Send us a text

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

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Bluesky: @goodpodugly.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Letterboxd (follow us!):

Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias

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

Send us a text

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.

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Bluesky: @goodpodugly.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Letterboxd (follow us!):

Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias

Send us a text

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.

Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Bluesky: @goodpodugly.bsky.social
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
Letterboxd (follow us!):

Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias