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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!

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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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?”

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

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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

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.

Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
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Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
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Podcast: goodpodugly