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Kenny Rogers fans, hold your horses. We know you’re chomping at the bit, but this week as Episode 3 of Season 18 Déjà View’s remake season, we’re covering a stallion of a different color, that being the James Caan-starring, sex-pest written, Czech-born Brit directed Seventies classic THE GAMBLER (1974).

Semiautobiographical and originally drafted as a novel, James Toback’s first produced work follows the downward spiral of Axel Freed (Caan), its titular gambler, as a bad night’s debt has him burn bridges with his mother, girlfriend, idolized furniture baron grandfather, bookie bestie, and all-star student athlete as the literature professor spirals to a 1970’s cinematic freeze-frame ending. Small roles filled by the big soled shoes of Paul Savino (Bruce Willis character’s dad in Moonlighting) as the bookie; Burt Young (Rocky’s brother-in-law Paulie in the Rocky franchise) as a collector for a loan shark; M. Emmet Walsh (the uncle in The Odd Life of Timothy Green) as a rando gambler at a bar in Las Vegas; and James Woods (Meryl Streep’s artist husband in NBC’s 1978 Holocaust: The Story of the Family Weiss miniseries) as a bank clerk when Professor Freed convinces his doctor-mom to pay off his debt.

This week host Kenny not Rogers recites standup bits from The Monkey (aka London Lee), host “I am Ryan” learns that not all female doctors are nurses, and host Thomas makes sure Mission Impossible lore and Quentin Tarantino enter the chat.

Next week The Gambler gets a new vibe and face with an emaciated Mark Wahlberg.

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TGTPTU’s back and so too is THE ITALIAN JOB (2003), now with 98% less British. For Episode 2 of Season 18 Déjà View, your professional hosts with awesome backstories tackle the studio passion project that took all the wrong lessons from Soderberg’s 2001 hit Oceans 11 remake.

Opening in Italy, Donald Sutherland (“Big D” to those in the know) as Mr. Bridger (no relation to the 1969 original) on a cell phone promises his chastising straight-and-narrow daughter Stella Bridger played by Charlize Theron that he’ll definitely live to see the end of the movie and not be remembered by a fancy necklace he’s going to mail her bought with money he’s not yet stolen and then converses in-person with Mark Wahlberg’s Charlie Croker (no relation to the 1969 original) both barely audible over loud jazz music about handing over the reins for this one last job. This first heist plays well onscreen with a boat chase through the canals of Venice but will end with a double-cross (no relation to the 1969 original’s Italian mob plot) killing Papa Bridger and leading the heist team to leap one year into the future and to Los Angeles but not before recruiting Daughter Bridger from her honest safecracking work for law enforcement in Philadelphia. The team’s double-crosser is Steve Frazelli played alternately by Edward Norton and his moustache, and the tight-knit crew that will seek revenge (but never with much violence) on the vapid Frazelli (who doesn’t even have a nickname) includes Jason Statham, Seth Green, Mos Def, and someone named Franky G who all, say it with me, have no relation to the 1969 original.

But there are Minis. And they drive in places they shouldn’t. And this time there’s an onscreen helicopter that chases. They go vroom and explosives go boom and the team gets their heisted gold back and Frazelli gets tortured to death off-screen by the Ukrainian mafia while Stella and Charlie live happily ever after.

This ep, host Thomas—pardon, Handsome Tom—has The Booyah Tribe and Napster’s Shawn Fanning explained to him by Gen X co-host Ryan while Ken continues fuming about how The Fast and the Furious franchise went to space.

Chin up, mate: Only three more early 2000s Wahlberg remake pairings to go, not counting The Departed later this season. Next up, The Gambler.

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Buckle up, mates, the lads at TGTPTU are going to blow the bloody doors off the idea of a Hollywood remake this season (Season 18, Déjà View), starting with THE ITALIAN JOB (1969).

Above the title on this one, Sirs Michael Caine and Noël Coward, but the real stars of this heist caper are Swinging London and the Mini Cooper. Caine as Charlie Croker, an ex-con who upon leaving prison after time served is ready to get back to crime-ing after a few good shags and reclaiming his Aston Martin. Croker soon finds himself inheriting quite the caper after his friend dies at the hands of the Italian mafia, leaving behind the details on a nicely edited film for Croker to watch. Croker needs financing, so he breaks back into jail off-camera to interrupt UK kingpin Mr. Bridger, played by Coward with a Her Majesty kink, during his private potty time. When Mr. Bridger learns the gold in Turin that Caine wishes to steal will cripple the Italian economy, thus helping make England great again, he finances the gig’s dozen-some drivers and heavies and its assortment of Minis for test runs before an iconic car chase scene through the streets of Turin and onto a roof of a building and other places cars aren’t meant to go before a literal cliff-hanger ending. Also in this film, comedic actor Benny Hill as a boffin who likes his women big… BIG.

During this inaugural ep, Ken manages to bring up MacGyver without mentioning MacGruber while also diving deep into the film’s writer and that dude’s brother’s backgrounds; Ryan brings up the Mission Impossible franchise and how Caine was once the cockney James Bond; and Thomas saves the pod by working in (take a shot) a Quentin Tarantino reference.

Next week, well, The Italian Job (2003). (See how this works, then?

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
Email: thegoodthepodandtheugly@gmail.com
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/TGTPTU
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6mI2plrgJu-TB95bbJCW-g
Letterboxd (follow us!):

Podcast: goodpodugly
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias