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JOHN WICK CHAPTER 2 (2017)

SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY WILL CELEBRATE THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. REAL WORLD VIOLENCE IS NOT TOLERATED AND IS RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT DISTURBS SOME LISTENERS. SQUIBS CAN BE ART

A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM GUEST EDITOR TERRENCE MALICK!*

Where was I? Oh yes, The ephemeral and elusive act of capturing memory. It has vexed me so the last 60 years as a filmmaker. How do you capture the furtive nature of memory in film? What happened is in the past and dead. All that has meaning is the here and now.

So it is I was contacted by this podcast to listen to raw, uncorrupted and truthful audio of a discussion of John Wick Chapter Two (2017) and edit it into a fine, pleasant and informative podcast. "Jaunty" they say they wanted and, naturally, they thought of me.

I have a tattoo of John Wick saying "I are thought I back" on my right calf so people see it from behind when I am at the gym on the treadmill wearing corduroy athletic shorts. I mention this to let you know I am a super fan of the series and when I listened to the raw, unfiltered audio and thought about the task of editing out co-host Ken's laugh and heavy breathing or Ryan's "Ums" or Zoomer Jack's ToikTok inspired chortles, I realized their special guest Patrick, who runs a record store in Portland, Oregon called "Tomorrow Records" and which I am assured by my vinyl brothers and sisters is a mecca for music, simply did not fit my idea of the episode or, indeed, the film itself.

So I cut him out.

Adrien Brody has won two - TWO - Oscars since I cut him out as the main character of The Thin Red Line. I feel the same fate will befall to Patrick once the sting of my removal has dimmed. What remains is as much a perfect podcast about John Wick 2 as can humanly be achieved.

Please enjoy.

(I have an edit in which the remaining hosts are also removed but I was told an hour of silence would not cut it outside of Apple Exclusive mindfulness podcasts.)

TM - June, 2025

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*not really Terrence Malick. Don't sue us, TM, we love you!

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Content Warning: Filmic violence is and will often be celebrated throughout Season 15 – Squib Season.

Second in the series and keeping to their unpatented temporal pincer movement, the enlisted four of TGTPTU storm the beachheads of Season 15 this week to liberate Squib Season’s earliest covered picture, the black-and-white WWII movie HELL TO ETERNITY (1960). (Not to be confused with To Hell from Eternity, which does not exist; To Hell and Back, which does and preceded in Technicolor this week’s talkie by five years; or From Hell to Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, which is actually the combined titles of two vastly different films released, respectively, 41 years and 35 years after this week’s feature.)

In Hell to Eternity, the 6’0”-tall, New Orleans-born Caucasian actor Jeffrey Hunter (yes, yes, nerds, we know he’s Captain Chistopher Pike, listen back to our The Searchers 4x4 episode but also listen to this week’s for an irony behind Hunter’s being replaced on Star Trek TOS by actor Sean Kenney in Season 1’s clips episode two-parter “The Menagerie”), then age 34, plays war hero and protagonist Guy Gabaldon in this biopic based on the real life events of the 5’4”-foot tall Latino Los Angelean of the same name when he was 18.

As in the movie, Gabaldon was raised by adoptive Japanese parents, learning their first language (and presumably, as in the movie, their stories about fish and love), and enlisted after Pearl Harbor as a translator. It’s with his language skills that Gabaldon was able to, as depicted at the end of the film, convince over 800 Japanese soldiers and civilians to surrender, although further research would be required by the author of these show notes to know whether real-life Gabaldon adopted/stole a Japanese child to be his son as implied at the end of the film (IMDB Trivia does claim Gabaldon named one of his sons after Hunter as he was enamored by his portrayal of him, implying Gabaldon had more than one son) or if the eighteen-year-old short king had swell times in swinging Hawaii as shown in the film’s contentious, extended party sequence containing not just one but two apartment burlesque routines.

The film is lensed by Burnett Guffey who will go on to shoot (on film) our next earliest entry, i.e., BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) for which he’d earn his second Academy Award. His first Oscar win was for another flick whose title lends itself to easy confusion with this week’s, namely FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953). Also involved, Lieutenant (later Captain) Sulu (or the actor and activist who originally played the helmsman/fencing expert in Star Trek TOS). Also, hundreds of Japanese Imperial Army veterans and active-duty U.S. Marines who reenacted events from the Battle of Saipan on the adjacent island of Okinawa for the cameras commanded by Guffrey. And some squibs.

This episode, hear Ryan explain both what squibs are and, later, how a man got his start as a boy. Jack, subsequent to the latter, loses his mind. Tom spoils the surprise appearance by a famous and long-deceased sports announcer. And Ken, as impossible as it might seem, might actually change his opinion on mic, specifically about the seemingly endless Hawaii party scene.

Subscribe and listen as the Good Pod Boys give a 21-gun salute to this forgotten classic.

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REVENGE

Major Content Warning: Plot-related sexual assault is mentioned throughout this episode.

Minor Content Warning: Filmic violence is and will often celebrated throughout Season 15.

Salut! and welcome to TGTPTU’s long-awaited SQUIB SEASON (Season 15) and a return to the pod’s unpatented temporal pincer movement with the series’ first film covered being the most recent release: REVENGE (2017).

Distributed en Francais in France and Quebec as Revenge, the identically English-titled Revenge is Parisian auteur Coralie Fargeat’s premier feature film; her second was last year’s thrice Oscar-nominated THE SUBSTANCE, a.k.a. in Francophone countries as LA SUBSTANCE.

Fargeat’s début film follows a familiar rape-revenge plot to tell a deliciously violence-laden story. Its deviations from predecessors such as I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) (and presumably its little-watched 2010s redux quadrilogy) are smart, sans salacious depictions of the abuse, and put the emphasis on survival rather than on its title as Italian model and actress Matilda Lutz shows no merci, pardon, no “mercy” upon her assailant, her murderer, or either crime’s bystander (a character renamed Jacque this episode for a passing resemblance to the French-Canadian skizzbag of Twin Peaks universe) when she’s backed into a figurative corner of a barren desert.

As host Jacque’s (“Jack” in American) pick, the film is no faux pas to start the season with. Its style possesses a je ne sais quoi freshness, lensed by regular Adil & Bilall collaborator Robrecht Heyvaert and scored by Caen-native ROB (né Robin Coudert).

Listen this episode as “squibs” is defined; Ken confuses his birds; and Ryan expresses a great liking for the picture’s ass shots while Ken and Jack like its shots through the head and Thomas is nonchalant. Also, Ken tries out a few bits for seasonal stickiness; enfant terrible Thomas ends up putting a chapeau on a chapeau by trying out a French accent; and although they’ve not yet reached their second episode to pair the oldest to-boe-covered with this most recent, the entire seasonal start this episode has a sense of déjà vu.

Bon appétit et au revoir!

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MYSTERY ROAD

It’s the end of the road for Season 14 as TGTPTU’s four White fellas travel across the world to the land down under for host Ken’s 1x1 flick pick and this season’s final film: MYSTERY ROAD (2013), sponsored this week by the Criminal Island’s very own Hoppy Joe Beer (Get Your Hop On!).

Directed by (and written by and lensed by and edited by and music with sound design by) Ivan Sen, this Aussie neo noir film that will launch a sequel and multiple standalone seasons of a TV season is the Australian filmmaker’s first genre film. Sen’s work is made with considerations to the conditions of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (a.k.a. First Peoples, a.k.a. First Nations, a.k.a. Indigenous Australians), and when news of his making a crime fiction film spread, an all-star cast of Oz acting talent lined up to join, beginning with Australian Broadcasting Corporation mainstay Aaron Pedersen, for whom Sen wrote the part of the film’s protagonist Detective Jay Swan, with second cast Hugo Weaving whose star power from the past two decades of Hollywood IP films subsequent to serving the Matrix franchise as Agent Smith helped draw in Ryan Kwanten, Bruce Spence, and an early appearance by Samara Weaving, a pod fav who made an appearance in an early TGTPTU Halloween episode.

Plot: A local First Nations girl is found murdered, and Detective Swan freshly back in his hometown from time away catches his first homicide case and must reckon with his family left behind as investigating the homicide brings him into the town’s underworld of drugs and prostitution, a world not unknown to his estranged wife and daughter. Pedersen’s character also encounters alcoholics (it’s Australia after all) drinking themselves to death; a mysterious death of a rookie officer and, separately, a senile man’s pet; aspiring cop-killer children on bicycles; mutant dogs; fast barefoot humans; overt and covert racism; Chinese food; and two crack shots in H. Weaving’s and Kwanten’s characters.

This week Ken and Jack recover from a week-long cold; Thomas brings his comedic A (short for "Australia") game; and Ryan offers background on the growth of media by First Nations peoples in Australia and later demos next season’s theme song--all on this special, concluding, evening-record episode of TGTPTU. “Is that a fact?”

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RISKY

Sometimes you gotta say, “What the Fuck” to research, make your move. This week Season 14’s penultimate 1x1 is co-host Ryan’s pick: RISKY BUSINESS (1983). His reason: TGTPTU normally pairs filmographies of a single director or actor, and the writer-director on this film was so triggered by the experience of having his written, shot, and edited original ending replaced in the final cut that he never directed another film again… or at least not until his second film in 1990 (WTF, Ryan?).

This film that would go on to become part of 1980s iconography by first-time director Paul Brickman, who had previously written the Michael Pressman-directed The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (1977) and the Jonathan Demme-directed Handle with Care (1977) and would later be one of three credited writers on Clint Eastwood’s True Crime (alternately known as Speed Zoo) (1999), Risky Business as dark teen comedy and potential Reagon-era satire stars a number of early roles by actors who’d become comedy stars of the 1980s, including as the protagonist Joel’s fellow yuppie North Shore friends and entrepreneuring high school seniors in their first film appearances Curtis Armstrong (also known as Booger in the 1980s) and Bronson Pinchot (aka Balki in the 80s). It costars Rebecca De Mornay (later in the 90s known for her roles as a terrible nanny and as Milady de Winter) as the business-savvy prostitute, and has an early movie appearance by Joey Pants (known in the late-90s for taking the blue pill, Ralphie Cifaretto in the 00s, and a Bad Boy 4 life) as Guido the pimp.

Oh, and it’s also the first time that actor born Thomas Mapother IV, better known later in life by his stage name Tom Cruise, stars in the leading role in a film (but not the first time he danced in his underwear or kissed a female person, if DVD commentary tracks are to be believed).

Behind the camera, you have two cinematographers: Eastwood’s 70s and early-80s collaborator Bruce Surtees as well as regular Hollywood comedy lenser Reynaldo Villalobos. Pod-favorite Tangerine Dream scores. And the film scores big with first watches by host Tom and guest host Jack and with the Gen X’ers Ken and Ryan.

It’s a wild ride, so mind your parking brake. In this episode Ryan explains the economic milieu behind the 80’s yuppie culture to the two young hosts while drawing comparisons to American Psycho (2000); the two Zoomers discover how to shorten future episodes; and Broom Hilda’s creator, whose life strangely overlaps with Ken’s past and present, drops by studio.

Our podcast is The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly. We deal in human fulfillment. We grossed over eight thousand listeners in one night. An hour of your life, huh, kid?

FURTHER NOTES

Thomas requested we share the following Wikipedia links for those who’d like to perform additional research or to simply follow along:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Booker%27s_marathon_speech

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Detroit

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_Rock

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Renegades

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Friends of Eddie

The second 1x1 feature rounding out Season 14 and, chosen by Jack, the film is THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973). Directed by Peter Yates, whose career TGTPTU is unlikely to cover in a future 4x4 despite having Krull and Bullitt in his credits, TFOEC is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ inaugural novel and notable as a unromanticized depiction of crime in artistic response to The Godfather, the Puzo book and Coppola film each preceding, respectively, the book and movie versions of TFOEC by one year.

Higgins would take issue with the book as his debut novel. The former deputy assistant attorney general claimed to have written and burned 14 novels over 17 years prior to TFOEC and would go on to author over 30 books, both fiction and nonfiction before his fatal heart attack in 1999, but none with the impact of his first. As seasonal guest host Jack points out, nearly all the dialogue in the film is as it is on the page, and the pages are dripping with dialogue that creates the setting and action for this ironic story of “friends” who double-cross and live less than glamorous lives as Irish mobsters and criminals in Boston.

Yates populates the film with faces, faces that we don’t see much anymore, distinct faces and every one telling a story, from the titular Coyle plated by Robert Mitchum who earlier in this life reluctantly left the assembly line to be an actor to actor Alex Rocco who starred as Moe Greene in The Godfather and helped Mitchum meet some of his old criminal friends whom Rocco had to leave behind after he (the actor Alex Rocco) was held for questioning in relation to the murder that kicked off the Boston Irish Gang War of the 1960s to James Tolkan before he’d lost his hair a decade prior to portraying Principal Strickland in the Back to the Future movies and Detective Hugh Lubic in the Cannon Films classic Masters of the Universe.

For this episode, everyone did research: Jack and Thomas pair off for book report; Ryan covers the career of Mitchum; and Ken covers Yates and laments how now Hollywood lacks hacks as well as provides a new shaggy dog with The Pals of Charlie Brown.

Make sure to wipe your prints clean on this one before listening with a friend.

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HEDWIG

Before we say auf wiedersehen to Season 14 with its eight revamps of the previously covered during the show’s first five years, the boys of TGTPTU reveal their unexpected special little packages: 1x1’s, wherein each host shall choose a single film by its merits of discussion and unlikelihood to be exposed on a future 4x4, creator, or thematic season. The first of these darlings is Thomas’s: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001).

Adapted from the rock musical of the same name that started as the collaboration between frontman of the NYC-based band Cheater (performing on stage as Hedwig’s band) Stephen Trask and then actor later turned actor-director with this debut film John Cameron Mitchell. Hedwig’s story, on stage told in song and monologue, of male-to-female surgery so as to marry an American GI and leave East Berlin originated from Mitchell’s own experiences as a military brat in Germany and Kansas trailer parks while the jealousy and newer betrayal Hedwig expresses toward her protégé and superstar success/successor Tommy Gnosis (also played by Mitchell in the play but embodied by Early Aughts indie film darling and pod-contentious actor Michael Pitt) is elevated by Trask’s music and lyrics and is expanded and enriched with animation, locations, and added characters (most notably Andrea Martin as the band’s manager) for the silver screen.

Learn more about the progression from stage to screen from Thomas on research; jam out to Rock Facts with Ryan (sorry, mineralogists, but we’re talking glam and punk rock here); former host Jack on vibes in the rhythm section wakes up mid-episode to like the film and dig the hand-drawn animation; and Ken lands his rimshot, getting to tell his joke that calls back to TGTPTU’s Nolan coverage (Season 12).

Spoiler: You’ll be hearing from four Hed heads.

Reminder: You don’t put a bra in a dryer!

CONTENT WARNING: At least once during the episode the “f” word (“Ferengi”) is used. For those allergic to Star Trek and nerdom, our sincerest apologies. My you live long and prosper.

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AMERICAN SNIPER

The once distant end of Season 14’s curated rewatched flicks is now in our sights as the TGTPTU crew pulls the trigger on their final movie of the eight enlisted pairs mustering their Redux Season, taking aim at Clint Eastwood’s highest grossing film: AMERICAN SNIPER (2014).

Originally covered early in the pod’s first season (S1, E5 in Year 2020) and chosen by host Thomas who’d never seen, this American Sniper revisit offers new insight into the film the original hosting duo of Ken and Jack ranked as the worst of any Eastwood-starring or -directed picture in their Season 3 final rankings episode that concluded the Eastwood run of the show.

Frequent guest Erik Van Der Wolf provides the episode’s cold open; bookworm and host Thomas read almost half the Chris Kyle’s titular book; host Ken takes aim with some advice to filmmakers regarding a pre-shooting watch of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace; former host Jack, aka last episode’s Judas, sticks to his guns; and host Ryan joins Thomas to geek out about a Buffy the Vampire connection.

Listen to the end of the episode for season rankings of the eight films re-covered to see if American Sniper maintains its title as the worst Eastwood for Ken and Jack and for new hosts Ryan and Thomas as well as for the surprise announcement of the season’s four-film extension.

Next ep: The start of the one-offs.

Well done, fellas and Liz.

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