The Good, The Pod and The Ugly

Send us Fan Mail NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN HO-HO-HO   We take a break from Michael Mann to present our 2nd Annual Christmas-Adjacent Episode with Jack and Ken. THE RULES : A film that has Christmas in it but is not a classic "changed by the season" film using Christmas as a crutch for facile change in facile characters that was initially released during the Christmas season. No Santa unle...

Send us Fan Mail DANNY DAY-LEWIS AND THE NEWS        Pt. Two : Russell Crowe was still a year from being a worldwide superstar starring as Maximus in Gladiator when he puffed up and got gray hair for The Insider (1999). It's about tobacco and old-world journalism (based on an epic piece in Vanity Fair) without a mention of clicks, blogs or website banners. One of Mann's most critically p...

Send us Fan Mail DANNY DAY-LEWIS AND THE NEWS        Pt. One: After Manunter and a number of false-start projects, Michael Mann swerved hard from modern crime and neon into the historical epic LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992).  Daniel Day-Lewis built a time machine to go back in time to 1757 to research his role as Hawkeye (not the M.A.S.H. character or the superhero) and it shows! Between Mann's...

Send us Fan Mail MANN AGED E6:  RUMBLE IN THE MCU  Michael Mann is from Chicago and it has featured prominently in a number of projects. CRIME STORY (1986-1988) was a series that began IN Chicago, 1963, and was an early precursor to the serialized TV we have today. Dennis Farina and his mustache goes toe-to-toe with Anthony Denison as sadistic criminal Ray Luca, whose violent rise from Chicago hoo...

Send us Fan Mail MANN AGED E5: INNA GADDA DA XENU      1986'S MANHUNTER , made after two years serving as the showrunner for Miami Vice, was little-seen upon its release but, arguably is Mann's most lasting genre effort. It created a template that has been repurposed approximately five million times: serial killer, profiler, victim in trouble, all leading to an explosive climax. Is Willi...

Send us Fan Mail MANN AGED E4: DAS GO-FAST BOOT      This week we discuss two divisive Michael Mann epics. 1983's THE KEEP saw Mann take a der leften turn from his focus on the gritty crime and law enforcement settings of his TV work and feature debut to supernatural Nazi horror. As we will see later, Mann pivoting hard will yield a masterpiece in Last of The Mohicans but does it work here? W...

Send us Fan Mail MANN AGED E3: HEAD & SHOULDERS In our earnest and sincere desire to give lessons the Jack about being a man by watching Michael Mann movies we've reached dodgy ground as both our our Mann movies this week feature protagonists who are criminals. Criminals who find brief succor in the arms of a woman, but cannot escape their nature (which is stealing shit).    PUBLIC ENEMIE...

Send us Fan Mail MANN AGED E2: TEN TO LIFE ODDS In 1979 Michael Mann made what amounts to a statement of purpose in THE JERICHO MILE , a TV movie about a Folsom prison inmate who finds succor in running and attracts the eye of both professional trainers, the Olympics, and every racially segregated gang inside. Peter Strauss stars as Lickety Split in a performance so good you'll wonder why he...

Send us Fan Mail MANN AGED E1: THORMAN BATES    What does it take to be a man?    We have no clue. One of our hosts, Jack, is young enough he can still figure it out so we ware watching all of Michael Mann 's directorial efforts to assist. In our first episode we will watch and dissect Mann's mainstream directorial debut in Police Woman S4 E6, The Buttercup Killer , 1977 and 2015's...

Send us Fan Mail * BONUS EPISODE* October, 2021 is special for the GPU hosts! Later this month standout joke-maker, divisive lightning rod Jack is turning 18! Also later in the month sad sack Ken is getting MARRIED! Not only that but Jack is his best man AND third cohost, smooth criminal Thomas , is officiating the ceremony. Furthermore Ken is marrying Andi, who sang the theme song for season&apos...

Send us Fan Mail PRISONER OF SATURN FILMS! We return briefly to our Cage project to talk about his latest bid for midnight movie supremacy, PRISONERS OF THE GHOSTLAND (2021) . Directed by Sion Sono , Prisoners is a neo-western with samurais, cowboys, zombies and end time whackos from a Road Warrior test reel. Cage is tasked with finding the Governor's "daughter" who tried to escape...

Send us Fan Mail S3 E16 - ROOSTER ROAD TRIP A VERY special return to our Eastwood project! After watching every Eastwood for season's 1-3, Ken and Jack are back to talk about what may be Eastwood's swaniest swan song yet! Eastwood is 91 and probably working on half a dozen new projects but, mathematically, we gotta treat this like it may be his last, right? We are realists, not fatalists...

Send us Fan Mail Fork Fangs Superstar guest Annabel has moved to the other side of this crumbling planet and, as a final binge before she left, she requested we all watch the Twilight movies and then do an episode talking about it. Actually she agreed on the first film in the series but somehow we ended up watching all of them. Ken, Jack, Annabel. Thomas and Ryan discuss all five Twilight films, t...

Send us Fan Mail THE END OF CAGE UNCAGED! In our landmark 50th episode we bid a fond farewell to the films of Nicolas Cage. It has been fun, frustrating, illuminating and occasionally educational, but it is time to move on.  We end with a brief dive into 2021's Willy's Wonderland , which has been a bit of a cult favorite in certain circles. Why, Certain Circles, why?!?!? Then Jack, Ken a...

Send us Fan Mail CAGE UNCAGED PENULTIMATE EPISODE: PIG PIG (2021) was filmed in Portland, Oregon! Our podcast is based in Portland! Will we see anything we recognize resulting in that Leonardo DiCaprio meme from Once Upon a Time In Hollywood? That would be annoying. Nevertheless, a VERY SPECIAL EPISODE! Made in Portland! Our very first *new* movie! Cage plays a hermit with a pig that finds valuabl...

Send us Fan Mail THROUGH A RED FILTER Super-guest and theme song wizard Ryan of HOWLING FANTODS rejoins the GBU team to discuss Cage's unlikely late-career masterpiece MANDY (2018) . As bracing and indelibly stunning a film as any in Cage's deep filmography, Panos Cosmatos' sophomore effort delivers as much mood, style, nerve and bravado as any film this century. This late in almost...

Send us Fan Mail " WHAT YODEL KNOW (CAN KILL YOU)" In order to properly assess one of Cage's earliest and most indelible roles in Joel and Ethan Coens second film , RAISING ARIZONA (1987) , we are pairing it with BLOOD SIMPLE (1984) , their first feature. Blood Simple is one of the great directorial debuts in film history and the two followed it up with one of the most beloved comed...

Send us Fan Mail CAGE UNCAGED: FILM FLAM FATALE **BONUS EPISODE** Another bonus episode covering a corner of Cage's career that has been under-represented thus far in Cage Uncaged! This week we tackle the fertile cinematic era between Moonstruck (1987) and Leaving Las Vegas (1995), when Cage would appear as often in quirky indies as studio fare before he became a superstar Oscar Winner. This...

Send us Fan Mail CAGE UNCAGED BONUS EPISODE: RAD COSMIC DADS On our last episode it was decided late-era Cage, despite being filled with missteps and perplexing DTV fare, was under represented. In order to fully understand THE CAGE, we needed to face this era full on. Jack and Thomas were tasked with picking a Cage released in the last ten years. GHOST RIDER: SPIRITS OF VENGENANCE  (released late...

Send us Fan Mail WOOING THE BUNNY It's the Con/Off of Cage Uncaged! TRIGGER WARNING: Con Air does include potential sexual assault as a story element that we discuss. 1997 featured Cage's most impressive box office feat when CON AIR and FACE/OFF were released within weeks of each other, turning the summer into an all-out action battle between Cage, dinosaur sequels directed by pod fave S...

Send us Fan Mail DEUS EX MACHINE-GUNNA LORD OF WAR (2004) has Cage give his all in a movie that looks great on paper: The Kiwi Idea Man of Truman Show and Gattaca , Andrew Niccol , writing and directing an epic, Scorsese-like film about the rise and fall of an arms dealer taking place from the 80s through the 00s? With era-appropriate songs? Cage narration? With future Oscar winner/publicity light...

Send us Fan Mail IN DE PALMA DA HAND, A TRACH  Martin Scorsese and Brian De Palma were best buddies in the free wheelin' 1970s who, by the late 1990s, were Hollywood legends with instantly recognizable cinematic styles. Cage was in his box office prime in in 1998 and 1999 with De Palma's SNAKE EYES and Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD . Two old timers whose kinetic stylish flourishe...

Send us Fan Mail CAGE OF CONSENT AND THE TEMPLE  OF DUMB Sometimes to past is refuge, as with PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED , 1986, one of Cage's earliest mainstream breakout films, directed by his Uncle Frankie, Francis Ford Coppola. Kathleen Turner goes back in time 25 years to high school and engages in, well, morally dubious behavior. Cage plays her husband in 1986 and her aspiring singer boyfrie...

Send us Fan Mail ROMANCING THE CAGE.   Cage gets romantic! And... suicidal?  MOONSTRUCK was one of Cage's early mainstream breakthroughs. Directed by Hollywood journeyman Norman Jewison and heralding the arrival of writer John Patrick Shanley from Broadway to film. This is the one Cher won an Oscar for because she slaps Cage and tells him to snap out of it. The late Olympia Dukakis also won a...

Send us Fan Mail CAGE UNCAGED: THAT DOG IS A ANGEL City of Angels (1998) is Brad Siberling's decidedly American take on Wim Wenders masterpiece Wings of Desire (1987). Where Wenders went philosophical and spiritual, Angels goes purely romantic. Cage plays Seth Plate , an Angel (though they never say " Angel " EVEN IF IT'S IN THE TITLE) who can hear people's thoughts and ta...