Biopic: A Podcast Story

Buckle up, snowflakes, we’re ruining your favorite folk hero! 

Politics month is supposed to be over, but we have one more slice of Americana bullshit for you all, 1973’s Walking Tall, starring Joe Don Baker. After all, what is more patriotic than being a pro-wrestler-turned-town-sherriff-without-any-law-enforcement-experience-cum-alleged-wife-murderer-and-legend who stands up for what is right (grifting harder than your competitio...

Hello boredom, our old friend. Dull, terrible Parnell — widely considered Clark Gable’s worst film and one of the worst movies ever made — lives up to its reputation as we celebrate the blessed end of Politics Month. We take a long, pained look at a film that combines the magic of inert, uncommitted acting, a dire, boring screenplay filled with cliches, and the thrills of parliamentary procedure around Irish “home rule”, and firmly...

We couldn’t be more excited to welcome our friend and New Orleansian Glenn from The Awesome Village to talk about John Goodman’s star turn as Louisiana populist senator and governor Huey Long in the TV movie Kingfish. 

Featuring a cavalcade of future stars, Kingfish efficiently cycles through the political career, appetites, and light corruption of Long with what Sara found to be an objectionable amount of music. Also discussed at ...

A crude, egomaniacal leader with astonishing hair, suffering from mini-strokes and hypertension, dies following a party where everyone kisses his ass and cheers on American machismo. Is it a call from the future? A bird? A plane? No…It’s The Death of Stalin!

Chaos breaks loose as his potential successors try to figure out who is the most feckless and clever of them all, and who can take over the future of the USSR. We meet failsons...

Emergency bonus episode! Michael, the oft-delayed musical biopic about the life and times of troubled genius and smooth (never convicted, often tried) alleged criminal Michael Jackson has a teaser trailer and an April 2026 release date. We risked 1990s-era Pokemon-inspired seizures as we watched the trailer over and over in an attempt to parse the psychotically edited clip parade for insights about what we can expect from this movi...

We start Politics Month with a whimper: A 2 hour, 30 minute, ponderous look inside the months and (maybe?) years that immediately follow FDR’s devastating polio diagnosis. 

Should this be an interesting look at a consequential moment in which the future of American politics was forever changed? Yes. Should this be an incisive character study on one of the most important, decent and progressive individuals to hold the office of pres...

We welcome back the amazing cartoonist and South Korea expert Ryan Estrada  (https://www.ryanestrada.com/) to discuss this truly inspiring biopic that is “not about” (wink and nudge, folks) the early years of future 9th president of South Korea and human rights activist Roh Moo-huyn, then a tax attorney who is compelled to defend a number of teenage students who are arrested and imprisoned without warrants on fabricated charges of ...

 While it dazzles with its 1895-era special effects, the Thomas Edison-produced The Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots offers scant commentary or insight into the life of Mary Stuart, opting for salaciousness over character development. 

It’s also 18 seconds long. 

Rena offers critical context that the O.G. shameless idea thief Thomas Edison’s film fails to provide, and we also discuss Sara’s ongoing enmity of Kevin Costner, Wes Ben...

Juana of Castile is MADDDDD WITH LOOOOOVVVEEE for one of those Easter Island-headed Hapsburgs and … that’s the movie. That’s it. That’s Mad Love.

After several back-to-back bangers, Rena and Sara find themselves in biopic purgatory with this boring-as-all-get-out movie that features baffling artistic choices (including absolutely no lighting and an angry-as-hell score) and manages to make what Rena promises are super-compelling peo...

69! Very nice. We commit to the bit by exploring the seedy underworld of Los Angeles’ porn and drug scene in 2003’s unfairly overlooked Wonderland. Starring Val Kilmer as the legendary abusive monster John Holmes, aka Johnny Wadd, Wonderland documents, Rashomon-style, the notorious revenge murders in which John Holmes most definitely participated, and reminds us that drugs are indeed very, very, very bad. 

We discuss a lot of addic...

Rena and Sara are pretty psyched that they saw this the second-best way (the first being on an Apple watch) at the Paris Theater. Because David Lean’s epic masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia is what everyone says it is: expansive. 

Why did everyone tolerate Peter O’Toole’s drunken shenanigans? Why was Anthony Quinn’s appearance the one that had to be made accurate with a prosthetic nose? Which of T.E. Lawrence’s contributions to societ...

We finally found a movie that is both a Sara Movie and a Rena Movie, and it’s the damn-near-perfect 1967 film Bonnie & Clyde.

Yes, their names are Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow and they rob banks… but there’s so much more to talk about, including Sara’s Talmudic Loophole of Seeing Inappropriate Stuff as a Kid, whether Faye Dunaway is the most beautiful, most bananas, most brilliant actress to appear on screen, how the hell CW ...

The Devils is a lot of things: a wholesome look at what happens when people believe in weird provincial nonsense instead of actual facts; a star vehicle for unlikely pin-up Oliver Reed; the most Catholic movie ever made; and the only time (so far, at least) we’ve used the phrase “Holy Water Enema.”

We’re SO excited to welcome back our show’s official Ken Russell sherpa, the still-brilliant Elana Levin from the Graphic Policy Podc...

PART 2 of the most epic and definitive discussion of the greatest movie ever made: 1993’s Tombstone, a film we loved so much that we could not shut up about it and had to make our first two-parter. 

There’s more talk about costumes and sets and history, but also a LOT more talk about the perfection of Val Kilmer, the one way America could be made great again (over-the-counter laudanum), continued hatred of 1994’s Wyatt Earp (know...

Get in, losers, we’re going to Tombstone. We’re back from hiatus, and we love this movie so much that it gets pretty embarrassing. But what are you supposed to do when gazing upon the majesty of Kurt Russell with ALL the eyeliner on, Sam Elliot and his magical moustache, Powers Boothe’s goofy, over-the-top Curly Bill, and, of course, the miraculous Val Kilmer’s virtuoso turn as Doc Holliday? 

Kevin Costner and “Boring Tombstone” ca...

Hooray! We have a bonus episode: our 13th edition of Irrelevant Host Banter, with a flashback to mid-2024 with Episode 25: Ray and Episode 26: Liz & Dick.

 These are some outtakes that were cut for running time, and/or because we were digressive or repetitive.

Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs. We jump around in a senseless, context-deprived manner, and you should definitely skip this episode a...

Hooray! We have a bonus episode: our 12th edition of Irrelevant Host Banter.

These are some outtakes that were cut for running time, and/or because we were digressive or repetitive.

Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs. We jump around in a senseless, context-deprived manner, and you should definitely skip this episode and download any normal episode from “Episode 10: Cobb” onwards if this is your firs...

We return to the depression era to watch the rise of a delightful, curly-haired naif who charms everyone — the help, the military, and her cynical, wealthy new family. No, we’re not doing John Huston’s noted biopic Annie, we’re doing 1935’s The Rise of Catherine the Great.

We explore the many, many links back to the godfather of international cinema Alexander Korda, lavender marriages, Peter the Great’s descendant Peter the Meh, OG...