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, given our downloads for these, no one likes them but us!
#1 (LUMP OF COAL): INVASION USA. Conceived by, and starring, Chuck Norris as the only man who can fight off a US invasion completely centered in Florida (take it, please!). This is a nasty, sadistic film that, in 1985, broke with Norris' normally whitebread heroism and suffered a bit initially because of it. It didn't do too much in theaters but, we Americans and our love of being scared by any sort of Other about to take away our liberty knows no bounds and it became one of the best-selling VHS tapes ever as a result. It has a guy who kills dudes by jamming his gun down the front of their pants. A highwater mark for cinema! Ken brought this to the office Christmas party because he is a sadist.
#2 (YOU WERE GOOD THIS YEAR!): SNEAKERS (1992). A smart, purely entertaining ensemble techno-heist classic that holds up! Redford, Straitharn, Poitier, Phoenix, Akroyd, Kingsley, McDonnell are all part of one of the best-oiled team movies ever made. It is ridiculous how fun this is. When films like this go off like clockwork it makes you wish all films would spend as much time as this one did in development cracking the plot. Thomas brought this one to the Christmas potluck and is a champ for it.
#3 (A FEW LOSING SCRATCH-OFF LOTTERY TICKETS FROM UNCLE PHIL): LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996), which breaks our "no Shane Black" rule but that is ok. We did Dial Code Santa last year which pretty much broke our other rules. As the song in I Think You Should Leave says, There's No Rules. Made from a script that someone paid FOUR MILLION DOLLARS for. If you thought a female-centered action movie starring the beautiful Geena Davis (who hadn't and still hasn't ever opened a movie) and Samuel L Jackson directed by a Finnish man who, yeah, directed Cliffhanger, but also Die Hard 2 and The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine, curiously cribbed from Robert Ludlum and cheap paperbacks by a depressed Shane Black, would be a resounding success off a 90 million dollar budget, pack your bags and move to Hollywood! A studio somewhere needs you to fail big with the crap you greenlight and receive a golden parachute when it is sold to Pepsi. Erik brought this one to the community caroling event and makes a few arguments in its favor.
Happy Holidays in whichever way you celebrate. And if you don't, they are Christmas adjacent so these are right up your alley because they don't have much to do with Christmas other than what time of year they take place (spoiler: December).
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegoodthepoda1
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Jack: jackk1096
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, given our downloads for these, no one likes them but us!
#1 (LUMP OF COAL): INVASION USA. Conceived by, and starring, Chuck Norris as the only man who can fight off a US invasion completely centered in Florida (take it, please!). This is a nasty, sadistic film that, in 1985, broke with Norris' normally whitebread heroism and suffered a bit initially because of it. It didn't do too much in theaters but, we Americans and our love of being scared by any sort of Other about to take away our liberty knows no bounds and it became one of the best-selling VHS tapes ever as a result. It has a guy who kills dudes by jamming his gun down the front of their pants. A highwater mark for cinema! Ken brought this to the office Christmas party because he is a sadist.
#2 (YOU WERE GOOD THIS YEAR!): SNEAKERS (1992). A smart, purely entertaining ensemble techno-heist classic that holds up! Redford, Straitharn, Poitier, Phoenix, Akroyd, Kingsley, McDonnell are all part of one of the best-oiled team movies ever made. It is ridiculous how fun this is. When films like this go off like clockwork it makes you wish all films would spend as much time as this one did in development cracking the plot. Thomas brought this one to the Christmas potluck and is a champ for it.
#3 (A FEW LOSING SCRATCH-OFF LOTTERY TICKETS FROM UNCLE PHIL): LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996), which breaks our "no Shane Black" rule but that is ok. We did Dial Code Santa last year which pretty much broke our other rules. As the song in I Think You Should Leave says, There's No Rules. Made from a script that someone paid FOUR MILLION DOLLARS for. If you thought a female-centered action movie starring the beautiful Geena Davis (who hadn't and still hasn't ever opened a movie) and Samuel L Jackson directed by a Finnish man who, yeah, directed Cliffhanger, but also Die Hard 2 and The Adventures of Ford Fairlaine, curiously cribbed from Robert Ludlum and cheap paperbacks by a depressed Shane Black, would be a resounding success off a 90 million dollar budget, pack your bags and move to Hollywood! A studio somewhere needs you to fail big with the crap you greenlight and receive a golden parachute when it is sold to Pepsi. Erik brought this one to the community caroling event and makes a few arguments in its favor.
Happy Holidays in whichever way you celebrate. And if you don't, they are Christmas adjacent so these are right up your alley because they don't have much to do with Christmas other than what time of year they take place (spoiler: December).
THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/thegoodthepodandtheugly?igshid=um92md09kjg0
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thegoodthepoda1
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Buzzsprout: https://thegoodthepodandtheugly.buzzsprout.com/
Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Jack: jackk1096