The Good, The Pod and The Ugly

HACKS: PETER YATES #4 BREAKING AWAY *HACKS FINALE*

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1055659/fan_mail/new] This week, the Italians are coming! For the final lap of TGTPTU’s 16 rounds of episodes this 4x4, we cover hack director Peter Yates’s heartfelt, heartland sports underdog working class summer coming of age bicycle story BREAKING AWAY [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1jzs6dk4bs] (1979).    Guest Shannon returns despite no possible book report, the film instead being an original work by author Steve Tesich who would win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this melding of two prior scripts based on his college years in Indiana and his bicycling teammate [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMTMuhP5lko] local to the area who’d become the basis for the movie’s lead character Dave Stohler (although he’d prefer to go by Enrico Gismondi for the first half of the film). Dave is portrayed by Dennis Christopher, although the script gives substantial time to each of his three friends who will enter the local bicycle race with him (and even do a few laps themselves): Mike played by a ripped Dennis Quaid; a lanky, goofy Daniel Stern plays Cyril; and actor Jackie Earle Haley of Bad News Bears fame (the one without Billy Bob Thornton) as the vertically challenged Moocher.    In one of the best depictions of a 1970s dad in cinema, Paul Dooley plays Dave’s father, a used car salesman [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IExD-J4_F8]and former cutter (of stones, not self or lines) who doesn’t understand his eccentric son, while Barbara Barrie plays Dave’s mom who encourages his Italophilia and passions, a role she’ll reprise in the short-lived TV prequel series along with Haley.   This week, hear about the state of fridges in AZ along with Republican-bashing by Tobias; Shannon explains the 80s TV show Punky Brewster [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kEQVSUNOEPA]; Ken identifies with Breaking Away’s dad character and conceives of this film as a bridge to the 1980s; and Thomas reveals the name of Roy Scheider’s (not Rob Schneider’s) wife. By the end of the ep, it is still undecided, although they go around in circles, whether Shannon or Thomas won their off-air bet regarding Ryan’s reaction to the film.   While the hosts might be done with Hacks as their focus, the season continues. Next episode, we’ll be taking the high road in our feud with Chris Nolan over the rights to the temporal pincer movement™️ to test the waters of his new release before wrapping with a return to the 1x1’s to end the 17th Season of the first podcast to record from the PDX airport bathroom and raise former prime minister Margaret Thatcher from hell.     Ciao!    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

HACKS: PETER YATES #3 THE HOT ROCK

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1055659/fan_mail/new] THE HOT ROCK Season 17’s 4x4 Hacks continues with Peter Yates’s return to directorial form and TGTPTU’s return to contentious split takes among its hosts with the heist caper THE HOT ROCK (1972).  [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48APEydOt64]   Based on acclaimed crime writer Donald E. Westlake’s 1970 novel of the same name as covered in this week’s special book report coverage by guest Shannon and regular Tom, and the first of Westlake’s comedic Dortmunder series, the film stars—three years after playing the Sundance Kid—Robert Redford as the lead character John Dortmunder, a recently released (paroled in the book) criminal with, it’ll turn out, stomach problems (not in the book) and a brother-in-law (unrelated to Dortmunder in the book) fellow criminal Andy Kelp, played by George Segal.    Kelp ropes Dortmunder into a plan to heist a valuable diamond (an emerald in the book) for The Doctor (called The Major in the book) played Moses Gunn, a gem (the diamond, not Gunn, although many are fans of his work on stage and small and large screens) of great wealth and disputed ownership between two African countries, which doesn’t really matter much as Gunn’s character won’t get the treatment he does in the book. Mastermind Dortmunder and locksmith Kelp recruit two other thieves, the wheels who’s really into vehicles and likely can pilot a helicopter and the explosives expert who’s also the baby of the group who’ll turn out to be the son of a shyster lawyer (unrelated in the book) portrayed by Zero Mostel and his legendary eyebrows in a plot nicely summed by the flick’s British release title: How to Steal a Diamond in Four Uneasy Lessons.   Adapted for the screen by pod fav writer William Goldman, the film excises a fifth heist (or sixth, depending on its additional double-cross book ending at an airport) from the book, which, okay, it’s not the book. The book is mid, and the movie its Temu version for those who’ve read the book.      For the two hosts who haven’t read the book, the movie plays like an early draft of Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven or TGTPTU’s previously covered masterpiece Sneakers, which Ken and Ryan bait the youthful Thomas with The Hot Rock being a better film than Sneakers [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_XRqJV2zdk]. Thomas bites and snaps hard. Meanwhile, also having read the book prior to watching Yates’ efforts at humor, guest Shannon fears the film takes so long getting started with Redford’s Dortmunder leaving prison that the movie might run out of filmstock before reaching its end.     As mentioned at the end of the preceding Krull episode, Sleater-Kinney’s 1999 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zREs5axxrmQ] album of the same name took its inspiration from this movie.   Toot! Toot!    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

HACKS: PETER YATES #2 KRULL

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1055659/fan_mail/new] Hear ye, hear ye! Gather round fair people of podland and lend the bold knaves and jesters of TGTPTU your ears for Episode Two-Beyond-a-Dozen of Season Seven-and-Ten. Hark, forthwith the trio tell tale of the Atari-level ren faire, chopped Star Wars glory that is KRULL (1983).   This second selection by host Ken to bookend the career of hack director Peter Yates, a two-time Oscar-nominated director (in 1979 for Breaking Away covered next ep and for his other film in 1983 The Dresser), Krull was an international production with a James Horner score and a young Liam Neesom and an as-young-as-he-maybe-ever-got Robbie Coltrane in supporting roles, although it should be noted the latter was redubbed by a Brit. Krull is a scifi-ish fantasy movie that opens with voiceover prophecies for events that will not occur during the film and closes with more of the same. It has a young prince who becomes king, lovers with the powers of fire on water, a merry band of criminals turned good, a cyclops, flying horses, a shapeshifter, a kid, a puppy, baddies with medieval weapons that shoot lasers unless the fight is within melee proximity, quicksand death, a legendary weapon of +2 spinning, the black void, and a giant head to be attacked and defeated Contra-style. What it lacked (NOTE: following list not exhaustive) was a convincing lead actor, coherent worldbuilding, box office success, and artistic merit.     Beyond this, Krull belies both description and explanation.    But listen anyway this week as the hosts try to find some rhyme or reason for its being while also competing to find the best worst-thing about the film, with Thomas accusing Ken of Krull and unusual punishment for his film selection.    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

HACKS: PETER YATES #1 BULLITT

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1055659/fan_mail/new] BULLITT Right in time for Father’s Day, TGTPTU with special guest Erik W. Van Der Wolf introduce their fourth of four directors for Season 17’s 4x4 HACKS with director Peter Yates entry into the Dad Film canon: BULLITT (1968).   Starring the coolest Caucasian cat to strut the silver screen, the American Great Escapee himself, Steve McQueen (no, Zoomer, not that Steve McQueen, he’s Black and a director, British and alive) plays the titular SFPD Lt. Frank Bullitt responsible for protecting against organized crime the DA’s witness who, no spoilers if it’s in the first act, gets got in his safehouse hotel room. Bullitt’s partner also gets the gat and instead of a this-time-it’s-personal, Yates plays the action procedural as Bullitt keeps his gun(s) holstered and his artist-architect girlfriend groovy and there’s that car chase action sequence we all know and love. Robert Vaughn plays the DA whose actions not villainous but smarmy all the same; Jacqueline Bisset plays the girlfriend whose uncertain whether Bullitt’s dark world and hers of hope and peace and beauty can coexist; and Don Gordon plays his normal role (as he would later in Papillon and The Towering Inferno) as second fiddle to whomever McQueen (again, Zoomer, the White dude who raced cars and defied death in his spare time and might have had dyslexia, not the enfant terrible of British designer fashion) plays. Also, Robert Duvall plays a taxi driver. Scored by Lalo Schifrin, the West Coast jazz sound really swings to make a film that vibes like few others.    This week, host Ken goes deep on McQueen, Ryan on Quentin Tarantino, Erik mansplains Dad Films to Thomas, and together guest and Zoomer develop a working dichotomy of Vietnam vs. WWII Dad-Films. We also learn !!!EXCLUSIVE!!! that Steve McQueen faked his death.   That McQueen’s one hep cat, daddy-o.   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

HACKS: RERUN SPECIAL: PETER YATES, FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE FROM S14

Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/1055659/fan_mail/new] As prefunk to next week's first Peter Yates episode, BULLITT, for his HACKS 4X4, we re-present our first Yates film, covered last year, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE. Coyle is so good and co-host Ken's befuddlement so severe that Yates also directed KRULL is what eventually led to this season of HACKS. Below is the sadly prescient original show notes for our Coyle episode written by show note genius, Thomas: * The second 1x1 feature rounding out Season 14 and, chosen by Jack, the film is THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (1973). Directed by Peter Yates, whose career TGTPTU is unlikely to cover in a future 4x4 despite having Krull and Bullitt in his credits, TFOEC is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ inaugural novel and notable as a unromanticized depiction of crime in artistic response to The Godfather, the Puzo book and Coppola film each preceding, respectively, the book and movie versions of TFOEC by one year.   * Higgins would take issue with the book as his debut novel. The former deputy assistant attorney general claimed to have written and burned 14 novels over 17 years prior to TFOEC and would go on to author over 30 books, both fiction and nonfiction before his fatal heart attack in 1999, but none with the impact of his first. As seasonal guest host Jack points out, nearly all the dialogue in the film is as it is on the page, and the pages are dripping with dialogue that creates the setting and action for this ironic story of “friends” who double-cross and live less than glamorous lives as Irish mobsters and criminals in Boston.   * Yates populates the film with faces, faces that we don’t see much anymore, distinct faces and every one telling a story, from the titular Coyle plated by Robert Mitchum who earlier in this life reluctantly left the assembly line to be an actor to actor Alex Rocco who starred as Moe Greene in The Godfather and helped Mitchum meet some of his old criminal friends whom Rocco had to leave behind after he (the actor Alex Rocco) was held for questioning in relation to the murder that kicked off the Boston Irish Gang War of the 1960s to James Tolkan before he’d lost his hair a decade prior to portraying Principal Strickland in the Back to the Future movies and Detective Hugh Lubic in the Cannon Films classic Masters of the Universe.   * For this episode, everyone did research: Jack and Thomas pair off for book report; Ryan covers the career of Mitchum; and Ken covers Yates and laments how now Hollywood lacks hacks as well as provides a new shaggy dog with The Pals of Charlie Brown.  * Make sure to wipe your prints clean on this one before listening with a friend.  NEXT WEEK: Peter Yates, HACK, Episode #1: BULLITT.  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