SQUIB GAMES #17: MONA LISA

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.  

 Your TGTPTU hosts jump right into the Squib Season episode this week eager to discuss MONA LISA (1986), a neo-noir that’ll get squibby towards its end (or its original, comedic intro with its criminally bad British accents attempted in a reenactment of a forgettable moment from the film confiscated and presently being used as evidence by Scotland Yard). 

Co-written and singly-directed by Neil Jordan six years before The Crying Game, the film stars Bob Hoskins (five years before Spielberg’s Hook) as George, a role originally intended for Michael Caine (also in the film but in a significantly smaller and more sinister role as George’s crime boss Mortwell) but rewritten for Hoskins to bring in his comedic background and general warmth, even when playing a working-class British bigot. Playing opposite Hoskins as the film’s femme fatale is first-time screen actress Cathy Tyson as the high-end call girl Simone on the hunt for her missing friend and former coworker mixed up in drugs and the streetwalking and larger sex industry that affords them. Also starring Rubeus Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies (Robbie Coltrane) as Thomas (people in the film don’t get last names unless they’re of Caine’s character’s stature, in which case they don’t need Christian names), George’s best mate and collector of weird objects.  

The hosts do their darnedest not to bring up and discuss The Crying Game, instead focusing on amazing parts of the film at hand, including an elevated action elevator sequence and Hoskins’ acting. Also, how Jordan working on a tight budget reworked the London landscape to create a mood and show a side of London not typically captured on film. And in perhaps an episode first, sometimes provisional host Ryan does research!!! and is wrong about a music fact!?!  

And then, before you know where you are

You’re sayin’ goodbye

-Boy George

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias