insomnia for Warner Brothers, Sir Nolan worked to create a realism beyond what had come before in comic book films. In fact, per Nolan, “Everything we did was about being in massive denial that there was such a thing as [a comic book movie].”

Casting Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne (Batman takes nearly an hour to appear onscreen) and making use of his split persona from American Psycho, Bale is joined by a series of heavy hitters, including Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Rutger Hauer, pod-fav Ken Watanabe, the estimable Mark Boone Jr (back from Memento), and, perhaps oddly cast and not-to-return to the franchise, Katie Holmes.

Exclusive this week! Hear the Batman Baggins summary delivered by Ken but written by our guest director, someone really famous and from New Zealand and whose name rhymes with Jeter Packson, who may have confused Nolan’s film with his own take on rebooting the Dark Knight as so many directors took a stab at the reboot post-Schumacher Schumacher Schumacher (hopefully you weren’t reading this aloud before a mirror). Also, enjoy this week an experimental sound mix to cover for Thomas’s brief absence from the mike as he deals with a dog releasing mind-altering gas.

So listen and continue to download and listen through the remainder of Nolan Void, for there will be a Batman in the pairing for all remaining episodes. What, you ask? Will the hosts this season get caught by their very own temporal pincer movement by reviewing The Dark Knight Rises before The Dark Knight? Stay tuned to upcoming and exciting (perhaps, anything’s possible, but most at least one of the following four episodes will be moderately amusing) episodes to find out.

Now please forgive us. We have to return some videotapes. D-FENS.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegoodthepoda1
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias

Send us a text

DANNY DAY-LEWIS AND THE NEWS    
 
Pt. Two: Russell Crowe was still a year from being a worldwide superstar starring as Maximus in Gladiator when he puffed up and got gray hair for The Insider (1999). It's about tobacco and old-world journalism (based on an epic piece in Vanity Fair) without a mention of clicks, blogs or website banners. One of Mann's most critically praised film with his most Oscar noms. Al Pacino plays Johnny 60-Minutes trying to get Crowe (as Johnny Tobacco) to, well, crow about big tobacco in what would be a watershed monent in America after a lot of hemming and hawing about the truth and corproate timidity/complicity. Crowe wears a convincing wig, by the way, it ain't real.   Christopher Plummer swoops in and steals the show as Mike Wallce, grinning a lot like Timothy Dalton in Hot Fuzz, weirdly. Big time disagreement on this one, folks. Again, a fight almost ensues. 

Theme Song by: WEIRD A.I. 

Send us a text

DANNY DAY-LEWIS AND THE NEWS    
 
Pt. One: After Manunter and a number of false-start projects, Michael Mann swerved hard from modern crime and neon into the historical epic LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992).  Daniel Day-Lewis built a time machine to go back in time to 1757 to research his role as Hawkeye (not the M.A.S.H. character or the superhero) and it shows! Between Mann's notorious  attention to detail and Day Lewis's hardcore method acting prep, Mohicans still stands out as a stone cold period piece classic that is also the most effectively romantic of Mann's films. 

Pt. Two: Russell Crowe was still a year from being a worldwide superstar starring as Maximus in Gladiator when he puffed up and got gray hair for The Insider (1999). It's about tobacco and old-world journalism (based on an epic piece in Vanity Fair) without a mention of clicks, blogs or website banners. One of Mann's most critically praised film with his most Oscar noms. Al Pacino plays Johnny 60 Minutes trying to get Crowe to, well, crow about big tobacco in what would be a watershed monent in America after a lot of hemming and hawing about the truth and corproate timidity/complicity. Crowe wears a convincing wig.   Christopher Plummer swoops in and steals the show as Mike Wallce.

Theme Song by: WEIRD A.I. 

Send us a text

MANN AGED E6:  RUMBLE IN THE MCU 

Michael Mann is from Chicago and it has featured prominently in a number of projects. CRIME STORY (1986-1988) was a series that began IN Chicago, 1963, and was an early precursor to the serialized TV we have today. Dennis Farina and his mustache goes toe-to-toe with Anthony Denison as sadistic criminal Ray Luca, whose violent rise from Chicago hood to Las Vegas mogul is chronicled in S1. Mann directs the penultimate episode of season one, TOP OF THE WORLD, where Farina and his squad finally get enough juice to take down Luca. We talk the episode and the series itself and how important it is in not only Mann's subsequent work, but for TV in general.

ALI was Mann's intense collaboration with Will Smith as the legendary boxer and his most turbulent era ('64-'74) as he slowly actualizes himself as a person. Ali was a muted failure upon its 2001 release and Mann has returned to it with an immediate home video director's cut and a definitive, new cut in 2017, shortly after Ali's death.  It's a difficult movie to wrap your head around, thematically and narratively but the 2017 cut may fix those issues. *may*. We get into an argument about this one.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

Send us a text

MANN AGED E5: INNA GADDA DA XENU     

1986'S MANHUNTER, made after two years serving as the showrunner for Miami Vice, was little-seen upon its release but, arguably is Mann's most lasting genre effort. It created a template that has been repurposed approximately five million times: serial killer, profiler, victim in trouble, all leading to an explosive climax. Is William Peterson the Citizen Kane of film FBI profilers? The first, oft-imitated, but never topped? Brian Cox as Hannibal Lektor along with the limp Ratner remake RED DRAGON (2002) will also be discussed.  Mann continues an unparalleled streak of casting here and it was clear, even in 1986, he knew how to make actors at the fore and the background pop like few other directors. 

Then we talk COLLATERAL (2004), Mann's attempt at taking a fun blockbuster-type concept (stony hitman in a cab driven around LA by a meek cabdriver that has to learn how to be a man) and infusing it with his masterful visuals, knotty themes about life with brooding, violent characters. Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx bring every ounce of movie star charisma and bravado to this odd marriage of a movie. Is this a good match? Ken, Jack and Thomas almost get into a fistfight disagreeing about this one. Is the pod over as a result? Find out!

Also: we receive a voicemail complaint from an anonymous film director about Jack's harangues against just about everyone. What will he learn about being a Man this week?

Them song by: WEIRD A.I.

Send us a text

MANN AGED E4: DAS GO-FAST BOOT     

This week we discuss two divisive Michael Mann epics. 1983's THE KEEP saw Mann take a der leften turn from his focus on the gritty crime and law enforcement settings of his TV work and feature debut to supernatural Nazi horror. As we will see later, Mann pivoting hard will yield a masterpiece in Last of The Mohicans but does it work here? Well, they ran out of money, the author of the source novel hates it, and Mann doesn't like talking about it - which sounds like a bad marriage or a bad movie (maybe all three). We'll take a look and let you know.

Then the film that has gone through the most intense re-appraisal in Mann's storied career, his film version of MIAMI VICE. Vilified upon its release for being muddy, obtuse and a disappointing slog (by one of our co-hosts!), it has since become one of the favorite films in Mann's career. Why? That is two questions: 1) why did no one like it back in 2006 and 2) why, 15 years later, does everyone with a twitter come en masse to say it is a masterpiece? Is it the salsa dancing? The non-stop police and crime jargon? Making Miami look menacing with digital photography? What is its secret? Jack, Ken and Thomas are joined by theme song maestro Ryan to figure it out. We also check in with pod friend Erik, who is also a huge fan of Vice (the movie).

This is gonna be a fun one. 85% guarantee. Also: Co-host Jack gets harassed by the cops - what he has learned from watching Michael Mann movies.

THEME SONG:  WEIRD A.I.

Send us a text

MANN AGED E3: HEAD & SHOULDERS

In our earnest and sincere desire to give lessons the Jack about being a man by watching Michael Mann movies we've reached dodgy ground as both our our Mann movies this week feature protagonists who are criminals. Criminals who find brief succor in the arms of a woman, but cannot escape their nature (which is stealing shit).   

PUBLIC ENEMIES (2009) is Mann's first all-digital project and features Jack Sparrow as John Dillinger and Batman as Melvin Purvis, the dogged Bureau of Investigation agent trying to capture him. Too long a list of a great actors support both these fellas as one robs and the other tracks. A dynamic not unlike Mann's masterpiece Heat which, at times, feels like this is remaking taking place in 1933. Any good? Any life lessons about being a man?

Then Mann's theatrical debut, 1981's THIEF, starring James Caan along with James Caan's shoulders, which prove so wide they got separate billing (that is a fact, check it out on IMDBPro, our new sponsor!*). One of Mann's most enduring films for the Mann Fans, does it teach us anything about being a man other than stealing is a viable enterprise right up until it really isn't? Listen and find out!

Between the two films, made nearly 30 years apart, we can definitely trace the lines of Mann's preoccupations with men lost to the primacy of their "jobs" and inability to find peace in what we think of as "the real world," try as they might. A couple bangers as we begin covering  the more notable films in his filmography. 

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.


*we don't have a sponsor

Send us a text

MANN AGED E2: TEN TO LIFE ODDS

In 1979 Michael Mann made what amounts to a statement of purpose in THE JERICHO MILE, a TV movie about a Folsom prison inmate who finds succor in running and attracts the eye of both professional trainers, the Olympics, and every racially segregated gang inside. Peter Strauss stars as Lickety Split in a performance so good you'll wonder why he didn't become a household name in the 1980s. The supporting cast begins what will be a Mann strong suit in the decades to come: crack supporting actors at every level and some real life prisoners sprinkled in there for verisimilitude. This is a gem and definite must-see for any Mann fan. 

In 2011 David Milch and Mann collaborated on one of the biggest swings-and-miss series of the golden age of premium TV. LUCK lasted one season with 9 episodes (because Milch couldn't finish the script for #10 on time). Cancelled early in production of S2 in 2012 after three horses died, we can consider it a mercy killing of a very troubled dynamic offscreen. Despite the fascinating mosaic of horse racing with great character actors along with two aging stars in Nick Nolte and Dustin Hoffman, this thing simply did not work.

Mann directed the pilot, which we talk about here. 

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.