Send us a Text Message. INTERSTELLAR In this week’s episode of TGTPTU, director-writer-producer Sir Christopher Nolan adds space to his repertoire of time-bending narratives as we venture deeper into The Nolan Void with INTERSTELLAR (2014). The Nolan brothers return with cowriting credits, Nathan Crowley on production design, and Lee Smith as edito…

Send us a Text Message. 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 Ja…

Send us a Text Message. NOLAN VOID 3.5: WET 'N WILD WWII Join TGTPTU for an hour, a day, a week—the approximate runtime of, how long it feels listening to us talk for, and the delay in releasing the episode due to internet issues, respectively—as we respectfully cover Sir Christopher Nolan’s DUNKIRK (2017) as part two of our third pairing in our NO…

Send us a Text Message. NOLANVOID FIVE! For the first in our third set of NOLAN VOID pairings this week, TGTPTU hosts Ken and Thomas take on the surprisingly linear INSOMNIA (2002) with newly appointed co-host Ryan to introduce a new drinking game guaranteed to kill any participant: take a dose of an alcohol every time Kenneth says something about …

Send us a Text Message. This week TGTPTU goes deeper into Season 12’s NOLAN VOID with TENET (2020), a title spelled the same forward and backward, and the progenitor of TGTPTU’s “temporal pincer movement” description of our podcast’s episode pairing methodology. Instead of spoiling the episode with notes, here’s a transcript spoiling cohost Thomas’…

Send us a Text Message. MEMENTO Our Nolan Void Season continues with the first of our second pairing MEMENTO (2000). Many of you might suspect we would try writing these show notes in reverse, but, as that’d be too meta for us, we’ll leave that to some other aspiring writer with memory problems we know. Speaking of self-referential memory problems,…

Send us a Text Message. Season 12, Episode 2 continues TGTPTU’s paired exploration of the films of Sir Christopher Nolan with his most recent film OPPENHEIMER (2023). Running the risk of being considered by critics a “bomb,” Sir Nolan boldly moves away from genre pictures for his first biopic of a man who’ll/’d (pardon the time-wimey-ness) get ment…

Send us a Text Message. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN SZN! FOLLOWING *SEASON PREMIERE* For Season 12 *Nolan Void*, TGTPTU continues its iconic practice of pairing bookended movies from a director’s filmography, first and last until we pair the middlemost. This season we cover the twelve movies of the granddaddy/infant son of the temporal pincer movement himsel…

Send us a Text Message. Our Darren Ssarfinale! Season 11 of The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly concludes on an odd note, both mathematically and colloquially, as the boys wrap up their Darren Aronofsky season with Episode 9 covering PERFECT BLUE (1997), joined by frequent guest Ryan. The debut film of famed anime and short-lived director Satoshi Kon r…

Send us a Text Message. DARREN ARONOFSKY CH. 4 E2: THERE'S A LITTLE BLACK SWAN ON THE SUN TODAY Season 11’s temporal pincer movement by The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly draws to a close with tricky reflections on BLACK SWAN (2010). Listen to our opinions double, pirouette, and morph during Chapter 4, Episode 2, covering our final Darren Aronofsky mo…

Send us a Text Message. SCARF SEASON: ARONOFSKY 7 Alright, brother. It’s the smackdown, drag-out matchup you’ve been waiting for all season long as THE WRESTLER (2008) jumps into the ring with The Good, The Pod, and the Ugly for Chapter 4, Episode 1. In this final chapter, we watch with teeth and sphincters clenched tight on the edge of our folding…

Send us a Text Message. ARONOFSKY SEASON! NOAH Chapter 3, Episode 2: So the Voice of Kenneth spake unto The Good, The Pod, and the Ugly, and it sayeth: Let there be NOAH (2014); and all the peoples then of the world rejoiced for Darren Aronofsky for his blockbuster that bringeth forth He of the Scarf his firsteth and onlyeth picture to be No. 1 ope…

Send us a Text Message. THE FOUNTAIN No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, and no one expected Darren Aronofsky to follow up the success of Requiem for a Dream with a genre-breaking, scyfy-romantic-period-spiritual-medical drama (kinda? maybe?) entitled THE FOUNTAIN (2006). Join your hosts Ken and Thomas along with returning guest Ryan for Season…

Send us a Text Message. SCARF SEASON #4: GARDEN OF EDITS: mother! Rejoin Ken and Thomas along with guest Shannon in the rebirth of Season 11, Chapter II as they tackle (figuratively) Darren Aronofsky’s MOTHER! (the 2017 film, not the parent of Darren!). After the big budget success of NOAH, and having not made a movie with a female lead with whom h…

Send us a Text Message. DARREN ARONOFSKY CHAPTER TWO, PART ONE: Deuce by you! Deuce by you! Whoa #2! REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000), Darren Aronofsky’s second film, follows these three simple rules for success: #1 Adapt a novel you love. – As a college student, Aronofsky fell in love with Hubert Selby, Jr.’s LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN (1964). He’d owned a c…

Send us a Text Message. SCARF SEASON CONTINUES WITH THE WHALE! Thar she blows, Part II of our initial Darren Aronofsky pairing for Season 11 of TGTPTU: THE WHALE (2023). Special guest Ryan returns to continue cohosts Ken and Thomas’ temporal pincer movement of working our way from first and last films sequentially inward and he provides a dissident…

Send us a Text Message. Aronofsky Chapter One Pt. One: Pi TGTPU SEASON 11 returns to form with our classic (or outdated) temporal pincer movement to cover the entirety of (yes, all eight) wide release films of director Darren Aronofsky. Hosts Ken and Thomas with guest Ryan - pause, pop pills, make a note - kick off the inaugural episode of the new …

Send us a Text Message. SEASON FINALE! SIDE HUSTLE 15: WARREN BEATTY! SHAMPOO and DICK TRACY! Our epic tenth season comes to a close in a flurry of bug hair, blow dryers, primary colors and the horror of Madonna acting with Hollywood legend Warren Beatty. Most legendary actor/directors we might talk about from his era (Beatty was born in 1937) need…

Send us a Text Message. THE COLOR OF MONEY and SEA OF LOVE Directors with a day job for season 10? What about the most important person behind the scenes NOT the director? The writer. RICHARD PRICE was a renowned author before trying his hand at screenwriting, which resulted in a "calling card" script that everyone loved but no one wanted to make i…

Send us a Text Message. CHRISTMAS ADJACENT 4: QUADRUPLING DOWN ON OUR LEAST POPULAR SPECIALS! Happy Holidays from all of us at The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly! We bring you three films that reference Christmas a few times but are in no way "Christmas Movies" filled with the spirit of the season and all that shot. Nope. It's "Christmas Adjacent" and…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE 13. Norman Mailer: TOUGH GUYS DON’T DANCE and CREMASTER 2 Every ranking must have its worst, and this week’s episode aims to shoot to the bottom of the Season X bucket with Norman Mailer as our chosen actor-director. TGTPTU welcomes back its junior cohost Jack after a long hiatus to join us on this atrocity to go…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE 12: RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH AIN'T NO DUMMY Only four episodes left in our epic season ten, talking side hustles. While we mostly have discussed directors better known as actors, this week we talk Richard Attenborough, who, if not for Jurassic Park, would probably be better known as a director today. But he was a gre…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE XI: Tom Savini, Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Night of the Living Dead (1990). Spooky season episode! We are joined once again by screenwriter and horror expert Erik to talk some Tom Savini, an icon to generations of horror fans for his legendary makeup work along with his larger-than-life persona that has made him…

Send us a Text Message. SEASON X EPISODE X: SIDE HUSTLE: UNDER THE CHERRY MOON and TRUE STORIES. Kierkegaard said: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Such is the tale of Prince, hot off the heels of starring in Purple Rain (1984), taking directorial duties on UNDER THE CHERRY MOON (1986) a black and white histor…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE 9: FARMER HOGGETT’S VOYAGE HOME Travel across the cosmos and back in time this week with TGTPTU and the crews of two starships Enterprise. Special guest Martin Harries from the Film vs Film podcast joins Capt. Ken and his number one Thomas this week to boldly go where numerous podcasting Trekkies have gone before…

Send us a Text Message. SALMA HAYEK: ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO & THE MALDONADO MIRACLE Salma Hayek is a justifiably iconic actress, personality, celebrity and turned it all into getting hitched to a soulless billionaire. Good for her! But there was a time where she was an up and coming hyphenate pursuing passion projects like Frieda and balancing …

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE 7: LEE GRANT. FROM INGENUE STAR TO BLACKLISTED RED TO A SECOND LIFE WHERE SHE WON AN ACTING OSCAR AND THEN A THIRD LIFE AS AN OSCAR-WINNING DOCUMENTARIAN. Who is Lee Grant? Read the all-caps above! One of the most remarkable people we've covered this, or any season. We are joined by Charlie to discuss Grant's wor…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE 6: JAMES FRANCO: WE KNOW HE IS CANCELLED, STOP TEXTING US ABOUT IT We live in an era where men are being held accountable for being awful (not nearly enough of them but it's a start). This is a good thing. Most of these men are older, however, and in the creative sphere most are past their Best By date. So it is …

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE V: Charlie's Brother, Martin's Sane Son - REPO MAN and MEN AT WORK Nepo-babies are not new! Tell your crazy uncle, who thinks they are ruining Hollywood, that they have been around since he wore crop-tops and had a mullet. And so we put the spotlight on 1980s Short King, Emilio Estevez. First we talk about one of…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE IV: DeGOOD, DeBAD & DeVITO Danny Devito is a beloved actor and, in 2023, a justifiably beloved American institution. Mostly known as a comedic actor from Taxi onward, DeVito turned success as a pinch-hitting comedic character actor into a brief, but stellar, time as an A-list film director. Speaking of director's…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE III: C IS FOR COSTNER, GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME: UNTOUCHABLES AND THE POSTMAN Kevin Costner had a special run of films in the 80s and 90s. If you weren't there, trust us! He did. He turned small roles into leading roles and used all of the cachet to make Dances With Wolves, which grew so out of hand that trades referre…

Send us a Text Message. SIDE HUSTLE II: BANKS SHOT Celebrities! They are just like us! Except when they get the urge to try something new, they get studios or shady global investors to give them millions to make movies! That's their side hustle. This week we talk the lovely, hilarious and brilliant Elizabeth Banks. Her main gig as an actor starts u…

Send us a Text Message. *SEASON X PREMIERE* SIDE HUSTLES AND HYPHENAUTS #1: BEN AFFLECK Celebrities! They are just like us! Except when they get the urge to try something new, it isn't the new taco truck up the street, it's getting studios and money-men to invest millions of dollars in a movie they feel the urge to direct. This has resulted in many…

Send us a Text Message. 4X4: SERGIO MARTINO II: TORSO AND THE SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR W/ERIK VANDERWOLF In part two of two on Italian filmmaker Sergio Martino, we are joined once again by Screenwriter Erik Vanderwolf as he picks two 1970s classics (?) that show a little of Martino's range. TRIGGER WARNING: BOTH FILMS CONTAIN SCENES OF SEXUAL AS…

Send us a Text Message. 4X4 II: SERGIO MARTINO 2: THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH & YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY W/ERIK VANDERWOLF! In part one of two on Italian filmmaker Sergio Martino, we are joined once again by Screenwriter Erik Vanderwolf, an avowed Giallo superfan and he picks two classics in the genre starring all-time …

Send us a Text Message. PAUL WS PART DEUX: THE THREE EVILS/FAREWELL TO JACK In part one of our Paul WS Anderson two parter, we discussed two early classics that offered two very different paths young WS could take: The silly and bombastic effects-laden video game adaptation Mortal Kombat or the grim space-horror classic Event Horizon. Kombat was su…

Send us a Text Message. 4X4 2: PAUL WS ANDERSON PT. 1: MORTAL KOMBAT & EVENT HORIZON It's the OTHER Paul Anderson in the spotlight for our third 4X4 this season. This is the guy that's married to, and works with, Milla Jovovich, not the guy who has kids in some kind of common law deal with Maya Rudolph and made a few of the best movies of the last …

Send us a Text Message. 4x4 JOHN FORD PART TWO: THE SEARCHERS & THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE W/RICK PATT Last week we talked about a few seminal Ford films that weren’t westerns (The Informer and Grapes of Wrath). This week, get them saddles secure and oil them there spurs (??) because we have two of Ford’s most famous collabs with John Wayne (…

Send us a Text Message. JOHN FORD: THE INFORMER & GRAPES OF WRATH W/RICK PATT! Our two-part John Ford series begins with Ford fan and podcast pal Rick Patt joining us and curating the films! For part one we watched two Oscar winning award-winning Ford films made before he and John Wayne became entwined in their classic western collaborations (that'…

Send us a Text Message. OSAMA BIN WAITIN' FOR NEW YEARS: STRANGE DAYS and ZERO DARK THIRTY W/ BIGELOW CURATOR RYAN! We conclude our four film sweep through the filmography of Kathryn Bigelow with one of her notorious failures and one of her triumphs. 1995's STRANGE DAYS was a big budget summer movie that took place in the far-flung future of (check…

Send us a Text Message. LEATHER & WAX: BIGELOW'S THE LOVELESS and POINT BREAK with Kathryn Bigelow Scholar Ryan. FOUR FILMS BY FOUR DIRECTORS PICKED BY FOUR GUESTS 4X4 II IT'S THE EPISODE THAT ALMOST DIDN'T HAPPEN! DOUBLE THEME SONG! Due to losing an audio file (thanks, zencastr!) ace host and engineer Jack was able to, uh, re-do his part on half t…

Send us a Text Message. BACK TO SPIELBERG, BACK TO THE RED CARPET THE FABELMANS (2022) is Steven Spielbergs cinematic memoir but with different names and the person playing him does not wear glasses. A story of a marriage slowly falling apart while a young man slowly figures out who and what he is through the art of filmmaking. The-artist-as-myth w…

Send us a Text Message. VHS SPECIAL: PRETTY WOMAN & THE SCREENPLAY "THREE THOUSAND" Ken and Jack dust off the VHS player for another trip back in time where you have to rewind. PRETTY WOMAN. 1990 was a perfect era for VHS. The film transfers were all pristine so we no longer have the grainy, crappy transfers that marked so many classics from the 19…

Send us a Text Message. SEASON FINALE! MAMMA MIA & MAMMA MIA: HERE WE GO AGAIN! We have watched Meryl Streep movies for nearly six months. Did we learn anything? Great question! Listen and find out with our season finale featuring ALL of your favorite ABBA songs X2 along with songs you probably weren't familiar with in the second Mamma Mia film. MA…

Send us a Text Message. THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN and OUT OF AFRICA This week: Two films released four years apart do as much to delineate Streep's meteoric rise to being one of the all-time great film actors as anything. FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN (1981) is an adaptation of John Fowles' post-modern 1969 novel, which addresses directly the const…

Send us a Text Message. FOREVER YOUNG! WITH GUESTS: MEG, LEIGH and JOHN! The fourth film in a row in Streep's remarkable late 80's, early 90's turn to comedy, DEATH BECOMES HER (1992) is the most successful of the bunch. DBH co-stars Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis, who were bigger box office draws at the time (crazy!). It is directed by Robert Zemeck…

Send us a Text Message. STREEPS OF FIRE: SOPHIE'S CHOICE & DOUBT TRIGGER WARNING: Doubt's central plot is whether or not a priest had inappropriate relations with a child and that is discussed. Two of the best performances of Streep's career from two different decades. This is the episode where we truly extol Streep's brilliance in drama in two of …

Send us a Text Message. STREEPS OF FIRE: THE RIVER WILD (1994) WITH BLOOD AND POPCORN'S ERIK! Following Streep's break from heavy roles after 1988's A CRY IN THE DARK, 4 out of 5 of Streep's next movies were sharp-ish turns to comedy (SHE-DEVIL, POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE & DEATH BECOMES HER), with one prestige drama (THE HOUSE OF…

Send us a Text Message. CHRISTMAS ADJACENT #3! ROCKY (1976) DIAL CODE OF SANTA/GAME OVER/PIERE NOEL/DEADLY GAMES/3615 DIAL CODE FATHER CHRISTMAS (1989) THE WORLD OF KANAKO (2014) TRIGGER WARNING: The World of Kanako features scenes of sexual assault that are discussed. Four our third year in a row we are doing a Christmas episode that, despite very…

Send us a Text Message. STREEPS OF FIRE: STILL OF THE NIGHT and A CRY IN THE DARK/EVIL ANGELS Join Ken, Jack, Thomas and Andi for two very important pieces in the Streep mosaic. Streep in the 1980s was a marvel of A-list perfection, starring in drama after drama, garnering awards like crazy and generally gathering a reputation as a highbrow accent …