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PODCAST

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly

Ken, Thomas, and Ryan

Long-running film podcast featuring hosts Ken, Ryan and Thomas and numerous guests talking filmographies, oddities, classics and side hustles. Through a thousand seasons they have talked about nearly every movie ever made (verified by PodStats Inc). Currently embroiled in a scandalous international lawsuit with an Oscar-winning director over who owns the phrase "Temporal Pincer Movement."

tv & film film reviews

All Episodes

69:15

HACKS: EDWARD DMYTRYK #3 THE CAINE MUTINY

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/04/24

Send us Fan Mail It’s calm seas and second helpings of strawberries this week as the TGTPTU boys cover their third of four curated Edward Dmytryk films, the multiple Oscar-nominated picture THE CAINE MUTINY (1954). Saving its then “issues” producer (and subsequent to this movie an issues director) Stanley Kramer’s bacon, Dmytryk delivered a bona fide hit picture adapting the already popular book by Herman Wouk about a fictional mutiny during WWII among American seaman upon the titular ...

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57:46

HACKS: EDWARD DMYTRYK #2 MIRAGE

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/04/17

Send us Fan Mail Mirage Season 17’s Hacks continues with MIRAGE (1965), the latest selection from Edward Dmytryk’s filmography curated by cohost Ryan phoning in from Arizona for his second of four flicks picked in this season’s 4x4. And another black-and-white noirish mystery loosely adapting a novel. Dmytryk’s reworking of the uncredited print material (the 1952 novel Fallen Angel) created a film that exploits the conventions of the genre to obscure the film’s conceit and twist...

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65:04

HACKS: EDWARD DMYTRYK # 1 MURDER, MY SWEET

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/04/10

Send us Fan Mail TGTPTU goes Old Hollywood this week with Ryan’s pick for his Season 17’s Hacks 4x4 director: Edward Dmytryk. As we learn this ep, the former Canadian, former movie editor, former son (California courts would emancipate him from an alcoholic father) Dmytryk would rise through the studio system starting off as a messenger in his teens to become a talkies director by age 31. At age 36, he’d dust off old studio rights to a previously adapted Raymond Chandler novel Fa...

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66:09

HACKS: MICK JACKSON #4: THE BODYGUARD

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/04/03

Send us Fan Mail THE BODYGUARD TGTPTU’s first set of four Hack 4x4s concludes this week with THE BODYGUARD (1992), director Mick Jackson’s sleeper hit starring peak Kevin Costner and top shelf Whitney Houston. Allegedly offered to Jackson the day after the L.A. Story premiere, the plot of The Bodyguard is bigger than you remember or would expect, so if you haven’t seen it or not in a while, do so. Just know the script started with JFK’s assassination as a Steve McQueen + Diana Ro...

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60:10

HACKS: MICK JACKSON #3 LA STORY

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/03/27

Send us Fan Mail Season 17’s Hack 4x4 continues as predictable as the weather in the City of Angels (no relationship to the previously covered film, and host Ken’s favorite motion picture remake, see S4,E4 for more on the Nicholas Cage movie with this sobriquet for a title) with this week’s third entry in the Mick Jackon canon: L.A. STORY (1991). Written by and starring Steve Martin at the arguable pinnacle of his comedic film stardom (Father of the Bride would be released the same ye...

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62:12

HACKS: MICK JACKSON #2 VOLCANO

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/03/20

Send us Fan Mail VOLCANO Expatriated British director Mick Jackson erupts on screen and sets Los Angeles on fire with his latest (to be covered in Season 17 Hacks) blockbuster film VOLCANO (1997). Suffering from a release date only weeks after another volcano disaster movie hit American movie theaters (Dante’s Peak), Jackson’s big-budget disaster movie flips the script on Threads (covered last week) with competency porn performed by seasoned actors at or some nearing the pinnacle...

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68:29

HACKS: MICK JACKSON # 1 THREADS *SEASON PREMIERE*

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/03/13

Send a text THREADS A new 4x4 starts with a bang (and a lot of whimpers) as the gang begins their Season 17 coverage of hacks (i.e., directors for hire) with THREADS (1984), director Mick Jackson’s pseudo-documentary but fully anti-nuke made-for-TV movie. Cohost Thomas’s pick of directors to launch the season of hacks, Jackson got his start in film with the BBC in the late-60s as an editor. He saw an opportunity in the early 80s to express his anti-nuclear sentiments through a wry docu...

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67:52

GOING GRAY #8: THE IMMIGRANT *JAMES GRAY FINALE*

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/02/27

Send a text With Episode 8, our hosts put their Gray Days behind them, wrapping the short Season 16 with THE IMMIGRANT (2013), or as it was a.k.a.’ed during its short development and prior to its delayed release “Low Life” and “The Nightingale.” James Gray teams back up with cowriter Richard Menello to write a period drama role explicitly for Marion Cotillard whom Gray met through her then-partner director Guillaume Canet during their work together on the oft-mentioned Blood Ties also ...

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68:38

GOING GRAY #7: TWO LOVERS

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/02/20

Send a text TWO LOVERS (2008) For Season 16, Episode 7, writer-director James Gray gets geometric with TWO LOVERS (2008), his third of four collabs with Joaquin Phoenix whom he puts into a love triangle with Gray’s only film to-date starring Gwyneth Paltrow or Vinessa Shaw. Gray leaves his crime trilogy behind with this contemporary piece focusing on the family and loves of Phoenix’s Leonard Kraditor, a manic-depressive pixie dream boy working for and living with his parents after a su...

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65:40

GOING GRAY #6: THE LOST CITY OF Z

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/02/13

Send a text THE LOST CITY OF Z Before James Gray hung Brad Pitt on wires and took him to space, he first brought a different blonde to the Amazon (the rainforest) to encounter snakes, torrential rains, and an insect extracted from his ear during the shooting of he writer-director’s first Amazon (the company) Studios distributed film THE LOST CITY OF Z (2016). Charlie Hunnam is that blonde, the -e is intentional as that’s the more common British spelling and despite an American ac...

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66:29

GOING GRAY #5: WE OWN THE NIGHT

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/02/06

Send us a text We Own the Night For Season 16 Episode 5, TGTPTU dives deep into what writer-director James Gray considers the conclusion of his NYC crime trilogy WE OWN THE NIGHT (2007) while also starting the first of two planned sizzurp episodes with host Ken sick and sipping on some strong cold medicine. And joining this top to the third temporal pincer™️ pairing is special guest and inveterate bookworm Shannon. For his third film, and second time being booed at Cannes (Harvey...

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68:42

GOING GRAY #4: AD ASTRA

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/01/30

Send us a text As if the fourth in a horror film series, this week TGTPTU goes to space! In Season 16, Ep 4 of Gray Matter (working title), Ken, Thomas, and Ryan discuss writer-director James Gray’s AD ASTRA (2019) as their unpatented pincer movement continues along the auteur’s eight-movie filmography. Cowritten with a television writer of meager IMDB credits, Gray’s highest budget film to date sends astronaut and resting heart rate champion Roy Richard McBride (Brad Pitt) to t...

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65:09

GOING GRAY #3: THE YARDS

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/01/23

Send us a text The Yards A family crime drama set in New York City with a sick mother, ambivalently abusive father figure, and nudity along with a role for Domenick Lombardozzi (The Wire’s Herc)? Get out your James Gray bingo cards, because Season 16 Gray Poop On (working title) persists with TGTPTU continuing in Episode 3 its temporal pincer movement covering the auteur’s second film THE YARDS (2000). Filmed on film in the spring and summer of 1998 but due to studio delays and reshoot...

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60:57

GOING GRAY #2: ARMAGEDDON TIME

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/01/16

Send us a text Armageddon Time This week in Season 16’s Going Gray (working title), Episode 2 will cover the writer-director’s 2022 autobiographical film about his Jewish American assimilative upbringing and formative childhood events slightly beyond his ken that will have the potential to lead him to become the legendary director we know today, that same director whose film we are— Wait, no, you’ve not heard TGTPTU cover this one. Seriously, no, sorry to contradict, but y...

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59:39

GOING GRAY #1: LITTLE ODESSA *SEASON PREMIERE*

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2026/01/09

Send us a text LITTLE ODESSA (1994) A new season (Season 16) in a new year (2026 CE), and The Good, The Pod, and The Ugly returns to its roots with its unpatented temporal pincer movement covering the directorial filmography of American auteur James Gray. And in keeping with this homecoming, we begin our Touch of Gray Season with the Gen X filmmaker’s first feature endeavor LITTLE ODESSA (1994). Made at the unripened age of twenty-three after being recruited out of USC film school, ...

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75:16

CHRISTMAS ADJACENT 2025: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2025/12/12

Send us a text PASSION OF THE CHRIST “And in the ending days of two-thousand, twenty-five in the Year of our Bloodied Lord (R.I.P.), the three unwise men of TGTPTU shall gather and in their folly alloweth the unholy host Thomas to select the season’s Christmas-adjacent movie. And there will be great wailing and weeping and gnashing of ill-cared for teeth by his selection. Yet the episode shall not be mid. The hosts shall bloody nail it. And there shall be great rejoicing in one a...

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40:15

OBSCENELY POSITIVE SONGS FOR STRANGERS: THE MUSICAL...

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2025/11/21

Send us a text bRyan’s Song While the squib portion has ended with a bang (and some whimpers), Season 15 continues to stretch to the end of Year 2025. This ep we celebrate the contributions to the pod from one of TGTPTU’s three hosts: Ryan. Exceptionally written show notes rarely get noticed by listeners and editing is the art of concealment, so given the injustices of the universe, hosts Thomas and Ken interview the pod’s newest host and its six-time theme song writer-and-performer Ryan re...

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75:05

SQUIB GAMES FINALE: ROBOCOP W/SPECIAL GUEST ERIK VAN...

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2025/11/14

Send us a text SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT WILL DISTURB SOME LISTENERS. TGTPTU books its final perp in the 20-movie-long shooting spree of Season 15 – Squib Games with—dead or alive, you’re coming with me—ROBOCOP (1987), a pod favorite. Like last week’s film Wa...

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64:47

SQUIB GAMES #19: WALKER

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2025/11/07

Send us a text SPECIAL NOTE: SEASON 15 OF THE GOOD, THE POD AND THE UGLY CELEBRATES THE USE OF THE PRACTICAL AND DIGITAL EFFECT KNOWN AS THE SQUIB. IRL GUN VIOLENCE IS INTOLERABLE AND RENOUNCED BUT... CINEMATIC VIOLENCE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN A WAY THAT MAY DISTURB SOME LISTENERS. TGTPTU enters its final pairing of Squib Games (Season 15) with the 1850s (and 1980s) invasion of Nicaragua with WALKER (1987), a film by Alex Cox. Beset with difficulties filming, beloved b...

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39:41

HALLOWEEN 2025 SPECIAL: GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE!

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly ·

2025/10/24

Send us a text Halloween TGTPTU hosts take a breather from the ongoing eternal damnation that is Squib Season, but also from the big screen, to celebrate the season of spook with coverage of the six-episode BBC series: GARTH MARENGHI’S DARKPLACE(2004). A mainstay of the Koral Clan (original hosts Ken and Jack along with regular guest and songstress Andi) and frequently quoted over these fifteen seasons of the pod, the British mockumentary-slash-homage-to-bad-TV series defies eas...

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228 results

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