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RESURRECTION

Season 17 of the TGTPTU enters the final half of its 1x1 coverage with a flick picked by host Ryan that might count as five films: RESURRECTION (2025) written and directed by Chinese auteur Bi Gan.

Covering the Buddhist classification of six senses (with the wrapping narrative doubling as vision and mind), the anthology movie occurs under the pretense of a man’s dream lasting a hundred years, a comp for cinema, especially apparent when in its opening silent film sequence an opium-addicted Nosferatu-esque man’s hunchback gets loaded with a film reel (don’t worry, it doesn’t make a lot of literal sense in the film either). That dreaming, dying junkie deliriant (don’t worry, this term is explained in the film (although your mileage from its definition might vary)) will become a variety of ages and male characters within his dream, all portrayed by the same actor, one Jackson Yee apparently of former boy band fame. These disparate characters include someone pursued by an intelligence agent in a detective story trying to get the bottom of a musician’s murder (hearing), a hungry looter cum amateur dentist inside a Buddhist temple (taste), a con artist magician who brings on a girl accomplice (smell), and a virginal thug on NYE 1999 in love with a vampire (taste).

Ryan was stoked for the film’s release, and both he and Ken bullish on Bi Gan after watching the allegedly amazing Long Day’s Journey into Night (as unrelated to the Eugene O’Neill play as Bobby Drake’s brief foray into porn is to O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh). And while Resurrection’s opaque anthology style has its detractors, it too contains an amazing long-take during its NYE 1999 sequence.

This ep, host Thomas beefs with Multnomah County Library and offers a rare peek before the curtain for how he curates the commonalities between film pairings; host Ken does the plot summary and, later, his noir voice (removed by editor); and host Ryan’s non-host cat joins the pod.

Next week, The Cranberry’s/Erik Van Der Wolf’s/Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (or Zombi 2 or Zombie Flesh-Eaters) as S17 draws to a merciful close.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias