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"The Studio" crushed the competition in comedies. "The Pitt" played spoiler to "Severance" in dramas. "Adolescence," as expected, took the top prizes in limited series.

But there were plenty of surprises along the way as well as Nate Bargatze's efforts as host. We break down the highs and lows of this year's Primetime Emmy Awards.

Also: "Dancing with the Stars" is back and the new Netflix documentary "aka Charlie Sheen" takes a look at the life of the actor.

Note: The show discusses potential Emmy hosts, including Jimmy Kimmel. This podcast was recorded prior to ABC's suspension and subsequent reinstatement of him.

About the show

Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, a longtime entertainment reporter who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal in Iowa and Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises based in Madison, Wisconsin. The show was named Best Podcast in the 2025 Iowa Better Newspaper Contest.

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David Rysdahl has been busy the past few years, but you might not have noticed if you weren't paying attention.

That's not to say his roles have been forgettable — quite the opposite. Rather, Rysdahl has had impactful roles in ensemble casts, whether as chemist Donald Hornig in the blockbuster "Oppenheimer," the loving but passive husband Wayne Lyon in season 5 of "Fargo," or the uneasy scientist Arthur Sylvia in "Alien: Earth."

This latest role reunites him with Noah Hawley, the creator and showrunner of both "Fargo" and "Alien: Earth." In this episode, hear from Rysdahl during an interview with co-host Bruce Miller.

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There are plenty of familiar contenders for the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards (Sept. 14, 8 p.m. EDT, CBS), but a bunch of newcomers could take top prizes.

"Severance," "The Bear," "The White Lotus" and "Hacks" all have been nominated in the past and look to pick up awards. Could "Adolescence" be this year's "Baby Reindeer" in the limited series category? Will "The Studio" or "The Pitt" pick up trophies? Can Harrison Ford finally win a top prize?

In this episode, co-host Bruce Miller share who he thinks will win big.

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"The Office" became one of the most beloved series of the early 2000s, and while Steve Carell isn't reprising his Michael Scott character, the show gets new life in a way with "The Paper."

In this spinoff film, Domhnall Gleeson plays Ned Sampson, editor of the "Toledo Truth Teller." The newspaper, which is struggling, also happens to be owned by Dunder Mifflin and the show brings Oscar Nunez along to reprise his role as accountant Oscar Martinez.

In this episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss the new show, how it compares to the current state of journalism, and some of the classic journalism movies and shows of all time from "Lou Grant" to the unrelated movie "The Paper" to the classic films "All the Presidents Men" and "Spotlight."

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There have been a number of big summer movies like "F1: The Movie," "Superman" and "Jurrassic World: Rebirth." But these popcorn movies are not likely destined for big awards.

Studios like to hold back the Oscar contenders for the fall, so in this week's episode we dive into which movies to watch for this fall and into the winter. You can also review a full list of notable films below.

August releases“Honey Don’t!” – Ethan Coen continues his Margaret Qualley-a-thon with this comedy about a private investigator who looks into a series of deaths tied to a church. Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans co-star.

“Splitsville” – Divorce makes strange bedfellows, particularly when the ex discovers his best friends have an open marriage. Dakota Johnson, Kyle Marvin star.

“Eden” – Looking for a better life, a group of people head to the Galapagos and realize what they’re up against. Jude Law and Ana de Armas star in this based-in-fact drama directed by Ron Howard.

“Relay” – Payoffs between corporations brings a broker into the line of fire. Riz Ahmed, Lily James and Sam Worthington star.

“Hollywood Grit” – A private investigator has to find out what happened to his daughter. Tyrese, Max Martini star.

“Lurker” – How strange is the world of stardom? A worker finds out as he gets closer to a music star. Alex Russell wrote and directed this drama starring Theodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe.

“The Thursday Murder Club” – Friends in a retirement home solve mysteries. Pierce Brosnan, Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley are in the home.

“The Roses” – An updated look at “War of the Roses” lets Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman square off. Jay Roach directs.

“Caught Stealing” – Austin Butler gets the Darren Aronofsky treatment as a baseball player caught in the underbelly of New York City. Bad Bunny is along for the ride.

“The Toxic Avenger”—When a janitor is the victim of a toxic accident, a new crimefighter emerges. Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay and Taylour Paige star.

“Jaws” – The first summer blockbuster returns to the big screen after months on television. Now, you can see what audiences were scared of in 1975.

“Love, Brooklyn” – Friends navigate the pitfalls of life in Brooklyn.

September releases“Megadoc” – Mike Figgis looks at the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis.”

“The Conjuring: Last Rites” – Those creepy paranormal investigators say they’re taking on one last case (sure) to settle their own lives. Patric Wilson and Vera Farmiga return.

“The Threesome” – A threesome leads to problems, particularly since life’s not always fantasies. Zoey Deutch and Jonah Hauer-King star.

“Twinless” – Two men bond in a support group. Dylan O’Brien, Lauren Graham and Arkira Chantaratananond star.

“Hamilton” – Celebrating its “ten-cennial,” the Broadway hit brings its performance capture version (which ran on Disney+) to the big screen. Updates about the performers make this more than a night out.

“The Baltimorons” – Sobriety leads to a dental emergency which leads to a romance with the dentist. Jay Duplass directs; Michael Strassner co-writes and stars.

“The Long Walk” —You thought the Hunger Games were bad, how about this: Teenage boys compete in a walking contest. If they don’t keep up, they’re shot. Based on a Stephen King story, it’s one of the year’s most harrowing.

“Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” – Those Smell the Glove guys reunite after a 15-year hiatus for one last concert. Rob Reiner directs; the original actors return.

“Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” – The Crawleys face scandal, financial ruin and social disgrace. To get out of it, they look to a younger generation. Expect all but Maggie Smith to be back.

“The History of Sound” – Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor embark on a World War I project that brings them close to their country and each other.

“Code 3” – One last shift for a paramedic who has to train his replacement. What could go wrong? Rainn Wilson, Lil Rel Howery star.

“Him” – What a guy won’t do to be a football star. Here, one goes to a compound where anything can happen. Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans and Julia Fox star.

“American Sweatshop – Yup, it’s the world of social media. An insider discovers just how dark the world is (like we didn’t know).

“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” – Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie bond in a unique journey (which, of course, says nothing but suggests there’s more to this than two big stars).

“The Summer Book” – A girl and her grandmother become closer in Finland. Emily Matthews and Glenn Close star. (Could this be the one that finally wins Close an Oscar?)

“Xeno” – Ready for another E.T.? This one finds a teenager relating to the alien. Josh Cooke, Lulu Wilson star.

“Waltzing with Brando” – When Marlon Brando wants an ecologically perfect retreat in Tahiti, he calls on a Los Angeles architect. Tia Carrere, Richard Dreyfuss and Jon Heder star.

“Eleanor the Great” – Scarlett Johansson directs June Squibb in this drama about a 94-year-old who has plenty of stories to tell.

“One Battle After Another” – Leonardo DiCaprio stars in this dark comedy about a group of revolutionaries reuniting to save one of their group’s daughter. Paul Thomas Anderson directs; Benicio Del Toro (who starred in a Wes Anderson film earlier this year) and Sean Penn co-star.

October releases“The Smashing Machine” – Dwayne Johnson tries his hand at mixed-martial arts as UFC champion Mark Kerr. The makeup may be a stretch, but Benny Safdie directs, Emily Blunt disappears in an unlikely role.

“Tron: Ares” – Jared Leto gets to run the race. Jeff Bridges is here, too, but this is about a new program (Ares) that’s about to embark on a dangerous mission.

“Roofman” – A robber evades authorities by hanging out in a toy store. Channing Tatum plays the thief, Peter Dinklage and Kirsten Dunst swirl around him.

“Anemone” – Daniel Day-Lewis comes out of retirement for this film directed by his son, Ronan. The plot? Good question, but it will have that DD-L prestige.

“Kiss of the Spider Woman” – Jennifer Lopez stars in the Tony winner fans have been asking for. The big question: Were they looking for Lopez to star in it? Bill Conden directs.

“If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You” – Rose Byrne gets the Oscar buzz as a woman trying to juggle multiple traumas, including a sick child and an absent husband.

“Soul on Fire” – This is the story of a St. Louis native who survived burns which covered his body. Joel Courtney plays John O’Leary. William H. Macy and John Corbett co-star.

“Good Fortune” – An angel meddles in the lives of a venture capitalist and a gig worker. Seth Rogen, Azizi Ansari and Keke Palmer star in this comedy written and directed by Ansari.

Black Phone 2 – More trouble ensues when the phone rings. Sequel to a better-than-average horror film.

“After the Hunt” – Julia Roberts plays a college professor who wonders what could happen when a student levels an accusation against a colleague. Ayo Edebiri co-stars.

The Mastermind – A family man leads a double life in the 1970s. Josh O’Connor and Alana Haim star.

“Pets on a Train” – Animated animals get caught up in a train heist.

Hedda” – “Hedda Gabler” gets the big-screen treatment with Tessa Thompson in the title role.

Blue Moon – The life of Lorenz Hart is told by Richard Linklater with Ethan Hawke as Hart. Andrew Scott plays Richard Rodgers.

“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” -- Bruce Springsteen gets the Bob Dylan treatment with Jeremy Allen White in the title role. This, however, only covers the creation of the “Nebraska” album.

“Regretting You” – Family issues emerge after the death of a husband and father. Based on Colleen Hoover’s best-seller, it stars Allison Williams and Mckenna Grace.

“The Watchers” – M. Night Shayamalan’s daughter Ishana makes her directorial debut with this thriller about an artist who gets trapped in an Irish forest.

“Anniversary” – A good cast (Diane Lane, Kyle Chandler, Zoey Deutch) in a thriller directed by Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa.

“Bugonia” – Emma Stone continues her run with Yorgos Lanthimos. The film is a remake of a South Korean effort about two men kidnapping an executive, convinced she’s an alien bent on destroying Earth.

“Nouvelle Vague” – Richard Linklater has another entry this year. This one’s a look at Jean-Luc Godard and actress Jean Seberg. Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch start.

November releasesWhen We Pray – Jamie Foxx directs the story of brothers who become pastors at divergent churches.

Predator: Badlands – While “Alien: Earth” takes over TV screens, the “other” scary creature takes on a remote planet.

The Running Man” – Glen Powell steps into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s shoes as a contestant in a game show which features killers all around the world.

Nuremberg – Set during the Nuremberg trials, a psychiatrist interviews Nazi prisoners to determine if they are fit to stand trial. Rami Malek and Russell Crowe square off.

Peter Hujar’s Day – What was New York’s art world like in 1974? Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw play two who know. Ira Sachs directs.

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” – The Four Horsemen get help from newbies hoping to use illusions to get away with big cash.

Jay Kelly – It’s an ensemble film but it stars George Clooney as a George Clooney-level star who reflects on life with his manager (played by Adam Sandler). Noah Baumbach directs. Indecipherable – A boy, home alone, gets shaken by the things that go bump in the night.

Wicked: For Good – At long last, we find out what happened to Glinda and Elphaba. Expect at least one new song and bigger roles for the men in their lives. No place like home? That’s included, too. Cynthia Orivo and Ariana Grande could double up on the Oscar nominations.

Rental Family – Oscar winner Brendan Fraser plays an American actor who plays roles in other people’s lives.

STZ – Zombies result when a trio of scientists launch a bio-attack on a bus filled with women. (No kidding.)

Zootopia 2 – Residents of Zootopia return for more adventure and product placement. Judy and Nick are on the trail of a new resident, a snake.

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Although he has largely stopped writing and recording music since 1993's "River of Dreams," Billy Joel has remained a steady force on classic rock radio (or streaming) as well as at New York's Madison Square Garden.

With so many documentaries and biopics popping up in recent years, it was only a matter of time before filmmakers tackled the "Piano Man." HBO's recent two-part documentary "And So It Goes" takes viewers on a journey from his roots on Long Island through four marriages, a bad record deal, financial problems and a massive catalog of pop hits. And if that wasn't enough, there's also the story of his Jewish grandparents surviving Nazi Germany.

In this episode, co-host and music fan Terry Lipshetz talks the new documentary, while co-host Bruce Miller then discusses the new drama "East of Wall" that critics have been raving about. Miller also shares his interview with director Kate Beecroft and stars Tabitha Zimiga and Porscha Zuniga. The movie was filmed in South Dakota.

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The "Alien" franchise has been frightening moviegoers for more than 40 years. Now, showrunner Noah Hawley, backed by the franchise's creator Ridley Scott, brings a new storyline to streaming platforms with "Alien: Earth."

The FX series, which is also available on Huylu, serves as a prequel to the 1979 film "Alien" and features Timothy Olyphant ("Deadwood," "Justified" and "The Book of Boba Fett") in the ensamble cast.

In this episode, co-host Bruce Miller shares a pair of interviews he had with stars Alex Lawther and Sydney Chandler as well as producers David Zucker and Noah Hawley.

Additionally, co-host Terry Lipshetz talks about the recent rockumentary "Becoming Led Zeppelin" thatis on streaming platforms, most notably for free for Netflix subscribers.

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When in doubt, just recycle an old franchise.

There's "Freakier Friday" and "The Naked Gun" hitting theaters. "Happy Gilmore 2" just dropped on Netflix.

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" is another attempt at the comic book series.

Are you into science fiction? Hulu brings the "Alien" franchise to the small screen with the new "Alien: Earth" series. And then there is the "Predator" franchise, which crosses over with "Alien" from time to time, returning later this year with a new movie, "Predator: Badlands."

On this week's episode, co-hosts Terry Lipshetz and Bruce Miller talks about what's being recycled this year, including the third installment of the "Avatar" franchise that is finally coming back after production delays.

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"Severance" from Apple TV+ earned 27 nominations for the 77th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, while HBO Max's "The Penguin" and "The White Lotus" weren't far behind.

"The Studio" and "The Bear" were also high on the list, and Harrison Ford picked up an acting nomination for "Shrinking."

On this episode, the co-hosts go through some of the notable selections — and snubs — following the release of the nominations. Review the full list below:

Outstanding drama series
"Andor" (Disney+)
"The Diplomat" (Netflix)
"The Last of Us" (HBO Max)
"Paradise" (Hulu)
"The Pitt" (HBO Max)
"Severance" (Apple TV+)
"Slow Horses" (Apple TV+)
"The White Lotus" (HBO Max)
Outstanding comedy series
"Abbott Elementary" (ABC)
"The Bear" (FX)
"Hacks" (HBO Max)
"Nobody Wants This" (Netflix)
"Only Murders in the Building" (Hulu)
"Shrinking" (Apple TV+)
"The Studio" (Apple TV+)
"What We Do in the Shadows" (FX)
Outstanding limited or anthology series
"Adolescence" (Netflix)
"Black Mirror" (Netflix)
"Dying for Sex" (FX)
"Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story" (Netflix)
"The Penguin" (HBO Max)
Outstanding television movie
"Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy" (Peacock)
"The Gorge" (Apple TV+)
"Mountainhead" (HBO Max)
"Nonnas" (Netflix)
"Rebel Ridge" (Netflix)
Outstanding reality competition program
"The Amazing Race" (CBS)
"RuPaul's Drag Race" (MTV)
"Survivor" (CBS)
"Top Chef" (Bravo)
"The Traitors" (Peacock)
Outstanding talk series
"The Daily Show" (Comedy Central)
"Jimmy Kimmel Live!" (ABC)
"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" (CBS)
Outstanding scripted variety series
"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" (HBO Max)
"Saturday Night Live" (NBC)
Outstanding variety special (live)
"The Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show Starring Kendrick Lamar" (Fox)
"Beyoncé Bowl" (Netflix)
"The Oscars" (ABC)
"SNL50: The Anniversary Special" (NBC)
"SNL50: The Homecoming Concert" (Peacock)
Outstanding variety special (pre-recorded)
"Adam Sandler: Love You" (Netflix)
"Ali Wong: Single Lady" (Netflix)
"Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years" (Hulu)
"Conan O'Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize For American Humor" (Netflix)
"Sarah Silverman: Postmortem" (Netflix)
"Your Friend, Nate Bargatze" (Netflix)
Outstanding game show
"Celebrity Family Feud" (ABC)
"Jeopardy" (ABC)
"The Price is Right" (CBS)
"Wheel of Fortune" (ABC)
"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" (ABC)
Outstanding lead actress in a drama series
Kathy Bates, "Matlock"
Sharon Horgan, "Bad Sisters"
Britt Lower, "Severance"
Bella Ramsey, "The Last of Us"
Keri Russell, "The Diplomat"
Outstanding lead actor in a drama series
Sterling K. Brown, "Paradise"
Gary Oldman, "Slow Horses"
Pedro Pascal, "The Last of Us"
Adam Scott, "Severance"
Noah Wyle, "The Pitt"
Outstanding lead actress in a comedy series
Uzo Aduba, "The Residence"
Kristen Bell, "Nobody Wants This"
Quinta Brunson, "Abbott Elementary"
Ayo Edebiri, "The Bear"
Jean Smart, "Hacks"
Outstanding lead actor in a comedy series
Adam Brody, "Nobody Wants This"
Seth Rogen, "The Studio"
Jason Segel, "Shrinking"
Martin Short, "Only Murders in the Building"
Jeremy Allen White, "The Bear"
Outstanding lead actress in a limited or anthology series or movie
Cate Blanchett, "Disclaimer"
Meghann Fahy, "Sirens"
Rashida Jones, "Black Mirror"
Cristin Milloti, "The Penguin"
Michelle Williams, "Dying for Sex"
Outstanding lead actor in a limited or anthology series or movie
Colin Farrell, "The Penguin"
Stephen Graham, "Adolescence"
Jake Gyllenhaal, "Presumed Innocent"
Brian Tyree Henry, "Dope Thief"
Cooper Koch, "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story"
Outstanding supporting actress in a drama series
Patricia Arquette, "Severance"
Carrie Coon, "The White Lotus"
Katherine LaNasa, "The Pitt"
Julianne Nicholson, "Paradise"
Parker Posey, "The White Lotus"
Natasha Rothwell, "The White Lotus"
Aimee Lou Wood, "The White Lotus"
Outstanding supporting actor in a drama series
Zach Cherry, "Severance"
Walton Goggins, "The White Lotus"
Jason Isaacs, "The White Lotus"
James Marsden, "Paradise"
Sam Rockwell, "The White Lotus"
Tramell Tillman, "Severance"
John Turturro, "Severance"
Outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series
Liza Colón-Zayas, "The Bear"
Hannah Einbinder, "Hacks"
Kathryn Hahn, "The Studio"
Janelle James, "Abbott Elementary"
Catherine O'Hara, "The Studio"
Sheryl Lee Ralph, "Abbott Elementary"
Jessica Williams, "Shrinking"
Outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series
Ike Barinholtz, "The Studio"
Colman Domingo, "The Four Seasons"
Harrison Ford, "Shrinking"
Jeff Hiller, "Somebody Somewhere"
Ebon Moss-Bachrach, "The Bear"
Michael Urie, "Shrinking"
Bowen Yang, "Saturday Night Live"
Outstanding supporting actress in a limited or anthology series or movie
Erin Doherty, "Adolescence"
Ruth Negga, "Presumed Innocent"
Deirdre O'Connell, "The Penguin"
Chloë Sevigny, "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story"
Jenny Slate, "Dying for Sex"
Christine Tremarco, "Adolescence"
Outstanding supporting actor in a limited or anthology series or movie
Javier Bardem, "Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story"
Bill Camp, "Presumed Innocent"
Owen Cooper, "Adolescence"
Rob Delaney, "Dying for Sex"
Peter Sarsgaard, "Presumed Innocent"
Ashley Walters, "Adolescence"
Outstanding guest actress in a drama series
Jane Alexander, "Severance"
Gwendoline Christie, "Severance"
Kaitlyn Dever, "The Last of Us"
Cherry Jones, "The Handmaid's Tale"
Catherine O'Hara, "The Last of Us"
Merritt Wever, "Severance"
Outstanding guest actor in a drama series
Giancarlo Esposito, "The Boys"
Scott Glenn, "The White Lotus"
Shawn Hatosy, "The Pitt"
Joe Pantoliano, "The Last of Us"
Forest Whitaker, "Andor"
Jeffrey Wright, "The Last of Us"
Outstanding guest actress in a comedy series
Olivia Colman, "The Bear"
Jamie Lee Curtis, "The Bear"
Cynthia Erivo, "Poker Face"
Robby Hoffman, "Hacks"
Zoë Kravitz, "The Studio"
Julianne Nicholson, "Hacks"
Outstanding guest actor in a comedy series
Jon Bernthal, "The Bear"
Bryan Cranston, "The Studio"
Dave Franco, "The Studio"
Ron Howard, "The Studio"
Anthony Mackie, "The Studio"
Martin Scorsese, "The Studio"
Outstanding directing for a drama series
"Andor," Janus Metz ("Who Are You?")
"The Pitt," Amanda Marsalis ("6 P.M.")
"The Pitt," John Wells ("7 A.M.")
"Severance," Jessica Lee Gagné ("Chikhai Bardo")
"Severance," Ben Stiller ("Gold Harbor)
"Slow Horses," Adam Randall ("Hello Goodbye")
"The White Lotus," Mike White ("Amor Fati")
Outstanding directing for a comedy series
"The Bear," Ayo Edebiri ("Napkins")
"Hacks," Lucia Aniello ("A Slippery Slope")
"Mid-Century Modern," James Burrows ("Here's To You, Mrs. Schneiderman")
"The Rehearsal," Nathan Fielder ("Pilot's Code")
"The Studio," Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg ("The Oner")
Outstanding directing for a limited or anthology series or movie
"Adolescence," Philip Barantini
"Dying for Sex," Shannon Murphy ("It's Not That Serious")
"The Penguin," Helen Shaver ("Cent'anni")
"The Penguin," Jennifer Getzinger ("A Great or Little Thing")
"Sirens," Nicole Kassell ("Exile")
"Zero Day," Leslie Linka Glatter
Outstanding writing for a drama series
"Andor," Dan Gilroy ("Welcome to the Rebellion")
"The Pitt," Joe Sachs ("2 P.M.")
"The Pitt," R. Scott Gemmill ("7 A.M.")
"Severance," Dan Erickson ("Cold Harbor")
"Slow Horses," Will Smith ("Hello Goodbye")
"The White Lotus," Mike White ("Full-Moon Party")
Outstanding writing for a comedy series
"Abbott Elementary," Quinta Brunson ("Back To School")
"Hacks," Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky ("A Slippery Slope")
"The Rehearsal," Nathan Fielder, Carrie Kemper, Adam Lock-Norton and Eric Notarnicola ("Pilot's Code")
"Somebody Somewhere," Hanna Bos, Paul Thureen and Bridget Everett ("AGG")
"The Studio," Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Peter Huyck, Alex Gregory and Frida Perez ("The Promotion")
"What We Do in the Shadows," Sam Johnson, Sarah Naftalis and Paul Simms ("The Finale")
Outstanding writing for a limited or anthology series or movie
"Adolescence," Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham
"Black Mirror," Charlie Brooker and Bisha K. Ali ("Common People")
"Dying for Sex," Kim Rosenstock and Elizabeth Meriwether ("Good Value Diet Soda")
"The Penguin," Lauren LeFranc ("A Great or Little Thing")
"Say Nothing," Joshua Zetumer ("The People in the Dirt")
Outstanding writing for a variety series
"The Daily Show"
"Last Week Tonight with John Oliver"
"Saturday Night Live"

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"Roots," which debuted in 1977 and had several spinoffs, is the most notable dramatic miniseries to tackle the topic of slavery.

Now, Hulu hopes for similar success with "Washington Black," a drama based on the novel of the same name that traces the life of a boy from Barbados to Nova Scotia in the 1800s.

"This is Us" star Sterling K. Brown is a producer on the project and also co-stars as Medwin Harris. Ernest Kingsley Jr. plays George Washington Black, while Eddie Karanja plays the younger version of the character.

In this episode, here from Kranja, who recently spoke with co-host Bruce Miller.

We also chat about a new reality show "Back to the Frontier" as well as briefly discuss Universal's disappointing new theme park.

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Is it safe to get into the water? If "Jaws" taught us anything, it was to be cautious of your surroundings before going for a swim.

The Steven Spielberg film is generally considered to be the first big summer blockbuster film, and it celebrates its 50th anniversary this summer.

"Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story" looks at how the film changed movies and is the only documentary that includes the particpation of Spielberg. In this episode, co-host Bruce Miller talks with director Laurent Bouzereau, who shares his thoughts on the documentary and the history of "Jaws."

The show also touches on some of this summer's big blockbusters, ranging from "F1" to "Jurrassic World: Rebirth" to "Superman."

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The fourth season of "The Bear" has finally arrived, and it's one you'll not want to miss.

Co-host Bruce Miller got access to all episodes before they dropped on Hulu, and the dramatic comedy that is more drama than comedy, has its lighter moments while tugging at your emotions.

Then there is the latest entry in the "28 Days Later" film series, this time advancing the post-apocalyptic zombie-horror franchise "28 Years Later." Miller shares his thoughts on the film and its young breakout star, Alfie Williams.

Lastly, there is a new show on Amazon's Prime Video that drops July 9. A spinoff of the show "Bosch," "Ballard" stars Maggie Q, John Carroll Lynch and Courtney Taylor. Miller has interviews with them all.

Programming note: The show will take a short break for the July 4 holiday, but will return the week of July 13.

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Weddings can be stressful for all involved. Add in an international spy mission, and things get even crazier.

Rebel Wilson and Anna Camp, who starred together in "Pitch Perfect," team up again in the action comedy "Bride Hard," where Rebel Wilson comes up short as the maid of honor but is called upon to save the day when mercenaries crash the wedding.

In this episode, co-host Bruce Miller catches up with both Wilson and Camp to talk about the movie and weddings. The film also stars Anna Chlumsky, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Stephen Dorff and Justin Hartley.

Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz also chat about the new HBO documentary "Pee-wee as Himself," and other new movies.

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While drive-in theaters are few and far between these days, there are still ways to catch a movie in a unique venue.

Such is the case with the famous Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre, which has a "Film on the Rocks" series each summer. Co-host Terry Lipshetz shares his thoughts on seeing "2001: A Space Odyssey" at Red Rocks during a recent trip to Denver.

Co-host Bruce Miller also previews the Emmy Awards nominations, which are due out soon and some of the shows that might load up the nominations, such as "The Pitt," "The White Lotus," "Nobody Wants This" and "Andor."

The hosts also talke the 50th anniversary of "Jaws" and the new trailers for "Wicked: For Good" and "Alien: Earth."

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It's not unusual for real-life experiences to serve as an inspiration for a movie.

That's the case with "I Don't Understand You," a collaboration between David Joseph Craig and Brian Crano, who wrote and directed the comedy horror starring Nick Kroll, Andrew Rannells and Morgan Spector.

In this episode, hear from the directors and what led them to make the film, as well as both Kroll and Rannells.

Speaking of horror, Stephen King has long been king of the genre, but some of his less-than-scary stories have made for some great film adaptations, such as "Stand By Me" and "The Shawshank Redeption." The latest, "The Life of Chuck" starring Tom Hiddleston, is gaining a lot of buzz as one of the top films so far this year.

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The second season of "The Last of Us" ended on a cliffhanger. "The Handmaid's Tale" ended after six seasons, but there is more on the way with a spinoff planned. And for "Mission: Impossible," the U.S. franchise that may have overtaken James Bond in the spy-thriller genre, "The Final Reckoning" provided a way to bid the characters farewell.

With summer nearly here, we bid farewell to the fall/winter television season, chat up those two series, look to the future of "The Last of Us" and offer thoughts on Tom Cruise's final "Mission." (Or will Ethan Hunt return in the future?) We also look at some of the big trailers for upcoming films, including a reboot of a comedy franchise and how it addresses a controversial actor.

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When it comes to theater, New York is the place to be for the biggest shows and stars.

While many actors spend careers working in theater, dramas and musicals also offer Hollywood's biggest stars an opportunity to mix things up.

Take the current run of "Othello," starring Academy Award winner Denzel Washington and Oscar-nominee Jake Gyllenhaal.

George Clooney is performing in "Good Night, and Good Luck," an adaptation of the Oscar-nominated film he co-wrote and directed.

There's also "Smash," which is a musical adaptation of the TV series.

In this week's episode, co-host Bruce Miller talks about his love for the theater and what he plans to see during a week-long trip to New York.

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It wasn't long ago when summer was a time for nonstop action, everything from "Speed" to "Die Hard."

There are still plenty of action movies like the next "Mission: Impossible" film along with a new installment in the "Jurassic Park" franchise, but many of the annual entries are tied to comic books and other longstanding franchises.

What about new entries into the field? In this episode we talk with Katee Sackhoff, who stars in the new action movie "Fight or Flight," as well as the film's director James Madigan. Sackhoff is no stranger to the action genre, having been involved with several "Star Wars" programs from Disney+.

And with action movies, come big stunts. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recently announced that a new Oscar category will be introduced for the 100th Academy Awards: Achievement in Stunt Design. We talk about what that means and whether mainstream actors like Tom Cruise could find a new pathway to an Oscar.

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Hollywood's biggest stars don't need a side hustle. They get to pick and choose projects and enjoy time off when not working.

But what about the typical actor not named Tom Cruise or Scarlett Johansson?

Some will get steady work on cruise ships, which can be a good way to get the experience needed for bigger opportunities. But there are other gigs ranging from life coach to florist to personal trainer.

On this episode, we talk about the ups and downs of acting, which isn't as glamorous as it may appear.

We also talk about "The Accountant 2," which is now in theaters and the huge background cast involved.

And one of the biggest movies in theaters right now is 20 years old — the re-release of "Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith."

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Who doesn't like going to the movie theater for a night out? It can be a lot of fun, but what about the people who like to chat?

Has anyone ever spilled popcorn or soda on you? What about a crying kid?

There are some distractions here and there, and on this week's episode we talk about what bugs us most.

We also dive into what we do like and what we want to see added to the overall experience.

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With the Primetime Emmy Awards deadline coming on May 31, a rush of new seasons and shows are hitting networks and streaming platforms.

Following the recent conclussion of strong seasons from Emmy favorites "The Pitt," "Severance" and "The White Lotus," streamers have recently dropped shows including:

"Andor" on Disney+.
"The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu.
"Dying for Sex" on Fx for Hulu.
"The Last of Us" on Max.
"Your Friends & Neighbors" on Apple TV+.
"MobLand" on Paramount+.
"The Residence" on Netflix.
"The Studio" on Apple TV+.

Another new show is "The Bondsman" on Amazon Prime Video. Co-host Bruce Miller chats with Beth Grant and Jolene Purdy, who star in the show anchored by Kevin Bacon and Jennifer Nettles.

And to close the show, the hosts chat briefly about "Warfare," the new film from Alex Garland that includes a number of notable television faces, including "Shogun" star Cosmo Jarvis.

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Disney+ has a pair of show returning with new seasons in "Dr. Who" and "Andor." These are among the upcoming highlights for fans of science fiction.

On this episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk those shows and other science fiction highlights on the way. Miller also shares his interview with Ncuti Gatwa, who plays the 15th Doctor in the series, as well as Varada Sethu, who is not only on "Dr. Who" but "Andor" as well.

Additionally, May 4 is considered Star Wars Day — May the 4th be with you! — and for the day a third miniseries of short animated episodes in the style of the "Clone Wars" series is on the way: "Star Wars: Tales of the Underworld."

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The final season of 'The Handmaid's Tale' arrives, more than two years after the conclusion of the fifth season.

While the show aims to wrap the story of June Osborne, fans of the show do have more to look forward to as a spinoff series based on Margaret Atwood's novel "The Testaments" has been given the green light.

While no launch date has been given, we know that at least one actor — Ann Dowd who portrayed Aunt Lydia — will return.

For now, fans will get to enjoy one last stretch of 10 episodes. In this episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz will talk about the final season and share thoughts about the series as a whole.

Miller also shares interviews he had with Max Minghella (Commander Nick Blaine) and newcomer Josh Charles, Amanda Brugel (Rita Blue) and Madeline Brewer (Janine Lindo), and series creator Bruce Miller. (Yes, Bruce Miller talks with Bruce Miller.)

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Easter is nearly here, which makes the timing right for the latest season of "The Chosen," a series that looks at the life of Jesus.

The Amazon Prime Video series, which makes its debut in theaters before moving to streaming, is an interesting model for shows that bridges the gap between the formats.

Besides that, the Max's medical drama "The Pitt" will wrap soon, as does "The White Lotus." But as those wrap, season 2 of "The Last of Us" is about to return.

The final season of "The Handmaid's Tale" comes to Hulu in April. And Pierece Brosnan and Helen Mirren team up in "MobLand" on Netflex.

Learn more about those shows and others on this episode.

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While the 2024 summer movie lineup felt a little flat, a number of franchises — along with a few newcomers — should have film fans heading to theaters this summer.

"Superman," "Jurassic Park" and even "The Karate Kid" are in the mix, along with the final (unlikely) installment in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss what is on the way and which films have them most excited.

Here is Miller's breakdown of the biggest movies:

APRIL

A MINECRAFT MOVIE (April 4) – At long last, a movie. Jack Black and Jason Momoa star as Steve and Garrett.

THE AMATEUR (April 11) – A decoder (Rami Malek) decides to take matters into his own hands when the CIA won’t investigate a terrorist attack that claimed his wife. Rachel Brosnahan (the star of summer) co-stars.

WARFARE (April 11) – Familiar faces turn up as soldiers embedded with an Iraqi family. Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland wrote and directed this “verite” look at war.

DROP (April 11) – How’s this for a first date: You get messages during dinner that says you’ve got to do something about the man across the table. Like kill him. Meghann Fahy and Brandon Sklenar star.

SNEAKS (April 18) – A designer sneaker (no kidding, a shoe) has to find his sister after she has been stolen by a collector. Bringing a ragtag band of shoes together, he heads to New York to move in for the kill. Yup, it’s animated.

SINNERS (April 18) – Just when you thought those Gothic vampires had gone under, Ryan Coogler pops up with drama about twin brothers who return to their home to deal with things that are fang-tastic.

THE RITUAL (April 18) – Al Pacino gets involved in an exorcism. (And to think he could have done this back in the 1970s.)

PRIDE & PREJUDICE (April 20) – Yup, this has been done before. But it has a blue-chip crowd of actors telling the Jane Austen story. Keira Knightley and Judi Dench star.

THE ACCOUNTANT 2 (April 25) Ben Affleck returns as the crime solver. This time, he’s looking for the person who killed an acquaintance. He calls on his brother (Jon Bernthal) to help.

MAY

THUNDERBOLTS* (May 2) – With the Avengers out of commission there’s a need for superheroes to do the government’s bidding. Unfortunately, they’re not exactly the cream of the crop, nor are they particularly united. Sebastian Stan, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Florence Pugh star.

ROMEO & JULIET (May 9) – Rebel Wilson, Jason Isaacs, Dan Fogler and the Ruperts (Graves and Everett) try their hands at a different version of the classic. Like “Moulin Rouge,” it uses modern music.

CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD (May 9) – As much as Frendo might seem like a nice guy, he could be behind a series of teen disappearances. Set in the Midwest, it might be that “Children of the Corn” sequel you were seeking.

HURRY UP TOMORROW (May 16) -- Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan in this story of a musician who just can’t sleep.

LILO & STITCH (May 23) – Disney’s gameplan: If an animated film is successful, turn it into a live-action one. If a live-action one works, try animation. That’s what’s behind this live-action version of the E.T.-like bonding between a Hawaiian girl and an alien. Maia Kealoha plays Lilo.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – THE FINAL RECKONING (May 23) – For those of you who forgot, there was a second part to “Dead Reckoning,” the last “Mission: Impossible” film. Here, Tom Cruise gets to go to even more locations to hang from dangerous buildings/mountains/you name it in an effort to fight the Entity. In case you don’t remember a thing, look at the first film and you’ll be just as confused.

KARATE KID: LEGENDS (May 30) – Ralph Macchio gets back to business in this look at a troubled kid and a karate competition.

JUNE

FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK: BALLERINA (June 6) – How do you get John Wick back in a film? You back things up and tell a side story. In this case, it’s the training of Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas). Yup, Keanu makes an appearance.

THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME (June 6) – Wes Anderson gets Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks and Jeffrey Wright back together for a story about a rich man, his daughter and her tutor.

THE MATERIALISTS (June 13) – A New York matchmaker has a little fence mending of her own to do. Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans star. Celine Song writes, directs and stars.

ELIO (June 13) – In this Pixar film, a kid gets beamed up to Communiverse, an interplanetary organization where he’s expected to deliver.leads the charge

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (June 13) – A live-action version of the popular film is being released just in time for Universal Studios’ newest theme park to open. There, you, too, can ride dragons and discover what matters most.

28 YEARS LATER (June 20) – The world is still in a mess (even after “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later”). A virus has wiped out a lot of the population and, yup, even Oscar winners like Cillian Murphy have to go to work to stop it.

F1 (June 25) – Brad Pitt gets his own need for speed in this drama about a Formula One has-been who has to get back on track. From the folks who did “Top Gun: Maverick,” it has all the hallmarks of a summer blockbuster. Load up the popcorn.

MEGAN 2.0 (June 27) – Hello dolly. She’s back, this time to prove a new version can have just as many glitches as the original

JULY

JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH (July 2) -- Before that Jurassic Park unleashed a dinosaur world on the planet, there was a research island where some creatures still roam. If scientists can get a bit of the DNA, they might be able to solve some medical mysteries. Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey lead the charge (expect a trilogy).

SUPERMAN (July 11) – David Corenswet gets to don the tights in this reboot from James Gunn. Nicholas Hoult plays Lex Luthor, Rachel Brosnahan is Lois Lane. The real scene-stealer, though, is Mutt Krypto, a dog that gets to fly through the air with the greatest of ease.

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (July 18) – The gang is back in this revisit to the land of the hook-wielding maniac.

SMURFS (July 18) – They’re back, but now Papa Smurf is missing and the others have to find him. John Goodman plays the patriarch.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS (July 25) – Try, try again. That’s the case with the Fantastic Four. Now, with new actors in the roles, Marvel is hoping something will stick. Pedro Pascal leads the charge as Mr. Fantastic.

SEPTEMBER

SAW XI (Sept. 26) – This is getting to be “Friday the 13th” ridiculous. We’re up to the 11th torture film, now with new methods of madness.

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Game shows have come a long way since the early days of television.“Deal or No Deal Island” from NBC is back for its second season and continues the traditional with the modern.

In this week's episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk reality game shows and Miller share an interview with "Deal or No Deal Island" host Joe Manganiello.

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The 97th Academy Awards on March 2 marked the end of the awards season for 2024's best movies, actors and more. With few surprises as the winners largely lined up with predictions we made during last week's show, we focused this episode on the Conan O'Brien-hosted show.

What did we like? What didn't we enjoy? How did O'Brien do as a host? Find out on this week's episode!

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Hollywood's biggest night is almost here. But which actors and films will be hoisting Oscars this year?

“The Brutalist,” “Conclave” and “Anora” are among the films that could have big nights, but there has not been a consensus among critics and several races are too close to call.

In this week's episode, longtime critic and host Bruce Miller makes his picks in the biggest categories and co-host Terry Lipshetz goes through the list of picks from the Hollywood Reporter to see how the two compare.

The 97th Academy Awards will air live on Sunday, March 2, starting at 7 p.m. ET. It will air on ABC and Hulu. The Oscars Red Carpet Show will air at 6:30 p.m. ET. Conan O'Brien is hosting.

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We've talked about the 50th season of "Saturday Night Live" previously, but the iconic show finally celebrated with an anniversary special.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz share their thoughts about the skits, musical guests from Paul Simon to Miley Cyrus to Paul McCartney, returning hosts and cast members like Steve Martin, Bill Murray and Tom Hanks, and special guests like the the surprise appearance of Jack Nicholson.

They also talk about the musical special and the re-airing of the very first episode of the show from 1975.

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"The White Lotus," HBO's breakout hit of 2021 was originally billed as a limited series. But here we are, back again for a third trip of what has become a popular anthology.

While Jennifer Coolidge bridged the casts between season 1 and 2, Natasha Rothwell reprises her season 1 role as the lone holdover from a previous season.

Leslie Bibb, Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Parker Posey and Patrick Schwarzenegger are among the actors making up the ensemble cast.

Co-host Bruce Miller has previewed a good chunk of the season and raves about what viewers will see starting weekly on Feb. 16. The eight-episode season is scheduled to conlcude on April 6.

In other news, we share our victory in the 2025 Iowa Better Newspaper Contest, talk about the Critics Choice Awards and co-host Terry Lipshetz raves about "Saturday Night" in advance of the big "SNL 50" special coming this weekend.

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Sitcoms have a shorter lifespan than in the past, which means syndication has changed. What does that mean for the stars of comedies?

Obviously, big stars like Jerry Seinfeld can do what they like after a massive hit like "Seinfeld" goes off the air.

But for a star like Billy Gardell, who has found success on shows like "BOB❤️ABISHOLA" and "Mike & Molly," it means picking up work along the line and even getting back on the road to do standup comedy.

In this episode, co-hosts Terry Lipshetz and Bruce Miller talk life afer sitcoms. Bruce shares an interview with Gardell, and Terry talks running into Rhea Perlman of "Cheers" fame.

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"Emilia Pérez" led all films with 13 Oscar nominations, but is it the film to beat?

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss the nominees in the biggest categories of the 97th Academy Awards, which will be broadcast on March 2.

Other top films include "The Brutalist" and "Wicked," which were nominated in 10 categories, and "A Complete Unknown" and "Conclave," each of which received eight nominations.

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When it comes to Bob Dylan, the lines between fact and fiction often blur. The iconic singer, songwriter, musician, Oscar winner and Nobel laureate for literature has long been shrouded a bit in mystery, and it always seems he's willing to help fuel his own mythology.

When it comes to the new James Mangold-directed film "A Complete Unknown" that tackles his 1961 arrival in New York up to the moment he plugged in at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the lines between fact and fiction are blurred. And do you know what? That's what makes this movie so much fun.

In this episode of Streamed & Screened, co-host and hardcore music and Dylan fan Terry Lipshetz discusses the film, so of the inconsistencies with reality and how none of it matters.

Bruce Miller also shares interviews with Jayden Bartels and Sam McCarthy, stars of the new Disney+ series "Goosebumps: The Vanishing," which also stars David Schwimmer.

Finally, we talk about the devastating Los Angeles wildfires and what it means for the entertainment industry that is at the start of awards season.

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The calendar has flipped to 2025 and we quickly find ourselves in the middle of awards season. First up were the Golden Globe Awards.

The show, with a looser atmosphere than Oscars and Emmys, celebrates some of the best movies and television shows. More importantly, the awards for films often offer a preview into the thinking of voters ahead of the Academy Awards.

The biggest buzz might be for "The Brutalist," a movie that tops three hours and includes an intermission so viewers can stretch their legs.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz share their thoughts before Bruce shares an interview he had with former college wrestling champion Anthony Robles, whose story has been turned into a feature film called "Unstoppable." "Unstoppable" airs on Prime Video beginning Jan. 16.

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If you were looking for a gream movie to watch in theaters or from the comfort of your couch in 2024 there was no shortage of content. But what films were the best?

In this second of two year-end episodes of Streamed & Screened, hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz go over the best movies of the year, breaking down Bruce's Top 10 list and adding in plenty of other options to catch up on if you need something to watch during the holiday season.

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If you were looking for something to stream in 2024 there was no shortage of content. But what shows were the best?

In this first of two year-end episodes of Streamed & Screened, hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz go over the best shows of the year, breaking down Bruce's Top 10 list and adding in plenty of other options to catch up on if you need something to watch during the holiday season.

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Awards season has arrived in the form of the Golden Globes nominations.

The awards, which honor both movies and television programs, is often viewed as a preview of the upcoming Oscars.

In this week's episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz go over the list, focusing largely on the movies, which tend to shine brightest at the ceremony. But they also take time to review a few of the TV shows, including the great, but rarely funny "The Bear," which is again in the comedy or musical category.

We also have an interview with "Nickel Boys" director RaMell Ross, who spoke with Miller prior to the film receiving a nomination for best drama. Miller also talked with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who starred in the film.

MoviesBest motion picture, comedy or musical“Wicked”; “Anora”; “Emilia Perez”; “Challengers”; “A Real Pain”; “The Substance”

Best motion picture, drama“The Brutalist”; “A Complete Unknown,”; “Conclave”; “Dune: Part Two”; “Nickel Boys;” “September 5”

Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture, musical or comedyJesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”; Hugh Grant, “Heretic”; Gabriel LaBelle, “Saturday Night; Jesse Plemons, “Kinds of Kindness”’ Glen Powell, “Hitman”; Sebastian Stan, “A Different Man”

Best performance by a female actor in a motion picture, musical or comedyAmy Adams, “Nightbitch”; Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”; Karla Sofia Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”; Mikey Madison “Anora”; Demi Moore, “The Substance”; Zendaya, “Challengers”

Best performance by a female male actor in a motion picture, dramaPamela Anderson, “The Last Showgirl″; Angelina Jolie, ”Maria”; Nicole Kidman, “Babygirl”; Tilda Swinton, “The Room Next Door”; Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”; Kate Winslet, “Lee”

Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture, dramaAdrien Brody, “The Brutalist”; Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown’; Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”; Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”; Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice’’

Cinematic and box office achievement“Alien: Romulus”; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”; Deadpool & Wolverine”; “Gladiator II”; “Inside Out 2”; “Twisters”; “Wicked”; “The Wild Robot”

Best motion picture, non-English“All We Imagine As Light″; ”Emilia Pérez”; “The Girl With the Needle”; “I’m Still Here”; “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; “Vermiglio”

Best animated film“Flow”; “Inside Out 2”; “Memoir of a Snail”; “Moana 2”; “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”; “The Wild Robot”

Best performance by a female actor in a supporting role in any motion pictureSelena Gomez, ”Emilia Pérez”; Ariana Grande, “Wicked”; Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”; Margaret Qualley, “The Substance”; Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”; Zoe Saldaña, ”Emilia Pérez”

Best performance by a male actor in a supporting role in any motion pictureYura Borisov, “Anora”; Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”; Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”; Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”; Jeremy Strong, ”The Apprentice”; Denzel Washington, “Gladiator II”

Best directorJacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”; Sean Baker, ”Anora”; Edward Berger, “Conclave”; Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”; Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”; Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine As Light”

Best screenplayJacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”; Sean Baker, ”Anora”; Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold, “The Brutalist”; Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”; Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”; Peter Straughan, “Conclave”

Best original scoreVolker Bertelmann, “Conclave”; Daniel Blumberg, “The Brutalist”; Kris Bowers, “The Wild Robot”; Clement Ducol, Camille “Emilia Pérez”; Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, “Challengers”; Hans Zimmer, “Dune: Part Two”

Best original song“Beautiful That Way” from “The Last Showgirl” (music/lyrics by Andrew Wyatt, Miley Cyrus, Lykke Zachrisson); “Compress/Repress” from “Challengers’ (music/lyrics by Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross, Luca Guadagnino; “El Mal” from EL MAL” from “Emilia Pérez” (music/lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille, Jacques Audiard; “Forbidden Road” from ”Better Man″ (music/lyrics by Robbie Williams, Freddy Wexler, Sacha Skarbek); “Kiss the Sky” from “The Wild Robot″ (music/lyrics by Delacey, Jordan K. Johnson, Stefan Johnson, Maren Morris, Michael Pollack, Ali Tamposi); ”Mi Camino″ from “Emilia Pérez” (music/lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille)

TelevisionBest television drama“Shogun”; “The Diplomat”; “Slow Horses”; “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”; “The Day of the Jackal”; “Squid Game”

Best television series, comedy or musical“Abbott Elementary”; “The Bear; “Hacks”; “Nobody Wants This”; “Only Murders in the Building”; “The Gentlemen”

Best performance by a male actor in a television series, dramaDonald Glover, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”; Jake Gyllenhaal, “Presumed Innocent”; Gary Oldman, “Slow Horses”; Eddie Redmayne, “The Day of the Jackal”; Hiroyuki Sanada, “Shogun”; Billy Bob Thornton, “Landman”

Best performance by a female actor in a television series-dramaKathy Bates, “Matlock”; Emma D’Arcy, “House of the Dragon”; Maya Erskine, “Mr. & Mrs. Smith”; Keira Knightley, “Black Doves”; Keri Russell, “The Diplomat”; Anna Sawai, “Shogun”

Best performance by a female actor in a television series-musical or comedyKristen Bell, “Nobody Wants This”; Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”; Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”; Selena Gomez, “Only Murders in the Building”; Kathryn Hahn, “Agatha All Along”; Jean Smart, “Hacks”

Best performance by a male actor in a television series-musical or comedyAdam Brody, “Nobody Wants This”; Ted Danson, “A Man on the Inside”; Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”; Jason Segel, “Shrinking”; Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”; Jeremy All White, “The Bear”

Best television limited series, anthology series or motion picture made for television“Baby Reindeer”; Disclaimer"; “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”; “The Penguin”; “Ripley”; “True Detective: Night Country”

Best performance by a female actor in a limited series, anthology series or a motion picture made for televisionCate Blanchett, “Disclaimer''; Jodie Foster, ”True Detective: Night Country"; Cristin Milioti, “The Penguin''; Sofia Vergara, ”Griselda"; Naomi Watts, “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”; Kate Winslet, “The Regime”

Best performance by a male actor in a limited series, anthology series or a motion picture made for televisionColin Farrell, “The Penguin”; Richard Gadd, “Baby Reindeer”; Kevin Kline, “Disclaimer”; Cooper Koch, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”; Ewan McGregor, “A Gentleman in Moscow”; Andrew Scott, “Ripley”

Best performance by a female actor in a supporting role on televisionLiza Colón-Zayas, “The Bear”; Hannah Einbinder, “Hacks”; Dakota Fanning, “Ripley”; Jessica Gunning, “Baby Reindeer”; Allison Janney, “The Diplomat”; Kali Reis, “True Detective: Night Country”

Best performance by a male actor in a supporting role on televisionTadanobu Asano, “Shogun''; Javier Bardem, “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”; Harrison Ford, “Shrinking”; Jack Lowden “Slow Horses”; Diego Luna, “La Maquina”; Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”

Best performance in stand-up comedy on televisionJamie Foxx, “Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was”; Nikki Glaser, “Nikki Glaser: Someday You'll Die”; Seth Meyers, “Seth Meyers: Dad Man Walking”; Adam Sandler, "Adam Sandler: Love You"; Ali Wong, “Ali Wong: Single Lady”; Ramy Youssef, “Ramy Youssef: More Feelings”

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As movie fans head back to theaters thanks to some huge releases like "Wicked," "Moana 2" and "Gladiator II," we decided to focus this episode on other movies to watch that are flying under the radar but could lead to Oscar nominations.

Demi Moore is getting some buzz for her work on "The Substance." And remember Pamela Anderson from "Baywatch"? She stars in "The Last Showgirl" and could be in consideration for major awards much the same way Mickey Rourke came out of nowhere with "The Wrestler" a decade ago.

Other movies to keep an eye on include "Hard Truths" with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, "Emilia Perez" with Selena Gomez, "The Brutalist" with Adrien Brody and "September 5" with Peter Sarsgaard. Also, be sure to check out "A Different Man" and "The Apprentice," both of which have elevated Sebastian Stan.

In keeping with the theme, co-host Bruce Miller has an interview with Mikey Madison, who stars in another small film with a lot of buzz: "Anora."

And next week we'll dive into another "Nickel Boys," which is getting a lot of buzz for director RaMell Ross. Come back next week for our interview with Ross and more!

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Taylor Sheridan, the creator of "Yellowstone" and its various spinoffs, has yet another new project potentially worth your time.

"Landman" on Paramount+ brings viewers to the world of oil rigs in West Texas. Always able to attract big names, Billy Bob Thornton takes the lead as Tommy Norris. Demi Moore and Jon Hamm also have big roles, while Ali Larter, who has a long list of supporting credits, get a chance to shine as Angela Norris, Tommy's ex-wife.

In this episode, co-host Bruce Miller catches up with Thornton and Larter with a pair of in-depth interviews.

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Patsy Cline was only 30 when she died, but her relatively small catalog of music continues to resonate with music fans for more than six decades.

“Patsy Cline: Walkin’ After Midnight” airs Nov. 22 on PBS and features a host of stars singing songs from Cline’s catalog. In advance of that program, co-host Bruce Miller spoke with Cline's daughter, Julie Fudge.

Bruce also got an early preview of "Wicked: Part I," which hits theaters nationwide on Nov. 22 and is expected to be one of the biggest releases this late fall/early winter season as movie fans return to theaters during the upcoming holidays. Despite a few flaws, notably the unnecessary need to split the movie into two parts, "Wicked" delivers and keeps the magic of Oz alive.

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In what has become the standard playbook for a popular television series, "Yellowstone" was given a slightly longer final season that was ultimately split into two parts separated by a year.

So the final six episodes of Season 5 began dropping weekly beginning Nov. 13 and will conclude the Dutton family saga. Of course, some of the planned spinoffs could extend the narrative in the future.

The show is without Kevin Costner, who departed after the first half of the fifth season. So what does that mean? Host Bruce Miller shares his thoughts as well as interviews with Wes Bentley, who plays Jamie Dutton; Luke Grimes, who plays Kayce Dutton; and Kelsey Asbille, who plays Monica Long Dutton.

Also, be sure to check out the first installment of a new series of articles from Lee Enterprises that looks at real-life connections to the show.

The first article, Fact vs. fiction: A livestock investigator explains the reality not seen on 'Yellowstone,' looks at the real role served by one of Montana's livestock investigators.

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As of this episode's debut, it's still not Halloween and we're weeks away from Thanksgiving. But it's never too early to get into the holiday spirit.

In this week's episode of Streamed & Screened, co-host Bruce Miller shares an interview he had with Tyler Hynes, who adds multiple Hallmark holiday movies to his resume.

Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz talk about the brand Hallmark has built around the movies and they share some of their favorite holiday movies and shows, as well as a few they'd be fine not watching again (yes, we're talking about the "Star Wars" holiday program).

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Remember Disney's "Wizards of Waverly Place," the tween series that featured a young Selena Gomez?

The show lasted four seasons from 2007-2012 and lives on to a new generation through streaming. And now the program joins the latest series to offer a reboot for new generation with "Wizards Beyond Waverly Place." Gomez serves as an executive producer and will guest star along most of the original cast members. But one original cast member — David Henrie — gets top billing as the star of the new show as he revives his character Justin Russo.

Henrie, who is also an executive producer, is back as with a new cast. Russo is a married father now who has been living a normal life until called upon to mentor Billie, a young wizard played by Janice LeAnn Brown.

Co-host Bruce Miller talks with Henrie and Brown about the new Disney+ program.

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Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. Dana Carvey and Mike Myers. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Those are just some of the classic combinations of "Not Ready for Prime Time Players" to star during the 50 seasons of "Saturday Night Live."

And with the start of Season 50, the new movie "Saturday Night" celebrates the launch of NBC's iconic late night sketch comedy program.

On this episode, the co-hosts talk about the new movie which Bruce Miller loves and Terry Lipshetz shares his impressions on the start of the new season. They also discuss some of the top performers in the show's history, which include Eddie Murphy, Gilda Radner and Phil Hartman, among others.

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Back in the 1980s, "The Golden Girls" and "Cocoon" were among the notable titles to feature older actors, but those were certainly not the norm, especially on television with limited channels.

Now, in the age of streaming and the need for more content, actors like Jean Smart ("Hacks"), Kathy Bates ("Matlock"), Harrison Ford ("Shrinking") and Ted Danson ("Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Fargo") continue finding work and remain favorites not only with viewers but with those handing out Emmys.

In this week's episode, the hosts talk about the continued success these actors and others are finding and the reasons behind the trend.

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The entertainment world lost a number of legends recently, including Maggie Smith of "Downton Abbey" and the "Harry Potter" films as well as actor and musician Kris Kristofferson.

We also lost a pair sports icons who dazzled on television screens in baseball great Pete Rose and basketball defensive legend Dikembe Mutombo.

The biggest film debut of the past week might also be the most disappointing — and a likely contender for worst film of the year — in the Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis." Co-host Bruce Miller took one for the team and sat through the film, with few good things to share.

He does rave, however, about one of this falls new programs, "English Teacher," which is the latest in the really good shows to come from FX. Miller also shares an interview with Jenn Lyon, who has breakout role in the show.

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When it comes to "Grotesquerie," there is a lot of mystery surrounding the horror drama that just premiered on FX with episodes heading to Hulu the next day.

The latest series from Ryan Murphy ("Nip/Tuck," "Glee," "American Horror Story," "9-1-1") features Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in some capacity, but the showrunner and the program's stars are not revealing much.

In this episode, co-host Bruce Miller has two sets of interviews, first with Micaela Dimond and Nicholas Chavez, and then with Courtney B. Vance and Raven Goodwin.

Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz then talk about the biggest movie in theaters right now, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" that is a bit underwhelming. The hosts also chat about another sequel, "Transformers One."

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It was another big night for "Shogun" during the main event of the 76th annual Emmy Awards. The program set a single season record for most wins with 18, including best drama series and acting awards for Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai.

"The Bear" also had a big night with four awards, but was snubbed for best comedy as "Hacks" took that honor. As co-host Bruce Miller mentioned, there has been discussion among insiders that "The Bear" should be a drama, not a comedy.

"Baby Reindeer" also wone four awards in the limited series category. Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz share their thoughts, and also look ahead to the future: Can "Shogun" sustain success in a second season? Will "The Bear" become move to the drama category? Can a show like "Only Murders in the Building" finally break out in the comedy category?

And, looking even further ahead, is the new limited series "American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez" an early favorite for an Emmy next year? The show debuted this week and looks at the troubled life of the NFL tight end.

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The Primetime Emmy Awards return Sunday and "Shogun," already with 14 Emmys handed out during the Creative Arts portion, is expected to be the big winner in the drama category, while "The Bear" is favored among comedies.

In this week's episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about the favorites in the big categories as well as possible spoilers when trophies are handed out.

Miller also has an interview with Jeff Bridges and Amy Brenneman about the second season of "The Old Man," which premieres Sept. 12 on FX and will be available on Hulu the next day.

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One of the biggest movies during this sluggish weekend at movie theaters was "Reagan," the life-spanning look at former President Ronald Reagan starring Dennis Quaid in the title role and Penelope Ann Miller as Nancy Reagan.

Co-host Bruce Miller shares his disappointment in the film that simply covers too much ground, while he and co-host Terry Lipshetz reflect on previous films about presidents (real and fictional).

Bruce also has an interview with Leah Thompson of "Back to the Future" fame and Schuyler Fisk, the daughter of Sissy Spacek, who talk about their new Hallmark+ series "The Chicken Sisters," based on the book of the same name. The show premieres Sept. 10.

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Whether it's the current hit "Abbott Elementary" or a classic like "Saved by the Bell," schools have provided a setting for a lot of television shows over the years.

FX has a new program coming Sept. 2 called "English Teacher" that stars series creator Brian Jordan Alvarez. Alvarez plays Evan Marquez, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas, who has to deal with the personal and professional dramas that come with teaching.

On this week's episode, the hosts discuss favorite shows in an educational setting and Bruce Miller shares part of an interview he had with Alvarez.

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It was another big week for a franchise this weekend as “Alien: Romulus” premiered and took the top spot at the box office. While the film came nowhere near “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the film topped $40 million domestic, a respectable number for an R-rated movie.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz both saw the film and shared their thoughts on where the film fits with the others in the franchise that began back in 1979 with “Alien.”

Another horror movie is about to drop, this time on Netflix. The Deliverance, directed by Lee Daniels, got a limited release in theaters and will drop on the streaming service on Aug. 30. The film stars Andra Day, Glenn Close, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Mo'Nique, and is inspired by a true story.

PBS continues to produce programs highlighting the geniuses of Hollywood, and the next is “Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames” that premieres Aug. 27. We have an interview with Lesley Ann Warren, who talks about her experience with Edwards.

Finally, if you watched “Tiger King” — and who didn’t watch it? — then you’ll want to catch the latest documentary from Eric Goode, “Chimp Crazy” on HBO and Max. The four episodes that began dropping weekly on Aug. 18 look at the people raising chimpanzees in captivity, and the efforts by PETA to stop them.

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The news out of Disney's D23 gathering was big, although perhaps a bit unsurprising considering the next wave of releases are new additions to franchises.

The next "Star Wars" series, "Skeleton Crew" is on the way in December and fans got an early look at the 2026 fim "The Mandalorian and Grogu."

The title for 2025 third installment of "Avatar" was revelead: "Avatar: Fire and Ash." And a number of animated favorites are returning with new additions for "Toy Story," "Zootopia," "The Incredibles" and "Frozen." But first, "Moana 2" coming later this year.

There's a bit of a controversy brewing and Hollywood power couple Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively dominate the box office with "Deadpool & Wolverine" and "It Ends with Us." Some fans have compared the two coming out around the same time as this year's "Barbenheimer," but the films aren't quite "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie."

Co-host Terry Lipshetz plans to hit the movies this weekend for the latest installment in the "Alien" franchise: "Alien: Romulus." And Bruce Miller has an interview with The Dog Whisperer himself, Cesar Millan, ahead of the new season of "Cesar Millan: Better Human, Better Dog."

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It seems like a lot of shows are good at keeping us waiting. That's the case with HBO's "House of the Dragon," which just wrapped its second season — with a cliffhanger, of course — and the third season likely won't be back until 2026. The first season premiered in 2022, so it looks like we're on pace for the fourth and final season to come in 2028.

Co-host Terry Lipshetz gives his thoughts on the series after he and Bruce Miller talk about the ongoing Olympics in Paris, and also shares his frustration over shows taking too much time between seasons. While AppleTV+ has a second season of "Silo" coming soon, there are much larger gaps for upcoming second seasons for "Shrinking" and "Severance."

Bruce also talks about the new movie from M. Night Shyamalan, "Trap," and the mixed success the director has had from the breakout "The Sixth Sense" to the more disappointing "The Happening."

We also preview James Cameron's latest project, "OceanXplorers," which is coming to National Geographic on Aug. 18. The miniseries will feature six episodes and the latest project for the Oscar-winning "Titanic" director. Bruce has an interview with Aldo Kane and Eric Stackpole, who talk about the series.

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For two weeks every four years, we find ourselves watching sports we'd never otherwise watch.

On this week's episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about the 2024 Paris Olympics, including the opening ceremonies, the storytelling, gymnastics and swimming, and all the celebrities.

Bruce also offers his review of "Deadpool & Wolverine," and Terry, who is typically anti-Marvel Universe, promises he'll give it a shot.

Terry also shares his thoughts on the new HBO Sports miniseries "Charlie Hustle & The Matter of Pete Rose" as well as "Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants."

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After taking a week off so co-host Bruce Miller could catch up with Hollywood's finest in Los Angeles, the show returns and breaks down the Emmy Nominations.

"Shogun" and "The Bear," a pair of hits for FX, appear to be the favorites in the drama and comedy categories, respectively. But is "The Bear" really a comedy? There's a lot of buzz among voters that it's misplaced. And then there is the Netflix hit "Baby Reindeer," which appears to be the favorite in the limited or anthology series category.

We also have an interview with Mark Umbers in advance of the third season of "Hotel Portofino," which premieres July 28 on PBS.

And, of course, the biggest movie right now is "Twisters," the sequel to the 1996 film "Twister" that stands on its own and is just as good. Co-host Terry Lipshetz took his family to the IMAX theater and was blown away.

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Movie theaters saw a boost in attendance recently, but when you look at which films are leading the way, one thing is obvious: established franchises and sequels are dominating the competition.

Looking at domestic box office numbers as of July 10, "IF" is the only film that does not have established roots. And at No. 10, it could very easily get bumped down by a newer film like "A Quiet Place: Day One," the third installment in the franchise.

"Inside Out 2" has crushed the competition and is the only film to cross $1 billion worldwide this year, with no other competition in sight. So what does the second half of the year look like?

"Twisters" is coming July 17. That's a sequel to the 1996 film "Twister." "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" opens Sept. 4 and returns much of the cast from the 1988 movie. "Joker: Folie à Deux" comes out Oct. 4. Unlike the 2019 film, this one is a musical. "Gladiator II" is due out Nov. 15.

There is also "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Moana 2" and "Wicked," the prequel to "The Wizard of Oz."

Are any of these Oscar-worthy films? Or will the movies that ultimately dominate awards season get little fanfare at the box office and land quickly on streaming services?

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Ready. Set. Binge! "The Bear" is back for season 3, with all 10 episodes dropping on June 27.

Co-host Bruce Miller has already previewed the season, and offers spoiler-free insights (other than we get to see more of Chicago).

Miller also has an interview with Lily Gladstone, who talks about her "new" movie "Fancy Dance." No, this isn't the result of her success in "Killers of the Flower Moon." Just like the Fx/Hulu series "Under the Bridge," this was one of several projects filmed in a short period of time, and "Fancy Dance" premiered at Sundance on Jan. 20, 2023.

He also share an interview with writer/director Erica Tremblay and offers up some other independent films to watch for: "Thelma" and "A Sacrifice."

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This week we seem to have something for everyone.

First, co-hosts Terry Lipshetz and Bruce Miller talk about the return of "House of the Dragon," which recently began Season 2 of the "Game of Thrones" prequel on HBO/Max. And yes, we're off to a bloody start.

The Emmy nominations will be out soon, and one interesting possibility will be the documentary series "Telemarketers," which aired on HBO in 2023. We have an interview with directors Adam Bhala Lough and Sam Lipman-Stern, who dive into the dark side of the telemarketing industry.

Finally, Apple TV+has a new animated series coming June 28 that stars Jeanine Mason and Teri Hatcher. We have interviews with both stars.

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The Television Critics Association announced the nominees for the 40th annual TCA Awards and one of the shows with a lot of nominations and buzz is the Netflix limited series "Baby Reindeer."

The show is based on a real-life stalking situation comic, creator and star Richard Gadd lived through and leads co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz into a discussion about the price of fame.

Disney+ released its latest "Star Wars" series "The Acolyte," and the hosts have mixed thoughts about the program starring Carrie-Anne Moss, who is no stranger to sci-fi franchises having starred in "The Matrix" films.

Finally, we look at some of the shows highlighting the TCA Awards nominations beyond "Baby Reindeer," including "The Bear," "Hacks," "Reservation Dogs," "Ripley" and "Shogun." We also talk about how FX (16 nominations), Netflix (16) and HBO/Max (13) continue to dominate the various awards as network programming continues to struggle.

Speaking of HBO, "House of the Dragon" season 2 drops Sunday, June 16. More on that soon!

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Andrew McCarthy and the Brat Pack are back, but no, they're not getting back into the coming of age movies of the 1980s that made them famous.

"Brats" is the new McCarthy-directed documentary that looks back at the actors that were labeled the "Brat Pack." McCarthy reaches out to the actors and talks with Brat Pack actors like Demi Moore, Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez, as well as Brat Pack adjacent actors like Jon Cryer.

"Brats" premieres June 13 on Hulu, and in this episode co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about the two 1985 films that featured three of the Brat Pack actors that led to the name, "The Breakfast Club" and "St. Elmo's Fire."

They also discuss the films of John Hughes, who directed most of the movies of the era that featured Brat Pack actors of the time. The Hughes films, notably "Sixteen Candles," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink" and "Some Kind of Wonderful," were iconic of the era and gave an opportunity for young actors to shine.

For more on John Hughes, listen to our preview episode: John Hughes classics set stage for 1980s nostalgia in Disney's 'Prom Pact'

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Would you see a musical adaptation of "The Notebook" or "Back to the Future"? Maybe "Water for Elephants" or "The Great Gatsby" is more your thing.

These are just some examples of how movies are now being adapted into musicals, rather than the other way around. Co-host Bruce Miller talks about his recent trip to New York where he spent a week seeing some of the hottest shows on Broadway, plus he shares his experience getting an autograph from Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, after a performance of "Merrily We Roll Along."

And do you remember around this time last year, when films like "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" and "Fast X" were making a splash at the box office? 2024's summer movie season is stumbling after a sluggist opening for "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" over Memorial Day weekend. The family-friendly fim "IF" has struggled. And even this year's box office leader, "Dune: Part Two," has yet to yet to reach $300 million domestic. (You can see the full list at Box Office Mojo.)

We discuss some of the problems facing the industry, most notably the quick move to streaming services.

And finally, the new FX for Hulu limited series "Clipped" begins June 4. It features Ed O'Neill as Donald Sterling, the former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, and Cleopatra Coleman as V. Stiviano. Hear from both stars on this week's episode.

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Documentaries can put viewers into situations they'd never encounter, such as rock climbing in "Free Solo" or big-wave surfing through the HBO series "100 Foot Wave."

"The Blue Angels" brings you inside the cockpit of a U.S. Navy jet and tells the story from the perspective of those that are members of the team.

Co-host Bruce Miller talks about the documentary and shares an interview he had with Greg Wooldridge, the only three-time Boss of the Blue Angels, and director Paul Crowder.

"Garfield" is coming for the kids and action fans will get "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga" for Memorial Day weekend, but there are some concerns about the summer lineup. "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" has done well so far but has not exploded in the way other early blockbusters like last year's "The Super Mario Bros. Movie."

We also talk about "The Jinx: Part Two," which updates the story of real estate heir and convicted killer Robert Durst, "Back to Black," the story of Amy Winehouse, and the latest season of “Bridgerton.”

We look at the career of Jeff Daniels, who has another new series in “A Man in Full,” and chat about the recent end to the 49th season of "Saturday Night Live."

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The curtains eventually fall on every popular television program. Sure, "The Simpsons" is still going strong at 35 seasons and more than 750 episodes, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

"MAS*H" closed with a TV movie. "Newhart" was a dream of Dr. Robert Newhart. "How I Met Your Mother" ended on its own terms, but it's spinoff, "How I Met Your Father" was left unresolved.

Not long after "Curb Your Enthusiasm" wrapped, "Young Sheldon" is another popular program to close this season. We talk about that, have an interview with Montana Jordan who will continue in his role as Georgie Cooper in a spinoff series, and discuss other programs such as "Deadwood," "Mindhunter" and "Cobra Kai."

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"The Fall Guy" with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt underwhelmed at the box office despite favorable reviews and audience scores. Is it a sign of a poor upcoming summer for blockbusters at the box office?

"Unfrosted," Jerry Seinfeld's fictional look at the history of Pop Tarts, is the No. 1 movie on Netflix but has not faired well with viewers or critics.

So maybe the biggest thing to come is the latest series of "Doctor Who," which debuted in 1963 but now finds itself as the newest, biggest show on Disney+. As an added treat, co-host Bruce Miller has an interview with co-stars Ncuti Gatwa, who stars as the Fifteenth Doctor, and Millie Gibson, who plays Ruby Sunday. Miller also talks with showrunner Russel T Davies.

We also look ahead to summer, where "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" is expected to rule.

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Zendaya has come a long way since becoming a favorite of tweens thanks to "Shake It Up" and "K.C. Undercover" on the Disney Channel.

She has starred in the not-PG HBO hit "Euphoria" and has appeared in a pair of "Spider-Man" movies, the two "Dune" films and "The Greatest Showman." Now, Zendaya is starring in the sports drama "Challengers," which has quickly become a hit.

In this week's episode, we talk about the film as well as other movies about tennis, which don't necessarily stack up with other sports features.

Also, would you head into space if given the chance?

Co-host Bruce Miller also has an interview with Dr. Cady Coleman, a former astronaut, and her son, Jamey Simpson. They talk about the problems of separation for astronauts and their families. They’re featured in “Space: The Longest Goodbye,” which airs May 12 on PBS.

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Dulé Hill returns to television after the cancelation of 'The Wonder Years' in a new four-part documentary on PBS, "The Express Way with Dulé Hill." Bruce Miller has an interview with Hill and they talk the arts, including his background in tapdancing.

Elisabeth Moss is back, but not in "The Handmaid's Tale," which remains on hiatus before its final season. Instead, she stars in a new FX/Hulu miniseries, "The Veil." And Jean Smart is also back for the third season of the Max series "Hacks."

Finally, Terry Lipshetz talks about a new show from HGTV that also airs on Max called "Lakefront Empire." It's an oddly addictive show that feels like a mashup between the Netflix drama "Ozark" and the HGTV reality series "House Hunters."

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Things had been relatively quiet, but there are now plenty of options coming to streaming services and in theaters, especially as we get closer to the summer movie season.

In this week's episode, co-host Bruce Miller shares an interview he had with Quinn Shephard and Samir Mehta, producers of "Under the Bridge," a new limited series on Hulu staring Lily Gladstone. It's the first big project for Gladstone, fresh off her Oscar nomination for "Killers of the Flower Moon."

Also on Hulu is a new four-part documentary called, "Thank You Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story." The series looks at the history of the band and includes interviews with Jon Bon Jovi, current and former band members, and Bruce Springsteen. Co-host Terry Lipshetz, who grew up in Jon Bon Jovi's hometown of Sayreville, New Jersey, shares some fun facts including a Star Wars connection.

Another new series is the Amazon Freevee comedy "Dinner with the Parents." The cast includes Carol Kane and Henry Hall, who is the son of Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall.

And the show wraps with a discussion of the buzz surround "Civil War," the new film where the nation has fractured and a team of journalists is covering the war. Kirsten Dunst stars as a photojournalist and Nick Offerman plays the president. And of course, there's Dunst's husband Jesse Plemons stealing the show in an uncredited role.

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Dev Patel's breakthrough as an actor came in "Slumdog Millionaire." He now gets a chance to make his mark as a director with the new action film "Monkey Man" that was also produced by Jordan Peele, another actor-turned-director.

Patel is the latest in a long line of actors that have made the jump into directing. We look at many of the notable actors who have moved behind the camera. In some cases like Warren Beatty, their clout as an actor can help passion projects get made. Clint Eastwood has been a successful evertything, earning acclaim as both an actor and director. Ron Howard left acting to focus on directing. Greta Gerwig and Jon Favreau have both had solid acting careers, often in supporting roles, but have found their footing as writers and directors.

Besides Patel, John Krasinksi, Jerry Seinfeld and Kevin Costner are among the actors with directing efforts on the way.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about the history of actors who have become directors and review some of the success stories.

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You can't escape artificial intelligence these days. From Chat GPT to debates over the use of A.I. to bring deceased actors back into movies or de-age older characters like Harrison Ford in the most recent "Indiana Jones" movie, the technology is here to stay.

What do you think of when A.I. comes to mind? What would you do with it when it comes to the entertainment in your life? In this week's episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about A.I. in movies in TV, and how it could be used in the future as a pair of new shows on the topic: “A.I. Revolution” and a “A Brief History of the Future” drop for viewers.

The program then moves into the 1960s pop act The Cowsills and Miller's recent interview with Bob Cowsill, which includes a discussion of the link between the band and The Partridge Family.

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Jim Henson may have died in 1990, but his memory lives on through a variety of projects, whether it's "The Muppets," "Sesame Street" or the work done through Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

Another popular Henson creation, "Fraggle Rock" is again, this time with the second season of "Fraggle Rock" Back to the Rock" dropping March 29 on Apple TV+.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss the series, share an interview with three people behind the program and discuss the Henson legacy. Also, we share an interview Bruce had with Cookie Monster several years ago.

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We are past the Oscars, which means it's time to turn our attention to what's new and coming soon. And there are a lot of options available.

Up first, we have an interview with Jonathan Sanger, producer of the new film "Cabrini," which is drawing solid reviews from critics and moviegoers alike.

We also catch up with correspondent Miles O'Brien, who talks about the new PBS documentary "NOVA: A.I. Revolution," and what advancements in medicine helped him after he had to have an arm amputed.

Also up for discussion: A very Nebraska-centric teen comedy called "Snack Shack" that should resonate with Gen Xers growing up in the early 1990s. There is also a new program for Apple TV+ starring Kristen Wiig, Carol Burnett and Ricky Martin called "Palm Royale" that debuted March 20.

And we are on "Star Wars" watch as the new trailer for "The Acolyte" dropped on Tuesday. That series takes places before the Skywalker saga most fans know best and offers a new look at the Jedi. The show will debut June 4 with two episodes and brings another series into the fold as "The Bad Batch" wraps in early May.

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The 94th Academy Awards capped off a huge year for Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" as it won best pitcture, best director (Nolan), best actor (Cillian Murphy), best supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.) plus three more for seven total Oscars.

But two other films that were expected to be the biggest challengers fell flat, with "Barbie" and "Killers of the Flower Moon" combining for a single Oscar.

In this special episode of Streamed & Screened, Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz break down the surprises and snubs, talk about host Jimmy Kimmel and the pacing of the show, and even take a slight glance ahead to next year.

94TH ACADEMY AWARDS WINNERS

BEST PICTURE

“Oppenheimer”

BEST ACTRESS

Emma Stone, “Poor Things”

BEST ACTOR

Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

DIRECTOR

Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM

“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

SOUND

“The Zone of Interest,” Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn

ORIGINAL SCORE

“Oppenheimer,” Ludwig Göransson

ORIGINAL SONG

“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie”

VISUAL EFFECTS

“Godzilla Minus One”

FILM EDITING

“Oppenheimer,” Jennifer Lame

DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM

“The Last Repair Shop”

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

“20 Days in Mariupol”

CINEMATOGRAPHY

“Oppenheimer,” Hoyte Van Hoytema

ANIMATED SHORT FILM

“WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko”

ANIMATED FILM

“The Boy and the Heron”

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

“Anatomy of a Fall,” Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

“American Fiction,” Cord Jefferson

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

“Poor Things,” Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston

PRODUCTION DESIGN

“Poor Things,” James Price, Shona Heath and Zsuzsa Mihalek

COSTUME DESIGN

“Poor Things,” Holly Waddington

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

“The Zone of Interest” (United Kingdom)

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On Sunday, an awards season that lumbers to the finish line after 9 months of "Barbenheimer" discussion is expected to end with Christopher Nolan's atomic epic "Oppenheimer" crushing the competition. But will it?

Bruce Miller offers his predictions for each of the major categories while Terry Lipshetz provides predictions based on a analysis from the gambling experts at Bonus Insider. (You can see their full predictions here.)

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about the 96th Academy Awards

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"Queens" isn't the typical wildlife documentary from National Geographic. This time, a female-led company produced a series that focuses on "female power in the natural world."

Narrated by Angela Bassett, the 7-part series "begins March 4 on the National Geographic channel and streams on Disney+ and Hulu beginning March 5.

In this week's episode of Streamed & Screened, co-host Bruce Miller talks about the series, in particular the seventh episode that focuses on the production team. He also has an interview with Sophie Darlington and Faith Musembi from the series.

Next week: We preview the Oscars. Will "Oppenheimer" keep rolling through awards season?

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With the two Hollywood strikes in the rearview mirror, there are a lot of new programs to keep us entertained.

The latest limited series from FX, which will also stream on Hulu, is "Shōgun," which is based on the 1975 novel that was also turned into a 1980 miniseries. This week, co-host Bruce Miller talks with Cosmo Jarvis, who stars in the series.

After that, co-host Terry Lipshetz shares his thoughts on three programs: "Masters of the Air" from Apple TV+ and "True Detective: Night Country" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO.

"Masters of the Air" is the latest World War II epic limited series from Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, who previously brought us "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" and does not disappoint.

"True Detective: Night Country" is the fourth installment in the "True Detective" anthology series that has been a bit uneven at times, particularly season 2. But the latest season, which stars Jodie Foster and Kalie Reis, is a bit tighter with only six episodes and leaves you guessing until the end.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" recently returned for its 12th and final season. How will Larry David wrap up a show that has stretched nearly a quarter century?

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Call it a working vacation. Bruce Miller is back from Los Angeles after a gathering for the Television Critics Association. The journey took him to a variety of sets, including "Abbott Elementary," "9/11" and "Night Court."

Miller shares his experience singing a duet with Jennifer Hudson — yes, that Jennifer Hudson — as well an an interview with Montana Jordan, who plays George "Georgie" Cooper Jr. We include some of that interview with Jordan, who talks about the role and future of the character.

Clarification

In talking about singer Bobi Wine, the subject of the documentary "Bobi Wine: The People's President," co-host Terry Lipshetz mentioned other musicians who entered into politics. Singer Youssou N'Dour was the former Minister of Tourism for his native Senegal. Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett served in a variety of government roles after being elected as a member of Australia's parliament.

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1960s civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X took different approaches in efforts to achieve the same goals. The latest installment of the National Geographic series "Genius" looks at figures in a new way.

"Genius: MLK/X" premieres two episodes each of the first four Thursdays of February for Black History Month on National Geographic. Episodes then become available the next day on Hulu and Disney+.

Bruce Miller talks with Aaron Pierre, who portrays Malcolm X, and Kelvin Harrison Jr., who plays Martin Luther King Jr., as well as producers Gina Prince-Blythewood and Reggie Rock Blythewood.

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Since the Hollywood strikes slowed production, much of what normally would've made up the fall television season has slowly been debuting since the start of the near year.

The list of returning shows includes favorites like "Grey's Anatomy," "The Good Doctor," "Young Sheldon" and "Blue Bloods."

"Masters of the Air," which recently debuted on AppleTV+, is from Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, who were the producers of "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific."

And the latest season of "True Detective" is about halfway through its run on HBO. "True Detective: Night Country" stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss those programs and more, including the Candian comedy "Son of a Critch" that has made its way to American audiences via The CW. Miller has an interview with star and creator Mark Critch.

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“Oppenheimer” appears to be the movie to beat when Oscars are handed out on March 10. The film about the development of the atomic bomb earned 13 nominations for the 96th Academy Awards, followed closely by “Poor Things” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” with 11 each. “Barbie,” an early favorite picked up eight nominations.

On this week’s episode, co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz break down the nominees and discuss the biggest snubs, which includes no best director nomination for Greta Gerwig.

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Nominations for the 96th Academy Awards

Best picture

“American Fiction”
“Anatomy of a Fall”
“Barbie”
“The Holdovers”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Past Lives”
“Poor Things”
“Zone of Interest”

Best actor in a leading role

Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”
Colman Domingo, “Rustin”
Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”
Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”
Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

Best actress in a leading role

Annette Bening, “Nyad”
Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Sandra Hüller, “Anatomy of a Fall”
Carey Mulligan, “Maestro”
Emma Stone, “Poor Things”

Best actor in a supporting role

Sterling K. Brown, “American Fiction”
Robert De Niro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”
Ryan Gosling, “Barbie”
Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”

Best actress in a supporting role

Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”
Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”
America Ferrera, “Barbie”
Jodie Foster, “Nyad”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

Best director

Justine Triet, “Anatomy of a Fall”
Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”
Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest”

Best cinematography

“El Conde”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Best international feature film

“The Teachers’ Lounge,” Germany
“Io Capitano,” Italy
“Perfect Days,” Japan
“Society of the Snow,” Spain
“The Zone of Interest,” United Kingdom

Best adapted screenplay

“American Fiction”
“Barbie”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
“The Zone of Interest”

Best original screenplay

“Anatomy of a Fall”
“The Holdovers”
“Maestro”
“May December”
“Past Lives”

Best live action short film

“The After”
“Invincible”
“Knight of Fortune”
“Red, White and Blue”
“The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”

Best animated short film

“Letter to a Pig”
“Ninety-Five Senses”
“Our Uniform”
“Pachyderme”
“War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko”

Best animated feature film

“The Boy and the Heron”
“Elemental”
“Nimona”
“Robot Dreams”
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”

Best documentary short

“The ABCs of Book Banning”
“The Barber of Little Rock”
“Island In Between”
“The Last Repair Shop”
“Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó”

Best documentary feature film

“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
“The Eternal Memory”
“Four Daughters”
“To Kill a Tiger”
“20 Days in Mariupol”

Best original song

“The Fire Inside” from “Flamin’ Hot”
“I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie”
“It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony”
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” “Killers of the Flower Moon”
“What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie”

Best original score

“American Fiction”
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Best makeup and hairstyling

“Golda”
“Maestro”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”
“Society of the Snow”

Best costume design

“Barbie”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Napoleon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Best editing

“Anatomy of a Fall”
“The Holdovers”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Best sound

“The Creator”
“Maestro”
“Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One”
“Oppenheimer”
“The Zone of Interest”

Best production design

“Barbie”
“Killers of the Flower Moon”
“Napoleon”
“Oppenheimer”
“Poor Things”

Best visual effects

“The Creator”
“Godzilla Minus One”
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
“Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One”
“Napoleon”

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The long-delayed 75th Primetime Emmy Awards finally arrived with shows like "Succession," "The Bear" and "Beef" crushing the competition. But those weren't the only highlights.

The program honored great shows from the past with cast reunions from "Cheers," "All in the Family," "Martin" and "The Sopranos."

And host Anthony Anderson enlisted his mom to keep the acceptance speeches to a minimum and the show on schedule.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz break down the big night and also look ahead to the Oscar nominations that are due out on Jan. 23.

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Primetime Emmy Awards winners

LOS ANGELES (AP) — List of the top winners of the prime-time Emmy Awards.

BEST DRAMA SERIES: “Succession”
BEST COMEDY SERIES: “The Bear”
BEST LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES:L “Beef”
ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Kieran Culkin, “Succession”
ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Sarah Snook, “Succession”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”
ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”
SCRIPTED VARIETY SERIES: “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Niecy Nash-Betts, “Dahmer, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”
REALITY COMPETITION SERIES: “RuPaul’s Drag Race”
TALK SERIES: “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Paul Walter Hauser, Black Bird”
LIVE VARIETY SPECIAL: “Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium”
ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Steven Yeun, “Beef”
ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Ali Wong, “Beef”

More coverage of the Emmys: https://apnews.com/hub/emmy-awards

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The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards are finally here after a four-month delay caused by the actors and writers strikes. And even though the period of eligibility differs, last week's Golden Globes may have offered a glimpse at which shows will dominate when the stars arrive Monday at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz break down the big categories and offer predictions on which shows and actors will be rewarded, although don't be surprised if "Succession" and "The Bear" lead the way. You can watch the show live on Fox at 8 p.m. Eastern or stream it on Hulu the next day.

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The calendar has flipped to 2024 and the a busy awards season begins with the Golden Globes on Sunday, Jan. 7, at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz break down the big categories and offer predictions on which films, shows and actors will be rewarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

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List of 2024 Golden Globe nominees

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — The nominees for next year’s Golden Globe Awards have been announced.

BEST DRAMA MOVIE

“Anatomy of a Fall”; “Killers of the Flower Moon”; “Maestro”; “Oppenheimer”; “Past Lives”; “The Zone of Interest”

BEST MOVIE MUSICAL OR COMEDY

“Air'; American Fiction''; ”Barbie"; “The Holdovers”; “May December”; “Poor Things”

FEMALE ACTOR IN A MOVIE DRAMA

Annette Bening, “Nyad”; Lily Gladstone, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Sandra Huller, “Anatomy of a Fall”; Greta Lee, “Past Lives"; Carey Mulligan, ”Maestro''; Cailee Spaeny, “Priscilla”

ACTOR IN A MOVIE DRAMA

Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”; Leonardo DiCaprio, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Colman Domingo, “Rustin”; Barry Keoghan, “Saltburn”; Cillian Murphy, “Oppenheimer”; Andrew Scott, “All of Us Strangers”

FEMALE ACTOR IN A MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Fantasia Barrino, “The Color Purple”; Jennifer Lawrence, “No Hard Feelings”; Natalie Portman," May December"; Alma Poysti, “Fallen Leaves” Margot Robbie, “Barbie”; Emma Stone, “Poor Things”

ACTOR IN A MUSICAL OR COMEDY

Nicolas Cage, “Dream Scenario”; Timothee Chalamet, “Wonka”; Matt Damon, “Air”; Paul Giamatti, “The Holdovers”; Joaquin Phoenix, “Beau Is Afraid”; Jeffrey Wright, “American Fiction”

FEMALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Emily Blunt, “Oppenheimer”; Danielle Brooks, “The Color Purple”; Jodie Foster, “Nyad”; Julianne Moore, “May December”; Rosamund Pike, “Saltburn”; Da'Vine Joy Randolph, “The Holdovers”

MALE ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

William Dafoe, “Poor Things,”; Robert DeNiro, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Robert Downey Jr., “Oppenheimer”; Rya Gosling, “Barbie”; Charles Melton, “May December”; Mark Ruffalo, “Poor Things”

ANIMATED FILM

"The Boy and the Heron"; “Elemental”; “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”; “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”; “Suzume”; “Wish”

DIRECTOR

Bradley Cooper, “Maestro”; Greta Gerwig, “Barbie”; Yorgos Lanthimos, “Poor Things”; Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”; Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Celine Song, “Past Lives.”

SCORE

“Poor Things”; “Oppenheimer”; “The Boy and the Heron”; “Zone of Interest”; “Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse”; “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

ORIGINAL SONG

“Addicted to Romance“ from ”She Came to Me", music and lyrics by Bruce Springsteen; “Dance the Night'' from ”Barbie", music and lyrics by: Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt, Dua Lipa, Caroline Ailin; “I'm Just Ken'' from ”Barbie'', music and lyrics by Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt; “Peaches'' from ”The Super Mario Bros. Movie" music and lyrics Jack Black, Aaron Horvath, Michael Jelenic, Eric Osmond, John Spiker; “Road to Freedom'' from ”Rustin", music and lyrics by Lenny Kravitz; “What Was I Made For?” from "Barbie'', music and lyrics by Billie Eilish O’Connell, Finneas O’Connell.

BEST SCREENPLAY

Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, “Barbie”; Tony McNamara, "Poor Things"; Christopher Nolan, “Oppenheimer”; Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese, “Killers of the Flower Moon”; Celine Song, “Past Lives”; Justine Triet, Arthur Harari, “Anatomy of a Fall”

BEST MOTION PICTURE NON-ENGLISH

“Anatomy of a Fall" (France); ”Fallen Leaves" (Finland); “Io Capitano” (Italy); “Past Lives” (USA); “Society of the Snow” (Spain); “The Zone of Interest” (United Kingdom/USA)

CINEMATIC AND BOX OFFICE ACHIEVEMENT

“Barbie”; “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3”; 'John Wick: Chapter 4"; “Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1”; “Oppenheimer”; “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse”; “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”; “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour”

TELEVISION DRAMA SERIES

“Succession”; “1923”; “The Last of Us”; “The Morning Show”; “The Diplomat”; “The Crown”

TELEVISION COMEDY SERIES

“Ted Lasso”; “Abbott Elementary”; “The Bear”; “Barry”; “Only Murders in the Building”; “Jury Duty”

LIMITED SERIES, ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

All the Light We Cannot See”; “Beef”; “Daisy Jones & the Six”; “ ”Fargo”; “Fellow Travelers″; ”Lessons in Chemistry”

FEMALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION DRAMA

Helen Mirren, “1923”; Bella Ramsey, “The Last of Us”; Keri Russell, “The Diplomat”; Sarah Snook, “Succession”; Imelda Staunton, “The Crown”; Emma Stone, “The Curse”

MALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION DRAMA

Brian Cox, “Succession”; Kieran Culkin, “Succession”; Gary Oldman, “Slow Horses”; Pedro Pascal, “The Last of Us”; Jeremy Strong, “Succession”; Dominic West, “The Crown".

FEMALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION COMEDY

Rachel Brosnahan, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”; Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”; Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”; Elle Fanning, “The Great”; Selena Gomez, “Only Murders in the Building”; Natasha Lyonne, “Poker Face.

MALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION COMEDY

Bill Hader, “Barry”; Steve Martin, “Only Murders in the Building”; Jason Segel, “Shrinking”; Martin Short, “Only Murders in the Building”; Jason Sudeikis, “Ted Lasso”; Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear"

FEMALE ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES, ANTHOLOGY SERIES, OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Riley Keough, “Daisy Jones & The Six”; Brie Larson, “Lessons in Chemistry”; Elizabeth Olsen, “Love & Death”; Juno Temple, “Fargo”; Rachel Weisz, “Dead Ringers”; Ali Wong, “Beef"

ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES, ANTHOLOGY SERIES, OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

Matt Bomer, “Fellow Travelers”; Sam Claflin, “Daisy Jones & The Six”; Jon Hamm, “Fargo''; Woody Harrelson, ”White House Plumbers"; David Oyelowo, “Lawmen: Bass Reeves”; Steven Yeun, “The Beef"

SUPPORTING FEMALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES

Elizabeth Debicki, “The Crown”; Abby Elliott, “The Bear”; Christina Ricci, “Yellowjackets”; J. Smith-Cameron, “Succession”; Meryl Streep, “Only Murders in the Building”; Hannah Waddingham, “Ted Lasso”

SUPPORTING MALE ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES

Billy Crudup, “The Morning Show”; Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”; James Marsden, “Jury Duty”; Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”; Alan Ruck, “Succession”; Alexander Skarsgård, “Succession"

STAND-UP COMEDY TELEVISION SPECIAL

Ricky Gervais, “Armageddon”; Trevor Noah, “Where Was I”; Chris Rock, “Selective Outrage”; Amy Schumer, “Emergency Contact”; Sarah Silverman, “Someone You Love”; Wanda Sykes, “I’m an Entertainer”

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We here at Streamed & Screened watched a lot of shows on broadcast, cable and streaming services in 2023 and there were a lot of great programs including "Succession," "Beef," "The Bear," "Fargo" and "The Last of Us."

But which show was the best? Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz had a lot of crossovers but ultimately put two different shows on top. Give a listen and find out which shows ranked in the top 10 for each and why!

Bruce Miller's Top 10 TV shows from 2023

"Beef"
"Jury Duty"
"The Bear"
"Fargo"
"John Mulaney: Baby J"
"Fellow Travelers"
"Reservation Dogs"
"The Last of Us"
"What We do in the Shadows"
"Succession"

Terry Lipshetz's Top 10 TV shows from 2023

"Succession"
"Fargo"
"The Last of Us"
"The Bear"
"The Crown"
"Shrinking"
"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel"
"Ted Lasso"
"Dave"
Tied/honorable mentions: "A Small Light," "Barry," "Silo," "The Great."
Honorable mention for being Star Wars: "The Mandalorian," "The Bad Batch" and "Ahsoka."
Honorable mention for not being a terrible spinoff despite getting canceled: "How I Met Your Father"
Honorable mention for not being a terrible reboot: "Night Court"

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, managing editor of the national newsroom for Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter, and like me, a dedicated, professional couch potato.

Bruce Miller: Oh, the TV is never off in my house. It's always on. It's my family. I'm always watching something. When you started with the pandemic, that's all we had, and then it's just kind of leached over to the rest of our lives. And so now TV is the thing, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. I think back, too, to even the pandemic. Not that I needed another reason to get back into watching more TV, because none of us really need that, but it was a good opportunity to explore a lot of shows because everything got shut down. So it's like, what are you going to do? You can only take so many walks around the block and that kind of thing. So it got me a little bit back into watching some shows, exploring some streaming services that I hadn't really discovered before now, even though, as we talked about in the last episode, with movies, I don't have a lot of time to get to the movie theater. I can always squeeze in one or two episodes of a sitcom, of a drama on Netflix, on Hulu, each and every night. I've seen a lot of what you would probably call premium, top notch television shows from the past year. So I came up with the top ten list. I know you have a top ten list.

Bruce Miller: This was going to be a year where nothing was going to happen because we had strikes and didn't think there was going to be even a fall TV season. I think at the end of the year, we got a few really barn burners. We can still look at 2023 as a great TV year, and 2024, it's even going to be better.

Terry Lipshetz: Yes.

Bruce Miller: Okay.

Terry Lipshetz: Absolutely.

Bruce Miller: So what's in your number ten spot?

Terry Lipshetz: My number ten spot are a series of kind of, like, honorable mentions because I got down, there's like three shows, four shows, which were absolutely at the top of my list. But as I went a little further down, it got a little bit more difficult. So I gave an honorable mention for night court for just not being a terrible reboot. It was an enjoyable reboot. It's not the greatest show out there, but if you're somebody who's, let's say, a gen Xer or a bit older who grew up on night court, it's a fun watch. Go check it out. I was a little disappointed to see this one actually get canceled. Not a great show, but it was one where my wife and I could watch it. It wasn't spectacular, but it was one where we could throw it on and for half an hour be entertained. And that was the reboot for how I met your father. It's definitely not to the level of the original, but that original show, how I met your mother, those characters, they're all roughly my age, so I was always able to identify with them. So I gave how I met your father a chance. We watched it for the two seasons. It was fine. It wasn't spectacular, but it was fine. And then I'm going to give an honorable mention to all the mediocre Star wars shows that I watched this year. Mandalorian, season three, the Bad Batch, season two. Ahsoka. These were not great shows. They were okay. They disappointed me, a lot, in a lot of different ways. But I think about Star wars. Like pizza. No matter how bad Star wars might.

Bruce Miller: Be, it's still good.

Terry Lipshetz: It's still good. It's like pizza. Like pizza. How bad does pizza have to be for you not to want to keep eating it? Right? It would have to be just truly atrocious. So they're fine. They're not spectacular. They're fine. And then there was a handful of other shows that I watched this year, which I'll throw in there, that these are legitimately. I've seen them pop up on some other folk’s top ten lists, but they didn't quite hit it for me in some way or the other. I thought a small light on National Geographic. It was a really nice miniseries. Not top ten for me, but it was a really good look at the story of Anne Frank. And it brought you in a little bit deeper.

Bruce Miller: Sure. From a different perspective.

Terry Lipshetz: Absolutely. Barry. I've loved Barry since the beginning, but I really thought that season one to season two was a little bit of a downturn. Two to three and then three to four, it was okay. I didn't love the ending to it. I couldn't put it in my top ten silo on Apple TV. Plus, it started out slow. It got much better as it went along. My wife and I really liked watching it, so that one was fine. And then the great on Hulu the first season was just raucous and crazy. I thought this last season, it was fine. It took a turn. I don't want to give it away for anyone that maybe missed it or still is. Catching up on programming. one of the main characters won't be back for any future seasons, let's just say that. But they did an okay job with it. It's still one that I like, and, it's a good show and we're definitely going to keep watching it. The first show that I actually gave a number ranking to at number nine is Dave on Hulu and FxX. I guess it is. And that show, man, it's like eating candy for me. I mean, it's crazy. It's a little bit weird, but it's a funny show.

Bruce Miller: My favorite episode had Brad Pitt on it. This.

Terry Lipshetz: Yes. Yep. Yep.

Bruce Miller: I thought that was so brilliant, and he did such a great job with that. But if you haven't discovered Dave, it is an acquired taste. It is not something that everybody will go, well, what is you know, we'd be like the parents on the show. It's so out there, but it's about a rapper and what he has to do to try and make the career go. Dave is a good choice. I don't have it on my list. But you're up to nine.

Terry Lipshetz: I'm up to nine, yeah.

Bruce Miller: I had succession at number ten, and I bet you have it higher because you like that.

Terry Lipshetz: I love it. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: Okay. I think they got a little too tied up in their own world so that they had nowhere else to go, and so it's great. But it didn't get up higher than ten at nine. I have what we do in the shadows because I think that is my only time to really laugh out loud and make fun of something that's just outrageous. Most of these shows are labeled comedies, but they're just half hour dramas is what it amounts to. But this is one that I can just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh. And if I had the vampires living next door, I would invite them over.

Terry Lipshetz: I do want to see this one because it takes place on island. Right?

Bruce Miller: Right.

Terry Lipshetz: It is my homeland one runs for office.

Bruce Miller: I mean, you have a lot of things that you could relate, too. So that's my number nine now. Up to eight.

Terry Lipshetz: Eight? Yes.

Bruce Miller: What do you have for eight?

Terry Lipshetz: I had Ted Lasso final season.

Bruce Miller: You know, there were a lot of those. Mrs. Maisel would be another one I'd put on.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, yeah.

Bruce Miller: I have a couple of other ones that are on there that quit. And how do you include them? Because it's their last year. Should you just ignore them because they're done? Or do you say, this is my final hat tip?

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. For me, it was a little bit of a tip of a cap. I mean, I don't think it was as strong as the previous seasons, but I also felt that it's. Again, sometimes when you get something that's not as good, you look down on it, but then when you put it in perspective, it's still better than a lot of the other things out there. It's just not as good.

Bruce Miller: I have at eight, the last of us, and I bet you have that higher.

Terry Lipshetz: I do, yes. It is on my list, but it is higher than eight.

Bruce Miller: Okay. At seven, I have Reservation Dogs because I love that I lived that. I know that. And I think they ended it really well. I thought they left us all hopeful that these kids are going to turn out all right. So that was my number. Seven. What was your seven?

Terry Lipshetz: Seven. It's similar in theme to the Ted lasso, and that is Mrs. Maisel. Again, it was not the greatest season, but I like the way they approached it by doing the flashbacks and flash forwards. I thought it did a pretty good job at wrapping up the series. I was a little disappointed at times, know, not enough Tony Shalub and that kind of thing. But it's a show that strikes a chord for me personally, growing up out east of Jewish heritage and that kind of thing. So, for me, it's still one of the best shows out there. Absolutely.

Bruce Miller: Okay. What is your number? Six.

Terry Lipshetz: We're up to six. So this one is not on your list. And I think I mentioned it to you previously, and it was either one you hadn't really seen or just didn't get into, but Shrinking on Apple TV, plus Jason Segal and Harrison Ford. I thought this was. It's got a few nominations for, I guess, Golden Globes. Right. There's a few out there. I thought it was witty. I thought it was just, it was one of those where I can kind of. I know I'm going to get a good episode no matter what I watch from it. And it's 30 minutes of just, like, having fun.

Bruce Miller: I will give it fun. I will give it a chance. I saw the first episode and I thought, this isn't me. I don't care.

Terry Lipshetz: Right. But you know what, though? I think maybe it's also, we're at different points of our lives also. Right.

Bruce Miller: I'm more Harrison Ford.

Terry Lipshetz: Right. You are more Harrison Ford. Yeah. And I am a little bit more Jason Segal. Yes.

Bruce Miller: Right.

Terry Lipshetz: Exactly.

Bruce Miller: So what did you have at that point, number six? I have Fellow Travelers. This was a limited series. About two men in the beyond who are closeted and they don't dare come out that they are in a relationship, or they have a relationship, because it was the height of the McCarthy era, and they were putting everything. And so how did their lives turn out? Where did one go? Where did the other go? And I find it very fascinating. Matt Bomer, who was, in white collar and a number of other things, it's one of his best things he's ever. He's. He seems like just a pretty boy, to be honest with you. You could see where he was feeling the strain of this. Jonathan Bailey, who, by the way, is going to be Piero in the musical version of Wicked, when that becomes a movie next year, he's the other guy. And you see how these lives kind of diverged, and then what it's like for them when they come back together many years later and coulda, shoulda, woulda kind of thing like that. I thought it was fascinating because you got to see a bit of history, but you saw it through a different lens. So that's my number six. Number five. What did you have there?

Terry Lipshetz: So five is one, which, again, it's not on your list. And it's the type of show where I think the people that love it, love it, and the people that are less in love with it aren't going to put it on their list. And that's The Crown on Netflix final season. I think the series as a whole has had some ups and downs, but just like the crown. Right. Feels like it always takes me a season to get used to the cast change, because they do two seasons and then they age them. And then two seasons, and then they age them. So I thought last season, it was a little bit difficult getting used to the new Charles, the new Diana. But I really am liking what I've seen so far. I have not caught the second wave of episodes. So we watched, within just a couple of days of them dropping the first wave that came out, and now the second wave is out. So, I don't want to give anything away, but it starts with Diana. We know what happens to Diana, so just spoiler alert there. I know the second half of the season gets a little bit more into Prince William and know his relationship with Kate. I'm looking forward to it. I don't know. I guess it's possible that the show could go up a notch, go down a notch. But that's why I figured five is safe. It's kind of middle of the road.

Bruce Miller: I like the crown, initially, when they switch around a little too much, they do. it bothers me because some of those actors are not as good as others in these roles. And then you get a really good one and you think, well, hang on to him. Don't let him go. And so that bothers me. But it's a classier look at that than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be just trash that you'd find on lifetime, and it's not. It's a classy way of looking at everything. At number five, I had the standup comedy special, baby j from John Mulaney. And John Mulaney, I mean, I have always liked him. I always thought he's kind of a, ah, smart ass, to use a word. But I would laugh at him, and I thought he was funny. But this year, he really opened a vein and talked about his own life and his addictions and how it was to go to rehab. And it, wasn't like he wanted you to feel sorry for him. He was being very matter of fact about it. And I think being the most honest he's ever been about his own life. I loved it. I'll watch that again. It’s like Bo Burnham had, a special a couple of years ago that was my favorite of all TV shows, but baby j watched it. It's good. And again, I don't know if the kids can be around.

Terry Lipshetz: I'll have to check that one out. I wasn't even thinking of comedy specials, and I didn't catch that one, but I definitely will. So number four for me is one that you like too. You haven't mentioned it yet because it's a hair higher on your list, but it's The Bear.

Bruce Miller: Oh, good.

Terry Lipshetz: On Hulu. That's number four for me. I really struggled with this one because, like, it could be number one. Do I need a two or three? But I settled in on four, and I'll tell you why it stresses me out. That show, to me, a lot of shows, if I love it, I want to watch it and binge it, and I get angry if I can't. It's like, Fargo right now. I can't just go and watch every episode because they make you wait week to week. I needed that with the bear. I needed to watch an episode, and it is so intense and there's so much screaming and there's so much yelling that I would get to the end of the episode and be like, I need to watch something else, because it was literally one of the best things I had just seen on TV all year. But at the same time, I couldn't take any more of it. But I really liked with this season how they gave each character their own moment to shine. I thought it was sweet in a lot of ways. And then the other piece was that Christmas episode. Oh, my goodness.

Bruce Miller: Is that not the best piece of television? And Jamie Lee Curtis, she may have won an Oscar last year for everything, everywhere, all at once, but this is the performance of her life. When she plays that, I mean, you know that mother. You know that mother immediately. And how she just became another thorn, another problem for Carmen to deal with was, like, unbelievable. And you want, you know, we got to get this restaurant open. It's got to happen. Come on. And cousin Richie, how he switched. It was such a remarkable second season for a show. And you're right. It could be number one. It really could. I had a number one last year, and I thought, I can't do two years in a row with the same show. But it's that good. It's number three on my list. Number four on my list is probably your number three. And that's Fargo.

Terry Lipshetz: It's close. We're getting close.

Bruce Miller: Okay, Fargo, we can wait and we'll get to the next ones. Because you had what for three?

Terry Lipshetz: I had The Last of Us at number three, and that was all the way down for number you. Yeah, last of us. I needed a drama like that. Like a Sci-Fi type of drama. It's another one. We've gotten a few surprises from HBO the last few know, we had that one a few years ago, and they always drop these apocalyptic type of programs on you. So it's like, what are we going to expect? Is it going to be okay or isn't it? And I was really surprised with it. I know there is going to be a season two for it. And I'm really looking forward.

Bruce Miller: Not The Last of Us.

Terry Lipshetz: No, it isn't. It's almost the Last of Us, but not quite. So. Yeah, no, I really liked it. I thought it was very well done, considering an adaptation of a video game, but it wasn't like this gory spook fest. It was a lot of emotion and good character development, so I loved it. Three for me.

Bruce Miller: Okay, so then I had the bear at three. At two, I have Jury Duty, and I love Jury Duty. This is that Amazon preview, series where they pretend that everybody is actually doing Jury Duty, except one person thinks it's real. He has no idea that it's a reality show being punked. And James Marsden is one of the, jurors, and he plays this kind of heightened version of himself where he's just full of himself. And you would like that. I think they talk about Sonic in there. And wasn't, he in Sonic the hedgehog? I think he was.

Terry Lipshetz: He might have been, yeah.

Bruce Miller: This guy, Ronald, the real guy, says, yeah, that wasn't a very good movie. Was. You know, it's like, how does he react to this? Because this is being made up as they go along. But jury duty, if you haven't seen it, it's a great one. Now you have two. Probably have Fargo at two.

Terry Lipshetz: I have Fargo at two, yeah. I really love this season. And, I think when we did the Fargo episode a few episodes back, you had mentioned this is, like, the best Fargo since, what, the first. Right, right. And after the last season of Fargo, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to come back to Fargo because I was so disappointed with it this season. It's brilliant. I was telling my wife even the other day, because she's not into Fargo at all, she hated the movie. but I said, I got to show you a little bit of it with Juno Temple, because this is Keeley from Ted Lasso, and it is definitely not Keeley. It's totally different. But, I don't know how this season is going to end. I could see me bumping this up to number one if it maintains and even improves on where it is. I think I'm through the first five episodes.

Bruce Miller: Okay. I watched all of the episodes. I finished it out last night. I had two episodes left. I watched it. It could be number one. It really could be. The ending is so rewarding in many, Know, it’s odd to make this comparison, but this season of Fargo is a lot like Barbie, the movie, where it's a real, if you will, feminist pitch. And it's talking about things that really don't get talked about. Spousal abuse, come on. The political situation in our world, it's a lot of stuff that they unpack and they do it well. But the ending, you will feel a lot of emotion because of the way they wrap things up for certain people. And, it's remarkable. Remarkable. I will easily predict that this is going to be a strong contender for next year's Emmys. And I do think that John Hamm and Juno are largely responsible, and they will be considered best actor and actress for a limited TV movie. That was, that was your number two.

Terry Lipshetz: It was my number two. Number one was Succession. That is, to me, hands down, the best series on TV this year. I know some people don't think it was the best season of succession, and I would agree with it. It wasn't the best season of succession, but it was still the best show on TV for me. Pound for pound, it was still a show that left me wondering what was going to happen, the way character roles played out with who would end up on top. I did feel it was going to get a little predictable at a couple. You know, we had some know that didn't make it all the way from season one all the way to the last episode, and it was a surprise. It was a little bit jarring to watch. I just think it was the best show. It's the best show that HBO has really done in a long time. Granted, they also did the last of us, so two of my top three are from HBO, but in terms of dramas, and you look at things like, the sopranos first, season of Westworld, Deadwood, there's been a lot of really Game of Thrones, a lot of really good dramas the last 2025 years in the history of HBO, and this one is good.

Bruce Miller: Okay. And my number one Beef. Okay, did you watch Beef?

Terry Lipshetz: I did not. No.

Bruce Miller: Okay. This is one that an incident happens. What happens to the people, what goes on, what could have been. It’s from Korea, and it stars Stephen Yoon and Ali Wong, and they're both nominated for Emmys, so you've seen them before. But this is yet another one of those kind of things we're learning from Korean filmmakers is how they did parasite. That gives you kind of point of reference.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: It's one of those very self-contained series that you can go, okay, I get it. That was extremely remarkable, particularly in a year when, broadcasters were looking for other places to find new material. Okay. They found it there. And so that's why I thought, it's something different. It's something new. It's my number one. So there's our list. We had a lot of crossovers, and we don't live next door to each other.

Terry Lipshetz: No. And I think you and I, we certainly had some solid crossovers, maybe in different rankings, different spots, but, yeah, succession, Fargo, the bear, all really good shows. And I think we threw out some ideas for each other, too, to check out some other ones.

Bruce Miller: I'll be shrinking. Just know be shrinking.

Terry Lipshetz: We'll see what check it out. But we are, I guess, not to rub it in, we are at different stages in our life, I guess. So I could see where that one maybe just doesn't strike the same chord for you.

Bruce Miller: I've got to get to shrinking sooner than you would have to get to something else that I'm recommending to you.

Terry Lipshetz: it's the end of the year. It's the end of the season. I mean, check out this episode. Obviously you're listening to it right now, but if you didn't go back and check our previous episode on the top movies from 2023, have a great rest of the year.

Bruce Miller: If you look back, we have some interviews with some of those people from those various shows. I think if you do a deep dive into the podcast, you should be able to find some of those and you'll hear what we heard, when we talk to them.

Terry Lipshetz: Absolutely. All right, well, have a safe and wonderful rest of the year. Happy New Year. And we'll be back again in 2024 with another season of streamed and screen.

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2023 was perhaps the best movie year since the pandemic. There were multiple blockbusters in the theater, with "Barbie" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" both topping $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales.

Beside seats in theaters filling up, there were plenty of great movie options both domestic and foreign that will be competing for awards in the coming months. Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about their favorite movies of the year, with Miller offering his own Top 10 list.

Bruce Miller's Top 10 films from 2023

"Oppenheimer"
"Killers of the Flower Moon"
"Barbie"
"Anatomy of a Fall"
"The Holdovers"
"Poor Things"
"Maestro"
"American Fiction"
"Air"
"Past Lives"

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, managing editor of the national newsroom at Lee, and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter and someone who has seen way more movies than I have this year. Way more. Why am I here?

Bruce Miller: You're here because I need you. If you're not there, I. I'm just talking into the woods. I'll tell you, I tried to figure out how many movies I see in a year. Now this is just movies. This is not TV show movies or streaming or anything like that. And I figured one year, it was around 300. And so if you multiply that times 40 years, that's a lot of movies. And those are only ones that I would do for work purposes, not ones that I would go back. And wizard of Oz doesn't count in that, because you'd see that more than once. The Godfather. I've seen the Godfather so much, I could do the line, it's a strange year because we didn't know what was going to happen with the strikes. We didn't know if we would get things, if they would hold things, what would happen. And right now, at the end of the year, there is a plethora of, movies that are opening. It's your chance to really get after it. If you haven't looked at movies, now's your time. So, Terry, how about your year? How was your year?

Terry Lipshetz: It's typical as a parent who's got a busy job and lots of kid, you know, we got to the movies. We saw some of the big ones. We saw Mario Brothers, which was a fun movie. Really enjoyed seeing that one. We went to see Barbie. Definitely an Oscar contender. This is not a doll movie, so love that one. We recently saw the Hunger Games prequel. We went to see Indiana Jones. I saw the flash, the family and I. We did see elemental. So we've gotten out, we've seen some movies. We've left the house. 2020 is in the rear view mirror, and we are back to theaters. We already have plans for our, Christmas break to go see Wonka.

Bruce Miller: What guides the choices, do you say? Well, if we're taking the kids, it has to be kid friendly. Or do you say, kids, you're going to an r rated movie? I don't care.

Terry Lipshetz: I don't want to say we're super strict, but we do like to look at. We'll check out, like rotten tomatoes. We'll check out common sense media. And we'll use our own best judgment to try to figure out what to go see. We don't allow them to see r rated movies yet. With the PG 13 movies, we look at them pretty closely. We try to see, okay, why is it pg 13? Is it just a few bad words? Is there nudity? I mean, usually PG 13 doesn't get nudity. You might get a butt in there every once in a while. And that's okay if you see a little. Everyone has a butt. We're all fine with. So that kind of thing is okay. If it gets a little too violent, we try to stay away from it. If it gets a little too sexual, we try to stay away from it. But we try to find movies that are appropriate for the family and we want them to see appropriate material for their age.

Bruce Miller: So the profanity, we hear that at home, we're okay, we're good with that.

Terry Lipshetz: They'll call me out on it. My girls basketball team, I coach 7th grade girls basketball and we were playing a game this weekend and I said the s word audibly during the. Because I thought one of our girls fouled out. So they were, coach, you just said the s word and you got to run a lap now.

Bruce Miller: Oh, good.

Terry Lipshetz: I owe them a lap in practice, probably.

Bruce Miller: You better get on it. That's good. I'm glad they're holding you too. But I always use the line that if you're a writer, you've got to be able to know all the words and how to use them effectively. So that's why I swear I also don't have kids around me. So I'm good.

Terry Lipshetz: You're good.

Which was better? ‘Oppenheimer’ or ‘Barbie’

Bruce Miller: Okay, so we're going to look at the list. Did you do ten?

Terry Lipshetz: I didn't come up because I felt like I didn't see enough of the really good movies. I would say that of all the films that I saw, I would probably rank Oppenheimer just a hair before Barbie. I thought Barbie was a great movie. I thought that it is deserving of any accolade it gets. I would like to somehow see Oppenheimer and Barbie somehow split out awards so their two creative geniuses, because that's what they are, our geniuses, can somehow share without taking away from each other. I don't want to see one of them just like clean sweep and then the other one gets left. So I think there's a way for a best director, best picture, best screenplay. We'll hand out statues to both. But I would just give Oppenheimer like my nudge for best picture. And that's even without yet seeing killers of the flower moon.

Bruce Miller: And those are the two I had a, battle to figure. Is it Oppenheimer or is it killers of the flower moon? I'll tell you, I went back and forth on this because they're both too long, bottom line, too long. But who had justified me sitting longer of the two films? And I thought that the end of Killers of the Flower moon was a little padded. Whereas in Oppenheimer they had a trial. There was a moment there where you go, well, this is a whole new movie. This is something else I'm getting from this. And I thought that was very clever. They deserved their time. And so that gave me the little edge for Oppenheimer. So my number one film of the year is Oppenheimer. Number two is Killers of the Flower moon. You have Barbie as number two. Well, Barbie came in at three on my list.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: Because the thing with Barbie is, I think that she wasn't just toying, pardon the pun, toying with the concept of a doll and what it has meant over the years. It really was a tale about, now, don't be badmouthing young girls who are playing with barbies, because that's always been the narrative behind Barbie is that, oh, it's like some stupid doll. Know, is, perhaps a little more zoptic than you would give a girl. And that she was kind of dim and there were a lot of things there to unpack and she unpacked all of them. Greta Gerwig, looked at all those kind of angles about Barbie and still came away with the idea that here is a doll that is giving us hope that girls can do everything and that there are stumbling blocks in the road, but you have to figure out how to deal with them. it isn't just riding in your Malibu car with Ken by your side. And Ken was another whole thing. Know, Ken has been an accessory for the most part all these years. He's also in the picture. But Ken had his own little feelings as well. And you go, I kind of feel sorry for Ken. I really felt sorry for Alan. But this is a movie that gives you more than you're expecting. I think it is a great way to look at those kind of characters, especially when you're an adult. When you're a kid, it doesn't know. Barbie is just that character with too many clothes and she loses her shoes all the time. But as an adult, you realize that this was an impressionable character on young minds. And so I think the movie did a great job of bringing that to light.

‘Anatomy of a Fall’ is a courtroom drama to watch

In my number fourth spot, I have anatomy of a fall. And this is something that you probably haven't seen around much because it's a foreign language film, both in French and German and English. It's about an accident, or what you think is an accident. A young boy, he's about eleven, is blind, and he's walking his dog outside. And when he comes home, they realize that the dad is on the ground and dead. And what is behind this? Did he fall out of the window? Did his wife push him out the window? What is the story behind all this? It's a fascinating courtroom drama that lets you figure out, where do you sit? I happened to talk with Sandra Huller, who's the star of this. She plays the woman who's on trial for this, the mother wife. And she said, I don't go into this taking sides and saying that she's guilty or she's innocent of anything. I just want to play the emotions because it does, it shifts throughout the whole film. And it is a, fascinating look at a case where when you come to the end of it, you will debate with others what was the true story there? And it all comes down to the end where the young boy gets to testify, on the stand, and he talks about what he believes. It won the Cannes Film festival, palm door, award. And you can see why it's lasted. I mean, we're just getting it now. But if you get a chance to see this, please do look at it. Anatomy of a fall.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: Number five spot. I don't know if you saw this one or not, but the holdovers, I love the holdovers.

Terry Lipshetz: It's on my list to see. And it's one that might, because it's rated r, so it's not one we.

Bruce Miller: Were going to go take.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. But yeah, my wife and I have talked about it, wanting to go see it, and maybe we'll be able to do that over the break when my kids go spend some time with my mom for a little bit.

Bruce Miller: We're storing you kids. Don't be like the von Eric brothers in the iron claw. Please do not force them into things. But, yeah, I think it was a fascinating look at how we create families. And families can come from the least likely places. It’s a prep school in the 1970s where some people have to stay back because either their parents don't bring them home for the holidays. In colleges, there are a lot of international students who don't get to go home for the holidays because it's just too expensive. But this turns out there's one student who's stuck at this school with the teacher he really hates, who's kind of the designated watcher for any of these students, and then the cook, and they all have their own little issues. They all have their own little story, and they come together, and they become the greatest of friends. It's remarkable. Paul Giamatti, divine Joy Randolph, and Dominic Cessa, a newcomer who plays a student, and he's just marvelous in this. Directed by Alexander Payne. It's a film you should see. So that was at number five. At number six, I have poor things, and this is probably one you haven't seen yet, either, with Emma Stone as she's like a Frankenstein's monster. Willem Dafoe has done a surgery on her, and I don't want to tell you too much about that, but he has created this woman who is just learning life all over again. So she's very halting and stupid, and every year or every day, she learns, like, 100 words. I'm now paraphrasing because I don't have my notes on this. And so she becomes very educated about everything, about life, about people, about relationships, and she wants to approach it all on her own terms. And so when she gets to be older, there's talk of marriage, there's talk of other things, and it's just wild, wild, wild. It's black and white. Sometimes it's color, sometimes. Willem Dafoe is just unbelievable. I think he's great in this. Emma Stone is wonderful. And here's one you can't take the girls to because there is nudity. Just know that it's more adult than you'd ever thought it would be. But it's very creative, and I think that's what lands it on the list, because it is just so fascinatingly interesting.

The story of Leonard Bernstein is available on Netflix

Okay, so that's number six. Number seven, maestro. Again, this is one that's just now, getting the streaming services that's on Netflix. And it's the story of Leonard Bernstein, if you happen to remember him, if you're old enough like I am, to have seen him do those children's educational things about the symphony and the orchestra and all that, you know, the name. And he was one of the biggest conductors in the world, a composer. He wrote a number of huge musicals, but there was kind of a different man behind the scenes. And this looks at his relationship with his wife, Felicia. There's a lot there to unpack because she was that very supportive woman. But he also was a philandering husband, and he had relationships with men that, of course, they wouldn't say anything about back in the. So it was kind of a hidden life that he was leading. Bradley Cooper directed this, wrote this. I mean, he stars in it. He's everything about this. It's his showpiece, I think, really. It gives him a chance to show what he's able to do. He sounds like him, he looks like him. But it's not a chronological look at his life. It's like snippets. It's little things that give you a picture of what he's really all about. Harry Mulligan plays his wife, Felicia, and she is incredible, too. So this is one. It's on Netflix. You can watch it, see it. It's something that's really fascinating because it's more than just a, screen biography.

Terry Lipshetz: I saw it pop up in my recommended recently, and I did add it to my list. So it is absolutely on my list of films to watch.

‘Super Mario Bros.’ one of the fun movies to watch from 2023

Bruce Miller: Okay, now, before I get to numbers eight, nine, and ten, what else is.

Terry Lipshetz: On your list from the standpoint of did I like it, did I see it and enjoy it? I was really impressed with Super Mario Brothers. It's not going to make anybody's top ten list. And it's one of those which my daughter wanted to go see it. I guess I'll go take you to a movies. And I sat there and I enjoyed it. And it was actually fun to watch. And it was worth it, being, a billion dollar worldwide film. And it was one of those films that I think got butts back into the theater, which it's been a long time since that's happened. So that movie I really enjoyed. I also thought that the prequel for the Hunger Games was a lot better than I expected. I had very low expectations on that film. Very low. I didn't mind the first of the trilogy. The second two after that were kind of, Do I really.

Bruce Miller: But with this, do you know the characters? Are they like, young people, and then they grow up to become people in what we consider the classic Hunger games?

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, President Snow, he's the Donald Sutherland character from the movies. It's his younger self, and you kind of see how he turned into. Exactly. So from that standpoint, I think it was a real interesting thing to watch. I never read the books. I was never that interested. It was just one of those where, yeah, I'll go see it. It sounds like fun watching kids murder each other. Sure. Why not.

Bruce Miller: Isn't that how it should be?

Terry Lipshetz: Exactly.

Bruce Miller: Shouldn't we just put the kids out there and make them just survive?

Terry Lipshetz: That's it, right.

Bruce Miller: Otherwise called winter, break. And you've got to try and figure out what to do with them because they'll drive you crazy.

Terry Lipshetz: Exactly.

‘American Fiction’ another great performance from Jeffrey Wright

Bruce Miller: Okay. On my list, number eight, American Fiction. This is another new one that you'll see in theaters now. Cord Jefferson wrote this based on other material, but it's about a black author who is just incensed by the idea. Know, there are these people doing these ghetto like kind of books, plays, whatever, and they didn't live the life, but they see that it sells because there's a white audience out there that wants to read these kinds of things. And so he wonders, well, what if I wrote one of those? So he writes it under a pseudonym. As a result, he gets a lot of attention, has people looking for him to do interviews. And he's trying to stand the download because he doesn't want people to know that, wait a minute, I don't want this on my record, that I wrote this book because I think this book is trash. But yet he's still making money from it. So what's the balance? Know, Jeffrey Wright stars in the film and he's wonderful. I think it's one that we're going to see in the Oscar race. I really do, because it's so very interesting how they approach this subject, particularly now when people talk about being woke and all those kind of catchphrases they throw out there, but it attacks it head on and is willing to make, some choices. And I thought it was fascinating.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And Jeffrey Wright, I love Jeffrey Wright. He was in some of the more recent James Bond movies as, Felix Leiter, the CIA agent. And he also was in, the HBO series Westworld. And I thought those two roles, very difficult, challenging roles in their own way, and he nails those characters. So I am really looking forward to seeing American Fiction.

Bruce Miller: He's been around forever, Broadway. He's done a lot of Broadway shows. I think he just had one last year. Now he's probably getting his big moment.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. He's somebody that you've seen him before in so many different things, mostly in supporting roles. I think that's where Westworld really let him shine, because even though that was an ensemble cast, he was a primary character in there.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, he is another one of those ones that can always get work because he can play so many different roles and so many different. I love him. I think he's really good. And he makes this film very unpredictable. Very unpredictable. You will not guess the ending of this film. I will wage your money on that one.

‘Air’ tells the story of how Nike landed Michael Jordan

Okay, number nine. Now, this is one that you should have seen and you didn't.

Terry Lipshetz: It's been available through prime video forever. And I keep on going. It's in my list. I'm going to go watch it tonight. And then I fall asleep.

Bruce Miller: You probably are wearing Nike tennis shoes. And then you can't even go see the movie. That's terrible.

It's air in number nine. Air. And this is the story of how they did the deal for Michael Jordan's shoeline and what kind of maneuvering was done by the people at Nike and what they had to do to try and get him to buy into them. Now, what we don't realize in retrospect is that Nike was not a player back in the know. They wanted converse or they wanted Adidas, but they didn't want Nike. Nike was considered third. And so it becomes this kind of salesman's pitch to the Jordan family that you need to go with us. This is going to be something. And this is way before Michael Jordan was Michael Jordan. He was a college standout, but he wasn't Michael Jordan. Capitalized, bold faced, underlined all that. You see what they have to do, how they sell it, and, you see people that you recognize, but Michael Jordan's barely in the film. If he's in it, I bet it's ten minutes at best. And the character is always shown from the back of the head or the side. You don't see him doing anything except in footage where they show Michael Jordan actually playing basketball. And you go, oh, they did. And that logo that they use where he's jumping in the air, you see that? Where they got the inspiration. What's fun is seeing how his mother was such a good influence in this old thing. And she talks about, it's just a shoe until you put my son's foot in it. Then you see the guy who made the shoes and what a character. He just. It's fascinating. And my favorite one of all is the agent played by Chris Messina, who, again, you can't let the kids watch this because every other word starts with an f. But it is just fascinating to watch this. And, Matt Damon gets the speech of the year when he tells his story to the family of why they should go with. It's just, it's remarkable. You cheer because it's such a good, Look at all that.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, now I got to go watch it this weekend.

Bruce Miller: So, what do I have to do? I am pulling you movie by movie through the year, and then you won't go see these things. I want you to go to that.

Terry Lipshetz: Have you seen my family calendar, Bruce? Have I shared that with you?

Bruce Miller: Look, when you said you're coaching, that alone tells you. Right? Oh, this guy ain't the movies.

Terry Lipshetz: I'm not going to the movies. Nope. Right. Exactly. Right. Well, what's closing out your list?

Bruce Miller: It's called past lives. It's an Asian film that really. Oh, I don't want to spill it. They were friends when they were children, and then they reconnect later in life, and they wonder what their lives might have been like had they been together all along. And it's heartbreaking in parts, heartwarming in other parts, but it's, Greta Lee Tao, you are the actors. It's directed by Celine Song, and it's marvelous. It probably will be one of the ones that will be considered for best international film, but we have a lot of those in the category this year. And normally I don't put foreign films on my ten best list because we don't get a chance to see them all the time. Thanks to streaming, we're getting more of those films out there. And I think you'll find, too, that they have great stories to tell. It's just sometimes I have to do a lot of reading to be able to get to the story.

Terry Lipshetz: Sure. Wow.

Bruce Miller: So that's a top ten list. Oppenheimer, number one.

Terry Lipshetz: Can't go wrong with Oppenheimer.

Bruce Miller: Killers of the flower moon. Number two. Barbie. Number three. Anatomy of a fall. Number four. The holdovers. Number five. Four things. Number six, maestro. Number seven. American fiction, number eight. Air number nine. And past lives. Number ten.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay, well, that is a list for those of you out there that are like me. Haven't gotten to enough movies this year. A lot to watch during the next couple of weeks as we close things out and then march further towards Oscar season. So we're going to wrap this episode next week. We're going to do our top ten TV shows.

Bruce Miller: And that's even more difficult because there's so much tv.

Terry Lipshetz: I promise you, Bruce, I will have more to offer in the next episode than what I brought to the table today.

Bruce Miller: So we're going to throw you in. you're going to be playing in this one. I will be on the bench.

Terry Lipshetz: So I have a lot of time. I can squeeze in a 30 minutes, 45 minutes show at the end of the night. No problem. So I have a lot to offer. So we'll be back again next week with another episode of streamed and screened.

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'Tis the season ... awards season, that is!

The Golden Globes nominations are out, kicking off the entertainment awards season that will culminate with the Academy Awards. "Barbie" edged out "Oppenheimer" for the most nominations (you can get the full list here) and we break down some of the top nominees.

Actor David Rysdahl played a part in two of this year's nominees, first as Donald Hornig, a chemist at Los Alamos, in the movie "Oppenheimer," and now as Wayne Lyon in the current season of "Fargo." He will also appear in the upcoming "Alien" series that is being led by Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley. Rysdahl talks about those roles in an interview with co-host Bruce Miller.

Be sure to tune in for the final two episodes of the year that look back at the top movies and tv shows of 2023.

Where to watch

"Fargo" on Hulu
"Oppenheimer" to own on digital services
"Barbie" to rent on streaming services

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed and Screened and entertainment podcast about movies and tv from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, managing editor of the national newsroom at Lee and co-host of the program of Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce ’tis the season. The season is here. Award season.

Bruce Miller: It's award season. Never mind the holidays. I think that's a better holiday to celebrate. Great, right? Because you don't have to buy gifts and you just get, the only thing.

Terry Lipshetz: You might be buying are subscriptions, subscriptions to streaming services and ways, to watch if you've missed anything, like I have.

Bruce Miller: YouTube can be a critic. All you need to do is have all the services so you can see everything. You can walk in my shoes for a day or two. I'll tell you, I have been watching movies around the clock, I kid you not. And I've been seeing a lot of things this week. We came out with the Golden Globe nominations and those were kind of underground for a while. They know.

Terry Lipshetz: I was like, I don't think.

Bruce Miller: We’re going to give them any attention this year because they've had some kind of organizational problems, but it's going to be on CBS and Paramount plus. So I think they have a profile. And even some of the nominees said, well, I don't know how to react to this. So there you are. But it is a great bellwether for the Oscars because they hit just about all of the films that would likely be nominated for something. You'll still see some stray ones, but I think, for the most part, the big names are in there.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, and going back to some of the episodes we did this past summer, particularly around Barbenheimer, which know, the big moment of the time we talked about know Barbie is a movie you have to take seriously. This isn't some kid movie about the doll. And we predicted that Barbie could be a big showing at Oscar season.

Bruce Miller: It led everything here and it's dominating the music categories. I think it has three nominations in the Golden Globes for best song. Now that says something. Did you think it was a musical? I didn't think it was a musical necessarily, but I wouldn't doubt that the best song Oscar winner would come from Barbie.

Terry Lipshetz: Best original song. Six nominees, three of them are from Barbie. I'm not great at math, but three out of six seems like a pretty good odd to, win something.

Bruce Miller: And I think in the Oscars they're limited to two nominees.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: They used to have it, but I think they've changed the rules now so that two out of the five could be from one movie.

Terry Lipshetz: Even going back to some of the acting aspects and the directorial we had talked about, this could be an opportunity for Ryan Gosling. And sure enough, he's nominated.

Bruce Miller: Margot Rock was in there, Greta Gerwig.

Terry Lipshetz: For best director, best screenplay. I mean, it's what you kind of expected, which is a movie to be taken seriously.

Bruce Miller: Oppenheimer. It is interesting to see how it all is going to shift down. I think fillers of the Flower Moon is another big consideration. So those are probably the big three that will get attention at the Oscars and all the other ones. Now we'll be seeing a lot of those critics’ awards. We’ve already had the New York film critics, but I think as you see those kind of spill out, you'll see these same names repeat, and then we'll see where kind of the strongest contenders.

Terry Lipshetz: I think, you know, we talked about this with Oppenheimer because Matt Damon did not get a nomination in this. Correct.

Bruce Miller: For that. And he did for air. Right?

Terry Lipshetz: He did for air. And I think we talked a little bit about that months ago. But Robert Downey Jr. And I think he predicted that would be the one that would get the nomination for a supporting role in Oppenheimer. And that's exactly what happened.

Bruce Miller: And without any other competition, that helps. It's when you have two from one movie that it, eh, I don't know if we can pull this out because you're competing against somebody in your own film. And I think there are a couple of those in the Golden Globe competition.

Terry Lipshetz: Was there any big surprises for you in the Golden Globes, either on the movie side or on the tv side?

Bruce Miller: No. They all said, oh, they were snubbed. Not necessarily. Some of these people deserve not to get a nomination, but they think they should get a nomination. I think it pretty much is as expected. The interesting thing is, are, the foreign films that got into the best picture. Normally if you get one in that category, that's usually enough, but this year I think we have two or three of them. So that's an interesting, development. And, it is more international. There are a lot of first timers, too. Two women in the directing category. That's an interesting thing. So who knows where it's going to lead? And award season is such an unpredictable time. You can start award season by saying, absolutely, Robert Downey Jr. Is going to win. And then by the time the Oscars are given out, he's not a player even snubbed in the nomination, so it ebbs and flows as the time goes.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I think what was interesting, for me, at least, I wasn't surprised. For instance, Succession got nominated for a best drama. I mean, I pretty much expected that would get it. And The Crown is usually up. There is one to be considered. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but to a degree I am. To see The Last of Us nominated in that best drama because it is science fiction, but it's also something that's based off of a video game. And I think that one, it was so long ago, you almost forget that it premiered in 2023 because it came out, I think, the first week in January.

Bruce Miller: Right.

Terry Lipshetz: That was one where I remember seeing the previews for it and thinking, well, it's on HBO, I'll probably give it a chance. It looks kind of interesting. It seems like something I might want to watch. And by the time I got to the end of the series, I'm thinking, wow, this is one of the best things I've seen, in a long time. It was kind of nice. But I think if you asked me twelve months ago, do you think The Last of Us would end up being nominated in the drama? I probably wouldn't believe it.

Bruce Miller: Well, and there are different years, too. One goes calendar year, one goes, season year. And that kind of throws you off, like, well, what year was this? Is this part of this year? Was this the year that white Lotus was involved? It's hard to figure it all out. One of the things people have been mentioning is that may December is listed in the musical comedy, and that's a drama that shouldn't have been in there. But they probably figured they needed one more to fill that it didn't quite make the cut for drama. But there is no color purple in the musical comedy category for best picture. So that says something about that film's chances. It might not be the strong contender that people think.

Terry Lipshetz: There's another show that was nominated. It has three nominations for a limited or anthology series, and then also a couple, in the acting categories. But that's Fargo, and that's a show that just debuted a few weeks ago, and I've been sucked into it. It is so good. You set me up so well on that one where you told me it's like the best Fargo since at least maybe the first Fargo. It is so good. It is so, so good. I'm angry now because that first week, they gave us two episodes. I want two every single week. And I get to the end of it, it's like, I got to wait a week. I have to wait one more, so. Good.

Bruce Miller: Well, today I have a little surprise for you, because I know you'd like this.

Terry Lipshetz: I love surprises.

Bruce Miller: I was able to talk with David Rysdahl, and he plays Wayne Lyons. That's Juno Temple's husband in the show, who seems like just the nicest dad, the most beleaguered person. And his mother is that evil, mean kind of woman who controls everything in this part of the midwest. And he's also, if you didn't know, a part of Oppenheimer. So he has double duty here this time. and he talks about both of those jobs. But the more interesting factor of it is that he wasn't really planning to be an actor. He liked acting, but he was geared toward becoming a chemist, which fits in right well with Oppenheimer. And then he has this Midwestern background. He's from Minnesota. How that fits into Fargo. So the stars are aligning for him. And I want you to meet him because he is such a fascinating young actor. He's married to Zazie Beetz, and she was in Atlanta, if you happen to watch that series. They're both so busy now. And he also has a starring role in the next Noah Hawley's series, which is alien. And they'll start filming that after the first of the year. This is one, It's kind of like we're predicting something big is going to happen from this.

Bruce Miller: Hey, bud. How are you?

David Rysdahl: I'm good. How are you?

Bruce Miller: Well, I'm bowled over by your performance. I really am.

Bruce Miller: And I'm not trying to grease you.

Bruce Miller: Or anything, but you capture the essence of Fargo better than anybody I've seen.

Bruce Miller: In five seasons of this series.

Bruce Miller: It has to do with the fact that you're from Minnesota. But is there something else that you tapped into?

David Rysdahl: I, definitely tapped into my dad and to my uncle, I think there is that sense of being from a place that's hard to authenticate. So the fact that you feel that way means a lot to me.

Bruce Miller: did you ever think that you would be playing somebody that you knew.

David Rysdahl: So well in so many of your life? You're trying to outrun your parents, and then the reality is that you're going to go play them? I think there's a beautiful irony to it, a universal irony. But when I first got the audition, I told my dad, dad, I'm finally accepting the fact that I am you in a different way. And he loves it. He's like, oh, Dave, you're playing. He's having the time of his life. He's having the most fun of all of us with it, which is great.

Bruce Miller: Were you kind of the one everybody would go to like, am I doing it right? Am I getting the acts? I bet Juno was constantly asking you about it.

David Rysdahl: Oh, yeah. Rich, Juno, everyone kind of came, and I felt responsibility as a Minnesota. I'm like, I got to get these right? So I actually asked a few. I asked friends from all over the state. I'm from New Walmart, which is a more german influence, so it's a little different than the Fargo, right? But my dad's from. He's norwegian and swedish ancestry from, the middle of the state. And that's where his accent is. Like, it's really Fargo y. And my grandpa had that same. But I wanted to give them a variety. So I had some friends and relatives record just saying how their weekend was. And we got on the scandia, Facebook page and listened to real people there and just tried to make it as authentic as possible.

Bruce Miller: Oh, yeah, you really went there, didn't my dad?

David Rysdahl: We go home, and my dad, he gave a genuine uff da. And I was like, yeah, see, no, people don't even realize he's like, uff da. And I'm like, we have it on our, coffee mugs. And it's always funny when some of my friends, especially in the Minneapolis area, they're like, we don't talk like that.

Bruce Miller: When the movie came out, were you offended by it?

David Rysdahl: I wasn't. I thought it was a celebration of Minnesota culture. And Marge Gunderson is, like, a really good person. She's like my aunt. She felt like. Like, I have aunts that speak like that. Who. The idea of what you owe your neighbor, our next door neighbor always blows out our whole yard. We give him a tearing. My mom makes these little coffee cakes, brings them over, and he'll always be over here. He’s got this big truck blows out our driveway. My grandpa, he is a volunteer snow remover old guy for 40 years in Clarkfield, Minnesota. So I really thought it was these two filmmakers are talking about this state that they grew up in, the Coens. And I felt like they was celebrating us. Some people, I think, think that it's making fun of it, but I really didn't feel that way. And then being a part of it, it was really important for me that Wayne wasn't a joke, because he's one of the only decent men in this whole season. And I'm like, hey, there have to be some decent men. And I'm from Minnesota. I don't want Minnesotans to come off as like, oh, they're just silly or kind of. There's something genuine there. That's my experience with Minnesota and the Midwest in general.

Bruce Miller: He's a good father, too. That I think is extremely important, and, it resonates. Well, how did you hear about it? Did you get a call? And they just, Mike, you might be good for this or what?

David Rysdahl: No, it was an old fashioned audition. It was a self tape. came through. We had two scenes. We did the scene, oh, I just want to play floor hockey. My sots with Scotty scene, and then the, oh, you want to take a tumble scene. Those are the two scenes I got to do. And my wife is an actor also, so I got to do them both with her. And then we send them in. They had a few notes. I do it again. And then Noah's like, he wanted a zoom with me, so I did a zoom. My wife was on a black mirror episode in Spain, so I was over there, jumped on a zoom with Noah, and then you don't hear back for a couple of weeks. We were in Berlin. She's half German. I get a call at 11:00 at night from my agents because it's like la time, right? And they're like, you got it. And then we went out dancing until, like, three a. m. It was pretty amazing, but it was a normal casting experience. I think it definitely helped that I just felt like I knew him. Sometimes as an actor, you're like, oh, is this person inside of me? Can I portray him? And I'm like, and Wayne, instantly, I was like, oh, I know him. I know this man. And therefore, it's going to be really fun to audition for it. I don't know if I'll get it, but I definitely know my way into this character.

Bruce Miller: It's an easier one to audition for than it would be Oppenheimer, for God's sakes.

Bruce Miller: How does that come about?

David Rysdahl: Oh, yeah, that one was hard because they gave you dummy sides because you have no idea what the script is. They don't want to give it to anybody. It was literally, you're a professor of physics lecturing to a group of students, and it's like two monologues full of science jargon. One thing about me is I was a chemistry major at St. Olive College. I knew some of the science and allowed me to be like, all right, I know what this stuff is. It's not just words to me. I can make it real. And also, I loved my science professors, so I was channeling them. I channeled my dad in Fargo. I channeled this fun science professor I had, the organic chemist professor I had at St. Olive College for the Oppenheimer. But it was a very different experience because there were dummy sides. You had no idea what the relationship was. They want to make sure that you could do the scientific talk without it feeling like you're an actor.

Bruce Miller: So what was that like, though, being part of such a huge film? This.

David Rysdahl: so we shot at Los Alamos, and I got there, and I was at a holiday inn, and I couldn't sleep the whole night because I was like, and then you get there the first day, and the first person I met, I got into this van to go to set, and it was, And, and he was like, hi there. Welcome. I'm Killian. And it was just like a normal wasn't. And I was like, oh, yeah, I know. and then we just chatted on the way to set, and he was so down to earth and inviting, and I was like, oh, this is going to be a fun experience. He's my leader in the scene as Killian, but he's also a leader as Oppenheimer. So all those feelings I was having of kind of looking up to him, emulating him as an actor, I could just put into the role. And I think we all felt that all the scientists, he was such a great leader as the lead on the film, and that's exactly what was happening to the scientists. So we could just put everything that was happening in, this meta way into the character.

Bruce Miller: Did you have to do a lot of research on him, though? Or did you say, that's not going to read.

David Rysdahl: I read the book that it was all based on. We all read the book that it's based on. Nolan wanted us all to read that, and we all read that. And then we also, growing up a chemistry major, I knew a lot of that history already, and it was the breakthrough of thought that was happening at that time. Not only we're starting to realize that we can. I mean, philosophy was changing because at that moment in life and at that turn of the century, and I think we're also there right now with AI. And to have those same conversations now that are mirroring the same conversations we had about this thing that's man made, that's harnessing intelligence or harnessing the power of the atom, and we shooting it during, at the beginning of the Russian invasion, there was a lot of things happening in the world that charged that set. So not only was the research that we were doing in the books, but it was also what was happening in the world. Felt like we were replaying a moment in history that was being recycled in our everyday lives.

Bruce Miller: And we'll never be the same again.

Bruce Miller: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: But then how do we go from being a chemistry major to being an actor? That seems like a leap.

David Rysdahl: Yeah. No one from where I'm from is an actor. Right. The idea of being a professional actor was so far outside of my realm of possibilities that I kept it a secret to myself. I acted all through high school. And, I grew up. I was homeschooled, actually, until 7th grade. So I did a lot with, in my home school group, whatever. And then I went to college and I was a chemistry major because I love science. Every elective I could have that was free was an acting course or a writing course. And then I auditioned for the plays and I got into the plays at St. Olive. And then my senior year, I could do apprenticeship at great River Shakespeare Festival. I got into that. I also got an internship at a lab. And it was a very pivotal moment in my life. I was a senior, it was in April. And I was like, I'm going to try it. I'm going to try it. I'm going to go do this great river Shakespeare festival in Winona. I played Laertes in the apprentice program of Hamlet. And I had the time of my life. You got to be around those professional artists, these actors, and life can be like this. You can do this for a living. And one of them was from New York, her apartment in Astoria, Queens. She was going to be gone for a tour. And she was like, well, you can come and live for a month with my roommate. And I was do a sublet. And so I went home and I painted. Told my parents, I'm a tried and living. I'm about to New York. I became a huge Dylan fan at that time, too. And I was like, Bob Dylan came from Minnesota. I went to New York City. Let me just try this out for a year. I painted houses to get $3,000, got a job at this standard hotel. And I used my chemistry major to tutor kids. I tutored a lot of high school kids and did a lot of short films. Spent, my first three years in New York every year. I just felt more in love with it. And it was hard. I was broke the whole time but I was also getting better. And around all these young artists I lived with ten people in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We had three bathrooms and it was like one of these crazy places and one was a musician and a cartoonist. And if nothing else comes from this I get to have had this amazing experience of living in New York and making little short films every weekend. And I remember thinking don't try to look ahead too much. Just look at what's happening right now and appreciate what's happening right now. And if something else comes it comes. And that really saved me. During the dark times when you're confused about what you're doing and you're feeling kind of lost you just kind of like ground yourself in your friends and the art that you're making even if it's at a level that's like a short film. I made like 50 short films in.

Bruce Miller: My twenty s. The thing is though.

Bruce Miller: You come from a place like I do where they say well that's no career, you've got to have something to fall back on.

Bruce Miller: Right.

Bruce Miller: And how do you deal with that?

David Rysdahl: It was hard as a chemistry major. All my friends were now something many doctors and I did a lot of thought of like well what kind of life do I want to have and who am I trying to impress? Am I trying to impress my uncle who I love to live his life? As long as I feel like it's the life that I'm living and I'm being good to people I'm going to be good to myself, I'm paying my rent. Then who cares? And that choice I think in life everyone has those moments in life. Sometimes people decide to live somebody else's life. But I remember this great Charles Bukowski poem that is about this guy. He talks about he falls in love with a waitress and his family kind of poo poo's it. And then he goes and marries somebody else and is unhappy his whole life and he's in his seventy s and he's divorced and lonely and he's like I should have married. Her name was like Marianne or something and his brother is like well why didn't you? And the idea of like nobody really as if somebody else was living your life or telling you how to live your life and I think that's a choice you have to make is I just kept enjoying it and I was feeling fulfilled by it. Was meeting great people and my soul kept on being fulfilled and that's what ended up being the more important thing than what people thought of it.

Bruce Miller: I am not in a rich profession. Every day is different. Every day is interesting. Every day is fun. And I think it's much more important to have those kind of rewards than to be somebody who's just kind of bitter, disgruntled, and maybe makes a lot of money.

David Rysdahl: Amen.

Bruce Miller: now you prove me wrong and you become very rich and famous, and then you'll have all of it, the best of all worlds.

David Rysdahl: Like, I've met people now who are rich and famous. And I can tell you, I feel like we were having more fun broke in our 20s than I did all these short films. A lot of these actors are in their eighty s and we're doing films for no money. And he loved. We were having so much fun. And now I think about being on these big sets, we're doing the exact same thing. This is the same part of the soul it's coming from. You have a little more resources. If you're trying to do this work to become famous, it will eat you alive. But if you love it, if you love the storytelling aspect of the acting, then it doesn't really matter what level you're doing. You get to work with people who maybe just have more resources and are really talented. You get to work with Noah, Holly and Christopher Nolan. And it blows your mind, but your happiness is not contingent on that need.

Bruce Miller: But you still get to work with Noah. You're going to be in his next know.

David Rysdahl: I know.

Bruce Miller: But then you were really good, at the Fargo set. Could I get you coffee? Is there anything more I can do?

David Rysdahl: Yeah, you got to ask Noah that. I think he sent me an email after the final day and was like, hey, there's something maybe in alien for you. And I was like, I'm there. And then he called me about a month later and told me about this other guy that you will soon meet.

Bruce Miller: You haven't started yet though, right?

David Rysdahl: No, we start in February.

Bruce Miller: So how did you and your wife juggle this? Because you're both working, you're both busy. Is it like one for you, one for me, or, we'll see you on the weekends or when we can get together or.

David Rysdahl: What a great question. She was already working a lot, been together for ten years, and I was doing all these shorts and indies, and suddenly she was gone a lot on bigger projects. And I realized that if we get successful with this, both of us, this is going to be our life. And we had to have a real come to Jesus about that. Are we happy? Are we fulfilled? I mean, it's similar to me, the choice to stay in New York and pursue this thing, it's like you have to ask, know yourself well enough. Like, is this going to fulfill me? Is this going to fill? Like, that's the question every couple, I think has. But now we just enjoy when we're apart, and then when we're together, we're really together. We spend a lot of time together when we're together. And that's what a beauty about being an actor. You also have these moments, like a month where you're both not working. You get to really invest in each other in those moments and then find romantic ways while you're both away shooting to stay and connected. We'll watch movies together over zoom, or have a zoom date, or making sure that during the shoot we'll spend a weekend together and nobody else is invited, just like us being very intentional about our time together. and then also always checking in, like, how are you feeling? Are you feeling good? All right. Creating those avenues of real communication.

Bruce Miller: You've got a book in this. You should write this down somewhere, because you know how often you see that people are jealous because they're somehow too busy doing this or whatever, and it's just like, oh, come on, you knew what you're getting into. You know what the demands are. Don't be that way.

David Rysdahl: I think stories are interesting when the character gets what they want and then what happens? I think that happens a lot in life. Like, we have this idea of what will fulfill us, and then you get it and then what? Think so? I think for us, it's like, well, we have this life now that we can live. Is it fulfilling to us? Do we want to keep living it? Or if we don't, then let's go to something else.

Bruce Miller: What lesson do we learn from Fargo?

David Rysdahl: For me, Fargo is all a morality tale, like a fable about the good and the not so good of life. And this season is really about the past trauma, the past debts you can't outrun, right? It's going to catch you, and you're going to have to deal with that. And as a society, I think we're also asking that we all have debt. We have past trauma as a nation, as a society that is being brought up, and we're going to have to sit with it and deal with it before we can actually move forward. For Wayne's character, he can't avoid anymore. There's a lot of avoidance at the beginning of the season, and I think he has to sit in it and go through it together with his.

Bruce Miller: Oh, that's great. Was it too cold for you in Canada?

David Rysdahl: I bet you, know, I was used to that. And what's nice about Calgary, I don't know if you know that, but they have these warm spells that come up the mountain range. But Minnesota, we didn't have that. It's just know it's blistering the Great Plains, so we actually had a few. In Calgary, it'd be freezing, but then you'd have, like, a week of warmth coming from the know.

Bruce Miller: I always say that because we're from the Midwest, we're going to live longer than everybody else because we've been frozen half our lives. And it's like cryogenics, but it's just.

David Rysdahl: A good Minnesota way to look at it.

Bruce Miller: David, thank you so much. And like I say, and I'm not lying to you, I really warm to your character in this series, and I love this version because I think it has stuff that we can latch on to. I think when they go too far back, it's very difficult to kind of relate to it. But this one is a real test of our strength. But your character, he caught it. He knows exactly what he's doing.

David Rysdahl: thank you so much, Bruce. I really appreciate it.

Bruce Miller: When we see you for alien, just know I'll, be the one. Oh, good. Maybe then we'll be in person. We'll see what happens.

David Rysdahl: Oh, I would love that. That'd be great.

Bruce Miller: Hey, thanks so much and have a great holiday season.

Terry Lipshetz: All right, Bruce, thanks for that. Real fascinating. Real interesting. Know, it's kind of interesting because obviously he's from the Midwest, so he does sound like he's from the Midwest, but he sounds like he's a little bit in character, but he's also out of character, too, if that makes.

Bruce Miller: Right. Right. Well, he knows better and. Hey, where'd he go? He would talk to his dad. His dad was his guidepost there. But there's your second episode of Fargo this week. I'm sorry I can't do better, but there's your chance now, next week, you've got some homework to do before we get to next week, because I want to do the top ten movies of 2023. So I think you have some that you've got to see. I've seen everything that could possibly be a contender. I have even a couple of independent films that I don't even know if they're on anybody's list, but, I want to go through the list of the top ten movies of 2023, and then the following week, we'll do the top ten tv shows of 2023. But that's a calendar year, so make sure you look from January to the end of December.

Terry Lipshetz: Looking forward to that. As we slowly wind down this year.

Bruce Miller: Hopefully people who listen will send in their list so we can see what you have to say about your favorite films and tv shows. Absolutely.

Terry Lipshetz: You can do that through podcasts@lee.net. Send us your thoughts and we'll be happy to share them in a future episode. And for that, Bruce, thanks again for this episode, and we will see you again next week with another episode of streamed and screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

The year is winding down and Hollywood is still not completely recovered from the writers and actors strikes, but there are still a lot of new options coming to the small screen.

From science fiction to documentaries, co-host Bruce Miller offers his recommendations on what to watch. Plus, he has a special holiday treat in the form of an interview with Bill Pullman, who portrays Alex Murdaugh in the new Lifetime movie "Murdaugh Murders: The Movie."

Pullman, best known as Lone Starr in "Spaceballs" and considered one of the greatest film presidents of all time as President Whitmore in "Independence Day," talks about how he took on his latest challenge.

Where to watch

"Murdaugh Murders: The Movie" on Lifetime
"Candy Cane Lane" on Amazon Prime Video
"Dr. Who" on Disney+
"American Symphony" on Netflix
"Thriller at 40" on Showtime
"OWN Celebrates The New Color Purple" on OWN
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" on Disney+
"We Live Here: The Midwest" on Hulu
"Murder in Boston: Roots, Rampage and Reckoning" on Max
"Mr. Monk's Last Case: A Monk Movie" on Peacock

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed & Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV. From Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, managing editor of the national Newsroom at Lee and co-host of the program of Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, we're back.

Bruce Miller: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. We've got a lot of stuff unpacked because this is the week that they start opening up. A lot of new shows, a lot of new specials, a lot of new films on. Were we were really worried there for a while. But I think we're in a good place right now. There are a lot of things that we want to see. Candy cane Lane. Have you heard of this?

Terry Lipshetz: I have not, no.

Bruce Miller: Eddie Murphy. It's where he gets a chance to kind of play like Tim Allen or Chevy Chase. And it's his big Christmas thing that's coming out this week. And it's one of those kind of I want to be Clark Griswold. I want to have the house decorated with the most lights of anybody. It's Eddie Murphy then? Diary of a wimpy kid. Cabin Fever. Christmas cabin fever. are you a Wimpy Kid fan?

Terry Lipshetz: No. That kind of predated me a little bit.

Bruce Miller: It's since kind of switched because it was live action. Now it's animated. And this is a movie movie thing about he gets in trouble with a snowplow and he wants to cover his tracks so nobody knows about it because he really wants a gaming system. Sounds just like Terry. And then he has to try and figure out how he's going to promote the lie without being found out. And it's really cute. I saw it and I was like, this is pretty good. This is a nice little look at this.

Terry Lipshetz: Need a little more family stuff out there, too.

Bruce Miller: That's what we're throwing out there. We have the Doctor Who special. Are you a big Doctor Who fan?

Terry Lipshetz: Never. Never got into it, no.

Bruce Miller: Well, they're going to introduce the new Doctor Who. They're going to throw back to some of the old ones. That's a big thing that's coming this week. Then we get into what I'd like to call the documentary area. A lot of documentaries are out there. American Symphony. I think I might have mentioned this before with John Baptiste. Fascinating. Fascinating. I watched it over the weekend. And it's about how he was having the greatest time ever. And his wife was experiencing one of the biggest lows. She was, diagnosed with cancer. And she was going through a bone marrow transplant. And he was winning all the Grammys. And they juxtaposed the two things quite well. Suleika [Jaouad] is her name. And she is just a marvel at how she dealt with all of this and then how he deals with tempering, his enthusiasm over his own career because his wife is do we know how it's going to end? We don't and the documentary kind of has that same trajectory. We don't know where this is going. So that's a fascinating one. Thriller at 40. They go back and they look at all of the people who were involved in Thriller and they talked to a number of them about what it was like making Thriller. I think that's fascinating. I think that's really good documentary.

Terry Lipshetz: For me, growing up on MTV, thriller is just one of those music videos that it's just iconic. Absolutely.

Bruce Miller: MJ The musical, is on Broadway. And I think this is another one of those ways to politely deal with Michael Jackson's life without getting into Michael Jackson's life. so that'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Now, later in the month, we're going to get Oprah's journey. Oprah and her color purple journey. And if you ever heard her talking about this, she did a couple of interviews this last week. I sat in on one of them where she talks about that really started her career. She was just a, local television personality who wanted more but didn't know what to do. And Steven Spielberg offered her the job in the movie Color Purple. And by just kind of letting go and not worrying about anything, she was able to create Oprah. And this talks about how she got from that movie to now, where she's producing the new musical that's coming out at Christmas time.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow.

Bruce Miller: And the musical is different. It is not what I was expecting, having seen the Broadway revival that was very spare and kind of pulled back. This movie is just like a huge musical. It's got big musical numbers. It's interesting. Very interesting. And then having Oprah kind of as an overlay on this whole journey. Fascinating. So those are kind of, the documentaries that are hanging out there. Then we've got series, some series that are interesting. I talked to the cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, yeah.

Bruce Miller: That has been hanging out there. How long, did you see any of the Percy Jackson movies?

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, this was something that we as a family watched a lot of, in the last year or two. One of my daughters, who's just a crazy bookworm, knock through the entire series of the books. And then we watched, I think it was, what, two movies. And they were planning on continuing it, but then it just fell apart. The movies were okay. They weren't spectacular. We've been eyeballing this one. So tell me it's good, please.

Bruce Miller: Well, they did the Lightning Thief as a Broadway musical. It did okay. It didn't win awards, but it was interesting. And it's been touring around. So you might find it somewhere in the country if you're looking. But now they decided we're going back to the beginning. We're going to try this again and see where we can get and the first season will deal with the first book. They have three kids that are basically unknowns that are cast in this. And they're excited about it. For them, there are a lot of these kind of guest star gods that show up. So you're going to find a bunch of big names, including Lin Manuel Miranda, He's, Hermes. So there are a number of these ones that will kind of pop in and be a surprise. I think its 810 episode, something like that. But fascinating. They spend a lot of money on it. They're trying hard to create another Harry Potter vibe. I think that's what three kids friends dealing with things. And the kid said that the fight scenes were really kind of fun. So who knows if that's it could be the big thing. But that's coming up. I think it starts December 20. So we'll see how that kind of spins down and if it is interesting. Back in my documentary, Kick, we, live here. It's a series of stories about LGBTQ residents around the country. And it's in unlikely places like Iowa, where they talk about their lives and what it was like. And I think this is a fascinating look at people in places that you wouldn't expect, if that's the right terminology for this. It's fascinating because they'll talk about their lives and what kind of struggles they have in every part of the country. It's produced by Ryan Murphy's husband. And Ryan Murphy. You may know from a lot of those TV series like glee and, American horror Story. he's got a lot of things on the front burner. But this is one that his husband is producing. And he sees a hope for this, that they will go all around the world eventually and tell you all about what's happening. Murder in Boston. It was a 1989 murder in Boston. Obviously, the husband tried to pin it on a black man.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: They then later found out that the husband was maybe trying to get out of something. Netflix had a series on it. And then who else has one now? Max. So it's like one begets another. Murdaugh murders the movie. It's on Lifetime as a movie. And this is about the Alex Murdaugh, case, where he was charged with killing his wife and his son.

Terry Lipshetz: Right?

Bruce Miller: It was unfolding while they were making the movie version of this. It's like, how do you get a resolution out of this? But they were worried about the strike. They were worried about everything else. And finally it came out in October. And still the case wasn't over. And I got a chance to talk to Bill Pullman, who's the star who plays Alec in the film version. And he said he was watching the Netflix documentary before he started filming. So he'd get a little more sense of all this because it was changing daily and what this was like for him. He also has a son who's in Lessons In is his career is just blossoming. And dad will talk about what he thought was going to happen with Lewis's career. Lewis today was just nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for lessons in chemistry.

Terry Lipshetz: All right, that sounds good. Let's go ahead to that.

Bruce Miller: Know, the strange thing about this is the news was unfolding while you were making this. Have you ever had that before where you've had to kind of deal with what might be happening and then play the story or what's that like?

Bill Pullman: Yeah, I have never done that before. I don't think there's a lot where, like with the sinner, you don't know what the story is going to be. But this is different. This was like wild rogue people doing people things. It's not a manipulation of writers or anything. And, that was one thing. And then the fact that you just knew that nobody was going to it wasn't like they saw all the footage when it happened, and then they were going to give it a break. And then you come in with a clean slate. You're layering your story on top of yet another doc series like the Netflix. One was strong, and everybody saw that. And then there was many others that came on. Most of them are called Murdoch murders. And then we came along. Murdoch murders the movie.

Bruce Miller: The movie. Do you prepare by watching all of that? Or do you say, no, I don't want to be teeded by that.

Bill Pullman: Well, my first instinct was I didn't want to do it if they were expecting to be a mimic kind of thing. And I played, like in Too Big to Fail. I played Jamie Diamond. And there was a lot available on him that I, could access. He's pretty public person. This one. I felt like an HBO can be very there's just a lot of producers, sometimes that give you the feeling like you've got to fit their idea of what they think is the way he wore his hair, all that. Whereas this one, I didn't want to get into that. And I thought, I'll not watch a lot of it. I think I've seen enough. And then I started in. And then like everybody else, curiosity just led me to just say, I got to look at it again. Some of it was a tension between needing to learn lines and keep moving with shooting. Ah, so you're going vertical then. But then you get online and you're watching this stuff and you're going horizontal. And you know that it's like, I can't spend more time looking at this, because I got to go vertical. And yet you can't pull out just too many details, too compelling. But somehow I did end up watching more than I thought.

Bruce Miller: Are you still interested in his case, in his situation? Or have you said, okay, I'm done now. I'm out of it.

Bill Pullman: Well I don't have a search on him or anything but like today was the verdict for the state embezzlement that all came down today and somebody showed me on the phone what the results were. Pretty much everybody I know will say hey, did you hear or check it out, what's happening? And then I would check it out the voice too. Did you study that so you could.

Bruce Miller: Get the voice just like his voice?

Bill Pullman: Some of it was this great thing about southern people. There's lots of different versions of that South Carolina thing. There's the mountain and then there's this southern pied bond that's slower but he could talk very fast but also very good communicator and a lot of it came from the starting low and going up high and hidden certain words especially when he was doing his testimony and he just loved to say dog. Well what you have to understand about these dogs they're Munton dogs all that just watching how those signature ah, coded dialect I think and so much performative in his case he was different in different circumstances.

Bruce Miller: There's so much in this about his relationship with his dad and then his relationship with his son. How does that work with you and your kids? Here you have a kid going in the same business say you're in find yourself giving advice or saying you're not doing this, you're not doing that. Where does that work?

Bill Pullman: Yeah that is the thing about as an actor now it's common when you're running into people laypeople or young actors. Do you have any advice for me? I don't know when this started but it's like a virus man. I never asked anybody to give me advice and I don't think if they did I usually thought I was scornful of know because I figured I don't just have a mistrust of that that's A leads to B equals learning. You get so much by osmosis and everything and I think that's true with Lewis really would only be really granular with him. I don't have it Bruce. I don't have overarching big wisdoms of truisms that always hold up brain or shine. I'm always aware that I'm looking at opposites so much. I'm so much more intrigued by what I say and then I could also get behind the opposite of that quite quickly.

Bruce Miller: Did you think he would go into the business when he was a kid? Did you say oh yeah, this one's going to be an actor?

Bill Pullman: You know he were I've talked about this particularly with actresses know different times about what their kids are like and I remember it was Julia Armand who was just know, some actors come out of exhibitionism and some comes out of extreme shyness and they both can be good actors. Lewis was not I didn't think of him as overly exhibitionist. In fact he really had a lot of performance anxiety early on that he decided he didn't want to be victim to. And he was a drummer and was having trouble performing in high school. And he worked through that. And by his senior year, he said, now I'm going to try to be in a play. I'm going to work through that. So it was an effortful to get through all that, which I admire him for.

Bruce Miller: What is it like now when you see him and he's doing so well?

Bill Pullman: Yeah, he really is such a wash of relief and wonderment that comes over me when I watch now this lessons in chemistry. Now know, he has Astounding chemistry with Brie Larson that I've been watching that and it's know, watching an animal at the like just so curious about the behavior.

Terry Lipshetz: Thanks again for that interview, Bruce. Fascinating stuff. It sounds like an interesting series. So it might be one I'm going to look to check out.Now, Bill Pullman, he's been around. He's done a know, he's Lone Starr from Spaceballs right.

Bruce Miller: His career is so eclectic. You really can't pin it down as to he's this or he's that. they always talk about him as the best president on film.

Terry Lipshetz: I would vote for Bill Pullman for president. Is he a Democrat? Is he a Republican? I don't even know what he cares. He saved Planet Earth. He knew what he was. He was a war hero.

Bruce Miller: Right.

Terry Lipshetz: Because he was a fighter jet pilot.

Bruce Miller: And he was presidential. That's all we need.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, but he's been around. I mean, you look at, Spaceballs, obviously. He played the father of Christina Ricci and Casper back in 96. USA Network had a, it was a very brief series. It was called The Sinner. And he played a detective, Harry Ambrose. And it was sort of an anthology because he was the only character that went through all four seasons. But it was these very strange cases that only the detective, Harry Ambrose, could somehow solve.

Bruce Miller: Well, and he says this kind of plays off that by doing this real life thing. It's a different kind of skill set that he needed to have. Because when it's unfolding while you're making it, it's a different world. And I like it. It's very easy going, very kind of dad like, if that's a good term.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: And he never wanted to be an actor, really. He taught acting, in Montana. And the students all said, you need to be an actor. You need to try. And it worked. It worked for so, he's one of the good guys. But they're bringing it back now because he didn't get to do publicity when it first premiered, because we were airstrike time. So pushing him because we're heading into the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Oscars, Golden Globes, all the Critic Awards, and they want to give him some attention for this. And hopefully it'll work they'll be able to get that momentum going behind his performance. He's one of the biggest names Lifetime has had on their channel. He gets a chance to really kind of do what he wants to do. You see him playing around with his voice a lot. You might come to a different conclusion about some of this, but you see the pressures that Alec was facing and, how it being part of a family that has a history. I'm glad I'm not. It's like so often when you see on TV an ad that says, we don't charge you a cent for representing you. Well, no, they don't, but they take a piece of the action if you win, and it's probably a huge part of the money you get in a settlement. is this a good way to go? I don't know.

Terry Lipshetz: When are we getting the sequel to Spaceballs? Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money?

Bruce Miller: He did not say. He did not say. But I have a feeling that if somebody brought him a script, he'd say, I'm in.

Terry Lipshetz: What's Mel Brooks doing? He's semi-retired, but he's still doing things.

Bruce Miller: Mel is still working. He's got a lot of the front know he's been redoing his young Frankenstein Broadway musical. Well, another one that I want to mention to you, because I think it's kind of interesting. It's Monk's last case. Remember Monk?

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, sure.

Bruce Miller: And he kind of disappeared on us. Where has he been? Well, he's been at the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is where he's of course. But he's coming back to do what they say. It's one more this is the last one. Is it? I mean, it's even titled Last Case. But I bet you any money, if it works really well and they can work it out, he'll do more. Yeah. And so it's his last chance to kind of deal with issues that surround him. They sent, in the mail as kind of a thing, of course, and Sanitizer Nice a hanger and a suit bag. And it's all a way to push the idea. Tony Shalhoub is back, and many of the other people that you saw on the series over the years will make special appearances.

Terry Lipshetz: You know, Tony Shalhoub, though, he made a special appearance recently, because I live in Wisconsin, and he is, from Wisconsin, and he is one of the Green Bay Packers biggest fans. And while everybody in the world was talking about Taylor Swift coming to Lambeau Field, Tony Shalhoub was there. He was mingling with the people. He wasn't in the glass box with Taylor Swift. He was down on the field hanging out with Simone Biles.

Bruce Miller: That could be the next Prave. For Taylor Swift.

Terry Lipshetz: That's right. Right.

Bruce Miller: If you're not with Tony Shalhoub, who are?

Bill Pullman: Exactly.

Bruce Miller: It's nice to see him doing something know, after they end a series, you think, now, how much sooner will it be until I get to see him again. Well, this was great. He had this one two punch. I don't think he was that big in this last season of Mrs. Basil, but, it's nice to see him revisit his old parts. And who knows if he might not be back for another Wings Redo. They've talked about that many times, so you never know. So that's what we've got. But it's a lot on TV this time. So look at your TV schedules, what you like to watch. All of the premium channels are introducing things, even like, Jeff Lewis. Are you a Jeff Lewis fan? Jeff Lewis is a home improvement guy. And I thought I had given up on it. I didn't think it was coming back. But he's doing more Hollywood house lifts and we'll see what happens there. But there are a lot of those things that are out there. I want you to call attention to it because this is the time of year when some of those might just slip by.

Terry Lipshetz: You know, we talked about this also where when we're trying to come up with their predictions for when would the writer strikes and the actor strike ends. And I threw out the idea of things would kind of loosen up right around Thanksgiving. Because it's that time where all of a sudden there's no college football. The NFL season is winding down. We're heading into the winter. People aren't outside as much. It's time to become snuggle up by the fire and become a couch potato again for a few months. So you need programming. And sure enough, as we're getting into the holidays and there's things out there, and I'm starting to see previews for show. I keep seeing this preview on football for, like, Night Court. Season two is coming back. And I just saw and this is a ways out, but I was watching something on HBO, and all of a sudden, the preview for the season two of House of the Dragon is coming up. And that's getting me excited for next summer already. So it's just good to see programming is coming back.

Bruce Miller: It gives us hope. Isn't that looking? If I have TV shows, I'll be okay. I could make it through the winter.

Terry Lipshetz: The holiday season, the time for hope in television.

Bruce Miller: That's right. Next week, I've got a really special thing for you, and I hope you tell others about it.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay?

Bruce Miller: it is a look at somebody who was part of two of the biggest things this year. The biggest movie, one of the biggest movies. It's not Barbie and Ken, so don't look for that. And also one of the biggest series. And he talks about what that whole year has been like and also how he got the gig. He did not plan to be an actor. He was not in it. Like some are where they go to school for this. He was going to be a chemist. All of a sudden, things changed for him. And you'll hear the story. It's a fascinating story, a story I didn't know. I was excited to hear the interview, to be a part of the interview. And that'll next week, and we won't spoil it anymore. But you want to tune in for that because think that's very special.

Terry Lipshetz: That sounds good. Well, I guess, on that note, we will wrap up this week's episode and we have to look ahead. Then you've got to come back to find out who we're going to talk to on another episode of streamed and screen.

Bruce Miller: And after that, we're going to be talking the best pictures of the year and the best TV shows of the year. So get ready. Those are going to be coming up later in the month. Bye.

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View Details

The year is winding down but there is no end in sight when it comes to movie options in theaters between now and the end of the year. In this week's episode of Streamed & Screened, Bruce Miller highlights more than a dozen films that range from family-friendly to other that will compete with "Oppenheimer," "Killers of the Flower Moon" and others for Oscar consideration.

Where to watch

"May December" in select theaters now and coming to Netflix Dec. 1
"Priscilla" in theaters now
"Rustin" on Netflix now
"Saltburn" in theaters now
"Wish" in theaters now
"Poor Things" in select theaters Dec. 8
"American Fiction" in theaters Dec. 15
"Wonka" in theaters Dec. 15
"Maestro" in select theaters now and coming to Netflix Dec. 20
"All Of Us Strangers" in theaters Dec. 22
"The Iron Claw" in theaters Dec. 22
"The Boys In The Boat" in theaters Dec. 25
"The Color Purple" in theaters Dec. 25

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal, a longtime entertainment reporter, and hopefully well rested after our little Thanksgiving break.

Bruce Miller: Well rested? What do you mean well rested? I was watching movies during the whole break. They are stacking up like, uh, wood in my house. That's how many new movies we've got coming. And if you thought the year was done, you are absolutely wrong. There are so many new movies that are coming, I can't keep up with it. Even though I would like to say that we've seen the Best Picture so far this year, I think that could be wrong. I think we could be seeing one that could slip in there, and it'll be Best Picture.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow. Could the operative word.

Bruce Miller: That is the operative word.

Disney’s latest animated film ‘Wish’ underwhelms

Bruce Miller: I got to tell you, though, I went to the theater to see Wish, okay? And I was all ready. Yeah, I like cartoons. I really do. I like them, too. And I am all in with all that stuff. And when I saw this, I was so disappointed. It tries to be a tribute to all hundred years of the Disney Company. So it brings back concepts, kind of characters. Peter Pan floats through there somewhere, and there's, uh, just a sensibility of, how can we make another buck off this stuff? That's what I think wish is. Um, and you'll see characters that remind you of other characters. But I was disappointed because Christmas, you look forward to the big Disney movie that they put out there, and this isn't it. Even the songs are lame, really. So let it know.

Terry Lipshetz: I've seen the trailer and the first time I always get excited because I love Disney movies. I love classic animated Disney movies, and also the Pixar movies as well. I saw the trailer for Wish, and my first reaction was that this looks just there was nothing about it that grabbed me, and it felt old. I don't know. There was something about it. I don't know what it was, but I looked at it and know, I feel like I've seen this story a hundred times before. Maybe I haven't, but I don't just that's just the initial reaction I had.

Bruce Miller: It takes place on the Mediterranean, and the castle looks vaguely like the one from The Little Mermaid, but, you know, they had trouble with that because, uh, some disgruntled animator drew something that wasn't exactly a seashell, shall we say. And so the idea that they would reference that somehow visually with this is just a real oh, okay. And the part that Chris Pine plays, he's the kind of the king of this odd world, and he is the keeper of Wishes.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay?

Bruce Miller: And the guy can sing. That's the thing we learned from this is that Chris Pine can sing. So good news. But the songs that he's singing are like, really? Is this really what you want to be singing about? And he's got an apprentice, Asha, who is voiced by Ariana DeBose, and she wants to push the agenda for her grandfather, who's turning 100. And she wants his wish to be approved. But this king decides that he doesn't want to grant all the wishes. He wants to keep the power to himself. Now, there's a political message in this somehow. Um, and I wouldn't doubt that there was a hidden Disney versus Ron DeSantis message lurking somewhere in there too, but it's just I don't know. And when you see these friends who are the seven dwarves, you think, well, what was that all about? Why are they doing those kind of stupid things? So wish was not what I was wishing for. Wish didn't come up to the level, and I don't dare talk too much about it, but at Christmas time, there are going to be some other family films that I think are much more appropriate, more fun, and dad and mom won't have to worry about, oh, uh, what are they trying to say with this thing? And how do we unpack it more there to be seen.

‘May December’ is a fascinating look at family dynamics over the holidays

Bruce Miller: The other odd thing I noticed over the holidays in looking at, I swear, I must have seen ten or 15 movies, is there's a lot of kind of worry about families and what does family mean? May December? Is this kind of based on the Mary Kay Letourneau case where she married a younger, uh, he was a student.

Terry Lipshetz: Her student, right? Yeah.

Bruce Miller: But this is not their story. It's just kind of inspired by, if you will, and it shows what the relationship is like much later in their lives. And a woman comes to their home because she's doing a, ah, role based on this, and she wants to see what the relationship is all about. Natalie Portman plays the actress, and Juliana Moore, um, is the Mary Kay Letourneau part, but the one to watch for, and he won a Gotham Award, is Charlie Melton, who plays the young man in an older age and, um, what he's like with his wife and his children. And it's fascinating. It's fascinating. You understand that maybe he was the one who suffered the most in the situation. But it's May December, and that's an interesting thing about family dynamics. All of us Strangers is another interesting kind of unpacking. And this is a bunch of, oh, what do I want to call it? Uh, it's a fantasy of sorts. Because you're wondering what happens or what happened that this man is talking to his parents who are dead. It's very Sixth Sense in that respect. And he asks them questions about things and it's can you talk to your parents? Or somebody that's important to you in your life is gone? And can they advise you about your life. Very, very fascinating. But I don't know that it'll catch on with everybody.

‘Saltburn’ is a film that explores family dynamics

Bruce Miller: Paul Mescal is in there as a romantic interest for Andrew Strong, I believe it is. Andrew Strong is the guy whose parents are there. And Claire Foy and Jamie Bell play the parents. Now, they're younger than Andrew, but you see he has a relationship with this guy and he's going to talk to his parents about this relationship. And it's fascinating to see how that is unpacked. Saltburn is another family relationship thing. Have you heard about Saltburn?

Terry Lipshetz: No, I haven't.

Bruce Miller: Emerald Fennell or fennel or however you want to pronounce it, uh, who won an Oscar for promising young woman shows. This young man going to Oxford and he's from not a wealthy family. And he goes to Oxford and he sees that there really is a clannishness there to all of the people who go to Oxford. And this rich kid, played by Jacob O'Lordy, is nice to him. But then he returns the favor and lets him borrow his bike when Jacob's bike breaks down. And that gets them talking and becoming friends. And the rich kid invites the poor kid to come and spend the summer at his house because, ah, his dad is supposedly dead and his mother know she has problems, issues. And so he said, well, come and spend the summer with us. We'll have lots of fun at Saltburn. That's the name of their house. Well, the house is incredible. It's like something you'd see out of Downton Abbey or whatever. And the people who are there are crazy. His family crazy, the hangars on crazy. And it all kind of comes together about what does family mean? How do you create a family? Is there a family? What do you do if your family is against you? And what if you lie? It's very fascinating film that I think is going to get a lot of attention in this follow up during um, the Christmas season.

Several big family films coming out on Christmas Day

Bruce Miller: And then the other one that's a big family film is The Color Purple. That's coming out on Christmas Day. And that's a musical version of Color Purple. Um, it was a big musical a number of years ago and didn't really go anywhere. And then they brought it back to Broadway by stripping it down. Instead of having huge sets and lots of costumes, they did it with chairs. And Cynthia Rebo was in it. And she wanted Tony. The Thing won a Tony for best revival. And now they've taken all of that and decided to turn that into a movie. Oprah, who was in the original Color Purple movie, is one of the producers. Steven Spielberg is a producer. Quincy Jones is a producer. And Fantasia Barino, who was, um, an American Idol winner, she was in the original musical version of Color Purple. I know this is confusing and she's now starring in this and obviously can be an Oscar nominee but it shows how she warmed to her family and how her love for her sister kept her going during some very dark times. So family becomes a real interesting kind of thing. But those aren't the films that people are talking about for Best Picture. Maestro. Maestro is the thing you've got to look out for with Bradley Cooper and Carrie Mulligan. And, um, this is about Leonard Bernstein and his career. And it just takes a couple of small moments in his life that are kind of focused and you get to see what he was like and what the family dynamic was all about. And that is getting more buzz than you can imagine. I mean, I keep hearing about it all the time. Poor Things is another interesting one with Emma Stone, who they say is possibly going to be best actress. Um, and it's a Frankenstein kind of film where she is brought back to life and then she has to deal with all the things that happened as a result of that. Interesting, Willem Dafoe plays the doctor who brings her back to life. Oh, nice. Uh, Ruffalo is the man who marries her and brings her into the know American. Um, fiction is another one that's getting a lot of buzz. Jeffrey Wright is in that. And this is about a black writer who writes a book with all of these kind of clichés, for lack of a better term, anti-black stuff. And it becomes a huge hit. And he has to reconcile, how do I deal with this when I'm doing something that's against my own best interests? Um, and that's another one that people are talking about. There's one that I think grandma will love called The Boys in the Boat. And there's one of those ones that either, uh, Clint Eastwood comes up with or somebody in the background that you say, really, what was this all about? But it's one where you think, ah, I might like that. It's green book all over. But this is about a 1936, uh, rowing team.

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, right, yeah.

Bruce Miller: And directed by George Clooney. And it's their kind of story. And it's very simple. It isn't one that you're going to go, oh, and then the Nazis were right there. It isn't like that. It's just can they do it? And it's a Rocky story come from. And Rocky, if you may remember, was one of those Christmas films that people thought, uh, this is not going to win anything. This isn't anything. And it beat all the films that they were talking about for the whole year. All the President's Men network. Those were all the big kind of buzzwords during that period. And Rocky came out at Christmas and blew. Everybody.

Terry Lipshetz: Saw because I just went with my family. We saw, uh, the Hunger Games prequel, um, right before Thanksgiving. And one of the trailers they showed was Boys in the Boat. And I'm sitting there watching this trailer and thinking, like, I really want to see this because I love inspirational sports movies to begin with. But as you said, the comparison of Rocky, it felt like kind of a Rockyish type story where you've got this group, they are the underdogs. They're going up against heavyweights in collegiate rowing. And then of course, you've got, uh, the Nazi Germany of the time and the Olympic competition. So it seems like a real fascinating one and one that I definitely would like to get out and see.

Bruce Miller: There's a documentary out about it that's been around, but this is a fictionalized version and I think those are more accessible for most people. They're ones that you can really kind of latch onto and say, ah, that's interesting. So I would tend to think it'll do well at Christmas. I m don't know that it'll necessarily be nominated for best picture, but I do think it's one that Grandma is going to say, I'd like to see that boat that looks like, uh, a good movie for me. I get a lot of stuff in the mail and it's like reminders that you should look at this one more time. Creed three.

Movies released earlier in the year getting some additional Oscar buzz

Bruce Miller: Speaking of Rocky, they're pushing like crazy and I didn't is that on my list? No. The Margaret movie. Uh, is it you? God. It's me, Margaret, something like that. Long title that's coming back with a vengeance. And you'll see that, uh, Rachel McAdams is clearly being talked about as a best supporting actress candidate. But they're pulling those things into the Spider verse or, uh, what is it out of? What's the correct name for the new version? Across the spider.

Terry Lipshetz: Across the Spider-Verse. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Spider-Verse, yes.

Bruce Miller: Um, is also getting a huge push. Air is back with a vengeance. In fact, I think I got a cassette player from them that know if you want to listen to the music from Air, here you go. Barbie, uh, is back with a vengeance. There are a lot of things that are Barbie, um, Oppenheimer.

Terry Lipshetz: Oppenheimer is on streaming now, I think, or just about to be. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: Uh, they are doing a big push too. So those are all ones that are making, um, an impact. The iron claw. I think it's called the iron claw. The wrestling movie that is going to be a surprise because it's got great performances in it. And you go Zac Efron. Really hold your breath because you'll be ready for something that's real interesting. And it's got Jeremy White.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: So come on.

Terry Lipshetz: From the bear.

Bruce Miller: From the bear. If you're in the bear, you got to be good.

Terry Lipshetz: He's cooking up something new, right?

Bruce Miller: Easy. He is cooking up something new. Is that a wrestling term? I think it is. There are screen, uh, biographies. Priscilla, which is about Priscilla Presley. That'll be big. Rustin, which is about the civil rights leader. That'll be big. So it's a lot of stuff that I'm looking at that thinking, hmm, m. And I haven't even scratched surface of the foreign language films. There's, uh, a ton of ones from Asia. A ton. And they could actually factor, uh, into the final round of you know, I started out at the beginning of the year with a list of the best films that I thought would be in the mic. And as I go along, there are so many new films that are coming in at the last minute that start bumping something off the list, and you go, wow, I didn't realize that. But what I did do was I had relatives, and I said to the relatives, okay, you need to go to the movies while I look at other things. And so I want you to go see something in the theater where you can really experience what this is all about. And I push them off to the holdovers because I think that really holds up, and it's something that I dare tell them about, and they don't go, oh, that was just terrible. You pick the worst movies if you like a movie. I know I'm going to hate the movie. So I had to have something that worked with it, and they loved it. They were raving about the holdovers, and maybe that's got the legs to hang in there for the rest of the year, I don't know. But I think what we're learning at this time, it ain't over till it's over.

Terry Lipshetz: It sounds like a lot of really good options here. Now, how many of these have you been able to screen so far?

Bruce Miller: Well, it was between ten or 15.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: And I sit at night, uh, and it's so unfair, because all year long you wait for something good, and this is like, good, good, great, incredibly good. And you've gone the whole year without seeing something that really trips some kind of trigger in you to make you want to see it, and you want to see it again. You want to see it a second time. But it depends on how I might see it. I might see it in theater, I might see it on my big screen TV. I might see it on my laptop. I have even watched things on my phone because that's how they send you the thing. Uh, so you get different in different ways, but it's like a quick run to see how good it is, and then if it's really good, you'll watch it a second time just to make sure that you've got all of the ducks in a row.

Terry Lipshetz: So did you get a chance to see poor things? Is that one of the ones that you have been able to screen yet?

Bruce Miller: I haven't. And it's one of those you know how you have it's like a, uh, carrot at the end of a yeah. And if you get through this, you can see that. And I haven't gotten to that okay.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. Because I'm curious because you mentioned Mark Ruffalo is in it. I love him. He's just a tremendous actor. But I always feel like he's always yelling. He's always getting worked up about something and yelling at I just I was curious if he's yelling at all the movie, because he always seems agitated.

Bruce Miller: Well, he's the Hulk.

Terry Lipshetz: That's right.

Bruce Miller: Exactly. But I'll watch it before next week. I'll make sure do that so that then I can tell you if it's happening. And Christmas movies. There's Christmas movies all over the place. Eddie Murphy's got one. Tim Allen is back as Santa Claus in that TV series. Yeah. Beyonce is back in her concert, uh, tour.

Terry Lipshetz: That's right.

Bruce Miller: Taylor Swift's thing has added more to the three plus hours that they had. So if you go on her birthday, you'll be able to see an even longer Taylor Swift concert movie.

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, boy.

Will ‘Wonka’ be a big hit movie to finish the year?

Terry Lipshetz: So the one that I'm curious about and my family's curious about is Wonka. Is that going to be any good?

Bruce Miller: How much can I tell you? Because technically, I can't review it yet.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: It isn't time. But it is a visual treat in terms of, like, the sets, the costumes, all of that kind of stuff. The people who did Paddington Two are behind this. Um, and Timothy Chalamet, I think, will surprise you as Willy Wonka.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: I don't know. Personally, I would cast him as Willy Wonka, but you find what his origin story is and how did he get this? Chocolate factory? Maybe.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. Well, maybe that's one, since you can't quite review it yet, maybe as we get closer, once you can, we can talk about that one in relation to the original, the one with Gene Wilder, uh, as well as the reboot that was done with, uh, Johnny Depp a number of years ago. Because I think both of those movies, they're so opposite of each other in so many different ways, but they're fascinating.

Bruce Miller: Yeah. This is, uh, a better fit for the Gene Wilder one.

Terry Lipshetz: That's kind of what I thought it felt. Know, visually, it's updated because you have the benefit of improved filmmaking techniques. But it felt like and they have the song. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: They get to have the song in. I hope that's not a spoiler alert. But the song is there, so you'll get to enjoy, um I sang a lot. Who doesn't? It's a great song. But I'm, uh, sure you've seen the ads where Hugh Grant is an Oompa Loompa.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: And you find that origin story, too, which is okay.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to that one.

Bruce Miller: I think, um, Wonka could be one of those ones that at Christmas time, it will be seen over and over and over and over.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow. Perfect.

Some of these Disney animated movies are not living up to the past

Terry Lipshetz: Kind of going back to the top of this episode when we're talking about Disney movies, and there's been a lot and this is in relation to Wish, which is out. It did come out this past weekend, it did not do well at the theater at all. And I kind of mentioned it just looked like one where uh, do I even want to see it? And I'm going back through the list of recent Disney movies and I'm looking at it and you know, like Zootopia I enjoyed it. Finding dory. I enjoyed it. Moana, I enjoyed it. Coco, I enjoyed it. And I liked incredibles too. But kind of after that it really starts taking a turn. Some of them are okay. I didn't mind Toy Story Four. Frozen Two was fine, but Onward was okay. Luca was okay. Ryan the Last Dragon was like, they were okay. But none of them felt like classics in my just even know I know a lot of people talked about it because of the song. It was one of those where I remember watching it and I kind of fell asleep while watching it. So I don't know, I really feel like some of these Disney animated movies are not living up to the past.

Bruce Miller: I think they kind of are searching for they did have people in place who were very well versed at doing this kind of stuff and they would stop somebody and say, no, we're not going to do that. And I think now they're so eager to find something that they greenlight stuff that shouldn't be.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: Ah, they have been using, um, short subjects as their way to test the market to kind of see if a concept works. And they have done well with that. But they're already talking frozen. Three, four and five.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: Do we need that many? I don't think we do, no.

Terry Lipshetz: But now it's a franchise so you can go back to it. I heard something about like a Toy Story Five is on tap now. It's like, do we really need another Toy Story? Especially after Lightyear kind of tanked.

Bruce Miller: But it's probably the, um, Marvel influence. Where Marvel? How many do they have?

Terry Lipshetz: Right?

Bruce Miller: And they're struggling. They don't know where they're headed. But I think when you go back to the well too many times the well dries up.

Terry Lipshetz: It does. Absolutely.

Bruce Miller: And in this come on, at the end of it, there's fireworks.

Terry Lipshetz: Spoiler.

Bruce Miller: Um alert. I'm telling you right now, there are fireworks at the end of the movie.

Terry Lipshetz: Mhm.

Bruce Miller: And what do the fireworks create? The head of Mickey Mouse. Uh, now is this something we should be seeing? No, it should not be in there. I'm sorry. Those are hidden Mickeys that you should find, not crash into. And I get that it's a hundredth anniversary of the Disney Company, but you don't have to do a retrospective where everything is and it's too bad because Ariana DeBose is a great talent and she should have been a Disney princess. And I don't know that this is the best Disney princess for her to be. There's a cute goat in this named Valentino oh, yeah. And he's worth, um, a stuffed animal. But the star the Star, have you seen it? It looks like Pokemon.

Terry Lipshetz: It's very disturbing. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: Right. And you go, what is this bit in this? I'm not up for that. Uh, or like the star that was in the More, you know, do you remember those from morning cartoons where the star would be like yes, and it would be and that's what it is. And I think you could do a little better on the star. I think I could. The Star.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: So that's what you learn over the holidays is that there are a lot of movies out there that underperform and some that you never heard of that are going to be big, over performers. So be ready, because now you're going to see instead of one movie and ten screens, you're going to see probably ten different movies on those ten screens. And I think you need to be a savvy consumer, knowing what you're getting into before you just jump into it. Just because it's from a company that you've trusted in the past doesn't mean necessarily they'll have things like from the people who sat you in the seats for whatever.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: That's an usher. Yeah, somebody who ushered me into the theater. I should but that's that's about how thin it is from one of the producers, uh, or from a second, uh, tier. Yeah. I don't know. Where is Alan Menken? Is he not writing songs anymore? Come on, get out there. Write a song for us. It's there, but I think after the holidays, we've had this kind of like, okay, now what? Now what is good? I promise there are good movies that are coming that you will want to see. So carve out some time between now and Christmas, because you're going to get them each week. They'll be dropping into your theaters and be ready for them because they're remarkable. And, Saltburn, if you consider yourself a film buff and you want to see something that's different and interesting, it is very much on par with something like Psycho.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: Uh huh. You go, this is not at all what I thought this was going to be. And it surprises you. And so I would get to something like that before everybody knows what the secret is.

Terry Lipshetz: Perfect. Yeah, no, that sounds good. I mean, like a 6th sense, almost, where you don't want the cat out of the bag. Exactly.

Terry Lipshetz: All right, well, on that note, a lot of good options here. Saltburn. You got the color purple, maestro. Poor things. Boys in the boat. The Iron Claw. A lot of options here. So get out to the theater and check something out. A lot of good stuff to do in the next few weeks as the temperatures turn and you need to get.

Bruce Miller: Out of the house. Next week, we're going to turn to TV. I'm going to talk about some things that are kind of interesting now because they're ramping up the TV. People are going to be in full force by January, and you'll start seeing new shows in February, and there's some that they're bringing back to try and remind you of how good they really were. So I have an interview for you next week, and we're, um, turning to TV next week, so get ready. No more shopping.

Terry Lipshetz: No more shopping. All right, thanks again for listening to another episode of streamed and screened.

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27 years after becoming a classic dark comedy that earned seven Academy Award nominations, including Oscar wins for Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (best original screenplay) and Frances McDormand (best actress), "Fargo" is back for its fifth season as an anthology series on FX and Hulu.

Showrunner Noah Hawley's latest installment of the show that premiered in 2014 presents another standalone story that remains connected with the other seasons as well as the original movie. Season 5, which premieres Nov. 21, features Jon Hamm, Juno Temple and Jennifer Jason Leigh as the latest A-list actors to join the revolving cast that has included Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Allison Tolman and Colin Hanks (season 1); Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kieran Culkin, Patrick Wilson and Ted Danson (season 2); Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Carrie Coon (season 3); and Chris Rock and Jason Schwartzman (season 4).

While the first three season received generally positive reviews from both critics and audiences, the fourth season was mixed as the show was Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an 84% score from critics but a weaker 54% from audience ratings. So how good is season 5? While we keep things spoiler-free, co-host Bruce Miller screened half of the episodes and not only thinks it's the best show we'll get for the remainder of 2023, but it's at least the second best "Fargo" season to date.

Miller has interviews with the three big stars as well as costume designer Carol Case and makeup department head Gail Kennedy.

Where to watch and more coverage

"Fargo" the series on FX/Hulu
"Fargo" the 1996 film on Max

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

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With the holidays rapidly approaching, films related to Thanksgiving and Christmas can an offer a touch of nostalgia while telling an emotional story. Think "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and "A Christmas Story."

This year, directory Alexander Payne ("Election," "Sideways," "Nebraska") brings us "The Holdovers" starring Paul Giamatti as teacher Paul Hunham, Dominic Sessa as student Angus Tully and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as school cook Mary Lamb. The story centers on students that can't go home for Christmas break and a teacher that is forced to chaperone the group.

Co-host Bruce Miller gives his thoughts on the film, and we have interview clips with Payne, Randolph, Sessa, writer/producer David Hemingson and producer Mark Johnson.

Miller also shares his thoughts on the Netflix film "Nyad," starring Annette Bening as endurance swimmer Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster as her coach, Bonnie Stoll. It tells the story of Nyad's swim through shark-infested waters between Havana, Cuba and Key West, Florida. The film is directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. The pair co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary "Free Solo."

Where to watch and more coverage

"The Holdovers" in theaters Nov. 10
"Nyad" on Netflix

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

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Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Holiday Films for Families

Streamed and Screamed podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed and Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter.

Bruce Miller: I'm a holdover.

Terry Lipshetz: You're a holdover. You've been here forever. You are a holdover.

Bruce Miller: I am. I remember when Alexander Payne wasn't making movies. How's that for a connection? But, yeah, we are getting into Thanksgiving season. So this means that you're going to get films that maybe the whole family would go to. Because, come on, what else is there to do over Thanksgiving holiday? Eat and go to the movies, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: And so you're going to start seeing some of those ones that are a little more like Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Back in the day, that was a big kind of holiday. Let's go see it because it's entertaining, and that's what we'll be getting now. I think you'll be seeing some of those before the Christmas rush and then the Oscar run, so look for the fun ones. And one that I really loved was the Holdovers. That's the newest Alexander Payne film. It's set in 1970, and it's set at a private boys’ school in the East Coast. And, apparently all kids didn't go home. Some had a reason. Their parents were off on a ski trip and they didn't want to take the kid home or they didn't have the ability to get them home or whatever. And so those kids were called the Holdovers. They stayed at school, and then as a result, they had to put up with whoever they threw in their face. There was usually a teacher who got punished to be with those kids because who wants to be at home during the holidays? Nobody.

Terry Lipshetz: Nobody.

Bruce Miller: So, the one who gets stuck, even though he did it the year before, is played by Paul Giamatti, and he plays an ancient history teacher that nobody likes. They just hate him. He gives them all F's. He thinks that they're lazy and they don't really live up to their expectations. And this is 1970. Remind you. And so the Kids that are left back think, oh, God, this is going to be just terrible. And he plans classes for them, exercise, situations for them. And then they have all the bad food that's left over, and the cook is there, and she is going to keep him occupied over the holidays when he isn't. So it's like the worst situation you could think of. And then a group of them gets the opportunity to go on a ski trip. Except one student, he's stuck at the school with the bad teacher and the cook. And so the three of them have what they call their holiday experience.

Terry Lipshetz: Sounds almost like my college. I went to a smaller private university in New Jersey. so you couldn't stay over during the winter break. They closed the dorms. They basically kick you out unless you were basically stuck there because you were, let's say, a foreign exchange.

Bruce Miller: Foreign students.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, that was it. That was it. They were the holdovers, and they got to stay in the dorms through the holidays. But that was it.

Bruce Miller: I never was a holdover. God, it was, like, icy as hell. And I would still force somebody to come and pick me up because I thought, the last thing I want to do is be stuck here. So I was good. I got out. But I can imagine it would be dreadful because you see this? And this was during my time. It's set during the. That's about my period. And you go, oh, my God. They have captured so many things that are so specific. They have a pinball machine. And, the young man who is stuck back wants to play the pinball machine. Now, what they did was they put their order, their dime, whatever it cost, on the top of the pinball machine. And then that meant they were next. And the kid gets in a big fight with this guy who says, no, you're not next. My friend is next. And you think, oh, that is. I remember that. Who would have thought that that would be a part of it? But they've done a great job of capturing all those little things, even down to the clothes. And Alexander Payne said that when he was casting, he was particularly looking for young actors who had the right haircuts because he didn't want them to look like they were contemporary. They needed those 70s haircuts. And they do have those 70s haircuts.

Terry Lipshetz: Kind of the moppy.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, it's not quite mullet yet, because that wasn't in style.

Terry Lipshetz: That's more 80s.

Bruce Miller: Yeah. This was just kind of a head of hair that's post-Vietnam, where you just wanted to grow your hair out in those days. Can I tell you? I had hair that was down to the back of my shoulders. I had long, long hair because I didn't want to cut it. And my dad would always make a huge stink about that hair. He says, when are you going to cut this hair? And so I pull my hair back and hide it in the collar of my shirt. And every night at dinner, he would pull the hair out and say, you got to cut this. That kind of sentiment. That hair was a big issue for people back in those days.

Terry Lipshetz: It was, yeah. I've seen photos of my parents back in the. It was an interesting time with hairstyles. Now, in 1970, that would have made me, let's see, about negative five years old. So I wasn't present at that time.

Bruce Miller: You were not breaking any of those rules?

Terry Lipshetz: No, I was not.

Bruce Miller: But I was edging into the college years. It was a different world, a much different world. And you notice that, too, how social media and the Internet and all that has changed so much here. The kids have to look things up. And do they want to look things up? No, they do not. I think that the attitudes are still the same. You still press up against authority. But it's fascinating to see how the friendships develop. And I don't know that I would ever have been friends with a teacher of mine, but when you're forced to do it, you become a little closer. Adversity breeds friendship. Maybe that's the moral of the story. Yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: and it's diverse, too. You've got different people of different eras.

Bruce Miller: Da'Vine Joy Randolph, she plays the head cook at the thing. And her son, you find out early on, her son went to school there. She agreed to be the cook at the school so that her son would be able to get a good education, which is what she was hoping for. And when the movie begins, you learn very quickly that her son has died. And so she's dealing with grief over the holidays. The young man is upset because his parents aren't taking him home. And the teacher is, not liked, as they openly. Nobody likes you, so why should we? So they all have a reason to fight for something.

Terry Lipshetz: But ultimately, the odd couple comes together. I can only presume.

Bruce Miller: I enjoyed it so much. It has been kind of testing the market throughout. Okay. And so it has had pre screenings or previews or whatever before it actually opens this week. So you can see the audience. It kind of had a little taste of what it was all about, how they react. And I think the reaction is good. It's heartfelt. And it reminded me a lot of Green book.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: Where kind of unlikely people are thrust together and how they build a friendship out of that. You remember that with, the driver and the musician. And the musician couldn't go in certain restaurants. He wasn't allowed in certain hotels. So there was definitely a different time. And you see that same reflection here in the holdovers.

Terry Lipshetz: Interesting. So you mentioned at the top of this podcast, planes, trains, and automobiles, which is to me, one of my favorite movies of all time. And we did a whole episode on John Hughes movies to begin with quite a ways back. But that one in particular is one that it's almost like a tradition in the family. Got to throw planes, trains, and automobiles on. And it's in some ways because there's not a whole lot of Thanksgiving specific movies tend to get Christmas movies, not necessarily Thanksgiving, but it was that kind of story where Steve Martin's character, John Candy's character, are two very different people, but they're put in a very strange circumstance together, and they kind of come together. It almost feels like this movie takes some of that as well.

Bruce Miller: Very much so. The other thing that's interesting is that those were people who wanted to get home, right. And here's ones who can’t. There isn't a home, so they have to create a home, and they bring a tree, they do presents. It's very, touching how they kind of make a family, even though there isn't a family. All three of the actors are potential Oscar nominees. That's why.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow. Do you see this becoming like a traditional holiday classic? The one that we pop on Christmas.

Bruce Miller: Story, playing Dominic Sessa, who plays, the young man, has never acted in films before.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: Found him at a school, and we're looking for somebody who kind of fit. Again, the hair was a big thing fit the identity that they were looking for. And they were blown away by how good he was at kind of capturing that attitude that's kind of there. And, you see it. He is easily the glue that holds this together and a really good young actor. I think someday we'll look back and we'll say that was his first film and look at how good he was.

Terry Lipshetz: This film is directed by Alexander Payne, and he's, of course, known for doing a lot of kind of quirky movies like Nebraska.

Bruce Miller: Yeah. Do you remember? Election was kind of the one that put him on the map, with Reese Witherspoon as that kind of dreadful girl who wanted to be student body know. She was determined. And the advisor to the student council, played by Matthew Roderick, did not want her to win and did whatever he could to try and derail her campaign by putting another student in her way. Chris Klein played that role. He shot it all in Omaha, which is where he's from. And it was very similar to this, where he went looking for real people to play these parts and look what happened to their careers. Reese Witherspoon, she won an Oscar. And Chris Klein had a long career. Look at American Pie. I mean, he has some pretty good credits behind. She wasn't necessarily, but the other ones that fill in the film. And if you go back and look at election, you'll see actor, young actors in that that have had lots of work.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: It was supposed to be a two hander between Reese Witherspoon and, Matthew Broderick. And some of those other ones are making a real big splash in that first film. So I wouldn't doubt that we'll see the same thing happen with this one.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And even like a movie like Sideways, there's another one where. And he did it with Paul Giamatti, and that was Paul Giamatti. He's done so many movies and he's always so good in what he does, but it almost took until sideways to really get him out there.

Bruce Miller: He was a great character actor who had bit parts or small parts in films and then suddenly blew up. And he was in John Adams and he was in, sideways. And. Yeah, now he's kind of your go to. If you want one of those kind of erudite people that are in your film, we'll call Paul.

Terry Lipshetz: I know you weren't able to get any interviews with this film, but through the magic of you and the promotion, I happen to have know just out of the box right here. So we're going to go now to, Alexander Payne, the director of the film.

Alexander Payne: Christmas break is upon us. And every year there's a number of boys with nowhere to know. The kids from foreign countries and the ones with divorced parents and stuff like that. And this year there's a boy, he's a junior and kind, of a troublemaker, kind of troubled. Damaged and troubled, but a smart kid underneath. And, his mother calls him last minute to say she's widowed, has been widowed. She has just remarried and they want to use this Christmas vacation as their honeymoon. You understand, don't you, darling? Stanley's been working so hard. The teacher selected this year to stay behind with the boys is a very disliked, curmudgeonly, ancient history teacher, Paul Giamatti. Through a kind of Deus ex machina, script, device, all the other boys find somewhere else to go at some point. And it's down to just this teacher played by Paul Giamatti and this boy and the head cook at the school. She's a single mom, and her, son attended this very same school on a charity scholarship. But did not have the wherewithal to go to college and has just been killed in Vietnam. So this movie is about the adventures of these three kind of shipwrecked people during a very snowy two weeks in Massachusetts in 1970. I've been an admirer of school, movies, loneliness of the long distance Runner and if and Peter Weir's movie. And I had seen a companion of those films, a somewhat underknown French film by a great director, but, from 1935 or 36 called Merloose by Marcel Panol. And it had that same basic premise. I saw that ten or twelve years ago and it never left me. I thought, you know, that's a pretty good premise for a film. But I personally didn't have the wherewithal to actually, I didn't have the life experience of a private school and so forth. I'm from Omaha. Nor did I have really the discipline to go research it. But a pilot came my way, set in a prep school, and it was a very fine pilot. And I called up the writer and said, thank you for sending me this wonderful script. I don't want to read it. Would you consider taking on an idea of mine? And so it was David Hemingson. That's how David Hemingson, the fine screenwriter, came into my life. So, typically I've written my own scripts and certainly I was involved in rewriting this one and conceiving it. But David Hemingson really, did an outstanding job writing it. That's what attracted me to it. It sounds hyperbolic and I'm sure it is, but I just think Paul Giamatti is the greatest actor. There's nothing he can't do. From the moment I first met him when he auditioned for sideways for me going on 20 years ago, I thought, this guy can make even bad dialogue work and he can, no matter what the dialogue. I had him in Omaha, for a public interview, and I said, you know, Paul Giamani, you can really make bad dialogue work. I'll bet you could even read the phone book. Like they say, read the phone book and make it compelling. And he laughed. And I leaned over and I pulled out the Omaha phone book and I handed it to him. I said, would you please just open up to a page? He started reading it and brought the house down. That's why I like Paul Giamatti. And he's just a lovely guy, brilliant guy, most well-read human I know and, a delight to work with.

Terry Lipshetz: Up next, let's hear from Da'Vine Joy Randolph about her role. In this film.

Da'Vine Joy Randolph: It's wonderful working with Paul Giamatti. He has such character as a human being, but also with what he brings to the table. And, he's so great because, know, when you work with actors, those who you really revere, for being so talented, can be very serious sometimes and stuffy. And, what is so amazing, and I think speaks even more to his talent is that he's able to snap in and out of the character. It's very seamless. But I love right before they say action, I'll peek a look, and you'll see him just, like, morph and fall into place into his character. Dominic is quite special, for having never done it before. I would say what's more impressive, even outside of his talent, which is quite natural and just very present, and non-stereotypical, I don't know if I could have done it to play this hurt, damaged teenager. Right. And it not just be this one dimensional screaming kid every 5 seconds. He's really found, the nuances, to all of it. But I would say what I'm the most impressed with is the human being that he is. He's so kind and gentle and, very intelligent. And there's an old soul about him where it feels as if he's been here before. You can tell there's a real desire to learn this industry and how things work, and he's very quick. I remember in the very beginning when we were just doing table reads, and we still had at least two, if not three weeks before filming, he was already off book. I was not off book, so I was very impressed. We're just seeing two, three individuals, which I wonder, if they weren't, under these circumstances, if they would have had the opportunity to really get to know one another and to be an unpredicted vessel of support for one another. And I think what's beautiful about that is, in this movie, in a way, it transcends ageism, racism, genDer, and that these three individuals, due to the loss and pain that they have, it's like sometimes when you've hit rock bottom, you're open to anything to seek relief wherever you can.

Terry Lipshetz: We also have another star from the film, Dominic Cessa, talking about what turned into his first major film appearance.

Dominic Sessa: I went in for my first audition, and, I was pretty relaxed because I wasn't expecting much out of it. And they called me back later that day, and I did some more reading. And, eventually Alexander came to my school to come meet me and audition, with him. And yeah, for the next two months it was a lot of just touch, and go email, Zoom calls and all that stuff. And by the time I had my last audition, I didn't know it was my last audition. I thought it was going to know do that two weeks later for the next one. But we sat there and it was me, Paul and Alexander on a Zoom call. And we just read the whole script through. And Paul would read the parts, know, in a scene where I was in, but he wasn't in. I would read parts for him in other scenes and by the end I got the role that day. So, yeah, it was really surreal and exciting and didn't really know what to think or what to expect. But, it was nice. The biggest challenge for me, working on a film for the first time would be, the turnaround on notes, personally, because I've done a lot of live theater before. It's all I've done before is the shows at my school. And we have after school, like two, three hour rehearsals. And you receive your notes at the end and you have your journal and you can go back to your room and internalize them and think about them for the next rehearsal or the show or whatever's coming. But in this, it's really a matter of coming in, knowing your lines and not really knowing. Maybe having an idea of how the scene may pan out, but not having the clarity that you might have in a theater setting. So, yeah, I mean, that was the hard, that's the hardest part for me, really doing this the first time doing something, receiving a note and then okay, rolling, go. So, yeah, for me, but I think I've adjusted pretty well to it. And obviously I have a lot of people around me who have been helping me prepare for that sort of thing. Being in a film with Alexander and working on one of his movies, it's incredible working with him personally. Having, the director who's sitting right there at the camera and sitting right next to you and comes up to you after every take and is in your ear. You can feel his presence and it's comforting in that sense. But I think. I don't know, outside of that, he just attracts a lot of professionalism to his movies and his work. I think, just him being a part of it. Everyone around him, sort of is extra professional and is extra hard at work and is really on top of it and more so excited about working on it because of the type of person he is. My character, Angus Tully, say, definitely very damaged kid. He’s been through a lot. Yeah. Being at a boarding school, I can understand, how heartbreaking that would be to be ready for break and then have your own parents tell you that you can't come home for Christmas. I feel like, for him, he's got a lot of these, things in the past that have happened to him and, these experiences, obviously, with his father and his mother and his mother's boyfriend. And it's not explicitly said what goes on. But you can sort of understand that there's a broken family dynamic there that's going on behind the scenes for him. And yeah, I think that really comes out with his character and his daringness to say some of the things he says and to pull off some of the things he tries to pull off. But at the same time charming and innocent. And it's one of those people you love to hate because you love them.

Terry Lipshetz: Up next, we have writer producer David Hemingson.

David Hemingson: Alexander read a pilot that I wrote about four years ago that, was set in a prep school in 1980. And he kind of called me up out of the blue and having read it and was like, I love this pilot. And I was like, incredibly flattered because he's like a personal hero of mine, he's a brilliant director. So I was like, blown away. And then he said, but I don't really do TV. But I have this feature I want to do that's set in that world in 1970. I said, okay, sure. And I said, what is he? Well, basically I really want to do this sort of optically challenged, kind of odiferous professor, that gets stuck, at a prep school, over Christmas break, 1970 to 71, with a group of students, one of whom has sort of been stranded by his family, most definitely. And this relationship kind of evolves over the course of the movie. And so that was sort of. The genesis of the whole thing. He's a brilliant, brilliant director. And I kind of feel like I went to film school on Alexander's back in that he would make these references. He'd, want something kind of tonally or visually or he'd kind of want a narrative moment that as opposed to try to unpack it verbally, he'd just be like, John Garfield. All right, Michael Curtis pointed overturn 1950, midpoint. Forward click. Like what? Hello? And I'd have to figure out, oh, okay. He wants sort of tonally, this kind of thing. He wants to be able to, evoke certain moods, and I think for him, it's got to be the organic evolution of the characters over the course of the narrative. And so I think the reason he doesn't get specific in terms of distinct turns he wants is because he wants me to find it and then for him to reflect upon it, I mean, that's been our working relationship, and I hope to God it continues for many, many decades to come, because I would kill to work with him again. I think he's a brilliant guy. We're so blessed. I mean, Alexander can cast. I mean, he topped the bottom. The actors in this show are amazing. I love my holders. I love all those kids. Those kids are all amazing, and funny and genuine and real. I think reality is sort of one of the hallmarks of an. You know, it just feels real, and it's heightened. And he takes you on a journey, and there's a fun narrative. I mean, you have a good time. And I think that's one of his imperatives. Like, he wants people to be entertained, but he wants people to be entertained by the human comedy, by the reality of it, by the landscape of people's souls. Like, he wants you to take that journey. And that's kind of what we do. In this movie, I think.

Terry Lipshetz: And now let's hear from producer Mark Johnson.

Mark Johnson: I think it was very much a story about family. It's a very clever script. It's deceptive. It’s deceptive. And then it's about much more than you would think at first. And it's also extremely funny. And for me, as a, time Alexander Payne Fan, I think it is arguably his most emotional movie to take what he does with his characters, sort of, the uniqueness of his characters and to put them in this situation, it was an undeniable script. Paul Giamatti is one of those wonderful actors, is really a chameleon. And he can play any number of people. So we've seen him a bunch of movies and television shows, but I don't know that I've ever seen Paul Giamatti play, the same character twice. And so he is somebody who can both put you off and yet bring you in at the same time. Dominic Cessa, who plays Angus. This is his first movie. He had been a drama student or in school, in boy school, but, didn't have an agent, didn't have a manager. We had this wonderful casting director, Susan Shopmaker, who decided to go out and find a discovery. And one of the smart places she went was the private boys school's drama department and say, all right, who do you have? Who do you offer up? And that's how Dominic came in. He didn't come in through any orthodox means. It was really from out of nowhere. And I don't know what the number is. She probably saw 600, 700 boys for this part. And Dominic, early on, we said, well, wait a minute. This is somebody to pay attention to. And Alexander put him through the paces. He had him, sort of try out and test a number of times. And finally he tested with Paul, Giamatti. And I think Alexander, Paul, all the rest of us said, no, this is the guy. I think Dominic's a good choice to play this part because he has no tricks. He's a very honest actor. He's playing it as honestly as he can. And consequently, he's completely believable. I never, in looking at the finished film and quite frankly, in all the dailies, I don't see any false moments. I don't see him at some point pretending to be something. He always seems to be that divine.

Mark Johnson: Joy Randolph is an actress who's been around for a while. That makes it sound like she's been doing it for years. She's just somebody who is doing features and television right now at, quite a clip. And the interesting thing is she normally plays a comedic character. And not that she's very funny in the holdovers, but I wouldn't describe her character as Mary, lamb, as somebody who's comedic. She actually has quite a, quite amount of sorrow in her. And, is a mother who's gone through a real tragedy. We knew she had the acting chops not just because she'd gone to the Yale School of drama. But as soon as we tested her, it was clear that she knew how to play this character. And, it was great to watch her because as an actress, she discovered who Mary Lamb was. She started at one place and built the character. And you could see her do it. And she ended up with an accent that was quite original to divine, but also quite true to where her character came from.

Terry Lipshetz: All right, Bruce. So we had an.

Bruce Miller: You know, I got a chance to talk to Alexander Payne and David Hemingson and also some of the, behind the scenes people about this. It's based sort of, on the writer's life, sort of. It was not written by Alexander Payne, just directed by him. And he kind of understood the sensibility of this, but there is a tie. And if you look at this on a shelf, there is a statue that was also in sideways. And so it's one of those little spoiler things. If you look, it's on a shelf in, I believe it's Paul Giamatti's office. And you'll also remember that it was in sideways if you look very carefully. They had one hell of a time trying to find enough blazers that were from the 70s for all the boys in the film.

Terry Lipshetz: Double knit only goes so far.

Bruce Miller: A big challenge. Yeah, they have a big challenge. And so they look the right way. Yeah. So for them, a lot of them have worked with Alexander Payne for a number of films, and they kind of know his shorthand and what he's looking for, so they can anticipate what a potential problem might be or what might be looming. Wow.

Terry Lipshetz: Good stuff. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to this. It wasn't really on my radar until I saw it was probably during the summer. One of the movies I saw at least had a trailer to it. It looked pretty interesting, but I wasn't sure. Is this going to be good? Isn't it? But now that you're singing its praises.

Bruce Miller: Watch the ads for it, because the ads are done in 70s style.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: See them? It's like, is this an old film that they're just throwing up whenever you see those on TCM? Oh, look at the trailers they used to do for these things. Well, they want it to look like that so it looks like the 70s. So you get that whole vibey feeling. And there's one shot in the film that reminds me. Exactly. Of the graduate. Exactly. And you'll see that shorthand that he uses, and you'll think, yes, I get what you're. Gail. I see it. I understand what's happening here. There's another one I'd like to talk about is called Nyad. Okay. And this is going to be one of those ones that you'll hear the names bandied about for acting prizes. Annette Benning plays Diana Nyad. If you remember her, she was a long distance swimmer who wanted to swim from Cuba to Florida. And, everybody said, oh, you're crazy. You can't do it. You're in your 60s. You're not going to be able to do this. And she was determined that she needed to make her mark, so she got a crew together and tried it and failed. And she tried it again and failed. And she tried it again and failed. And you think after this many times, give up. It's not going to happen. But you see in the film, which will be on Netflix, the kind of drive and fortitude she had and determination, and a lot of that is fueled by her best friend, who serves as kind of the coach, so that she's in the boat while Diana is swimming by the side of the boat, and she's, like, feeding her, giving her any kind of, if she gets sick, if she needs medicine, hydrating her, and then when she starts to kind of wane, she's giving her those pep talks. And, Jodie Foster plays that role, and Jodie is. Where has she been all these years? It's like, let's get back to work. I want to give her that kind of a pep talk because she steals the film right out from underneath. Annette Benning. Fascinating, fascinating partnership. And the film was directed by the people behind Free Solo, if you remember free solo. it was about the mountain climber.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: Won the Oscar for Best documentary. Yeah. Now, they're trying, the same kind of feel, but with a fictional film or dramatization. Yeah. With actors. And they do take, risks, and they also do take some liberties, with the reality of the Diana Nyad story, but they still are able to capture those beats that you're looking for. It's kind of fascinating to see how they can make swimming really interesting, because when you're just watching somebody swim laps near the side of a boat, are you interested? Do you care? You got to give it to Ned Benning for just being able to do the swimming that you need to do to pretend like you're falling. Diana, Nyad, is not a person that you could hug. I really do not think she's embraceable, even though she has that drive that you see in a lot of athletes. But, boy, Annette Benning captures that aspect really well. You think, why would I work with you? I don't want to do anything with you if you're going to be this kind of obnoxious and mean and kind of self-centered.

Terry Lipshetz: Sure.

Bruce Miller: And yet it works. And at the end of the film, they do show you actual footage, of her. And, man, she captures her. She's right there.

Terry Lipshetz: Now, was this film mostly in the water, then?

Bruce Miller: If there's a lot in the water, could it be in a pool? It could have been in a pool, because a lot of the scenes take place at night, and you realize that they had to worry about sharks because she did not want to be in a shark cage. She didn't feel that was bare. But there was a red light that apparently sharks know this for the future, if you need this.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: Sharks do not come near red light. They somehow see that as a warning to them. And so this red light kind of helped guide her along where they were going, but it also kept the, sharks away.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. The most knowledge I have about avoiding sharks comes from the 1960s, Adam west classic Batman, the movie Shark, where he used Bad shark repellent.

Bruce Miller: And Jaws.

Terry Lipshetz: Yes.

Bruce Miller: Jaws taught us so much about sharks. Were you really scared of sharks before Jaws? No, it was just another fish in the ocean. But now they can get a sharknado going like nobody's business. Right?

Dominic Sessa: Yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: Now, how does this film stack up to a film like Free Solo, which is a documentary? Because I always find it fascinating when you get, like, you take Peter Jackson, for instance, who's known for Lord of the Rings and all these big epics, and then he goes and directs a documentary about the Beatles.

Bruce Miller: The thing that was so surprising about free solo was the cinematography. They were up on the mountains with him and the idea that they were able to get some of that stuff. Well, I got to rethink this. If I can't do it with the telephoto lens, I don't think I'm going up there. But I think that was what was so remarkable. Yes. his story, Alex Honnold, I think it is, his story is remarkable, but also remarkable is the idea that people would follow him, shoot his trek, and not get, you know, anytime.

Terry Lipshetz: I see those mountain movies like that, whether it's mountain climbing or scaling Everest or going deep into the wilderness, I'm thinking to myself, you know, what if I'm the director of this film, my first hire is a really good second unit director. And you're going to go take care of these? I'm going to just handle.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, I'll do from the ground.

Terry Lipshetz: We'll be.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, I think they do a great job of kind of making you feel that claustrophobia in the water. But because they're not dealing with huge visuals like they were before, that becomes, a different challenge. But you feel like you're in the water with her. So I guess that's the goal. But I don't know, do they want to do this? Is this the goal? Or maybe it was just one of those athlete films that they hadn't tried, and so that was the challenge for them.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, it sounds good. It sounds like an interesting one. I'm not sure. I'm going to race out to the theaters to see it. But at the very least, it might be one where as soon as it hits streaming on. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Anything else of note coming up is,

Bruce Miller: Can I tell you what I'm going to tease? What? Maybe we'll talk about next week.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: And that's Fargo.

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, yes.

Bruce Miller: Fargo is coming. And Fargo, we are not holding off with anything, but I'm going to talk to people that you wouldn't necessarily talk to again. We're doing this because we don't have the access to the actors because of the actor strike, which, knock on wood, should be ending soon, we hope.

Terry Lipshetz: Please.

Bruce Miller: But I'm hoping to talk to the special effects and makeup people and also the costume people and how they are able to pull off, because this has a lot of those special effects that you're going to go, wow, I can't believe it. And it's very home alone, taken to extremes and scary. Okay, so that's next week. Fargo.

Alexander Payne: Fargo.

Terry Lipshetz: I can't wait. There's the two shows that I've been waiting for the most recently, Fargo. And then also true Detective, which is. Coming back soon on.

Bruce Miller: Well, we'll be there, hopefully, and we'll get to talk to real people.

Terry Lipshetz: Hopefully. That's all we can hope for. All right, Bruce, thanks again for another great episode. And we will be back again next week.

Bruce Miller: Be a holdover next week.

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View Details

Taylor Sheridan is the actor and director who has probably become best know as the co-creator of the epic Paramount Network series "Yellowstone" and its prequels "1883" and "1923."

His newest project is serving as executive producer for "Lawmen: Bass Reeves," a Paramount+ anthology series that launches Nov. 5 that feels like it should be part of the "Yellowstone" arc but is separate entity. "Lawmen: Bass Reeves" is a passion project of star David Oyelowo, who takes on the title role, and tells the story of the first Black U.S. Marshal, Bass Reeves.

The show also stars Donald Sutherland, Dennis Quaid, Lauren E. Banks and Demi Singleton.

In this week's episode, co-host Bruce Miller has interviews with showrunner Chad Feehan and Damian Marcano, one of the directors.

Where to watch and more coverage

"Lawmen: Bass Reeves" on Paramount+ (Nov. 5)
"Yellowstone" on CBS
"Yellowstone" on Paramount Network
"1883" on Paramount+
"1923" on Paramount+

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises, I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program. Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Well, howdy, partner. I reckon we have a show set in the wild, Wild West we're going to be talking about this week.

Bruce Miller: I'm, fixing to come in here anytime now. And can you put me two fingers of whiskey on the counter? And we should be fine.

Terry Lipshetz: I got my can of beans heating.

Bruce Miller: Up over the open flame now. It sounds like Blazing Saddles. I think we've done.

Terry Lipshetz: We have, yeah. All right.

Bruce Miller: Yeah.

'Lawmen: Bass Reeves' is an epic miniseries

Bruce Miller: It's Western week because there's this huge miniseries, and I'm not kidding you, it is, a grand effort called Lawmen, M-E-N Bass Reeves. So you go lawmen. There's only one. What's the deal? And what this is hopefully going to be is a series of profiles of various and sundry law men over the course of time. But Bass Reeves was a kind of a passion of David O. Yellowo, the star of the limited series. And he had always wanted to do this story because he thought it was so rare. He's the first black deputy US. Marshal west of the you, know, is there one east of the Mississippi? I have no. But it's a fascinating look at this man and his standards. It really is a lot know, what he does is what he thinks is right, and right becomes the driving force behind all of this. And you see Bass in a lot of situations. It is epic. An epic, epic limited, series. There are huge battle scenes. There are huge kind of roundups. There's a lot of violence. I'm giving you that right away. There's a lot of violence in this thing. And there's a lot of intimate moments where you see him one on one with his family, with others, with people that used to be in charge of his life. And it's a fascinating look at a period that I really didn't realize I needed to know more of. I thought most of these stories were already told, but Bass Reeves story is one that's been out there for years that people have wanted to do, but nobody has gotten the ability to do it. And what we learned is that it took, you know, when you've got somebody behind Yellowstone, saying, yeah, I think we should do this, they suddenly pop too, and decide that they're going to do it, too.

People were wrongly saying that this was another 'Yellowstone' series

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. Now, I have a question for you about that, because I saw Taylor Sheridan is an executive producer, and I saw this show. It is coming to Paramount Plus. But this is not part of the Yellowstone universe. Correct.

Bruce Miller: No, there was talk, and I think you'll see when we play the interviews, that there is a connection or was a connection and they couldn't make it, the time frame was wrong. And so people were wrongly saying that this was another Yellowstone series. It's not okay. It has a vague time reference, kind of lap over with 1883, but that's as close as it comes. It's a standalone thing that just happens to come from that factory known as Taylor Sheridan, but his name is on it. He isn't necessarily the writer of this, he isn't necessarily the director of this, but he is an executive producer. So he's kind of a mentor that helps get this done.

Terry Lipshetz: So he's a cog in the wheels here. He's helping getting this thing going.

Bruce Miller: You know, he looked at all the scripts and, you know, he saw the film and he says, yeah, we should do this or we should do that. I think the most telling thing was they would throw out ideas and there was money for it. a lot of times when you do these big westerns, they're not cheap to do because there are so many other things that progress has gotten in the way of shooting a good Western these days. And so you either have to build the community or you have to find towns that were relatively untouched, so you could just cover up some of the things that are there. But, yeah, it was expensive film to make, and I think it shows when you look at it on the screen, you go, wow, this isn't just we're not closing in on two people and looking very tightly at what's going on.

Terry Lipshetz: And there's some big names attached to this also. I saw this.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, there are big names that are kind of like, Sam Elliott. They're kind of the bait that'll get you in to look at this. But there's another story there that's much bigger than what their stories are.

Terry Lipshetz: Sure. But it's also, with all of these, even though it's not a Yellowstone project, the one piece that all of those Yellowstone programs had or know, because they're still on is they have like, your Kevin Costner or Harrison Ford or somebody that has a name and is pulling you in. So there's definitely this isn't some no name project of people.

Bruce Miller: David Oyelowo, you may remember him from Selma. He played Martin Luther Jr. And, I put him in the same league as Chadwick Boseman, where he is somebody who can play just about everything, but doesn't always get the opportunity. And you can see why he would spend eight years trying to get this thing made, because it does tell a story that we, don't know, we haven't heard, and he gets a great acting part. Now, some of the things I would have protested, I would have said, do we need to do this? Do I need to be dragged through fire? And do I need to have somebody beat me up? And should we really have to mess with all those animals, but he wanted it to be as realistic as it could be. So he was willing to do just about anything to make sure that it came through to the audience. Because he doesn't think that it's a story about it isn't a historic story, necessarily, as much as it is story about a person's inner self and what they're really like.

Terry Lipshetz: Got it. I, saw the trailer even before you had mentioned that this was coming up and you had some interviews tied to just I was watching something and the trailer popped up for the show and I was like, whoa, I need to subscribe to Paramount Plus. Because, first of all, I've never seen any of the Yellowstone programs because it's just again, and we've talked about this with like Apple TV Plus and a few others where I'll just kind of come and go and pick my battles because I just can't have 35 different subscriptions. But I feel like between this program and then maybe going back and watching some of those Yellowstone programs, this is what's going to push me over the edge to finally subscribe.

Bruce Miller: Yellowstone is being run or rerun on CBS now, so you will be able to see those without having to pay extra. But this is definitely a Paramount Plus project and so I don't think we're going to see that slip over. So spend the bucks. Go for it.

Terry Lipshetz: Have you been able to watch any, did you get any screeners?

Bruce Miller: The first three of it? I saw the first three, yeah. And it sets up the story and you see how he gets his freedom and what he does with it and where he goes from there. And then they offer him this job, this job of being a deputy marshal. And then you see how he interacts with the Native Americans or the natives and how he can speak their languages. And, he becomes a very valuable asset to be able to find out what's going on in this part of the world.

Terry Lipshetz: How does this stack up with other kind of recent Westerns, either movies or TV shows that you've seen? Because I'm always fascinated by Westerns as a genre, especially. I'm not even talking about the old ones with John Wayne, but I'm m even talking about just the new ones because I feel like this planet, it's expanding so much that it's so hard now to film anything because you make a left, you make a right, and you're running into civilization. So does it feel like you're back out in the west?

Bruce Miller: Oh, most definitely, because it looks so great. The visuals are just spot on in all these places. You sense what they valued at that time. And what, matters is there's a scene in there where this one woman I don't want to detail too much of it for you because I don't want to spoil it, but she really wants a piano. and you can see how we've changed. And we don't realize what something which seems simple becomes this huge deal for them. So, yeah, there are many kind of flashpoint moments where you go, okay, I get it. What happened was Star Wars came in to play and started doing westerns. Basically, they're Westerns, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Space westerns.

Bruce Miller: So that's where they think we got to spend all of our time and our money is making more space epics. But really, do we need more of those? And I know you love them, so forgive me, but this is just a way of telling those same kinds of stories but in a different period. And maybe we're able to, approach some of their lessons a little better because we see that it's removed from us, but then you realize we're not that far away from what they're talking about.

Terry Lipshetz: I really feel like I'm definitely going to go ahead and watch this, because the genre, just in general, I love it. Deadwood on HBO was one of my favorite series of all time. and I did like that movie that came out a couple of years ago. It was about ten years after the TV series, and it sort of tied up the loose ends that they couldn't quite get to before the show went off the air. But this past summer, we made a trip out to the Badlands, and I did insist that we do a day trip to we were we went to downtown Deadwood, and we're checking out all the modernized old timey places that were named after characters on the show because griswold yeah.

Bruce Miller: Did you go to the graves and.

Terry Lipshetz: Look at all that or we went, and it was kind of interesting. the grave for Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, they're right next to each other, not too far into the main cemetery in town, which is up on a hill. So we had to drive up this really tall hill. But then I also want to see the grave for Seth Bullock, who is kind of the marshal of the town and kind of the first lawmen. And they're like, well, it's up around the corner. So we all start walking up the hill and it's like, not part of the cemetery, so it's like part of the old cemetery. So we're walking, walking, walking. And then this family is coming down and they're like, you going up to see Seth Bullock? And we're like, yeah, how bad is it? And they're laughing, it's not that bad. So my wife and one of my daughters kind of just sat down there and then my other daughter and we we trekked up to the top and saw it and caught our breath.

Bruce Miller: So the Von, traps worked up the mountain. Is that the deal you were I.

Terry Lipshetz: Did make it up to the top. It was a spectacular view of Deadwood from the top of that hill. But yeah, it was a bit of a hike to the top.

Bruce Miller: Did you go down then and gamble at Morningstar?

Terry Lipshetz: No, we had the kids and those places are all 18 plus. But it was fascinating. There was one place in town which did, a brothel tour, and you had to be 16 to go in.

Bruce Miller: So we sound like, I know this.

Terry Lipshetz: We didn't go in because my daughters are under 16 and just didn't feel as appropriate anyway. But, I found it fascinating because they had a sign outside the place. And the brothel was formed in 1870 something. And it didn't get shut down until 1980. 1980? Wow.

Bruce Miller: This is like the Bunny Ranch outside of Vegas.

Terry Lipshetz: Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: It's amazing how they really are good at capturing a piece of time. When you go out to the Badlands, it's really OOH. Is this really what it was like? And yes, it was. And it's, the land that Time forgot. You can just go there and feel like you're back in the Old West.

Terry Lipshetz: It was fun. It was fun. It was a good time.

Chad Feehan is the showrunner behind ‘Bass Reeves’

Terry Lipshetz: So you had a couple interviews here. the first one up was, Chad Feehan. Right?

Bruce Miller: Chad is the writer, the showrunner, and the executive producer behind Bass Reeves. And he was the one who sat down with David and kind of picked his brain. And then they did the research on how are we going to tell this story? Is it going to be a movie? That was initially the thought is it be a movie, a standalone movie. And he is there throughout the whole run of this. And he got a chance to do things that maybe he has never done before. It's so big. He said he has never had a project that sweeping. Yeah. So, he's the showrunner, the person behind every episode of the film. And he was the one who helped David get this off the ground and find the point of all of it.

Bruce Miller: Well, what is it like not having David around during this kind of the selling of the show when it's his passion project, for God's sakes?

Chad Feehan: I am, the reluctant spokesman, because this is his show, and he's been pursuing it for eight years. And it truthfully breaks my heart that he's not here, with me, leading the charge, to communicate all of his passion for the story.

Bruce Miller: How did he involve you in that? Mean, I'm sure that Bass reads was not one that you would I've got to, I've got to write this. Until somebody sparked it in you right.

Chad Feehan: Yeah. I mean, I grew up in Texas. I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. And I heard stories about Bass as a kid. but they were sort of this mythical Glenn Sling and lawman. And it did embed itself in my consciousness, so I was aware of it. and then Taylor, who I've orbited around for years, recommended me to David. And David invited me to dinner. And I anticipated that dinner lasting an hour, an hour and a half, and it lasted 4 hours. and first and foremost, we developed sort of an immediate kinship, that has developed into a very special friendship that I think will last for the rest of our lives. But we also gravitated toward the same things that we wanted to communicate to an audience the triumph of the human spirit, the universality of the human condition. and then he was able to educate me on where fact and fiction converged with separated from the reality of who Bass Reeves was as a man.

Bruce Miller: How much of it is factual? Is it 90%, 75%?

Chad Feehan: It's hard to answer with a percentage. what I would say is that there are these similar moments we know about Bass's life that we use as pillars for the foundation of our story. but it's impossible to know, for example, what he experienced right before or right after the moment he was sworn in as a Deputy US. Marshal. We have the transcript of him being sworn in, but we don't know what happened before and we don't know what happened after. So our job as storytellers, was to imagine and create the most compelling narrative that we could.

Bruce Miller: How difficult was it to conjure this world? Is it difficult? Or do you just get outside and you start thinking, this must be what it's like? Or how do you handle that?

Chad Feehan: I had, the benefit of having grown up where I grew up, so the language was easier for me to wrap my head around. we had this great source material that provided an, excellent launching pad. And then I had amazing collaborators, wide array of voices, from a wide array of backgrounds, writers, to, I mean, Wyn Thomas, our production designer, that really educated me on the things I didn't know and didn't understand and helped guide me through that process.

Bruce Miller: So does David ever say no, I'm not doing that. Does he have that kind, of I can put up a barrier here because I know more about this. This is mine.

Chad Feehan: That is, antithetical to who David Oyelowo is. if I could use one word to embody him, it would be grace. so he's incredibly giving, graceful, compassionate. If there was something that he was unsure about, it would always be a conversation. And he would never say, no, I can't do that.

Bruce Miller: He would say, you put him through a lot of stuff.

Chad Feehan: Yeah. His commitment to his craft is incredible.

Bruce Miller: Yeah. then, ah, being as broad as this is, I did not believe that you could have all those animals, truthfully, the buffalo, all that stuff. Do you say, I want this, and then it just happens? Or how do you make sure that it's that big that kind of lavish.

Chad Feehan: I was shocked. This is by far the biggest thing I've ever done and the hardest production I've ever been through. But I would ask the opening Civil War battle, I'd be like, Are you sure I can write this? And to Paramount and 100 and one's credit, the answer was always yes. we'll find a way, we'll figure it out. Write the best story you can write. and I've shied away from that earlier on in my career, and I'm glad that I asked the questions and was given the authority to chase those epic.

Bruce Miller: As a writer, that must be really, a, disconnect, because you're used to them having somebody saying, rein it in a little bit. We can't be spending this much money, and this looks like the sky's the limit.

Chad Feehan: Yeah. Paramount 101. Very gracious, Taylor. That's the power of Taylor Sheridan. As, know, we didn't get every single thing. We know nothing in life works that way. but we got the majority of what we wanted, and the support that we had, was incredible.

Bruce Miller: When it's labeled lawmen, that suggests that there are more have you already started thinking about the more and what that would be?

Chad Feehan: I have a few different, historical figures that I'm interested in that I think are worthy of following in the footsteps of Bass Reeves. I don't know who it will be, and I'm not, going to speculate on who it will be, because we have to talk to the studio and the network. but I'm excited about the prospect of doing another, because this does fall.

Bruce Miller: During the same time period as 1883, would there ever have been any kind of crossover or connection or not?

Chad Feehan: Yeah, we briefly talked about it, and then when I sort of figured out that our story took place from roughly 1862 to 1877, and then also with the knowledge that Bass Reeves operated primarily in Indian territory, it didn't seem, organic to try to make that connection. But we had those conversations, and I was given the opportunity to make that connection if it serviced the story.

Bruce Miller: So how does Bass change you personally as a writer?

Chad Feehan: I was just talking about, know, the thing about the universality of the human condition was the thing that I wanted to really, really communicate to our audience. And it's something that I've intellectualized for a very long time, but now I feel like it's become part of my DNA based on the experience of I've made this show, and I hope to continue that in future, endeavors that I pursue.

Bruce Miller: Ah, that's so great. Well, thank you so much, and thank you. Congratulations. And when you see David, tell him congratulations.

Chad Feehan: I will. Thank you so much.

Damian Marcano directs three episodes of ‘Bass Reeves’

Terry Lipshetz: All right, Bruce, thanks for that interview. And then you had one other with, Damian Marcano, and here's the deal with that.

Bruce Miller: Is that they had to have more than one director for these because they were shooting and you'll hear this, they were shooting episodes simultaneously. So in the morning they would do one episode, in the afternoon they'd do another. So the first three episodes are directed by one person. And then Damian took over four, five, and, there are eight altogether. And, you'll see that it was just a lot of work. And he was not familiar with the Western world either. He calls himself a Rasta director because he's not from Texas. He doesn't have that shorthand that the others might have. But he also know everything is just so fast paced. And so who knows what based on the weather. You have to be willing to adapt very quickly.

Bruce Miller: What is this like to be part of somebody's passion project? Is that hard to kind of fit in there, or how do you view it?

Damian Marcano: No, man. Easy for me to fit in everywhere. I'm a roster man. So, we always find our beat in the whole thing, man.

Bruce Miller: Do you talk with David? And now what do you want to do with this? What are you looking to do? And what do you want people to learn from this?

Damian Marcano: well, my style of directing is let's go do it and get it wrong. So I never ask questions ahead of time. I just say, let's just go. and then some way and somewhere through because even the actor who is so well rehearsed at this point, it is something when you're actually doing it against your scene partner. And then your scene partner might give you a new little ingredient. And then that's when the discussions happen on set. So we may have locked into a master or a way that we like this set, or a way that we're finding our way into this part of the story. and then once we do that, we say, well, okay, now it's time to sort of make the music right? And for know, the music is the silence in between the notes. and when you work with someone as far as David, and you also put the supporting cast around David, as they have brilliantly done in this show, it just gets scene after scene that you're like, can it get better?

Bruce Miller: But you're also dealing with some, real variables, like animals. How do you plan for that?

Damian Marcano: You don't. yeah, animals are easy. The weather is the tough part.

Bruce Miller: Weather.

Damian Marcano: Yeah. We have probably some of the best animal handlers that I haven't had to work with this many animals in my career. Right. So I think this definitely makes them the best. I remember seeing everything from a camel, to a lynx cat that was brought in for one of my episodes. yeah, if the script called for it, we went out, we found it. but like I said, there was the Texas of it. So being there for my portion of this show, which was five and a half to six months, just to film three episodes, that's to tell you the detail, that we went in multiple visits to every location. I mean, we rebuilt a city at one point, and still Texas would still say, not today. I'm going to give you some golf ball sized hail today. Tomorrow there's going to be an actual tornado. and maybe you can shoot that on Thursday. So, you had to lean into your optimistic side on this shoot to figure out on days, and that's with very much respect to our Ad department, they would sort of have to go on the fly. Like, call sheet would be sent out the night before, this is what we're shooting. Not anymore. and that was sort of the only way we got through this. The nice thing about it, however, through it all, you get to watch these brilliant dailies that you work on from time to time, and you say, you know what? I got it. Because if this all comes and cuts together, well, we got something, because we have some pretty special people here, and we have done a great job of capturing it.

Bruce Miller: When you get three episodes in a row, it must be like doing a, large film, right?

Damian Marcano: It is.

Bruce Miller: So then what do you do with the first three? Do you talk to Christina and say, okay, what are you planning here?

Damian Marcano: So that I well, we were shooting them simultaneously. so it's really hard on our talent, because in the morning, David is playing one version of Bass, and in the afternoon, it might be twelve years later. All right? So that is the difficulty of it. That is why so much credit has to be given to the Ad department, because those are our eyes and ears, right? They tell us what we can, and they have way much more of a finger on what each department is prepared for and what they can actually do that meets the level of quality that we've been mailing in. So this was a six month affair of just non stop shooting. and we would shoot what we could, when we could. sometimes it was based on the location being ready. Had we built the location, if this called for, the bywater store out in the middle of nowhere, had we built the bywater store in the middle of nowhere, and Wynn Thomas, our production designer, there were just so many talented people that I could look around and see that we had on this project.

Bruce Miller: The sets look like actual buildings. They look like ones that you would see in a historic setting.

Damian Marcano: They were this was not the example of going over to one of our large studios, that we have in town and saying, oh, you see that backdrop, sort of like the older version of the Western, right, where just the front of the facade was sort of painted. No. There was a set that we had in Strawn, Texas, in which we obviously could not get rid of Strawn's Bank, and the actual bank was there. So we built our set on their main intersection. I remember a day I was there location scouting and just talking with my DPS to how we do something. And an actual person from Strawn, Texas, had just walked out from cashing her check. And she stopped and looked at us, and then we stopped and looked at her, and we're here's. And it was just everything. It was everything colliding. It was, here she is in this small town, and Hollywood's coming town, but on top of that, here we are, making this thing back to its glory. Know?

Bruce Miller: Wow. Were you familiar with Bass Reeves?

Damian Marcano: Not before doing the project. I couldn't tell you who Bass Reeves was before I did this. I fell in love with a script about a man that was one of the only black men with a gun and a badge at the time. And just the oddities of doing that job while following some type of creed, some kind of mantra, whatever you will, as to how he just wouldn't stop doing that job, and his faith, what he thought, how it would affect his family. All of those things for me, were just like, okay, history is usually depicted from this wide lens way back. We say something happened to a group of people, something happened to another group, and this group was bad. This group, this was like 4D history. So this was like, this actually happened and this is how it happened. And there's no definite answer. So you, as, the viewer in 2023, can make your own mind up.

Bruce Miller: That's a great way of viewing it then. Are there more after this run? How far do we get his life?

Damian Marcano: well, I do know this first season of Lawmen is anthology series, so I think the other iterations will cover other, does. I'm not sure I couldn't tell you the specificity of how many years this is in Bass's life, but I do know Chad and the team tried to encompass as much of the story as you could know. Essentially, we've made, ah, eight hour film here that we're just cutting up, into episodics.

Bruce Miller: Well, it looks like a million bucks, so Westerns must be you. I think they're your thing.

Damian Marcano: I would have never thought that growing up, man. But they have become pretty special to me. And I am seriously I don't know, I'm having like this weird missing feeling of Texas, man, because as a creative, it was just really nice to be able we do so much stage work and all the stuff's great, and all our production designers are great, but it was just something to see your entire film. Crew kind of be like childlike again. And we were just all with our boots on out in those fields and Random Cow was doing something over there. And I don't know, it was just a bunch of kids that came together to play.

Bruce Miller: Again, thank you so much. It's great.

Damian Marcano: Thank you.

Bruce Miller: Have a good one.

Chad Feehan: You too.

Damian Marcano: Thanks for the time.

Terry Lipshetz: All right, Bruce, thank you for those two great interviews. As I said, it sounds like a real fascinating program and something that is going to probably push me over the edge to get Paramount.

Bruce Miller: Plus now, November 5, mark it on your calendar that's when they start. You'll get episodes the first night and then it will spill out beyond that.

Terry Lipshetz: Excellent. Excellent.

Movies need two weeks of theater exposure before they're considered Oscar potential

Terry Lipshetz: So what do we have on tap next week?

Bruce Miller: Oh, we're starting to get into that Oscar season now. All those kind of films that you start kicking yourself and saying, how come they have them all, all those good ones right at once. Well, they're starting you're going to start seeing the Oscar beta, as I like to refer to it. The Holdovers had a sneak last night or this last weekend, and it'll be coming out in November. And that's the one with Paul Giamatti, directed by Alexander Payne and set in the 1970s. And we'll talk about that. NIAD is the story of Diana Nayad and how she tried to swim 100 and some miles off Florida from Cuba, right?

Terry Lipshetz: It was Cuba to Florida.

Bruce Miller: And that's coming up. So there are a whole bunch of these ones that are just lining up, waiting to get into theaters. They have to have two weeks of theater exposure before they can be considered an Oscar potential film. They changed the rules this year so that it wasn't just that's on streaming. It's okay. They need to have this window of opportunity that they're in theaters before they can be officially considered, a candidate for the Academy Awards. So, as a result, they're getting a little better at showcasing them in theaters before the end of the year. in years past, it was usually Los Angeles and New York, and they had a week there or something. Now the rest of the world is actually getting to see these films before January, February, March, whatever it might be.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I was going to say because there was a period of time where it was almost like you would come out and it would be, as you said, New York, La. And you might get a couple of these art house theaters around that might get it over a course of a weekend, a long weekend, and then they'd be gone until you maybe caught it on, a red box or streaming or something.

Bruce Miller: Now everybody gets a chance to kind of play the Oscar game where we all can see those films that you always go, what was that one? And now we get an opportunity to.

Terry Lipshetz: See know, I feel like if you want to be considered for an Oscar, you have to be in a movie theater for the masses for at least a period of time, as you said. Is it two weeks? If that's the bare minimum, I think that's fine. You got to be able to get out there. You got to go into theaters. You got to allow for people to go in and see you on that giant screen with the giant bucket of popcorn just because it doesn't feel right otherwise.

Bruce Miller: Well, I think when you watch it on TV, it does diminish it right. As big as your screen might be at home, it's not the same. And if you can hold an audience on a theater, screen, then that must say something about your film. But when it's reduced to the size of a TV set, I don't know if it's there, but did you get to Killers of the Flower Moon?

Terry Lipshetz: Not Harry.

Bruce Miller: That's one of the ones we've got to see, because I know it's figuring in the, I've already started to make lists of who could possibly be nominated for each of the categories.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: That figures in a lot.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. Yeah, I got to get there. It's gotten a lot tougher of late just because the kids activities ah. Have increased. I'm coaching basketball again.

Bruce Miller: Don't blame the kids for this. This is not their problem. This is your problem.

Terry Lipshetz: It is. I'm just deflecting you put that down.

Bruce Miller: On your list that you're going to go see the, Killers to the Flower Moon, and you're going to subscribe to Paramount plus I am.

Bruce: How big exactly is your TV?Bruce: 60 inches

Terry Lipshetz: Bruce, one other thing before we depart here. We've never had this conversation before, and it is a little bit personal, but how big exactly is your TV?

Bruce Miller: It's not that big. No, it's not big. It's 60 inches.

Terry Lipshetz: 60? That's it? Yeah, I'm 65.

Bruce Miller: Oh, well, see, I'm used to watching most things on a laptop. That's how they send it. You can't always transfer, it to your TV set.

Terry Lipshetz: All you need is that HTM. I need to be your technical support. Bruce, I will come to your house because I can get it from your computer on your laptop onto running on you. Okay.

Bruce Miller: The door is open. I will bring snacks. We'll be good. You can watch anything you want to see because I think I probably have it around the house somewhere.

Terry Lipshetz: On that note, thank you again for listening to this week's episode, and we will see you again next week on another episode of streamed and screened.

Bruce Miller: So long, partner. Bye.

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View Details

It's usually a busy time for television programming, but the ongoing actors strike has continued to slow things down. Yes, late night talk shows have resumed. And sure, "Saturday Night Live" is back on the air.

But unless programming was completed and ready to go, there is not much else besides sports and some unscripted shows that don't need actors. And when there are shows to promote, the stars can't speak with media.

But there are a few cases where celebrities can talk. Take Sting, legendary musician and frontman for The Police. He is out promoting "Message in a Bottle," which is coming to PBS and features his music. Tennis legend Billie Jean King is also talking about her projects, along with pickleball.

So the co-hosts talk about that limited programming, the movie theater as an event and the state of the strike. And they look ahead to next week's episode where they will discuss "Lawmen: Bass Reeves," which is coming soon to Paramount+.

Where to watch and more coverage

"Message in a Bottle" on PBS
'Message in a Bottle' finds new meaning in Sting songs

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed and Screened and entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises, I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal, longtime entertainment reporter. And I suspect he's bringing us a little message in the bottle this week. What do you say about that?

Bruce Miller: Message in the bottle? Yes, our dear friend Sting. But, I got to tell you, this is the strangest time. We talk about the actors striking and they're not working, and everybody's worried about that. We're not getting content. But there also is a whole other area that's being ignored, and that's the selling of all these shows. We don't get those actors doing interviews about the product that they do have out there, because that's part of the deal with the guild, is that you are not going to promote something that will bring money into the producers until they settle this strike. So, as a result, they don't offer up, actors to me to interview like they have in the past. It'll be people like producers, directors, costume designers, a whole raft of people that you probably don't hear from, which is great. It's interesting. It's a new wrinkle in all of this. But it does hurt some of those people who have spent a long time working on something. David Oyelowo has been trying to get a passion project about Bass Reeves done for eight years. And he got the money from Taylor Sheridan, the Yellowstone producer who's behind all of this. And no, it is not connected with any of the Yellowstone series. People, want to say that it's 1883, it's tied in, it's not. But he got his support in this. They hired a writer. They have other directors and producers and people behind it. And he is kind of the galvanizing force behind this whole thing. And now, because they're selling this, this is coming out the early part of November, he can't say anything, which I just isn't that just disheartening here? You your life working on this, and then others have to talk about it for you. And all those people are very open and generous about giving him credit for what he did and what he wants to say with this. It has a very special message. But this is like down the line. You are seeing different series like this where they'll offer up people to talk to you. There's a movie, coming out limited, this month, and then wide in November, the, Holdovers It stars Paul Giamatti and Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and it's directed by Alexander Payne. And this is going to be a big Oscar contender. The actors, they're not talking, they're not able to say anything about this. But again, that's one of those says, you know, it just kills me that I can't talk with them here and they can hear all these things because they're not available to promote the film. And so I think that's one of the things we don't think know. You see Entertainment Tonight on TV at night, and they're raving about something, or Taylor Swift is running around and she's doing things know Travis Kelsey. And it looks like things are normal, and, they're not. But what that also does do is open the door for other people to get a little attention. And one of the ones I did get to talk to was, yeah, it's, a dance show called Message in a Bottle. It's based on his music. Sting, in case you didn't know, did not want to have a Jukebox musical written about his music. He thinks that's a dumb idea. It's a horrible idea. And if anybody suggested that, he'd just say, no, I'm not going to be a part of that. But they asked him if they could use his music for a dance show in London. And they would tell a story through dance with him singing in the background. It would be his voice over this overarching story that's all told in dance. And he thought, you know, that's an idea that sounds interesting. And they did a couple of numbers, pitched it to him and showed it to him. And he said, I'm in this I could do, because it's nothing I considered. It's not like all these other shows. It's something new and different. And for him, it was, a very moving experience. He said, I cried when I saw it the first time. Just me. And then he said, when I saw it with an audience, I cried again because I saw how emotional it was for them. But so, as a result, we're getting to talk to people like Sting. Come on, that's not bad, because he's not directly involved in it as a participant. Yes, they use his, Voicing tracks over this. But he's not sitting there singing. He's not a performer. He's, a subject of this. And then Billie Jean King has a series where she pairs up women in sports to talk about the struggle that they've had. And I got to talk to Billie Jean King. And that was fun. That's on PBS as well. So you're seeing this kind of shift to people behind the cameras maybe getting attention. And this is a good idea.

Bruce Miller: This is good to give them that kind of attention. Fargo is coming out, and they've offered up people in Costuming and hair and makeup. And you go, who cares about the hair and makeup in Fargo, right? It has a very important part of this year's episodes, and I wish I could tell you more about that. But they won't be bad people to talk to because it's very involved. There are things that happen in the new series of Fargo that involve hair and makeup and Costuming that you go, wow, how did they pull that off. Yeah. So they will be interesting people to talk to that we probably wouldn't if they said, well, we've got John Hamm to interview. Would you like to talk to John Hamm? And you go, of course I want to talk to Jon Hamm. But maybe this will be a wakeup call for those who are scheduling these things into looking, up beyond the star names and down the line a little bit more. Because a lot of people put a lot of effort into these films and series and whatnot, and they don't get any attention whatsoever. Maybe during the time of awards, where there's a category, you might see one of the trade papers do a special edition about costuming, and then they talk to the costume designers of the top ten films and maybe they'll get a nomination for something. But for the most part, those people toil in anonymity they don't get a chance to get the spotlight. So we'll see what happens. But it is fascinating for the time. But I don't want to go two, three, four years talking to editors and composers and directors when easily the actors are there and they can talk about their contributions.

Terry Lipshetz: At least with someone like Sting, who is very well known as a solo artist with the Police Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He did act also. He was in, I think, Dune, in the 80s. So he is a very well known subject. So he can speak very well to that type of program. And then you get someone like Billie Jean King, who, of course, one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Getting someone like her on the record, it's like getting an A list actor, of course.

Bruce Miller: And she's fun because I said, what do you think of pickleball? Come on. Isn't pickleball kind of trying to edge tennis out of the way? And she says, oh, Pickleball. She said, I hate the sound of the ball hitting the racket. She said, there's something so marvelous about hearing a tennis racket and a tennis ball. But, a pickleball, it's hard. The racket is hard. And she says, you just hear this in your head all the time, and it drives you crazy. But she said they also have more injuries in pickleball than they do in anything else.

Terry Lipshetz: Really?

Bruce Miller: Yeah. She said a lot of her friends she said it's good that they're trying it because they're getting active and they're moving, but they're not, reducing injuries at all.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow. Because I've heard quite the opposite that pickleball is a good way to keep seniors active. I know even my mom, who's had both knees replaced and I think a hip as well. She's joined the pickleball phenomena as well.

Bruce Miller: There you go.

Terry Lipshetz: Everybody's doing pickleball.

Bruce Miller: Billie Jean's worried about her.

Terry Lipshetz: I'll let her know with the Billie Jean King, is that getting into the battle of the sexes?

Bruce Miller: Because that's it's the anniversary of Title IX or beyond the anniversary of Title IX. And she thought it would be a great idea to pair up other kind of pioneers in different fields to find equality and what they had to go through. And she talks to the, soccer players that were Olympic medalists and what their lives were like. And they talk about the things like, we were getting $10 a day to play soccer. And that's basically just our food money. And what can you buy for $10? You'll be eating junk food. SUNY Lee, who is, a gold medalist from the last Olympics, and she talks about her challenges and what she faced after she came home, as an Olympic gold medalist. So you have these pairs of people who are kind of weighing in on what the situation has been. And if it goes well, I think it's two episodes. If it goes well, that will then maybe lead to a frequent series of face offs between different people.

Where is streaming going? What is the benefit of going to the theater

Bruce Miller: This weekend, there is a film that's, premiering on Peacock that also is in theaters. And so you're seeing this again. We're wondering, where is streaming going? What is happening with all of this? How many times will I go to theater? What will I go to the theater for? What is the benefit of going to the theater? And I don't know if you have had any remodeling done at theaters near you, but I have near mine. And all of the seats are recliners that are heated. And they have, like, a full menu of food, which I don't remember when I was growing up at all, the only place you could get food was at a drive in theater. And now you don't find drive in theaters anymore. But the drinks that they're offering, it's a bar. And at my theater, they end up the kids who are under 18 or under 21 or whatever age they need to be to be able to serve beverages, adult beverages suddenly can't stand over by the liquor. They can't be near that in any way. And so there's like, the kid who's chosen to be the liquor kid. And so if you order popcorn and a drink, they've got to go call on the guy who is the liquor guy, and he has to do the drink for you. So I find that just kind of fascinating because it will change. And then in the lobby, there are so many games, there are so many claws that you're grabbing at for it's like a carnival. It's a carnival. Yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: It feels like movie theaters today. They're almost going toward becoming like an arena or a stadium for a sporting event. And we've talked about this in the past, where movies are going to be more of an event. Right. You'll pick and choose which ones you're going to go to. Kind of like a sporting event. I'm a huge baseball fan. I probably watch 100 plus baseball games a season from my couch. But I only go to the stadium two, three, four times a year. Kind of like going to a movie theater at this point for me as well. So then you're going to spend okay, I'm going to spend $1015 per ticket, and I'm going to spend on pizza and, maybe a hamburger and a chicken sandwich. Then it becomes more than just getting a bucket of popcorn and the Raisinets, which I hate. I hate Raisinets.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, I don't like those either. No, I don't like Milk Duds either. So if you're a Milk Dud person.

Terry Lipshetz: Sorry, do you like those little the Sno-Caps? The nonpareils?

Bruce Miller: No, that's an old person's thing. I am. But there you are. But that would be one like, mom would get it and you go, oh god, this is not I don't care for it. Thank you. You can have them. I'm good. Yeah, I'm of the era where we brought the candy to the.

Terry Lipshetz: Know. You talk about the remodeling. I'm actually really worried about the AMC Theater. That's literally 2 miles from my house, maybe even less a mile, because it's older and it feels like they never will. And even during COVID when a lot of places were shut down, theaters were shut down, a lot of people would complain to the Village because they were letting their parking lot get overgrown. Now, they still seem to be doing okay. I mean, I drove by last weekend when the Taylor Swift movie opened, and that place was packed and every Showtime was sold out. But a lot of times when I go there, it's in a weird place. It's not near Milwaukee. It's not near Madison. It's kind of in the middle of the suburbs. And it feels like it may not survive. And I might have to drive 30 minutes to a theater.

Bruce Miller: We had an AMC here that they did four screens to see what would it be like? And they remodeled the four screens and it went well. And then they went and did another four. So it kept going in increments. And finally they got it all remodeled. So it could be just their time. It isn't their time yet. But I think look at the Taylor Swift movie that is a pure example of all of this AMC was they, made a direct deal with Taylor Swift. Right. And to get that in and two weeks in a row, number one movie. Now, come on. And again, it goes back to my philosophy is it has to be an event. If it's an event thing, you are going to go out of your comfort zone. And you're not going to sit at home and watch it on some streaming channel. You are going to go out. You want to see that. You want to be a part of that event. And as I noticed, they're spending money. If I'm sitting. 1989. Was that what the ticket price was?

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: Like that because of her album, right? Okay, so I'm in for $20. Then we're making an event of it. So I'm not going to just sit there and say, no, I'll have water. You're not going to do that. You'll get a beverage. And if you're an adult that has to bring a bunch of little girls with you'll, get the adult beverage from the kid able to handle that for you. Yeah. And so you're going to make a little more of it, but you probably won't go as often. That's the real stickler of this. In my day, we would go at least twice a week to the movies because there'd be more than two movies that were new each week. And I would, usually go on a Friday and go on a Sunday. And that is so out of the realm of anything today. If I go once a week to a movie theater as just a regular patron, that's saying something. And I'm one who goes to all of the movies because they don't have that much content available.

Hallmark has started the Christmas movies

Bruce Miller: Or if they do have the content, I can get it in an easier form. I don't need to see it at a theater. But I do think they're stepping up their game and they're making it more attractive. You know how you always would complain it's kind of dark, like they need a new bulb in their project, or, it's fuzzy, they didn't focus it. Or I'm sticky on the floor. Those things you don't see that much anymore. And, they do make a big effort of bringing in the blow guns and everything and cleaning up the place before you get in there. But then you also don't have the ability to sit all day long. I remember going to a theater and you'd say, I want to see this again. And you just sit still, and it start in, like, ten minutes.

Terry Lipshetz: Right?

Bruce Miller: So that doesn't happen.

Terry Lipshetz: No.

Bruce Miller: Hear you out, and they make sure that you're out of there. But it is a shift, and I'm wondering what's going to happen now. We're getting into the big Oscar movie, period. I mean, there is a lot that's on the agenda that's supposed to be coming in the next two months, and big, big names and the idea that they're going to muzzle these people. They have to get this solved quickly. It's almost like finding the speaker of the House. It’s like it has to happen. This is too much.

Terry Lipshetz: It's weird, too, because there's a lot of competing forces. Because all of a sudden, after the writer strike ended, we knew, obviously, that late night TV would come, know Jimmy Fallon was back, john Oliver was back. But then all of a sudden, Saturday Night Live came back, and I had to do a double take, like, well, wait a second. How is Saturday Night Live back? Because these are actors. And it turns out that the show well, it's covered by a different contract. It's more like late night it's under the late night TV game show, whatever weird. But it's not these are actors acting. So how can we have these actors? So are we going to get nothing but a bunch of variety shows now? But it's really strange. And it just feels like, this has got to get worked out soon because you can't and then I know actors, too, can go overseas because there's certain obviously in Europe there's different contracts, there's different mean. You know, production of films in the UK. Or EU haven't necessarily shut down like they have over here.

Bruce Miller: Could you really call bad Bunny an? I mean, but yeah, look at, the talk shows at night. They aren't asking people from films or TV shows to come and be their guests. They’ve been doing a lot of Broadway people. I noticed that Josh Groban has been making the rounds and he's in Sweeney Todd on Broadway. And, that's not covered. We've seen the cast, Daniel Radcliffe. Jonathan Groff. So you'll see those people kind of they're actors, but they're not in a film. They're not in a so you're and you'll see athletes and musicians. They're going to make, hey, well, this is all going on, but who knows what will happen? The other thing that I think you did not realize is that we have started the Christmas movies. Hallmark is like hardcore. And I think they have new movies every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday. I don't know. Do you have to get stuck into that?

Terry Lipshetz: No, my wife doesn't watch those Hallmark Christmas movies. Or at least I don't think if she does, she's watching them without me because I get stuck in the kids ones. We will watch whatever ones come out on Netflix or Hulu or TV or but, but even, at least with them, they're middle schoolers now. So some of that stuff is just baby stuff. It's little kids stuff. So we're not going to watch that. But it is coming on fast. I know my wife and one of my daughters went just to Kohl's the other day to do clothing shopping. And they came back and they said Christmas music was playing in the store. You got to be kidding me. It's not even Halloween.

Bruce Miller: We had Christmas in July. Remember that? They were allowed buying all those Christmas movies in July. And now suddenly it's the real time. But Christmas is not that far away. If you add up the days, it's not like that long from now. So they're getting deep into it with the Hallmark Channel. And nothing stops those people. I'm sure they're making them in Yugoslavia or God knows where, just to make sure that they can get like 153,000,000 Christmas films done all, on basically the same set, saying the same things with just different people. Who were in a different career. It's always somebody comes home to a small town and realizes that, oh, I really do kind of like it here. I don't need to be a high paced business person in New York City. I can live in East Overshoot, Tennessee, and I can be a know who's happy here. With whomever? The local cobbler. I will marry the local cobbler and that'll be my life.

Terry Lipshetz: And Reba McIntyre is your mother.

Bruce Miller: I have found that with those, I'll sit and start watching one and I fall asleep and I wake and it's a different one and it's the same thing. So if you worry about, the resolution, no problem. It's there.

When would the actors strike end?

Terry Lipshetz: My biggest concern right now is when we had this discussion several months ago regarding when would the actor strike end and you were a little bit more optimistic about it than I was. No, I'm starting to think like I might be right on, on this one. I don't remember the exact date, but I thought it was going to be like late November is when they would nail it down. Because at that point everyone would head into freak out mode knowing that NFL is about to end, college football is about to then, you know, there's nothing. It's, it's NBA, NHL, and not a whole lot else until baseball season resumes. And those aren't exactly huge, TV drivers either. We're running out of and CW.

Bruce Miller: Look at the CW. They are grabbing everything from every country. They've just announced a couple of new series from, you know, aren't those always on BBC or BBC America or something? So we see them somewhere else, but now they're picking up whatever strays they can find and they're sticking it on the CW. And so I think until the content runs out, you know, we're going to see Korean shows and we're going to see just everything until they're ready to blink. And when they blink, I don't know what will happen. The folks in New York say that Broadway is suffering because it's too expensive and people are not seeing that as an. You know, you always thought, well, maybe they could film some of those things and throw them on some streaming service, whatever. But that doesn't seem to be like another pool for them to pick from. So the bottom line is they've got to get this stopped. Otherwise we're going to run out of talent. Talent will switch to something else. I don't know if you follow these things, but a lot of actors that you might have seen on some shows realize they can't get work and they end up becoming real estate salespeople. And so the actor that you liked in whatever sitcom is suddenly selling real estate now in Los Angeles and probably making more money is more secure than he was ever before. And you think, wow, you would turn on this thing that was your lifelong dream. Because everything's going bust in your business. And I think that's one of the things they'll look at. You will lose actors that you were fond of because they can't find the place to go.

Next week, we talk about a new series from Taylor Sheridan called Lawmen: Bass Reeves

Terry Lipshetz: On that note, anything else? We have Sting. We have Billie Jean King. I know we'll look forward in the coming weeks to things like Fargo.

Bruce Miller: Yeah. Next week, I do want to introduce you to the people from Lawman, Bass Reeves. It's a new series, a limited series that's from the Taylor Sheridan kind of house.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: And in there, we are able to talk to, one of the directors. One of the directors who considers himself a reggae director oh, nice. And how he brings that sensibility to the series. And then also the guy who wrote the series. And he worked very closely with David in terms of what do you want to say with this and what is coming out of this. They had a lot of research. They went down the road about everything they could find about Bass Reeves, and then they decided, okay, but there's got to be another kind of overriding story that we're going to tell with this. And what is that overriding story? And you'll hear from them next week. But I do want you to get into this because it's going to be a big thing, Paramount Plus. And, they do talk about where does it fit with Yellowstone.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. Yeah. And that's good, because we'll talk more about that next week because my wife, she signed up for something. And we do have, like, a 30 day trial if we want, of Paramount Plus. And I did see that Bass reuse trailer, and I thought, that looks kind of interesting. And I have not seen any of the Yellowstone series. So is it maybe worth my time? So maybe we could talk about that next week.

Bruce Miller: When you see it, you're going to go, wow, look how lavish this is. It really looks like a huge movie, huge cast, great sets, a lot of buffalo, if you can believe that.

Terry Lipshetz: yeah.

Bruce Miller: And so we'll talk more about it because I want that one to hit your radar. I want you to think about that, and then we'll talk about some of the other new movies and things that are coming out.

Terry Lipshetz: Sounds good. All right, well, on that note, thanks again, and we will see you again next week on another other episode of, Streamed and Screened.

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Move over "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie." The latest film from writer, director and producer Martin Scorsese — "Killers of the Flower Moon" — might be the best movie of 2023 and could run away with multiple Oscars when awards season approaches.

Co-host Bruce Miller, who got an early screening of the film that opens October 20 after its brief run at Cannes earlier this year, shares his impressions of the film and where it stacks up with other Scorsese classics that featured Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. The two actors have long been favorites of the director, but had never appeared in one of his films together until now.

Co-host Terry Lipshetz, who has not yet seen the film, shares his thoughts on past Scorsese films such as "Goodfellas," "The Departed" and others, and introduces clips featuring Scorsese, De Niro, DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, Jesse Plemons and Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear of the Osage Nation.

Where to watch and more coverage

"Killers of the Flower Moon" in theaters
Osage Reign of Terror from Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles (Podcast)
More coverage of the movie and the story that inspired the film from the Tulsa World

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Martin Scorsese talks about his new film Killers of the Flower Moon

Martin Scorsese: Well, I think the story itself has elements of stuff that you would expect to see in my movies. This approach, however, is from another angle, and I think it's from a more personal, side, which is the story of, the husband and wife, Ernest and Molly, and more so through Molly, I think, and how it affects her. We don't shy away from showing anything, but it has different resonance because of, her, really.

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. That clip you just heard was from Martin Scorsese, writer, director, and producer of Killers of the Flower Moon during the Mexico City premiere of the film. Courtesy EPKTV.

Bruce Miller: This is a special film that you will want to see

Terry Lipshetz: I'm Terry Lipschetz, a senior producer at Lee and co host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. He is also lucky enough and is the only person I know to have seen Martin Scorsese's new film, Killers of the Flower Moon. Bruce, I'm yours here. I don't even know what else to say because you're special. You've seen it, I haven't.

Bruce Miller: What can you say about a film like this? Just another thing that he put out. Just another film. It's just no, it is something. This is a special film that you will want to see. But I'm going to warn you before we even get into the rest of it, and that's that it's long. People complain, and, who complains more about a long film than I do? It really will be one that if you could break it up and watch it in parts, you'd probably enjoy it more. But I did need to have a bathroom break in the middle of it, so I'm admitting to that freely. I know that I shouldn't have had a beverage before I went in, but, yeah, it is everything you've heard about, everything you've thought about, everything you've wanted and more. If this isn't Martin Scorsese's big valedictory, I don't know what is, because there's a lot to unpack with the film, and he brings in people that truthfully. I did not know some of these actors were in the film. And so the last quarter of the film, they start popping up and you go, oh, my God. They all wanted to be in one of his films before he quits making films. And you see big names and they just are playing little throwaway roles, which I found was very fascinating to see. And it isn't like you think, okay, the movie, I kind of know where it's ending. It's ending, right? No, it gets another kind of breath and then it goes through another process. And you go, yeah, wow, that was something. And then the ending of the whole thing is a big surprise.

Terry Lipshetz: So you're not going to give that away?

Bruce Miller: No, I'm not going to give that away.

Terry Lipshetz: Don't spoil it.

Bruce Miller: You got to see that one. But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. And I'm glad I didn't time the bathroom break at the end because I then would have missed this part. But it was like, okay, I like that. That's a nice way of putting a button on.

Terry Lipshetz: Know you're talking about the length. I do see that it is three minutes shorter than his last film, The Irishman. So it is quicker. A little faster, right. But that was a long one, too.

Bruce Miller: The Irishman, you could pause because it was on Netflix, right.

Terry Lipshetz: This is an Apple TV production. But it's not on Apple TV.

Bruce Miller: No, it's going to be theaters first, and then it will go to Apple TV. But don't expect, like, it's opening this week, and then next week you're going to see it on Apple. It's not they will have this kind of victory lap that will last, I'm sure, at least through the end of October, if not into November. And it warrants it. When you see this, it's one of the best things Leonardo DiCaprio has done. And he's done a lot of Scorsese films. It's, a different take on Robert De Niro. In fact, when I first saw him, I didn't realize it was Robert De Niro and heard his voice. He was channeling somebody other than what we've seen in the past. And what's fascinating I found about the film is that it touches on a lot of very familiar movies. There's a little Godfather in this. There's a little giant in this. Think about epic films that you've seen, and there's a little bit of that in there. But it also is its own story. So I think he's paying homage to a lot of his predecessors, but he's also creating a path for himself. There was even a little Wes Anderson in there that I, was surprised at.

Terry Lipshetz: That's interesting.

Bruce Miller: I don't know if that gives you anything more to go on, but there are moments with De Niro and DiCaprio that you go, this could be The Godfather. This could really be from The Godfather. It has that kind of momentum going that I really loved.

Lily Gladstone plays love interest of Leonardo DiCaprio's character

Bruce Miller: And then we haven't even mentioned Lily Gladstone. Lily Gladstone plays a member of the Osage Nation who is a love interest of Leonardo DiCaprio's character. And you can see where the two guys are going to be kind of heightened actory kind of characters. And she pulls back and is very natural, and they match her. And it's fascinating how this works out. And a lot of the Native American actors who I don't know if they've had long careers, are fascinating to watch. He has done something here that I think you don't see in run of the mill movies. It is a real surprise, one right after another.

Terry Lipshetz: It's interesting that you bring up how this feels like one of his earlier films, scorsese's earlier films, some of the ones tied to kind of organized, crime and mafia. I have a clip from the movie and it's a scene where De Niro and DiCaprio are together and they're kind of having an argument. It comes after it sounds like a hit and there's a shooting. But when I watched this clip now, again, I haven't seen the movie. So I've only been able to see trailers and short clips. But this one felt like it had that feeling of, like, goodfellas when they're kind of yelling at each other or even like The Departed. It kind of had that kind of feeling to it. But it brings the two actors together.

Robert de Niro plays Leonardo DiCaprio's uncle in the film

Bruce Miller: Can I give you a little setup for the scene?

Terry Lipshetz: Sure.

Bruce Miller: Robert de Niro plays Leonardo DiCaprio's. Uncle Leo has been in the war, but he comes back. He doesn't really know what to do with himself. He doesn't have a career. The uncle says, Come to this area because there's a lot of opportunity. The Osage nation hit oil. They struck oil. And as a result, people were really, really rich. The Native Americans had the latest in cars. They had butlers and chauffeurs and maids and huge homes. They were living the life that everybody, I think, would love to live. And there were a group of people who were benefiting from them being around. De Niro's character is considered a, respected white man in their territory. And he has relationships with most of the people. So they trust him and they believe in what he says to them. And he brings in this nephew. And the nephew is kind of a deadbeat, if you ask me. I saw him as a deadbeat. And he's just looking for a way to get his piece of this pie. And so then De Niro has spelled out a number of things he needs to do and it's about how do you behave and what do you do in this area. And we've got to watch so that if we do something that maybe isn't above board that you're not getting caught. So here's the scene.

FILM CLIP

It's supposed to be a suicide, you dumbbell. You didn't tell him to leave the gun.

I don't know why I told him.

To leave the gun.

I told him to leave the gun just like you told. I don't know why he didn't.

I don't know why I told him.

Just like you told him.

You told him to do it in.

The front of the head. And why did he do it in the back of the head? It's so simple. The front is the front. The back is the back, mate. He has to make it look like he done himself. It just looks like murder. It's not supposed to be that way, you hear? I told him the front of the head. I said the front of the head. Just like this. Just like you told me. I promise you. I promise you.

I swear on my children.

Kane and don't swear on your children makes you look foolish.

I ain't foolish, because I'm the guy.

Terry Lipshetz: And that was a pretty powerful clip right there.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Ernest Burkhart in the film

Terry Lipshetz: And I do have one other clip because we're talking about some of the characters, and maybe you can help set this up as well. But in this scene, Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Ernest Burkhart, he is driving Lily Gladstone, who plays Molly Burkhart, who's eventually becomes his wife. His wife, right. But this is an early scene where he is driving her. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Bruce Miller: He needs a job, and so he becomes a driver. He was like an Uber driver, for lack of a better term. And she is one of his steady customers, and he realizes there could be a relationship there because she's beautiful. She doesn't suffer fools. what I love about her is she stands her own with all the people, and yet it isn't like she needs a big showy scene to do it. She can do it with a look, and that's what's so cool about her performance. But I think this is early on in their relationship, and they are kind of feeling each other out in terms of, could this possibly be a match for me? They told me you was going with Matt M. Williams for a time.

FILM CLIP

Lily Gladstone: You talk too much.

Leonardo DiCaprio: I don't talk too much thinking, well, I got to beat in this horse race. That's all.

Lily Gladstone: I didn't realize it was a race. I don't care for watching horses.

Leonardo DiCaprio: Well, I'm a different kind of horse.

Lily Gladstone: Hong Kashi. Show me kasikoshi.

Leonardo DiCaprio: What was that?

Lily Gladstone: Show me kasi. That's how you are.

Leonardo DiCaprio: I don't know what you said, but it must have been Indian for Handsome Devil.

Terry Lipshetz: That sounds like a pretty good clip right there, too. And it's getting me excited. It seems like they had really good chemistry on screen. Chemistry. Did you get that feeling?

Bruce Miller: Yeah. And, the thing I loved is that it did not seem like it was the same old, same old, because when you've done a lot of movies with the same director, it can be like, okay, we're using you because you can bring us this. And I thought they were both trying new kinds of characters. In fact, Leo's character reminded me more of one of the characters he played in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, more than anything. And he always talks about being thick. That's a line that kind of, resonates throughout the film. But he says, I'm not thick. I'm not thick. And he doesn't want people to think he's dumb, that he knows what he's doing, and he's smart. But really, when you get down to it, he probably is thick. That some of these moves he makes makes him seem like, yeah, maybe we need to guide you along a little bit more.

This is the first time Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro have worked together in a Martin Scorsese film

Terry Lipshetz: We talked a little bit at the top of this show, know Scorsese reuniting with DiCaprio with de Niro. So this is actually, the 6th film that DiCaprio has done with Scorsese. This is the 10th that De Niro has done with Scorsese. Now the interesting thing is Robert, De Niro and Martin Scorsese did a lot of films together earlier, like 70s into the 80s. But then that relationship kind of cooled off a little bit and they went their separate ways. And DiCaprio kind of filled in to what you would consider to be that.

Bruce Miller: He became the new Bobby.

Terry Lipshetz: He became the new bobby. But this is the first time that the two are working together in the same film. So how is that chemistry between the two of them?

Bruce Miller: You know what, i, think that, Robert De Niro has honed in a lot of his performances in recent years. And you can look at some of those bad comedies that he's done. You know that he's phoning in some of those, right? But this one challenges him in such ways that he uses different voices. It isn't the same kind of De Niro voice that you've been looking I when, I wrote a review about it and I thought that he reminded me of James Whitmore. Now this is going back. James Whitmore in the film. Give him hell, Harry. It sounded like that was what he was trying to do. And he was trying to be this kind of likable character, not necessarily somebody who has the upper hand and is going to cut you if you don't do what you say. And I think that's kind of his, you know what I mean, where, he has that. I've loved him in so many films. I, really regret that Raging Bull did not get Best Picture. I think that was one of the big mistakes of all time. Because I don't think The Departed was the best film that Scorsese has made. But we've got this one. And this one could well be the one that brings it all home for him.

Terry Lipshetz: I always thought that I love the Departed. It is one of my favorite movies, one of my favorite Martin Scorsese movies. However, to me, it doesn't stand up like a Raging Bull or a Ah Goodfellas or probably half a dozen other films. It always felt like The Departed was kind of like, a makeup.

Bruce Miller: You look back at some of those early ones and I think he was part of that group, if you will, that were very big in the they were all kind of jockeying for position. So I think some of those ones that he did early on were masterful something like Taxi Driver, for example. Have you ever seen De Niro better than that? And De Niro has been really good. And Raging Bull, I think, is his best picture ever. But you look at Taxi Driver and you can remember those. Are you looking at me? You're going to come up with the lines right away because it was such an indelible character. And you look at the styles of Martin Scorsese's movies and they are different. Some of those early ones are very kind of know, I do them on $5 kind of movies. And then there are ones that are very elaborate and you think, wow, they spent some bucks on them. This is one of those. They spent some bucks on them. Because the costumes, the sets, all the little details are top drawer. They're just the best. And then you get that like that string of actors. In the end, I kid you not, you are going to, don't look at any list of the actors who are in the film because you'll be looking for them. But there's even Jason Isbell is in there. And you go, wait a minute, he's in this? Come on. And so it's a nice surprise to see that last quarter of the film where they start kind of coming in as various and sundry, lawyers, politicians, representatives, whatever.

Terry Lipshetz: I did cheat.

Bruce Miller: You did.

Terry Lipshetz: I did cheat. Well, I need to know what I'm talking about coming in here. So I did see and it's an interesting look at quite, a few musicians. You mentioned jason isbell. But Jack White is in it. Pete Yorn is in it. Sturgill Simpson. There's a lot of very recent contemporary musicians, a lot of Americana country musicians, but a lot of musicians in this. But there's also a lot of other just very well known actors like Brendan Fraser, John Lithgow, Jesse Clemens. I mean, it's a heavy hitting, right?

Bruce Miller: Right. Yeah. It's and Jesse Plemons, you don't see him until, jeez, it's almost over. And then he comes in. And I thought immediately he reminded me of Ben Johnson in Last Picture Show. Now, is that not a reference? I mean, there are little things like that. If you are a fan of film, you can find touchstones here in this movie that relate. I could do like a diagram and then I could put arrows to all these different films. Look at this scene. And this reminds me of this. This reminds me of that. And yet it's uniquely his film. It is not a copy of like, oh, this worked. So I'm going to use that. Not that at all. But like I said, it is fascinating how if you love these kinds of movies, you will really love this one. And I learned stuff like I say, I did not know all this backstory on the Osage Nation and how people were treated. It's unbelievable. And why it took this long to get this story on a screen, or maybe it has and I just missed it is beyond me.

This is a film about the Osage Nation and a specific time in history

Terry Lipshetz: You mentioned, of course, this is a film about the Osage Nation and time in history. We actually have a clip with Chief, Standing Bear from the Osage Nation, who helped as a consultant on the film. So, let's cut away to that for a moment.

Speaker G: Well, I'm principal chief of the Osage Nation, and when David Grand, was writing the book, he was spending a lot of time with us, years. And, after he sold the movie rights, he called and told us that Imperative would take, it from here. And we met with an Imperative, and we were very concerned that someone else is going to tell our story without being our story. But imperative was very careful. They didn't want to over promise. So when they started saying, this is a movie that the Osage will be proud of, and they're going to tell the story through the eyes of Molly, that really got us, in a positive mood. And then Chad Renfro, who I had appointed as our ambassador to this world and the movie, said, Chief Marty Scorsese, he'll be here in the morning. And so he came. First thing he said is, we're going to film here. And then my staff and I, encouraged him and Marianne Bauer and everyone to work with our people on this whole, process. And, it's just been something we worked with for years, every day. And for six months, the filming, was right there in Pahuska, dirt streets, everything. What you see is not computer generated. I've been down watching them film. It's an amazing process. I've never seen anything like it. We've had other movies made in Fahaska, but nothing like this.

Bruce Miller: There's a lot of, native languages in this, so you really do feel like you're a part of it. It's like in The Godfather, for example, when they go to Italy and they're speaking Italian and you don't know what in the world's going on, but you know that something's happening. That's a way that the Native American characters are able to keep some of these opportunists at an arm's length, is that they can talk to one another and say, know, I am not so sure about this. Know, so it is a gangster film in a way, but it's not what we traditionally think of as a gangster film.

Martin Scorsese has done a lot of films based on true stories recently

Terry Lipshetz: Corsace has done a lot of films recently. I mean, he's done this all throughout his career, where he does stories that are either inspired by true stories or they're true stories. Such as the case with the Irishman, the Wolf of Wall Street, the Aviator. Where does this one stand compared to some of those others that are based on true stories in your mind?

Bruce Miller: Well, I'm sure they do take liberties because it's based on a novel that was a huge, huge hit.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: I think it's a great adaptation, if I can say that. But I still think Raging Bull was a more defining kind of biography, if you will. But hey, get ready. Get ready. This is a film you want to see, and this is a year of oppenheimer. Remember, we all hot about Oppenheimer. Well, this is the competition, folks. I think you really have I am going to put them both in at one time and watch them and then just see which one is better.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” could win multiple Academy Awards

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, that was my next question for you. When we spoke a few weeks ago, it felt like Oppenheimer at that moment, was the best picture. But now that you've seen this yeah.

Bruce Miller: it could win could because up and down the line, there are such excellent examples of what movie making is all know he got in trouble for talking about how those Marvel movies sorry, were not really movies. They were just kind of whatever. And he puts up he shows you what a real movie is. I think we've been so duped in the years of Marvel films that it becomes a formula. To make a movie, you must do this, this, and this. And you need this character and that character. And you get out of it this way. And that's how it goes. And this is creating stuff. This is a new vocabulary, a new way of looking at films. And like I say, that last little bit, you're going to go, I did not realize that that would be a way to end this film. I hope that more than anything, I've gotten you to think about wanting to see it.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And I was looking it up because it obviously opens this weekend. But the next thing I looked at is like, well, when is it going to go to Apple TV? is it worth waiting? And it looks like at the earliest, early 2024. So I need to get to the theater.

Bruce Miller: Yeah. No, and it needs to be seen on a big screen. It is lavish. I mean, you see those outdoor scenes, and he's not working with a couple, of drones to shoot these scenes. You know, there's a crane involved. And there's a lot they're cattle. My God, the cattle are running all over. And you think, how did they wrangle this? And all those old cars. they said that the Pierce Arrow was one of the most successful cars among the Osage nation, that they all wanted to have a Pierce Arrow. And they got all these cars. And you think, how did they do this? How did they make this so exacting? And then you know that he had people who were guiding him through all of the Native American things. There are ways that they are holding the shawls or using the kind of colors. And I know it all means something. They have done due diligence to every aspect of this. And I think that those who are subliminally part of the story would appreciate what he has done. Because it isn't just I'm, making a movie that's based on a book that's about something that happened. He wants to get it right. And the Native American music that you hear throughout it, too, is a real spectacle to behold. And yeah, there are just parts of it that, you know, that they have done right by the people that they are chronicling.

Leonardo DiCaprio: The film took the number of years to make. But we finally got it done

Terry Lipshetz: All right, I'm going to cut away quickly now to one, more clip from Martin Scorsese. Let's go to that one really quick.

Martin Scorsese: Well, I'm disappointed that we don't have the actors. it's a good time for them to be here and to enjoy, even if it's just a moment of, getting a picture taken together. And everything they went through. The film took the number of years to make. the pandemic took its toll. There's no doubt, took its toll in time and interruptions. But we finally got it done. and, it's been a very special film for me, especially over the years, trying to get it to, be in a shape that was a story I wanted to tell, along with Leo and Lily Gladstone and De Niro and Jesse Plemons and all the Osage with us on this picture. But, it's a special film for me, and I hope I learned something from it.

Terry Lipshetz: Even though Martin Scorsese there was talking about how the actors can't promote the film when he was at the London premiere recently. The good news is this is we do have audio from the actors from before the strike began. So we're going to go ahead now and queue up a few clips. Now, in this first one, we have Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Leonado DiCaprio: We optioned the book seven, eight years ago. And it was a, fascinating piece of forgotten history, but it was told from the perspective of the FBI. And we developed a screenplay soon after that. but there was a dynamic missing there that, we ultimately felt that we weren't getting to the heart of the story. We weren't immersed in the Osage community the way we wanted to be. And there was two short sequences of Ernest and Molly together, which was this insanely, bizarre love story, something that was hard to fathom in a lot of ways, how this woman stuck by someone who was so duplicitous. But it was true. All of it was true. And so from that point on, we said to ourselves, well, what if we take the chance on in getting to the heart of this story and the Osage community and this insane dynamic in Oklahoma at that time and what was going on? What if we made it know Molly and Ernest? And that was another four year journey of rewriting and once again going to Oklahoma to meet with the a new, another chapter of development of getting even further into the truth of that story and trying to be as honest as we possibly could about the atrocities that occurred. But it was really when we made that shift to it being about Ernest and Molly and their love for one another, it opened up a whole new arena of ideas for us and it took on a whole new life of itself.

Lily Gladstone: One of the biggest responsibilities I felt about this role was that I'm not Osage

Lily Gladstone: One of the biggest responsibilities I felt about this role and, the way that I had to occupy the space of Molly was that I'm not Osage from the community. I have access points being blackfeet and as purse and growing up in the Blackfeet Reservation. we don't have something like the Reign of Terror, but we have our own history with, not being able to manage our own finances, for a time, with a lot of the things that I think a lot of contemporary Native Americans feel and understand. But walking in like, Indian Country is an incredibly diverse place and Osage Country was, foreign to me walking into it. And, Oklahoma has a different history than Montana does, where I grew up. So I knew that because I had to be in this position where I'm, in a way, an access point for the audience to fall in love with Native women and to care about Native women in a really deep way. The way that that happens is I had to fall in love with everybody I was around. I had to fall in love with my sisters and that was effortless. and also with a level within the community. it's not my community, but I had to carry it as if it were, as if they were stories from my family. I think that's kind of the root of empathy and it's one of the reasons that I love being an actor, is you're serving as an access point for, other experiences and you're kind of broadening a cultural understanding of what it means to be human by doing so. yeah, I feel like there's no way I could really, really ever understand or truly embody what it would have meant to be an Osage woman at that time because it's unimaginable the things that this community had to deal with. And it's horrendous how erased it was. And early research with Leah. We were sitting down, going through some of the court documents and the testimonies from this and people were talking about the house blowing up and the documents from this and the court transcripts. They only talked about Bill Smith. The character played by Jason Isbell. There was no mention of Rita. We were sitting there looking at these just court transcripts on this very fragile old paper that we were being very tender with. And then it's like you don't necessarily feel like you're going to be moved by a court document, but I had to stop. I mean, we had this nice system where I was handing you pages and we were turning them over and being careful as we were both reading and everything. And then you were kind of waiting for me to hand you the page and wasn't getting it because I was. Crying over the lack of Rita in this paper. So that kind of took me by surprise that I was moved the way that I was in that moment. But it made it so incredibly clear that me being in this role is a responsibility for this array, is a responsibility for m this community that has been so erased out of their own history, starting with these court documents before any writer gets a hand on it. So, it's vital that this history be explored that way. And I'm so grateful that Marty also, in addition to this being so it's Killers of the Flower Moon, the book is there. It was also the heartbeat of it was so shaped by a book written about this time from an Osage perspective called A Pipe for February by Charles Redcorn. And, ah, I encourage people to read that because copy paste there's elements of that book that are very clearly in the movie in a very certain way. But the tone of that book and the sense of the relationships between the sisters in the community, the photographs that you see, the way that the book invites you into what that perspective is, the way that the community invites you into what their perspective is. Because, if you're there and you're receptive and you're open, they'll share it. they don't push too hard because we're talking about trauma, but people are willing to share, basically. Read a pipe for February.

Robert De Niro talks about his role as William King Hale

Terry Lipshetz: In this next clip, we have, Robert De Niro speaking about his role as William King Hale.

Robert De Niro: Well, on this one, I was aware that Leo and Marty had this project and they were talking about asking me if Marty were asking me to do it. And we were working out Irishman too and so on. So, at one point I said, I told them I'll do it, I'll commit to it. I wasn't quite sure. Hale is what that's all I knew. Then later they told me that they want to change what the book was, doing and make it more about the relationship with Ernest and Hales. So, I said, yeah, that sounds good. And that was it. Then I waited for the script and then we worked on it in pieces. went over it, as I remember. and were going over it during the shooting, sort of titrating it, if you will, because of Leo's, his relationship with Molly, the poisoning and all that and how much he knew or didn't know or half knew and then my involvement and all that. So it was all kind of just making sure we were doing it in the right way. As I been saying, I don't know certain things about him. What he did is so awful. there, were certain things I could understand, but I feel that he did love the, osage or thought he loved them, but somehow felt entitled to do what he did. I don't know how that is. I know he knew he was doing something wrong, possibly, but rationalized to himself that he was doing it for some sort of greater good, whatever that is. His own family, whatever that was. But he had his family. I don't know. it's, one of those things, that you don't always know, the motivations of characters. Sometimes it's more easy, and even then, characters don't know themselves. So I just did my best.

Jesse Plemons plays Tom White, a Bureau of Investigation agent

Terry Lipshetz: We have one more clip. And this is from Jesse Plemons, who played Tom White, a Bureau of Investigation agent investigating the murders.

Jesse Plemons: Well, I had read the book, which was shocking and really, well written. And yeah, I've played characters in the CIA and I read a complete history of that a long time ago. But I didn't know, about the birth of the CIA. I mean, of the FBI or anything. but growing up in Texas, I actually grew up in a town outside of Waco. And there's Texas Ranger Hall of Fame there in my hometown. So there was something really strange about and nice about, playing this character and something that felt like I had I don't know, it's a part of me, I guess. and I read I think it's called Ashes of Glory or something, a, History of the Texas Rangers. And that was really helpful and changed my perspective greatly, because it tells the honest story of the Texas Rangers. And I was brought up to believe that they were these heroes. And I'm sure within that there are some people that had some sort of moral compass. But my, takeaway from that was they were more of a gang that just kind of cleared the way for the White people, and did some really horrific things. So the fact that Tom White was a part of the Texas Rangers and managed to come out such an honest, good man that, treated everyone as equal and was such a voice of justice was intimidating, to take on because his goodness is so amazing, especially for that time.

Director Martin Scorsese talks about the making of the Native American film

Terry Lipshetz: And finally, we do have one more clip. This again is from Director Martin Scorsese. A little bit more in depth talking about the film.

Martin Scorsese: Originally, I was drawn to the story by the book by David Graham, which delineates this extraordinary, tragedy, in American history that I really knew nothing about. And the script was given to me, this was in 2017. And, I understood immediately that trying to approach this material, particularly the nature of this tragedy one would have to do it from the point of view of Leo Sage and, not the Osage as victims, but as people. Ah, to really get to know who they are to understand as much as possible the values and, their appreciation of, the world around them and the life. And so, at one point, while we were working on finishing the film Irishman, we, talked about where is the heart of the story? this systemized, kind of racist tragedy occurred. and yet many of the white people that were there who were perpetrating it were still very good friends with some of the Osage. So what is that about as part of being a human being? and, Leo said, well, what about Ernest, the character? Ernest Burkhart, who he plays in the film? Now, he was going to play another character. He said, what about him? because he's married to Molly, he had to have had something to do with these murders. We don't know what to this day. And yet she stayed with him. And I said, well, she loved him, and he loved her. Did he really love her? I think he did. Is he weak, strong, whatever? And he was manipulated by his uncle. Okay, we know all that. But by going into the love story which, by the way, was, more than hinted at, but was, explained to me by the Osage themselves, they said, don't forget they were in love, Ernest and Molly. And I said, well, let's find out how. I don't know how people could be in know. I can't describe that. It's just that we can't express it. But there's something, a bond between the two of them where she trusted and trusted to the very end. And I think that's part of the tragedy of trusting people who, come from a culture where, we think we're superior and we think the other cultures have to be coming, from I'm American, European, so it's the European culture. The Western culture is superior, so everything else gets wiped out. it's not that simple, because there are values there, and we're all part of the human condition. And so for us, this project was something that, as you say, shine a light, certainly, on this time in history. And coincidentally, in 1921, while this was happening in, Pahuska and in Fairfax, Tulsa was burning, there was the, black Wall Street was going. And we didn't know anything about that until a couple of years ago. And so m this was systematic. The country was made by white Europeans. That's it. Yeah, but the democracy and freedom for all and the pursuit of happiness for all, you see, and, this is what we wanted to get into. And the only way I thought we could do it was to go to the heart of it, really. I was going to say minimalist, in a way, go and go from the center, and then come out not from the outside in. As I said, I felt that when I first read when I looked, we even took the book, I said, if you're going to be dealing with indigenous people, I said, we're going to have to know them. We simply have to know them. And so what that means is they have to be, with us. And it's got to be different from the way other films were made about them or about their world. And so automatically, once the script was in progress, we, sent a group of people to meet, Chief Standing Bear. Then I was brought out to meet them. This is before the, COVID epidemic. And so, once meeting them, I understood that we have to be understood even more that we have to be extremely careful and not, as I pointed out earlier, not stuffy, not, prissy with everything that has to be lived in and felt. And so, in learning about how a blanket is worn, and what the designs of a blanket mean, we learn who the people are and we get to know each other. And it really was interesting. It really was. And it's something that's always fascinated me about American, indigenous people and First Nations. And so I was fascinated by it. and I tried to get as much as I could into, what they put into the film. They also, as you know, ah, so many of the Osage not only, were in front of the camera, but also behind the camera, making, designing and helping making the costumes and all the props, because a lot of this had been forgotten. Even the language has been forgotten. There's only Van Bighorse and, Chris, who's the other guy, he taught the actors how to speak Osage, including Leo and De Niro. And so they were learning their language again. And the young people are coming back, you see, for their rituals now. And the young people are beginning to the young o sage are coming back and, understanding, now the value of who they are and what their nation was and still is. And so this is something that happened. Kind of a rebirth, in a way.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow. You know, hearing from those actors and scorsese again, I'm just getting more and more excited to see this film.

Terry Lipshetz: I think I pretty much have to drop what I'm doing this weekend and get to it.

Bruce Miller: It's on your must list. I'm putting on the must list, but I'm pulling you from all liquids. You can't drink anything before you go in.

Terry Lipshetz: But it's shorter than the Irishman. It's three minutes shorter.

Bruce Miller: Shorter than the Irishman. But you can't pause it. That's the problem. Yeah, it's one of those ones you want to see. And I think even though we can't hear all these interviews and see them on all these talk shows now, which is what would happen, it might be better for us to experience it first, and then when they come back, to award season, as they like to call it. We'll hear all those interviews again, and then we have, a little heads up because I think I love the idea that you don't know anything really, about what's going on, and it just kind of unfolds in front of you. It was remarkable. Remarkable.

Terry Lipshetz: all right, well, on that note, first off, thanks again to EPKTV for providing us with all that audio. It's just difficult to get these actors. I know you can't really get them now because of the ongoing strike. So it's good that we were able to have a source to provide us with audio for this program. I'm looking forward to seeing this movie and looking forward to having you back again next week on another episode of streamed and screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

It's October and Halloween is approaching fast, which means it's also the season for scary programming. But not everything has to be scary and for adult audiences like "Saw X" and "The Exorcist: Believer," both of which are currently in theaters.

"Goosebumps," a new series based on the R. L. Stine series of books, debuts on Disney+ and Hulu on Friday, Oct. 13. Executive producers Pavun Shetty and Conor Welch spoke with co-host Bruce Miller recently to discuss the program and the love for books.

Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz also discuss some great family-friendly options to watch this fall, including "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," "Ghostbusters," "Beetlejuice," "The Addams Family," "Casper" and more.

Where to watch

"Goosebumps" on Disney+ and Hulu
"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on AppleTV+
"Beetljuice" on Max
"The Nightmare Before Christmas" on Disney+
"Gremlins" on Amazon Prime Video
"Ghostbusters" on Amazon Prime Video
"Ghostbusters: Afterlife" on Amazon Prime Video
"The House with a Clock in Its Walls" on Amazon Prime Video
"Coco" on Disney+
"The Addams Family" (1991) on Amazon Prime Video
"Casper" on Netflix

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the ghoulishly mischievous Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a long time entertainment reporter. It's Halloween is in the air. I love it. I love doing Halloween or whatever that song is from Nightmare Before Christmas.

That's right. Yeah. Danny Elfman, this this Halloween, that kind of stuff. Yeah. You know, are you a fan of Halloween movies? Do you really like all those scary kind of movies? Not scary. Scary. We don't. So the key with movies is they can't scare me where I can't fall asleep for a week. So what would be one that would scare you?

What would be a bad one? Anything gory? Like I'm not going to watch a saw movie. Like, saw whatever. They're on the 35th installment of that. I've never seen any of them, and I never will. And I like the Halloween movies. The Freddy Krueger ones, the Jason, the Slash. I just won't watch any. So those are just not for.

They're not for me. Yeah, well, I get it. I get it. I think when they get violent, it's not really fun, right? But it's a mystery. And you hear things, but you don't necessarily see anything. Yeah, that it's fun to watch those kind. But if it's the kind like I'm sitting in the house and it could happen to me in a minute if somebody jumped out and had a night or something.

No, not right. Yeah, I don't need any. And some of them are just. What was that movie? The Human Centipede. You know, the concept is somebody sewing people together internally. This is just ridiculous. Now, I don't mind a movie that's going to make me jump in my seat a little bit. You know, that's where I get like. Like movies, you know, like Jurassic Park where a dinosaur jumps out at you from the jungle.

That's cool. I'm into that. I'll watch that kind of thing. Ghostbusters. And we'll talk about some of these movies soon. But like a movie. Like a Ghostbusters, where goes, it's a little bit scary. There's some make up involved and some things that'll, you know, maybe give you a little trouble falling asleep. But it's not it's not gory, it's not gross.

And those are the ones that I just don't want to watch at all. I have no interest. They're not grabbing you in a bear trap in your own house. Right, right, exactly. I love psycho. I can watch Psycho all the time. It's real. It's like, okay. And especially after, you know, the secrets to Psycho. Then you go, Oh, it's even more interesting.

And then you start, you know, the bathtub for the 44th time that you're looking at this thing. You see that? Wait a minute. That's. That's somebody in the background that I recognize from a TV show, you know, So there are different things you see each time. And I think that the editing on that is impeccable. It's just incredible how they were able to make you think that it was scary when actually it probably wasn't.

Yeah, and even a film like Silence of the Lambs, which has moments that are pretty disturbing. Yeah, a little a little bit gross. But but that it's a psychological thriller about a serial killer. And that's the type of film that I can watch. But they're more realistic. It is realistic, right? Exactly. What about all those scary things like vampires and Frankenstein monsters and werewolves?

Do those get you like would Twilight be something you'd say yes to Twilight? I've seen bits of it. It's not really my cup of tea in terms of just, you know, it's like more of a team thing. So it's it's not really, but that is the type of film I would watch, like Interview with a Vampire with Tom Cruise.

I love that movie. I thought that was that was good. And those those types of films I'll watch. I like I like the Alien franchise, you know, with Sigourney Weaver and those are scary. Those are scary, but it's it's sci fi. It's a little bit more on the sci fi things. So what's the rule at your house with the kids?

Do Are they are they hot to see some of these films? Do they say, Oh, we've got to see this, we've got to see this, we got to see this, And then you say no, or what do you do? Some of them now I've got twin daughters. One of them is a little bit more adventurous, the one that I've spoken about who loves Star Wars.

She's a little bit more adventurous. My other daughter, who they're twins, but they're not identical. So one of them looks a little bit actually more like my wife, and that's the one that loves Star Wars. And then there's another daughter that has more of my characteristics and features. Is it bigger? What's that? She has to be here. Yes.

She has a very long beard. No, she has a lot of she has long hair. But it's on her head, not on her face, but she's very similar to me where she will get petrified by anything remotely like we watched Jurassic Park as a family and she will not watch the other ones. Like she tapped out after Jurassic Park one and she's 12.

Though I would think that The Exorcist is off the table. Off the table? That's not happened. Yeah. And they have a sequel out now. You could see that. Yeah. I'm trying to think if I would see The Exorcist. I mean, I've seen bits and pieces of like, I watched a bit of Poltergeist. I mean, I kind of watch that one.

I find if you go in the daytime, it's better when you come out. It's light though, at like seven or 8:00 at night and you come out and it's dark. They are everywhere. All the monsters that you can think of are out there. They're waiting. Yeah, yeah. I'll go during the daytime. You'll be able to enjoy those Doors was a horror film.

Sure. But that's. That's different. Like, that's the kind I would watch. That's kind of. I love Jaws. I think that's. It's a great movie. I don't the sequels, not so much but that's that's other reasons altogether. So if we limit it to the the kind of crazed, killer slash eternal scary films. Yeah, they're off the table. Yes. Those I won't watch at all.

Did you ever see the ones with Vincent Price and Peter Laurie and Boris Karloff back in the day in the sixties? They did a lot of American international pictures that were creepy, maybe scary, probably, and black and white. And we went to them like they were like soup. You know, We were just we were slurping them up. But many of you watch them now because they'll show them on Turner Classic Movies or TCM.

They're not that scary. No. And I think there is a bit of a difference also, because I think the movies of the last 25, 30 years or so as technology has improved and computer graphics and special effects and all that stuff, you can fall back into that level of filmmaking, I think, and increase the Gore level. Whereas some of those earlier movies from the fifties, sixties, even into the seventies, those movies were a little bit more reliant on psychological thrillers and is sometimes the unknown is scarier than the known, right?

You know, what you don't see can be scarier, like what's happening just off to the side of the screen that I can't see. You know, that Halloween is one of the biggest holidays of the year. Right. And as a result, they're trying to be as family friendly as they possibly can because there's money. There's money on the table that needs to be made.

And so they're kind of, if you will, softening the the horror films, but they're still out there like your Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters is a good example of one that they've tried to reboot. Now, how many times? Well, there's another one due out March eight, as long as it's still on target with with the Strikes Go, the sequel. We don't have a name for it yet, but it's it's Ghostbusters, Afterlife Sequel.

It's set to be released March 29 for 2024 or later or later. Right. But those are those work like hocus pocus, which is another one. And they've been hugely successful now in in rerun you know, on streaming services and they are making new ones they're it's it's a franchise in Disney is making big money off that so I don't think that will end but I do think there is room for new kind of thrilling family films right.

Yeah well and even even if you look at one of the biggest shows on streaming in the last year, Wednesday and Sunday. Right. And that's that's a spinoff of The Addams Family. Right. And my kids love it. Both my daughters love that show. Yeah. Why? Because it's clever. And I think if you go for just the stupidity of some of these things that are just, how can I shock you?

That's not that good. Right? And I think the I would talk a kid out of seeing some of those because I don't think that it would be really worth your time. Yeah, I can. I can scare you. Just give me a minute. But am I scaring you and then maybe teaching you something in the process? That's where it gets a little more interesting.

Yeah. So what are some of your favorites? What are your favorite acceptable films for family or family? So I think the first one that is my go to and as a fan of music, one I love and it's it's is a staple of television for years and years and years. It's a great pumpkin. Charlie Brown with the soundtrack by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.

And I think yeah. And you know, for somebody, I'll tell you this, I'm not a huge, huge jazz fan. Like I have some jazz albums in my collection. But if you're looking for a gateway into jazz, sure, there's like Miles Davis and John Coltrane, all those. But if you if you dig the Peanuts TV shows and you can get into the Vince Guaraldi Trio, that's a good entry point to jazz music.

But I digress. You know, I love Very Pumpkin. Charlie Brown is just one of my favorite. You got that one and you've got the Christmas one. They've just have a handful of these programs, you know, themed at holidays, which I think you know, are just staples every year. You got to watch them. You mentioned the music in that I am sure if you were around back in the day, you would not have said, Oh, let's put some jazz with this.

It it doesn't fit with peanuts. It doesn't seem like something that you would have with it. And yet we can't think of it now without that kind of music. Right, Exactly. Yeah. And you know the song Linus and Lucy, which is pretty much in every Peanuts television show I've heard the Dave Matthews Band cover it. It's a such a key piece of music there that we all listen to.

Absolutely. Yeah. So if we ever go ice skating, we'll know that we have to have the music with us exactly as it just wouldn't be the same. Okay, what else can we watch? So I love and this one that I would like to show to my kids because I think they're old enough and I don't think it's that scary.

But I always loved it as a kid was Beetlejuice, and that one is another one that has a sequel, a sequel that's due out later next year with most of the original cast. I love that movie. And again, you're dealing with Tim Burton here, so there's a little bit of a weird genius in play. And then, of course, the music by Danny Elfman is tremendous as well.

You mention Tim Burton. He's kind of the king of the family friendly Halloween ask, you know, Yes, you look at all these ones that he has had. Corpse Bride? No. Edward Scissorhands. Yep. A number of those ones fit that that niche where you would go. Yeah. Okay. And he knows how to do it where it's not so scary that you won't sleep for a night or two.

But they are creepy and ParaNorman is another one like that. You just throw them all on the heap and it's like. And then Nightmare before Christmas. Come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's made a career. I mean, he's. He's a, he's a bit of a weird dude, but a weird dude in a good way. Yeah. And technically doesn't even do all of these films, but his name is on them.

Other people are the directors, so you have to be very careful when you look at them to make sure that you're you're, you know, checking the right one. But yeah, it's is and print is on them very significantly and it's fun to watch, I think. Yes, absolutely It would is a classic but not necessarily scary but it does talk about those people who made those kind of films back when.

Yeah. You know, it's movie kind of going back and it scared me a bit as a kid, but I still enjoyed it and love it to this date is Gremlins, and I think that's one of the values that didn't that one kind of lead that and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom among the early films that were they weren't rated R because they definitely weren't R rated level films but they listed them as PG and you kind of needed something in between.

And I feel like, wasn't it Gremlins and Indiana Jones that kind of leads that PG 13 rating? There's a little there's a little more risk involved, if you will. And then it became everybody wanted a PG 13 rating. And so then they had to kind of parse it so that how many words are PG 13 ask? And they arrived at the theory that one certain four letter word we come up with it in your own mind once in a film was still PG 13.

Yeah. And there was a little bit of like you can allow, you know, some backsides, bare backside would be okay for PG 13, but not right. Not anything about that. Yeah, but then get into the R and then by then you're on the slippery slope to an X, so that's who knows what happens. Yeah. And it became a thing that kids didn't want to go to PG They wouldn't go to G movies because G movies were for babies.

That right. The way they'd look at that. Yeah, but a PG movie was one that parents would send you and you didn't have to have the parents sitting with you. PG 13 They might take a dimmer view about, Well, let me see here. Let's see what this is all about. Yeah. And now, you know, I think the kids want to see R-rated all the time.

I always look at when you get into movies with sequels, the ones that start out as rated R movies in the first movie, but then get knocked down to PG 13, like National Lampoon's Vacation. I think that was an R-rated film when it came out. But by the time they got to, I think European Vacation was even maybe PG 13.

Bigger audience, You're going to get more money. And that's exactly bottom line is the bottom line. Yeah, yeah. The gremlins is no good. No hire. I like a good R-rated movie when it's just for language because it's like, What the heck, I hear this at work, so I don't have to worry about what we're getting on the screen.

But sometimes they end up, you know, overdoing it just because they want to shock you with that end of things. But for the most part, PG 13, you're going to get enough thrills there. You're going to get enough of something, and mom and dad aren't going to be mad. Yeah, I agree. Another one that I really loved as a kid, but it did scare me a bit as a kid, but I kind of outgrew that a little bit.

Was Ghostbusters I love. I went to see Ghostbusters when it came out. I had a little trouble sleeping that night because you've got that early scene, really, you know? Yeah, well, you know, you go down into the into that basement at the New York Public Library and the ghost that was, you know, sifting through the card catalog. But yeah, you had a kind of scared scared me to death.

And I was I'm trying to think how old I was when at that time, you know, I was under ten years old. Eight, nine years old. So it was still a little bit scary to me. But to me, that that is a classic film, that one Ghostbusters two is just okay, I didn't mind the reboot, the Melissa McCarthy reboot from a few years ago.

I thought that was fine, but I really actually loved the Ghostbusters afterlife that came out a couple of years ago. I thought it was a nice tribute, some good callbacks to the original film, and I thought there was some some nice tributes to it. I thought they did a nice job with, like, let's say, Harold Ramis bringing him back into the film even though he had passed away.

I thought that was nice. It was a good tribute. So I am looking forward to the sequel that's due out next year. Or not? Or not? Maybe not. We allegedly Hey, I'm ready. I'm ready for it because I do like when they make you laugh. In fact, that's kind of the real surprise is that you can see a scary movie, but you still have a reason to laugh.

And I think too many of them get very, very serious where you're like, Oh, man, this could happen to me right here in this theater. This is not good. Yeah, exactly. When I was a child, we had movies where you could you were interactive, if you will. They even add some movies where they would wire the seats and they'd have what was called The Tingler.

And then it would shock you during the course of the film and you get a jolt from all of that. But one of the things I remember most, because it was my scariest movie ever, was one where you got to vote before you got into the theater. Should the guy, you know, thumbs up or thumbs down and you had to vote.

And then at the end of the film, they would show the real door that you had voted for. Now, did anybody ever vote? You know, I don't even know if they made a second real because everybody wants to see a certain ending. Man, you know, they can tell you, oh, you're voting and this is going to count. But this sounds like, you know, politics today.

You got a chance to do thumbs up and then you'd put it into this. I remember this vividly in a light and the light would show what you had voted thumbs up or thumbs down. Did the movie scare was called Mr. Sardonic Tests? Mr. Sardo I've heard about that. I never saw it, though. And it was just this man with this frozen face where he had this.

It was like, You look like the Phantom of the Opera if you want to have a point of reference. Mr. Sardonic would give you that e scary ride, and that creeped me out as a kid so much that every night I had to go and check to make sure that the basement door was locked so that Mr. Iconoclast wouldn't come up and get me in the middle of the night.

Oh, wow. Wow. That's crazy. My parents were letting me go to all his crap. Now I turned out this is great back that it was probably rated G, So yeah, I that it was and you know, I probably was with people that you don't even hear about. You don't even know their names anymore because they were done very cheaply and they were sent all around the country at different times.

So you weren't necessarily going to all see the same movie on the same weekend. It was like a special thing. But the idea that it was interactive was, you know, as fun as a little thing. But we were always scared. We were scared, you know. Did you like Young Frankenstein? Mel Brooks, his movie. I try to think if I've ever even seen it, it's black and white.

Right? The story of Frankenstein's grandson, I believe it is. Or a and so he inherits the place in in Germany. And he goes over there or Bavaria or wherever it is. It's, you know, some place over in Europe that's Transylvania, like. And the people are all like, you know, well, you're his his grandson, right? And no, no, no, I pronounce it Frankenstein.

And there are all the you know, Marty Feldman's in there with the as Igor or Igor, whichever is in it, and Madeline Kahn was in it. And Cloris Leachman, I mean, it was a clever, clever film and a good way of kind of approaching all this. And it did have scary moments. But, you know, is it is is it one you show your kids?

I think without the point of reference. Yeah. Having seen Frankenstein, I don't know that you'd get the humor now. I don't know if this would be appropriate for the kids. They still might be a little young for it, but it's along the lines of Frankenstein. But would you consider this to almost be a Halloween ish type of movie?

Weird science, the John Hughes film? Yeah, that's clever. Yeah, it's kind of it is like a it is sort of like a Frankenstein. It's just writing teenage boys with the hormones raging. They don't create a monster. They create a hot woman. Right? Right. Well, what about Teen Wolf? Oh, yeah, that's a great fox. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's it's in that genre, all those universal pictures that were classics and they're still mining them now, but then they give him a little twist.

And here we've got something that maybe works for a younger audience. Yeah, Teen Wolf, too, right? That was the sequel. But it didn't have Michael J. Fox. Probably not. No. Is Teen Big Thing. It was like Teen Wolf, like not the number two, but it was like, oh, yeah, I think by the time he did, that was one of those ones that they kind of kicked off.

And then he got all that success from Family Ties and then he was in the back to the Future trilogy. So he was really. Did he need to do one? No, probably not. No. I think he probably didn't get paid much either. No, no, no. But that was a classic of my youth. I remember that one vividly. And yet it was a cheap movie.

Exactly. You know, another one which I don't know if I would consider this. I saw it on some lists for Halloween films, and I don't necessarily know if it's Halloween, but it took place during Halloween and it's E.T. The extra terrestrial. That's a classic false movie. I don't think that counts. I don't think yeah, I don't know if it's a I see it on the list and I get it.

And, you know, they dressed up E.T. and and it made it look like a costume in all that. But it's more I think the time of the year, Halloween time than necessarily being a Halloween movie. If we're ditching Jaws as a legitimate movie for this time of year, we're ditching E.T.. It can't be it. I'm fine with that.

I'm fine with that. All right. Any more on the list? The girls did watch this one at a pretty young age, and I think it's a good kind of ghost movie. And it appeals both to, I think, parents and Kids is Casper the 1995 film. And that one was kind of fun because it is Casper. Casper, of course, is the Friendly Ghost, but it had fun little callbacks because wasn't Dan Aykroyd as the Ghostbuster made an appearance in it, and you had Father Guido Sarducci from Saturday Night Live.

Amen to exercise the house and all that. And I thought that was always a fun film to watch and it's one that's appropriate to the kids. It's not going to scare them. You're you're alright with that and they're not going to go, Wait a minute Dad. What did you do to us? The one that's a spoof of horror films, Scary movie.

Would that be one you'd consider? I don't know. I, I think I hate the genre so much. I mean, I've seen Scary Movie. I've seen all know. It's almost like I just don't even I hate I hate that aspect of the genre so much that the the spoof of it just doesn't appeal to me. I never I mean, I know it's not scary scary, but I just like, I can't I don't enjoy the references to begin with, so I'm not going to watch it.

How about arachnophobia? Oh, boy, that's been a long time since I saw that one. There was this kind of creepy spiders. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then what about this is one maybe you did see with your kids the house with the clock in its walls. Have you seen that one? I don't think so. But it on the list.

Put it out. It's. I think it's pretty good and creepy. Okay. And it has people that you you you know, I'm not going to tell you all this because I think you want to go in blind, but it has actors that you recognize in their playing, kind of heightened versions of maybe what we know them for. Okay. But yeah yeah it's Ruby House now.

The Haunted Mansions. I have never really liked anything that they've done with Haunted Mansion. The current one that's out in theaters are heading to DVD. I don't like it. I think it is too much plot for what it's trying to unpack. And there, you know, it's like we got to try and tie in with the theme park somehow.

We got to make sure that we have these things that we're imagining and we're going to add the music. And then we got to have the hot hatbox ghost because that's going to be at the parks at some point. I hate that. And the Eddie Murphy one that came before was no good either. But I did like when the Muppets did a Haunted Mansion.

Oh, yeah. You can't go wrong with the Muppets. Yeah, the Muppets. They. You know, the Muppets were everywhere. The Muppets had done everything. Even though you think where they been, they don't really do too much, do they? Did they did a lot, but they had their own Haunted Mansion movie. And of the three, I think that's probably the best one as a second one out.

I don't I don't know if I ever saw that one. That would be fun. Yeah. It's it's cute to see Coco. Oh, yeah. What maybe be classified in this is in this genre because he goes to the dead you know where he's and it scare. I thought it was scary in parts. Yeah but I'm yeah I then it's an animated film and I think it's it's a beauty full film it was visual It's really because that was a Pixar movie.

Right. Right, right. Yeah. I'm trying to think of that. And then maybe my favorite recent Pixar film, I'm not sure if there's been a whole lot after that, but I really loved it. It was a really well done. Yeah, very well done. I saw that on some lists for Halloween movies and I was on the fence as to whether or not I would consider it, but they knew the characters out and I wish I could think of the name of the guy.

He was the singer who sings Remember Me? Yeah. Yeah, he looks like a skeleton. And they have that character at the theme parks now, singing and talking and interacting with the audience. And I think, Well, that's kind of interesting, but it's not so scary that you would, like, run away from it. You know, you get yeah, it's this could be good.

And then the original Addams Family films, those were good. Oh, sure. Yeah. Did you like the you're talking about the ones with like Raul, Julia and Anjelica Huston, right? Yeah, those were fine. I enjoyed them. The reboots that they did, CGI, not so much. Not on your list? No. Now the kids don't mind a may I? They've watched them a number of times.

And I think they're they're at least family friendly enough. I don't mind them. I got I think I got dragged to the movie theater to see one of them and it was okay. Yeah. You know who we do? Well, Scooby Doo is awesome. Well, now the live action Scooby Doo. No, I'm not going to watch A lot of Freddie Prinze Jr was in it commercial.

No, and I watched that. Yeah. What about monsters Inc? That's a fun one I love. But, I mean, that gets back to the early Pixar movies that I think almost everyone hit it out of the park. Yeah, my one daughter who doesn't like scary things. I think we tried showing that to them when they were little, like four or five years old and she's like, Come back to it since.

Yeah, Coraline, that's not so bad. I'm trying to think when I've seen it, but it's been a really. Yeah, well, that's the one with the button eyes and all that. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. So there we are. Cruella. I'm throwing that one at you. That's scary. The live action one for a couple years. Yeah. No, that was fun. I never know if I would.

I consider that to be Halloween ish. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. But he dresses up. That's a really good soundtrack. Yeah. Costumes, I think. Was it? It was nominated for best costume? I think so. Yeah. I didn't even want it. My. No, I remember because one of my daughters went as cruel a few years ago for Halloween.

And so she absolutely wants to see that in the theater. And I, I enjoyed it. And I thought the music kind of kept me going on it. It was well-done from that end. Yeah. No, it's a you know, again, Disney knows how to lean into these things because they know there's money on the back end with that. So if they can find a way to monetize some kind of property, they've got somewhere Maleficent, you know, in there, they'll do it, they'll do it.

But I think they're your safest bet when you're looking for something that you can show the kids without corrupting the kids, right? Absolutely. Yeah. One of the things that I have in my back pocket that actually is premiering this week is Goosebumps. Oh, Amber Goosebumps. Did you read any of the books they were before? Well, after my time, I should say.

Right. I was not a Goosebumps person. Yeah, I didn't read the books. That kind of I'm not sure when the books came out, but I just either either I'm a little too old for them or it's just not something that I ever got into. The kids loved them and I met R.L. Stine, and R.L. Stine does not seem like the type of guy who would write those kinds of books, but there were more than 60 of them.

And then there were spin offs and all these kinds of things. And there were TV series, there was a TV series that would take each book and then, you know, make an individual show about that. But now they've come up with a new series that kind of mash them all up. It's also called Goosebumps. It's it'll be on Hulu and Disney Plus.

And what it is, is they've taken five books. The premise of five books, and then created this kind of overlay where it's a high school and the kids are realizing that something is amiss in their school and a ghost possesses one of their favorite teachers and they're worried about this. They don't know what's going on. They're trying to get to the bottom of it.

But what they've taken is those five individual stories of these five kids and turned them into they're kind of subplots. So they become social issue ones. Maybe I have a diety when I'm at school. Maybe there is something about the kids don't like me. I mean, those kinds of subplots that play into this. And I was able to talk with the producers of the film or the series or whatever you want to call it.

And they were able to explain, you know, how did why do they do this? How do they do this? What's going on there? Connor Welch and Pavan Shetty and they are both former executives at networks. One was at ABC, one was at NBC. And so they kind of knew from the background what would work, what they could do.

And they realized that, you know, wait a minute, what you need is a great idea, and then you figure out what to do with that great idea. And so we do have an interview, if you'd like to hear it. Absolutely. Producers, are you two were you big Goosebumps fans as kids? Is that what this is all about? Is this why it happens?

That's where it all began. Yes. Voracious Goosebumps reader. The first book series that made reading feel fun as opposed to a task or ad sure that my parents or teachers made me do so. Yeah, I said little seminal series. And now my my oldest daughter is reading them as well, which is really fun. Same with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Garner and I are the same age, so we kind of grew up on these books and, and, and, you know, we're looking back on them with a sense of nostalgia. Now. But like kids, like Connor's kids getting scared for the first time. So it's a lot of different perspectives on the same material. And so it was really important to us that we sort of put those things together and made a show that felt appealing to both kids and adults at the same time.

It does seem a little more adult than past series. Was that intentional? You you plan that? Yeah, absolutely. We wanted to just sort of, you know, elevated a bit. And also, you know, the book series when I was reading them and now when my daughter reading them was always a little scarier and a little funnier than you expected.

And so that was certainly the intention with this series that we would surprise an audience with with more scares and more humor, hopefully, than they thought we would bring. And, you know, in in the landscape with premium television, it was important to us that it that it felt really sophisticated and cinematic and and yeah, it would play well for audiences of all ages.

So where do you get the idea to mash things up? Well, you know, we were lucky enough to have access to all of the Goosebumps books because R.L. Stine gave us access and our partners at Scholastic did too. And you know, there's a lot to choose from. So our creators, Rob Letterman and Nick Stoller, had a great idea where they came up with the structure, where for each of the first five, we're following a different character who's dealing with one of the issues from the books.

And mid-season they come together and realize what's going on and decided to take matters into their own hands. So we harnessed five of the books for the first five, and then we're pulling from a lot of them throughout the entire series. There's Easter eggs for a Goosebumps fans throughout the entire first season of the show. So if you go a second season and then will these same characters travel with that or does it become a whole new thing?

Yeah, the intention would be that these characters would would continue. And yeah, we were just so excited by these new actors, a lot of who will be brand new faces for for, for the audience. And they really just sort of hit their stride and found a really fun chemistry pretty early on in the season. So we'd love to see those dynamics play out for many more episodes to come.

Where do you find somebody to be Harold Biddle, for God's sakes, And how do you advertise for that? Well, we were lucky that that, you know, Justin Long, who ends up being possessed by Harold Biddle, comes along. And obviously Justin is so good at both comedy and horror, you know, from even Jeepers Creepers. And he just did Barbarian before we cast him.

And some of us were lucky enough to work with him before this. And, and I think Justin is someone that's perfect to do. Both those really comedic physical comedy set pieces, but also is able to be super scary and most importantly, be scared on camera in a really good way. And I think you know, our our he plays Mr. Brad is possessed by Harold Biddle but I think it was important that all of our cast be really good both comedically and dramatically because I think we switch back and forth between comedy and and thrilling stuff pretty seamlessly in the show.

Did you worry about him getting hurt because he does bring himself up Quite. I mean, what is this? You know? No, he is just an incredible physical comedian. And to watch him struggle with being possessed by a teenage boy and, you know, not all of it that entails was really, really hysterical. And Justin is just someone who is surprising at every turn.

Like every single take is a little bit different. And so we got some really, really fun, compelling performance out of him. And you said, we can't match anything. So doing all over again, right? That's good. Did you talk with R.L. Stine during the course of all of this? And what does he say? We did, yeah. Which was of the most thrilling parts of the entire process.

You having his name, you know, in bright green across most of the books in my library, in my child childhood bedroom. But yeah, he was involved in reading scripts and watching cuts. And yeah, one of the most exciting parts was when he first watched the pilot and reported back that that he loved it. And yeah, that was just a thrilling cherry on top.

I think, you know, for us we, we didn't take lightly how beloved the books are. I mean, they are massive, massive book series, over 400 million copies, 32 languages, I mean, and we genuinely love them. So we wouldn't have done this without his sort of blessing and support to go forward with this version. Well, your concept of, you know, the mash up does seem like something that, you know, is original.

It's not just we're taking another book and we're doing the same thing. It is a different a different take on it. What is it about horror, though, that people love? I think it's the surprise. I think I think actually there's something very similar about horror and comedy in the cadence and the rhythms of it. It's a lot of set up in surprise.

The surprise for a horror being a scare or a jump, the surprise or a a joke being the punchline. So Rob Letterman and Nick Stoller, the creators, and Hilary Winston, our showrunner, I think did a really great job of sort of harmonizing between those two genres throughout. So sometimes when you would expect a scare, you would get a laugh.

Another other times when when you were thinking, you know, there was a laugh coming, hopefully we we jump scared yet and this is you know there's lot of stuff like that. But we also talked a lot about how just being a high school kid today is super scary. Also, you know, we're dealing with a lot of personal issues these kids are dealing with.

So their teacher, he might be possessed by a ghost, but that's not even anywhere near as scary as being rejected by someone you like when you ask them out on a date. And so we're really sort of taking that. And those are universal issues, right? So that's pretty scary growing up right now. Those old media is scary. That's the the real threat that I never had to deal with.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Two were both executives at networks. What did that inform you about what people want? I'm just surprised that this is the direction you're going. You know what I mean? Where you you could control what we put on the air, but now you're creating the content for that. Yeah, well, I mean, you know.

Go ahead, go, go for it. Okay. I would say that being on the network side was helpful in perhaps selling and convincing to the powers that be, how to get your original idea through. And so with this, we were lucky enough to have a giant piece of intellectual property, as Bob and said, this is a book series that has sold over 400 million copies around the world.

Many different languages. So that is, is that from a network point of view is a great selling point. Okay, you check the big box that handles a lot of marketing, a lot of awareness, and then I think it was helpful in being able to articulate to the the buyers why this was going to be thrilling in different This was going to be something that's funny and scary great.

This is going to be something for adults and their kids. Grade This is also going to be something for adults who don't have kids, who grew up watching the book, or maybe adults who don't have kids who aren't a fan of the series. So, yeah, I think having been on the other side just sort of helps speak the language a little bit to get our very original idea through.

And I think, you know, we were both I was at NBC, Connor was at Fox, and then we both started producing and we've gone back and forth between comedy and drama. But I think when you're at a network and you're trying to program to a broad audience, you do try to chuck a lot of boxes. You have a medical show, you have a workplace comedy.

And I think at the end of the day, what we both learned is that you just have to have a good show. If you have a really good show that's authentic and takes risks and is just, you know, is fun to watch, then people are going to find it. You know, the audience will find the show. And I think at the end of the day, that's what was important to us here, is that we really just make a good show and and then the rest will happen.

Now, how is it this time, though, breaking through? Because there are so many shows out there and you do have the built in name recognition, but how do you make sure that you get see? Yeah, well, I think it just has to feel real and relatable. So, you know, as pub and said, all of these issues, all of these hauntings start from a hopefully very relatable place of insecurity, of the burden of finances, of does the boy I like, like me back and vice versa.

And then we get to elevate it with these big scary set pieces and monsters and and hauntings. So I think as long as it starts with a relatable nugget, you can kind of explode it to be a big spectacle. And and hopefully some combination of those things will break through the noise. And it's fortuitous that the show revolves around a Halloween party, and that's where the kids find all these items.

And we're premiering on October the 13th, Friday the 13th, right before Halloween. So the timing kind of works out to where we're doing a really scary show that comes out in the scariest month of the year, obviously. So what scares you guys? Everything. I think it strikes tomorrow. Yeah, right. That leaves this possibility of never being able to make movies and television again.

Yeah. You got everything done though. You have all ten in in. Yes. Very good. Like this. This was all pretty before before the strikes went down and we've been able to. Yeah. Unfortunately our our talent and creators and actors can't do the press. So that's why you see Puppet and I go to outside of that we're very grateful to have gotten it all in the can before this all turned upside down on us and have an are you related to the dean of a certain college or university?

Oh, that's funny. Yeah. I also produce the boys and the spin off Gen V and that's coming out this month. And they did name one of the characters after me. So I guess that's that's quite a bit. Yeah. But I think you know that hopefully my character is in, in real life isn't represented by the character in that show.

But, but it's that's another fun one that'll be coming out soon too. When you do have those kinds of series that are all on, how do you know which child gets what you know like with this for example, how do I know I should have this in that show and not in that show? You know, I do, Yeah.

Luckily, there's not a lot of crossover between the boys universe and Goosebumps. They're they're pretty different audiences. And I think if we did have some of the same tonal touchpoints, we'd have a little bit of a problem. I think it all comes from the creators, Rob and him in here with a really specific point of view and worked with this material and and that in the very beginning they knew exactly what this show was going to be.

And with Sony and Scholastic and Disney plus really shape this. And so it sort of took on a life of its own once these guys started and and they just really embraced, you know, their comedy background and the horror here. That's very different than other shows that I work on. And it's it's super exciting. Hey, you guys, thank you so much.

I'm dying to see the whole thing. I've only seen a couple of episodes, so don't spoil it. I don't want to know what happens, but I'm glad it's back. I'm really glad it's back. And the idea that it's a lot of stories where you can go, Aha, I get that. Oh, that's from that one. This is a really cool concept.

So thanks so much. Hey, if you need to teach at the university, just call me. Oh, this is very appreciated, man. All right, Bruce, thank you for those interviews. Did you catch in there? That one is also a producer of the boys and Gen V, which is a spinoff of that, and they've named a character after him, Dean Shetty.

And they said, you said they just did that. But, you know, it's like, hmm, what do we do with our producers here? Let's give them let's give them some kind of a profile. And maybe it's related to reality. Yeah, Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny. It's a good way to to, you know, kind of brown nose a little bit, I guess.

Right. We all take after people, too. Let's. Let's make the producers happy. Right? Right. Can't go wrong there. So this show, it debuts on Friday night. It's yeah. Scary. And then it runs for ten weeks and they're looking for a second season. So let's see if it happens. Well, on that note, we will wrap things up. Go get candy.

I think we should. That's always a good thing. After a Halloween film, Eat more candy. That's the trick. And visit your dentist and yeah, there you go. All right. Thanks again. And join us again next week for another episode of Streamed and Screened.

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Did you miss Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour or Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour? Fear not Swifties and fans of Queen Bey as they both have concert films due out soon.

Concert films are nothing new. Since "Woodstock" in 1970 — and even some earlier films that The Beatles did as they slowed and stopped touring — films have captured important festivals and tours, and provided insight into bands as well as the fans during specific time periods.

And even acclaimed directors have gotten into the act. Martin Scorsese has directed some of the most notable concert and musician biopics of all-time when not busy with gritty dramas.

Crank up the volume as co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about their favorite concert films of all time, discuss the marketing genius that is Taylor Swift, and share additional stories and thoughts as well.

Where to watch

"Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" in theaters Oct. 13
"Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé" in theaters Dec. 1
"Woodstock" (1970)
"One Direction: This Is Us" (2013)
"The Last Waltz" (1978)
"No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" (2005)
"George Harrison: Living in the Material World" (2011)
"Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese" (2019)
"Michael Jackson's This Is It" (2009)
"Diana Ross" Live in Central Park" (1983)
"The Song Remains the Same" (1976)
"Led Zeppelin: Celebration Day" (2012)
"A Hard Day's Night" (1964)
"Help!" (1965)
"Gimme Shelter" (1970)
"Les Misérables 25th Anniversary Concert at the O2" (2010)
"Springsteen on Broadway" (2018)
"U2: Rattle and Hum" (1988)
"Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful" (1991)
"Hamilton" (2020)
"1991: The Year Punk Broke" (1992)

Contact us!

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About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Terry Lipshetz: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Streamed and Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co host of the program with our band leader Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. So if you're John Lennon, does that.

Bruce Miller: Make me Ringo? No Paul McCartney. Oh, I'mccartney you get to be the big one. Why not go for the good one, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Exactly.

Taylor Swift's concert film is coming out next week

Terry Lipshetz: So music. Taylor this is the week.

Bruce Miller: This is the week. Did you know this? If you were a Swiftie, you would know these kinds of things, and that is that Taylor Swift's movie is coming out in the next week, and it's based on her era's tour. What I like to look at this as those of us who couldn't afford or get tickets to her tour will be able to see it without having to really bust a hump.

Terry Lipshetz: That's the best part to me about concert films is that it's a great way to get you to the show, if you can't get to the show, because sometimes some of these tour stops and, I mean, you're in Iowa, so for you, how often does I mean, you'll get shows. Sure, come to Iowa, but not something this big, right?

Bruce Miller: Yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: You got to travel. You got to go to Chicago or, Minneapolis.

Bruce Miller: I had friends tell me they spent $12,000 to see Taylor Swift.

Terry Lipshetz: Holy cow.

Bruce Miller: $12,000. Someday this will sound like I'm, absurd thinking that that's a lot of money, but in this day, it's a lot of money. It factors in the price of the tickets, the cost of getting there, the hotel room you have to have. I mean, it's like, I don't know that there's anybody on this earth that I would spend $12,000 to see.

Terry Lipshetz: I don't have that kind of spending cash.

Bruce Miller: But knowing that it is coming out on film, on DVD, I'm sure eventually all those kinds of things, it's an opportunity for all of us to enjoy whatever it was that was put out there and then maybe be even a little more critical about what they saw. Because I think they were all caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment. So I don't know. Maybe it isn't that good. Maybe 44 songs is too many. Who knows?

Terry Lipshetz: It sounds like, from what I've heard, it's a really good show. I've seen a lot of clips of it. If you like Taylor Swift, I think it's definitely a show you want to see. I keep hearing 44 songs, but it's not like she performs them in full. There are some snippets here and there, and she kind of goes through the eras. No word if there is ranch dressing involved. Did you hear about no, no. So she's dating or at least seeing Travis Kelsey from the Kansas. You can't escape.

Bruce Miller: Right.

Terry Lipshetz: So every little thing she does now gets dissected, and on social media. They were looking when she was at the Chiefs game in her luxury suite, somebody spotted a picture of her with a chicken finger on a plate with what appeared to be ketchup and then a white substance that was labeled as seemingly ranch. Seemingly ranch. So ranch dressing companies, are like, running with it. Taylor eats ranch dressing.

Bruce Miller: Who knew that she had such clout? Right.

Terry Lipshetz: Right. It's crazy.

Bruce Miller: Anything she does when she was here, she did play here way back in the early, early days when she was considered a country artist, if you dare say that. And, the thing I found most amazing about her is that she didn't do her t shirt in one style. She did the look of it in like five different colors. So these fans would want all five of them. And I thought that is a brilliant marketing decision by somebody that you weren't just getting the tour shirt, you were getting all of them. Because, if I'm going to get one, I got to have them all. What color do I pick? How do I pick? What am I going to do? So marketing genius. I think she's far more skilled at selling herself than she is at anything else. And that is not a diss. That means that she is just a genius at it. She should be teaching this at Harvard.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, you know, with me, I'm, a record collector because you've seen my music collection and stuff in the background. Taylor. It extends to releasing physical media. So with the, album, actually, all of her recent albums, she'll release it on vinyl on a standard black edition. Limited. Limited, but well, the black is always that's standard. You can get that anytime you want. But then there is a different colored version that you can buy at Target. And then you can buy four different versions with four different album covers on four different colors through her website. And she puts them up at these intervals, like for the next 48 hours, only you can buy this one. And then it goes away. And then people freak out because they're like, you're making me buy it multiple times and you're charging me shipping multiple times. Why can't you just put it all up? But people will do that. I've seen people on social media sharing out. She's only got it's not like she's got 35 albums. She's got a solid catalog of a dozen different albums or so. But each one has like five or six or ten variants. Like you could literally have a, ah, collection of 200 Taylor Swift records. And it's just like a dozen albums.

Bruce Miller: At this point, which is kind of unreal. That is crazy.

Terry Lipshetz: And people buy like Taylor's army. They will buy it. And it's like, as I said, I'm a record collector. I do have multiple copies of certain albums, but it's less about like, I need a black version and I need a green version and a red version. It's like I've got the original pressing, an early pressing of Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. I have a Japanese copy. I have a UK copy. They're pressed in different places, so the sound might be a little bit different.

Bruce Miller: Are they unplayed? Do you keep them so that nobody touches them?

Terry Lipshetz: No, I play them. And that's a little bit of the difference with some of the Taylor Swift fans is they might play one copy, but then they've got 13 that sit on a shelf or they hang on a wall or something.

Bruce Miller: That could end up being the Beanie Babies of our era. It's going to be, should I say eras?

Terry Lipshetz: eras. yes, Beanie Babies of our so. But yeah, like shameless self promotion.

Beyoncé's film drops after the end of her tour

Terry Lipshetz: Bruce, if you do want to check me out on social media, my Instagram handle is at vinyl underscore Terry. And you can just see what music I'm listening to.

Bruce Miller: I will look. That's great. Check it out. The Beehive is also or the Beehive, I should say, is going to have its film in. Know, she's once she sees what Taylor does, she's got to do one better.

Terry Lipshetz: well, and her strategy is a little different. So with Taylor, she's a little bit on hiatus at the moment. She's taking a small break in her tour. Right. Well, she goes I think in another month she heads down to South America. She's going to do like, Argentina and all that. So her film is going to drop October 13, I believe. And then, with Queen Bey, her tour is over. So she's going to drop hers on, I believe it's December 1 and it's going to air in theaters on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for about four weeks. So it's going to be like a limited run month of December. But her tour is done. So it's not like right. You either saw it and want to relive the moment or you missed it and here's your opportunity. Whereas with Taylor, this is just kind of just another opportunity to see her. And then you can fly off to South America or you can wait for her to circle back in North America next summer.

Bruce Miller: We've got to spend $12,000 and follow her around.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah.

Bruce Miller: And then go to all the, Chiefs games to make sure that we see that in case she happens to wave to the audience from the skybox. You know how it is. Well, I must tell you, I have followed these kinds of films for know going Back to Woodstock was probably the first good concert ish film because it did give you a sense of it and made me glad I never went there because I don't think I could have withstood Mud and all that kind of whatever crap was invited. I was in California one summer and I was invited. I think it was summer. It either was summer or January, but it was the, preview of, One Direction's film. One Direction had a film called this Is US. I think it is. This is us.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay?

Bruce Miller: And they were having this sneak in the Grove, which is a kind of upscale shopping center in Los Angeles, okay? And somehow the word got out that this was going on and all these little girls who were fans of One Direction gathered there. They were outside this theater like you couldn't believe. It was like the scene in Frankenstein where the villagers are going to storm the castle because they want in. And they had heard that One Direction was going to be there. That they were going to turn up for, this screening that they weren't invited to that they couldn't get into. And so I'm sitting in the theater, right? And we get the manager of the theater looking just really whipped and he says, whatever you do, do not leave your seat. If you leave your seat and you leave the theater, you will not get your seat back. Because if somehow they break in and they start sitting in the seats where there aren't people, we can't kick them out, huh? We have no way of doing it. So please do not leave your seat. And we heard people pounding at the door outside and this made news. You'll find if you want to go back and look it up, pounding at the door, insistent that Harry Styles was in there somewhere and we were keeping them from meeting him. It was unlike any situation I've ever been in that's, a preview of anything. Was the movie okay? I have no clue. I was worried that I was going to be beaten by a twelve year old at some point because I was in there sitting and watching this movie that meant so much to them.

Terry Lipshetz: But they weren't well, they, didn't show up, right?

Bruce Miller: They were out there, but the cops came and the cops kept them and got them out of the theater. So they were not in the theater at all. And then when we walked out, you could see that there was like you who was in there? Who was in there with you? Did you see Niall? Was he in there with were the kids were real questioning. I thought they could kill people. I think they really could kill people.

Terry Lipshetz: They probably could if you're determined. If you're determined.

Bruce Miller: And so then I said, oh, it was wonderful. You've got to see this film. It's just so yeah, yeah.

Scorsese directed a documentary about Bob Dylan's 1975 concert tour

Terry Lipshetz: Woodstock, though. That's probably the first concert film I had ever seen. It was actually one I'm trying to think when my dad let me see it because it's a know, there's some language in it, there's some drug use in it, there's definitely some nudity in it. And it may have even been the first movie I had seen with nudity. But it's really a fascinating look at what went on. I think my dad always had a real connection with it too, because he bought tickets with friends to Woodstock. Yeah, he didn't get to it. He got stuck on the New York State throughway and eventually had to turn around because they left a little too late on whatever day it was. And by that time it was crazy. People had stormed the grounds. It had become a free concert. And he was angry. So he did what any other person who bought a ticket tickets? No, he sent it back and got a refund. And he regrets it. he regretted it for the rest of his life because he wished he could have had that ticket stub of like, I actually bought a ticket and I couldn't get there. But yeah, it was all of his favorite bands were playing. It's an incredible thing. So I think he always wanted us to, my siblings to really feel that connection with him, with Woodstock. But it's a fascinating film too, because Woodstock, up until that movie, was just a financial disaster. And it took that movie to kind of help them break even, basically.

Bruce Miller: Well, and it showed you how acts that they weren't counting on turned out to be the stars really made their fortunes for them. Whereas other ones that they were counting on, it's like, well, not so sure here. This is not necessarily the star.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And you know who, not a director of the film, but one of the film editors of it. Do you know what famous, director Scorsese was? One of his earliest, works was as a film editor on Woodstock.

Bruce Miller: See what happens see what happens when you're available and you can get to that place.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: Only but he wouldn't have gotten a t shirt because he probably weren't selling any.

Terry Lipshetz: yeah, but Marty, and we know Martin Scorsese by Marty because we're.

Bruce Miller: He'S one of our pals, right, right.

Terry Lipshetz: But he's got a long history in doing movies, documentaries, know musicians. He directed The Last Waltz, which was the final concert of the Band. He did, ah, no Direction Home, which was the documentary about the early life of Bob Dylan. They captured him leaving Minnesota and then going to New York and kind of rising through the folk scene. And then it kind of ended, when he plugged in. He did a documentary on, George Harrison. did you ever see the one he did called, Rolling Thunder Review a Bob Dylan Story. Do you remember that one?

Bruce Miller: No.

Terry Lipshetz: So he directed this and it was the most bizarre thing. So it's based on Dylan's concert tour during I think it was 1975, it was a transitional stage in Dylan's career. But he went out with this huge group of people. It was like 20 people on stage. It was almost like a circus dylan painted his face. He had like white makeup on every night and wore a big hat. And it captures a lot of those performances. But the film that Scorsese did was almost part fiction because it plays into the myth that is Dylan. And it talks like, I think Sharon Stone was in it and she talks about how she was a groupie during but she wasn't, she wasn't on the tour with Dylan at all. But they added in, for whatever reason, different moments of fiction to what was actually supposed to be a documentary of his tour of the mid seventy s. So it's kind of a crazy oh, my crazy thing. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: One that I am fascinated by is the Michael Jackson one. Supposed to be about his last concert tour. And they kind of created it into that tour. I mean, if you were there, you would see all of the numbers that they were planning to do, but you realize in the course of that somewhere, there was no way he was going to be able to produce this every night. He couldn't. He didn't have the energy, he didn't have the stamina. I mean, it was fascinating when they did each number, but you'd think somebody's got to go get some oxygen at some point because it's just way too much. And it's telling because it shows how talented he was, but also how old he was. And the idea that you can do that maybe past your prime is unreal. But if you haven't seen that one, please watch it because it's unbelievable.

Terry Lipshetz: This is it, right? Yeah. And that came out in 2009. I remember watching that one and it was really fascinating because it took you inside of the prep for the tour. But it was also really sad too, because you were seeing his decline basically too at the time. Obviously, in retrospect, when you see it, you're like, well, okay, that makes sense. But at the time you probably didn't even realize that he was nearing the end of his life.

Bruce Miller: Right? Well, I think it's one of those things where he thought, too, I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be able to do this. This isn't going to happen. Instead of doing it once and doing it for film it and then you never have to do it again, why know, right. Do you remember when HBO was real big about doing these live, specials? And there was a Diana Ross one live from Central Park, and it started to rain, and it was like the worst rain ever. And not as bad as the one they've had recently, but it was bad so that the people were like, well, she just kept on going. She was the bunny and wouldn't let it up and come on, everybody, sing with me. And it's like, wow, this is real. But I think they like that document of their time because it is a way to mark certain hallmarks of their career. And then also it's a way for fans to say, you know what, she or he really was that good.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I won't watch every concert documentary out there. But if it's a musician that I at least either like or respect, I like to check it out. Because it's always a good time capsule to kind of see what happens.

Led Zeppelin's concert films bookend two eras

Terry Lipshetz: An interesting one for me is, The Song Remains the Same, the documentary concert film, about the, Led Zeppelins tour from 1973, where they filmed it at Madison Square Garden. And here is that band at, really the height of their popularity, right? It's middle of their career. Things are crazy. And it captures the moment. And that came out in 76. And then years, years later, they did another concert film. And it's called Celebration Day. And that came out in 2012. Now, this is after John Bonham had died. And after John Bonham died, the band broke up. And they swore, we're never getting back together. And there were little things here and there, like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did a side project together. But they never really went back out. I think they had that one off, like at Live Aid, where they came together and played. But they never again really did any sort of tour or anything. They swore we're never going to reunite. But then they ended up doing, a benefit concert at the Two Arena in London. And it was just a one off. And they said, we're going to do it. We're doing this benefit. It's for one of their early managers or promoters. So that's the only reason we're going to do it. And it's sold out in minutes. And the cool thing about it, though, is that they brought in Jason Bonham, who is John Bonham's son, to play on drums. And I always thought it was cool watching that concert. Know, you knew that this is know, you're not going to be able to see them again. They're never going to get back again. But they opened it up with the song Good, Times, Bad Times. And it was very much like a drum driven song. So we're going to open it up. We're going to let Jason Bonham kind of take center stage in honor of his dad kind of thing. And then they kind of tore through like 16 songs after that. So it was a really nice moment. And there's a band that kind of had two ends of the spectrum. Like one at the height of craziness in the we're like grandparents now. But this is us. We're going to get back to one more time. We're going to honor a friend of ours and do it one more time. And I thought that was pretty cool.

Bruce Miller: Well, and we look at the Beatles really did concert films too. They just did them more like music videos, right, with all of their kind of help and you name it, Let It Be, all that kind of stuff. Had a moment. They never really sat it down and did, something that we're seeing a lot of, but so we still have that kind of record of their time on earth. The Rolling Stones, however, had, give me shelter.

Terry Lipshetz: And do you?

Bruce Miller: That was like, wow, yeah, those times. I don't know that I would have been eager to go to those concerts at the time. But in retrospect, as an older person with more hopefully smarts about what I'm doing, I can appreciate it much more than I would have at the time. I would have been worried about getting out. Are we getting out time? Ah, is the parking going to be bad? Do I have to worry about all that? You know what I mean? Now it's a lot of fun to watch it, and especially when they're still performing. I'm sure every move they make now when they're in concert is photographed somewhere, somehow. We didn't have social media back in the day, so everybody wasn't holding a phone up and, recording it. They were just appreciating what it was at the time.

Terry Lipshetz: The Beatles, it's an interesting example because they had several movies that are still popular to this know, like A Hard Day's Night, and there were concert elements within the film, but it was more of a traditional film. But it captured Beetlemania, ah, at the height of Beetlemania. So if you weren't there in the experience, Beetlemania, even though it's kind of a light hearted film, you still got the essence of it. And then you got some of the goofiness with help and all that. But it's really a shame with them because they stopped touring in the mid 60s because they couldn't hear themselves. And if you ever get a chance, I have like a bootleg DVD of their Shay Stadium concert. And it's the craziest thing. It's like a 25 minutes concert. I mean, that's all their concerts were back there. They would do 20 songs in 25 minutes and then they were done.

Bruce Miller: Wow. I've been to the theater, the Ed Sullivan Theater, where they did their big performance on television, the first one. And the place is small. It's really small. And I remember seeing people in the balcony, like they were jumping up and down and were so excited that they thought it was going to come down. And you realize, wow, we were really kind of duped back in the day thinking that it was just this huge Madison Square Garden kind of experience. And it was just a small you know, the cameras made it look like it was much bigger than it actually was.

Terry Lipshetz: If you ever get a chance in New York City, you take the NBC Studios tour and they usually will take you to a couple different sets, including it's like they always do Saturday Night Live, and then they'll give you like, one or two. And I remember when I took the tour one time we went to the Saturday Night Live set, and you're just kind of blown away because you realize you actually can't see some of if you're in that studio audience. Because of the way they have to arrange the floor. They might be filming part of it off to the side where the audience can't actually see it. And you have to watch it on monitors. You just see where they come out for the monologue and you see where the band performs. But then some of the other configurations are all over the place. And then we also went out to, I think it was Conan O'Brien's when he was still it was before he the Tonight Show, and he had that late, night program. And I remember going there and we saw the Max Weinberg drum kit sitting out there and Conan's desk. But it's tiny. It's a tiny little.

Bruce Miller: Sneaky. Yes.

Bruce Miller: you mentioned Saturday night. I was lucky enough to have been there during the early years. I saw an episode that, I don't know if you remember any of these things, but there was a dance that Gilda Radner and Steve Martin did and they were, like, going all around the whole area and they came near me, and I was able to get on camera at some point with them. So if you ever have access to that, go back and look. But it was fascinating because you could not see all of the skits. There could be a skit right down below you, but, you can't lean in and look at that. And so you'd basically get to see a couple and that's about it. But, the flurry of activity that's going on between the skits is just amazing. And then the sound is really good for, the guest artist, whoever is singing that week or whatever. It's really good. a couple of times I've gotten to go to Saturday Night Live. It's like the most impossible ticket to get because, at best, you're going to get a rehearsal ticket at this point because they do a rehearsal before they do the final show, right? And, somehow they'll let people in there. But you really need to know somebody if you're going to go to the actual show itself. So put that on a bucket list. It's really worth it.

Bruce Miller: You had mentioned back a little bit earlier about the two this huge venue in London, and, every year, it seems they're rerunning this on PBS. And that's the Les Miz anniversary special. And it's just unbelievable. I love the show. Les Miz arabla. As a musical, it's wonderful. But this they combined a whole bunch of old stars, people who had been in it before, made this kind of masterful thing. And then you saw these people walking up the aisles of this show and it was like, oh my God, I can't believe this. And those are those once in a lifetime experiences that somehow need to be captured on film. But The Two is a place where they all play at some point. Look at all the things they did when Prince Charles and, when Queen Elizabeth had her anniversary. You name it, they did something there. And it's a place I'd love to go to just to see what it's like in person.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, that would be a fun one. And then you think about entertainment destinations now, too, with The Sphere in Las Vegas with U Two and U Two, because U Two is such a visual band that they're able to utilize the interior. I mean, that's just amazing. It's just a giant Led screen, basically. But they had a concert film as well. I don't know. Do you remember Ratle and Hum?

Bruce Miller: Oh, yes, I think we got them. And get it free. If you had like, some Apple product, they gave it to you.

Terry Lipshetz: I don't know, you might have, but no, I think that might be something else. But Ratle and the Hum came out in, I think it was 1988. And it was a combination, album. It was like a live album that came out after The Joshua Tree. And it also had a companion film that went with it. The companion film. Some people love it, some people hate it. I don't know if there's very many people that are kind of like in the middle on this one. It's really bizarre. So on one hand, you get a lot of performances from the Joshua Tree tour, which is really at that know, they had a few earlier albums that did were critically acclaimed, but they didn't necessarily explode commercially. But The Joshua Tree exploded commercially and they had huge hits. So they documented parts of this tour and they shot a lot of it in black and white. But then near the end, they went into color. But then they had these intermittent weird side journeys where they went to Graceland and they talked about their love for Elvis and they met with BB. King and they did this. And it was just kind of a strange document of the time. I would have been happier with. Just give me 25 songs of a straight YouTube concert. If you got to take a few performances from a few different shows, so be it. But, I don't know. I could probably have done without the side commentary. Yeah, exactly. Because I love you two and I've seen them in concert and I have all their albums. But Bono has a certain way about them, I guess is a way of saying it. And it's just like they're a little bit too over the top sometimes, even for me. I think Rattle and Hum really, it sums up that time, at least, even though.

Bruce Miller: All those little pop stars. Anna Montana, right? bieber had one. I think it was 3D. Katy Perry, you name them, they all get these movies at some point. And it's somebody saying, you know, here's how we can make the budget on that tour. That didn't go so well. We'll put out a movie, and then we'll make up the difference that we lost in, know, having that big set piece that you had. There was a great mockumentary about Madonna's tour. Remember how Madonna had the cone bra and all that? And Julie Brown. Not the Julie Brown that you remember from MTB, but a different Julie Brown who was a comedian, did her spoof of was. So I think she called herself Medusa or something.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: But if you ever get to see that, it is such a hoot. It makes fun of these in the best way. The best way. And Madonna had to have loved it. And she's another one who should look at those things and say, I'm glad I have this document. I really am. Because I don't know that her tours now are as iconic as they should be. Gaga she has done things. She's done films or specials, but I don't know that she's done one of these kind of big movie things that would have told all or showed all or whatever. And maybe she's ripe for one.

Terry Lipshetz: Maybe. You know which one I really like, too. And this was an opportunity because I couldn't get to New York, and I'm a huge Springsteen fan. And then this is like my other Broadway. Yeah. In my other shameless self promotion, I have another Instagram account called at Bruce Springsteen Collection, where I document all of the Springsteen albums in my collection. And I'm not just talking about the regular stuff. I've got some things that were not officially released that I show off on this thing.

Bruce Miller: But does Bruce know?

Terry Lipshetz: He knows this stuff is out there.

Bruce Miller: Okay.

Terry Lipshetz: but, yeah, no, I'm a huge hardcore. I've seen him in concert 1314 times at this point.

Bruce Miller: Why didn't you go to the Broadway show? Come on.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I mean, I really wanted to, but the cost for tickets, I got to travel from the Midwest to the city. Yeah, it's an expensive show. So, when Netflix made the deal to air, know, one of the performances of Spring Scene on Broadway, it was a really good opportunity. And I would have loved to have gone to the Walter Kerr Theater to see it live. But I think in this type of setting, the way they filmed it, you felt like you were right there.

Terry Lipshetz: It was a very well done documentary, know, whatever you want to call it. it captured the know, it was kind of like, with Hamilton, because if you couldn't see the original cast, you at least got to see it on Apple TV. And I think that was a good second opportunity. And I think that's what this is.

Bruce Miller: I told you my story about Hamilton, right? That I was determined to see Hamilton no matter what.

Terry Lipshetz: No, I don't think I heard this one.

Bruce Miller: Oh, do you mind if I go ahead. Story. The thing about me is I have to see the original cast. I have to see the original actor in a Broadway show or I don't feel like if it's a big thing sure. And I knew that Hamilton was going to be a big thing even before Hamilton was a spark on anybody's radar. And then it got out there and I thought, I've got to go, but when am I going and how do I get tickets? And it was like this whole thing where I couldn't get the tickets. The tickets were just outrageous. And I decided I was going to go on StubHub. And so StubHub I went on, and it was like, 1000 something for the tickets, and am I going to spend $1,000? And then I start rationalizing all these things. Well, life is short. You're not going to be around that much longer. You want to see it, you should go. The original cast was breaking up after that. I was rationalizing.

Terry Lipshetz: Right. You played it out, like, 15 steps and you're like, I'm on board.

Bruce Miller: And it got down to the point where it was $777.

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, you got to do it.

Bruce Miller: And I did it. I jumped. And then I was at a hotel and we had to add, you know, how this thing is where you print out the tickets, but you're not really sure about all this, and you think, oh, they're going to take money to the cleaners and I'm going to lose $700, and it's going to be just the worst, right?

Terry Lipshetz: Yes.

Bruce Miller: And so I went to the business office at the hotel and they said, yeah, these are pretty good. You should be all right. You shouldn't have a problem. But if I were you, I'd get to the theater early, because if somebody sold this ticket twice, which could happen, you won't be the one who gets in. It'll go the one who got in before you. I made a beeline to that theater as fast as I could. And when I heard that M of the ticket, it was like, yes. So I get to my seat, and the seat was really good. And I'm talking to the people next to me. And there was a family from Los Angeles who came because the daughter had been listening to the album all along and wanted to see this. Right. This was her goal. And they gave up going to any other shows. They weren't going to any kind of theme parks. They weren't doing anything but Hamilton. And they spent $10,000. And they were sitting next to me. And we talked to people, like, in the row before us. They spent nothing. Somebody handed them tickets at the theater. So there were all these kind of stories that were going around among the people, and you felt lucky. You felt like, I have won the lottery. I am here. And then you hear and you think, this is, like, the most unbelievable experience I've ever been in my life. It was everything. And then a little bit more. And I'll tell you an, intermission. I ran to the merchandise table and bought $200 worth of crap just because I wanted to prove that I had been to Hamilton, right? So it was my thing. And I realized, you know what? It was money well spent. It was really money well spent. Now, when I saw the Apple version of or I mean, the Disney version, disney plus version of, Hamilton, it was perfect. It lived up to all of the things that I remember, because after that cast, the original cast left. I did go see it again, and it did not live up to the hype. But having seen the original cast and then seeing the original cast do the filmed version of Was, if you want to know how good it was, watch that. It was very good. And I think they did a great job of capturing that whole moment. But, yeah, that's cool. My Hamilton story. So for the next year after that, I got more Hamilton crap from people because they said, well, you're the one that really likes Hamilton, don't you? Here's a hamilton. Whatever. But I had talked to Lin Manuel Miranda before he was even writing it. He was on a TV series as, like, a third stringer. And I said, well, what are you working on? Because he had done some other stuff for the theater. And that if you know anything about me, I'm just a hardcore theater person. I live for that. And he said, well, I'm working on a little thing I call the Hamilton mixtape. It's a show about Alexander Hamilton, but it's done with rapid hip hop and that kind of stuff. He says, we'll see where it goes. And I'll look where it went.

Terry Lipshetz: We'll see where it goes. It may pan out. Who knows?

Bruce Miller: It's a fascinating story. And then to even take it further, while he was doing Hamilton, he was writing the songs for Moana. He would do zoom calls with the directors of Moana, who one of them happens to be from Sioux City. And he would tell me about how yeah, he'd come after before they start the show or during an intermission or whatever, and they would like, work well, this song needs to be this, and this song needs to be that. Okay, I'll work on it, and I'll get you another one. And then he'd go out and do the show.

Terry Lipshetz: That's crazy.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, it's weird, but there's your $0.02 worth on those kind of direct to the screen versions.

Bruce Miller: But you know what? I think these are ways for all of us to enjoy entertainment that we maybe don't have the access to.

Terry Lipshetz: Absolutely.

Bruce Miller: It's an affordable way and you still get all the bells and whistles. And even if you had a bad seat at the show itself, if you did go, here's a way to see things that maybe you didn't see.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, and it's a cool way too, because it captures the moment of the time. So if you're like me, who I'm in my later forty s and I was born after Woodstock. I can see what m people of my parents age looked like and acted like ah, as youngsters and realized that some of the things that they yelled at me for, they were doing them also back in.

Bruce Miller: As someone who was around, I will tell you they were just as bad, if not worse than we see kids today.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, exactly. And then I look back at something like 1991, the film The Year Punk Broke, which looks at bands like Sonic Youth and Nirvana when they exploded in the early ninety s. And I watched those and I'm like, oh, did I really dress that way in high school? Yeah. Oh man.

Bruce Miller: No, it's fascinating. I was talking to a college student today, and she was doing a project for one of her design classes. And she says, I am going back to the I'm trying to kind of conjure all those things that were big in the some of these things that you're coming up with weren't in the little careful, because I don't remember this stuff. And I remember the 70s like nobody.

Terry Lipshetz: You do. Yeah, you absolutely remember them. So again, we've got October 13, Taylor Swift's, the Era's tour film, coming out. Beyonce has her film coming out in December. And check out some of these films that we talked about opportunities like Woodstock, Ratle and lot of like Scorsese has done a lot of if you're into like like you know, he's got a lot of things besides, the gangster films. He loves music and it plays into all of his films and he's done quite a few, so a lot of good things. And he's got a new movie coming up and then we have another episode coming out next week. You have an interview with that, right?

Bruce Miller: With Goosebumps? Yeah. Get ready. We're getting closer to Halloween and they've rebooted Goosebumps. They had a series where they would do a different book for each episode. Now they've created a kind of a mashup where they put the characters together and they're telling stories from four or five different books in the course of a season. And you'll get a chance to hear the producers talk about why they did what they did with this. And it's a little more adult than you may remember the Goosebumps book being. So look for that. That's next week when we come back on Streamed and Screened.

Terry Lipshetz: Sounds good. So we'll talk about Goosebumps and we'll talk about maybe some other family friendly ish kind of Halloween things that we can dive into if you must.

Bruce Miller: If you're not we're talking about saw.

Terry Lipshetz: I will tap out. If we're talking horror movies, I am tapping out before we get started. We won't do saw. None of that stuff. I like to get a solid night's sleep, Bruce. I don't need horror things flashing through my head. That stuff's scary. I don't like scary things.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, we'll play the Springsteen white noise machine, and you'll be able to go to sleep.

Terry Lipshetz: Sounds good. All right. We'll be back again next week with another episode of Streamed and Screened.

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View Details

The writers strike is over so new programming — at least in the form of late-night television — will be returning soon. But with actors still on strike, most television shows and movies are not yet completely back in production.

That means in most cases actors can't promote their work, which has led to some offbeat movie premieres such as a record number of dogs showing up on the red carpet for "PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie." But not all actors are prohibited from speaking to the media, which meant a new interview from co-host Bruce Miller with Oliver Dench (yes, he's related to Judi Dench) talking about "Hotel Portofino."

Bruce and co-host Terry Lipshetz have been using the time to get caught up on the limited new films and shows hitting theaters and streaming services such as the new series "Gen V," the latest "Star Wars" installment "Ahsoka" and the new baseball documentary "The Saint of Second Chances." Bruce also managed to make it to the end of the fourth installment in the "Expendables" franchise.

It's a pretty big list, so be sure to use our list below to help map out your schedule!

Where to watch

"PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie" in theaters
"Hotel Portofino" on PBS
"Reservation Dogs" on Hulu
"Gen V" on Amazon Prime Video
"The Boys" on Amazon Prime Video
"Selling the OC" on Netflix
"Selling Sunset" on Netflix
"Ahsoka" on Disney+
"The Saint of Second Chances" on Netflix
"Fair Play" in theaters Sept. 29 and Netflix Oct. 6
"Painkiller" on Netflix
"Dopesick" on Hulu
"The Mosquito Coast" on AppleTV+
"Expend4bles" in theaters

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Headliner and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss writers' strike ending

Terry Lipshetz: Just a quick note about this episode Bruce Miller and I recorded after it was revealed that writers and studios agreed to a new contract and had stopped picketing. But prior to writers being given permission to return to work. Welcome everyone, to another episode of streamed and screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, we got some good news.

Bruce Miller: There is news.

Terry Lipshetz: We have a almost, almost it's not officially, not all the I's dotted and T's crossed, but we're so close, so close with the writers.

Bruce Miller: How good is it if we have no actors that can do the scripts that they're writing?

Terry Lipshetz: Right, exactly. But it could mean things like our late night programs come back a little Jimmy Fallon, maybe.

Bruce Miller: How good is it if all we get are late night programs and game shows? It'll be game shows galore with all the Jeopardy champion of Champions, the ultimate reality star game show. I think tonight, too, we start Dancing with the Stars. So that is not really covered by the rules, apparently.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: because you can dance, but you probably shouldn't talk.

Terry Lipshetz: It is kind of quirky. There's these little carve outs here and there, like broadcasters for sporting events. They're members of the Actors Guild, but it's a carve out for them. And there's other little things, like know, because, like, Drew Barrymore was coming back with her then, and then that got reversed because she had a couple writers that were on strike, and so they pulled the plug on again. You know, she's an actor, but presumably now with the writer's strike ending, we'll be back at work very soon.

Bruce Miller: And I think she's a producer too. So what trumps what highest title that you carry?

Terry Lipshetz: So it's good news. It sounds like they pulled, the Writers Guild told their membership, you can stop picketing. We'll get you the information. We really haven't seen too many details yet come out, but they just sounded very happy with it. They'll send it to voting members. It said like a week to ten days, and then they should be kind of back at it, which on one hand gives you optimism because you think, okay, they got the writers done now, they're going to move over and we can get the actors done. But then right before we came on to do this show, I saw that the screen actors just voted to begin a, walkout against video game makers. Because there's actors involved with the making of video games, because you've got voice actors and stunts and things like that that they use for motion capture and all that. A lot of the video game makers are the same groups that are in charge of studios like Disney and Sony Entertainment and all these. So, the last strike, against video games, 2016. And it lasted nearly a year. So a little concerning. I don't know how this will play.

Bruce Miller: I think we can give up video games. I don't care.

Terry Lipshetz: My kids might care.

Bruce Miller: Bring the acting back. That's what I want most of all. Well, we wish them well, and we hope that they reach a quick resolution on all of that, because it is making it difficult for us.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, well and it makes your job difficult because you like to, of course, talk to the actors.

Bruce Miller: I'd rather talk to an actor than a producer.

Terry Lipshetz: Would you talk to a dog?

Bruce Miller: I would talk to a dog.

Terry Lipshetz: Dogs that apparently aren't covered by the Screen Actors Guild. Because I don't know if you saw this, but Paw Patrol: The mighty movie, had its big red carpet premiere, and 219 dogs showed up to watch the premiere. Because dogs will sit and watch a premiere, and it set a new Guinness, world record.

Bruce Miller: So that's where we're at with each.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. It's gone to the dogs. Hollywood has gone to the dogs.

Bruce Miller: Well, wait till they start striking. Imagine what they'll do.

Terry Lipshetz: They'll bury their bones.

Bruce Miller: Or they might just all do a no walk out and then no walking. And then they come to this, and they take a dump right on that red carpet. Right? There you are.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I know.

Bruce Miller: It's been done before, so I think we're okay.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And then there's some programming out there that are the equivalent, I guess. But it's given us, some opportunity. We're getting caught up on things that there isn't a lot of new material. There's some there's some things here and there.

Bruce Miller: I have started watching some new shows. There's season two of, Hotel Portofino. Have you seen this one? It was on Bridgebox, and now it's moving over to PBS. And it's very Downton Abbey, if you're looking for something like that. It's about the family that runs a hotel. And it's set many years ago in the early 20th century, rather, 19 hundreds, whatever. And very glossy, with upstairs downstairs kind of talent and a little dirty. We'll just say that. Put that out there. And, interesting. So that was good.

The Boys on Amazon is about superheroes who are evil and vile

Bruce Miller: This week is the last week of reservation dogs on FX, if you want to see the end of that. In the last episode, I cried profusely, so you have that to look forward to. I have seen the first episodes of Gen V. Now, if you're a Boys fan, the Boys on Amazon, where it's about the superheroes. Are you familiar with this?

Terry Lipshetz: I'm not, no.

Bruce Miller: The Boys, it's about a world in which superheroes are kind of the ultimate. They really run everything. And there's a group called the Seven. Homelander is the leader of the Seven, and they seem like very kind of noble and virtuous and looking for all the right things. Well, you realize that that's an act that's an image that they're putting on, and behind the scenes, they're evil and vile, and they're slitting everybody's throat. And there's a group of people who are trying to take down these superheroes. Okay, so that is the boys. Now, there's a new sequel, ah, series called Gen V. And Gen V is about training people to be in that superhero world. Fascinating. Fascinating. It's like a college drama. And they go to this college, that they have abbreviated to God You, and they learn how to harness their powers and use it for various different crime fighting as a class. And, you see the kind of unpolished versions of their things. It's very X Men. If you're into the X Men, it's like but one of the stars of the show is Patrick Schwarzenegger. Arnold's Son plays this kind of golden boy, and he's the one that they all want to be, but he turns into Fire. And apparently he doesn't wear clothes, because they always talk about how he is naked, but his kind of temper gets the best of him. And if people are taunting him or whatever, he could be trouble. So you see that he could be another Homelander who is vile. But you don't know how this plays out in school. And the first episodes were great, but dirtier than you can believe. This is not, something that you let your kids watch. It is not Riverdale at all. There's one woman who becomes small. She can shrink down to, like, the size of, a paperclip. And she meets a kid at college who wants her to get small for various reasons. And I can't explain them on a podcast that hopefully is going everywhere. Yeah, it's dirty, dirty, dirty.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow.

Bruce Miller: If you're looking for an adult kind of look at the superhero world, gen V, wow.

Terry Lipshetz: I might have to check that out. You know, I'm not a big superhero person, but something that's a little off the beaten path.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, the Boys is a good kind of entry drug with this, because if you don't like superheroes, you get to see how nasty they really are. And so it makes you, yes, be that bad. I like that. And then you've seen how they have morphed and how they're actually fighting each other to be seen as the most virtuous. it's very good. And the seven always is, like, shifting. You never know who's part of the seven on one time or not. And it's run by an evil corporation. Of course it's run by an evil and they are pulling the strings on these poor superheroes. But now we're at the college, and we're trying to see how that all shakes down with them. So that's a new one that will be starting very soon. And then it, just started, but I binged the whole thing selling the OC. Now, if you're a fan of those real estate shows where they also never work, right? This is one of them. This is a companion to selling sunset. And that was about the people who work in Beverly Hills in like a strip mall. And they never seem to be selling a home. They always have these listings for like 35 million. And then all they do is walk around the house and have a party there. And then you never hear that somebody sold this. Well, now Selling the OC is the companion piece there in Orange County. And they've got a better office, but still just as much drama. And the women all look like they're going out for some evening cocktail up there. When they're in the office during the daytime, you think, do you really wear an evening gown for daytime work? And never, ever shuffle a piece of paper? They're just sitting there all the time gossiping about each other. And this one guy, Tyler, is kind of, not, necessarily a target, but a goal for many of the women there because he got divorced from his wife, who happens to be Britney Snow, who was in a bunch of TV series in the past. And they all think they could be the new Britney Snow. So they're all kind of like sucking up to Tyler and seeing if he know. How are you feeling? Can we have a talk? Can I do a one on one? Can we just converse about your situation? And Tyler is like drinking it all in. He is taking all the attention. I don't think that guy has ever sold a house. If he has, I'd like to see the paperwork because it sure isn't coming through on the show. But fascinating to watch. I, binge the whole thing. And then of course, what do we always do when we are in real estate? We have a pajama party at, one of our properties so that then, we can all just wear nightwear. And doesn't this kind of just open the floodgates to god knows what? I don't think I'm just going to look at you in the baby doll pajamas. I think I might actually make a.

Terry Lipshetz: Move that doesn't seem appropriate. Does this violate some aspect of.

Bruce Miller: Context laws against this? Because I sure open, up a, selling OC rule about you cannot fraternize with the other people in the office. It's not happening. But it was. Yeah, I binged it. That's how good it was.

Netflix's House Hunters is aimed at prospective buyers looking for homes

Terry Lipshetz: Okay.

Bruce Miller: Netflix. And, I just saw oh, I'll watch one. I haven't seen one for a while and we'll see what happens. No property sold here.

Terry Lipshetz: I might have to check that out. I don't mind watching some of those house selling like it's a little bit more house hunters.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, but a house hunter is unrealistic expectations.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: Want the $2 million home for $200,000. And they're always, ah, we entertain. And you never see those people entertain ever. It's relatives and the real estate agent, that's who shows up.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. I know somebody, a, former colleague, I want to say, reached out to House Hunters to see how you can get on the program when she was looking for a house. And it's actually, you know, how this is going to go anyway because there's obviously behind the scenes drama of how this all gets set up. But basically they told her you have to have an accepted offer and then we'll show you two other houses. And then you get blown away by.

Bruce Miller: The house, basically, that you're already badmouth the ones that you aren't going to take.

Terry Lipshetz: Right.

Bruce Miller: I think there's possibilities. I like that highway going through the middle of our yard. Maybe a deterrent, maybe.

Terry Lipshetz: But it could be making commuting easier too.

Bruce Miller: It could. And then we have easy access. Right. I think we're all right. Too bad we have a lot of dogs, animals, and children that could get hit by a car in the process. But on keeping it on the list.

The latest entry into Star Wars. Been watching it with my daughter

Terry Lipshetz: Well, like you, I've been trying to crush through some things before regular programming gets back to us. So ahsoka. the Star Wars. The latest entry into Star Wars. Been watching it with my daughter, who's also a huge Star Wars fan. This week is the 7th episode and then, first week of October is already the 8th and final episode of season one. I don't recall how many episodes or how many seasons they're planning. I don't think it's going to know eight seasons. It's going to be two or three. Because what I've read is that they're going to take ahsoka, and then they're going to take the Mandalorian and the book of Boba Fett. They're going to marry them all together into something for movie theaters. Like there's going to be some big movie that's going to come out that's going to tie up all these storylines because they essentially take place the same timeline of the same universe. I would say that this is a good show. We've enjoyed it. The two problems that I have with it is if you didn't watch the cartoon Star Wars Rebels, you would be really lost with this. And I know a lot of people who kind of didn't really you're a Star Wars fan, but maybe didn't want to watch the cartoons because you thought, I'm a little too adult for the cartoons. And if you didn't watch those cartoons, you would really be lost with some of these characters who are in this because it basically picks up a few years after the final episode of the final season of Star Wars Rebels. But if you're a fan of Star Wars Rebels and a lot of people who I know who watch the show were because it was a really good cartoon, I thought they did a really nice job with it. I think you'd be a fan of this show. The only downside I would say with Ahsoka is it feels like they're taking a really long time to kind of get to a certain point. And then we're going to go to this big cliffhanger to season two. It just feels like we're not trying to tie up any loose ends quickly in any way. Yeah, the big villain that they've been talking about for almost the entirety of The Run so far only recently made an appearance. And you're only going to get basically two episodes out of him. Three episodes. So it's kind of a slow build. I think it's really good. I don't know if the series is as good as Andor, which really, really liked. But I might put this one ahead of the Mandalorian because I think this one might be yeah, it's good. And it kind of gets you back to Jedi because a lot of the series that we've done, we've kind of moved away from Jedi and looked more kind of the ordinary people within the universe. but now we're getting back to lightsabers and using the Force and things like that. So it's kind of fun to move back into that world a little bit.

Bruce Miller: You know, what I don't like about those kinds of shows is they never have a chill day. They never say, you know, today we're not going to go out and do Jedi games.

Terry Lipshetz: We're just going to sit still at.

Bruce Miller: Home and look at the rocks that we've got in our yard and kind of just decide what we like about ourselves. They don't that stuff. They're always on a mission for something.

Terry Lipshetz: They are. And the missions don't go to plan. They never go to plan.

Bruce Miller: Okay, who drinks blue milk? What Star Wars One is that?

Terry Lipshetz: That was, the first the original one, the Bantha milk. Come on.

Bruce Miller: Because they do have that at the Disney, parks, the, Resistance. And there's a bar there and you can get the blue milk. And I always wondered what would that taste like because I don't like milk anyway. So if you threw some blue coloring in it, does that make it any better?

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. Well, what is it? Does it taste like? Is it just milk with blue? No, I think it's something else.

Bruce Miller: I think there's liquor in it.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, then I would enjoy that.

Bruce Miller: See, that's probably what they do is they're also liquored up. So they really don't know what they're doing and, going from there. But are there more announced? Are there other Star Wars series that are coming?

Terry Lipshetz: Or yeah, there's a couple others. but some of them are in this kind of gray area like the Acolyte, which is supposed to be coming out. But that one it sounds like production has kind of been up and down. I don't know what the current status of that one is. I know there's another season of Andor coming up, another season of Mandalorian, coming up. But I don't recall offhand what the timeline of releases is and also how much of it has been maybe delayed by the strikes that have been going on, too.

You could do a high school Kylo Ren. What was he like in school

Bruce Miller: Okay. Would we ever have, like, the Adam Driver character? What was his name?

Terry Lipshetz: Oh, yeah. well.

Bruce Miller: Kylo Ren's early years. What was he like in school? Was he a real brat, or was he a good guy and then he turned bad, or what?

Terry Lipshetz: Well, he was Ben Solo, the son of, Han and Leia.

Bruce Miller: But then wasn't he kind of like, I don't know who my family yep. So wouldn't he be a good one to kind of lean into?

Terry Lipshetz: It would be a, and this is where the current producers it's paying a lot of fan service. It's that kind of Luke Skywalkers post Return to the Jedi. And they've brought him in a couple of times using CGI, making Mark Hamill look a lot younger than he is. But, I think they know that era is something that fans are really interested in, but of AI is a major player because unless you recast those roles, a lot of those characters are getting too old and they can't play themselves anymore.

Bruce Miller: You could do a high school Kylo Ren.

Terry Lipshetz: That'd be fun.

Bruce Miller: And then Kylo could be like, maybe people pick on him too much know he doesn't really know where he belongs. He's not picking a lane. And then he turns dark, and then he realizes, oh, gow, I'm into something here. I'm getting attention. I think it could be something the early years of his career as a bad guy.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And, you know, prom night won't go well. There'll be something.

Bruce Miller: Oh, God. It's a Carrie. It's Carrie all over again. Except it's Kylo, and he'll be mad.

Terry Lipshetz: That's right.

There is a really good baseball documentary that just came out on Netflix

Terry Lipshetz: So I've been watching, know you've been talking about some shows you've been watching on Netflix. I don't know if you're a baseball fan at all, but there is a really good baseball documentary that just came out in the last week. It's called the Saint of second chances. And I don't know if you've ever heard the story of Mike Veck. He's the Son of Veck.

Bruce Miller: I know who he bill, we, have a team here that played in the same league as his team, the.

Terry Lipshetz: St. Paul the St. Paul Saints, right? Yeah. So Mike Veck, the son of Bill Veck, who is an owner of the Chicago White Sox, mike Vek came up with he was a very innovative know, if you think about luxury suites, that was something that Mike Vek introduced in old Kamisky Park as a way to bring in extra revenue. But he also came up with Disco Demolition Night, which did not go so well. And it pretty much drove him out of the game of baseball for quite a few years until he was able to redeem himself as owner of the St. Paul Saints. So the saint of second chances. It kind of goes into his relationship with his father, his relationship with baseball, the relationship he had with his daughter, who he brought in to help, him as a little child and then was hoping to bring up and continue working in the family business of baseball. And there's some emotional things that go in. I don't want to reveal too much.

Bruce Miller: About the story, participate or not.

Terry Lipshetz: Mike thack yes. Yeah, he helps narrate and very good story. And they talk with a lot of folks too, that it wasn't just about his second chance, but second chances for other people. Like, there was this one woman who all she ever wanted to do is play baseball. But you can't let a girl play baseball, right, because it's a boys game. And she was somebody who he brought in to pitch for the St. Paul Saints. So they talk with her. They talk with Daryl Strawberry, who was a very famous baseball player who pretty much worked himself out of the game because of substance, abuse problems. And he gave Daryl a second chance with the St. Paul Saints. And it helped get him back into Major League baseball. So it gets into that, and they talk with Daryl Strawberry. So it's a really fascinating look. And if you're a fan of sports documentaries, baseball documentaries, it's really good. And I would know. Hop onto Netflix ASAP and check that one out.

Bruce Miller: Is Bill Murray in it?

Terry Lipshetz: Bill Murray actually is sort of I don't recall him being interviewed, but he does make an appearance in it, yes.

Bruce Miller: And where is that located? Where can I find that?

Terry Lipshetz: That is Netflix.

Bruce Miller: Netflix. So we'll be looking. Yeah, Netflix. I can never tell what they've got coming. It's a price. I've got one coming next week, I believe, in theaters from Netflix. And then it goes in October to, it'll be streaming on Netflix. And it's called fair play. Incredible, incredible relationship drama. Reminded me a lot of, fatal, attraction. It's about a couple who work in a trading firm. And they're a couple. I mean, you see a lot of it's rated R for a reason. And then he thinks he is going to get the promotion when this one guy is out. And she's all supportive and everything. And then he doesn't get it. She gets it. And then you see how their relationship changes and shifts throughout the course of their relationship. And it's fascinating. It's very much like some of the things, Emerald Fennell did a film a couple of years ago she won an Oscar for. It about this woman getting back at somebody for her friend. It's a fascinating, fascinating film. The woman, I don't know who she is. Phoebe Dynavore. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing it right. But she is very good. And she plays opposite Alden Aaron Reich. And you've seen him in a lot of but he never he's in a Star Wars one. I think he's Han Solo. Correct. He has never really gotten that kind of break that I think he deserves. And this could be it. But it is very good. It's opening in theaters. It's called fair play. It'll open next week. And then it's going to open on, Netflix, on a streaming basis in October.

Terry Lipshetz: Wow, that sounds good. I'm definitely going to well, and I may have know because it's crazy. You get those emails from Netflix saying, coming soon. And I'll look at the trailer. What is know?

Bruce Miller: I don't know what this is.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. And I'll put it in the reminder.

Bruce Miller: Because then they'll just keep bugging me all the time if they know that I'm looking for that. You probably forgot that you did this, right? I don't need it.

Mosquito: We're getting caught up on a few TV shows

Bruce Miller: What else have you seen?

Terry Lipshetz: We're getting caught up a little bit. I mean, there's no new programs for the most part. So we're getting caught up on a few things. My wife and I started Painkiller, which is starring Matthew Broderick as, you know, from Purdue Pharma. And it kind of gets into it's another dramatization about the Opioid crisis. It's okay. first of all, it's very weird watching Matthew Broderick playing somebody that old. Because I'm still in my mind, he's still bueller.

Bruce Miller: Yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: And if he's old, that means I'm old and I can't be that old yet. Can I really be that old?

Bruce Miller: No, you're younger than me. So that gives you a leg up right there.

Terry Lipshetz: So it's, looking it's a different perspective of the crisis.

Bruce Miller: How similar is it to dopesick dopesick.

Terry Lipshetz: With Michael Keaton I thought was really good. I thought Michael Keaton in that was really good. But the perspective of Dopesick was coming mostly from the doctor, the prescriber end of things. And this is more of the investigation side of things and the Purdue Pharma side of things. Not painting Purdue Pharma in a good light in any way, but it's more of how the crisis was manufactured from that end. And then it looks at some of the stories of how they got to where they got to. I don't think the stories are as compelling as Dope sick, but we're not going to stop watching it. It's a six episode miniseries. How far are you in three episodes?

Bruce Miller: you kind of have to make a choice.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. We're at that point now where I think we're committed and we'll knock it off and it's not bad. But Michael Keaton I thought, was just very good. Michael Keaton is just, to me, has aged very well as an actor. Like he's gotten yeah. Yeah. It's not just the goofy little things know, you think of him as like, Beetlejuice and some of those comedies he did. But some of the things that he's done later in life have just gotten so much good. Really good.

Bruce Miller: I find. you do get to that point where you say, do I fish or do I cut bait? And I will bail on series. I have had one and done. I'll watch one episode, realize this is way too much for me to invest. And the first killer, with those things is when it says ten episodes, because somewhere around seven, it wanes until we get to nine, and then it'll pick up, and then you get the ten. And it's all right. Sometimes I have even watched one, and if I have the access to the ten, I'll watch the ten and I won't watch ones in the middle.

Terry Lipshetz: Interesting. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: Might be bad, but, life's too short. And I believe that you shouldn't have to watch crap just because you made an investment initially.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. There is a couple shows that my wife and I watched, like, we watched a little bit of that. Was it tomorrowland on Apple TV? The one yeah. And it looked was I we didn't make it to the end of episode one, and we just, I can maybe see where it's going, but I can't dig in on this one. There was another one, too.

Bruce Miller: Yeah, I watched it all, and I thought, where are they going with this? Because I bought in in the beginning that it was, this is the way the world is. We are doing this. And then you realize it's a scam, and they're, just scamming people. And then how are they getting out of the yeah.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. So I just couldn't get emotionally invested into it. Now, there was another one that was also on Apple TV Plus, where I watched the first season. My wife and I watched the season, and we liked it. And then it came back for season two. But then I read that it got canceled because the ratings weren't quite there. And a number of the reviewers said, well, it kind of ends on a cliffhanger now, so am I going to watch it? Aren't I going to watch it? It was the Mosquito Coast, and, I liked season one of the Mosquito Coast, but I couldn't quite figure out if I wanted to invest it. And we got hung up in that spot of like, do we watch it? Don't we watch it? We went ahead and watched it. I didn't love it, but it doesn't end on a cliffhanger. I thought it wrapped up for me.

Bruce Miller: I was done.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah. It got to the end. I was like, okay, we kind of dragged this out. The performances in season one I thought were better, and this one is just kind of it was a little too over the top, but it ends, like, where it ends. You're fine. I was totally fine. There is that last episode. It is explosive. There is some drama, some characters may or may not be with us to the very end, but it does not end on some weird cliff where. You're like, they canceled it. Now I'm never going to be able to know what happens because I was totally fine with it.

Bruce Miller: Watch the Harrison Ford movie and you got it all.

Terry Lipshetz: Yeah, I probably got it. I watched that so, so long ago. I don't even remember know that's why.

Bruce Miller: They'Re remaking things is you don't remember what?

Terry Lipshetz: I remember a minute, and I remember watching it, but I don't even remember it at this point. It was so long ago. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: And they always wanted to throw in something that well, we never thought that there would be, like, robots. And so they'll throw in a robot in a show.

The Expendables Four looks like it was written by a computer

Bruce Miller: Not in this one, necessarily, but wait a minute now. this was like a 1950s movie, and we changed it a little and we threw in a robot.

Oliver Dench: What is all about?

Bruce Miller: But it's just a way to again, this may go back to the writer strike where they just kind of take some property and twist it a little bit, and then the original creator gets nothing from it, right. So maybe they'll be protected. I hope to God that we don't see AI things. I hope they are not going to be the future. I have seen those some m good AI things, I got to tell you. Oddly enough, this last week, I went to see Expendables Four, okay? I swear that was written by a computer. It had to be. It was so bad. It was so bad. It's the kind of movie that when you go to it, you think, are they reading from teleprompters? They've got to be reading from teleprompters because you wouldn't remember this crappy dialogue if you tried. And then their eyes are darting and you think, that's got to be reading across the screen while they're looking at something. Plus, which they haul in people that you think, where did these people come from? I am not familiar with this person. I don't know if he's a big star in Korea or what he is, but apparently he's a big deal because he's in this show, so you don't know those things. And then they all back. And sure it's Sylvester Stallone. And Jason Statham star as the expendables that we remember. Dolph Lundgren's in there, too. And poor Dolph Lundgren has this bad wig that he wears, and they reference Farah Fawcett. And I'm thinking, who would remember Farah Fawcett's hairdo as the reason why you would reference Farrah Fawcett? You wouldn't. You just mean it doesn't work for today. I get it, but it's bad. And then they make a bad, bad joke about Stevie Wonder, which I think that is not relevant today, nor is it something you would include in your movie. And then you look at the film and you see that they have so much green screen in this sucker that basically it could have been shot in my backyard. There is no need for all of that and the special effects are really unspecial. The fight scenes are very bad. It goes down a list and you think, who talked them into this? This has got to be, clearly a money grab. And then, of course, you have the ultimate evidence that it is a money grab and that's that it has Andy Garcia in the film. Name a decent film that Andy Garcia has made in the last five years. You cannot but he's always in movies. He's in those book club movies. He's in all of these other kind. He plays this kind of role. And, I think, oh, Andy Garcia's here. That should be something to tell you. What's up with this? Megan Fox is in there, too, but you don't know really. What is she, an expendable? Is she really one of those people? And she turns out to be Jason Statham's girlfriend, but she has martial arts skills, so bring her with I think she can work on this. But that's where you get with this stuff. You think they're writing it. It's machines that are writing this crap because it sounds too unrealistic to even buy.

Terry Lipshetz: Nobody saw it. Nobody watched that movie. Do you see it opened? It got beaten by the nun, the nun two in the third weekend.

Bruce Miller: But, you put names like that and whenever they have a big list of names, this goes back many, many years. If you may remember, back in the 60s, cinerama was a big thing and, this widescreen stuff, and they would put casts of thousands in them. And how the west was won was one who had every big name star there was. Then we had the disaster films that had all the big name stars in it. And now we're into that era where it's action adventure, and it's usually people who aren't good actors, but they can do a dust hunt or two and then have a catchphrase or throw off a good liner now and then. And so it ends up being, this is how we're putting them in there. And, do we need it? I don't think we need it. The really strange thing is my phone fell off my lap into the seat. And they're recliner seats. And I must spend a good 15 minutes digging that chair to try and find the phone that I thought was actually more action and better action than what I was seeing on the screen.

Terry Lipshetz: People were watching you, if there was actually anybody there. And they're thinking, wow, this guy over here. This is the best part of the movie. Watch this guy dig for his phone.

Bruce Miller: I'm digging for the phone. And I tell you, if there was $50 bills in there, I don't know, there could have been money in that seat. When I started messing around, I did find popcorn, but so that was good. And I did get the phone. Ultimately, I did get the phone.

Terry Lipshetz: Well, that's good.

Andy Garcia was supposed to be the next Al Pacino

Terry Lipshetz: I am laughing now thinking, though, because you bring up Andy Garcia. And the first thing that comes to my mind is his addition to, the Godfather trilogy.

Bruce Miller: Right. He was kind of the next, Al Pacino. He was going to be the heir apparent. And he got great work, and he did great work. But now it's like that thing where you go, who else is in this? Andy Garcia. Let's get Andy. So he must play well with a certain audience. And they go, oh, yeah, Andy Garcia's in it. But I think he might be the sign of a bad movie now, because he's taking everything he can get. And it probably isn't reading the scripts. Because I thought he was a good actor at one point. I really did. But this crap.

Terry Lipshetz: he's going to.

Bruce Miller: Do the sequel to, Al's extra work.

Terry Lipshetz: He could instead of AI, they could use Andy Garcia to play a younger Al Pacino. There you go.

Bruce: What do we have coming up in our next few episodes

Terry Lipshetz: So what do we have coming up, Bruce, in our next few episodes?

Bruce Miller: I know I've got a lot of stuff for you. I've got, a, talk with the producers of Goosebumps. They've rebooted a well, actually, we could put it on this week. We could add it in. I'm doing it tomorrow. I'm talking to one of the actors from Hotel Portofino.

Terry Lipshetz: Okay. We can slip that in. Yeah.

Bruce Miller: it's Oliver Dench. Now, that name, does that ring a bell? Oliver Dench. Oliver Dench.

Terry Lipshetz: That name is it sounds a little.

Bruce Miller: It'S her nephew. Yeah. Working. And his dad was a big actor in, yeah. And he's the star of Hotel Portofino. He plays the son who comes back to help run the hotel. So we've got him coming up. I've got a number of films that are opening. But again, we're going to see where we sit if we can solve that actor strike. We're going to talk to some actors. Otherwise, you're going to get some producers. And I know you don't want in.

Terry Lipshetz: The worst case scenario, we'll be interviewing dogs barking at us.

Bruce Miller: And we'll get the dogs.

Terry Lipshetz: We'll get them. Paw patrol coming soon.

Bruce Miller: It could be good. I think it could be a good thing.

Terry Lipshetz: All right, so we'll go now to an interview with Oliver Dench. And then we will wrap up and see you again next week for another episode of Streamed and Screened.

Would you rather do shows in the present or the future

Bruce Miller: I look at the things you've done in the past. What period do you really like to be in? do you like to be in the present? Would you rather do shows that are in the present, things in the past, or things in the future?

Oliver Dench: It's interesting that I don't really think of the time period that much. When I think of work, obviously it comes into it. And obviously when we're shooting, there are differences like accent or manners or general etiquette of the things. But those aren't really the interesting things to me, I think the things that stay more essential to it, are interpersonal relationships and character. and they transcend time, really, or at least they transcend time in the kind of stuff that I would be doing and the kind of roles I would be interested in playing. I know there would be some really far out there, things really far out there character that could only exist in Sci-Fi. But in terms of the things I've done, I've always played humans.

Bruce Miller: That's good, right?

Lucian is very guarded in this film. Is that a product of the times or is that yeah

Oliver Dench: Yeah, which is good.

Bruce Miller: He seems so guarded. Is that a product of the times or is that yeah.

Oliver Dench: that is something I have found interesting about this time period in particular. But I think that applies to all characters. I think that one in particular, a lot of what is guarded about Lucian is a product of the times. But that would come up in any period. There would be reasons why people would be suppressing certain aspects of their personality and reasons why other things would be allowed to flourish. The fact that this is happening in the 20s just means there's a different buffet of things to choose from. But he is guarded. There's a lot of pressure on him.

Bruce Miller: Did you relate to him at all? Did you say, oh, yeah, I see this, or do you go, no, that's not me at all.

Oliver Dench: I've led a much more fortunate life than Lucian. I did not fight in World War I. So I think there's already, like, a massive jump of understanding that I couldn't really realistically, ever hope to, empathize with, but sympathize with. I absolutely can. And I think that's sort of our job as actors. There are a lot of things about Lucian that are different from me, but there's obviously a lot of myself that I bring into the character. And I think this is how I understand these social situations. Now I just have to layer on the different, things that Lucian is dealing with to try and make what I hope is somewhat interesting to watch.

You were pulled into the family business and you became an actor

Bruce Miller: pulling him into the family business is kind of a thing. Was that the way it was with you, too? You were pulled into the family business and you became an actor? Or was that always something you wanted to do?

Oliver Dench: No, that was something well, it wasn't always something I wanted to do. When I was very young, I had an idea that I wanted to be a marine biologist. And I don't know why it seems kind of off the wall, but I've spoken to lots of people I knew, and I think it was very in vogue when I was in my preteens to want to be a marine biologist, because loads of people seem to have this idea. I don't know if it was like a David Attenborough inspired thing or something that was happening on the BBC in the UK at the time. But lots of people I know inexplicably wanted to study jellyfish and things. I didn't end up being a marine biologist. I then wanted to be a chef for a while, but I'm not a massive fan of professional kitchens. When I did, like, the tiniest amount of work experience in, when I crumbled completely ineffectual. But no, I wanted to be an actor. I don't think I was pulled in any particular direction.

Bruce Miller: So what appealed to you about it is it just the idea that you get to be different people all the time?

Oliver Dench: Well, originally it was more poetic for me, and this hasn't really been, the type of work I've ended up doing, but I think while I wasn't pulled in certain directions, I was very lucky to have the family that I do, and my granddad, who was, a Shakespearean actor, on the stage. I was exposed to a lot of Shakespeare when I was growing up, and I loved that. I thought that was absolutely amazing. So originally, I think it was interest in text that made me want to act, because I thought it was so beautiful. I thought it was amazing. Made me want to write as well. But I think acting seemed, I don't know, more immediate, for me, and that's kind of what pulled me into it. The idea of character almost came secondarily to that, which I don't know if is how many people have kind of come into it. But that was definitely the pull for me.

Bruce Miller: Shakespearean, though, come on. I read that, and I can glaze over very quickly, especially at a young age. How do you attach to that? How do you say, like this, even though it's difficult to read?

Oliver Dench: Well, I think the first thing is, as everyone kind of says, it's not meant to be read. it must be heard. So if you have someone really skillful doing it, then it's amazing. If you have someone who's not very skillful doing it, then it's the most boring thing. Imagine it's difficult. It is really difficult. but I was lucky to have someone who was skillful at the beginning, sort of explain it to me, and then after that, it becomes, the more you're exposed to it, the more effectively you're able to interpret it. And that's almost a problem in its own right. I think that's often why it's so confusing is because the people who are putting on these plays often are people who are very exposed to it. So the language is very immediate for them. So they watch and they think, what's the problem? I understand every single word. I know it really well. An audience who is maybe not so exposed to it might find it more difficult to interpret. So I think that can be a problem in modern Shakespeare productions. but it is true, once you get into it, the more you read by the time you've read or watched a number of plays in a short span of time, it'll become easy. it just requires doing that work, which is why it's so elitist. It can be really elitist.

How difficult is it to memorize Shakespeare? Easier than some other plays

Bruce Miller: How difficult is it to memorize?

Oliver Dench: Easier.

Bruce Miller: Much easier, really.

Oliver Dench: It is much easier. Well, again, probably this might not be everyone's experience, and some of the plays are split differently. So some of the early plays are almost entirely verse, which means all the lines have rhythm. Or some of the early plays, almost all the lines have rhyme, which I think is actually really ugly often. and some of the later plays are more prosaic, which means that it's more difficult to learn. But when you're learning a speech and you've got the rhythm and the rhyme to rely on, I actually find that to be a great crutch in memorizing, because, you know, if you've got a single word wrong, when you're memorizing, if you're there going to me that is the question whether noble are in the blah blah blah blah. You understand when it goes, off the tracks. and that lets you know that you've messed up. Whereas some other stuff you can mumble through scenes for pages before you realize you've got everything wrong.

Bruce Miller: One of those you have a checklist then, and you start checking off the characters that you want to play.

Oliver Dench: I used to, not a physical checklist, but I definitely used to think that the most legitimizing career would be some John Gilgood like thing where you first play Romeo and then Troyless and then Hamlet and then blah, blah, kind.

Terry Lipshetz: Of work your way up.

Bruce Miller: Yeah.

Oliver Dench: Eventually you play Lear and then you die on stage and it'll be, wow, what an incredible experience. but I had to because it wasn't what I was doing. But I sort of let go of that some years ago. Not to say I wouldn't still want to play those parts, but I don't necessarily think they have to be in such a linear progression anymore. I feel as though when I was young, I felt like I was running out of time to play characters that meant something, to me. And in some ways that's true. There'll come a time where I'm less likely to be cast as Romeo. but in general, I think there's such a wealth of characters, not just in Shakespeare, but in everything, in other things that I hadn't really given attention to before, that one could never play everything that is interesting.

So doing television does allow you or afford you the opportunity to do theater

Bruce Miller: So doing television, does that allow you or afford you the opportunity to do theater? I mean, I'm assuming that it's very difficult to have a career in the theater these days because it isn't as financially viable, as it might be in television or in film.

Oliver Dench: Yeah. it still exists in London in quite a big way. I'm not saying that it's not an issue. And, theatre acting in general, tends to be underpaid, mainly because it's, under attended. and that's a problem for people who are trying to kind of carve out a career in theater. I guess, in that aspect, doing TV does let you, does give you more opportunities to kind of wait for theater jobs when they come. But it's also about what you're busy doing. And if you're running in certain circles, like, I haven't had a theater I haven't been meeting theater people in quite a long time because I've been shooting things. And that makes it difficult to have a career in theater because no one knows who I am comparatively. I know lots of people who do theater much more regularly, and they find it more difficult to meet people who are organizing TV jobs is difficult. It's complicated. I think the world is so big and vast now that it's difficult, to always be doing what you want when everything fits.

You say the best acting advice is do nothing. What was it like when you first tried to do something on camera

Bruce Miller: a Broadway actress told me that when she went to Hollywood, she realized that she was so stiff that she had no emotions because she was afraid she would be too broad on camera. What was it like when you first tried to do something on camera? Was it like, oh, my God, I got to watch, so I'm not, like, blinking. I have to watch. I'm not moving.

Oliver Dench: I've been through in the things I've done so far, which is not I'm not the most experienced actor in the world, but in the things I've done so far, I feel like I've come through a cycle of being terrified to do anything and thinking that the best acting advice was do nothing. And if you have an impulse, then squash it, and it's wrong and just be completely plain. And in some cases, that's true. In some cases, oddly, due to some quirk of human psychology, or how we recognize emotion, in some cases, we recognize a blank face as a number of different things, and we laud amazingly subtle performances. But I think it's important to not feel stifled by that. And I'm now at a stage where I think make a crazy choice and do something interesting and, hope that you have the skill that that will still come across as natural. And I think it has to exist somewhere between that, because just doing nothing forever is very stifling when you're on camera and even more stifling when you're on stage.

Bruce Miller: It's called soap opera. Right. You do nothing. Right? Yeah.

How did American television differ from British, uh, television

Bruce Miller: How did American television differ from British, television? this wasn't Pandora. That was an American production. Right?

Oliver Dench: That was an American production. Yeah. it doesn't really not essentially about what we're being asked to do. I know it does in a multitude of ways, but I find that very difficult to keep a handle on. Like, I know that the CW who broadcast Pandora want different things than PBS, who are broadcasting, hotel Portofino. I know that they have business plans and they have ideas, but that's, personally, for me, not my favorite way to interpret character and to work on a set. I find that kind of foggying and dizzying and confusing and kind of gets in the way of me feeling comfortable and natural in things. So I think the way I see that is I let the director worry about that. I let the directors and the producers worry about what they're going to do, and I'll just try and be here on set and be as mindful of what I'm doing as possible. And hopefully that fits into what the people around me want. I'm not saying they don't want different things or that it doesn't differ all know, English TV, the BBC is not different from, stars or whatever, but I find it more useful for me to try and concentrate just on the microscopic.

You hear about people with huge social media following getting roles

Bruce Miller: Well, how does all the social media how does that factor in? Because you hear about people who have this huge social media following, getting roles, and you're thinking, wait a minute, they have no talent. What is this?

Oliver Dench: I always think that I don't have any big grudges against people getting cast from things. Not for them personally. Because if they want to do it and someone wants to give them a job, then they're going to do it like anyone would. I don't have a lot of hate for people around me, or even I might have envy sometimes if they get jobs that I want. But the way I feel I kind of thought about social media a lot, but I'm not very good at it. I don't like it. I've never been one to tweet a lot. I have an instagram. I think I tried to delete it, but it's still up there. And I think my last post is from two years ago or something. for a long time, I kind of put a lot of stress on myself to get better at that. And then I realized that I don't really like it. And for me, the social media itself is quite damaging for my mental health. And that might be a good tool for getting cast. I know it helps. I know people want to cast people with big following, but considering I'm not good at that, I shouldn't beat myself up about it, and I should just let that go.

When you look at a career, where would you like to see yours go

Bruce Miller: So when you look at a career, where would you like to see yours go? What would be the ideal direction for you?

Oliver Dench: I'm not really sure. Like I said, when I was younger, I had a much clearer idea of here comes my M. Macbeth. Wonderful. But now, like I was saying earlier, I've realized that things have opened up to such a degree in terms of the style of things I would be playing that, I find it much more difficult to predict that. I hope I am working. And I hope I am happy. But I'd much rather think about my mental health being high, my own positivity being high, and me enjoying the work that I do and finding it interesting than I would think about, exactly where I'm going to be. Because my experience has been that whenever I imagine a job in a certain way, it doesn't always line up with, the way I expect my well being, the, place I expect my well being to be at. When I have that job, it's very easy to think when I get a TV job, I'll be very happy. And I don't think that's how my happiness has always moved. So as long as I find it interesting, then, and I'm working, then that'll.

Bruce Miller: Be do you plan know, I always need to go back to the theater because that's where I feel most welcome, or is that because didn't you do Cabaret this last? Yeah.

Oliver Dench: Yeah, I loved it. I love that show. I was very lucky to do Cabaret this year. in terms of my career, the question that you actually asked me before I started Rambling is, I would like to be doing a mix of things. I would like my career to be continuously mixed. I would like to do some theater and some screen work. I would like to write. I find the variation to be spicy and interesting and exciting. and I find that thrilling. I think that's what I want out of a career rather than something I don't have a particular magnetism back to the theater, and that's where I want to spend my time forever. I just want it to be varied and interesting and satisfying.

Bruce Miller: Do you look at your great aunt's career? I mean, come on. She's had the most varied career of anybody. Do you look at that like a, template for something like this?

Oliver Dench: Yeah, it would be unbelievable. But few people have a career as.

Bruce Miller: Amazing as come on. Yeah, right. But look, she did Cabaret, for God's sake.

Oliver Dench: Yes, she did, famously, very well.

Bruce Miller: But you did too, so go for it, they say.

Oliver Dench: But no, I absolutely if I could have a career that's half as wonderful as that, I'd be very happy.

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What about movies like "Elvis" and the upcoming film "Priscilla," which both had the involvement of Priscilla Presley? Or the music biopic that largely led to the modern music biopics, Oliver Stone's "The Doors," which was criticized by the surviving members of the band?

Even documentaries have been known to stray a little, such as the Oscar-winning "Searching for the Sugar Man" based on the life of Sixto Rodriguez. The film failed to mention the singer had modest success in Australia, so he wasn't a complete unknown.

We take a deep dive into true stories that have been turned into movies and even have an interview with Mardenborough, who was involved with the film. He also talks about his involvement with actor Archie Madekwe, who played Mardenborough.

Where to watch

"Gran Turismo" in theaters
"Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" on Max

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. But first, an important disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are a fusion of professional critiques and passionate fandom.

While Bruce's experience and my dedication to the couch may suggest an odd pairing, it's what makes this podcast a delightful mix of the expected and the unexpected. Listener discretion is advised and an important addendum to that. Bruce. No animals were harmed during the recording of this episode.

Where did you get that? ChatGPT.

Is this the future in the film?

It wrote a lot more than that.

First of all, we're out of jobs. That's what happens if everything's good, right?

Man, I was thinking, you know, we were talking about this episode a week ago, and I said, you know, might be fun to have a disclaimer. And I'm sitting there like, What kind of disclaimer would we have for us?

A We can say whatever.

Exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. And not be. Can I tell you, I always I hate this when somebody gets a bad review. And what do critics know? You know, why or who are critics? Well, a critic is somebody who probably watches a lot of what you do and has an idea about what is good and what isn't good. And so listen to them.

But I've always said to them, anybody who pays money for something is a critic and is entitled to an opinion. So have at it.

Absolutely. And you know what? I think it's like anything else where maybe, you know, you're a critic, you're doing it professionally, but you're still you're still a human being that needs to entertain yourself and something's good or something is bad. I mean, it is what it is.

And I think you do need to be a fan to be a critic. Otherwise, if you hated the medium that you were were criticizing, you wouldn't do it, right. So there is that moment. But I you know, there are those who are like, greasy. They're a little over the top with the oh, my God, it's the greatest thing ever.

I how many times have you read quotes from some movie ad that says this is the best thing since Gone with the Wind or, you know, and you got really I don't think it was or truth should be this great, You know? I mean, it's like, what are you saying? Right. But those are the things that you find.

And they're quotable. Yeah. That they try to a lot of those when you look at reviews that are polled or quoted, those are written to get quoted because the critic who is saying, I can't believe movies have gotten this good wants to get his name in the ad. So then it helps boost his position as a critic and helps get the name out about the publication.

So this podcast. Incredible. Four stars.

I think the one nice thing though about the modern criticism in in any form, whether it's music or TV or movies or whatever you're following, the Internet has opened up all new avenues, right? Because in in the old days, you know, you might pick up your your Shoe City Journal and you would just have Bruce Miller, the one telling you or if you're in Chicago, you might have Siskel and Ebert or wherever you might be, you just have that local voice.

But now you can go to Rotten Tomatoes where it's picking up the aggregate and and, you know, sure, the folks in the industry might not want to hear what a critic has to say, But when you go to like a Rotten tomatoes and you've got 300 critics saying your movie's terrible, yeah, it's probably it's probably stinky. It probably is not good.

Well, that's really encouraging, isn't it?

Is that.

But it goes the other way, too, where if you actually want your critics to love it and it's, you know, certified Fresh by Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah, right. That's great. And then you get the weird ones where, you know, the critics will love it and then the fans dog on it or vice versa. And then you just bang your head on the wall and don't know what to do.

The ultimately you are your best critic.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Did we offend anybody in the process of that? And did we and or whatever our disclaimer said, I don't know.

All I know is no animals have been harmed in the filming of this episode.

So we're good. We're good. You know, we're we're going to talk about something that I think is just very fascinating. Do you know how many years in the Academy Awards have not had an actor nominee who is based on an actual person? Well, I'm eight years out of I think it's 90 some 95 years have not. How many?

I'm just going it's like three.

Eight, eight.

Wow.

Years. And look at last year we had Elvis. We had Marilyn Monroe. The famous ones could be considered beasts or, you know, sort of. Yeah. So there are those So that's it's a sure way to an Oscar is to play somebody who actually exists. Yeah. And there were the most the most at 12 in 2018. Isn't that unbelievable.

It's crazy. We're just grabbing anything. We can throw it up on the screens. It's based in fact, you know, So that's a surprise to me. But it's it is sure content. You will know that there is some story to base it on. We saw now recently with the blindside, where Michael Oher is just kind of like now, this is not this isn't what I remember.

So he's trying to speak against this as the ultimate. And it's never, never, ever, ever in the history of filmmaking is a film, an absolutely accurate depiction of what happened.

Right. Because it's not a document, right? It's not a documentary.

Even that with documentaries, Right. You can't trust them.

No.

I remember I This tells you how far back we go. Okay. I did a master's thesis on the validity of critics. It's like, do critics make a difference? Is basically the thesis that I did. And we looked back and there was like, this sliver of time when actually critics would have any kind of impact on the audience. And what it was was in those days they were showing what like people were like Eskimos were like.

And people had never seen Eskimos. So they believed exactly what they saw on the screen and said that is exactly the way it is, even though it may not have been so. And it was just a very sliver of time that critics could have some kind of impact on what people saw after that don't make a difference at all.

People just kind of watch something and. Yeah, and you see that even now with like Netflix where movies that bomb at the box office. But all of a sudden we'll get they'll be trending on Netflix. You'll see like, you know what's that most popular and it'll be some movie from seven years ago that nobody went to see all of a sudden gets hot because it's just people for some whatever reason now algorithm and then it catches fire.

Yeah, well look at Green book. Green Book won Best picture the Red critics were, like, kind of lukewarm on it as a as a movie movie. And the people who were related to the man portrayed said it isn't his life. This isn't all at all what it was like. Right. But it played well because it kind of touched those heartstrings that we were looking to touch.

And so they made do something to you emotionally, but they may not do it realistically.

Yeah. And, you know, you talk about these dramatization scenes, but it's even in documentaries, the storytelling can be twisted in a way to help tell a narrative and one that I wanted to bring up because the person that was featured in it just died recently. Sixto Rodriguez, who was a musician out of Detroit, he released two albums and they didn't they didn't do very well commercially, and he got dropped by his label and he kind of fell into obscurity.

And he got popular in South Africa during apartheid when when the the country was basically cut off from civilized nation. There is no Internet at the time, so there's no way of researching. And this mythology was built about the sugar man and this documentary, Searching for the Sugar Man. It won an Oscar for best Documentary. But even in that case, it's failed to mention that he had like these small pockets of international fame.

It wasn't you know, he never achieved some level of glory and made tons and tons of money. But in the late seventies, early eighties, Rodriguez was actually touring in Australia. And and that was before they discovered, you know, he was alive in South Africa. So even in that case where you have a story, which is it's a documentary, it's interviewing the real person, there's no actors involved.

It's supposed to be reality. They kind of fudged with reality a little bit just to tell the story of, you know, here is this person that's completely obscure, even though in Australia they knew exactly who he was because he had been there a few times there.

Yeah, it's well, look at the the film that's leading the way this year for best picture. Oppenheimer Right now that looks about as clean as you can get, except for some of those scenes that are kind of done in the mind, if you will. But it's it's the artistry of the director, you know, so you're not getting the story.

And we've got other ones coming this year. We we had air which was about right the Michael Jordan selling of Nike Napoleon is coming up. Ferrari is coming up. Priscilla, about Elvis Presley's wife. You know, so there are the and the killers of the flower moon, what you're waiting for, right?

Right.

Not all these are based, in fact, for some reason. And it's a jumping off point is what it amounts to. Reality becomes a starting point, but not necessarily an end point.

Right. And we saw this also in another in a series on HBO that just wrapped this past weekend, you know, winning time. Right. Which looked at the the the rise of the Lakers dynasty in Los Angeles. And a year ago, there was a lot of controversy after season one. Jerry West, who is portrayed in it was very unhappy with his portrayal in the show and you know is basically making him look like this crazed lunatic.

And he's not true and he wasn't like it. And and then season two comes along and, you know, of course, they're opening it up with this disclaimer that this is a dramatization. Some of the characters have been changed. And what I found myself doing through the that every single episode that I watched, something would happen. And I was immediately on my phone.

Looking, is.

It is this part, you know, because one of the things near the end was this lawsuit by, you know, a wife of Dr. Jerry Buss, who's trying to take the team from him. It's like, well, you know, who is this person? And I'm I'm kind of Googling it and person's not really a real person. It's sort of a fictional ization of another person.

And so it's those little things like that that they're introducing. But on the flip side, you know, you have Jerry West, who was very unhappy with it, but I read in I think it was in Vulture, they were talking to the to the folks behind the series and they said they showed the episodes to Jeanie Buss, Jerry Buss daughter, who's portrayed in it.

And she loved the series and she felt a connection to her father again, who had passed away a number of years ago. So she really enjoyed watching the show because it kind of, you know, rekindled those memories of of kind of growing up in that time. So it's I guess, you know, how you're being portrayed and in what way and and whatnot.

But, you know, that that was kind of an interesting one from that perspective.

We have this year weird about Weird Al Yankovic, and it's so off the beam. It's not at all what his life was like. He was participating in it. So he, if you will, signed off on it right? Elvis had Priscilla as kind of their guide or through it all, all of this, and it was nominated for best Picture last year.

You know, now this year, Priscilla is probably going to be nominated and Priscilla is talking. So she's rewriting the narrative of Elvis Presley just by what she'll allow or what she won't allow in the story. So that's interesting. But there are duds. There are duds that didn't really work. You know, Can you think of movies where you thought, Oh, my God, that's just terrible, that one.

That one doesn't cut it. And I think one that people always mention is John Travolta as Gotti. Oh, that was a real stinker.

It was so bad. Yeah.

Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs. Yeah, not much there. Michael was his John Belushi and Wired. Well, now somebody didn't like Jerry Lee Lewis portrayed by Dennis Quaid in Great Balls of Fire. But I got to tell you, I interviewed Jerry Lee Lewis about this and he loved it. He thought he captured every bit of him. So, you know, it's all perspective.

If it's my life, you know, come on, Brad Pitt, I'm telling you that right now. Right. And there's no way that I am remotely in the same ballpark as Brad Pitt, But they get a chance to kind of rewrite their own history by having control over who plays them. Yeah, you have play you would you pick and you know better.

You're not going to say, oh, I'm going to take you know, I don't even want to name names, but you're going to pick. So you see, George Clooney is going to play me. Of course.

It would probably be Clooney. I you're right.

Right? Yeah. Either yeah.

These a older.

Clooney were there.

You know, you mentioned Brad Pitt. He was on day of the last season, the day of portraying himself. But it was it was a fictionalized version of himself.

And that was so good, right? So he was so good because you even felt the kind of like tension that he had in that situation, because I don't want to spoil it, but there's this nutty person in the house or that Brad Pitt is in the house and Dave is in the house, and you've got to be How do we get out of the house?

Yeah.

There was that scene to where he in it. He says, Well, you can call me and I can't remember what the name was. He's like, Well, that's that's really what my name is. And again, am I Google like, is that really his name? It's like this is he fictionalized that fictional name, which is comical.

And it doesn't always work. Like I say, there are situations where you go, Mm, this really laid an egg and I think we'll see it this year or two. We're going to see, yeah, films that just might not make it at all. Last year we had blond, which was about Marilyn Monroe in there. Ana de Armas played her and got an Oscar nomination and she was good, but the movie sucked.

It was awful. And I defy you to say that you watched the whole thing. People didn't watch the whole thing. They got to the nude scenes and they shot it off. After that, it was not worth watching because the story didn't make any sense. You know, you have like Freddie Mercury story, Bohemian Rhapsody, right? Liked it because it plays into the the myth that I think has been created.

So who? Yeah, well, I got to talk to one of those real people who's featured in Gran Turismo, which is a film about a guy who won the right to become a race car driver by playing video games. There was a competition and they, you know, whatever. And for whatever reason it clicked. Jann Mardenborough is his name and he is portrayed in this film as that naive person getting into the race car business and what it meant.

He's still a race car driver. And we got a chance to talk about that whole trajectory and what it was like for him and what he thinks of the guy, Archie Madekwe, who plays him, what he thought of his performance. So we have a tape here. If you'd like to run it. We'll listen to what he has to say about portraying real people on screen.

What is it like seeing yourself on a screen? I mean, we're not how many people get this story of their life told in a film? It's like 0.0001% or something?

Yeah, it's it's very it's surreal, really. Being honest. It's it's even more surreal with somebody tells people tell me that the racing driver that had movies based on their lives, they no longer around single that they passed away so soon being 31 years old and have your life attractive. Your life. You told of the Big three. An audience is rare and in my industry very rare.

So I feel very blessed and honored. That can actually tell. You know what shop in my life.

Did you feel a connection to the character or did you see it as somebody else.

Noticed me?

I yeah, it really does feel like you did you have any did you have any say then in who gets to play you? Did you say, I'm going to look at these people and just see.

If it's no secret you was always on the phone by the producers. They kept me in the loop, involved in all the scripts, you know, sets as well. And I was always kept informed of who they like. I see an actor to play me. Apparently the casting will be so long, even a year before Benigni was even shot.

Oh, wow, Boss, she was always been number one favorite, as far as I understand, with many different levels of casting processes. But she was the one from day one.

And did you like him from day one or did you go or. I don't know.

He spoke on Face Time, The lowland scene with a mouth eat it plainly and pseudovirus Because I was in labor at the time that I was like, This looks like straight away. And so that was a great start. We met in person as well. Weeks later, after that phone call, and I it gave you a confidence because I was happy with the script, but meeting the person for the first face, it gave me even more confidence in things like be great, because he was absolutely casting Steely.

Obviously he knew from producers as well and all time and face time and texts that meet somebody face to face difference. And he caught it really mean okay, I can focus on being studied rather and make it to focus on the acting and because we're completely allied on this. Yeah in yes he killed it.

Did he ask you a lot of questions?

Absolutely. And what he.

What did what surprised you that he wanted to know?

A lot of I'm not repeating his emotional my support is in the while it it's sports you have to be quite clinical but he was asking questions about the relationships I've had with certain people within the industry, my friends, my family. I just kind of try to be open is we all. And it became this very good at asking those questions that was so provoking and as two things which are them?

He still dealt with soul so he can work on his craft when he's allowed a chance at this and he can show that and he got on set. How good was he had driving? Well, didn't have a driver's license very recently before shooting. I think for insurance, we'd really have to pass his test. And I didn't know at the time I think it was that a make or break, because if he didn't pass the test, we could have shot with Michelle McCann.

But I know everybody at the meeting. But yeah, he was on a fast track course and then I'd passed and he said it interesting. But he said the favorite brand, right? I was always so, so is mine.

But there you go.

Yeah. He's got good taste, wrong behavior. So yeah, I think if you were bring somebody that have been involved, it looks sort of caused the fault. So it feels very nice. But I have a lot of respect to somebody. Go to another industry and be honest. If I go dancing all through dancin or being a ballerina and let me see myself in that.

So I would not risk that in the business. He'd never done this before, yet no interest because now he is a face granturismo which is just racing was and he is he, he nailed it. So yeah, I will respect that.

But you know, the movie makes a big deal about can you really make the transition from being a gamer to being a driver.

Is it possible? I mean, yeah, was possible with you.

But in the grand scheme of things, was your dad really right? And you said, you know, this is going to lead to nothing. These are not going to be career connections for anybody.

Well, I will indeed. My stepfather to that question. That was the question we were always asking ourselves, kind of be done proof.

But you're one you're one person and, you know, you know, kids sit around and they're doing they're playing games all day and will it lead to something?

And that's where dreams and belief comes into it, because they think that easy, everybody be able to do it but makes it easy. All that accomplishment is hard, as if all and it seems like it's not possible. Well, everything is well. I believe that you can do anything. It's a little set. You can't do everything. You can sit and do anything.

He's taken line to it. I never let that like the beta racing brother go out. I didn't know how I would get from A to B, but always away very much aware from a young age or very headstrong as a person you would as a kid. That's what I want to do. And I'm not going to take no for that.

So I'm not really from other people. That is the gospel of you have spoken in the past with other people about things that I'd said growing up as a teen, where I would say a BMW story, my first car as a child as that when I'm 17 years old and I had my friends because boys, boys, they would rip anything to me for years about that.

And I spoke to my other friends, Solid school lives and that scene in the movie, they were a bar and they told me that they could they had a few drinks them. It must not limit the conversation. And they said to me, Look, you never said to us that you wanted to be a racing driver. And I boulevard and I was like, You're right.

I never I never told anybody. I never told anybody about drink because you have to protect that. You can't walk around. I don't need you should walk out. I want to do this. I wanted that because people call you out today and also it loses the energy over Did you news that that that that you know that energy.

Yeah I believe so I never spoke to anybody about it. It was always my inner drew but I believe you can do anything so anybody watching I learned via high fives in the messages for people about taking an interest in looks, but also telling me I learned to pursue my dream. It would tell me what it is, which I love you shouldn't tell me.

You should tell me what it is I want to pursue my dream. You inspired me to see like me. And I love that kids want to move forward too. Why me? Yeah. The rules of life. We have to follow our actions up to this.

Well, when it does happen, how do you feel? I mean, is it like. Well, now I've got to find a new dream, or, you know.

While in racing, it's that is this thing as the perfect guy. So it's like and it's feel old chase So perfecting your craft and it will never be perfect. So I'm still in the trenches of how can I get better at the race? And rather that's what gives me purpose. Okay, I want to race here, but when I get there, I like to race.

I want to wait. I want it to be fast. I want to recent level championships level, the championship races that lie. My drive is the constant. It's a set them and then we have living. It's up and up whether that be right and whether that can being the way out or I stop what right dress or whatever I my business lines it's always a a quality that.

All right Bruce thanks for that interview. You know with the race car, movies and biopics, what was your thought on this one compared to like something like a Ford versus Ferrari?

Well, this is one that actually had some kind of controversy about the way they messed with time because there's a big accident that's in this film and it has been moved from where it actually happened to a different time because it helps build tension and look at the guy who is it's his story doesn't mind, I guess I can't mind.

But I think also because he's an executive producer, so there might be somebody that helped say, I don't mind. Yeah, yeah, No.

I enjoy the racing movies. I enjoyed Ford versus Ferrari. I thought that was a really good story to tell.

Well, this year, Ferrari, so.

Yeah, exactly.

Helped Ford in there. Exactly. And so you have to go into every screen biography as it ain't all true.

Right? You know, it's interesting, you mentioned a lot of movies based on music, you know, with like Queen and Sugar and you had Elton John. And the one that kind of gets looked at is almost a starting point. I mean, there is there's been a few others along the way, but the one that really kind of propelled, I think the modern film was The Doors from Oliver Stone.

And that's one where the three surviving members of The Doors at the time, they hated it. They were and they worked with Oliver Stone for a while on it to try to help, you know, tell the story. And when that thing came out, they were not at all happy with the way.

And it hurt it because Val Kilmer should have gotten a best Actor nomination. Yeah, he was that good. And boy, they buried it. Yep. And when you look at later ones, Rami Malick, you know, when you look back on that one, you were going to say, why did he win the Oscar for playing Freddie Mercury? And it all boils down to that little number he did in front of a huge crowd because they played that thing forever before you even saw the film.

And that one scene is very good, but the rest of it doesn't really back it up. And I think that's when you look at it, you'll say, you probably shouldn't have got it. You know, it wasn't it wasn't all that. The Whitney Houston one I think is awful and Rocketman is good. But then when it needs to, it'll go into these kind of fantasy sequences so that then you're not really sure what's what's shaking, what's real, what's true, what's not.

You know, it's been an interesting series of films and they're not they're sort of interconnected because they're connected by almost like an individual. There's a producer. His name is Mark Girardi. He was a baseball pitcher. He actually pitched professionally. He pitched for a season with the Milwaukee Brewers. I know the story a little bit more because when I was working in New Jersey, he's actually from New Jersey.

And my newspaper that I was working for at the time did a story on him when some of his movies were making out. So he finished his baseball career. He went into, I think, modeling and he started making Hollywood connections and then he started telling stories through Disney. And, you know, I'm all, you know, like Miracle about the 1980 Olympic hockey team and the rookie.

And I went back and looked at, you know, I was trying to find like, you know, fact versus fiction on those. And I was having a hard time finding very much fictionalized. And I think those in general were pretty well-regarded. I was looking at a story about the Rookie with Jim Morris talking about, you know, the portrayal of him because he was the pitcher who blew out his arm and became a high school baseball coach and then all of a sudden realized he could throw 98 miles per hour again and ended up working his way back into the big leagues.

And he said that the film was about 90% accurate to his real life. So it's good to see that there are some films out there, and I think I've really enjoyed those films that that they've done, like Miracle, like The Rookie, because I find them, you know, they're good, they're family friendly, they're not too over-the-top, but they seem to keep fairly close to historical facts.

Yeah, it's condensing time, basically. You know, everything doesn't happen within a year. I think they're better off when they do a slice of somebody's life where it's like maybe three months of their life. And that's the movie. I think that would be the interesting kind of situation. Maestro is coming up by Leonard Bernstein. And that should be, I think, a really good one in terms of how well they track a segment of his career.

But I, you know, gee, I, I would hate to be the subject of a biopic because I think that you have to kind of then live that that story instead of a real story was, you know, because that's what people think of you. They want to have things condensed and into a, you know, a neat little package that you can see in 2 hours.

And we're done with you and you move on. But there there's much more beyond that. And I think when you look at those those seminal moments, maybe that's all it should be. Ken Burns is a great one to do documentaries about famous people, but what he uses are voices, other people talking about that person. So, you know, it's almost like a print news story where you hear others making some kind of assessment.

And it's not just necessarily the character saying something. So those I find the most accurate in terms of believing what I'm seeing. But again, it's filtered. History is filtered by those who are telling history.

I think the only thing that bothers me, I mean, I always know that there's going to be some creative license, some dramatization to these films, but it just irks me when they make weird changes for the sake of making changes that don't necessarily make sense. Because I remember somebody I've never seen the Buddy Holly story with Gary Busey.

Robyn No, I haven't. I just I need to go back and watch it one of these days. But I remember a friend of mine talking about it and saying that you know, he like he liked the film, but he couldn't understand why they didn't have all the crickets. Like Buddy Holly's backing band was The Crickets. And it was like they had like three of the four members in it but not.

Get their rights.

Right. So it's just like, Why would you make a movie and leave out one of the band members, You know, if there is a reason for it, I guess, you know, somebody would want their story told. But if it was just more because as well, it's it gets a little unruly with four people. So we're going to just narrow it down to three.

To me, those are little things that to the average person may not notice. But if you're trying to also appeal to fans of the band or the musician, these are historical pieces. It's like it's like even watching Field of Dreams, where Shoeless Joe Jackson is is batting from the wrong side of the plate. You know, it's it's you know, when you make a left in the batter right handed or vice versa, that kind of thing is like little details like that.

When you're when you're a fan, you're kind of going.

Like, do a fancy.

Fancy get maybe that right. You know, that's that's kind of irritating.

You know, now Broadway is jumping on the bandwagon and they're doing all of these musicals about musical people because they're very dramatic. They've got a built in catalog of sounds that always will work because people know them. There's a Neil Diamond one out now. There was Tina Turner, there was Cher. And you're going to see more and more of those Mamma Mia, which was just the songs with a different story.

Right? But they're they're easily tapped into bowl. I always say that you can easily tap into them. Right. What I want to say, because you already know something about them, which is the music, and I think that's a shorthand that they don't have to tell other parts of the story because you just assume that's their. Yeah, though, I don't know, it's weird, but if there's a story or a moral or a caution to be added to this, it's a don't believe them.

When you see a screen biography, don't believe them. They're very entertaining, but they aren't necessarily the true story.

Absolutely. That's a good point to to end this episode. Thank you again, Bruce, for that interview.

When Brad Pitt plays me in the movie version of the podcast, you know that it's going to have a different ending.

Absolutely. Yep. And again, you know, just want to point out one last time, no animals were harmed in the recording of this podcast yet. We're all yet going to have a cat wander in here in a second.

No, no, no. I know.

That's all right, everyone. Thank you again. Come back again next week for another episode of Stream. The screen.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What are you passionate about?

For Jim Capobianco, who has a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination from 'Ratatouille' to his credit, his new animated film "The Inventor" was a passion project.

The film was a passion project as well for composer Alex Mandel, who was able to include his daughter Sequoia on a track in the film.

Co-host Bruce Miller shares a story about his own passion projects and then dives into the new animated film about Leonardo da Vinci (not Leonardo DiCaprio), which utilizes both traditional 2-D hand drawn animation as well as brings to life stop motion puppets.

Miller has interviews with both Capobianco and Mandel, who discuss why the film was so personal. "The Inventor" opens Sept. 15 in the U.S. and stars Stephen Fry, Marion Cotillard and Daisy Ridley.

We also look ahead to next week, when we'll discuss the recent release "Grand Turismo" and have an interview with real-life driver Jann Mardenborough, who was the inspiration for the film. Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz will discuss other movies that depict real people and how far they stray from reality.

Where to watch

"The Inventor" in theaters Sept. 15.
"Gran Turismo" in theaters now

Cast of 'The Inventor'

Stephen Fry as Leonardo da Vinci
Marion Cotillard as Louise of Savoy
Daisy Ridley as Marguerite
Matt Berry as Pope Leo X
Jim Capobianco as Cardinal of Aragon
Max Baumgarten as Il Boccador / King Charles of Spain
Ben Stranahan as Page
John Gilkey as Gravedigger John / Giuliano
Jane Osborn as Gravedigger Jane
Angelino Sandri as Francesco Melzi
Daniel Swan as King Henry the VIII

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program, shall I say. The inventor of this program, Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. You're here. You're the inventor. You are truly an inventor of this podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. And I don't want any credit for it. Okay. It's not it's not in my head. But, you know, that's it's funny how people have passion projects. Do you have a passion project? Is there anything in your mind that you say, This is something I really I want to be known for? I haven't quite gotten there yet.

I have things that I'm passionate in about in my lives, but I, I don't have a project per say that I'm sharing with the world. Okay. Okay. I, I have a couple of things in my life, okay? One is I have a movie idea in my mind that I think is going to be perfect. Perfect. But until I retire, he will not write that script because names are used.

But the other thing. There was a time when I was in, like, my mid-forties that I thought I was losing my hearing. I really I thought it's it's gone. And I had was tested and they said, yeah, you could lose your hearing. And I thought, as a journalist, I don't want to go through life without something that I could point to that would represent me, that would represent what I could do as a journalist.

And it just all came out about at a basketball game. I was sitting next to a friend at a basketball game and she said, You know, these aren't the same. High school just isn't the same anymore. I go to the games and the kids aren't here cheering. The band doesn't support the teams. It's not like we remember when we were kids.

And I thought, Well, let's just see what that was all about. And so I decided to do a look back at it. At the time, it was the class of 1977, and I decided to talk to the people who were in the class of 1977. And what was high school like back then? Was it really better? Was this something that we should have, you know, embraced and used as an example?

And so I thought, well, this'll be easy because I just go to the school and I ask them for those permanent records that they all seem to have. I went to the high school, and the high school said, We don't have anything like that. I said, You're kidding. My whole life has been built on your permanent record, and I wanted to make sure that my permanent record was was good.

She said, Oh, now we throw those out after the kids are gone, we're good. And I said, Well, do you have the graduation list? No, we don't have that either. I said, You don't have the graduation list. You've got to be kidding me. She said there might be a yearbook in the library. Go to the library if you find the yearbook there, you can take it out for a while and get some names out of that.

So I went to the library and the yearbook had been cut out of. I kid you not. People cut pictures out of it. So what I learned from this was there is no permanent record of your high school life. But I got enough names. It was a class of about three or 400, and I diligently put together this master list of all of these kids in one led to another, to another, to another, to another.

And I ended up with, I think it was more than 160 of the class of 1977 out of 300 or 400. And what I would do at night because I thought I was losing my hearing, is I would sit with a headset on and I would call members of the Class of 1977 and ask them about what was school like, What do you remember?

Was it better than. And I built this whole story about what was it really like and how does it compare to now? Because most of them were be poor would have been parents of kids in high school at the same time. And it was a fascinating thing. I was able to relive all of their high school years and find out how it affected people.

And there were people who said things like, Well, every time I drive by the school, even now, I feel this deep pit in my stomach. I hated that place. I didn't like the people there. As I learned from all of this research, people that I knew I needed to target. The valedictorian would easily be somebody the student body president was somebody.

The star basketball player. Star football player, star baseball player, star wrestler, the homecoming king and queen. I mean, I had all those ones who are like landmarks in a high school class. And I got to all of them. And then I had a group of them who were really close friends get together. And we just talked about high school.

And I'll tell you, it was a fascinating thing because I knew these people as old people and they were talking about their youth. And I learned that some people do not moved on beyond high school. High school is the be all the end all. It is the high point of their life. It was, I think, a 12 part series that I wrote.

Whatever happened to the class of 1977? And even to this day, I have people who will come to me and say, Are you going to do another class? No, I'm not. The good news is, is that my hearing came back, so I didn't feel like I needed to do anything anymore. But yet I think it represented me at my best.

And I look back on it now, and this has been quite a few years since, because I think we hit a milestone and they said, you should go back and revisit them. And I never did, but I was made an official member of the class of 1977, and I have been invited to class reunions. So there is my my chance of being able to do that.

But it was a fascinating thing. Well, in the movie business, there are those passion projects. There are things that people live to do and they don't always get the funding for it. You know, you might try something on a lower scale or a smaller scale, and then maybe somebody will say, Let's do it. Let's make that let's make the film out of this.

And that's what happened with a film that's coming out this week called The Inventor. It was a passion project of writer director Jim Capobianco, who had done a short subject about Leonardo da Vinci. He called Leonardo in 2009, I believe it was, and he wanted to expand this into something much bigger, make it a much bigger film than it ever was.

And so he got that funding, got the people, got everything behind it, and created this animated film that's a hybrid. It's part stop motion animation and it's part 2D or draw on animation. And it's him at his best, at least as he sees it. And it's a way for him to do those stories. And he says, you know, he grew up in the in the Disney what do you call it, the factory.

Disney Factory. Sure. He wrote Ratatouille in case you need to have a point of reference. And they always said, you know, do your passion projects, do the things that you most care about and you'll never go wrong because you're doing something that you have an interest in. And he is interested. Interest was in Leonardo da Vinci. He couldn't believe that this guy did all these things.

All of this kind of stuff. And yet in the later years of his life, what was it that drove him? What was the thing that kept him going? And so that's kind of the thrust of the inventor is those later years when he was in France and what he did with those things. And I mean, my God, go down the list of the stuff that Leonardo did.

Unbelievable. But then he also has to bring in others to share this kind of passion, if you will, and get those people excited about it. And so that's what he did. He had to try and build this thing like he is a Leonardo of an animated feature. This film isn't attached with Disney or one of the other big studios, right?

No, no. It's a very much independent film, which is cool to see, especially with an animated film, because animated films aren't necessarily cheap and it's takes a little bit of work to get them done. Well, and the idea that you're doing stop motion and draw an animation. When do you do which and I think I did an interview with him was hopefully a part of it here that you can listen to.

But he said that he used the stop motion, which are like, if you remember, a nightmare before Christmas. Tim Burton loves to do this using like little dolls, if you will, all of the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, any of those kinds of films were done stop motion, and you'd move them very slightly. And then when you had men shoot the frame and then you keep going and eventually it looks like the character is moving around.

But he did reality or the the real part of it in stop motion. And then the flights of fantasy that he might have as the drawn stuff. So you could see drawings come to life and what they would mean for him. You know, he worked on a flying machine and you could see the flying machine come to life.

So it's a fascinating thing. But then he also had to draw others in. And one of the ones he drew in was Alex Mandel, who is a composer who worked with him at Disney on a number of things. But he had a sharper learning curve because he did not know the whole backstory of Leonardo. Let's be honest. Do we all study Leonardo?

You want to see a cartoon about Leonardo? You've probably don't, you know. And so he had to take a lot of the information that he was given by Jim and then work from that. The interesting thing is he also realized that he could take a shift and jump out of this and he wouldn't have to have period music.

It wouldn't have to sound like it was from Leonardo's time. He could be different with all of this. Well, one of the things he did is he recorded a kind of a test song to see how well this would work when they were pitching it and he needed a singer. And so he said to his daughter, who is a singer, ten years old, record this for me.

Her name is Sequoia Mandel. And Sequoia, you know, was and she was in for the money. She thought this was good. This is a good idea. So when they kept kind of adding good, we had the pandemic. We had all these things in there. She recorded another version at 12. She recorded songs at 15. She's throughout this whole thing.

And it helped him also understand the people that they were hiring for the parts. She knew more about the actors who were being hired than Dad did, and it helped him realize what kind of their range was for the music. So it's a fascinating kind of story, and I think this is not a movie that kids might just embrace.

It's this is not the latest for a frozen, you know what I mean? But yeah, tells another story. It is something that if you're an animation fan and you're older, it's something you will appreciate because you see how these people that we now view as just untouchable geniuses that have no, you know, no relationship to us and how the thought process went for them and what they had to do to put it together.

Stephen Sondheim wrote a song for Sunday in the Park with George called Putting It Together. And that's exactly what it is. It's like, what are the little elements that create genius? And that's what you get out of this, this film? Yeah, it sounds like an interesting film, and I agree. It seems like the type of film that it's not necessarily you're going to gather up your five year olds and shuffle off to the theater, but maybe a more mature age children, teenagers and people that can appreciate different types of animation and I love animation.

I've always been drawn to things like the Tim Burton stop motion. And even as a teenager, I was really fascinated by Gumby, which, you know, that was the stop motion television program from, I guess, what, the 1960s? Probably hokey claymation. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. So that's always been fun. So I think this is the type of film that would be really interesting to check out and see.

I'm trying to think like what kind of music would be of the time of Leonardo DiCaprio. Probably a lot of movie. See your make or allow. Well, the music of Leonardo DiCaprio would be very familiar to Taylor Swift. I think she's in the film. But yeah, with Vinci. Yeah, With Da Vinci, you would think, well, there's probably some lutes and liars and all that kind of stuff.

And you didn't write that. Is that what it is? I don't know. But if you can be a little more modern with some of it, it might be a little way of telegraphing what he is thinking or how he is thinking. You know, how do you how do you stay ahead of the curve and not below the curve?

Because most of us are B, below the curve, you know, So what do we want to do? First, we want to go to the interview with Jim Cappa Bianco, if you'd like. Yeah, that'd be a great one. And you'll hear him talk about, you know, his creative time and what he learned from all of this. You'll explain the process a little better than I could.

But if you will grab a snippet from that. And I think that should should give you a sense of of the film. How do you get obsessed with Leonardo DiCaprio? Leonardo DiCaprio now and I'm totally obsessed with, you know, Da Vinci. What is the deal? I think like a lot of artists, you know, you get to know about Leonardo da Vinci in some form.

But then I made the short film. I started researching him for that, and then I just started to see him more as a human being than just a genius. And that kind of aspect of him. I wanted to sort of explore further in the feature. So, you know, that's what kind of drew me to him more, you know, And obviously he's such an interesting character person, you know, with all his interests and everything.

So that just, you know, to be and bring him down to a kind of a more human level was really what's always driven me about him. But then don't people say, wait a minute here, people may not want to go to see something like this, you know? Well, I don't know. I guess I don't maybe the people trying you know, we were trying to get money from and to raise funds for a thought that way.

But I can I just want you know, I'm just going to try to tell the story I kind of want to tell. So I didn't worry about that too much. I mean, I was always in the back of my mind, Would people really want to see the sort of kids and stuff? So but, you know, as a film, as I developed it that I wanted to see, and that's how we always develop stuff at Pixar and Disney.

So it was always like, you know, what's the film that I as a kid inside of me and the adult would want to see in animation. So that's getting out the way you wanted it to, to be. Did it become the vision that you had way back when was beyond my vision? It's just, you know, I think the team we had to get it, we brought together just brought so much magic to the film and I couldn't ask for a better group of artists to work with.

And yeah, I don't think I ever, in addition to what we turned out, we created, it's just amazing. So how do you decide what's going to be stop motion animation and what's going to be drawn anime? I mean, to me that was very fascinating to see how it, you know, it would separate and then it would be this would be that.

How do you make those decisions? Well, as we did well, as I developed it, I started to see the stop motion as the kind of the reality, real world of the world, and then the drawn animation as sort of Leonardo's flights of fancy, or it was more free because the two techniques stop motion has you are rigid in the sense that you can only animate what you've planned because you have to build an armature and it can only do certain movements and you know it can walk.

And it's not like arms if it's going to do some sort of fantastic movement. That animation can do it. You'd have to plan for that. And they are usually built that way. You have gravity, you have a lot of things you have to worry about. But with 2D drawing animation, whatever you can draw, you can pretty much depict.

So it is a much more fluid form of animation. It's freer, it has this sort of sense of lightness to it. So to me that was like Leonardo, you go into Leonardo's brain, you go into his thoughts. That would be 2D animation. When we're in the real world, it would be stop motion animation. Okay, well, is it easier to do one or the other?

People think stop motion is much harder, but I think it's just where you have to put the planning for it or where it the difficulties lie. Like stop motion, you build a puppet. The a lot of the work is in the building of everything and assembling and like working out the costumes, working out how they armatures will be built.

And then once you have the puppets and you animated, that's what you have. I mean, you have it's like a live action shoot and you shoot it and you have that footage, right? It's done with 2D drawing animation. You have the difficulty. There's planning and designing it, but once you animate it, there's other follow on technique. Tasks that have to be done has to be colored, maybe cleaned up because the animators generally draw a rough.

And then there's another artist that cleans it up and stuff. But also you have to deal with each animator might draw the character slightly differently and you need to kind of reign that in and adjust. They're always a little off. I mean, I think if you really go through the film and really analyze it, you'll see the Leonardo's and the 2D change sizes.

Oh, I don't get, I don't get that that mean about it. That could really slow motion. You build this puppet that's it you cannot vary it. Each artist that touches it's going to be the same. So they have their you know, they're both it's animation. Animation is the nuttiest crazy anything going to happen. Right. Right. That anything can happen with animation.

That's right. That's true. Squish and squish. Come on. When you were doing using his his artwork, what did you see that he could have been an animator at some point. I mean, they always thought that actually, you know, you see how he studied motion. He did a lot of studies about how people move or animals move. And you see he does different.

There's these drawings he did of construction workers and you see them in different poses of working and they look like animators, you know, sketches that we would do. We study anatomy and we look at people walking around the street and we do fill our sketchbooks with these actions, you know, and obviously studied anatomy. So he's learning about how the body moves.

And and so, yeah, I've always thought if he if animation was a thing back then, he might have tried animation. I don't think it would be the only thing you do because the guy is always changing his ideas. Well, to me, that's so remarkable that there are all these things he had his hand in and it could you imagine yourself?

I mean. Sure. Yeah. You have a lot of interest in a lot of different things, but he was like at the top of his game with so many of those things. Yeah. No, I don't see myself that way, though. Where do you find the human element to Leonardo? Well, I find it in that he, you know, he had to have a patron.

He had to have somebody who paid him money, but he had these other dreams he wanted to do, which I think a lot of us do. You know, you have to make a living, but you also want to do other things that you find more enjoyable or explore, you know? And then also, he had a lot of fear of like how he would be except did in his world.

And I think that's true of most a lot of people today. He wanted you know, he wanted recognition for what he did and what he could do and that he didn't always receive that, you know. So I think there's a lot of humanity. And then ultimately the story is about legacy and what you leave behind. And I think that to me speaks to a lot of what I would imagine.

I hope people think about, you know, how we touch other people and affect their lives and stuff. So to me that those are the human elements that I really wanted to touch on, you know, and also the curiosity, I mean, the curiosity and all these other things. So how do we start casting the voices? I mean, you had the voices in your mind.

You said this would be perfect for so-and-so or is it just I mean, that to me it's it's an international cast. Yeah. And we really came about I developed the character first and was the story and then and now is still developing the story. But then I was like, okay, who could voice Leonardo? And then, I mean, the only person I could really think of was Stephen Fry, just because he's such a polymath himself and he didn't want the like we were being voice of a Gandalf.

I really wanted like this lighter voice with wit and intelligence. And to me, Stephen was that perfect casting. And even when recording him, he would correct my use of words and then give me ology and that word like, you know, so much fun. So and then Marguerite sing Daisy Ridley and the Disney are the Star Wars films at Disney.

But, uh, he, yeah, she, she just had a nice a power in her voice and also a kind of vulnerability in there as well. And I thought that was perfect for Marguerite. I didn't know I would ever be able to cast her, but I was like, okay, that's the character in some ways, that voice inside Marguerite. And then, you know, you go, Okay, who do you want?

You know, the producers. Like, okay, who should we cast for Marguerite? I'm like, Why is it Daisy? Ridley would be great? And we're like, Well, it's you. We can get these, really. And then you also make a list. You're like, Oh, and so on. So and so. But she was at the top. I really wanted Daisy and then, you know, and she accepted to do it too.

And Marion Cotillard was like suggested actually by the French studio. We're still looking for Louise's voice. And they said we might be able to get Marion Cotillard. And you're like, Well, you know, hey, I guess we could use her. Yeah, maybe. But, you know, the one interesting thing with her is, you know, we have these songs in the film and we actually that was the last song we made because that she sings because we didn't have one for her.

And then I told Alex, the composer, I said, Alex, we have Marion Cotillard in the film. She's the one person everyone knows can sing and we don't have a song for her. So we reworked the story a little bit to put in the UN Guard song on Guard L.A. and it just was like the perfect thing because it connected to the dueling in the earlier part, right?

And like that. And so that's how the film would work and evolve. It's like, Well, we need this here. And it's like, Oh, we have to check connected there and thanks, Bruce, for that interview. Real fascinating stuff. And now you do have one other interview and that would be Alex Mandel. And you'll hear him talk, too, about working with his daughter and you'll hear about those who can't sing because, you know, they don't always put singers in these animated films.

In fact, many of the Disney films, they would have a singing voice and then they would also have a speaking voice. So Aladdin, spoiler alert, The singing voice of Aladdin is not the talking voice of a that and that's that's not uncommon. It's often the practice. But you'll hear him talk about some of the actors who are in the film and their abilities with singing Fill Me In.

Where do you start with something like this? This seems like, Man, how do I a paid tribute to somebody like Leonardo? And then what? Where do I begin with the sound of it. Yeah, well, I mean, Jim Capobianco, the writer and director, has been studying Leonardo for years. He had done a film about narrative energy back in, I think, 2009.

And so I was trying to catch up, but really relied on Jim to say, this is the part of Leonardo da Vinci he was interested in, which is his last year, where he left Italy as a older man, went to France and never came back. And so this is him really dealing with the end of his life and the meaning of life and his mortality and what he can leave behind for future generations, which he did.

And so, yeah, that was the storyline. And so then the question is, well, how do we tell that story? But do you started researching music of the Times and saying it's got to sound authentic to that period? Or do you say, Well, now here's my chance to be an inventor and I can go off the tracks? Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of his time, right?

He was designing flying machines 500 years or 400 years before the Wright brothers created an airplane. So that gave us some leeway because I could have music that sounded more of the time for, say, the King's Court. But then from Leonardo, it was ahead of its time, you know, And so this the music becomes a kind of metaphor for the mindset of that character.

So Leonardo and Marguerite, some of their music sounds like it's 150 years ahead of its time. Some of it sounds like it's modern. Whenever their ideas jump forward to our way of thinking, the music becomes more modern to reflect their their thinking. Okay, so then when you're dealing with the voices and maybe a voice isn't that good at singing, and I'm not trying to name names now he's being called out here, but do you write for them or do you write the songs?

And then you say, okay, well, I guess you can talk through this one. Yeah. And it's there's interesting story there. Stephen Fry, who's a brilliant writer. Not that I'm naming names. Okay. Oh, no, I. And he would be the first to agree. He said, I'm really not comfortable singing. But Jim, Jim's idea was to have him speaking. But even so, there is I don't know if you've seen the film.

There's a scene where Leonardo arrives in France and he builds his workshop. The walls come up and as he names things, they magically appear in stop motion. And that was a very fast, almost like wrap that. Stephen Fry Right, right. It just took a while. He was very worried, but it turned. He did a great job. It turned out great.

Daisy Ridley You know, my daughter said, Dad, you know, here she is singing with Barbra Streisand. And I listened to her voice and I thought, okay, I think I get a feel for her range. She's got a great voice. I'll write the song to suit her voice. And same with Marion Cotillard, beautiful voice. She's recorded a lot. So I had a pretty good idea of what her range was, and I could keep that in mind as I composed songs for her.

So then how long do you have to write these songs? Because here's like nine songs you've got or something? It's nine songs. Yeah. It's it's funny because at the end there, I wrote a bunch pretty fast. The reason was I think Jim saw, Oh, these songs are helping to tell this story, so maybe Daisy needs a song, maybe Marguerite needs a song.

I pitched the idea. I said, We got to get Marion Cotillard to sing it song. She's a great singer. And also I want to learn more about the Queen. Like, what did she want? And because she's a secondary character, you know, you don't have that much time. So the song really summarizes a lot about her in a very quick way.

And that song was written quite quickly, and the fastest song was when Stephen said he really said, I cannot sing at all. So there's a scene where he's talking to Mona Lisa, and we had 45 minutes to rewrite the song, and I suggested Jim, What if Mona Lisa sings the chorus back to him? So he laments his situation, I'm finished and Mona Lisa sings to him.

Yeah, you are. We're out of time. You're done. So sometimes you've got years and sometimes you've got 45 minutes. Okay, there's. There's a credit. That is it. Sequoia. Is that a relative? Sequoia is my daughter. Okay, But then from 10 to 15 or something, what is the deal with that? So we've been working on this movie for a long time.

When Jim asked for that first song, I had my ten year old daughter Sequoia sing it, and then it was cute. She had a very cute voice and it's just adorable. We actually had a singer when she was 12. That's the version that's in the movie. But then Jim said, Oh, I want the girls all for girls to be sing for our harmonies.

So I recorded her when she was 15 too. So we have my daughter Sequoia, singing different songs. And I said, Yeah, and which is again, really fits the theme of the movie, which is about family, and it's about, you know, legacy and sharing ideas with each other through the generations. So it worked really nicely. So what does she think about this?

I think she's she's into it. I think know, she's an aspiring actress, so she wants to be judged on her own merits, which I appreciate. But as far as I'm concerned, she did me a huge favor. And it you know, she's singing a duet with Daisy Ridley. So that's pretty cool. I think she's does she get all these, like, chicks then for each age?

I'd be holding out for that. Can I be her agent? It'd be a cool thing. Thankfully not. No, I. We basically said we're going to put aside a fun for her. There's a certain amount of money that will be set aside for her, and we've handled that within the family. Why did you stick with this so long? What was it?

What was the pole for you? Well, I really believe in Jim Capobianco’s vision. I think he's a true artist. I think that this is it's a work of art. I mean, and, Jim, his passion is contagious. And also, I got to have a lot of creative input, you know? And so Jim would hear me out. He didn't always take my suggestions, but sometimes he did.

And so I felt like I was very much a part of the movie. And I, I wanted to see it succeed. So, you know, some some projects you do, you know, to pay the rent and some you do for passion. And this is a passion project. You must tell your daughter, I want to be your agent, because I think I think you've got a good partnership going on here, I think would be great.

And I would make sure we got more than one check. You know, I'll let you know. I'll get you the list. People keep asking me this and and but she will be she she's happy. She got a very good compensation package. But thank you, Bruce. Thanks for that other interview. And it just to kind of fill folks in on this film as well.

It does have some heavyweights of sorts in this isn't just like it's a smaller, no more independent film, but but we've got Daisy Ridley from the Star Wars Rebels. He's in it. Matt Berry is in it. Stephen Fry is Leonardo Da Vinci. I was going to say. DiCaprio You see, that is your ball. It is like it's not easy.

But yes, there's on demand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So some pretty well-known actors in there. So it should be an interesting one to check out when you put it out there that this is a passion project. People come because they know you're not going to just blow it off and it's going to be a two second kind of thing.

It's going to be something that really gets the attention and the the care and the feeding of it that it needs. And, you know, when it's over, what's next? What's what exactly comes after that. Yeah. And you know, what's fun about this episode, Bruce, is our concerns were a little bit alleviated because we know you can't get actors right now to talk about it right during the strike.

They can't talk to promote their stuff, but you're able to get the composer the film in and the director. So they, you know, we're still we're still bringing them in. Dare to dream we could get a hairdresser. That's right. They could. You never know. It could happen. It could F and costume designer. Yes, Yes. Well, I love all of those big ones, you know, but that gives you a sense of what the other parts of the industry are and that it isn't just about an actor strike or a restaurant strike.

There's a lot more involved with all of this. So, yeah, it's fascinating. And I love hearing their stories because I don't know that I could be that passionate about it. Yeah, absolutely. So what do we have coming up? Anything of interest on your end? Here's the other thing. I this is another kind of spin off of all of that is movies based on people's lives.

And I think next week we're going to look at films that were based on Saw The Blind Side, where Michael was saying, you know, that wasn't true. They used me. How true are these based in truth films and how really can we trust them? And I did get a chance to talk to the real guy behind Gran Turismo, and you'll get a chance to meet Jann Mardenborough and find out his story.

But next week, we're going to look at we're going to look at that whole world of this is based on a true story or parts of this are based on a true story or some of this could be true, you know, but I think we'll look at that. So think of the films you've seen and you go, you know what?

I don't know how close that is. You know, it's an interesting one. And we'll probably talk a little bit more about this one next week. But I started watching the second season of Winning Time on HBO, the one that follows the lake, the rise of the L.A. Lakers. Right. And we talked a little bit about this a few episodes ago, but how there were some criticisms of it perhaps not necessarily being as truthful to reality in the first episode comes on and they put up a disclaimer saying that some of the some of the things here in this show may have been changed for dramatic purposes.

Some characters might have been fudged a little bit. So yeah, I kind of found that one interesting. It's amazing they use those lines well, they get them off the hook, but Right. How they reword that all the time, you know, based on a true story, based in fact, this is a factual ized version of true events. I mean, where did they come up with this crap to to identify it?

But I think it would be fun. And we talked to John and he tells you what it's like and how he thought the movie went awesome. All right. Well, that sounds good and it gives us something to look forward to next week. I know you sent me the interview already had that one kind of squirreled away that night?

Yes, in the bag. And I started I gave it a little bit of a sneak preview. I'll give give a final listen between now and when we speak again. But yeah, until next week. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Strangers Green. Remember your passion.

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Jon Hamm is back, this time joining two different programs — "The Morning Show" and "Fargo" — as is the reboot of "Frasier," which brings star Kelsey Grammer back to Boston, where the character was introduced to us during the third season of "Cheers" nearly 40 years ago.

There are also a number of reality series and game shows, another animated program on Fox that was in production well before the writers strike, foreign productions and remakes.

Ultimately, it's a mixed bag that Bruce Miller runs through with his co-host Terry Lipshetz. The two also dive into favorite programs that 12-year-old Bruce and Terry liked to watch.

Upcoming shows to watch with approximate dates:

THE CHANGELING (AppleTV+ Sept. 8) — Based on Victor LaValle’s bestseller, this creepy drama goes back and forth in time to tell the story of a family that may (or may not) have done the right thing. LaValle narrates; LaKeith Stanfield stars as man looking for wife and son in a not-too-friendly New York City. Twists and turns exist on every corner.
THE WALKING DEAD: DARYL DIXON (AMC, Sept. 10) — Ready for another “Walking Dead” series? This is the sixth and it focuses on Norman Reedus’ character, Daryl. He washes ashore in France, but doesn’t know how he got there. Working his way back home, he encounters people who could make his goal more than a little difficult. Clemence Poesy, Adam Nagaitis co-star.
THE SWARM (The CW, Sept. 12) — With U.S. production companies on hold until the strikes are over, networks are looking elsewhere for content. This German production looks at what happens when humans have to battle some underwater force that’s determined to take over. It’s based on Frank Schatzing’s bestselling novel.
THE MORNING SHOW (AppleTV+, Sept. 13) — Jon Hamm joins the ensemble cast that inclues Jennifer Aniston and Reese WItherspoon for the third season of the show that follows a morning network news program.
THE OTHER BLACK GIRL (Hulu, Sept. 13) — An editorial assistant (played by Sinclair Daniel) has trouble navigating the waters as the only Black employee at her company. When another is hired, she discovers something wicked this way comes. Ashleigh Murray, Eric McCormack co-star.
WRESTLERS (Netflix, Sept. 13) — If you loved “Cheer,” you’ll probably find plenty to applaud in this docu-series. Following members of the Ohio Valley wrestling team in Louisville, Kentucky, the seven-part venture shows how the gym produced big names (John Cena, Dave Bautista among them) but now struggles to keep the doors open.
BUDDY GAMES (CBS, Sept. 14) — Josh Duhamel turned his real-life vacations into a film (also called “Buddy Games”) and now interprets it as a competition series. Six teams of friends compete in a series of games designed to see who’s best.
WILDERNESS (Amazon Prime Video, Sept. 15) — When Liv learns her husband has been having an affair, she agrees to a road trip that could repair their relationship. Unfortunately, plenty happens that makes her question the move. Jenna Coleman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen play the couple.
NEIGHBOURS (Amazon Freevee, Sept. 18) — The Australian soap (which ran for decades) ended in 2022 but that didn’t stop the antics from continuing. Reviving the ventures on Ramsay Street, this edition picks up two years after the finale. Mischa Barton is among the new residents.
THE SUPER MODELS (AppleTV+, Sept. 20) — They aren’t just on the cover of Vogue. Supermodels Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista are the subjects of this four-part documentary about their hold on the world of modeling.
THE CONTINENTAL: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK (Peacock, Sept. 22) — How did that hotel become a hotbed for assassins? That’s the focus of this drama set in the John Wick universe. Winston Scott (Colin Woodell) serves as the tour guide through the hotels he later comes to own. Ian McShane, you may remember, plays the character in the “John Wick” movies. Also in the cast: Mel Gibson as the man who runs the New York Continental in the 1970s.
STILL UP (AppleTV+, Sept. 22) — Can’t sleep? Don’t worry. There’s a whole world that exists after most people go to bed. Antonia Thomas and Craig Roberts play two who bond over the phone.
KRAPOPOLIS (Fox, Sept. 24) — Hannah Waddingham turns in her “Ted Lasso” wardrobe for a shot at life as the goddess of self-destruction. With her family of humans, gods and monsters (it’s set in Ancient Greece), she’s forced to answer to her son, Tyrannis, the benevolent king of Krapopolis. Created by Dan Harmon, the animated venture brings to life all sorts of mythological characters.
THE IRRATIONAL (NBC, Sept. 25) — Jesse L. Martin plays a professor of behavioral science who agrees to handle high-level government cases. Based on Dan Ariely’s book, “Predictably Irrational,” it gives Martin another shot at crime-solving.
LOVE IN FAIRHOPE (Sept. 27, Hulu) — What goes on in a small Alabama town? Get the cameras. This docuseries looks at five generations in Fairhope. Reese Witherspoon is an executive producer.
THE GOLDEN BACHELOR (Sept. 28, ABC) — Old guys get their moment. Gerry Turner, a 71-year-old widower, gets to play the game, roses and all. Jesse Palmer hosts.
GEN V (Sept. 29, Amazon Prime Video) — Just when you thought superheroes were in trouble (thank you, “The Boys”), the franchise expands to college where kids with super powers have to decide what team they’re on. Expect a lot of flipflopping.
FOUND (Oct. 3, NBC) — More than 600,000 people go missing each year. A public relations whiz and her team try to figure out why. Shanola Hampton, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Kelli Williams star.
THE SPENCER SISTERS (Oct. 4, The CW) — A mom and daughter (who are mistakenly viewed as sisters) solve mysteries. Lea Thompson and Stacey Farber star. Imported from Canada.
SULLIVAN’S CROSSING (Oct. 4, The CW) — Maggie Sullivan, a neurosurgeon, moves home and reunites with her dad. Chad Michael Murray, Morgan Kohan and Scott Patterson star. Another Canadian import.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (Oct. 12, Netflix) — Edgar Allan Poe’s work is updated and given a pharmaceutical spin. Bruce Greenwood, Mary McDonnell, Carla Gugino and Mark Hamill are in the house.
HOUSE OF VILLAINS (Oct. 12, E! And other related channels) — Reality show villains compete for $200,000 and the title “America’s Ultimate Supervillain.” No wonder there was so much trouble last year on “Vanderpump Rules.”
FRASIER (Oct. 12, Paramount+) — That head shrinker (played by Kelsey Grammer) tosses the salad again and moves back to Boston (which means no Niles). There he deals with other family members, Lilith and Roz.
LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY (Oct. 13, AppleTV+) — The page turner that became a 2022 bestseller is adapted for television. Brie Larson stars as a scientist who hosts a TV show when she’s dumped from the university that could have ridden her coattails to the top. Lewis Pullman, Patrick Walker and Aja Naomi King also star.
LIVING FOR THE DEAD (Oct. 18, Hulu) — Five gay ghost hunters go across the country looking for ghosts in order to help survivors. They go to noted haunted locations and play their own “Queer Eye” games. It’s narrated by Kristen Stewart.
FELLOW TRAVELERS (Oct. 27, Paramount+) — Two men attempt a relationship during the 20th century, when Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn declared war on “subversives and sexual deviants.” The thriller stars Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer.
LOVE ISLAND GAMES (Nov. 1, Peacock) — Another “Love Island” competition.
ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE (Nov. 2, Netflix) — This four-part series looks at blind girl and her father who flee German-occupied Paris with a diamond that could fall into the hands of Nazis. Louis Hofmann, Aria Mia Loberti and Mark Ruffalo star.
THE BUCCANEERS (Nov. 8, AppleTV+) — A group of American girls in the 1870s look for husbands in London. It’s inspired by Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel.
A MURDER AT THE END OF THE WORLD (Nov. 14, FX) — Murder, they wrote. A billionaire invites a Gen Z sleuth and tech-savvy hacker and other guests to a retreat. When one winds up dead, the others go on the hunt. Emma Corrin, Joan Chen, Raul Esparza star.
SCOTT PILGRIM TAKES OFF (Nov. 17, Netflix) — “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” didn’t work when it was first released but then became a cult fave. In this animated adaptation Scott must take on the exes of a girl he loves. Many of the original cast members return to bring the story to life.
BOOKIE (November, Max) — A bookie tries to make it in a world of legalized sports gambling in Los Angeles.
MONARCH: LEGACY OF MONSTERS (November, AppleTV+) — Monsters thrive in this sci-fi drama from the folks behind the recent “Godzilla” films. Kurt Russell and son Wyatt star.
FARAWAY DOWNS (November, Hulu) — Baz Luhrmann’s film “Australia” is augmented with unused footage and a new ending. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman still star.
FARGO (Nov. 21, FX) — In season five, its 2019 in Minnesota and North Dakota. A Midwestern housewife (Juno Temple) is thrust into a life she thought she had left behind. On her trail: A sheriff (Jon Hamm) who sees himself as the law and above the law.

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Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, it's still like 90 degrees outside all over this country, but it's we're getting ready for fall the fall season.

Time to break up the leaves, the pumpkin spice time. Oh, yeah. Pumpkin, I hate pumpkin spice. Oh, don't I? I hate it. Yeah, I'm with that. I just. We're throwing that out there. But that's what they sell this time of year is was the time of year that 12 year old Bruce would be making a list of all the new TV shows, making sure he got the TV guide that had all of the features about all of them planning and and trying to make sure that the fall TV's schedule was going to be perfect for the next year.

Well, now, old Bruce says, is there even a fall TV season anymore? Because we've got two strikes going on and most of the broadcast networks are not introducing any new series because they want to save them in case they need them for content, for next year. So it's it's kind of a mixed bag, I got to tell you.

But I do have some conclusions that I've drawn from looking at all of their like, maybe 30 some 40 shows that they've got on the books. Jon Hamm is the king of fall TV. Is Jon Amis in the new season of the morning show on Apple TV? And he is the lead character in the new version of Fargo.

Oh, Fargo's back. You're going to get a double ham. Oh, I have a ham sandwich, if you will. Now it's his cup, but yeah, he's pretty big. And then another thing I noticed was there are a lot of series coming from other countries. The swarm. Are you familiar with this swarm? No. No, I don't think so. That bee film that I think was it Michael Caine was in or on or one of those ones way back in the old days.

No, it's about water over the swarm of something under the water. That is going to really bell against the humans that are not keeping the water clean. It's based on a best seller from Germany, and it was a huge international production. They spent more money than Germany has ever spent on a series, and it's a cast of people from just about every country you can find.

So part of it's set in Vancouver, part of it said in Germany, part of it's in Peru. It's all over and it's going to be on the CW. So that's that's coming up this next week. It's one of the first ones that will premiere. And I got to tell you, I think what they've done is they edited some of the R-rated content for broadcast networks because there's a point where that you know, that they're saying a word that probably starts with four letters.

Mm hmm. And they blur out the big lips and then the eye that stays overnight at some woman's house. And you see them walking through. But you don't know if he's naked, but it sure looks like he's naked and it looks like they re-edited it to cut it looked a little a little more presentable. So it's interesting. You don't get the real kind of jump, the thrill that you're looking for, the jaws kind of moment until the end of the first episode.

And then you see that killer whales are out to get you out. So that's that's one of the first ones that you'll see. That's kind of fascinating. Is it in English? Yeah. Oh, they they wanted to make sure it was an international production. So they're all in English haltingly in some cases. But yeah, but it's all done in English.

Neighbors is going to be on Amazon freebie and it's a revival of the Australian series was a soap opera that ran for decades. And then Canada is providing two things for the CW dispenser Sisters and Sullivan's Crossing, and those sounds suspiciously like series we've already seen on The CW. But they're back. Leah Thompson's in one of them, Chad.

Michael Murray is on another one. They were, you know, popular in other times. So they're they're grabbing what they can find to provide content. And then you're seeing a lot of game shows of some sort or another. They're the golden bachelor. You've heard about that. I'm sure you've seen the ads for them. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The guy, he's 70 something who who's looking for love.

And you think, Wow. Who is advertising during this show? Peacock has Love Island Games, which is another Love Island series. But they're playing games, so then they don't have to have a script or anything like that. And then a really fascinating one, I think, is about the villains from reality TV shows. Now, here's a way for them to get all those Vanderpump Rules people out and into another marketplace House of Villains.

It's called in Joel McHale. McHale is hosting that. So those are the kinds of things you're seeing on those those networks. You see what I mean? Yeah, we don't have writers. Yeah. So we're going to do whatever we can there will, or we're going to call it a documentary. That's another kind of a way of dealing with things.

Fox has crap Apple is crap. Apple is this is a man and saw that. Yeah. They put into production quite a bit ago and it's about Greek gods and how they sit around and complain a lot. Hannah Waddingham from Ted Lasso is one of the voices. So, yeah, you know, that's an interesting thing. The boys, if you know the boys from Amazon.

They have a spinoff called Gen B and it's a new a new era of super heroes, super villains. It's much like the X-Men where they go to school to learn how to be. What kind of superhero are you going to be? And, you know, okay, we'll see what happens. NBC has a couple of series that are real series.

The Irrational, starring Jesse Martin, who is on Law and Order. It has him doing more kind of looking into cases and stuff. But the one that I thought was kind of interesting was called Found. And it's about a group of people looking for missing people. One who leads the team was missing herself at one point. And so they try to figure out where is all of this Mark-Paul gosselaar from NYPD Blue.

And then, of course, you know, saved by the Bell is one of the people looking for help. And now what movies have sponsored some kind of content in some fashion. John Wick is coming to television as a prequel. It's called The Continental, and it's about the character that Ian McShane played and how he became like the head of the New York Hotel.

If that makes anything that Scott Pilgrim saves the world has given birth to. Scott Pilgrim takes off. And this is an animated version of Scott Pilgrim versus the rest of the world or whomever or whatever it was. And then documentaries. Do you remember cheer? Did you watch Cheer at all on Netflix? I know. I know it. I. It's about maybe an episode or two.

It wasn't something that really captured. It's not for me kind of thing. It's about a college cheer team. And it was all right. Was it Louisville? Was Texas or Texas? Yeah. They did two seasons of this. It was quite well-received. It won the Emmy for best Documentary series. But now those people have done their own version of another look at people.

And it's called wrestlers. And it's about this place where they train basically all star wrestlers. John Cena was trained at this place. The Miz was trained at this place. And so it's done like it's a documentary and it's done, I think, pretty well for the circumstances and what the situation was. The people behind Cheer really know how to get in there and tell stories with with a crowd.

And then there are some kind of fascinating ones. The one I'm most looking forward to is lessons in chemistry. And I don't know if you've heard of this book, Lessons in Chemistry is was a bestseller was Barnes Noble's favorite book of the last year and it's about a woman in the fifties who is a scientist and wants to really push that career.

And of course, there are men that are keeping her from moving up in that world. So she creates a TV show, a cooking show that uses science to help her through everything, and then talk to the audience about this. And then you see her story play out. The book is wonderful. If you ever get a chance to read the book, please do, because it's fascinating.

Brie Larson stars in that and Bill Pullman son is in it as well. So there are some good things in there that you might want to take note of. Another one to look for is fellow travelers with Matt Bomer, and it's set during the time of Roy Cohn and all of that kind of and Joe McCarthy when they were out to get a lot of people.

Well, these are two two gentlemen in the government service who are trying to hold a relationship, if you will, a gay relationship during a time when they've been targeted by their own government. And so it's kind of fascinating how they will bring in real history and then comment on it from another another perspective. Okay. I'm Josh Duhamel. Did a movie called Buddy Games, and it was about how these friends kind of did goofy games out in the open during a weekend.

Well, guess what? Now, you two can be part of the buddy games. And so they're creating teams of people to compete with one another, to be the best buddy game players. What would a buddy game entail? Well, it'd be like stupid things. It's very much not unlike Survivor. Okay. But it might be like, I don't know, pushing a a beer egg somewhere around the outside, you know?

I mean, just dumb kind of dumb for sure. That's what it is. That's when you get a bunch of guys together and there might be alcohol involved. And it definitely is. And the airing each other, they're just daring each other to do whatever. If you were a were you a fan of Walking Dead? No, I it's one of those that just I wanted to watch it and I just never got into it.

Well, guess what? Now you can start it again because it be doing the it kind of a spinoff series, if you will, called The Walking Dead. Daryl Dixon and this is Norman Reedus is character. And so then they focus on Yemen and finds how he works his way back home. So that's interesting. Hulu has the other black girl.

It's about the only black employee at an editorial company. And then another black woman comes in to the company and how they both discover that there are some maybe not so aboveboard things happening at their company. Wilderness This is from Amazon Prime. Okay. A couple story about a husband and wife who go on a road trip. Now, does this sound now or it's just like you write going on vacation?

Yep. He discovers that he has been fooling around. Now, now we've. We've lost your right. And maybe she's. She's thinking he might want to get rid of her on this trip and get rid of her, not just leave her at a rest area. No, it's like where suddenly she falls off a cliff. No accident. Oh, no. What happened here?

So that could be fascinating, but I don't know how it would last more than a year. You know, at what point does divorce come into this? I think that would be great. Let's take another side. Let's take another summer vacation, honey. After the first time fails again, and this time we're going to be locking all the doors in the car and turning on the the the car in the garage.

This could be fun. Supermodels. It's a documentary about the four big supermodels. Do you know who the four are like of all time? Like Christie Brinkley. And it's true. Brinkley is not one of them. Kathy Ireland. Elle. Oh, boy. Elle MacPherson. No, Come on. There's one that you are, of course, with Kate Upton. No, I don't know. Mary.

Cindy Crawford. Oh, we're going back in time. Well, yeah, because this is like, all time, right? I mean, you know, I'm not bringing out Carol Meryl from Let's make a Deal. But there you go. Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and Naomi Campbell. And it's a documentary about how they became these supermodels. It wasn't just they weren't just, you know, model models.

They were the real thing. Can you sleep at night? And I know I'm an insomniac. Then you will love. Still up. It's at sleep at night. And they meet and bond over the phone. They talk about what's keeping them up at night. So who knows? Love Bear. Hope this is a Hulu series. That's a reality show, or as they call it, a docu series that shows you what life is like in hope and how kind of deeper is deeper than you think.

There's more going on in that town than you think. You know, last night I watched Roger and me. You remember Roger and me? Yeah. I'm trying to think if I. I know the I know it, but I. Michael Moore did a documentary about Flint, Michigan, and how that town. Yep. Yep. Falling apart at the seams. Right. You need to go back and find out what happened.

And they got the water cleaned up in Flint. But it was. It's very fascinating how he kind of kicked off a lot of this by just showing people doing whatever or talking to people about things that, you know, you never really realized. You never if you didn't put one and one together, you wouldn't get the answer that you're looking for.

Now, you can see if you look back at Roger and me, how he has goosed the story a bit and how. Yeah, like trying to get the reaction he got. But that's what we're seeing with these reality shows. That's why something like Vanderpump Rules has this kind of. Well, let's just throw a little gasoline on this fire and see what happens.

And that's what they do with these reality shows, is try to get a reaction out of somebody that maybe, you know, we didn't see it before or after. Okay. The fall of the House of Usher. Do you remember that Edgar Allan Poe story? I think I remember seeing it as a movie in the sixties with, like, Vincent Price.

Okay. All the House of Usher. Well, they've taken because, of course, when you have this copy, it's free, right? Sure. Yeah. Anything that's already out of its copyright. Instead, it in the pharmaceutical industry and shows how this is how they're going to bring it down for the House of Usher. That's going to work. And that'll start in October.

Frazier. Frazier is coming back. Yeah, Yeah, I saw that. Now I've got a question about that. But go ahead and set it up. Well, Frazier moves. Frazier is not going to be on the West Coast. He's going back to Boston. And very as he doesn't have, Niles isn't with him anymore. But he does get Lilith in there and he does have Roz visiting him.

And then he also has a son in there. If you may remember, they had a son. Right. And he becomes a player in the whole story, too. And there are some touchstones when you look at it, you'll say, Oh, yeah, I remember that from Frasier, but it's Kelsey Grammer. Kelsey just decided to reboot the thing that's on Paramount Plus.

So here's I saw a trailer for it about a week or so ago, and in one of the scenes, it shows Frasier kind of like hanging out at a bar. And it wasn't Cheers. So he appears just kind of the odd thing. Like obviously, Frasier, it's a spinoff of Cheers. And obviously during Frasier, there were a few moments where some of the main characters made appearances on Frasier because they went out to visit or Frasier went back to Boston.

I can't remember all the the episodes, but I kind of found it odd that he wasn't hanging out at Cheers in the clip that I saw. Like, what happened to Cheers? You know, it's like, number one, did he go out of business? And that's why he's going to another bar or, you know, what happened to those characters? Because it just seems odd to me.

If I used to hang out at a bar every day for how long was Cheers on? Like eight years. Nine years, Something like that? Yeah. So. So now he goes back to Boston. He doesn't go back to that bar anymore. So now I've got all these questions Running through my head is like, what happened to the Cheers bar?

Maybe it was bought out by a corporation. That's right. Applebee's. You never know if it's an Applebee's now. Right. I have a fascinating one. I don't know. You know, there weren't a lot of names with it that were from the original series, so I don't know how well a will do when you just have a character and then you reboot it.

But if some of the other ones are signing on, you know, they must think it's it's something. I feel like with that one you have to somehow address. Cheers. Or else it's just going to be weird to be back in the same city. I believe they do. I think you're good. Yeah. Okay. I don't want to say too much.

Yeah, but, you know, the door is always open. Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, we know. I mean, obviously, Kirstie Alley died, so, you know, that's obviously something that can't be part of it, but. But Ted Danson is alive and obviously he could he could be retired old man in the show. And if that's what it is, and he does a cameo and he sold the bar and now it's an Applebee's, then I'm back.

Yep. You know, but Lilith is coming back, so you will see her and you will see Roz. Those are two who have signed on for multiple episodes. So there's something there. But I. You know, willow work. I like the relationship between Niles and Frasier. I thought that was a real kind of cool thing, where it's like yin and yang.

But we'll see. How about living for the dead? Living for the Dead is on Hulu, and it's a reality show where they go ghost hunting. Now, the ghost hunters are gay people, so it could be queer Eye for the Dead Guy. Oh, man. Yeah, we're really. Kristen Stewart is the narrator of this. And you know her Twilight. So we'll see what what happens, I guess.

I'm not Belgian for these things. I'm just telling you what there is. Netflix also has a mini series or a limited series called All the Way We Cannot See. It's about a blind girl and her father who try to get a diamond out of Nazi occupied Paris during World War Two. Interesting. Yeah. Hallmark Oh is in it. But there are people that you don't know who have the starring roles.

The Buccaneers. This is like, if you like. Weren't you a big old Bridgerton kind of fan? Yeah. Yeah, that in the 1870s. It's based on Edith Wharton's unfinished novel. And you know that they're going to have like Madonna singing. That's how they they roll. Right. Yeah. A Murder at the End of the World. This is on effects again, another limited series, very much like the Glass Onion, those kind of things where people are all gathered.

Yeah. Guess what? One of them's dead. Who did the thing? You know, and it has a pretty, pretty star laden cast. But I think that's because it's just a, you know, a short run. It's not like suddenly we get another another whatever bookie. Bookie is coming out on Max. And this is about a bookie trying to make it in Los Angeles after they've legalized gambling, sports gambling.

So it could be. Is that a is this a reality or. That's a the series series. Okay. It's a, you know, fictional. Yeah, but we'll see what happens. Do you remember the how man on HBO years and years ago? They did. It was like a horse racing, but then all the horses kept dying on set. Yeah, it's very I think it's similar.

I think Monarch the legacy of Monsters now. And you know, you've got to sign up for, right? Yep. And these are, if you remember, Godzilla. He had all these kind of characters and everything. Yep. So they're bringing all those characters into play with this, and they've got Kurt Russell and his son Wyatt in the cast. Now, why would they do this?

Why would they be in this kind of a show? But Monarch Legacy of Monsters coming on Apple TV. Plus the last thing I saw Kurt Russell in. Well, other than those weird Christmas movies are Santa Claus. Yeah, the there was a documentary. I can't remember what channel I saw it on, but Kurt Russell used to play baseball and his father owned a minor league.

It was like the last independent triple-A baseball team in America. And it was a really fascinating. I don't remember what it's called offhand, but if you get a chance that that was probably the last thing I actually saw. Kurt Russell And other than those Christmas movies. Well, and he's you know, he had that big old beard that makes him look like Santa Claus.

Right. But I you know, Kurt Russell is somebody who's ripe for a sit down where you say, oh, I got a lot of questions to ask you because I look at you as like Walt Disney's favorite kid, and he knew Walt Disney probably better than most people still alive today. And he could talk about that whole world and what it was like to be not necessarily a teen idol, but a teen actor, and then how he made the transition into really adult star.

And then there's that whole thing with Goldie Hawn that we haven't unpacked, you know? And so there's a lot there that I would love to ask him about, but I don't know if, you know, he's open to that kind of stuff. He might be very guarded about his life, but he's going to be doing the Godzilla movie slash rings and then our last one that I have to put in the list is far away downs.

Far away downs is a way of taking an old movie movie, finding the old footage that never got used and expanding it into a multi-part series. This is a Baz Luhrmann's Australia, and it starred Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. And they're going to beef that sucker up and call it far away downs. Hmm. Now, that isn't that a concept?

Yep. That's like all. What else do they save a lot of copy on? We're going to see this again. But that's a concept. So you see the reality shows that they're doing the they're doing we're adding in the old movies that are redone or re repurposed the foreign the foreign pickups. You know, it's all this stuff that you go, this is a season.

I don't think it is. And they used to have slogans each. Now we're going to have its own slogan. I don't know is it everything old is new again. I don't know what it is here. Yeah, that's a word, basically. And it all starts this next week. The new series start rolling out and you will see them advertising.

The stuff I did watch was it four episodes of The Morning Show? Okay. In a very big way, because they have an Elon Musk character. That's the Jon Hamm character who in the first episode is going to take somebody up in space and is maybe looking to buy the network. Interesting. So that gets back a little bit to the Apple TV, TV plus dilemma that I've talked about prior.

So I actually just canceled Apple TV Plus, but I still have it for a month because it's you know, you cancel it and then you have X amount of time before it actually goes away. So I I'm finishing up a couple of things. The dilemma that I was in is that I watched about half of season two of morning show and then I stopped when I canceled it a year ago.

And now I've got to decide, okay, I'm going to pick up the back end of season two and then maybe keep it going to watch all of season three. Or do I just put Apple TV Plus on ice for a little while? Go on to something else and then come back and knock through it? Is it good enough for me to stick around?

So you got lessons in chemistry coming? Yeah. And then be in October and then I think you'll want to see that I watched one episode of that. Okay. Yeah, I was fascinated, but I could see I've read the book and I loved the book, and to see how it kind of transpired was interesting, but I'd stick with it, spend another then another six bucks, write something like a 99 plus tax event.

Okay, seven. So, you know, you mentioned the slogans. The only one that I can think of, two that actually still applies is animation domination from Fox with crap awfulness. Oh, but there were a lot I wish I could tell you all of them, because I remember each network would have its own and they were. Oh yeah, ABC was the place to be.

ABC. CBS had something to do with the eye. A lot of times are eyes on you or they, you know, they would do those kind of goofy things and then they'd have a song. And if you look back on YouTube, you'll see these old kind of premier video things where they do an episode of like, here's our new shows and we're going to introduce them with John Ritter and, you know, Gavin MacLeod.

And then they would come out and sing and dance. Do you think how did they get those people to do that stuff? That must have been it's almost like indentured servitude, you know, But they're singing and dancing and wearing tuxedos and looking like they really love each other. And they probably hate each other with the animation stuff. With Fox, if I was maybe ten years younger, I might tune in to Crap Apple is, but I feel like the time is kind of passed.

Or those. I mean, clearly they get the ratings to justify continuing. But I'm thinking about it. I was with The Simpsons from way back when it was on the Tracey Ullman Show. I watched every little short that was on Tracey Ullman. I watched every episode from season one and I watched every season from season one up until, uh, I want to say was maybe the 2016 2017 season.

And then I moved from Wisconsin to to work down in Kentucky and I stopped. I haven't watched an episode of The Simpsons since, and it's very similar to even like Family Guy, like, I love Family Guy, but I don't know when the last time I watched a Family Guy episode and with The Simpsons in particular, it just feels like it's the same stories over and over and they just push it forward.

Like there's one episode every year where it's about how Homer met Marge. There's another episode, obviously, of your Treehouse of Horror. You have to have a Christmas episode, you've got to have some episode, which is like, you know, some sort of Storytime Fairy tale thing. And it just feels like it's like, rinse and repeat over and over. We'll hire you to work on The Simpsons.

I think, you know, the the formula and what I the thing that lured me in were all the signs in the background where I would have to watch and then you'd see that stuff and now I don't care. Is that so? Saying something about me. And I love The Simpsons. I do too. I don't know that I would.

It's not appointment TV anymore and maybe be available. They've been on for what, like 30, 35 years now? It's 30 some years. And I knew when it first came out and I remember how kind of gruff the characters looked in the beginning. They were really not as as kind of smooth and, and Disney like and I don't know that they've really they've done anything with that because they're owned by Disney now who they always bit the hand of.

They were always saying bad things about Disney and are they doing it now. I guess we'll have to watch and find it out. But they're they're probably not affected because by the strikes or anything, because they do everything a year in advance. So I think they're okay for now. But yeah, it'll it'll be interesting to see. At what point does it affect the following season with any of these animated shows?

Because so then, you know, when we come around to next fall, instead of it being a 22 episode season, is it a 15 episode season? Right. Would they ever do a live action version of The Simpsons, do you think? I don't know. That's interesting. The sort of had one sort of, but I mean, where do you would, like cast it?

Yeah, I do like because I think you could do it on stage really easily. You know, you'd be interesting, but I don't know if a movie version would work because you need some of those flights of fancy that they have. Yeah. So at the top of the show, you mentioned 12 year old Bruce getting excited for the fall season.

What did 12 year old Bruce get excited for? What were your shows? Do you watch the 12? Oh, you know, I was a I was a huge Batman fan of the Batman with Adam West and Bird and I really thought it was a drama. I'll be honest with you. I did not see it as a comedy or campy thing.

I thought, Oh my God, they yeah, this is just life or death. We've got to find out what happens with Batman and how he, Howie thwarts the Riddler. You know, when is a door not a door? I don't know, Batman. When is a door? Not a door when it's ajar, that kind of stuff. And I was like, Oh, that.

So, so well-written. What I. What is this? But those are the things I hung clung to. And I was really good at kind of ruling the TV at that age. I don't know if you had your kids do this, but my dad would say, Well, now what time is? And then fill in the name of a show that I didn't want to watch.

I think it's not on this week that it's not going to be on. We're going to have to watch this other show that I want. Like Gunsmoke was something I hated. I hated it. And I thought that was a vile series and that it can't be interrupted every week. They're not interrupting Gunsmoke. Every It's got to be on.

I said, No, no Gunsmoke this week. It's not happening. Or rap patrol or combat. Those are ones. I hate it. I love the comedies, though. That was always my big thing. But yeah, and I would I would have all of the material, all the stuff you could think of. I have pictures of the set from the series of the stars.

I you know, this is how crazy I am, okay? Because this will show you how part goes back. I have an autographed picture from Ed Sullivan now, who has an autographed picture of Ed Sullivan. Nobody, nobody would want this but 12 year old Bruce wanted a picture of Ed Sullivan and dammit, he got it. So there there you go.

But yeah, so it was a big thing. And I don't know if you would, like highlight the TV guide like I did, but I would have it all marked up. And then I had to get a special version that would not be touched. Do not ask me where these things are. There's somewhere they got thrown. And that probably was when I went to college.

My mother says, Get rid of all this crap or not having it in there. But I tracked this stuff just really intensely to make sure that I knew every little thing that was going on on TV. And those days, you could you could keep a handle on what was going on. The bad thing about television back in the sixties, seventies and eighties was that they often had more episodes than they had year.

So if there were 30 episodes of a TV series, a number of them wouldn't get rerun, right? And so then they were just lost to the stars. You did not? Yeah. Somebody put them out in a collection and then you get to see them again. And that was always like, We've got we can't. We've got to be home.

We've got to be home because we're not going to get to see this again. It's one time only. It's really a fascinating thing because I look back, I remember one year as a gift to my parents. I think I bought them season one of Leave It to Beaver on DVD and it was like 37 episodes. It was insane.

And yeah, yeah. And I even, you know, thinking about, like, what you mentioned with episodes repeating, there were a lot of times in my childhood where something was preempted because maybe there was a State of the Union, you know, like the president, there's a crisis. So the president. Hopson And it and it great to have to break away from a TV show and then trying to figure out like when can I actually watch that again?

And it wasn't until, you know, ten years ago even where you stopped having to worry about maybe setting a a VCR to to record something, because now, now, now it's easy. You just throw it on your your your program list and it'll record every episode multiple times for you. You'll never miss it, but that the times have changed.

I remember setting one up and it had the the word that in it and everything. They had the word that, you know, it was recorded so quickly. My, my DVR was filled. But yeah, but yeah. And the other thing that would drive you crazy is if the weather was bad and they had to break in and you think, I'm not going to get to see this show, you've got to you've got to not talk.

Do not do a weather update. I don't care. I would rather die in a heap of rubble from the tornado that's coming my direction. Then miss an episode of All in the Family, you know? Yeah. So the 1987 88 TV year would have been kind of covering my 12 year old. So looking down the list of like what the most popular shows was, and these are some great shows, The Cosby Show that was a favorite of mine.

Cheers growing Pains, Who's the Boss? Did you know Danny Pitaro from Who's the Boss? He's actually from my hometown of New Jersey. Yeah. And he went to a different elementary school than I went to. So I never and then he ended up after he got into Who's the boss, he got pulled out and did tutoring and things like that.

So I never met him. But I know kids that when I got into the middle school, like, Oh yeah, I had class with Danny Pitaro in first grade, that kind of things. And he's my age. So, you know, we were we would have been classmates together and also Alyssa milano because she's from Staten Island. And I, I would have to look again because I went to kindergarten on Staten Island and I, I think she may have actually been in the same public school district as I was.

I'm not entirely sure. And that she's a couple of years older than me. You were working as a child. You need to have been working as a child. I know we could be. Yeah. Now. But yeah, some of these other shows do. Night Court. I was a huge fan of that. ALF The Wonder Years. These are some family ties near nearing the end.

I don't know if I was still watching Family Ties in 87, but that was a favorite of mine a few years before that. But yeah, they had far more comedies back then. Yes, comedies repeated well and comedies were good for syndication, so we saw a lot of them. Now you don't see a lot of them because, you know, is there a repeat value there?

I don't know. Yeah, and they probably are very costly in comparison to something else. And you look at some of the comedies that we do have and they seem very repetitive or redundant or, or they're just reboots of shows that might Frasier, Frasier, back again. Here we are. But yeah, and I think, you know, there was a time during one of the strikes where they just repeated old scripts and they took old scripts and then just, you know, change the, the actors and that did not work.

Well, it did not. People saw through it and said, you know what? I think I saw this back with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. So Mission Impossible is not the same. But they you know, they tried that. They were trying everything. And we'll see what happens with this, with this strike and where where it leads us. But the fall season, it's here all season this year.

I mean, it's a couple of weeks until actual fall, but college football is back. The NFL's back in TV in some form may not be peak TV like we're used to, but it is back. Indeed. Yeah. It'll be fun to see how how it shapes out. Hey, we could be big game show fans, but games were there. Absolutely.

All right. Well, on that note, we will move on from this episode, but we will be back again next week on Streamed & Screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

Summer is winding down but the fall lineup remains up in the air, so we bring you an episode of organized chaos.

We hear from "The Nanny" star Fran Drescher, who is president of SAG-AFTRA and recently talked about the state of the actors strike. We also hear from "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston.

After talking about finally watching the Netflix series "Dahmer," co-host Bruce Miller talks about all of the movies that are trickling out that might only be in theaters briefly before they head to streaming. His choices might not compete with "Barbie," but they are certainly movies you won't want to miss and will be under consideration when awards season heats up.

And co-host Terry Lipshetz talks about "Silo" on Apple TV+, which recently wrapped its first season. This ultimately opens a discussion about which streaming services are worth our time and navigating screen time selections with the kids.

Where to watch

"Election" on Max
"Dahmer" on Netflix
"Red, White & Royal Blue" on Amazon Prime Video
"Theater Camp" in theaters
"Jules" in theaters
"To Leslie" on Netflix
"Golda" in theaters
"The Lesson" in theaters
"Challengers" in theaters
"Next Goal Wins" in theaters
"The Morning Show" on Apple TV+
"The Changeling" on Apple TV+
"Silo" on Apple TV+
"Shrinking" on Apple TV+
"For All Mankind" on Apple TV+

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and Screened and Entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz is senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the legendary Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, you're back. So you took a little week off. I mean, the listeners wouldn't know this because they would know that advance.

But yeah, yeah, you're right. Bob Barker Here I am. But yeah, and you know, I really got a chance to dig in to TV and see what's there, because right now, normally I would know all of the new shows that were coming out in the fall. I would have seen all of them. I would probably have talked with the people who were involved.

And this year is this big question mark. We don't know what we're getting. I don't know what kind of shows are out there, what kind of period we're going to be going through, how long the strike will last. It's very, very weird. And so what I've been doing is revisiting things. And one of the things I did do, I was scared to death of watching Dahmer when it first came out.

I really because I don't. Is that giving him too much credibility? Is it, you know, endorsing something that I don't want to be a part of? But I you know, it's nominated for a lot of Emmys. And so I thought, you know, I should watch it. I should see it. Well, I was so scared after the first two episodes.

I thought I got to watch something that's going to kind of calm me down a little bit. And so I found election election on Max. They're kind of pushing it now. Do you remember election was an Alexander Payne film about Tracy Blake. She was is this kind of rabid girl who was running for student council president in high school, played by Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick played the the adviser to the the student council.

And fascinating to see it again because, you know, they were really serious. Wasn't that big when she made this. And Matthew was kind of coming off his Ferris Bueller run and the movie was, you know, I hear it, but it's now prompted a sequel. There's going to be a sequel called Tracy Flick. What is it? Tracy Flick doesn't win or it doesn't always win or shouldn't win or I don't know.

It's based on a new book and they decided to go back and do it. And Reese is producing the thing. We'll see what happens with that. But it was fun to see that because it did cleanse the palette from Dahmer and it gave me a chance to kind of look forward to something that will be coming. Paramount Plus is is actually doing it.

I don't know how far they are in the process, but it is scheduled for the next year. What what was your overall thought on Dahmer? Because I know this was a little bit of an older one. It was on it was last year on Netflix. I watched it especially because of, you know, living in Wisconsin, even though it happened before I lived in Wisconsin.

It's still something that people talk about, you know, a lot out here. What were your thoughts? I would like to say it was creepy, but it reminds you can tell it was a Ryan Murphy product because like his American Horror Story and all those other kind of things, it has that edge that you got. Oh, my God. I think it's going to go over the edge, I think.

And it did. I thought some of those those murder scenes or just even opening the refrigerator was enough to send me reeling. But Evan Peters does a good job because you do see the kind of the the groundwork that's put into play that makes him kind of screwed up. And he plays it very kind of low key. And then you see what he does and it's like, whoa, I don't you know, this would not be made as anything but a streaming service thing.

I don't know that you I know that they've done Dahmer movies and stuff, but they've never done it this intensely. And then I looked up the story of him online, of course, you Google everything, right? Right. And you look and you see, well, how many did he kill? And then you realize I've seen two deaths and there are like 17.

I'm going to have a long haul with this. And this is really hard for me to watch. So, you know, it was fun to see Michael learn it in there as his grandmother. And, you know, there are good supporting performances, but it's tough. It's a tough slog. Yeah, it it was difficult to watch. I'm glad it didn't get as gory as it could have been.

I mean, I was I was that was the one thing that I really because I'm not a big gore. I don't like horror movies. I don't you know, that's not my thing. And, you know, but I do like a thriller. Like I like like Silence of the Lambs, which is the only movie I can think of that's really comparable to you know, that's obviously fiction, although based on some aspects of reality with this, you know, I didn't need to see him like dismembering everybody and in all that.

So I'm glad it didn't quite go down that road, but it was very difficult to watch. But it was also fascinating because the story I don't think the story's been told it's been told, but it's not like some stories. It just keeps on getting retold over and over again. I don't you know, this is the the deepest dive I think I've seen on Dahmer to date.

I don't think it needed ten episodes. I'll be Oh, no, no, no. And I kept questioning why people didn't complain more. You like when they're in he's in this apartment, he's got all this crap and the smell is bad. You'd complain and I think somebody would do something. And then you see these instances where the cops are in the place and they kind of just bypass it, you know, It's like, Oh, yeah, we'll move on.

And I, I would be screaming at the top of my lungs. Plus, here's the other thing. Never go home with somebody that you don't know right now. I mean, if somebody says, come on over to my house and we'll have a drink or something. No, that is a big animal that you can put on anybody's door and do not do it right.

You know, I won't even sell something on Facebook. Marketplace and let somebody come in to buy like Nintendo. We're going to go to the parking lot of the QuikTrip and we will make a transaction there or somewhere holding a gun on you at all times. And I pass the merchandise to you, right? Yeah. Yeah. There is no way.

I mean, unless unless it's I've got like we sold our swing set for the kids on Facebook marketplace. Obviously somebody has got to come to the house and pick that thing up, but it's like I'm doing a deep dive on your face. I'm like, looking to make sure you seem halfway normal or more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm with you.

And I remember, too, when I watched that Dahmer with my wife. The thing that we kept on commenting over and over again is like, why is this thing ten episodes? Because on one hand, it just it was it was such it became a slog after a while, but we couldn't stop watching because we kind of wanted to know.

I mean, we know what happens, but you kind of wanted to know what happens, if that makes sense. So it's like we hit that point where we're just we're in it for the long haul, so I guess we're going to suck it up. But yeah, I wanted to see Niecy Nash because I like her and she's nominated for Best Supporting Actress and she's in right away at the beginning.

And then she disappears for a long period of time. And so I thought, well, there must be some big scene that she gets at some point that would have justified her getting nominated for best supporting actress. So I'm not done with it, but I always know now that I have to have something that's very light afterwards. And I have been looking at, you know, streaming is still putting crap out there.

There's still stuff out there. I think Amazon had red, white and royal blue. Have you seen this? It's about a ten, I think, the American president's son. And then like some spare in the British lineup become secret lovers. And of course this is a huge scandal and it's all it is. It's just a romance that you probably saw on Hallmark, except it's two guys and one is British and one is America.

That's that's about all it is. And they were getting a lot of attention. I mean, interesting. But I don't know that that's something that I would mark my time off to see. Yeah, well, it wasn't is as kind of controversial as they thought it would be. And there are a lot of ones like that that are now popping up.

You're going to see in the next month on Hulu. Theater camp and theater camp is this kind of mockumentary done by Ben Platt from Dear Evan Hansen and a bunch of his friends about going to summer camp for theater kids. And it looks darling from it's you know, it's previews, but who knows? And that's one of those things these films he's there are a slew of these films that maybe get a week in a market and then disappear because they can't stand up against the pressure of a Barbie or a Oppenheimer and Barbie.

Look at that. The money that Barbie is rolling in. She never made that much money when she was a doll. So now as a movie, she's she's just rake. And, you know, the sequel is probably already not being written by the writers who are on strike right now. But yeah. And so you you see these films that maybe will get a window, but if you are watching very carefully for them, you're not going to find them.

One that opened this last week was called Jules and Julie's. It stars Ben Kingsley as Ed and this is what I loved. He's 78 and he's like, seen as this real doddering old man. And I'm thinking, God, I'm closer to 78 than I am to, you know, 21. And he get an alien lands in his itty azalea bushes in the backyard, and he tries to tell people about it, and they just think he's just out of his mind and he doesn't know what he's doing and he needs to go to assisted living.

Well, it is an alien or there is an alien there and he communicates with him and two friends of hers also get to get it. Get in on the secret. Jane Curtin is one of the ones and it's a very, very clever film about aging and what kind of things people go through at a certain point in their lives.

It's very much in the tone of what Clint Eastwood has been doing lately. You know, it's his Gran Torino kind of concept where old people aren't kind of given their due for having an opinion or, you know, being feisty or whatever. It's just kind of, Oh, that's the effects of aging. Yeah. Was there an alien, you know, is it just all in his mind?

But it's a cute film that will it'll make its rounds and you'll see it somewhere on your schedule or maybe on a streaming thing. If you remember last year at the Oscars, there was this thing called to Leslie. Yeah, Yeah. Andrea Riseborough was nominated for best actress for that. And like everybody goes to where is this? How do I see this to Leslie?

It's nowhere. And it wasn't. It was in nowhere. And it's like these little films that crop up and then suddenly after it gets traction, somebody will sell it to a streaming service and then it pops up. And I have since seen two Leslie and it was good, and it should have gotten some kind of attention. But the the bigfoot's kind of stomp him out and you don't find him.

But there is a whole herd of them, a list of them that I went through and said, you know what? These are ones that maybe we need to look at before the end of the year. Okay. Well, that sounds like an interesting list because we are running out of things. I must say. We're running out of things to talk about, but we're in this interesting period right now because you mentioned, of course, that you would normally be out in L.A. previewing the fall season.

We have no idea what's what's even going on because of the strike. This writer's strike in this actors strike, it is it is looking like they're digging in for the long haul. I mean, just last week while you were gone, Fran Drescher, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, was talking about this being an inflection point. And, you know, they're waiting on a deal.

So I actually have a quick clip. We're going to play this really quick and we'll listen to her and then bring it back and we'll talk a little bit more about that and then dive into your list. Sounds good. Actors Union President Fran Drescher says there's been no negotiations with the movie and TV studios on a new contract as actors have been on strike for six weeks.

I marches are a letter with the latest SAG after a president. Fran Drescher says the union is getting the silent treatment from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents major studios. Drescher says the contract dispute is at an inflection point. I don't think anybody that's in charge of the AMPTP quite understands that this is not like any past negotiation.

The actors demands include better pay and protections involving artificial intelligence. The studios have said their offer includes historic pay increases and an A.I. proposal that protects actors likenesses. And then, you know, that was last week. And then just right before we hopped on, I got another clip because the actors from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul gathered and they were talking about it.

So here's one more clip from Bryan Cranston from Breaking Bad. We realize that without organized labor, management will just keep stuffing their pockets and they don't. They don't and will not ever just go, You know what? I don't think this is being fair to those people. I'm going to pay them more. It's just not what they do. All right, Bruce, we had talked a few episodes ago about like, you know, where to put money down.

When is this thing ending? You were a little bit more optimistic. I was much more pessimistic saying that this could go on until later this year. And then the freak out moment would be once kind of the NFL season, college football season, you know, was kind of wrapping up. And then and then the networks or everybody needs something to air come January that's going to be the problem.

So, you know, what are you thinking right now? Are you hearing anything? I think there's you know, it could go whenever. It could go whenever. But they probably will ride it out because it isn't fair. It isn't fair that these people are getting next to nothing and these networks are making pretty big bucks off this stuff. So there are, you know, and the studios come on, if they make a big deal about Margot Robbie getting, what, $50 million for doing Barkley?

Well, she's a producer on the thing. She also is a blue chip star. And I hate when we see these clips of, you know, some famous person, like if Meryl Streep decided she was going to walk with the others. That isn't the instance at all. Meryl Streep and all those blue chip names should not be on the picket line because they don't have a beef with what's going on.

It's the guy who you maybe recognize his face, but you don't know his name that is getting jobbed in all of this. Right. And those are the people that I think those stories need to be told much more. And I would not doubt that the story about Margot getting 50 million is a studio generated story because they want to say, see, look, they're making big money.

Why aren't you know, come on, don't be crying to us. And I think the AIG thing could be a real problem. I've seen some things that have already been written that are not bad, you know, done by a computer because they've been able to input all this other stuff. But where did the other stuff come from that they're trying to duplicate or mimic or whatever that gives us this thing?

I would not doubt that in the future the computers are going to be doing all of our writing. I would not doubt that. But you've got to hold the line somewhere because are we eliminating humans entirely? Is that our goal? With every job? You know how it is where they say, well, we're going to we're going to outsource this and we're going to let computers do it.

Yeah, maybe sometimes you need that personal touch that comes from having a human in there. I don't know. But I find it really disturbing. And I'll turn on Entertainment Tonight on a regular basis. And it's like, Oh, today, look who showed up on the picket line. And, you know, I don't care. I don't care that the big names, because they'll come for an hour or whatever, eat a sandwich and act like they're part of the the normal people.

And what you're doing is not necessarily cheating them out of a job or money, but you are cheating all of those ancillary businesses that rely on this to drive their business. The drivers, the actors, caterers, the set builders, the electricians, I mean, all those kinds of jobs. It's a factory town. Hollywood is a factory town. And if you start cutting that and yet these ones are making just a statement, you know, come on.

I don't know why why those studios need so much money for their executives? I've never believed that that's a good way of doing business, because when you see that somebody is getting a $400 million paycheck for the year, really, is that where they make that kind of decision? A $400 million one? There should be caps on those things.

But, you know, now I'm saying it's only political and I don't mean. Yeah, it is. I read a story, a few weeks ago even where they were actually talking about that point, because, you know, somebody brought up like where are all the stars while everyone else's, the rank and file are marching. But but that's the point, too, is that it gets a little bit touchy because the percentage of people that are making tons and tons of money is very small compared to the rank and file, which is really it has the most to lose out of this.

Right. And then as you mentioned with like a lot of these folks, they're producers on shows now. They're also executives. They're not necessarily running a studio, but it's hard, you know. Sure, they're a member of the Actors Guild and maybe they're a member of the Writers Guild, but if they're a producer or also doing directing work, they're in their hands are in too many parts, and it's probably best that they just stay on the sideline and let things work because it's at some point you got to recuse yourself.

And I think that's what happens. We've had, you know, now for me, the impact is the actors are not doing interviews. They're not going to be talking about a project that's coming up. And I get that. I see the the impact it has on me. But some actors who are producers will do an interview. Now, is that really are you playing the game or what?

You know, which hat is a better hat or a bigger hat? And which one should you be wearing at any given time? Well, hopefully things will wrap up soon because we need we want it. We need our content. Yeah, we need something. We need something.

I know you've got a list here of okay, I've got a list of films that are out there that I have seen some and not seen others. Okay. Golda Which is the Golda meir story? Oh, yeah. Is one that will I think it's starting now in theaters and it's could be another shot for her to win another Oscar.

It's set in just a limited period of time. The 19 days of the Yom Kippur War and how she kind of negotiated all that, what she did, what her thought process was. And it's a great a great character piece, because I do not think of Golda meir when I think of Helen Mirren. They are not alike at all.

But I think that she captures the essence and she brings to life a character that, you know, did we forget her? Do we still think about her? I don't know. But that's one that's out there. That's that's hanging fire. Blue Gene, have you heard of Blue Jean? No, no. This set in the in the 1980s in in England.

And it's about a gym teacher who has this secret kind of private life where she's a lesbian and she doesn't dare come out because she's in Margaret Thatcher. England. And what does this mean for her career? You know, these are things that it seems so long ago and yet these issues come up. And it's a fascinating look at the times.

They really get the costumes right. They get the period right. You see things you think, Yeah, I remember that. I remember the eighties like that. And there's people that maybe you don't you don't recognize, but they've been in a lot of British TV series and things. There's one called The Lesson, and this stars Richard E Grant. You remember him from Oh, man, he's been in so many things.

He was nominated for an Oscar for the Thing with Melissa McCarthy, where she was a writer. I wish I could tell you right off the top of my head. But he. And this he plays another author. Okay. But he, Audie kind of rich author who, you know, is I mean, he's in the driver's seat. He's not a rank and file guy.

And they hire he and his wife hire a tutor for their son. And the tutor sees how this family dynamic is all shaking down Darryl McCormick, who is in. Good luck to you, Leo. Grand. You remember that from with Emma Thompson. He played the guy who was her kind of sex therapist. Okay. Yeah, he was the he was the prostitute.

He plays the tutor in this one. Julie Delpy, if you remember her from all those things with Ethan Hawke, she plays the wife and it's a fascinating look at a family situation. Challengers. Challengers is a film that's set in the tennis world, and it's about three tennis players, you know, and it's who's up, who's down, who's wherever. Zendaya plays a champion, I think like Serena, Venus, one of those kind of, you know, big superstars.

And then Josh O'Connor from the crown, he played Chas, Prince Charles. Okay. He's one of the tennis players. And Mike Feist, who was in West Side Story and has been in Broadway on Dear Evan Hansen. Those are the three. And there just like who is with whom at what time Now it's done by the guy who did call me by your name and it it has the potential to be very dirty.

I'm just throwing that out. It could be a very, very scary next goal wins. Taika Waititi The guy behind Jojo Rabbit and a lot of those, you know what we do in the shadows. A very kind of fun South. I think he's New Zealand. I don't want to say he's Australia, I think he's New Zealand director who focuses on a football coach or a soccer coach played by Michael Fassbinder.

Fassbinder MM hmm. Who has to try and turn a Samoan teen into winners. Now, this is very Ted Lasso in it. Yeah, but I think it could be very, very funny and it could be one of those kind of breakout things. Again, these are all these little kind of pocket films that will show up but not be in theaters as long as Barbie is.

So look for them. Because I think and if nothing else, within a month after that, more than likely they'll turn up on streaming services. Yeah, it could be what we're watching for the next two or three months, Right? Well, and these are also those films, too, that when the Oscar nominations come out, we get by, you know, we'll know the big ones.

But then all of a sudden we're looking at each other and being like, wait, goal while you need it is like 200 people to put your name first. They could be there now. They know that they know what to do. So yeah, and it's funny because I've seen a number of them. They'll, they'll send them to me and then they'll say, See what you think.

And if you can write something, it'd be great. And it's fascinating because a lot of, a lot of times they're better than most of the things that you're seeing. Mm hmm. Yeah. I love a good small time film. You know, sometimes it's sometimes those are the the best ones because it's it's under the radar. It catches you by surprise.

You have no expectations. And it's just kind of fun to see. And we're getting some of the new series are coming back The morning show on Apple is right back with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston. Another one that I did watch was The Changeling, and it's based on a novel by Victor Lovell or Victor LAVALLE, depending on how you pronounce it, who also does the narration for the film.

And it's so bizarre because it goes back in time and forward in time and back way back in time. I mean, in the first episode, you must be in about six different time periods and it shows how maybe there was some kind of I don't know, black magic that was going on and it affected different generations. And what they what it turned out to be for these kids that are in today's world.

Yeah. Fascinating. Lakeith Stanfield is in it and a good acting exercise. But I think it has far too much to try and unpack right away. Okay, We're coming up in in September. We're coming up also around that period where my three month free trial of Apple TV Plus is about to expire and I'm not. So we just watched Sidel go, which it was okay.

And I know it's gotten some decent traction on like rotten tomatoes from critics and fans. It started out I thought it started out a little bit slow. It's your typical the story on that one is it's it's a you know, a post-apocalyptic kind of sci fi world. There's 10,000 people living underground in a silo and they are governed by the pact.

And the pact is, you know, just their kind of their constitution, their law and order. But the society is broken down to you have this it branch that runs the computer systems and keeps things chugging along. That's run by Tim Robbins. You have a judicial branch which kind of enforce this some of the pact and, you know, make sure everybody is law abiding and common stars is one of the leaders of judicial who kind of, you know, runs a crew that it's almost like a military group.

There's also the sheriff's office, which is more of a police type of thing, which is the main character, Julia Nichols. She she works like down below where where keeps the engines running, but kind of gets pushed into this situation where she's the next sheriff, because one of the things that happens is if you say you want to go outside the silo, it's irrevocable and you have to go out to clean off the little camera that shows the desolate world that has become And the it this isn't really much of a spoiler because it sets up the entire series.

But the wife of the current sheriff goes outside to clean and then a year later, the sheriff himself goes outside to clean, but kind of picks Juliet Nickels to become the next sheriff. And, you know, so it's there is this mystery as to like whether what you see on that screen is actually what it's true to be. But then it's also in like a lot of these stories.

Is Tim Robbins a good guy or is he a bad guy? Is common a good guy, or is he a bad guy or are they just put in such unusual circumstances that there's really no good or bad? Everybody is just kind of trying. They're trying to act within the best interests of the society that they're running. So it's it's not a bad series.

I thought that the first few episodes were a little bit of a slog. It definitely picks up once you get through about three or four, it's ten episodes. A few familiar faces, obviously. As I said, Tim Robbins is in it, Carmen is in it. Ian Glen, He played for a moment on Game of Thrones. He plays the father of Sheriff Nichols, Julia Nichols, who's played by Rebecca Ferguson, and then one other person who's in it that a lot of folks have probably seen lately, Harriet Walter.

She plays this woman who lives all the way at the bottom of society. But she was in succession as the mother of the three Roy siblings, younger Roy siblings. So it's a good one if you need something to watch, you know, we've been kind of like bouncing through things and slamming through things. So that and then of course, I've been now watching Asoka, which is back on, just made its debut, the latest Star Wars series.

So do you find, though, that Apple has a lot of dark shows? They do, yeah. Yeah. It's like some executive must have had some midlife crisis or something and then is trying to explain all of it through these because they I honestly besides Ted Lasso and maybe the after party maybe the after party I'm hard pressed to think of comedies that they really embrace.

The one with Harrison Ford or that was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's shrinking with Harrison Ford and Jason Segel. Yeah that's that one was good. My wife and I just we watch it right before Silo and really enjoyed it and kind of looking forward already this season to there's a few like that Yeah like these midlife crisis kind of concepts and I would like Snoopy I think is the only thing that's on there that is not really kind of dark underneath, right.

Yeah. For all mankind. I don't know. I love Vermont for all mankind. There's the space to alternate history space show. But again, you're getting into a world they'll go to another world to, I think, try and make commentary about our world today. Right? Yeah. It's very sci fi driven. Yeah, a lot of sci fi. I don't know that I would see that as apples.

Best calling card. Yeah, I'm. I'm like, really on the fence here because even with the morning show, I watch season one, I watched about half of season two and then kind of got sidetracked and then ended up canceling Apple TV Plus. So now I've got the decision is like, all right, am I going to go back and watch the next five episodes?

And then I'll stick around and watch the third season? Or do or am I at the point now where do I just let the subscription run out? I cancel it, I wait six months or a year, get a new Mac, then. Yeah. And then just kind of like crush through that because I just feel like with Apple TV Plus it just does not have the programing yet.

Still still like Hulu or Netflix, which those are those I can't cancel. There's just too much stuff that comes on them constantly. I think Apple put a lot of money in a few projects and it's big money. You know, it's this is not just anything but I, I don't know if I were to choose that that would be one of the first ones I would pick for my my extra channels.

It's a good one too. You know, you get your, your whatever, a 30 day, 90 day freeze every time you buy an iPhone. So it's really that's what it's you get your free you get your free phone. Well, not a free phone. You pay for your phone. You get a little Apple TV plus on top of it. I mean, it's not expensive.

It's it's like, what, six bucks a month? So it's it's one where if you let it go for a few months and you don't really watch it, you don't necessarily feel guilty about it. It's not like like Netflix is creeped up or HBO. Well, now it's Max. They've creeped up in the price where it's, you know, 16, 17 bucks a month.

And you start to notice that one if you're not watching Apple TV Plus is still low enough where you're kind of like, wow, it's a $6. I'll get it. It's like that gym membership that, you know, that I never catch. You know, it's like, I guess 12. What about Disney Plus then? Are you sold on that one or is that on?

Yeah, no. Well, that's with the kids and I've got the bundle. So it's like I don't I have Hulu, Disney Plus and ESPN plus bundled together which, which maybe if I was only doing one of them I would think twice like, all right, well maybe I'll drop this. But the bundle is it's pretty cheap so I'm not paying a whole lot for all three.

So what what is the determiner then, for you to choose a a service, a streaming service? Is it a certain program that gets you in? Is it the price, Is it you know, the potential it has or where does this all land? Because how would you choose you in this day? You can't have it all. I'm sorry. No, you can't have it.

I'm I. Yeah, I don't know. It's a good I think right now because of the kids I'm fine having Disney plus semi permanently You'll like it too because you get all that Star Wars stuff and you get all the Star Wars stuff. Right. But it's also, you know, when they like ESPN. Plus I get that bundled in. I don't remember the last time I turned it on, but because I get the Hulu and the Disney Plus packaged in there, I occasionally will put on ESPN plus, but not enough for me to I wouldn't I would definitely never subscribe to that one separately.

You know, it's fascinating because you hear people complain about cable when cable keeps raising its prices and stuff, and I can't afford this. This is terrible. And yet they'll add on all these streaming services. And so what gives? And maybe that's the way it just all has to be. All is all a card. Yeah. Just things as you go along and maybe you just have a buy in for X number of weeks or months Yeah, I think at some point and I think it'll, it'll come a little bit more as the kids get older and we're, we're less attached to certain things.

But I feel like I'm getting really close to the point where I don't have anything against Apple TV Plus because I do think it has some good programs. It's just not enough for me to commit 12 months out of the year. And I think we're getting to that point where I need one like $6 a month option. So I maybe going to do Apple TV Plus this month and then maybe next month I do peacock and then maybe the month after that I do Paramount Plus, is it hard to go there?

Gym? Is it hard to get out of the that's that's where unlike cable, because cable's a nightmare like cable. You're on the phone for 45 minutes because I did it a year ago when I finally cut the cord. Right. And it just it takes forever. And it's it's a pain in the butt. But with all of these streaming services, you just log in online.

You know, you got to make sure you get it at the right time because you don't get a refund of $3.18 because you only used it. Right. You know, 42% of of it for the month. So you got to jump before the month is up. Correct. So you like I go to my Google calendar, I put in a reminder like this is the day I got to go cancel Apple TV.

Plus, I'll do it. You know, it'll it'll take me through the end of the month and I'll still have like three more days to watch it because I do it a few days in advance. And then the first of the month I'll subscribe to something else. And as long as you can commit to doing that, you can, you can manage them and you can opt in and out and it's pretty darn easy.

And that's that's the advantage they have over cable, to be honest. It's not even it's almost the point where it's not the cost anymore. Because once although I'm saving a lot of money by not subscribing, I have YouTube TV for my my right were over the year. I figured it out one time like by by dumping the cable.

I'm saving like 100 and something dollars a month. Which can I ask, how much do you spend in a month on services? And you have to factor in the costs for Internet. So between Internet, YouTube, TV and then the other streaming, it's somewhere between 160 and 200 a month. That's not too bad. No, not too bad. I was well over 200 well before I was.

Yeah. And I thought, this is silly. I don't watch all these channels. And I it's just a matter of I, I'm too lazy to go and cancel things. Yeah. And when cable dropped my email and I no longer had email through my cable system, I thought, well, this is, this is the wakeup call I needed. And so then I would like you.

I went to YouTube TV and I was very impressed with that. I find it kind of strange when you're watching a show where it kind of goes to your moment of Zen, where it's they're covering up an ad that isn't going to be shown on your thing. Right. But I'm fine with that. Yeah. And I do like I, I am now looking more for old content.

I really want to see old content. Not because I am nostalgic because that's not me, but I want to see how good it was back then compared to what we have now, what the quality is, you know, and some of the writing was good, but a lot of the production was not as good. You know, you'll see an office or a living room or whatever, and it barely has furniture in it.

And today everything is so overly designed and and done that I think it's made for these very high def TVs where you can look at every little aspect and realize that that ashtray is there for a purpose. You know? So it's fascinating, but I do think I spend too much money on it. But then that's my life. I mean, it's obviously for you as somebody who's who needs to be on top of things, having a little bit more than than somebody is fine.

You know. But yeah, it's tough. Like, you know, when you're just trying to get through with your household and figure out, okay, you know, the wife watches this, the kids watch this, I watch this, what do we need? And, you know, honestly, I have I have not noticed missing very much since ditching traditional cable. There's a few things there's a few things here and there that I can't watch anymore.

But honestly, it doesn't make much of a difference to me how how vigilant are you with your children? Do you say you only get one hour of television time at night? Do you really? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And I grew up turning the TV on in the morning with the test pattern and turning off at night. When the test pattern came back on, that was how much TV I watched as a child.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. No, the kids are. They're pretty good with it. I mean. Well, it's getting a little bit tougher now as they've gotten older. And there's other things like, okay, we're not watching TV, but I'm going to play my video game system and or, you know, so we try to limit the screen time. You know, we try to insist that they're reading X number, you know, 30 minutes a day of reading as opposed to something else.

Do you think you are the exception and not the rule? Yeah, I'm watching a lot more than they are, that's for sure. Yeah, but, but, but it for them. Yeah. No, I mean, but we know we've, we talk, I mean some we know some parents they let their kids watch anything. There's another family that we know that they're pretty similar to us with how much TV they let their kids watch.

And so it's just it's you know, there's no right or wrong here. You know, every every family has to make their own decisions. We just choose to limit it. And kids don't have TVs in their bedrooms. It's it's we have a TV in the living room. We have a TV in the family room. I have a TV in our bedroom.

But we're we're trying to limit it so you know, it. It's weird because I don't a do you look at it at the ratings of anything before you like? Oh, yeah. You do. Okay. I do think that because television doesn't really have those standards anymore, or at least it's not as policed below as it was, that it's impossible now to say that kids are being influenced by books or whatever when it's a free for all on television.

Yeah, you can say that. You know, all my kids are going into whatever because they've watched too much television or what. There's not enough policing on television itself to to kind of guide you through that. And I remember the times when there was family hour, the first hour, the broadcast night was family television. It should not have been anything that had any adult content.

And I think parents were safe then just saying, oh, you can watch until 8:00 and then we're not watching TV. That's not the case now, because 7:00 shows can be very R-rated with us. We rely a little bit with like a common sense media where we will go to that website. It's I think it's pretty good. It'll give you some information of like, you know, kids say it's 12 plus, parents say it's ten plus, we say it's 12 plus.

You know, it'll give you that kind of information and it'll also explain, like why the show? So this one has a little bit too much sex talk or this one talks about, sure, you know, alcohol or drugs or cigarets and it gives you some decent information. But you know what you mention, too, with you know, that our block of like these shows should be safe.

Were they? Because I've gone back and seen, you know, like some some shows like we haven't let our kids watch Seinfeld and I mean, like Seinfeld was of like, well, that's that's not that's not adult time. But it is they're talking about sex and yeah, I worked it out tonight on NBC on Thursdays and come on that isn't appropriate for 12 year olds.

That's not happy days. No, it's not. So you know, I know, like, you kind of think about it nostalgically and all that, but there's stuff today that if we had the shows that I grew up with today, we would not let the kids watch the ones that I was allowed to watch. Definitely not. Yeah, it's it's funny how in its day, something like Cinemax, you'd got all the dirty one.

Cinemax. Yeah right. We knew right away. Yeah. That was the dirty one. And so if you were subscribing to that, good, like you're getting everything and everything, that's the bad one. But today it's everywhere. Yeah. I don't know that you can even, you know, there are some of those high end cable networks now though. I mean high end in terms of channel numbers where they've bleeped it or they've done, you know, they've done somehow, But it's still the concept, you know, there are dirty movies on those channels, too.

They just haven't said two or three words out loud. Yeah, I think it's interesting it with HBO in particular, because I remember as a kid, like as a teenager, not not not as like an eight or nine year old, but as a teenager. If you stayed up just late enough on a Saturday night, you would catch something like their real sex show, right, where it would be, things like that, where it's very adult content.

There was nudity and all that. And if you go to HBO now, they've really gone and scrubbed those things like you can't find real sex or what was the other one? It was like taxicab confessions. Oh, yeah. You know, they're kind of dirty, kind of raunchy. And I think HBO and I think that's part of the reason why they they rebranded HBO.

Max is just Max, because they're trying to get away from that concept of HBO being very adult. Like it wasn't it was never quite Cinemax, you know, Cinemax because it never got there. But HBO, you knew that if you stayed up past 10:00 or 11:00 at night, you were going to see some stuff. So if you're, you know, a teenage boy like 15, 16 or whatever, and your parents didn't know you're staying up late to watch something until two in the morning.

It was it was an interesting time to watch HBO. What was that? Bunny Ranch one where? Yeah, right. They went on to the one night at Las Vegas somewhere and then they would go out there and they'd be a bunch of prostitutes basically locking up. And then they pick one of them and and they show the encounter. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't think HBO does any of that kind of programing anymore. And I think and I think they've largely eliminated it from the archives. So you can't like if even if you subscribe to you know, where they have pretty much all their programing ever on like Macs. Now I don't think you can watch any of those because they've tried to really, you know, nothing more than R-rated.

And we're going to we're going to tamp it down. So, yeah, it's fascinating how those things shift. And you look at something now on like The Bachelor, right? They're going in directions that I'd be really careful about letting my kids see. Yep. And I, I again, I'm not that person. I'm not one who's uptight about any of that stuff.

But I do think that maybe there's a time for innocence and they need to have that, that I don't have to know something about this. And I think those kind of shows which are showing at 7:00 at night in my territory are a little too much right away after dinner. Yeah, absolutely. Well, how about this? We'll we'll kind of wrap up the show.

Now, if you heard it, I got on a tangent. I did it. It's a digital picture missing. And then it went on to this. But no films on those streaming services. Absolutely. So. Well, how about we do this too? And we'll just open it up. And if we happen to get some feedback, we'll talk about it on the next episode.

But you know, if you're a parent, you're listening to the show, give us some thoughts. Reach out and send us an email to podcasts@lee.net. There will be a link in this episode, show notes as well. And just shoot a short line like, you know, where you watch the streaming gear, traditional cable. How often are you with the kids when it comes to what they're watching, things like that.

And well, you know, we can pick up the discussion in the future. So I'm good. I'm that sounds great. That sounds like fun because I want to allow I mean, I, I watch everything. So there is no there is no barrier for me. But I do want to know if people do have those barriers and how they determine what they are.

Perfect. All right. Well, on that note, we will let things go and we will be back again next week with another episode of Stream The Screen. Have a great one.

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View Details

Join us on a fascinating journey through time as we explore Bruce Miller's 44-year career in entertainment reporting, filled with on-set experiences from some of the most iconic TV shows and movies.

This includes all of the various spinoffs of "Star Trek," the penultimate episode of "MAS*H" and beloved sitcoms such as "Cheers," "Frasier," "The Big Bang Theory" and "The Office."

We also dive into the realm of TV set design, with stories from the sets of popular shows like "Grey's Anatomy," "The West Wing" and "Parks and Recreation."

We also share a few stories about the 1982 film "Annie," which was shot on the campus of Monmouth University, which co-host Terry Lipshetz attended in the 1990s, and the 1978 film "Ice Castles," which included Bruce as one of the many extras.

Contact us!

We want to hear from you! Email questions to podcasts@lee.net and we'll answer your question on a future episode!

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, senior producer at Lee and your co-host of a program with Bruce Miller, who we've pulled out of a time capsule this week from reporting. He's been doing entertainment reporting forever with the Sioux City Journal. But he's been everywhere.

And we wanted to do a special episode. We are coming up on 44 years, 44 years. Can you believe that? But you know what? I thought it would be fun to talk about something that people always ask me about, which is do you get to actually go to the sets of these things? Do you get to talk to the movie stars?

Oh, you're just making all that up, aren't you? Now, after this many years, you can't make it up because it's just too difficult to think about. Wait a minute. Didn't I use that line before? I can't use that line again. You need to have that one on one contact. And that's the thing I think has been the biggest joy of covering entertainment, is actually getting to meet people that you maybe admired at some point or you like their work or you think that they're different than their public persona.

So yeah, that's been a really cool thing. And early on in 1980 was the first trip I took to the West Coast for pilot season, whatever you might want to call the new shows. And one of the things that's very common is they'll take you to the sets of various shows so you get a chance to watch them film things.

You get a chance to walk around the set and look at all of that kind of fun stuff. You get to interview the actors. It is a really kind of head turning situation the first time you do it. I have been on the set of every Star Trek series except the first one, and I have sat in every captain's chair, which is interesting because all aren't comfortable.

I've gotten to see, you know, some big back in the day they were mini series. They weren't limited series, but I've been on the sets of those. I was on the set of The Thorn Birds, which was like a it looked like a working sheep ranch in Australia, but it was actually in California and we had dinner on the porch of the of De Gaeta, which was the name of the the ranch and with the stars.

And one of the stars, Rachel Ward, was really upset because one of the producers said that she was in she was a nine in looks and at three and acting up and she got all upset and started walking away from the set of this. And all you could think about is they're not done filming this thing and she's bailing because she doesn't like what the producer said.

And they immediately ran after her and tried to smooth over this problem. And it was all happening before our eyes. Well, we were there to have dinner and watch him. She or sheep. So interesting kind of factor there. We went to Charleston for the filming of North and South, if you remember, that was the miniseries. John Jakes had a series of books and it was about the Civil War times and Patrick Swayze was one of the stars.

Kirstie Alley was another star, and that we were there for several days and they had dinner with them every night. And they were very, very fun because they would tell you things that you you know, you didn't really it never came out any other way. But they said they had given everybody on the on the miniseries a whole name.

So they were different kinds of POWs in this show. Okay. So Patrick Swayze, he because he was a dancer, was called Ho Down, and they went through the whole cast and told us all their different names. And they didn't like Lesley-Ann down who was one of the stars of it. And I said, well, what's what's her whole name?

And they said, You got to go over and ask her herself, and she'll tell you what her whole name is. So we went over to Lesley-Ann down and I said, Well, now they said, Everybody has a whole name. What's your whole name? And she says, I'm a whole show.

That's a kind of that's a stuff you don't get when you're just normally doing an interview over Zoom, or if you're calling somebody on the phone. But it's very fun to be in that environment and you see them shooting scenes and they'll do it over and over and you think, Wow, they're not never going to finish this thing because it's it's taking so long.

And I was fortunate that I was at the last day of MASH. MASH did a big movie for their final episode, but that was not the final episode they shot. They did the episode before that on on the 20th lot. And it was about buried in a time capsule. And they were there and they they did it once and they said, Yeah, we got to do it again.

We got to do it again. And so they did it again and the the guy said after that, that was good. That's it. That's the end of MASH. Thank you. And the actors all kind of fell into each other's arms and were crying. And I mean, it was a real emotional moving time and they had huge media coverage.

I remember standing near Maria Shriver, who was covering it for NBC, and they said to us, You can take anything you want from the set when you leave. And I happened to be standing in the in the shower. And so I have a bar of soap from MASH. That's my memento from that. But it was it's it's that was such a momentous kind of thing.

And even now, when you see it in reruns, it's like, wow, I can't believe I was there when they ended MASH. I sent you a bit of a list of shows that I was kind of interested in, and MASH is on my list because for me as a child, it was one of the first big shows I remember watching now.

It started when the show started. I wasn't even born yet, but as it progressed, a great but as it progressed, I grew up watching it either in real time, but also we would see the reruns. My parents would just have the show on. So I remember watching mostly the later episodes, but what a big deal it was on TV to watch that final episode, that movie episode.

It was. It was huge. It's up until recently was one of the the most still one of the most watched all time shows ever. You know, often I'll just happen to mention that I was on the set of MASH and you can't believe how this smokes out. People who are just hardcore MASH viewers. Yeah, that show early on when they started putting out DVDs of full seasons of of TV shows, it's one of the first shows that I bought on DVD because it was Watch it all.

Yeah, I've I've watched every episode of MASH. Yeah, I love that show. See And for me, it's it's very hard to go back and watch them again. I don't think I'd ever buy a box set. I have box sets, but I, I don't watch them. Yeah, but it's also a little different for you too, because you're watching so much.

Well, you're always looking at the next thing you've got to see, just to see, you know, what's happening, what's new, what's next. But yeah, and there there are fun little things. I was on the set of Gray's Anatomy and they had a party there. And in the operating room, they had this body on, you know, on an operating table.

And it looked bloody. But what it was, was it was salsa inside the stomach and you could use, you know, there were chips all around it. So that was how they were serving the chips. It's just goofy things like that that happened. If you remember, E.R., E.R. had it looked like a really bad hospital. It looked like the last place you'd want to go because it looked so kind of worn down and everything.

And they actually had a an el station outside the thing where they would use it for exteriors. But it basically was George Clooney's basketball court. And you could see where they would play basketball out there when they weren't shooting or weren't doing anything. But inside the the actual operating slash exam room, slash whatever hospital, you could see really great equipment.

And what happened was after the show became a success, a lot of these providers would just send them the equipment so that then it was accurate, but it was like state of the art stuff. So that I'm sure that if you went to your own local hospital, you say, Well, now don't you have the XR 732, which they used in E.R. and the Thecable?

No, we can't afford that. That's like 5 hours. I think it would be one of those things where people would ask for it or whatever. But it had really great equipment in there. And they said everything was as accurate as they could possibly be. They had a lot of advisors who are medical people who would tell them exactly how to hold things, how to do certain procedures.

So they got really pretty good at it. And a lot of times when you have people who are playing doctors on TV, they are expected. A lot of times if somebody collapses on an airplane or whatever, well, come on, you know what to do. And they said it's very intimidating because people expect you to be that doctor, but you're not.

But they do. They do learn a few things that might be helpful if they ever need it. So, yeah. And hospital shows are really it's a they're cheap because you can put everybody in scrubs. Oh yeah. And you have a lot of rooms that can be remade to look like another room because aren't all patient rooms the same?

They're also. Yeah. And so, but they did have hallways and stuff in terms of something that was real big, like that. West Wing really did have those hallways where they did the walk and talks and they had the Oval Office. The Oval Office was cool to see. There were a lot of fun things. And then if you look closely, one of the the coolest places that I had where we could check out things, Parks and Rec.

And I did see a little Sebastian, by the way, I met little Sebastian, the the miniature donkey hockey so thrilled. It was like, you have to see it. There is no star bigger than this. And he was cute. And I somehow I got my picture taken with him, so I was cute. Cool. But if you go inside that city hall, they have pictures and the pictures of past like councilmen, whatever, are people from their staff.

So it was fun working on a show. You can easily get a relative's picture on the wall. And theirs was also one of those kind of sets where you walk around it and you felt like you were actually in a building. That's crazy. It's interesting you mentioned with the West Wing because it is a show where there's I mean, it's a Aaron Sorkin, right?

So it's a lot of conversation. It's a lot of dialog. So I could only imagine the set being huge for a sense of just you have to do one continuous shot, even if you're just like spiraling through hallways, back and forth and weaving. They make sure that the walls are removable. So if they have to have a camera come in, they can or they shoot them through things.

I mean, it's it's very fascinating to watch those kind of shows being put together because it's a different procedure than maybe if you saw a three camera show where you're sitting in the audience, you're just watching things happen. If you watch a show long enough, especially a show that's been on for a very long time, you'll see changes to the set.

And I'm not necessarily talking about, you know, they just updated here and there or swap furniture. But sometimes when a show starts working on a shoestring budget, they don't know if it's going to get picked up beyond the pilot. They don't know if it's going to get picked up after season one. And then all of a sudden it's around for eight years and they really start changing up the set.

Have you ever gone back to a set that you hit maybe early on during a season one and then you go back a few years later and you're like, Whoa, what has happened here? This is totally different. Sometimes they will shoot on that on an existing set. There have been a lot of shows that because they weren't they didn't want to save money.

They didn't want to, you know, so they'll full house. They believe they use that set for a number of different things. So there are ones that they will go back and then when they start their own run they may upgraded or change things. But there is this kind of fear that if you have success and then you change the look, you could be inviting, you know, disaster or Mary Tyler Moore had that because remember how she had that apartment that was supposedly, you know, this whatever, Minneapolis apartment.

And then they decided to move her to another place downtown that looked a little more cosmopolitan and whatnot. And they were freaked that if they did move it from one place to another, the show would would suddenly lose its charm. So they made sure to make a big point of her taking her big AM from the old place and putting it in a place of honor, in the new place.

But yeah, they don't want to toy with that. But if you do have success, they will upgrade. You know, a lot of times look closely at countertops and kitchens. Yep. Because it's a faux painting that they do that looks like granite. And in granite it's painting. But if they have success, they may get real granite the next time they come around.

So if they upgrade this head so it has to be reinforced a little bit. Not too long ago before they ended, I was on the set of This is US, and they had that old house, you know, that the house that they used for the things when the characters were kids. Yeah. Oh my God. It was like walking back into my childhood because they had all of these things that I remembered, the TV sets that were old and yeah, even the kitchen counter where I think wasn't a crockpot that caused a problem and yep, yeah, it was all they had.

No crockpot, no crockpot. We don't have that, that kind of, you know. And the Goldbergs, I was on the set of that and it's filled with toys and crap that are, are unique to that era that they do watch it because if you're there visiting they don't want you swiping something because you like a Rubik's cube that you happen to see on a TV show and they will have things marked off or taped off.

So you can't walk there if you try or a guard will be standing there. The Big Bang Theory has a comic book, right? And that had real comic books that were expensive. And they did have you could not touch anything. And there you could have your picture taken in there, but you couldn't look at the comic books or, you know, touch any of the statues that they had and all the crap that was in their their apartment.

That was real stuff. And but you could I did sit in Sheldon's seat, you know, don't sit in my seat. Oh, and it was cool. It was big. But to see that they had, you know, if you lifted the cushions up, I didn't do this so don't. But they, I think they used it. There was an episode where they actually did put stuff down below and so everything isn't as it seems.

There are ways to kind of cheat it so that then if they need to do something like if somebody was to emerge from the bottom of the couch, they would have a hole built and they could pop up from that. So there are things like the Frazier, the the chair that the dad sat in was it looked horrible on TV and you thought, Oh, my God.

And it wasn't it wasn't when you saw it in person, they just added duct tape to the outside of it. And the cushions were really comfortable. John Mahoney, who played the dad, said it was like he loved just sitting there because he didn't have to do anything in the chair. But then Frazier also had this artwork that was original.

It was not a duplicate or a facsimile of anything. It was real art, and they did not bring it out until the night of shooting, so that when they had an audience there, somebody would hand carry that Kahului bowl or vase or whatever it might be and put it on the set. And then as soon as they were done shooting, they would remove it and put it somewhere else.

But they did not leave them out there just in case, because how would you replace it? You couldn't. That's fascinating, because I've always watched, you know, like I watch Frazier and I watch Big Bang Theory in those types of shows I would watch is like, wow, these are really good sets, especially with Big Bang Theory, because they're geeks and they've got all the toys and the other comic book type things, and I don't collect comic books.

I never really got into them. But I know what a comic book looks like in when they hold them up on the show. I'm thinking like, Wow, that's that's a really good reproduction, but it's not a real thing. It's there. And I'm sure a lot of the people who work on the show are hardcore geeks like that, and they figure when the show ends, somebody's going to have to get that.

I don't know, you know, unless they're just on loan. But I don't think they would be. I think they actually go and buy those. Yeah, but yeah. And so you usually ask the people, now when the show ends, what are you going to take, What do you want? And it's not necessarily the stuff you think Kaley Cuoco from that show had.

There was a picture that she said she always stared at and she wanted that because she remembers that's what she'd look at whenever she was sitting in a seat. She was talking to somebody. It was and it was a big nothing picture. It was not something. You go, Oh my God, it's Spider-Man 1952 now. It wasn't anything like that.

So there are things that mean something to them but don't necessarily mean anything to the show. I know that there were things on Friends that, you know, were iconic and certain people did get those, but boy, they still talk about it. Now, you say yeah, that she that Jennifer she got that and I'm still mad about it and you know, do they even put it in their house somewhere?

Probably not. Yeah. I think somebody took the door or from the set of Seinfeld because it was it was so iconic, you know, like, like Kramer flying through the door. And I don't know who it was. It might it maybe it was Jerry. But I thought one of the big actors walked away with that. Did you ever make it to the set of Everybody Loves Raymond?

But any chance I did. I did. They did. But it was like a just a regular house. Did you get to at least sit on the the couch that was covered in or zip zipped up in plastic? Yeah, well, but, you know, I was on Roseanne's couch, too, in case. Oh, yeah, Yeah. Usually they'll let you sit there so that then you can feel like you were at the show or you were part of this show or whatever.

And you meander around the sets and you look at things and you see things that you don't see when you're watching, you know, And there and I'm not naming names because but there are actors who don't memorize their lines. And so they'll stash them and they'll have things like there might be magazines on the table, and if you open up the magazine, you might find a script in there that's crazy.

So they would you know, they would act like they were reading a magazine when they were actually reading the scripts. Now, in recent years, some of these shows were done not not any big show that you know, but some of these cable ish shows, if you will, they would shoot three episodes in a week. And it was impossible for for the actors to memorize those scripts.

So they had huge, big screen TVs like like they were teleprompters that would be behind the characters so they could just read the lines off them. And that's fun to see because you go, Oh, I thought they had to memorize all this stuff. Maybe I could be an actor. I, you know, I would worry about that. But yeah, so it it varies from where you go on the Disney campus, if you will.

A lot of those Disney Afternoon shows that you'd watch on the Disney Channel or wherever were nearby each other. And it all got to be real good friends with each other. You know, they all knew Miley Cyrus. They all knew the Jonas Brothers. They all and they hang out together. They were actually friends and did things together. And it's it's amazing to see now, you know, when some of them moved on to other roles and other things, how what part that played for some it was for worse and for some it was better.

I was with the Zack and Cody kids, the Sprouse kids deal and I'm blanking, but they took me back to their their dressing room and they show me where they actually studied with a tutor. You know, they have to have so many hours a day with a tutor if you're using a kid and they can only work so many hours a day.

Though one of the boys said, you know, truthfully were able to, I think as actors were about a four. We're not that good, but we're trying to make money to get our college people. And so, you know, we buy into this. We see what this is all about. We know and they are far more sophisticated than you think on these kids shows.

These are not kids who are, you know, just throwing it out there and wanting to be stars. Some are. They're just because it's a job. Yeah, I the money and both the Sprouse boys did go to college. Now one ended up on Riverdale and they're both working in the business now but it was never the goal that that was that's kind of a byproduct that they still get to work.

And I always remember Demi Lovato telling me about kids today. I said, you know what don't they realize about being a young actor on a TV show? And she said they think it's all about the purse. I said, What? And she said, They think that you can have a really expensive purse and they don't realize what you're giving up or what you have to do.

And it's not all about the purse. And I thought, well, that that was a very kind of fascinating way to kind of size it all up, because I think fans look at these things and they think it's much more glamorous than it is. It's not sets. Are you doing these huge warehouses, kind of barn facilities where mice can easily be running around?

There's not a hesitation there. There's a huge craft services table, but you don't know whose touch that food or where that food's been, you know? So, I mean, there are a lot of things that don't make it seem like, Oh my God, here comes Greta Garbo and Clark Gable walking down the street. Not at all like that. It really is a factory.

Yeah, Factory of entertainment. Yeah. And a lot of those Disney ish Nickelodeon, Nick Junior kind of shows to that. Not I'm not saying that the sets don't look good, but you see a lot more artificial grass on the shows, which clearly isn't crass. The production value isn't necessarily is as high as you would expect either. And they would talk about how there's a Disney style at all.

But you know, where they have to do kind of those broad gestures and everything. And some of the kids really thought that that was wrong, that they didn't want to do that. And you can see where now they've shifted with some of these shows that they aren't as kind of obvious. Maybe that's a term for, but they are a little more adult and they talk about themes that are more contemporary than they did back in the day.

Any shows you've been on because you mentioned Star Trek, some of those shows, especially the SCI fi shows, where there might be a lot of green screens and and other things. Any any one in particular that we watch on TV that looks like, Wow, that is impressive. You know, there's the deck of the enterprise, but you're on the set and you're like, what is this?

What is this? This is the most unimpressive thing I've ever seen. Oh, well, Star Trek, The Next Generation. I mean, they had like an area that was basically every planet they visited. So it had parks and things and they just redressed it and put up a different. Yeah. So that that was what you're talking about. The Orville. Do you ever remember the Orville was on Fox for a while?

No, I don't. I think it's still going to be honest with me. It was Boeing, but I'm I'm not going to vouch for that. But they had an actual ship that you walked on. You walked through the whole hallways. It seemed like it was the real deal. And that's because Seth Macfarlane, who was producing it, was able to, you know, say, I want the real thing.

Okay. And you saw the costumes that were just bizarre. I got to shoot the guns that they they had. And it was like you were actually if it was a an amusement park, that's what it would be like. It was cool. But first of all, a lot of those ones, boy, they cheat a lot of stuff. You know, Star Trek was a real key one.

And if you looked at the Paramount that you would say, Well, I think I've seen this place before. What I watch sometimes you'll see buildings that they love to do schools, and it's just the outside of the of the paramount lot. Yeah. Executives place and you go well that's there's no school like that but they'll dress it up and make it seem like it is another one that was like shot at a place.

Scrubs okay. Scrubs was in a used to be a hospital and they just took it over and, you know, and there was a bet that they had going on that if anybody would spend time in the in the morgue, they would pay them extra. If they would go do that. But because it had been a hospital, they constantly had people coming in and acting like, I need help, I'm bleeding, can you help me?

And they'd have to turn them away and say, no, this is this is not a real hospital. It's a movie set of these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One's like that. The office was shot in a warehouse kind of situation with offices. It was real offices. So when you see them all sitting around like that, that's how it was. And you could walk around all of their desks, look at everything, and they said that their computers did work and they would do like one did Christmas cards.

Mm hmm. Well, they were because they had to be on the set. You couldn't leave. You had to be there. Well, other scenes were shot because you're Mr. Right. Right. You're an actor, but you are also background. So they would do stuff like that or they'd chat to each other on their their screens and act like they were working.

Sir, there was the warehouse that was attached to it, and this was out in some industrial area, you know, outside of Los Angeles. It wasn't, you know, there was a fence up and all of that. But the the, the storage area or the loading dock was actually filled with paper. Wow. Yeah. Cool to see. Very cool. You know, And yes, I do have a name, plaque that says I'm assistant to the assistant regional manager or whatever.

But yeah, very fun because that I think those kinds of shows make it feel like you actually are. There is a lot of the ones where you're sitting in seats and they will do that If you happen to go to California and you want to see a show shot, there will be tickets available to the public. Now, usually if you go to Universal Studios, they have a ticket box or a counter or whatever that they will let you know which ones are available.

Things like game shows have a lot of availability, so you could probably go to prices, right, and sit in the audience. You won't necessarily get picked, but you could go watch something like that. A sitcom could be a little more difficult because they have different nights that they shoot and they will suck up X number of tickets just to hand out.

Or if they're really bad, they will hire people to sit in the seats and laugh. Yeah, well, and they say that they used to have prisoners that would come and sit at the. Oh, jeez. 0i1 thing I did meet was paid laughs. Or did you know that they have people who are paid to laugh? Well, I knew there was laugh tracks, but I didn't know there was paid laughs.

And these were some of those series that do not have an audience. But the kids need to know when to hold for a laugh. And we had like five or six people honest to God, this was the strangest thing I've ever seen sitting at a table, and they would get her. Her? Oh, well, oh, different kinds of laughs.

And then the directors say, Okay, tone it down a little bit here. We don't need that much. And it would it would help the actors learn how to react to this crazy this thing. But yeah, and they would like read they be reading the newspaper. Well, they're laughing or knitting or doing something else. But it was a job and I had paid laughter.

I want that. I want to be somebody who's paid to laugh. Can you get me the gig? I'm there with my luck, though I'd be on the the absolute least funny show you can think of. Like, okay, we need you to laugh right now. Oh, my God. And that's the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to see how success changes people, because the first year of friends, nobody knew who they were.

And they were very they were more nervous than I was to interview them. And we had, they had given us mugs that said friends on it, you know, those big latte mugs or whatever. Right. Right. And they were so thrilled that the name of the show that they were on was on a mug that they started grabbing up as many as they could.

So they at least had a set of them. So here you see these big stars who, you know, went on to make what, millions of dollars serve this series, swiping mugs that were supposed to be swag that was given away to the media. And then when they had the last episode of Friends, we went to this set and they would not let us get down on the set.

Isn't that all? They don't have taken anything or didn't want us touching anything. We could not talk one on one with the actors and the boys. It wasn't like it was covered or anything. It was just that's how the world had changed. These were big stars that did not. Unless it was cleared, you were not able to talk to them.

And. Yeah, sorry, I don't have time for Bruce Miller. No, I'm not doing some low class person like Iowa. I'm speaking as the one from Iowa. Yes, I believe we have somebody who's serving coffee over here who's from Iowa to talk to him now. One of those kind of. Yeah, but it's for me, it's a fascinating thing to look at the sets and just see stuff close up, how they dress that and how they add all those things has really changed.

In the old days, it was very kind of minimal. You wouldn't see much on the counters and stuff and now, boy, they pack this and to make sure that it matches, you know, the others, they'll shoot pictures and everything and make sure that every box is where it needs. And I went to how I met your mother or father, Both mother and father, but father.

And it was such a mess on that set. It was like last year, this last year. And I thought, how would you keep track of all that stuff? Because it's just it's like litter, basically. But they, you know, they keep an eye on it. I was on the set of How I Met Your Mother just before it ended, and we were in the bar and I'm not sure what the bar.

Claire MacLaren's Yeah, what it is, okay. Gloria Bar set. And we were sitting at the table where the, the group usually sits and Neil Patrick Harris had carved his initials on the table and then he and it had plus D be his husband's name, David Burtka, and drew a heart around it. And I thought that was really cool and the picture of that.

But, you know, a little a little thing that you probably didn't know when you were watching it on on TV. Yeah. Because you would never see that. No, it wouldn't show. What's interesting to me too, is because all these shows generally have like real life exterior shots. Right? And I remember taking a trip to Boston and taking a walk to the Bull and Finch Tavern, which is where they shot the exterior shots for Cheers.

And the bar inside was kind of used loosely to inspire the look of the real bar. And I remember how cool it was like, Whoa, you know, here's the sign. And at this point, too, they had put up a sign that said Cheers, you know, downstairs because they wanted you to to recognize it. And and they had the seafood restaurant was there, too, that you can walk into.

But I remember walking down the steps to cheers and then opening the door. And then how unimpressed I was, because this is just this tiny little, you know, like eight seater of a bar. It's not anything impressive at all. And the real thing was huge. Really huge. Yeah. And it did work. So if you were there visiting, they could make you a drink.

Do you know, was there alcohol in them or was it. Well, if there were if they're shooting, you couldn't have alcohol. But when you're there there's out there with alcohol. And I remember sitting in one of the booths that were on the side with the actors, you know, it was funny about Cheers. They sure didn't have faith in that when it started.

Right? They did room. They did a room interview where you'd go in the room with the actors and they had just had five actors in the room with one reporter. And you're thinking, well, normally you'd kind of wouldn't you try to maximize size your exposure? Right? And I think we're just trying to blow it off. And then we went to a party on the set of it and we got to sit on Norm's stool and, you know, walk around and look at everything.

And it had changed. It had really changed. Once success hit again, you never know what's happened there, but Cheers is fun. But yeah, if you go to the bar, the Cheers bar in Boston, it's not the same. No, no, definitely not any. Any other stories? I have one to share. Once we're ready to wrap, let's come on out.

All right. I'm just going on. You got to shut me up. Okay, So I was sort of on the set of the movie. Annie. Do you remember Annie from 1982? Annie. Annie. Dust until come now. Tomorrow. Were you one of the authors? I know. So I went to college at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey, and in the University.

It's on it's kind of in this old neighborhood in West Long Branch, in the centerpiece of the campus is, I believe now they call it Shadow Lawn Mansion. They used to call it Wilson Hall. They use the mansion as Daddy Warbucks mansion in the movie. So they shot almost the entire movie on location at my college. And I remember taking, you know, before I before I decided on where I was going to go.

And you take those campus visits and they bring you on tours and the big selling point at Monmouth at the time and probably still is, was this is where we filmed Danny in the hall, which is Wilson Hall when I was there. It's where the president's office is. It's where the registrar is. There's some classrooms in there, too, is always very cool.

You would get a class because they didn't have a ton of classrooms in that building because a lot of them it's a lot of very small rooms. But you would you would go in there and occasionally have a class and it was very cool to have a class there. They would have receptions for, you know, honors students there.

I worked in my freshman year. I was tutoring foreign language students who were they were struggling in English and I was helping tutor them. And the tutoring center was in the basement of Wilson Hall. And you would walk on the floor and you could sense there was something hollow beneath it. And it was because the big pool, if you remember the scene, was the pool in Annie.

That's where the pool, the pools in the basement of Wilson Hall. But they had covered it over and converted into two classroom space. So yeah, so it was, it was very, very neat. And there is a scene, I think it's early in the movie when they're first bringing Annie to the mansion and you see the car turn down into the gates.

But it's one of those scenes where if you look very closely, you could see the dorms across the street, but you wouldn't know it If you're watching the movie. You just see some building in the background. But it's like, oh, there is. There's the dorms, which is crazy. They ask anything, Well, where did you start seeing Hard Knock Life at some point?

I did not know, but I did watch. I did actually watch the movie after I went to school there because I it wasn't high on my list of movies to see as a as a child, it didn't quite appeal to me. But once I got there, I watched it. It was it was fun to watch and then see the different locations and think, Oh, LA, you know, I've been there.

I had to I had to register for my sophomore year there and I had to go pay a late book fee or something there. And yeah, that was crazy. So that's where we kind of relate to these things, is that we can find the real place that was used and go, What was that for? I know. And if you ever go on the Universal Tour or the Warner Brothers tour, anything, recycle these things all the time.

So I, you know, like you, when I was in college, I was in a movie. They needed extras and they said, if you come, you know, maybe you'll get on camera, maybe you won't. It was Ice Castles, Ice Castles with Lin, Holly Johnson and Robby Benson, and it was about a figure skater who lost her sight. And we were supposed to be in the audience watching her.

When you realize, Oh my God, she's blind. She can't see where she's skating. And then. Right. And Robby Benson comes out to greet her and everything. Well, I happened to have a camera with me because it you know, if you're not with the camera, are you anybody you need a camera. All, all situations. And these were not cell phone days.

This was back in the days of a camera. And so they were they were thrilled that I had my camera there. And if you watch for a millisecond, you will see that I am in the movie Ice Castles because I happen to have a camera and it's me holding my camera. It captured that moment when they discover that she's blind.

Wow. Is that not real? But there's my movie. Yeah, well, I don't think we can top anything else now that we know. Now we've done it. It's done it. Okay, well, we're going to do another episode like this sometime because this is fun. I enjoy story time with Bruce. Well, if anybody has shows that they're interested in or want to know about, if they want to drop us a line, we'll be glad to put them on a list and then we'll talk about them.

Because like I say, 47 years I've been just about everywhere that you could go unless there was some ban put on people. And no, you can't talk to those people. And maybe I'll tell you my Zendaya story some oh, I want to hear that one. So you can you can reach out those podcasts at least dot net. I check the email regularly and I will screen those emails and we will get back you and talk about it in a later episode.

That sounds great. All right, everyone. Well, thanks again for listening to this episode of Streamed & Screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's been a pretty big year for movies so far. "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "Barbie," "Guardians of the Galaxie Vol. 3" and "Oppenheimer" have all gotten film fans off of couches and back into theaters.

And there have been a number of big streaming shows this year, including several notable series finales from "Succession," "Ted Lasso" and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." Plus, HBO launched "The Last of Us" and we've enjoyed other streaming hits like "The Bear" and "Shrinking."

But how good of an entertainment year has 2023 been? Are Oscar races still a bit unclear? Will this year's movies and shows stand the test of time?

This week's episode is a report card of sorts as we have tipped past the midway point in the year.

About the show

Next week

With no end to the strikes in sight, we plan to look back at the year so far. What are the hits? What are the misses? And what will stand the test of time?

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises, I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the incomparable Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a long time entertainment reporter. Bruce, we're here then halfway through 2020. You know what it is?

It's report card time. It is. We have school buddies, report card time for entertainment because we're past the halfway mark. We should look at the things that are have already happened. Which ones are good? Which ones are bad? Which ones will stand the rest of the year? Because right about now, people start talking. Oscar. At which films would actually make it to that big time at the end of the year when they go, Oh, of course this is going to be a winner.

Last year we had Top Gun Maverick as kind of the one that was like, yeah, that's that's a done deal. That one's going to be in there. And it was. But this year, boy, I think I have three titles that will make it to the end of the year. Okay. Can you. Ah. Which will make it to the end of the year.

Yeah. That will be considered for awards at the end of the year. Well, Oppenheimer. Right, Definitely. Are we only talking movies that we've seen so far or movies that have happened since January to now? So we're going to go. Oppenheimer Oh, yeah. Barbie. Barbie Yes, I do. I really do think it'll be in there. I think it'll be in the.

Okay. Okay. One more. I'm going to just I'm going to throw this one out there. Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse man could be. Yes, Spider-Man could be. You know, they like to marginalize animated films. Yeah, I'm in the animated category, so it could be because it was very good. But I think air might have another opportunity. Oh, yes, Yes.

That's still on my list of movies to see. Yeah, because it had really good supporting performances. Matt Damon was good in that and Matt is all over the map this year. He's in everything and I don't think he has enough clout to get a nomination for Oppenheimer, even though he's in it. But I think he's like the least of the big names that are in it.

I think Robert Downey Jr has a better shot than he does. I would agree. Yeah. So ere is my third one. Asteroid city is one that could creep in there because of the west Anderson imprint. You know, I was going to throw that one. Yeah, I was going to throw that one out at you, too, if you could, because that's one I didn't get a chance to see it, but it's now available for, I think, streaming and DVD rental.

So I'm planning to check that one out very soon. And then I asked friends, I said, What would you put on the list? And now you're going to be shocked when I tell you this. Are you? If God, it's me, Margaret. Interesting. And that is not on my list at all, huh? But they thought it was really well done.

They thought it was a good adaptation of a Judy Blume novel. Well, you know. All right. And then, like you, Spider-Verse, I think, has a a shot at something. But I don't know if it could be best picture, but that's that's kind of where we're at. I don't think it goes beyond those films for Oscar consideration because have you really seen something that good that you you want to remember?

Yeah, we've talked about this on some some past episodes to where it's an effort for me personally to get out to the theater. I'm not I'm not going to just go and see every single film. If there's a lot out there, I'll see as many as I can, you know? And last year I saw two Top Gun and Avatar.

I'm up to about six now this year. Oh, my God. Right. Because there's like I know because there's been a lot that I've wanted to see this year. But even now I'm looking at what's still to come. And really, until we get to that Scorsese film killers, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there's a whole lot else that I want to see.

Like the Granturismo. I know you just saw that one. I sort of want to maybe see it, but I think that's just a wait until it comes out on streaming for me. That's a fast and furious crowd kind of picture. Yeah, I wanted it to be more Ford versus Ferrari, you know, but it's not. It's it's rocky on wheels is what you get out of that sucker.

Maestro is a big one to look forward to where Bradley Cooper plays Leonard Bernstein. And it looks like he has a real shot of beating Killian Murphy for best actor. Really? Yeah, that's. That's a big one. And then that they've done a remake of The Color Purple, the the Steven Spielberg film. But now the musical version that's getting a lot of buzz.

I'm hearing things about Saltburn, which is an emerald vinyl film. I know that image is throwing you off the track here. Alexander Payne has the holdovers. Okay, so there are ones that are out there that you probably haven't heard about but are getting early buzz as potential best picture, best actor, best actress. You know, so Napoleon, that's another one.

We don't know who's going to make it. So, you know, doing might be next year might not be this year. But best actress, when you look at that very thing this year, very thin. I mean, if I'm thinking of Margot Robbie as best actress for playing Barbie, is this really going to happen? And then you have Fantasia Barrino in The Color Purple.

That's that's almost a made for nomination role, but it's a remake of sorts. It's not you know, I mean, have you have you gotten excited about that? I'm not so sure. You look at best actor Gillian Murphy is the only one that you've been hearing about for best actor. But like I say, Bradley Cooper could be in there.

Matt Damon could be in there for air. There are some other ones, Joaquin Phenix for Napoleon, for the holdovers. So there are ones that sound a little better there. But the real strength is in the supporting actor categories. That's where you're going to see some people that you've, you know. Okay. Emily Blunt from Oppenheimer. She was the wife and she was always kind of mean and nasty.

Florence Pugh from Oppenheimer as the girlfriend. Right. Right. Then from there. Are you there? God, it's me, Margaret. Kathy Bates, Rachel McAdams, potential Scarlett Johansson from Asteroid Fever. Asteroid City, rather. Mm hmm. Potential. And then supporting actor Robert Downey Jr, I think is a must. He's in there. Ryan Gosling as can. Come on. Possibly. Yeah. I loved him.

He was great. I think they always do try to throw in one there so that you think pretty pretty possibly get this this could be it. And then then they don't give it to him. They pull it from him. But you know, potential best director Christopher Nolan, because that will absolutely right. Greta Gerwig Because she did something with Barbie that wasn't just the same old crap that we've seen before.

Wes Anderson because of, you know, they like him. Scorsese Come on, you can't be him. I think you can even say right now he's in the list. Really win it. I don't know. He's always yeah, he's always left kind of off to the side, but he's a bridesmaid all the time. So. So. So you never really know where these are going to go.

But I do think that thus far we have not had a rush of strong best picture, best actor at best actress. You know, I think it's anybody's game at this point. And they they only have to get into theaters briefly by the end of this calendar year. Correct. They've changed it so that you have to have two weeks.

And it used to be you could do kind of a one week and a thing and then you open in January and you kind of take a run with it. But they've made it a little more difficult. But I think it's a little fairer and it had to be a number. It wasn't just one market in Los Angeles or some other kinds of things.

So maybe we'll actually get these ones. You never know. But the rules are a little, little different this year. Do you think there's anything that might get screwed up, too? Because, you know, there's been a few delays here and there, the writers strike now I'm assuming most of the films that are still due to come out this year are at at worst, just in post-production right now.

Correct. I mean, there's probably nothing filming. I thought they said that there could be a problem with Dune coming out in December. Will they push it to try and get there? We'll see just how we're going to go the next year. Don't worry about that. And then there's the anticipation. So that could be affected. But most of the ones that we're seeing advertised now, they're done.

They're ready. I was watching a baseball game last night, The New York Mets, they've got a three man TV booth, but then they also have a fourth person that kind of wanders around and we'll talk to celebrities. We'll talk to, you know, family of players might, you know, retired players, that kind of thing. So he's wandering around and speaks with Steve Schirripa, who you may remember from The Sopranos is as Bobby Bakula above Bobby Bucklebury.

And they were talking to him because he's doing a podcast now, I think is with Michael Imperioli, where they're looking back at The Sopranos, and I believe they're just rewatching all the episodes and kind of talking about them. Now, he made an interesting comment, and this is one that I've always thought about this show because I watched it heavily when it first came out.

And then a few years ago, I actually rewatched the entire series start to finish. And we're talking, you know, a solid eight, eight or nine years after it went off the air. And one thing that he mentioned, which I've always felt strongly about, is that it's a show that will stand the test of time, because other than the cars that they're driving or maybe the technology that they're using, like those old flip phones, or they would still make some phone calls on a payphone every once in a while, which those things don't exist anymore.

But other than those things, the show still holds up. I mean, it's just a show about relationships. Are there any movies this year that you see that are going to stand the test of time? I mean, like in Oppenheimer? Sure, because it's a period piece. So, you know, there's no reason that wouldn't. But are there movies that we're seeing this year that we're going to be watching 50 years from now?

I think we're going to see a lot of Barbies. I've said this before. I think they're going to be trying to milk that one for every dime they can get out of it. And so I would not be surprised to see Barbie two, three, four or five. It's like Rocky. You saw Rocky and you said, oh, my God, this was so good.

And then all of a sudden we're up to Rocky six. And then they're doing Creed as a subset of all of this. So yeah, I think some of those ones that are very populist, they feel that they are no lose. You can't lose with these things because there's a built in audience for it. And even if it's bad, they'll come.

This is a bad year because we haven't had a lot of variety in terms of the kinds of films that we're seeing. In fact, I, you know, when you see these last few covered years, you look and you think, do they really need ten nominees for some of those? You know, four for best picture? Because, man, some of those shouldn't be on those lists, to be honest.

Do you think they'll ever pare that back to the. It was traditionally it was five right up until whenever you know what studios are behind that and they'll make a lot of money if their show can say it was a best picture nominee. And so are they going to give up the opportunity to advertise that? No way. But I really wish they would go back to five because they were easier to get your hands around.

And then they had to have really something. It had to have it to be able to make it into the final five. Yeah. And I always feel, too, that it's like the Disney Pixar thing where one of the whatever movie they do is almost guaranteed to be an automatic in that ten and if you get a 20 right now, right.

You're going to tell me right now that Elemental is the best picture nominee. No, I think in that case, I if they're are going to put an animated one in, that's where Spider-Verse gets in their mind, because that was far better than sorry, Elemental. Yeah, I tolerated it. It was okay. But I preferred Super Mario Brothers, to be honest with you, over Elemental.

I didn't like the look of it. I thought it really cheap and it looked like something they totally wouldn't do. Like, could you see any of that? It was designed to look like an amusement park, but I couldn't imagine doing a ride where we going around and all of a sudden we're on fire. And then the next thing you know, we're in wet.

And I mean, it's like a ride. So I don't know. That's maybe they could do it as it's a water park ride where you ride through the wet part first and then you dry off, semi dries you off with a blowtorch. That's right. You know, can I just sidebar here? I'll tell you a story. Sure. There was a home show here in town way back when.

Like this is like so far back is like, was it a home or are there things that are still home worthy? And they had a thing called the environment. And you go in there and it goes through four seasons. Well, you're in the thing. So it's basically a shower, right? Because it rains on you and then it has like a cool breeze.

It goes through so winter and then there's a warming breeze summer, and then there's kind of like a wind and that's fall. And you got all of the Four Seasons in the course of the thing I did it and I thought, this is something I will never have in my house is, you know, now we all have them in our homes.

So there we are. But yeah, and that's kind of what Elemental is, is just a way to get the elements together and make it look like we're doing more than we are. But no, I, I think that has no shot. Okay. What about TV? What do you think is worthy of the TV things? Yeah. So, you know, we've talked about how it's tough to get me out to theater and this is really good, but when it comes to TV, it's easy to get me right because it's the end of the night.

Kids get to bed, you know, even if it's just 45 minutes before my wife nods off, We can we can usually sneak in something in a lot of the shows that are nominated for primetime Emmys, which have been pushed back now to early next year. Yeah, they were supposed to be in September, but there's a lot of shows that made the nominations list, which came out in 2023.

I mean, we're starting with one that that I think could clean up The Last of US from HBO. Oh, all right. Okay. You know, that was to me, HBO has been putting out some really good kind of doomsday ish programing for a number of years now. And it always feels like it's like a, you know, end of the year or beginning of the year type of thing.

And I think they went off, you know, splendidly with Last of US. I mean, that is just it. I got roped in from the beginning and it was a zombie show. I'm not a big horror person, so I'm not going to I don't want to watch gory things. And it had its moments of kind of grossness, but it was more of like the humans story of what happens to people who are put in very difficult situations.

And it's a show that's based off of a video game and they made it work. It was tremendous. I loved it. So you think it's going to stand the test of time? Do you think it'll have five years from now? People will be talking about it. I think it's the type of show that possibly they could be. Now we'll see what happens when season two comes.

You know, will they be able to continue that magic that they found in season one? We'll see. We'll see. I thought that the bear I loved in the first season and I adored it in the second season, I thought they were able to avoid a sophomore slump and make it even better because we knew the characters. So I had one.

I don't know what a three third season would be like. Maybe they fall apart and covidiots and they have no business. I don't know. I love that show. I think that was the real keeper. Yeah, I'm only about halfway through the season two of the bear, but other than I thought it was a little bit, I thought that first episode was a little sluggish, but I like how they've kind of developed the characters and given each character kind of that moment to shine, where, you know, we're looking at a sushi chef and what she's doing, and then they send the pastry chef overseas and give him a moment to shine.

So I think it's really been a good season for character development. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, and I think those stand alone episodes are good. I like that where you maybe give the other people kind of a week off and then you focus on one. I think that's a great idea that should be copied by others. There's another show that I just started as well, so I'm kind of bouncing back and forth now between between the Bear, which I just watched by myself.

And then my wife and I just started this because I still have the Apple TV plus going right now, but shrinking, which came out in January with Jason Segel, Harrison Ford, Jessica Williams. And I think that picked up a couple of nominations for it for for actor and actress. Have you seen that one at all? Yeah, and I couldn't get into it, really, one that I really cared about and you see what I mean?

Yeah, It was one where I can usually sense for my wife right away if she's going to like it or not. In comedies, it's, it can be a tough sell, but I think it has the type of humor that she likes. And it's it was co-created not just Jason Segel, but Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein from Ted Lasso were part of that.

So I think that kind of darker humor that you see in Ted Lasso carries over into this show. And it's one I think, you know, we're going to keep watching it for sure. And I'm already looking forward to what will season two bring. I don't know if it will stand the test of time, but but I am enjoying it as a show so far.

Would Ted Lasso stand the test of time? Yes, in less. Here's the caveat to that. If soccer finally gets so huge in America like they've been talking for the last 40 years, I remember as a kid, my parents signed me up for soccer and they're like, it's going to be the next big sport in the U.S. And 40 years later, it's doing a lot better now than it was 40 years ago.

But but man, oh man, it just cannot top baseball or football or, you know, and isn't that weird how parents get their kids into soccer? I mean, it's like manic. And every Saturday they're gone somewhere. And you think this has got to grow. It must be the kids get sick of it. And then they say, and I following it anymore, and I'm done not to take away from the accomplished.

It's because it is. I mean, you look at women's soccer in America and it's huge. I mean, it's obviously where where it's really excelled is it's become other than this current world Cup where the U.S. got bounced early on on the men's side, it just has not quite evolved to where it is. But they are still you know, MLS has been around now for 20 plus years.

It's doing well. It's you know, stadiums are getting larger, the crowds are, but it's just it's still not where the NFL is. But as long as soccer remains kind of, you know, on the periphery, then it makes sense. But but as soon as, you know, soccer becomes mainstream in the U.S. like it is in Europe or anywhere else in the world, then the humor that you get out of this, you know, American football coach, it just wouldn't make sense in here.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, how are you? Where do you stand on succession? I don't know if that one is going to stand the test of time. And I'll tell you why. Politics are very cyclical and they are taking a page out of current politics and the current state of Fox News to do that show. I think that show will will definitely hang on as being kind of an in the moment type of thing.

And and maybe a decade out, people will still be talking about succession. But if the landscape changes drastically, but also not only just at the political landscape but the technology cycle, because part of what makes that show is they were talking about, you know, how will the Waystar royco get involved in other technologies, other forms of media? And as soon as the media changes into some other format, that just doesn't make sense that we can't understand anymore, or it just seems too old.

I think it might go away, but it's a great show. I love it. Yeah, I think it's one of those ones that the hype was bigger than the actual execution. It didn't have one of those kind of creators to it. At least not that I can pin who this was. His driving project. This was his life. This is what he is putting out there.

It seemed very much like Law and order always is ripped from the headlines when you find something on it that you say, okay, let's go with it and let's go as outrageous as we possibly can, and we'll do an audience. But I don't think it's one of those ones where you go, Oh my Lord, they really came up with something here.

I want to watch All in the Family is kind of that, you know, that was obviously a comedy, but it was so groundbreaking for the time. But today you just wouldn't even think twice about that type of humor. It might not even work. I don't think about air. I don't think because they'd say, Oh, no, we can't. We're going to offend somebody here, right?

We cannot do this. It's not getting on. So I don't think it would. And that actually came from Great Britain and we adapted it and look at how well that worked out. That was a good thing. And those you know, they would do maybe six episodes and be done with it. And in the United States in those days, you had to be 20 to 30 episodes of a show to have a season.

And that's, you know, that's an interesting look at where they are. But, you know, I really I struggle a because a lot of the shows that we're watching on network TV aren't good numbers, right? And then on streaming, it's such an abbreviated season that you don't get enough time to dig in and kind of embrace it. So I don't know if I mean, you look at White Lotus, that was a big thing last year and White Lotus got a lot of attention.

But season two, okay, it's okay, but it isn't one of those ones. You go, Oh my God, White Lotus changed the landscape. It didn't. No, I think I think you're right. With the episode length, the structure of every series. I mean, I'm thinking about one what was one of the network TV shows that got a lot of buzz this year?

And it was night court because it actually did well. And I am shocked when people go, oh one, the best TV shows ever, Abbott Elementary, It's borrowing the office. It's borrowing from a lot of I mean, it's it's a fine show. I enjoy watching it now they don't have Modern Family to watch on Wednesday nights. It's my my anchor.

But it is not as groundbreaking as they want it to be, I think, because there are certain things that need to. When they did lean in to the plight of teachers today, that's where they were going. Right. But when it starts getting to be a principal who's running a side business at the office, I don't care. I really do.

Yeah. The the thing that I found interesting with with Night Court, there is a piece I read in the New York Times that talked about how they kind of followed the model of the original series, which was to not necessarily pull headlines out and make it a little bit more timeless. Right? You can, you can watch an episode of Night Court from the late eighties today, and it wouldn't you just watch and be like, Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But here's the problem with night court. Even the modern version of it, who goes back and watches old episodes of night court? I'll watch old episodes of Cheers or Seinfeld all day long. I love Night Court when it first came out years and years ago, but it's not a show that I go back to, you know, maybe if it popped on, if I was flipping through a channel nice, I was like, Oh, there's night court, Maybe I'll maybe I'll watch 20 more minutes of rent and then move on.

But I think that's the problem with that show is, is the reason why it's kind of resonating. The new version, the rebooted version is, sure, it's kind of timeless and, and it doesn't really matter and it's not right. And it's just kind of that basic comedy sitcom humor, but it's not above and beyond anything we've seen before. It's just it's a pleasant 22 minutes to kind of me I don't have to turn the channel kind of show.

Yep. You know. All right, I'll sit through it because I got to finish out the hour and then we'll see what happens at the end. 8:00. You know, it's just it's that kind of a concept. But yeah, this was not a year to remember it, even though we're going to hear a lot of. Oh, my God, this is just the best series.

This is the best whatever. I don't think so. And I think the more we get away from it, like Jan, to reward these people, the less we are going to remember about what it was that made them so great. Marvelous. Mrs. Maisel. Well, that one stand the test of time. No, not at all. Yeah, I liked it. I like I do, too.

You know, I marveled at the idea that they were spending so much money on that show. I mean, the costumes, the sets, the. And it was purely a vanity product. You know, they went to this couple and they said, what would you like to do? And they said, you know what we'd like to do? Here's what we'd like to do, but it's going to cost us some money.

And they did it. And I love that. I think that's a great thing. But there are episodes where you go, Jeez, this could have been 30 minutes. It didn't need to be 45, right? Yes, I agree. And I also think that with Mrs. Maisel, it's a little bit like Seinfeld, where it's very geographic. So for me, as somebody who grew up in the New York metropolitan area, it resonates with me.

And there's a lot of people across the country that certainly love Seinfeld, certainly love Mrs. May's all. But if if you're turned off by such a regional program like that, it's not going to sit with you. You know, with that show, I was constantly fact checking because he would bring out something that wasn't in that year. I know that wasn't in that year.

And then I'd have to go back and try and find what year this was. And the MFA wasn't right. They did the fact checking, so props to them. And like I say, I love watching it, but I don't know that that's one that I'd say I'm putting it in a box and I'm going to pull it out five years from now and I'm going to watch it and I'm going to be just ripped.

I told you earlier this during the COVID thing, I watched all of Mary Tyler Moore over again, and I loved every minute of that. It was it was like a warm hug from the past. And I was able to remember things about that era. And I laughed every every time I left. And I you know, people are big Golden Girls fans, too.

And you see them. And what I look at that right away is and I say, God, that the screen format is so small and it's kind of fuzzy. And, you know, those are the things that tripped me up. And so I don't know that I could watch some of those shows, but if they did it like Lucy, Lucy is going to last forever.

And it's because it was well-written, well-produced and well-performed. It doesn't matter when it was, but it's that stands the test of time. There's one other show that we did an episode about, you know, because we had it was like the big four that went off the air right around the same time. Barry That's another one, which it would get nominated every year.

But I always felt I like Barry, I enjoyed Barry, but I always thought that it was maybe a little overhyped. I think it had a good in it, and they're all good the first year. The first year is great. We have a vision, but then they kind of veer. And I think with Barry, he got time off Bill Hader to kind of rethink things.

And I think that rethinking maybe didn't do it any big favors. It's still well done. Yeah, but I don't yeah I don't know it once you know the kind of the ending. Yeah. I don't know that you want to watch through the other parts. Yeah. That you're a better call Saul fan right. Mhm. See that's another one I couldn't get into.

I Breaking Bad was too big for me to want to worry about another character I really liked. Better Call Saul. I thought I just saw that last season I did not love it. I didn't love the ending. That's, you know they say are they going to reward them for their last year? Yeah, I think the answer is no.

Yeah, I agree. You know, it's interesting with both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul is I. I crushed through both series kind of in short periods of time. I didn't watch Breaking Bad when it came out. There was a covered show for me and I watched everything and I loved it. It was a good, good series. And then better call Saul.

I didn't. I knew it was out. Obviously, when I was watching Breaking Bad, but I chose to kind of wait on that one too, until the last season was done. So late last year, I watched all of the first whatever, five seasons of Better Call Saul. And then the last season finally hit Netflix at the beginning of this year or middle of this year, whenever it was.

And I slam through that one super quick. So I didn't it wasn't a show that you pulled me in or a series. It didn't pull me in for a decade because that's pretty much how long it took to get through both series. It's just I watched them within a two year period, more or less, but I felt like that one just kind of tailed off at the end and I would not have been happy if I invested six years of my life in that one, I guess is a good way to put it.

You know, one of the greatest things about being a critic is that you often get to see all of it before anybody else does. Sure. So you don't have these outside influences and you also we did binging a lot sooner than anybody else did. And I think once we threw that out there to the public, the public want they want that.

They want to be able to plow through a show in a weekend if they have to. Yeah. And I think that has affected the movie business because if you have your choice between seeing a show that you've really been waiting for or going to a marginal movie, you're going to take that show and sit at home. And let's face it, our home setups are probably just as good as a film theater, you know?

I mean, you got the big screen, you got a comfy chair, you got food nearby, you can stop at to go to the bathroom. Does it get any better than that? It does not. And so I think that's the uphill battle that that the movie business faces is they've got to try and combat that. And how do they do that?

And it's not by making the movies longer, you know, that I'm I'm on that. It's not that they want 3 hours of something. It's that maybe you've got to make that content so compelling that they have to go see it. There's one show that Season two came out this year. It recently aired. It came out in April. It's a show that I don't think it's really any buzz.

I don't think it had any Emmy nominations, but it's one that I have kind of come to enjoy because I find it to be a little quirky and it's another one out at HBO. Somebody somewhere, Have you seen that one at all? Somebody, somewhere. Help me out. Who's in it? Bridget Everett, the comedian. It takes place in Kansas.

She's a late 40, early, 50 ish single woman, somebody most unlikely star of a TV show. Right. Right. And it's an interesting program. Yeah. And it touches on a lot of topics that seem a little almost taboo because it's in Kansas, which is obviously a very conservative state. So it's kind of touches on just a lot of different things.

But I also find it to be just a sweet show. You know, it's like I watch it and I think, oh, that was a very pleasant 30 minutes I just had. Yeah, that just shows us that they're opening the doors to other voices, which is, which is good because if you were a on network TV, you'd have to have some kind of a profile or you'd have to have some like I would assume if we didn't have all these other things, it would be tick hours.

We could be bombarded by tick tock people on network television because they able to bring a crowd with them. Whereas with this, I don't know. Does she have a following? If she does, I'm sorry that I haven't paid attention. The only reason I even heard of her is because she appeared on an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld.

I had never heard of her before. I had never seen her standup act, which is a crazy act where she sings and it's like a burlesque show almost.

And it's wild. You know, how she ever came to get into this HBO program? I have no idea. But it's it's done very well. And I think it's just it's a little bit of an under the radar program where it the episodes aren't very long. There's not it's like eight or ten for a season. It's at the bare minimum to qualify, but it's gotten some, you know, a decent following.

The average tomatometer 100% from critics. Audience score 93%. So people like it. It's just not a lot of people are watching it, right? Yeah, You don't have the numbers attached to that is how many does that represent? Well, there you go. Back in the old days, somebody like Margaret Cho, who they loved and thought she was a great comedian and she had just something there that we have to put on television.

And then they got her a show and they changed everything that made it about her. It was like they were trying to shoehorn her into Cinderella's slipper and it didn't work. And that's what I'm afraid they would try to do with people today. Thank God there are areas like HBO where they can find that talent, put their talent on.

I think though too often they want to have something quickly. They want to have a success right out of the chute. They don't you know, you hear that a lot of times with people who are our musicians, that we had an opportunity to fail through two or three albums. And then, you know, maybe one would hit. But now with music, if you don't have a hit, they don't give you an album.

You've got to get that one shot, you know, mega hit, and then you'll get maybe a chance for a second one. And if there's enough of them for an EP, then they'll do that. And then if you sell enough money, you know, if you got to sell enough copies and you make a lot of money, then you might get a real album now.

And if you get enough, enough money, you're like Taylor Swift and you can do whatever you want. Yeah, you know, that's where that's where I almost think to an extent, Network TV is almost dead in a sense with programing because you can at least go on to you can go on to Netflix because they don't nobody releases any of their their data.

It's you don't have Nielsen ratings in the same way. So a show if they're willing to finance it and their internal numbers show that there's some sort of audience and they're not losing money off of it, it's almost like they're willing to give you an opportunity. And maybe that is where someone like a Bridget Everett can do it, somebody somewhere, because it's on HBO and it's not on NBC or CBS or Fox, and they probably would have canceled the show after three episodes.

It would be interesting to know how much they will give you to do a show. You know, is it you're getting like pennies and then you've got to try and make something out of that with pennies? Or do they throw a lot of money at you? And then if it's not good, you're out, right? All right. It's I yeah, it's a fascinating thank God we're not in that world.

We're only observing from the outside. I think it's harder to, you know, Bo Burnham I don't know if that name rings a bell with you, but he did a great, great, great COVID era special where it was just in his house. It was just him in his house singing songs that he had written marvelous. It's like really something so creative and you know that they're not going to give him anything.

They'll give him another special. That's it. But they're not going to say, Let's do the weekly Bo Burnham Show, because that's not going to happen. So it is very interesting, but I don't think this year I'm a bottom line is I don't think there's any big story to be told about the TV things that we are watching every I think that we haven't yet seen all of the the movie things, but it's pretty slim pickings at this point.

And until we see what comes in November and December, the year hasn't been written, I would agree. All right, Bruce. Well, on that note, I think we'll wrap things up and we will be back again next week with another episode of Streamed & Screened.

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Most of the big blockbusters have already hit theaters and with the writers and actors on strike, most of Hollywood is at a standstill. Co-host Bruce Miller would normally be soaking up the sun of Southern California, interviewing the stars of the upcoming fall television series, but instead remains rooted in Iowa.

So instead we take a look at some streaming options that are out now or dropping soon:

"Only Murders in the Building" and "Reservation Dogs" began began their respective third seasons. Both are available on Hulu.
Season two of "Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" just began on HBO.
And the latest entry into the "Star Wars" universe — "Ahsoka" — premieres Aug. 23 with a pair of episodes on Disney+.

One show that has become a staple of summer programming is "American Ninja Warrior" on NBC. The 2023 season began on June 5 and will be wrapping soon. Bruce has an interview with Scott Behrends and his son Ben, who both advanced on the show. Their episode will air later this month.

Where to watch

"Only Murders in the Building" on Hulu
"Reservation Dogs" on FX/Hulu
"High School Musical: The Musical: The Series" on Disney+
"Ahsoka" on Disney+
"Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty" on HBO/Max
"Archer" on FX/Hulu
"American Ninja Warrior" on NBC

About the show

Next week

With no end to the strikes in sight, we plan to look back at the year so far. What are the hits? What are the misses? And what will stand the test of time?

Related episode

Artificial intelligence and how we deploy it is likely the top ethical dilemma the world is facing, and recent actor and writers strikes in Hollywood have put the issue in a bright spotlight. In a recent episode of The Ethical Life — How will artificial intelligence change how entertainment is made? — Richard Kyte and Scott Rada discuss how worried we should be about computers taking over more of what we watch and read, and whether live performances and sports will benefit.

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened, an entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the Ninja Warrior of the Cinema, Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Did you come in all stealth-like, ready to sneak in and attack this episode?

I am all ready. I am so pumped. I actually I realized that I will never, ever be a ninja warrior and I don't have any skills. And I probably would slip on the first step. So I think I'm I'm out of it. But, you know, Terry, the the new season, the third season of only murders in the building starts this week.

And it's about podcasts now. Now, yeah. You are the biggest fan of Only Murders in the Building. I've watched one episode of season one and I don't remember why I stopped watching the show. I think it was one of those deals where my wife and I popped it on. She didn't like it, and then I just never came back to it.

So I feel like nobody wants to watch people do a podcast. Oh, it's so boring, that podcasting stuff. Podcast. Forget it. That's not a career track. That's not happening. People make a living doing that. I can't believe this is terrible. Well, in the third season now, it's been going three seasons, so you missed two of them. The third one brings in Meryl Streep and Meryl Streep plays the actress who's kind of not successful.

She's she's just hoping to get a part in a in a play directed by Martin Short and he's excited because he's back on Broadway again. Yes. And there's a part for a nanny and she gets his role as a nanny. And then they start kind of circling each other like there's going to be a relationship. But the leading man drops dead in the first episode.

So is the play going to go on? What happens? It starts this week, so you should be able to keep that all kind of condensed in one little nice package and honest. Don't spoil it at the end. Who? Who is responsible? Maybe I should go back and crush the first two seasons again, because that's Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, is it?

Selena Gomez. Yeah. And it's weird because in the first two years they were together all the time, kind of doing the seek and destroy information thing to find out who was the killer. The third season, they're all kind of separate. So I wonder if it was a filming thing. Maybe Selena was on some tour or something or doing some other show, but she's not with the other two as much as she should be.

So it's not as much the trio, but they're all you know. Martin Short's nominated for an Emmy. The show is nominated. So we'll see when the Emmys are in 2027 or whatever, when they do start airing those things if they won for the second season. But, you know, I watched it all at once. I was able to binge it, so I felt good about that.

And then reservation dogs, are you a fan of that? No, I haven't watched that one at all. My God, my rez dogs. I love that show that is starting its third and final season. This week. And it's you know, these these kids who live on a reservation are kind of searching for something. And last season, they went to California to see that was their goal, was that they were all going to go to California to start this new life and everything.

And they realized when they got to California it wasn't what they thought it was going to be. And so now they're making their way back home in this third season, and you'll see what happens to them on that trip. They go on a bus. They thought they were going to call it a plane, but they couldn't afford the plane.

So they're riding in a bus and they stop somewhere along the way. And much happens. That's what I can say about as dogs. And then my high school musical, you know, I pitched that the last time and I was trying out that was that starts it's going to be a big thing. What's weird about this time of year is it's normally fall preview.

And if you were one of those hardcore TB watchers in your childhood, you always knew that you waited for the TV guide that would have all of the the new shows listed and you'd watch the ads that were coming and it was going to be like, Oh, I can hardly wait Thursday. And I'd memorize the schedule of all the shows are going to be on Thursday night, and then I'd be watching that.

Well, that's not happening this year because of the strikes that are going on and so there's a lot of built in material on the networks, a lot of game shows, a lot of shows that are coming from Canada that you'll see. So it isn't going to be a typical fall TV season. It's going to be, you know, kind of hit and miss.

The streaming services are still going ahead with their their programing lineup. So you'll see a lot of new shows in August, September and October that were planned to be rolling out and then they're hoping that everything will come back into shape, hopefully with the end of the strike. But we'll see what happens. It it could be weird, but it is for me, it's like withdrawal.

I'm going through those kind of shakes that I'm not going to get all my new fall shows. Oh, you sound like me right now. But. But I'm as a baseball fan. My my New York Mets have punted for the year. They traded and they traded half their team while I was out last week. And it's just it's not looking too good.

You know, you mentioned the streaming services. They're kind of secretive. We don't actually know what they have stored in the bank. I've read a few things saying that, you know, they probably have a lot more than you're aware of because they film some of these and then they just they just leave them there for a while. And then when they're ready, they they dust them off and bring them out.

They do the worst job of publicity. Can I just be honest? They really don't let you know far enough in advance what's coming. They also pick up a lot of stuff now from Asia, so a lot of Asian series because they can subtitle them and throw them out there and Paradise gave everybody that kind of confidence that let's go look at Asian markets and see what kind of shows are out there.

And then you had all the things on Netflix that they pulled out of Asian markets and there you go. Yeah. The only things that I'm really looking forward to at the moment is on Disney. Plus in the next couple of weeks, we will see the debut of the Ahsoka Ahsoka Tano spinoff, which is part of that ongoing Mandalorian book of Boba Fett Universe that takes place after Return of the Jedi.

So that's coming out on I think it's August 23rd. They've got two episodes that are going to stream that first night, and it sounds like it's going to be almost movie length, like, like 90 minutes straight of those first two episodes. And then the other one, it just came out, I think, this weekend, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet and I don't even want to call it a good show.

But I got roped in on the first season because I'm a I'm a sports fan. Winning Time. The rise of the Lakers dynasty. It's like it's supposed to be a true story, but they they dramatize it so much. I think Jerry West, who was the GM of that those teams. Right. I think he threatened to sue because it made him look ridiculous.

So on one hand, it's kind of this oddball semi fictional account of the teams, but I just couldn't stop watching it because I found it so entertaining. You can tell it's a heightened version. You can tell that it's not you know, it's like the Weird Al Yankovic movie you could call that. That wasn't, you know, all this is exactly how it happened.

Well, it's the same way with that. With the Winning Time series, you could tell that there was a little goose there that kind of made it a little different. So I think it's fine to get that little extra something, but if you're featured in it, maybe you don't like that kind of stuff. Jerry West did not look good in that first season.

I mean, it made him look like a sociopath, but he's going around, he's throwing his MVP trophy against the wall. It may be kind of ridiculous. I don't know. Maybe it did. But, you know, it's nice entertaining. Yeah. You could be watching Kim versus Connor, the divorce series that's coming up. Yeah. So, you know, who knows? There's a lot of strange stuff going on and there are, you know, new sequels that are coming out, new kinds of series, animated series that are out there.

But again, it's not like you're not going to get a heads up on all of this. You need to do a little research. In fact, today I got a thing about a new Netflix series that I had never heard of, and I thought, wow, this is this is kind of odd that they would drop it that quickly. But, you know, there you are.

Archer's coming out with another see a season a let me ask you, though, about that Star Wars stuff. Do you like all those kind of morphing things that they've got that are coming out of the Star Wars universe or are you you know, like you say, is this too much? I'm kind of mixed. On one hand, it took them so long during that George Lucas period because he did the three movies and then he said he was done and then he did the prequels and then he said he was done and then they sold it to Disney.

And then once that happens, you know, you're going to we're doing everything. We're doing everything right. I think they've done a pretty good job with some of the shows where I want the good ones to keep on coming out. But, you know, I looked at the Emmy nominations and the Obi-Wan Kenobi mini series got nominations, and I thought that was me, you know?

Yeah, he was Ewan McGregor was a really good Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought he he did a nice job honoring the legacy of Sir Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan Kenobi. And I was really looking forward to that series. But it just it was. Yeah. And I can't believe it actually got nominated for awards. Now, Book of Boba Fett was okay.

It had some ups and downs. I think The Mandalorian has been generally pretty good, but it even this last season was it felt like a little bit of a downer to me. I'm looking forward to season two, which is supposed to be the final season of Andor because I thought that one was really good. And the funny thing is I still think that Andor was the best of all the series so far that they've done.

It's just been amazing to me. And the irony is, is I think Rogue, one of all the new movies that have happened is really been the best of the movies that they've done too. So it's just kind of ironic that that the same character arc is the one that I've been attracted to the most. I am looking forward to this.

So Kitano series, I know my daughter loves the character. She's she watches the Clone Wars episodes all the time and just loved it. So I'm looking forward to watching the show with her, but I don't know what we're going to get. And supposedly they're going to take these series and it's part of that theatrical release. They're going to tie up all the loose ends in one big movie that's going to bring Ahsoka, Boba Fett Mandalorian all together to tie up some sort of story arc and who knows when.

But that's still going up. Page from Marvel. Yeah, but they're just not doing a good job at it that, you know, you hear about people who are such hardcore Star Wars fans, but are they Star Wars fans of the original, the, you know, the classic three films and that's what makes them Star Wars fans and these other things are kind of dip in and out.

I don't know how that how that plays. It's interesting because of the generational differences. Also because if you talk to someone like me who's a Gen Xer, we don't really love those prequel movies at all. We love the three originals, but the prequel movies not so much. But my my youngest brother, who's a millennial, he was my age when the prequels came out compared to me when the original series came out.

So to him, he loves The Phantom Menace and he loves those three movies because that's what he grew up on. So I think there is a generational thing too. And then my daughter, who's 12 years old, this is all she knows. She knows the three newer movies that came out, the cartoon series, all that stuff. So I think I think it just depends on when you come into the series.

It's like your favorite animated film. It's when you were kind of in that, what, 10 to 12 age range, where that was the movie that came out. And so that becomes your all time favorite animated film. And I think when you look back on those original three, we've we've seen them here in concert versions with a symphony, you know, they show them on the screen and then the symphony plays underneath.

They do all the music accompaniment and you see all, my God, these are kind of slow or these are kind of like hacky. Yup. And that's the original ones that you thought were just like, the best ever. And when you see them in a different light, it's like, Oh, but so I don't know, you know, as one who isn't.

So I'm not a Star Trek person either, but I would am not sold on like, Oh, I've got to see the next one. That's going to be my, my future, my life. If I don't see that the world is ended. You know, I have no buy in like that for those kinds of things. And maybe it's because I think they're always dragging us around by a leash.

So I don't know. You know, you bring up before we kind of move in to the the main event, if you will, that I did want to bring up a little bit more just because the strike has created a few interesting things. You know, number one, it's it's shut down some production while shut down most production, you know, with some some exceptions here and there.

But I read recently The Little Mermaid, now it's made over $500 million globally, but it's kind of being looked upon as a failure for Disney. And they have since, you know, it's been leaked that The Hunchback of Notre Dame, notre Tom the the they were going to do a live version of that and it's done it's they've canceled it Well there's a hunchback Broadway show too that's been on the books for a long time.

So maybe they want to lean into that first before they do a film. But The Little Mermaid, they overhyped. Yeah, they they pushed that way too much. It got caught up in all of that kind of wokeness, if you will, that people were asking about. And I think that just just undercut it. I thought it had too much.

It was way too much, you know, like when they went under the sea, there was like, is it crowded down there? Is it that much stuff that you want to be like? No wonder she wanted to get out of that Sea World. She wanted it be a little less congested, but they tried to heart. And I think that's always where you go wrong.

Sometimes the simpler the better. And that's I think the Little Mermaid shot itself in the foot. Yeah. Or jail or whatever. I can't get into any of those live action remake. Oh yeah. The bunny rule. It's a mean it's all it is And I always believe that if you know, if you really loved like The Lion King, for example, rerelease it, you don't need to see a live action version where you go, Oh my God, that thing looks like he's going to kill you, right?

You know? Yeah. So it just it's my take on it, and I wish they would do that. There used to be a time when they would rerelease movies like the animated Movies, and you go, Oh my God, it's coming back. It's coming back. But see, then the DVD market just made it. Well, I got it in the closet.

We can watch it any time you want. Yeah, I don't mind. Yeah, I don't mind a remake in some cases. You know, I find it interesting is okay, you do Ocean's 11 in the sixties with Frank Sinatra, and now you want to do an updated version of it with George Clooney. You sure? I might check that out. Or, you know, The Manchurian Candidate, where you may you may want to update it for The Times.

And it's sort of the same movie and the concepts, but you updated for the modern times. I don't mind that, but if it's done well, but for something, if you're just going to do like a straight pickup of of the movie, I fell asleep during Mulan. I couldn't even watch that one. I, I went to a drive in theater to see The Lion King with the kids.

It was okay. I mean, I kind of laughed a little bit when John Oliver, he was doing the voice of of the bird, but it was I didn't need it. Yeah, there's way too much expectation and little delivered is what happens with that kind of stuff. And you know, they're looking for a money bag. It's if they can make a bunch of money off this and then they have more toys, you know, they came out with more Little Mermaid dolls.

So that's a whole industry in and of itself, I'm sure. And when Little Mermaid first came out, they as an animated film, they said they couldn't have a red haired era one because they never had one. She's got to be blond. And Ron Clements, who was one of the directors, had red hair at the time. And he said, No, I really like to see a redheaded heroine.

Well, that was like, though, the most difficult thing to bring to pass. And look what happened. It was a huge. So now they're looking to make sure that every segment is represented. And oddly enough, Barbie has done it. Yeah, Barbie, all of the Barbies in there, any kind of Barbie, you could have ever wanted. They're there and they're they're selling dolls like crazy.

$1,000,000,000 now. Yeah, it's it's huge. But I, I really caution them now when they do a sequel, if they're doing a sequel and I'm sure they're doing a sequel, that they use the same kind of sensibility. And if Greta Gerwig isn't doing it, then go with another indie director that has a different take on Barbie, you know? But if you're just trying to do more of the same, good luck.

It's just trying to merchandise, that's all. Interesting thing with Barbie, I did read that none of them are under contract to do another movie, so if they are going to do a sequel, they're going to have to get the gang back together. And, well, I feel like you could do Asian Barbie and Asian Cat and then you could do a story with that, and that could be a whole different thing.

And I'd be I'd be up for it. But you can't kind of, okay, we're going to put in, you know, Reese Witherspoon as old Barbie and all Barbie is going to be playing around with Ben Affleck as old man. I don't think that's going to work. No, no, no, no. Good luck. And I think sometimes those things should be left alone.

It's it's great to have a great idea and move on from there. You know what's interesting, The first big Black summer blockbuster and I think I've mentioned this before on the blog, the on the podcast, rather, is was Jaws 1975. I believe it was huge. And it kicked off this whole thing of summer blockbusters. We didn't do it before 75.

We didn't look forward to a film that was like going to be We must see this. And then we've had it ever since. Well, now this year they're doing a Broadway show about the making of Jaws and how difficult it was. This called The Shark. Some of it has to do with the shark. The shark didn't work or the shark doesn't work.

And all the kind of trouble they had, it's written by Robert Shaw's son and he's in it as his dad. And it's kind of weird that this comes full circle now with all this time. But yeah, there's still look they this year Meg to Meg too is another one of those kind of sea creature things that is trying to eat and destroy.

It's the same stuff they will repeat until tomorrow comes and we tell them no more and then they'll still repeat. They'll still do. I mean, you look at all those horror movies, how many times have they brought Freddy back or whatever, or Jason, and you think, Oh, good, he's dead now. And like Halloween, they just did a threequel with Jamie Lee Curtis.

And I don't know how they could bring that guy back again because they ground him up and everybody in town saw it. But hey, it could happen. Be ready. Those Fast and Furious movies, too. They keep bringing all their characters back from the dead to a well. And then it's not even a horror movie. No. And that they do all that kind of air stuff that you think, wait a minute here, now we don't want this.

Let's just go back and look at the past. And as I always use the Polar Express as my all example of why we don't need a guide, you stop right there. Not a fan of that. Oh, I hated that movie. That movie creep me out so much. I thought, it's a Christmas horror film. And those people looked all kind of dead and scary.

And even Tom Hanks, who was in it, looked bad. He did look terrible. Right. And he played so many characters so that I wouldn't show that to a kid. I'd read the book two of them before I'd show them that movie, because that movie was dreadful. Oh, yeah. So what do you have for us this week? You've got a little interview.

Okay. So you know, you know that I'm a huge fan of American Ninja Warriors. I would love that show because it's everything I can't do. And I love watching and I love cheering them on. And I think all if they only had done this or if they'd run faster, if they'd done this and they're getting near the finals.

And that's another thing I always worry about is I never get to see the finals. This year I am clued in because I talked to a father and son, the first father and son to make the finals of American Ninja Warrior, and they tell me it's the last week in August that the finals will be held and you'll get to find out who actually won.

So this is my my impetus for watching that. Scott and Ben Behrends are their names, and they have created their own Ninja Warrior gym, for lack of a better term, and they train you on each of the apparatuses or apparatus I that you would see on the warriors, so that then you would be able to try and do it because that always freaks me out is like, Oh my God, they threw in something.

Now that I've never I've never seen this thing, how do I grab it? What do I do? And I you know, I was curious about some of the kind of technical aspects of this. Like I said, do they wipe the equipment off after somebody has been through it? Because what if they were a real sweater and they were sweating up all of the equipment and then you have to come next and you slip because they didn't wipe the step up, but they do wipe the stuff off.

So there is your $0.02 worth on that one. But they do say it's hugely popular. They have little kids that are in their gym doing this whole kind of ninja stuff. They have a series of YouTube videos. If you want to follow them. You can see, you know, the techniques and the training things that they tell you. But it is, I must tell you, sorry, dear, it's a young man's game.

Scott The father tells me that kids have an advantage at this that we don't have. Although they did tell me, you know, Bruce, there is somebody at our gym who's 70 years old and about 70 years old. That's like, close to me. I don't like hearing that. That's old. But there they are. But yeah, so you'll hear them talk about what this is because it was fascinating to me.

If you're fast as fascinated as I am about this, you'll hear kind of the secrets of what it's like to be a ninja and what they go through and what's better. Should you wear long pants? Should you wear short pants? Should you go shirtless? All those things that you probably have wondered at some point, is that the advantage or the disadvantage that will keep you from being that big winner at the end?

So this is Scott and Ben Barons and they're from Cedar Falls, Iowa. This show is an obsession of mine. I love watching it. Awesome. I know that I could never, ever do it. And I think that it takes a special kind of person. Do you guys see that to get to a point? I think it's definitely the right kind of person.

But, you know, it's fun seeing all kinds of ages jumping in and figuring out, you know, what they what they didn't think that they could do that they can actually do. So, Ben Caplan, are there certain skills or certainly exercises that you need that you have to be able to do to be able to compete pull ups? I know that that's the trick.

I mean, obviously, like any sport, there's just a ton of technique that you learn over the years. And, you know, I it's definitely a up and coming sport that like anything, the more training you have, the more experience you have on the courses. I mean, it definitely pays off. It's I would say there's especially once you get to a certain level, there's no chance anyone that hasn't done this before could ever even keep up with.

But the early start, the faster you get better. So if you start young like you do, it's a good thing, right? Very much so. So are you better than Dad or not? Maybe. Maybe there's you know, there's no maybe there. He's competing pro and doing quite well where I'm in the Master's division. And that old timers. Is that what that means?

Exactly. Yeah. So I'm 82 and yeah, that's, I mean it's just a whole nother level, you know, it's like going from college to pro sports. Like it's, it's maybe even high school to pro it's, it's a huge jump when you're 42. How old are you? I'm 60. Is that kind of a good wheelhouse to be in or. Yeah, right.

Year or is five better? Yeah. Right now a lot of teens because they've, you know, been doing it for six years or so 6 to 8 years like me. So basically right now the best things in the world are, you know, 18, 19 years old and there's a bunch of young. So yeah, so again, we're aiming for that big that big prize you you're the first father son team to make it to nationals.

Is that right? Yes. Yep. On American Ninja Warrior. Yep. We're the first father son duo to make it to the national finals. Did you know that going in that you would be the first or did you just not even think about it? Yeah, I. I actually had no clue. We didn't really know until it kind of happened and they announced it and I'm like, Oh, I guess I never thought of that.

Yeah. So it's pretty exciting. So is there competition between the two of you? Do you compete and say, Oh, I did that one better than you did? Or I think the competition is if I ever beat Ben, it's incredible. There's a few things that I'm generally good at doing an obstacle. The very first try. Yeah. And that most people don't know this, but an American ninja warrior, you don't get to try anything.

They just kind of tell you the rules and you have to go. So generally it pays off. If you can be good at your first try doing something. And I'm I'm pretty good at that. But since I'm so old, I need to rest and recover between obstacles where he's just motoring through it, you know, keep sprinting. Yeah. You know, the thing that bothers me is do they wipe this stuff off after somebody's been on it?

Because I would think, what if you had sweaty hands in front of you? And then they they've touch things and you kind of slide off things. Do they do that. Yeah. So they actually have like grip tape on the obstacles. Nothing, almost nothing is just like a straight metal bar, right? There's usually tape or something on it that's grippy to help you.

And then obviously if you know it gets where splashed onto pads, it'll dried off and stuff before you run. Okay. Because I worried I could just see this sweater person that was in front of me who would go through the hole, Is that bad? So I throw that the forward part of me and then I would drop right away.

Yeah, there's some of that. But like he said, most of the top rob schools have like grip tape on them, so it doesn't really affect you as much. You're not allowed to talk on the show until the very last stage, if you will, for finals. So then in that can be a good thing, right? Because the course courses, number one looks cleaner.

And number two, sometimes charcoal after a while does kind of compact and get slick. When you are preparing for this, how do you know what kind of obstacles they might have when you get to, you know, the television stage? You know, you don't you really can't usually will go back and watch seasons before just to see what obstacles they've had, you know, what obstacles they thought up last year, because usually the newer ones will stay.

But, you know, we really have no clue whatsoever. Well, then which ones are your worst and which ones are your best, like obstacle wise? Yeah. Yeah, Which ones are you really good at? You go suck. I think I would say I'm I'm pretty good at any kind of big dynamic move that kind of throws you and like I said, I can generally hit an obstacle pretty well.

But it's the long grip endurance ones that really tax me fast. I just don't have that endurance as much as I used to. Oh, I would say mine is like I would say it's a lot of endurance, but also like change of direction. It's basically when you're like hanging and your kick, your swing is going one way and you got to change it and take a different direction.

I'd say that's probably one of the best that which are the ones that you can't do well. And you it's so hard to get consistent on balance. Like that's that's basically the thing that every ninja fears is falling on balance because yeah, so our to be consistent and on and on the show those are obstacles that are generally more sketchy balance I'll say where it's just kind of sprinting across these obstacle work.

Those are sometimes hard to set up in a gym, right? Because if you fall on those, you fall in the water. But if you would fall in a gym, you'd might like roll your ankle or how, you know. So I kind of all those like say a prayer and run across obstacles and you know, ninjas practice just sprinting through something.

Yeah generally it's not a slow slack line type balance. It's generally a sprint across. So but yeah, every, every ninja loves upper body and rarely do they like balance. What about the water? Is the water cold? Yeah. So obviously. Well a lot of people don't know is they film at night so it's you know in California it's still cause you know 40 degrees or depending on the time of year.

Yeah. Depending on the time of year. It's like 40 degrees at midnight, you know, that's an hour competing. So water's outside temperature. So it's not very not very warm, but usually you're zoned out if you fall. So you don't really feel it, but you start to dry off in the way the finals like that. Have you gotten hurt?

Neither of us have really gone out on the show. There's a couple people that have. But yeah, when you look, you know, sometimes when they fall, they'll hit like the wall. The the water wall. And I think, oh my God, they hit their head. Something is bad here, but I'm assuming it's really padded. So that yeah, the show does a fantastic job making sure everything's as safe as possible.

And, you know, I mean, even training kind of going back to obstacles and what what to work on for the show is like, we don't even know. But you have to kind of put yourself in these kind of big situations. Yeah. You have to figure out, right, that

situation. So sometimes I'm less likely to do this because I'm 42, but sometimes you kind of put yourself big, huge moves like the show has and you know, if you fall off of that at a gym, like I don't care how much padding you have, it's you're going to feel it.

So a lot of ninjas have kind of been through in, you know, you almost practice how to fall. Yeah. So overall, I mean, like I said, the show does a fantastic job making sure everyone's safe. When did you first get interested in this? At what point and what prompted it? Yeah, so I think the first time I ever, like, fell in love with Ninja was actually not Ninja is gymnastics and P.E. and I just loved it.

And my dad made a course in our backyard. And your gymnastics course you're taught. Yeah. They kind of made, like, an obstacle teasing, just stuff. Yeah. And that's how back door indicated was born was offer making courses in our backyard and then we discovered snowballed from there. Yeah. So Backyard Ninja Kids is a YouTube channel. We started up shortly after they boys came home and we started making obstacle courses in our backyard.

Wanted to kind of become that positive influence on social media and teach my boys at a young age what that looks like. And then, yeah, a couple of years early, several months later, we went to our first ninja gym down in Saint Louis and it kind of snowballed from there. And then a couple of years later, we opened up our gym ninja view and yeah, boys were on American Ninja Warrior.

JR What cool thing was the gym wasn't even open, so they just had backyard experience and maybe one or two gym experiences really. So it's kind of cool to see. That was their very first ninja competition. Was this TV show. Wow, Really cool to see how they performed realistically, just using backyard, like not even really crazy or moves or anything and just but kind of talk.

Going back to what we said at the beginning, like they just knew the moves, they knew how to do peg boards. They knew how to, you know, do some dynamic stuff, but you put yourself in a position and you got to figure it out. When do nationals happen or have they happened in? You already know how it all worked out.

Yeah, yeah, it's already been recorded. And yeah, you just have to tune in and see what happens. I guess you have a date for the finals. You know, this is the other thing I get about this show. Okay? I'm sharing it with you so you can share with the others is they don't billboard enough. When the finals are, it's like suddenly it's like, wait a minute, I went away for a week and it's not there.

So they need to make a better attempted letting you know when the finals are. But would you we know when they they'll air We we know that our episode will be August 28. Okay. At least currently sometimes, you know, playoffs are different things than they go as it was. The Olympics can shift it right, that ours will be August 28 and yeah well, do they swear you to secrecy and then they'll kill you if you say anything is that.

No, that works. I mean yeah, it's it's a it's a, you know, a sporting event that's based on a reality TV show wrapped around it. Right. So of course, they don't want any I mean, just like American Idol, right? It's already done and recorded. But they you can't give away the winner otherwise. No, I don't know. So. Right.

You don't see that kind of thing. Yeah. I get about being quiet about it. I would be that would be tough. It is tough sometimes, but it's also like there's this exciting element, right? Like sometimes like even when I wasn't on the show, but my fellow gym mates were like, It's kind of fun to see them on the show, but it's like when you know the results, it's like not quite as fun.

Yeah, you don't so necessarily want to watch it. Like this season it's less fun to watch because I know how everybody does. Yeah, but like seasons before that. I love it. Yeah. Thanks Bruce, for that interview. I will probably have to go and check that out. I know the kids love to watch American Ninja Warrior, so probably have to tune in near the end.

And least I think I'm like you. I've never actually seen the end. I'll watch it periodically during the summer because it's on and it's just there and I need something, but I have no idea who's ever won or I'm counting on you training. I want you to be a warrior right down there on the sideline in the t shirt, cheering you on like crazy.

We'd call you. What would we call you? What would be a good name for you? Oh, man, the pod master that were there. I am. So they're pod master. Pod pod board. I would slip and fall immediately. I'd probably hurt myself before I even got on to something I'd be getting out of that year. Would they announce you and you come out and you stand there, Fall down, Break in there.

There we are. There we are. So we here at LA Enterprises produce quite a few podcasts across the company. Another one that I thought I'd bring up as we close out this episode, it's called The Ethical Life, and it's hosted by Scott Rodda, a colleague of mine who manages social media. And he he does it with Richard Kyte, who is a professor at a university in Wisconsin and their most recent episode of The Ethical Life.

It's called How Will Artificial Intelligence Change How Entertainment is Made? And they talk about the ethical aspects of the great debate as far as AI goes tied to movies, because that's one of the things that is holding up these negotiations with actors who fear that AI is going to come in and, you know, maybe take some of their jobs and and that kind of thing.

So you if you get a chance, go check out the Ethical Life. How will artificial intelligence change how entertainment is made? It is available on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Can you do a link? We will have a link in this episode. Show notes as well. Go ahead. Oh, that sounds great. Well, I'm counting on it, but I am an A.I. A.I. person because I can just imagine what they can do with that and how.

And so, you know, you're I'm I'm fully confessing that I don't like it, But maybe there will be that one instance where you say, I love that. That's so wonderful. It's the best thing ever. And Marilyn Monroe is back. But I don't think I want it. No, it's an interesting conversation if you get a chance to listen to it, because they do talk about just even the evolution of special effects.

And, you know, we as watchers, viewers of movies, TV shows, would we even notice it if if they used A.I. because we've gotten so used to seeing such crazy special effects. So, you know, they talk a little bit about the evolution of, you know, like a Christopher Reeve in Superman years ago, being hung with wires and all that stuff.

And now you've got, you know, all these movies being produced with A.I. and other other animation in ambition. Right. Right. You know, what happens is usually they work two weeks and then they're done and everything else is being done by an animator to make sure it looks like they've just done all that kind of stuff. I even question if sometimes the superheroes are wearing the costume.

I swear it's a stunt man who wears the costume. They throw him around a little bit and then if they need to, they superimpose the face of the actor on them. So, yeah, see what happens. But that sounds fascinating. That's what we want to watch next week. You know, what I'd like to do was that I'd like to look back at the the year to date and look at the things that were and the things that were misses and the things that will last.

It sounds good. Yes. Let's do that. All right. Make your list. All right. I'm going to start making my list. I will check it twice. We'll see. Oh, we know that Santa Claus. That Santa Claus. You're going to be a ninja. Remember? I am a die hard. But. All right. Well, on that note, we will wrap this show.

Thank you again for listening to this episode of Streamed & Screened.

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View Details

As kids across the nation start heading back to school another group is about to graduate. The Disney+ series "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series" concludes with its fourth and final season and all eight episodes will drop on Aug. 9.

Here's the synopsis from Disney:

After an epic summer at Camp Shallow Lake, the Wildcats return to East High where they prepare a stage production of “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” But plans are disrupted when Principal Gutierrez announces that Disney has decided to make the long-awaited “High School Musical 4: The Reunion” movie on location at their beloved high school.

We discuss the upcoming final season on this week's episode, have an interview with series creator Tim Federle, and chat with cast members Frankie A. Rodriguez (Carlos Rodriguez), Julia Lester (Ashlyn Caswell) and Dara Reneé (Kourtney Greene).

Next week

Most of the biggest summer movies have already hit theaters and with actors and writers are on strike, there may soon be a lack of programming. But with the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards (originally scheduled for Sept. 18 but now delayed due to the strike) coming up, we'll go over shows you can binge to get caught up on in the meantime.

Where to watch

"High School Musical: The Musical: The Series" on Disney+
"High School Musical" on Disney+
"High School Musical 2" on Disney+
"High School Musical 3: Senior Year" on Disney+

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with my cinematic guidance counselor, Bruce Miller, editor for the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, School’s in session. We're getting there.

Okay. We're going back to 2006, I believe. Okay. Wasn't it six High School Musical just popped on Disney. And I'm not kidding you because I remember interviewing the people for the TV show, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens. They were nobodies at that time. You didn't know about them. If there were people that you did know they were on other Disney Channel shows and people didn't expect anything out of it, it was like, This is okay.

They're doing another kind of musical just to have something else to show. And that that first movie became such a huge hit and made such big stars out of its cast that of course, there's got to be part two and then there's got to be part three. And then, you know, a network like Disney gets all kind of excited about, could we reboot this thing?

Could there be something more? And people don't want to go back to what it was and just replace it. So Tim Federle, who was a Broadway actor, dancer, whatever, came up with the concept that they would do a series set in the high school where they filmed High School Musical. I know this is all nutty, right? And then how those kids would do if they did the first production of High School Musical, the play or the musical at their high school.

So you got to see kind of parallel characters vying for these roles. Well, they did not know that it was going to be a hit. In fact, Tim really had no experience producing, was not big on creating TV's shows, and they got a hit out of it. High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, which is probably one of the longest, most cumbersome titles ever hopped with the new generation.

They got their own high school musical kids. The thing that I think is different between the two is that first was kind of naive, whereas this one leans into a lot of things with with high school kids that maybe they're facing today. And it does talk about things like LGBTQ issues, bullying, different kinds of things that that might be a little more contemporary for kids.

So in that first year, they did High School Musical as their school play. Then they came back and they did Beauty and the Beast. And then the third year they went to camp and they did Frozen Oak. So now this is the fourth year. And I got to tell you, the kids who are in this, this TV series have popped like, you can't believe Joshua Bassett, who plays Ricky, which would be the Troy Bolton kind of Zac Efron equal, has a huge singing career.

Olivia Rodrigo, who is in the original of the of this this ilk won several Grammys last year. Right. She has this big music career and it just keeps going like that. Julia Lester, who was a supporting actress, was on Broadway this last year and into the Woods and got a Tony nomination. So this is spawning its own group of of young actors.

Well, knowing that they had a fourth year, Tim decided that he would not take those original high school musical people and see if he could get them to come in for the fourth season. And in this fourth season they are going to film a high school musical this year. Yeah. Who did? How do you tell this? They're going to do a reunion show and bring back those actors and then cast kids from their high school?

That high school as extras. Okay. So they do all this at the at the high school and it turns out to be a real catalyst for change for those current high school kids at East High School. So it's there's a lot to unpack, but there are things in there that you will just who that the woman who plays the director Quinn is There is the character's name.

You've seen her in YouTube videos and she is just a hoot as the director. Well, she has these big plans and she plucks one of the kids from the high school crowd to be one of the stars. And that sets up a kind of a battle, if you will, for her attention in her time. So it's very it's very fascinating at the end of the episode, and this is not a spoiler alert.

You get the kids all together and they sing a song that is so emotional and it's not one of the ones from the original High School Musical. It's a Broadway song that really kind of gives you a sense of what that whole family atmosphere was like.

Wow. So this is an interesting one. You know, Tim Federle, he he really doesn't have the background in in film and TV. I mean, he started out he was writing fiction. I mean, he was writing I think he wrote some cocktail guides.

And then he also wrote some kid books. And some.

Kid books.

Yeah, they're better. Better off. Nate or better Nate. They're Nate books about a kid who it sounds like Tim story who wants John Broadway in the worst way. And to heck with the kids in my school. I'm going to audition for Broadway. And so this Nate kid, and they did a TV movie about this goes on a bus to New York auditions for a I think it's a Lilo and Stitch in the film show a musical.

And how that kid kind of maneuvers that all of that kind of stuff. But there are elements in all of this that I think are autobiographical. Tim Federle said he always wanted to be an actor, a Broadway actor, and he did get on Broadway. He was in Little Mermaid in the dancing roles. But I think like so many of them, there is a greater purpose that's out there.

And he just had a good idea, pitched it to Disney and they said was go with it.

Yeah. And he picked a I guess a good time to do it too, because he he co-wrote the screenplay for Ferdinand the film and which was before that. So he had a little bit of credibility to be at it. That was a yeah, you know, he capitalized on the moment, which is great. You know, he was he found that moment.

You'll hear I did an interview with three of the actors from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and Tim, well, you'll hear them talk about that first year. They did not know what was going to happen. They did not know if it was going to go if they were going to. This is one and done and they were all out of it.

But how this has been a big kind of a learning curve for them. And Tim talks about bringing back those old high school musical ones and the lessons that they taught these these young actors about being in the business. And, you know, it's weird to see because Tim's got a whole huge career ahead of him. He's got deals with other studios and stuff.

So I think we don't have to worry about him. But you never know with kid actors. It could be they're out of it after one year or whatever. What happened to him was the pandemic happened in the middle of all of this. How do you do a series during a pandemic? And they really struggled to make sure that they were following all the COVID protocols and all that and how they you know, they were just hung together.

They became a very close family.

Okay. So who should we go to first? Should we go to Tim first? We kick it over to him again?

Yeah, let's go to Tim, because then you'd be able to kind of hear his his take on how this this season happened. How is it to say goodbye? This is a sad thing.

Well, you know, it's it's it's bittersweet, mostly sweet. And I don't think of it as goodbye because when people graduate, they they go off hopefully to even sort of bigger dreams. But it's it's definitely full circle. And I think in this streaming era to get four seasons, it all feels like a miracle and an extra miracle is I got to kind of wrap the series on my terms with the stories we wanted to wrap up.

So I feel really good. But it's it's a it's a full circle moment.

Well, when you were planning this last season, what point did you say, I want to get some of those original people into this.

Really early because I knew that the big hook of the season was that Disney announced High School Musical for a reunion film at East High, which means, you know, we needed some O.G. Wildcats up there on screen. So those fun phone calls went out early before we started production. Yeah, pretty early.

And were you able then to write like you did with Corbin, where he became a different person, if you will, in your series as opposed to the original one? Like, yeah, she's these other people where they all they're really nasty. They're not like they are.

No, they're, they're themselves and they're and Monique Coleman in particular has a really beautiful moment in the series in season four that I think is so touching because they play themselves and their characters this season. They're a great group. And what was meaningful to me, knowing we were wrapping the show was that Corbin and Lucas and, you know, they became so mega famous 15 years ago as the cast of my series is becoming now.

And we were able to really have like a wholesome, beautiful connection between them all. And I remember saying to my principal cast, Look at our humble. They've remained look at how they take care of each other. No matter what happens, you guys got to be there for each other as the years go on. And I think they really.

When you started this, what really did you think would happen? I mean, did you just think, Oh, we'll get a year and that's it? Or do you think, you know what, this could last?

I knew so little about TV that I think I was out front first season being like, I want seven seasons, which, you know, I guess would have been nice. But the reality is the reality is, Bruce, I was thrilled we got the reception we did in season one. I never took for granted, particularly in the streaming era, that we would ever get another season or another season or another season.

And I think one of the real drivers of wrapping the series up was that I didn't want to end season four on a cliffhanger after the investment. The cast, the crew, the writers and the audience had put into it and then not come back. And so I didn't I didn't quite know what I was doing Season one. But what I what I did have was a lot of hope and a big heart that if I hired real theater kids, they would bring these stories to life.

And boy, did they deliver.

Well, when you were looking at casting, you know, did you say, this one's going to blow up big and music? This one is going to, you know, have a theater career? Did you have a sense of that when when you started casting all these people?

Well, yes, in the sense that, like, you know, Olivia and Josh were always great songwriters. Julia was always a big theater kid. What I maybe didn't expect was for it to happen so hyper fast. And I think they're all going to have very long careers where they ebb and flow and peak and valley at different times. And I don't know, I mean, they're like my kids.

And so I'm biased, but I think they're the biggest stars in the world and the most talented. And that Sofia Wylie is going to be a mogul who runs an entertainment company because she has so much talent and wisdom and brilliance on screen and off. So nothing surprises me with this group.

So what about you? Where do you go from here?

Well, I write the next thing and I've got, you know, after the strike lifts, I have projects at Hulu and Disney Plus and some movies. And then and then we'll see where the fates take us. But for now, I'm sort of. I'm not ready quite ready to say goodbye. So I'm just keeping an eye on August 9th and I'll be at home streaming the whole thing and bingeing it this season.

How will you look back on this then? What will you say about this time of your life?

Well, I think I finally got high school, right? I was in the closet the first time I missed my high school graduation because I was doing a regional theater production of Oklahoma all around. There's a lot of there's a lot of things I missed in high school, including first love and a first kiss and things that like, you know, closeted gay kids didn't get in the nineties.

And so if I look back at this, it's that I had this miraculous second chance, one of my favorite songs from the series to get some of it right or at least get a second chance at it. And I will forever be grateful for that.

Bruce, thanks for the interview with Tim. And now we're going to go to some of the kid actors in the series, and this is Frankie Rodriguez, Julia Lester and Dara Reneé, Correct?

Right. And Julia Lester is the one who is just on Broadway here and into the woods. Frankie plays Carlos. And if you're a fan of this show and you know, Carlos and SAB are a big couple in the thing, and then Dara is the she plays the kind of the brain of the whole school, and she wrestles with the idea of what college you make going to go to after this.

So here are the three from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. What did the three of you think this was all going to be when you started this series?

Oh, oh, my gosh. When we started, we didn't even know if we would make it to four seasons. When we ended the first season, we kind of filmed two alternate endings just in case we didn't get to come back in. So I think this like kind of blew all of our expectations out of the water. And now we get to be here graduating.

I mean, it's amazing.

Well, you know, some great things have come from this. And Julia, you're right there. Come on. I watched the Tonys and said, Oh, my God, please let her win These that are. When did you guys think this could be a launching pad for other things? Did you think that this would lead to other work and other kinds of opportunities?

I mean, I think that's sort of what you always hope for, but you can never really rely on maybes or the possibilities of things. And I think when we started season one, what we really wanted was to create a show that was different and set us apart from things that people had seen in the past, especially for Disney.

You know, we we were part of launching the Disney Plus platform, so I think we were really focused on on that being successful and being received well, and it totally was. And so I think once that happened, the world sort of like opened up for all of us. And it's just been an incredible journey seeing how all of us have thrived since then.

So what was the Tony thing like? Was it just incredible?

It was it was amazing. The New York theater community is just like so loving and so supportive of each other in it. It was really cool to go there and feel like I was a part of it and belong with them in some way. It was it was really magical.

Well, what was it like having the O.G. High School Musical people with you this year? Was it different? Was it strange? Like, were you like, asking them lots of questions about what you wanted to know?

Oh, well, I mean, it was so cool. I mean, growing up with those as your role models and then actually working with them was so mind blowing. And specifically for me, I knew Monique Coleman before I booked High School Musical and I messaged her and I was like, Hey, Queen, I would like Taylor. And she supported me. It uplifted me.

So being able to be in scenes with her is such a full circle moment, and I couldn't have asked for a better person to show me the ropes. I love Queens a little bit.

Well, how hard was it to say goodbye?

I mean, it's always hard to say goodbye, especially to this specific experience, because it has brought us so many amazing things, especially each other. So I think it's definitely a bittersweet. You want to graduate and you want to move on and you want to go on to the next chapter of life. But also you're like, maybe just like five more minutes.

Yeah.

And talk about Tim's role in all of this. You know, he said, I really didn't know what I was doing when I started. What has he been like during this whole this whole series.

As we famously say, he is our fearless leader and he has been our leader from day one. He is the reason all of us are here in this point in our lives together. And, you know, the the greatest experiences happen when things trickle from the top down. And he really has created the most loving, accepting working environment. And I said this earlier, like this being like our all of our first, like real big long running job has sort of set the precedent for the environments that we want to work in and the people that we want to work with and the way that we want to work.

And so without this experience, like, you know, who knows, like the rooms that we would be in. But it's just it's been really wonderful and it's really thanks to him and his his genius brand.

Well, when you look at this, what was the turning point for the series? What was the time when you said, you know what, this is going to last, This is going to be more than just one year it out.

I feel like once we started to see our supporters reactions to what we were creating, I mean, our family, as I call them, has been so, so beautiful and so brilliant and accepting us and accepting everything that we do. And I'm so grateful for their support and for all that they done for us. Because honestly, I feel like we wouldn't be here without them.

And they literally are die hard. And, you know, I'm Dan Harper and it's not selfless. It's it that's when I feel like we all really need you.

You talk about coming back for a reunion.

I that but I already got out tomorrow I guess. Yeah. Anything anything to put us in the same room with each other We're there that we.

Well, you guys, thank you so much and congratulations. It's been so fun to watch and especially to see how your careers have all just blossomed. It's incredible. So thank so much from a die hard fan.

Nate Nell. Thanks for all the love over the years.

All right, Bruce, thanks again for that interview. And, well, we were getting to the bleak part of summer. I know we've we've gotten through a lot of of the big blockbusters that were coming. I know there's a few more here. You know, you get a few like Meg is coming out and the Ninja Turtles and we mentioned, you know I know we got very greedy and but we've got the writers strike and we don't know in the actors or striking we don't know what's coming back and when and where.

I mean I'm almost running out of things to watch. I mean, my wife and I are kind of kicking around. Maybe we can talk about some things there.

We will do that the next week. I'll tell you, if you are a big fan of the High School musical kind of Broadway things, summer theater camp, I guess it's called theater Camp. Ben Platt and Noah Galvin produced this, and it's kind of a mockumentary that's out there. It's opening slowly across the country. It's not in wide release.

So you might find it at a theater in your in your community or not. You'll have to wait a bit for it to come out. But it is opening in slow waves. But, yes, we will come back next week and I've got great ideas for you about things you should binge that you haven't seen. And we're also going to talk about the ones you must have seen by this time because the Emmy Awards will be coming in September and you're going to binge a lot of stuff before we get to that.

All right. Yeah, I definitely have to become even more of a couch potato than I already am. So you'll you'll contribute to that. And we will be back again next week.

Terry, we're all in this together.

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When is a movie no longer just a movie? It's when it becomes an event, or even a cultural phenomenon. What happens when two of those movies drop at the same time? You have the collision that was "Barbenheimer."

This past week saw the opening of two films that are polar opposites: Greta Gerwig's playful comedy "Barbie" that brings the doll to life and Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheiemer," the biographical drama depicting the development of the atomic bomb under J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The films should presumably appeal to vastly different audiences, but buzz around both films had moviegoers swarming to both — often on the same day — and each delivered in a big way.

"Barbie" brought in more than $162 million domestically on opening weekend and "Oppenheimer" had more than $82 million in sales to take the top two box office spots this past week. And while that seems like a distant No. 2 for the latter, don't forget that "Barbie" is more than an hour shorter and appeared on more screens.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discuss seeing both films, including Terry's experience seeing "Oppenheimer" in an IMAX theater. Plus, learn why both films will surely be in the running for multiple Academy Awards when Oscar season approaches.

Next week: We discuss the upcoming final season of "High School Musical: The Musical: The Series" on Disney+ and have interviews with cast members Frankie A. Rodriguez, Julia Lester and Dara Reneé, plus the creator of the series Tim Federle.

Where to watch

"Barbie" in theaters
"Oppenheimer" in theaters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Screamed and Screamed in Entertainment Podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the King of this podcast’s mojo dojo casa house Bruce Miller, editor of the City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. So Mr. Mojo Dojo Casa House ruler, see any good movies this weekend.

Was it a Brucedom? Yeah.

Are you are you leading the patriarchy? Are you in charge of that?

That's right. I can hardly wait there with the patriarchy is coming to Barbie land. That'll be so cool. Actually, this was like, I swear, this will have been the best week of movies of the year. It's incredible to really big ones. And I saw a lot of people who were trying to do both of them in the same day when I went.

And they all an awful lot of people dressed up like Barbie, basically a lot of pink. And then they would their choice was to go to Barbie first in Oppenheimer's second, which I don't know if was because they felt that they could relax or something. I don't know. But they did like doing the double feature like that. But I would have savored a little bit of it so that I wouldn't add all the goodness at once, because I think it was it was interesting.

Now you've got girls who would probably be of a Barbie age, right?

E their they've outgrown Barbie as a toy or a thing. So they're past the Barbie stage. And this is an interesting movie, too, because this Barbie, this isn't a kids movie. This is all sort of an adult themed. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that if parents were thinking they're going to send their kids to see Barbie, it might be a bad idea because I don't think that there's anything in there that's subversive or anything that they shouldn't see, but I don't think they would think it was like past Barbie films where it was, you know, just kind of magic unicorns and cars and God knows what Barbie did back in the past.

But it's a spoof in a way of the Barbie motif. I thought it was brilliant the way they were able to make Barbie relevant today. And where you don't dismiss her as just that. Oh, that's that kind of obnoxious doll, you know, because Barbie has always been seen as why are little girls playing with anything but a baby doll?

And Barbie came around. It was like, you know, maybe we like to play with dolls like that. So it's very interesting how they do that. And then they make Mattel look good, which I was shocked about that. I thought Mattel, you know, they had these kind of mean guys who are all male staff at Mattel running the thing.

And then they introduce you to the the woman who created Barbie. And a very fascinating to show how Mattel doesn't come off as a bad guy in this whole thing, I think. But I do think that a lot of people have been leaning in far too much to the end. Everybody talks about it as the best final line of any movie.

And I think, okay, it's interesting, but let's not all get so excited that we lose sight of what came before that.

Right? I really loved it. I didn't know what to expect because I. I tried to stay away from so many reviews and everything. I wanted to go in with it with a very fresh mind. I obviously read enough of it to know, you know, obviously this is a little bit of a spoof of Barbie. This isn't like some of the Barbie movies that the cartoon is.

You're the very Barbie Barbie type of movies that have been there. This is obviously poking fun at Barbie to a degree. I mean, even in the trailers says if you love Barbie, you're going to love this movie. If you hate Barbie, hate Barbie, love this movie. And I you know, I'm not a a Barbie person, but I went into it thinking like, okay, I want to check this out.

It has the pedigree of people in it that, you know, I should like it. I mean, Will Ferrell is as the head of Mattel and I thought he was brilliant in that part is normal. Will Ferrell Nice. I don't always love him in movies, but I thought he played this role very well. And then I thought, you know, Rhea Perlman in that role, as you know, the creator of Barbie, did did a wonderful job.

It was fun to see her. My wife was excited when Kate McKinnon came on screen as Weird Barbie. She loves Kate McKinnon. I love Kate McKinnon. And so it was it was kind of fun from that perspective.

She's like three Barbie that every girl, like, did her hair. I mean, heard anybody who owned a Barbie. I cut her hair. Oh, yeah. Barbie was always getting her hair cut. And this is how she turns out. And then she becomes the one who sits in the box without shoes and kind of the wrong outfit put on together.

And maybe the makeup got smeared. That is Kate McKinnon in a heartbeat. And she did a beautiful job of kind of left over Barbie.

Yeah, I was just overall surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I thought I would like it. You know, Greta Gerwig is attached to it. She's becoming a very brilliant filmmaker. And I just thought that, okay, we have enough components here where I'm probably going to like it and it's fine. I can be a dad and go into this movie.

There were very few kids in the theater when we went. We went in the afternoon on a Saturday. I only brought one of the two daughters. One wanted absolutely nothing to do with the movie because she hates Barbie, she hates pink things, she hates being a girly girl. I showed her the trailer and I said like, No, no, no, it makes fun of that stuff.

And she still didn't want to see it. I guarantee you, as soon as it's on TV, she'll watch it and she'll probably love it. But I'm not going to force a 12 year old to go see a movie that she doesn't want. So we we went my wife and one of my daughters went and we enjoyed it. There were one other family I want to say that was there.

They had kind of like a tween ish daughter. And then there was a really little younger sister with her, which probably was too young for the movie. After that, it was all adults. It was all like older Gen-X, younger baby boomers.

You know, It was like Women's Night Out. Yeah. And they were dressed in pink. I saw two guys come in wearing pink shirts and pink shorts and blazers. So interesting crowd. And they were all of from teenage to, you know, middle aged. I think it was a yeah, a fascinating mix. And I thought it had a real big opening day crowd.

I was surprised that on opening day it would be that big. But it was and it was the number one film of the week.

So they did like by like a mile, I mean 162 million in 4200 plus theaters. That is insane. And it was I don't know if you picked up on this, but it actually shattered a record for a film directed by a woman, 162 million. The next best was Captain Marvel, which was co-directed by Anna Boden, and that did 153 million in 2019.

And then the Wonder Woman film by Patty Jenkins in 2017 that just did just a little over 103 million. So this this was a just a huge movie on so many different levels. The number of screens it was showing on just at my little AMC Theater in town, it was it was like 10 a.m. 1030, 12, 12 3130.

It was just nonstop in my theater. It wasn't packed when I went kind of early in the afternoon, but it was constant. I mean, it was the most full. I've seen that parking lot in a very long time.

You know, the thing that the success will cause them to want to do a sequel.

Yep.

And to me. Okay. But go into those other Barbies because there's a whole lineup of different kinds of Barbies. You don't have to have Margot Robbie come back and go through some other kind of life affirming mission or whatever. You could have a Supreme Court Barbie. You could have President Barbie, you could have astronaut Barbie. You could go with all those different ones, and same with cans.

You could have different cans. So then it's not the same thing, because I think that's what they're just too eager for is an and my favorite of all was Allen Allen.

I was just going to bring Allen up.

Michael's Nero was so good as Allen and you know what I loved is at the end during the credits you got to see what that doll looked like and there was it says I can wear Ken's clothes or something like that. And that was one of his lines. And yet she was able to grab all those things from costumes that Barbie wore or the different kinds of Barbies there were.

She I mean, if you were a Barbie fan, she did her homework. And I think that really shows with this. I wanted to see a little more image. I got to be honest and Skipper, because those two were, you know, how they traded. Let's make every dime we can get out of the franchise. It would have been fun to see those.

But they again, they could be potential for a sequel. But I laughed so much and I do think if I'm going to predict anything, Ryan Gosling could get a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Cat.

He was good. He played kind of that dopey sidekick kind of. But then when he comes into the real world and sees that, you know, it's not like Barbie Land in, and he starts kind of asserting himself and then comes back and creates the mojo dojo casa house, which is my favorite line of the whole thing.

And then he's wearing this fur coat all the time, like he's some rapper or something, you.

Know, And the battle, the battle at the end, I don't you know, we don't need you, but you're going to be you mentioned that beating each other off. I think he did a really nice job of toeing the line with some of the referencing and that kind of thing to keep the adults happy, but they never really crossed the line where I don't think it was at any point, you know, concerning to have kids in there other than maybe a few adult ish things a little bit here and there.

I mean, they got a little anatomical a couple of times, but that was it. But it was it was funny.

If anything, kids would be bored, right, Because they wouldn't get the lines or they wouldn't get the reference. But if you've lived through Barbie and I think that's most of us, we've seen the kind of things they've done with her and where it was like beauty queen Barbie and all these things where it was promoting a different image than maybe most people thought of Barbie because I think when it started, she kind of looked Marilyn Monroe ish.

No, I mean, then she became kind of this Miss America ideal. And I think that didn't really play well with people who were looking for a doll who was adult.

Right.

But they never they never lay on all of that so that it's a bad thing, like when they make fun of Barbie being these is just that she could do anything.

Yeah.

And I love the concept that she could dream to be Barbie, could be whatever she wants to be. Exactly. That's what I think the movie talks about, is that women should have the right to be whatever they want to be.

You know, you brought up Ryan Gosling in this for a possible award season thing. You don't normally see comedies enter into that level of discussion. Could you see this film, though, because of the messaging and the way they approached it, the direction, the screenwriting? Could you see this maybe getting in being their 10th film to get a best Picture nominee to get, you know, best director nominee for Greta Gerwig, Best Original Screenplay, maybe.

Okay. It's definitely going to be a contender, if not the winner already for best sets and best costumes, because those are just brilliant. And then you start looking down the road and you think, Well, she's going to get a writing nomination because here's a way that you can reward. They want to give Greta something over all these years where they like past her by.

And I think writing could be the one that she could win. I don't know that directing is one that she could win because you've got those heavy dramas that are in there, but she can certainly be nominated. Yeah. And then and it'll be I think it'll be nominated for best Picture because it's just goofy enough that there is room for it.

Yep. You know, and it was one of those things and we'll talk about it too, as we move on to Oppenheimer. But it was a film that I felt like I really wanted to see it in the theater and it was funny because I looked at my purchase history in my AMC app because I watched I saw that on a on Saturday.

I couldn't get to Oppenheimer until Monday afternoon, which is July 24th, July 24th of last year. I saw Top Gun Maverick. I saw that in my history. That was the first movie I went to in the theater since the pandemic. I mean, the last thing I saw before that in the theater was going to the last Star Wars movie twice in December of 2019.

So I went to Top Gun Maverick in July of last year. I went to Avatar. That was the next movie I saw in the theater was Avatar in December. But since then, it's been, you know, is Barbie movie. It's Oppenheimer, it's Indiana Jones. It was elemental. It was The Flash, It was Super Mario Brothers. I've been to, you know, like a half dozen movies now, and it feels like we're back.

We're back with all right. Movies, event level movies where I don't even want to wait until it's on streaming or anything like that. I have to be there.

Well, and didn't you feel that the crowd reaction helped?

Yes.

You know, if you were sitting at home, you wouldn't really have those good belly laughs that you got out of some of these things. And I don't feel any of them. But there were moments when I was just snorting. Yeah, they were so funny.

Yeah. And, you know, it is interesting too, for me, before I went to see the movie Friday night, we had tickets to to a pro baseball game. It was kind of one of these. It's not an affiliated minor league team. It's kind of, you know, it's where the players go to keep their careers going. And so we go to this game and we're watching it and there's a family behind us.

And the family includes a few daughters that were, you know, like late teens, early 20 kind of age. And they're talking about Barb and Heimer for a couple of innings. And they're giving their critique of, you know, yeah, I love the Barbie movie. Oppenheimer It was pretty good. We were surprised. It was a little slow at first, but it and there I'm thinking it's like we're we're at a baseball game and people are talking about urban Heimer there it's almost because it's entered into this this cultural it's a cultural phenomenon in the moment.

And, you know, no matter where you are, people are talking about it.

And you go, la la la la la. Don't tell me anything about that.

But I was luckily my hearing's a little off, so whatever else, they kept on yapping about it. Yeah, I missed it, but I picked up on that.

You got to see Oppenheimer. How I wish I had, which is on IMAX screens. I did. I wasn't really. I would think that when they they now hear it's going to sound like I'm spoiling it but when they test the bomb. Yeah, that that would have been really, really cool in IMAX.

Oh yeah. Oh yes.

Because. All right, you've got me. And I'm jealous because I didn't see an IMAX.

Yeah. So I couldn't get to Oppenheimer over the weekend and I was looking I was I wasn't sure if I'd even be able to see it before we talked. I go and I was looking to see where it was playing and when, and I didn't even realize it. But there was an IMAX theater not too far from the office, and I saw that even even during the week, it was getting pretty filled up.

So my best chance to see it in IMAX was at 1215 on a monday afternoon. I buy my ticket, I get there and the place is absolutely packed. Other than the first couple of rows where you're going to get a stiff neck and a few seats off to the side on either end. The place was packed on a monday afternoon.

I have never in my life been to an IMAX theater. I've been to a few large format type of things in museums and that kind of thing where, you know, they try to immerse you in sound and screen. But I was never actually at an IMAX theater to see a Hollywood film as soon as I sat in, even just there going through the previews and I'm already just getting blown away, seeing all the movies that I'm expecting to see in the next few months.

But then when when the film comes up and you're seeing it and you know that Christopher Nolan filmed it with IMAX in mind and the imagery is huge and the sound I'm just swimming in sound and it's not it's it's loud, but it's not overpowering. I could just feel it around me. So again, we don't want to give away anything.

We want to be as spoiler free as possible. But it's pretty obvious that, yes, they do test the atomic bomb in a movie about the atomic bomb. So when they drop it and it kind of there's that scene where they don't they don't give you the sound right away. They just give you that flash. Right. And I'm just thinking, oh, okay, you know, that's interesting.

But then then it hits you. And I could feel like you can feel the sound pouring over you as that destructive wave just comes at you. And I was just so blown away by that that I'm so glad I was so glad I saw that in IMAX.

Did you see Sound of Metal, the one about the musician who was losing his hearing?

It's on my list of like, yeah, I know what you're speaking of. It's in my Amazon Prime. Like, I got to see it and I've been watching this for three years.

They play with sound in very, very interesting ways and that that was what I was reminded of when I saw Oppenheimer. I thought, you know, he's really he's using all of these different elements. I mean, everything cinematography, where he has black and white in color, the makeup where the makeup techniques are very subtle. They aren't ones where you go, Oh, my God, he's got a big plastic face on and he's supposed to be old.

Okay, I get that. I guess this is very, very subtle. All of the things that the elements are top drawer, top drawer with everybody. And then when you look at the cast of supporting actors, I mean, it's a it's an independent directors dream cast. And you go, Oh, my God. And they they don't even have lines. Some of those people are just kind of background.

They wanted to be in this film so badly and you go through it, you go, Wow, this is clout, where you're able to get these people in this film. Now, I like you. I think it starts slowly. I think it's one of those things where don't be thrown off by a film that might seem a little oh, my God, it's just sluggish.

We're going to get a whole buy. Because I thought immediately of Beautiful Mind. I thought, Oh, jeez, it's going to be Beautiful Mind all over again. And then it isn't. And then you you get into that whole building process where they're creating Los Alamos and and the team is assembling and you kind of get, okay, it's like riding a train and the train keeps chugging and then it gets a high pitch.

And there's a moment again, this is another one I want to ask you about when he is greeted by everybody in the room where they again use sound as and flashes to see how he responds to the people who are cheering him on. Do you know which one I'm meaning?

Yeah. And you're kind of later after. Yeah. And did you.

Did you. Was that a real big and have seen watch.

Yeah. Yeah that and that and just the emotion and because you can see it on his face so clearly being so large but then the sound into it and the sound of kind of like him imagining the world being destroyed by right energy it just it filled the theater the whole way through. Absolutely amazing.

And then there's that kind of oh my God moment when they started talking about a vote that was taken and who was responsible for. And that is just I think that's one of that. That's one of those kind of cherries on the top that rewards you for hanging with it and also knowing the history.

Yeah, it's interesting because I, I mean, I obviously knew that Cillian Murphy was in there as Robert Oppenheimer. I knew Matt Damon was in the movie, but I, I really avoided paying too close attention to who is doing what because I just wanted to go in and see the film. I didn't realize right away that it was Robert Downey Jr in that role, but it was interesting to me.

And let me ask you this, as someone who's seen a lot of movies, like I went into it, it's a three hour film and it's a it's a drama about the Manhattan Project. And I'm thinking myself, I hope this isn't boring. You know, I know that there's going to be an hour in. I know there's a lot of story to tell as I started watching it, because obviously they give you the black and white is meant to be from the perspective of Louis Strauss's character.

Right.

And then the color is Robert Oppenheimer's perspective, right? It got me thinking a little bit to how Francis Ford Coppola directed Godfather Part two, which is also a very long movie, over 3 hours and 20 minutes. But he used the scenes where he had scenes with kind of the present day Corleone family. But then they also had Robert De Niro's the flashbacks of how Vito Corleone came to power, and they would bounce you back and forth.

And I thought with Oppenheimer how they were able to go back and forth between the black and white and the color. It helped actually move the story along. So you weren't so beaten down by just constant dialog and stuff. It was almost, you know, in both cases, both movies have very little action. It's more of a of a drama.

And they used a different jumping around in color to kind of keep you moving along. So I actually never felt like it was, you know, there was a few few moments where kind of slowly went along. But I always thought it kept me going the whole way through.

I you know, I think the your concept is that black and white means it's the past. And that wasn't how he used that. That is just perspective and so immediately you jump to that you think or these old scenes that we're watching here now is this before something and it's not it's actually more of the more contemporary scenes of some of the things that they were dealing with.

I thought it was very fascinating how Matt Damon looked like a movie star in that he was a little broader than most of the other actors. The other actors kind of pulled it back a little bit and he was kind of like, Ooh, la, where you're you're getting a little more than maybe you want out of him. And I know he'll probably be nominated for best supporting actor.

But you see that Robert Downey Jr is almost invisible as Strauss. Then he gives it away with a few little gestures of his that are typical Robert Downey Jr things. But I think it's still a good performance. Emily Blunt How exciting is she as Mrs. Oppenheimer She is like, I want to know her because that one woman would just tell people, OP and she was like, just kind of she had that bitterness that her husband didn't and she knew how to be just that other side there that she needed.

And I think Gillian Murphy pulls back enough that you can just project just about anything on his personality so that if you thought he was a nudge or you thought he was just this brilliant man who is, you know, doesn't have equals anywhere, there were a lot of things that you could play off his performance, how he modulated that.

And, you know, they all talk about how he ate nothing and didn't mingle with the rest of them. And you think, well, if that helped the performance go for it, you know, But when I saw like Josh Hartnett sitting there on the on the couch, barely in it, Rami Malick, who has maybe one decent scene and these are and people who are like Oscar winners.

Affleck had a little bit part in there, too so.

That anybody in it's like all of a sudden he shows up.

Matthew Modine I thought, Oh, this is your tip of the hat to Ken Burns, because Matthew Modine would be the kind who would like narrate something for Ken Burns, right? Yeah, he was it was buried. But in Florence Pugh You don't recognize that. That's Florence Pugh in there as somebody in Oppenheimer's life. Albert Einstein Yeah. You know, I mean, it just it goes one after another.

So if you're a fan of movies, Oppenheimer is like the best reward we've gotten in a long time. And I'm not saying bad things about past movies that have won Best Picture or whatever, but they've been pretty middle of the road in recent years. I mean, you know, don't get me wrong, I love Coda, but I don't think Coda is high art.

I think this is something that you look at and you say, you know what, This guy did some planning. He did some thinking about this. It isn't we've just got to get this shot today and we're moving on.

This movie also. I mean, you know, it did only 82 million compared to Barbie's 162. But it was on it was on 600 fewer screens, number one. And it's 3 hours. You can only show it so many times during the course of the day. So yeah, it did half of Barbie. But in a sense, with the time and everything, we almost it almost equal that, you know, it's just like if you could have shortened up the movie and threw it on more screens, it would have been right up there.

People, people flocked to this movie.

You know, last week we talked about RAGBRAI, which was the bicycle ride across Iowa. And Saturday was when I went to it and in the theater, it was packed with with bicycle riders, because I don't know if it was because they want to get out of the heat, but they wanted have something to do or they wanted to recline in a in a comfy seat.

But they were it was wall to wall people in bicycle clothes. And they just loved it. They ate it up like crazy. And I don't think they slept if they were planning on doing that.

So overall, I mean, is Oppenheimer best picture frontrunner at this point for you?

Well, it is. But if you saw the previews, you saw that there's a martin Scorsese film that's coming out. And I think that's his biggest competition. And I think that's where we're going to see who's playing off whom in this. And it will depend how it you know, there will be some backlash. I think we already saw it today.

People were counting the stars on the flags and said use the right number of stars. And so there you go.

I read an interesting thing about that, too, that that might have actually been intentional because it was there was one scene where it had the correct number of stars and there was another scene where is incorrect. And the theory was that because it was it the split was between color in black and white. So the perspective may have been from one of their perspectives, the one where it was correct, remembering it as, you know, 48 states in the union, whereas the other one was, you have the perspective of the time where there's 50 stars.

I don't know if that's true or if somebody just, you know, in set design flubbed and grabbed the wrong one. But it was an interesting theory.

At least Clint Eastwood has done that, where he's done, you know, a period piece and then the flag is wrong. Right. You know, so it happens. It happens. But I don't that doesn't pull away from anything else. And I think, you know, he is a real stickler for not trying to recreate things in special effects. You're not going to see 10,000 names that are listed as people who did the animation for this.

So I think there's a real a love fest. And if Christopher Nolan doesn't win best director for this, it better be something good.

Absolutely. Well, next week we're going to move probably as far away from Oppenheimer and Barbara, yet we have a new show, well, I guess not a new show, but a new season of a show on Disney and yeah, ending. Do you want to just set us up on that one? What are we looking at?

Come on, High School Musical and I know you're not of that ilk. I know that you're not from that age range. 26 When it popped, it was unbelievable. I mean, nobody thought that a Disney movie would turn out to be that much of a phenomenon. And it launched careers not unlike other films and then led way to High School Musical, The musical, the series, which is ending its season.

In fact, they're going to drop all the episodes on one day. So if you are a high school musical nut, you'll find out what happened to those kids in the in the final season so that we're telling you that next weekend we've got people from the show that we are talking to as well. So come on, we're all in this together.

I can't wait to talk with you more about that. Thank you again for listening to this episode of Streamed and Screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

Hollywood was largely shut down when screenwriters went on strike, but they are now being joined by members of the Screen Actors Guild with no end in sight.

This strike came just ahead of the release of the latest summer blockbuster, "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," which had a big opening globally. But production of next year's "Part Two," like everything else, is now on hold.

Also in limbo is the status of the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, scheduled for Sept. 18. As part of the strike, actors can't do promotional work and likely cannot participate in the show. Regardless, the nominations (full list here) were dominated by HBO heavyweights and "Ted Lasso" from AppleTV+. "Succession" led the way with 27 nominations, "The Last of Us" got 24, "The White Lotus" got 23, 74 total for the three HBO shows. "Ted Lasso" led comedies with 21.

Besides the latest "Mission: Impossible" installment, we discuss the upcoming "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" releases and a documentary that looks at RAGBRAI — the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

Read more

Two journalists look inside RAGBRAI for a deeper, cinematic story

Where to watch

"Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One" in theaters
"Barbie" in theaters
"Oppenheimer" in theaters
"Succession" on HBO & Max
"The Last of Us" on HBO & Max
"The White Lotus" on HBO & Max
"Ted Lasso" on AppleTV+
"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" on Amazon Prime Video
"Barry" on HBO & Max
"The Bear" on Hulu
"Shift: The Ragbrai Documentary" from the Des Moines Register

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed & Screened an entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the very well-rested Bruce Miller at Sioux City Journal and longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, you're on vacation with me.

I was I was on vacation and I did not do any vacation things. I did not visit animals in a zoo. I did not ride rides in an amusement park. I was basically cleaning crap in my basement. That's what.

I planned.

And it's not done. It's not done. And now I'm freaked out because everybody's on strike. And that could mean I don't get interviews.

I know I wanted to talk about this because we were already shut down sort of anyway with the writers on strike. But now the screen actors Guild voted to strike. So on one hand, not a whole lot of changes because most production was shut down anyway because of the writers. But now the actors are on strike as well.

And they won't talk about product that they have that's out there. Now. Directors will. So you can we might be doing a lot of directors, you might hear me saying, Oh, I'm, I'm tired. The all these great directors, you go, oh, do we care? We don't care. But that could be our new our new world order. I think something's got to come to a head with this.

I think we're getting to the point where. Come on, folks, you got to move. Otherwise, we're having nothing. And you can only watch so many game shows and so many reality shows and so many politicians talking before you're ready to just scream. And I think that's where we need to see some movement in this whole thing. And I, you know, I stand behind the actors and the writers.

When you look at the kinds of money that they're not making and you hear about $1,000,000,000 salary for somebody who's the head of the studio. Is there something wrong with this picture? I think there is.

You know, it's kind of interesting. I read a few things about the strike. One was kind of looking at the last time or one of the last times it really came to a head like this, which was I think it was in the early sixties maybe, and it was tied a bit to those payments, you know, like a movie would was starting to get aired on TV.

How would the actors get paid residuals? So that was kind of like the big thing. The last time there was a real, real big strike like this. But now we're getting into a situation where we're looking at things that, like I and I saw in one report, I think it was Rolling Stone. It's almost dystopian in a sense where they wanted to pay someone is an extra and they talk about, you know, everyone gets hung up on like how much Tom Cruise makes, you know, how much this actor makes and that.

But the reality is, is that's like a teeny tiny percentage of members of the Screen Actors Guild. And a lot of it are extras, people that just like stand in the background who make maybe $200 a day at at just whatever the going rate is. And what they were looking to do is like, we would scan your image, pay you the $200 fee, but then only that.

Yeah, we, we you know, we own that image of you in perpetuity and, you know, we don't need to bring you in. And I, you know, for, for a perspective of the actor, I would be on strike too. There's no way you know that's that's good money and it's connections. It's this is how you meet people you like.

You go on a you go on a on on stage. You know, you go on to a set, You meet people, you meet other actors, you meet directors, you meet screenwriters. This is how you get your foot in the door. And you look at some of the legendary, you know, you talk about like Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford, who's been in the business for 60 years.

He was for a decade was working like odd jobs. I think he was a carpenter.

But he had.

These, like little fill in roles. And then he finally broke through with with Star. Well, American Graffiti in that little role. But then Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

Yeah. It's it's interesting how I think you need to make $26,000 a year in order to qualify for insurance. And not that many people make $26,000 a year, which is really scary, I think. And, you know, I've never liked the idea that you could scan somebody and then create a performance. I find that just that's abhorrent when you think that they would like to take Marilyn Monroe, scan all the things she ever did, and then have her in new films.

Now, this is not happening. And I think that's one of the big problems. Also, we thought streaming was such a great thing. Streaming. They were paying them next to nothing to do these shows. There were people from Orange is the New Black who said, you know, they barely made money and they had to have some other kind of job just to be able to keep that job.

This is ridiculous. This shouldn't happen, especially when they're making such huge sums of money out of this. Pick a side. But I really think that the angels are on the side of the actors and the writers at this point.

I find it hard to believe. I mean, any time there's a contract negotiation, a strike, and you have, you know, labor up against management, there's obviously they'll come together and meet in the middle somewhere. But it feels like this one, based on some of the issues, could drag on for a while. And it is like I mean, I try to Im a journalist, you're journalist.

We try to, you know, stay neutral on things. But I'm having a hard time siding with management on this one. This is a this is a tough one. When you get into like, you know, people are trying to just make ends meet on a on a you know, on a set and try to break through in an industry.

We could be duped. I don't know. I'm not saying that we are, but I had never heard that they made this little money. You know, this was not an issue before we got to the strike situation. And so I wonder why people didn't bring that up earlier, especially when they were negotiating with streaming services about because they were all so excited that there was so much content and there were so many opportunities.

And then all of a sudden now it's yeah, they didn't pay well. Why is this? Why did this happen? I do know that they look a lot at European Australia in other countries for actors and so I'm sure that there must have been some easier way to get those people to be in films and TV shows than it is to hire Americans.

I don't know what the situation was, but you know, you'll always go, Well, wait a minute, they why did they pick an Australian or why is that guy British and he's doing an American accent and it doesn't matter. You want the best actor for the for the situation. But it just seems strange and I just wonder if they don't work cheap.

Now, I know in London they have to put together a lot of jobs to be able to make a career out of it. They're not only in like these six episode series. He's they're also on the West End working in plays. They're doing kind of presenter jobs. They're everywhere and they're not just like one movie and done for the year.

So you can see that maybe that is a model for the what the U.S. situation's going to be like. I don't know. It's scary though, because I don't want to see game shows all season long. That's what we're going to be facing is a lot of game shows.

Yeah. And you know, you look at the big movie that opened this past weekend, which was the latest in the Mission Impossible series, Dead Reckoning. Part one will Dead Reckoning, Part two now is on hiatus because it was still in the middle of production and they had to shut it down. So, you know, we're now at a situation of like, yeah, we don't want game shows, but there's a lot of movies.

You know what? What does our summer movie situation for 2024 look like? If this gets extended.

We'll look at Colbert where they weren't able to make new films. And so then they kind of stretch things out for a while. These are long dry spells and I don't want to bail out from stuff I liked when we had a lot of card debt, so maybe I'm in the minority there, but a come to a conclusion, make it equitable for everybody and get us our entertainment back.

You mentioned Mission Impossible. I went to Mission Impossible 2 hours and 45 minutes. Yeah. Does not need 2 hours and 45 minutes because 2 hours of that is it's stunt work. And yeah, I can I could make a case where we need a best stunt ensemble Oscar because easily you could, you could see what they've done. But what's interesting about that is a lot of the stunts are very similar to ones in Indiana Jones.

The latest one, there are bullets running on top of a train. You know, they're both coming to the edge of something. They're in all different kinds of vehicles. There are many, many parallels, like are they looking at each other's own homework and saying, well, we should do that, too, because if they're going to come out with that, we need that.

We've got to have that. If Barbie is running on a top of a train this week, when Barbie comes out, I know that there was.

There a motorcycle? Yes, maybe you know this, but I read somewhere or saw somewhere years ago that Tom Cruise needs a motorcycle. And every movie he does.

He comes to the end. You've seen it probably in the previews. He comes to the edge of a cliff and looks like falling off it. But, you know, and God bless him, he is a hard worker and likes doing that crap. But enough. We don't need all of that. And you can easily see how if he edited it, it'd be a better film.

I have. You know, I've always said this, you know, if it's 90 minutes or less than 2 hours, that's a good sign. They need to be able to kind of pull it in. And it used to be they did, because they wanted to get more showings in a day so they'd make more money. Now, if you see two, two screenings of a film in one day, Oh, that's okay.

We're all right with that. I don't think so.

I'm with you on the length of films, especially to as I've gotten older, it just feels like I, you know, I get that big drink and then it's, you know, two hour, hour and 45. I'm already like, can we wrap this thing up a little bit? I got a great right here.

And then how are they going to have extra scenes after the credits? Do I have to sit for that or do I run like a rat? Yeah.

Was was there an extra scene at the end of Indiana Jones? I don't.

Know, because I had to run like a.

Rat. I did too. I blind. I was. I was so quick getting out of car.

We'll see what happens. You know, what's interesting is Oppenheimer opens this week as well. Yes. And Christopher Nolan is one who really appreciates the old way of doing things. He doesn't want to use special effects that he can easily do, you know, with stunt people, with locations, with cars. He doesn't want to have some animator making his movie, basically.

And he does black and white with this and an IMAX camera. I mean, it's there are things he is doing that are so remarkable that others need to look at instead of trying to see how how high the bar can be. Maybe you should just make something that's a little more artistic. Just talk on here. We'll see what happens.

But have you have you been able to see that one yet or are you waiting until this week?

Oh, oh, waiting for the Barbie Hammer? Yeah, I'm Barbie Hammer. I'm waiting to see what happens with it. But yeah, so I, I think more need to follow this lead. And I think, you know, we're going to be fine this year for best picture candidates. You have Martin Scorsese, big film coming out that should be a real strong contender.

You have Oppenheimer, which is good. You have the going way back air from Ben Affleck. So there are good films this year, but it could be a drought next year if we don't get people back to work.

Box office numbers were interesting this past weekend as well. A solid opening for Mission Impossible. 80 million domestic Indiana Jones, only 12 million. Now overall, Indiana Jones is at 300 million worldwide, just over 300 million worldwide. So it's today. But it the numbers I saw Disney reported, I think 295 million to make it. But there's some estimates that have made it may have actually been closer to 400, you know, with the promotional stuff.

So it's still like it either just made back its money or maybe has another hundred million to go. But it will, I'm guessing it'll it'll get there at the end. But, you know, it was a solid week for Mission Impossible. That's already at 235 worldwide. So it's a really strong opening overseas. Do you see that one continuing on and and really bringing in, you know, is that going to be a top five?

Oh, yeah. It's Top Gun. It's this year's top gun, Italy is that they make the most money. I think it'll be interesting to see Barbie I think will run away with it or the week because there's enough talk about Barbie and it got good reviews to begin with. Oppenheimer is a little more a acquired taste.

And you're not going to get the kids at that.

Well, you're not going to have that big repeat business, but I don't think they're looking for it any way. So I think mission could probably be still number one. Barbie could be a strong number two.

Yeah, Barbie. To me, Barbie could end up as a runaway hit also, because you're going to get the kids are going to want to see it. But it's that type of movie where the and I told my I told my wife and daughters like, you want to go see it, I'm coming with you. Don't don't run out in the middle of the day without rad.

Yeah.

That's this is what But I think it has a better message. And they say that Ken steals the film. So you feel sorry for Ken because Ken is kind of also in the cast, if you will, And he kind of pleads his case in the course of this. So I think, yeah, I'm I'm I'm leery of the two ones.

I'm waiting for Barbie because I know I, I want to see IMAX version of Oppenheimer. Yeah. And I won't see it the first week.

Have you seen the reels, the IMAX reels? It's been they've been popping up on like tik-tok and stuff. Instagram, it's like 11 miles of film. Were there to create an extender on the reels just to hold it just for this movie.

Wow. But I missed those days. I really miss exhibition. Exhibition was a big thing back in the day where you had Do you remember Cinerama? Was that ever anything in your your. Oh, okay. These were it was three screens and they were synched so that they all it created one kind of curved picture and they were not theaters that showed other kinds of films.

It was basically you went for Cinerama how the West was what you would see it kind of going across the screen, the wagon train, Grand Prix. It was a car race. And so you see that wishing bye. So it was very kind of different and those things were long run. You would go, it was like going to a theme park and you would go, and in my day you had to dress up and they didn't have popcorn and they didn't have soft drinks.

They would have like an orange juice or some wine made or something like that. It was very much like going to the theater. And you felt very special when you were at these kinds of things. But it was a different kind of world where the seats were great. There was an overture that started the whole thing, and I think we're missing that.

I think that would be really cool to have that kind of buildup for. I know. I think they need to go back to that and look at that. But yeah, Cinerama was an interesting experiment and it was during that time they were trying a whole bunch of different kinds of visual tricks. And then more recently when they did Censor Round, which was where you sound all around you and you felt like, you know, an earthquake was a big one to try it where you actually felt like there was an earthquake in the theater.

So I think that's where the future lies more than is. You need to look at how you make the experience special. I don't know that you'll get rid of popcorn, but I do think that you will. You can make it just a little higher. And that or one of the things is when we got the good seats, you know, those.

The recliner seats. Yep. That's a nice little that's a nice little touch. I do remember being at a theater once where they gave you a blanket and this is big. You guys bring blankets to the theater?

No, my. Well, my wife and kids, they always pack a sweatshirt or something with.

Their classic bring you blankets. Well, at this theater, it was in Pasadena. You were given a blanket. And then they had a table where they would wait on you like it was a restaurant. They would have heated seats. It was like it was like better than your house and somebody was waiting on you, which is even I mean, tater tots in your movie.

You didn't care how bad the movie was. You were being taken care of. So I think that is the the one area where they can they can sharpen it up a bit.

They heard the the AMC theater that is literally within walking distance of my house. I mean, it's just it's a mile from from where I live. So it's it's super convenient but it's it's about 20 years out of date and it doesn't have all those fancy amenities. And it really could use an overhaul. But we're in that area of the state where, you know, if you just go to Madison or you decide to go on a walkie, you can have that stuff.

So it's almost like, you know, well, will AMC keep this one moving along or do I just have to be happy with it, you know, until they decide to shutter it or whatever? Because it's just I don't think the foot traffic is there to support even the fancy recliners. We went my wife and I went to a movie, probably going on ten years now when we were living in Appleton, Wisconsin.

It was a really small theater. They were showing. It wasn't quite bargain movies, but it was kind of in between. It was in that in-between stage of like first run and then bargain basement and they had tables set up in front of you. And right before the movie started, you'd put in your food order and then like 20 minutes into the film, you would start getting your burgers or chicken fingers or whatever, and you got full service.

They had beer and so made and everything. Thanks. Yeah, yeah. So it was that was an interesting concept. But, you know, that was it was kind of a small theater. The screen wasn't huge, so you wouldn't go there to get blown away. It's just more of a different experience, I guess.

I remember when we had drive in theaters, you got real dinner food, if you will. You know, there would be a dog or something, you know, I have or whatever it was. And we always had that was like, Oh my God, this is so great. And all it was was where you could spill on the car and you'll risk the wrath of Dad because we're not spilling in the car, so you're not getting on it.

But yeah, we have it.

We have a drive through not far from us. We took the kids a couple of years ago to see the remake that that live action Lion King. It was fun. It was fun to sit out there. But, you know, I was just like, please, may the batteries still start. When we started the car.

I would worry.

About yet because you know, the old ones and well this is the soundtrack all right. You think what did they say? They need to close caption these suckers because I don't understand what they're saying at the time. But it was you got out of the house, you know, and I remember, too, that it was car night where you would get as many people as you could get in the car for $1.

Mm. And, you know, it was like they were, they were coming lately or clowns at a circus, the cars would be filled and then they would all sit on the wheel after they got in the, in the drive in theater. So you know, who knows where, where the future lies. But I think it's an exhibition.

Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting point especially is is home theater experiences continue to explode with streaming. And speaking of streaming, Emmy nominations came out last week.

Now, okay, here's the thing that I think is wrong with the Emmy nominations there. There is a category where there are two shows represented, White Lotus and Succession, and they just over dominate in some of these categories. I think some of the other shows are not even considered. You know, they'll all watch succession, for example, because it's a buzzy show and then they just start picking the people and putting them in there.

And I'm not saying they're not worthy, but. Right. You think what the you know, how many thousands of hours of content there couldn't be more. So I was shocked by that. I, I do think that we're going to see maybe some surprises in the comedy categories. For example, several shows are quitting. Yeah. It's who gets the last damn eight, you know, on the way out.

And I it'll be interesting to see if they'll if they're going to reward a new show in that category. The bear is nominated for best comedy you still as other times this is Maysles going out.

Ed Lasso's going out Yeah.

Supposedly is going out. So, you know, how do you split that boat? I don't know how it's going to be. And then you have ones that aren't even in the mix because they didn't have episodes this year, like Hacks. So we'll see what that all brings. But I wouldn't doubt that something like The Bear couldn't slip in there and win it.

As a sports fan, right? Sometimes you'll see in baseball a team will have a really good player, but or they'll have to really good players. And then there's a third guy. So as a mets fan, in 1988, Darryl Strawberry had a really good half of the season. Kevin McReynolds had a really good half of the season, and then Kirk Gibson for the Dodgers had a really solid, like start to finish, right.

You know, so you ended up having two guys from the Mets effectively split the vote with voters and then Kirk Gibson comes out on top. So I sometimes wonder, too, you know, you've got shows, Ted Lasso, Barry Marvelous. Mrs. Maisel. So if you start splitting that vote because people are getting nostalgic, it's like, Oh, I want to give it to Barry, I want to give it to Mrs. Marzel, then yeah, all of a sudden the bear shows up and can slip in there.

You know, I had ones where I have said to people, I think you should win, I think are really good. And they say they're not pushing me. So that means that the studio or the producers of this show may have one in mind and they'll give them more of a publicity campaign then somebody else. And then who knows what the Emmys are going to be like if the strikes are still going on.

Do they hand them out or do they wait?

Do they? Right. Did they delay the program until February or something? You know, in get it out of get it out of the fall? You know, interesting point I think you made with the number of actors, too. And you look at so many of these shows now like the White Lotus, like succession, like Ted Lasso, these are ensemble casts.

How do you pick? You know, I can understand with some shows you're like, this is clearly the best actor nominee. This is clearly the best actress nominee. These couple characters, you know, like what Cheers. Like you would always Ted Danson is the best actor nominee. No, no disputing that. Or or Kirstie Alley is the best actress. And then you might go to a norm or somebody else's as a supporting.

But when you have the White Lotus, which is an ensemble show, how do you even differentiate who it is or succession?

You know, a lot of times if you look back in the history of some of these shows, they don't have enough screen time to really merit the nomination, but they get the nomination and so they've got to hope that their producers write an episode for them that kind of is built around their character. So they have enough to show off.

And it's not like, Oh, what happened here? Hill Street Blues was notorious for giving them little kind of moments, but not enough moments to add up to a big you know, win. Daniel to bond. He always won because he was the lead. And you could tell he was the lead. L.A. Law another example of, you know, I supporting person could win e r a supporting person could win, but not necessarily somebody who is in a better category because they didn't have the scenes that add up to whatever somebody else could do.

Or if it's something that is very common, like or Angela Lansbury never won, she was nominated like 13 times for murder. She wrote Never Won. Well, she was facilitating a story for everybody else. And she was kind of the glue, not necessarily the one who went crazy and was the murderer. So she, you know, as a result, probably not going to win.

My take on the Emmys, too, in this kind of goes back to my own streaming habits and subscription habits. Now, we've talked about like with Apple TV Plus I kind of come and go from that. You know, I'll I got through Ted Lasso. I got through a couple of other shows like For All Mankind. I got caught up on that.

I'm probably going to check out a couple of other shows, but then I'm going to turn it off for six months and then I'll wave it again. And there's a couple other ones now, like with Hulu, I would probably drop that one periodically, except for it's, it's bundled together with with my Disney Plus. So it's like I have a deal.

So it's not. And then with Netflix there's there's enough things on there to kind of keep me plus the kids really like Netflix so I guess I'm always going to keep Netflix but it's it's even on the fringe for me where I might shut that one down for three months and then come back for it and just save a few bucks here and there.

But pound for pound, you cannot take my HBO away from me. And I think the Emmy nominations, it was like 75, 74 nominations between succession, leading everything in the White Lotus, not far behind the Last of US, Not far behind. I mean, there's nothing that HBO for me can't do, right? I mean, there's no reason if you if all I could take was one, I would just go with HBO all the time.

I am a big EPICS fan, and then they've kind of muddied the waters by doing Fox on Hulu. So you're not really sure where their home is, but they make great content and they've got good stuff coming up for the next year, so we don't have to worry that all they're going to be out of the water. But like one of my favorites is reservation dogs.

That's going after the end of this next season. Fargo has a new addition. That'll be this year. Those are Epix products, but are they Epix on Hulu? So really, it's a Hulu thing, who knows? But HBO pound for pound if they don't mess around with Max Brown has a lot of good stuff.

That's the only thing that worries me a little bit. I mean, I've I've been an HBO subscriber either through traditional cable and then they kind of went to that HBO Now thing and then they went to HBO, Max and now it's just Max. I mean, I'm going to keep paying for it, but is as long as they keep these programs going, as long as there is some sort of Game of Thrones spin off or a nice, you know, dramatic comedy like a white Lotus, a dark kind of show like that for the wife and I to watch those types of things.

As long as they keep bringing those in, it feels like, you know, one show goes off the air and then there's something else waiting for me. But as soon as that stops, you know, yeah, they're going to lose me for sure.

Isn't it funny how you're voting with your pocketbook?

It is.

And look at how Disney Plus got a big bump when they did Hamilton. You know, people do see Hamilton. They threw it on there. That got a huge number of subscribe for them. And now they're kind of hurting. They're wondering, what do we do? We don't have that kind of content. We'll see what see what happens with that.

Absolutely.

I've got a movie that's opening here in Iowa. Yes. And it's timed. And if you've never heard of it, it's called RAGBRAI Register's annual.

Great.

Great bicycle ride across Iowa. I think that's what.

I think it is.

Yeah. It's a it's a 50th year where they they start at one end of the state and then they they bike across the state for a week and it's hotter than hell. Usually when they do it a lot of little towns get involved in all of this. It's a fascinating kind of social experiment. But it for most people in the state of Iowa, it looks like it's just a big rolling party is what it amounts to.

Well, they've made a documentary called Shift, and it's about four groups or four, I want to say four people, But they're like in Kabul, there's two people or there's two people in another and three, you know, But it's four separate stories basically, that are pulled together. That happened during the course of last year's RAGBRAI. And I had a chance to talk to the directors and how they did this and what they chose and how they were making their decisions because you don't have a chance at a second shot.

You have to do it all during that week. If you don't get everything shot during that week, not going to happen. And so I had a chance to talk to the directors, Courtney Crowder and Kelsey Kramer, and I think we've got an excerpt from that interview. If you care to listen, tell me about the project. When did you begin it?

Why did you begin it? Was it all time to be with the 50th? Tell me all that kind of stuff.

So it was when I mean, it was in the pandemic. So like 2020? Yeah. So I texted Courtney and said, Hey, I want to make this documentary and I want it to be really good, so help me. And we ended up we were going to meet at Starbucks, but all the tables were closed because it was the pandemic.

So we went to a park shelter and like sat down and spent like several hours just like talking it through and making a plan. And so we did. We knew we wanted it to be time to the 50th, just as like, you know, that was our news, Peg. So when we talked it there, we knew, you know, that we wanted it to be more than just sort of like a historical retelling of RAGBRAI.

We knew it wanted. We knew that we wanted it to be about, you know, people. We wanted it to connect with more than just people who are interested in RAGBRAI. We wanted it to be bigger than that. And so we, you know, plotted all of that out at our first meeting, you know, Mid-Pandemic And then really like going on it in earnest the January before the 49th ride.

So last January. And then going from there.

So how did you pick the people that you'd focus on? Was that like just spur of the moment or was it something that you, you know, we knew these ones would be good.

That was our biggest that was our biggest concern going forward is obviously the story had to have the subjects that really propelled it forward. And so as the main sort of producer of the story side, I took that on and started in that January reaching out in every humanly possible. So talking to people who had done RAGBRAI a lot, talking to people on our staff, just sort of reaching out and saying, what are the big stories?

What are the things that you've covered in the past that might be good for us to look at? Looking at some of the submissions that people had put on social media about their own stories, I ended up doing more than a dozen phone interviews, which became a little bit fewer, probably a dozen video interviews, and then we ended up with about seven storylines that we actually followed and four that end up in the film.

Well, and then have you guys been on a break right before? Have you done the whole thing, or was this like, Oh, wow.

I mean, we've both covered RAGBRAI, so I've worked at the Register for ten years and have covered RAGBRAI every year. So like some of the stuff that we include in the documentary are like people we knew about because we are very much involved in RAGBRAI, like the registered side of RAGBRAI coverage. Like, I also have always been a part of the route announcement.

Like I've sort of been a big part of planning the Register's coverage of that. So we've we're very involved in it. Yeah, Yeah. So it wasn't a surprise for us.

But then on the on a day to day basis, how do you know who to who to track or do you have other people who are going to do all that. And so you make sure you get something from each of them every day or what?

Yeah. So we had a team of ten people on the ride, seven videographers and three producers and a lot of it's it's one of those things where it's like plan as much as you can and then throw away the plan, right? So Kelsey and I sat down in the weeks before talking about which which videographer might match with which subject best, like they might have similar life experiences plotting out what days we'd like to do things.

And then every day we'd look at that again, right? So we sent them out a week's plan. Then every night we'd say, You know what's coming up the next day? What's coming up the next day? So we were following those seven storylines and then getting beauty shots of Iowa and that kind of stuff. But we were not deviating.

We knew those were our story lines.

So how.

We.

Don't freak out our you during all of that is like, Oh my God, we do we have anything new day. I don't know if we have anything today. This could be bad.

I feel like it. I mean, Courtney and I really I feel like we really knew what we wanted to capture because we had also spent time with some of the main the main people that ended up in the documentary. We had spent time with all of them before the ride, so we sort of knew like what days were were end, what moments were important, and we had kind of an idea of how their week was going to go.

And so I felt like we sort of knew when we needed to be like where we needed to be. And I think we really hit those marks pretty well. Then there was some adjusting, had one photographer ride the whole ride and he bounced around with different different characters. So he spent time with sort of all of our main people.

We had one photographer who Courtney got a bike part of the way through. We realized that it made sense to be on a bike with someone. So we, like Courtney, found a bike. We got another photographer on a bike. And I think that's where having a partnership really came into play, because I feel like any time I was reaching that peak anxiety, I could turn to Kelsey and she could call down.

And same thing for her, right? I mean, it was a lot. You have you have eight days to get what you need for a movie. And so I'm not going to pretend like that wasn't an anxiety inducing. It was, but it was like, stick to the plan, be flexible and just go, go, go, go.

Were you talking to each other on the phone all the time saying, Oh, this is what I found, Oh, this is great. Oh, we got to do this? Or was it like, Well, wait till the end?

No, we had texts going, you know, add you can you're in the middle of nowhere in RAGBRAI. So we had texts going all day long, and then every night at five we had this meeting with everybody from our team. You were expected to be there even if you had to go back out and cover stuff at night, you're expected to be there.

So that's kind of how we coordinated on the ride. So we talked through every day. We talked about what everyone filmed. So we had an idea every day what everyone had. And then we also had with a we had some extra help. So one of the people who was helping us was a woman named Kathy. And I'm not even going to try to pronounce her last name, but she is the photo editor for the Detroit Free Press.

So a part of going back came and helped us. And she was like looking at footage and she was she was out writing and she was like helping us as a producer. She was looking at people spotted and she was sort of helping guides with visual instruction too. And so every day, like all the photographers had a hard drive that they turned in and all the footage got backed up on a hard drive and then people got their hard drives back.

And so we were sort of keeping tabs all week. Yeah.

Or there were tragedies then where you go, Oh my God, we didn't get it, or I forgot to turn the camera on or anything like that.

No, And I think that's a really good point, though. Bruce is like one thing that I learned being a print reporter is the importance of being there. And I think for me that was the key takeaway is if you're making a documentary, if you're doing something on film and it sounds so simple, but it's really not, you have to be there.

So even as much as we knew the times that things were going to happen, we really tried to embed with these people because life happens when you're not looking right. Life happens in those small moments. And we just tried to be with them as much as possible because we can't recreate it, at least in our form of our documentary.

We don't have animations. This is all things happening in the time that they happened. And so then the documentary is based on what we experience. Yeah, it's we. So it's sort of like we had an idea of what was important, everyone's storyline. And then we sort of took stock of what we had and that was how we determined what was in the documentary.

So at the end then, what did you say to each other when it was done? I'm not the documentary being done, but when RAGBRAI was done, did you go, Did we get everything or do we have everything? Do we need something more or do you just kind of sigh and say, Well, let's see what we've got and go from there?

You know, I wish I was not so tired and anxious, but 100%, you know, I mean, driving back from Lansing to Des Moines, that's a four hour car trip to think about. Did we get it all? So I was I was definitely a little nervous. But honestly, it was for me, a feeling of euphoria because at the time, Deb, we were there with our characters and we had been apart because we were with them, embedded with them.

We'd been a part of their journey and their story. So for me it's like, yes, Director Courtney was, was worried and thinking about, you know, immediately making meetings for Monday. But Courtney was experiencing it with these people, understood that they were overcoming and they were celebrating. And I was excited to be a part of that. You know, I it felt like we got it.

Like I felt like I felt like in the stuff that we because we were interviewing everybody as they arrived, like as they were in line to go to the tired it and the stuff that we were talking about in those interviews was like, Holy shit. Like, we are going to have a good documentary like we just like, yeah, we just like captured something really powerful and that I absolutely felt that when we got to the end, like, oh, like, oh, this is going to be good?

Yeah.

All right, Bruce, thanks for that interview. Interesting. It sounds like an interesting concept. I'm always into kind of these documentaries on Netflix that look at unusual endurance types, things like climbing mountains and surfing. And so even though it is kind of a very regional thing, I think this is a movie that might resonate with me as well.

Would you do it or would you actually go on a bike ride across the state when it's 100 and some degrees?

Yeah, I'm not sure I will. I mean, when I was a little bit younger, I did a lot of biking. I did a 25 mile bike ride one time as part of a group in Milwaukee, and I used to bike regularly, like 10 to 15 miles, just, you know, kind of in the neighborhood type of thing. I don't know if I could do that.

That length and that amount of heat in the summer, that would be a little bit about it.

It was like 50 some miles a day. And then you party for the rest of the day and then you get up the next day and do another 50 miles and party that night. That's a lot.

It is. I've known a few people that have done RAGBRAI and including one individual who, if you looked at them, probably, you know, you're like, really? You know, because he was much older, not in the best of shape, but he did it. And I mean, because he biked regularly. So he had the he had the endurance to it to do it and he enjoyed it.

But yeah, I've been to Iowa in July and August and.

Michael, it's October, but I'll stay in the support wagon and, you know, in the air conditioning. Thank you very much and I'll meet you when we get to the small town And I have the piece of pie too, but I won't even had to ride at all. I couldn't. I am no good at writing. Bye. I fall over right away.

I have no sense of balance, you know? So it's not my way.

When somebody says to you. It's just. It's just like riding a bike, you know.

That's not then it's very difficult. It's like riding a bike. I can't do it. Not coming up.

So before we wrap, when are these strikes ending? Do we want to do we want to try to put this one out? I honestly at this point, I'm going to go November.

Or you go that far. I don't think it'll be that far.

No.

No. I think something's got to give. I think they're going to get really antsy around the Emmy Awards in September.

Okay.

And that will get them to think, well, we lost all the free publicity on this. Let's wrap it up. Let's try and do something, I think, before Halloween.

Interesting. I the only reason I'm going out to November is I think there's enough besides these horrible game shows and other unscripted, you know, actor free programs out there. The only thing else that's kind of hanging on is we will have the start of the NFL season. We will have college football, we will have the World Series and baseball.

We will have the return of things like the NBA and the NHL. I think there's enough sporting events where these distributors and and other studios and stuff to have something there. But come November, people are going to freak out because they're like, well, college football's ending and then bowl season is going to be gone. We need to get people back to work so we can start getting things ready for the start of the new year.

So that's kind of where I'm going with like early November. But that's yeah, we'll see what happens. Hopefully you're right.

Yeah, I want it sooner. I think I'm ready for tomorrow. Well, we'll see what happens.

All right. Sounds good. All right. Well, thank you all for listening to the latest episode of Streams and Screened. And we'll be back next week with Barbie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

It was a vacation week for one of the co-hosts, but one that had Hollywood ties far outside of California.

Terry Lipshetz talks about his family vacation to South Dakota, which included stops at Badlands National Park and Wall Drug, locations of the 2020 Oscar-winning film "Nomadland," as well as Deadwood, which, of course, was the location for the HBO series of the same name.

"Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" are set to open this week as "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" continues to underperform at the box office.

"Wham!" is a documentary on the group featuring pop icons George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley that you won't want to miss.

And the fifth season of "What We do in the Shadows" premieres July 13. Co-host Bruce Miller has interviews with Kirsten Schaal (The Guide), Harvey Guillén (Guillermo de la Cruz), Mark Proksch (Colin Robinson), Kayvan Novak (Nandor the Relentless) and Natasia Demetriou (Nadja of Antipaxos).

Finally, aside from the big blockbusters of the summer, there is a smaller movie gaining traction — "Sound of Freedom" starring Jim Caviezel as a special agent who tries to stop child sex trafficking.

Where to watch

"Nomadland" on Hulu
"Deadwood" on Max
"Deadwood: The Movie" on Max
"Barbie" in theaters
"Oppenheimer" in theaters
"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" in theaters
"Wham!" on Netflix
"What We Do in the Shadows" on FX and Hulu
"Sound of Freedom" in theaters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipschitz is senior producer Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and longtime entertainment reporter who has been working a heck of a lot harder than I have in the last week because I am back from vacation.

What is this deal? You get a vacation and you take a vacation from watching movies.

Come on. I have yeah, I have watched the fall.

Movies are a vacation.

That's right. But when that's part of your job description, I have to.

Stop. I am watching around the clock things that you haven't even thought of yet. I've seen. That's how. How intense it is. And they don't take a break. There really should be a week where they go nap. No new movies this week. Nothing happening? No, no TV shows. Just sit still. Do whatever you want to do at home.

You know, that is that sort of exists in sports because that's actually the the genesis of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue started coming out in February because it was it was that time of the year when there was nothing. It was it was after the NFL's season. It was before spring training. Yeah, there's hockey and basketball still going on, but it's like, you know, you can only tell so many stories there.

So we're going to do a swimsuit issue. So that's what that is. And even in sports right now, it's a little bit of a dead time because we're at the Major League Baseball All-Star break. So there's the Home Run Derby, there's the All-Star Game, but there's really not a lot of sports. But yeah, you're right. There's not a not a true break in the movie entertainment world.

A swimsuit edition. Yeah. Yeah. Great for us. And then we just look at the pictures and that's all we care about.

But my my vacation, though, I didn't get away from the movies completely because we went. We packed up the minivan, we got the kids inside, and we headed west and we headed west. And we started seeing signs for see the the costumes and sets for Dances with Wolves and stop in, said Larry. What's that?

It's just.

Prairie. Do you just drag through it?

I've seen it.

It's good. Yeah, but we all drug.

We stopped it while drug. Yeah, because we stopped at the Badlands, which of course was a major plot point for the movie. Nomadland.

So you said, Would you please tell Frances McDormand that I want a double egg fried on wheat toast?

Right. I had a donut. That's all. I had it while drug. I had.

Free water.

Fabulous. I did not get any free water. No.

Oh, darn.

Darn.

Did you see the jackalope?

Yes, I did.

Okay. And they have like a mini Mount Rushmore in the back that you could always with. And I think you can get on. You can like I think there's a dinosaur there, too. If I remember right.

Yeah. At the exit. I know there was one dinosaur at the exit to get off and yeah, it's a pretty neat little place.

Well, can I give you a little spoiler alert?

Okay.

The spoiler alert in the new movie Joy Ride. One of the things they talk about is going to South Dakota or a second vacation. Oh, so if there's a sequel to Joy Ride, they're going to South Dakota.

Interesting. Interesting. And we ended up also in Deadwood, which was the location of or the setting, rather, one of my favorite HBO series of all time. Also called Deadwood. And it was it was fascinating to me because everything was named after, you know, a real life person who I also recognize recognized. Yeah, right, exactly. We did see the like the saloon where he was killed.

Was the virgin.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Calamity Jane, did you see anything with her?

We went up to the cemetery where Jane is buried right next to Bill. So we saw that. We saw some place. I don't even know it was like a deli or something. It. It was called Mr. Woo's from that character from the show. We saw the Gem Saloon. We saw a former brothel. They're doing tours there now, but you have to be at least 16 to enter.

So we could go in there, but it was open for the canteen. So yeah, we it was open from 1876 to 1980 until it was shut down by federal agents.

Oh, no, that's not the Ronald Reagan probably did it, right?

No, right, exactly.

And said, we can't have this.

We can't. No. So it was a fun little trip. And, you know, we saw the saw the sights and Mount Rushmore.

And did you were you in that kind of entry area where we we saw north by northwest, they redid the visitor's center. So it is did we the same But if you go now if you continued West and gone to Los Angeles the Academy museum for the Academy Awards has the backdoor out that they used in north by northwest of Mount Rushmore.

And did you not? I took a picture in front of that thing and I posted on social media and friend said, Weber, you had South Dakota? Well, I wasn't in South Dakota. I was at the backdrop of Mount Rushmore. So now my goal is, is to go there this year and actually take the picture so that it's angled just as much as it is or that backdrop.

And you can see but it is really weird because North by Northwest has been on TCM recently and when you watch, you go, Wow, this does look like a sad it looks real sad like. But I remember many years we'd hear stories about people who were extras in North by Northwest because they did shoot a part of it there.

And they talk about, you know, all I remember when Cary Grant came out and you think, boy, does that ever leave an impression? People people hang on this step a long time. So if you ever have a movie made in your town just know people will be talking about it 30 years from now.

I do want to go back though, now and watch Nomadland. It's been a couple of years and that movie, I don't know what you thought of it, but for me, that's probably one of my favorite award season kind of movies from the last decade. It was I thought it was just horribly depressing, but in some ways just a beautifully done movie too.

I never knew that there were people like that who were traveling around and just kind of living on the edge and that I thought, What could I do that? Could I be one of those nomads and then I talked to one of the people who are featured in the movie. She said, You could do it, you could do it.

It's a matter of getting rid of stuff. That's the big problem We hold on to way too much. And if you get it down to what you absolutely, positively need, you could go anywhere and do that and have that life. Now they don't get that choice. You know, a lot of times it's just there is no money there to to own a house or to rent a place or something like that.

So they they live on this on this edge and then go where, you know, the sun is. Because if you're in some cold place like here, it ain't easy being, you know, nomadic in the Midwest, right?

So you just need to get rid of all the crap in your basement.

And there's so much of it. I've been adding more because we're moving. Get the office by bringing in more crab haul because they don't want to throw it right away. I bet I'll look at it. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's the archives of the movie industry for the last 50 years. That's what it.

Is. That's what it is.

It's too much crap. And now new stuff coming. You know, yesterday in Los Angeles, they premiered Barbie and Barbie. Sounds like it's going to be huge. And I kid you not. It's going to be huge because it's getting good reviews. It has the backing of Mattel. So, you know, they're going to look for every dime they can find out of this.

And it's going to be kind of snarky and funny. And they say that can play by Ryan Gosling steals the movie.

I'm looking forward to this one. I mean, my daughters have been talking about it. And I think my wife was just going to be like, we'll leave dad at home for this one. I'll take the girls. Yeah, I'm like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to see this one.

Well, and you know, have you seen the the Oppenheimer Barbie mash ups? Because they both open on the same day and they've been doing goofy posters for the two together. It's very cute. Check out Social media. You'll find the Barbie Oppenheimer Duo.

Oh, I've got to I have to check that one out. Now, there's another film, which I am trying to get to see it, but it is not doing so hot right now at the theater, is it open number one? And then it this this past week it got knocked down to two by Insidious And it's like I mean, is this thing even going to recoup its money?

Indiana Jones in the dial Destiny.

I think it will. No, I think it will. I don't worry about it. You haven't seen it yet. So let me tell you that it holds up. It's too long. And they do this de-aging thing with Harrison Ford, where there's a big, huge action sequence at the beginning that I think because they wanted to make you maybe remind you of what Indiana Jones was like, but either it's a stunt man with his face superimposed on it, and then De-Aged it looks good.

It really I didn't feel like I was being duped or anything. It wasn't like it was the Polar Express, but it moves. It kind of borrows from the other ones. So you'll say, Well, this is kind of a plot point I've seen before, but it does have a number of return visits from friends. So you'll meet those people and there's an ending that makes you feel like, Yeah, I think Harrison can bow out now.

I think he's okay. But I enjoyed it. I thought it was, you know, he was too long. But I always say that about every movie. And yeah, I was fine with it. I did not. It was this. This. Oh, God, we can't go to that. I think they always get the first big week because they don't put anything big up against it.

But the second week, if you're going up against a horror film, come on. A horror film. The kid, the place is packed. When I went to see Joy right now, well, I'm not going to have to worry about Joy Ride because they're not going to see that. It was insidious. They were lined up. The kids are all over the place to see this thing, and it's horror films.

That's what they love. Yeah.

I think the other thing too, that you pointed out, the kids are lined up, right? The kids were not lined up to go see Indiana Jones. That one I had read had really skewed Gen-X and older. And it's rare because because moviegoer kids today are predominantly younger. So that one was it was almost like two thirds were 4045 and are going to see Indiana Jones and I looked at Rotten tomatoes the tomatometer on it from critics 69%.

So it's not terrible. It's not it's not like completely panned by the critics. The audience score 88%. So it's it's getting a solid reception from the people that are going to see it. It's just the audience that you would normally expect, like the last one, because I think the Last Crusade, which was the third movie and probably one of my favorite in the franchise was Sean Connery in it that won top Batman the year it came out.

You know, you couldn't expect this to be huge because it's too late. It should have been a lot sooner. I don't know that there is all that kind of interest in Indiana, even at Disney, where they have like a stunt show and then they've got a ride at Disneyland and they're not that popular. And so I don't know that, you know, I think it's more of a button that they want to put a button on the end of this thing.

And they could easily reboot the series if they wanted to in a different way. But they're not giving up anything that could be potential money. And so they probably spend too much on it. I would have made it 90 minutes because I think it would seem more like a serial, and I think it could have been just as good.

But hey, you know, Spielberg wasn't in on it. Lucas wasn't directing, you know, So that is what it is. But I enjoyed it. And maybe that's probably why The Rotten Tomatoes was up a little bit. That was my vote. I probably skewed it. It's not bad. It is not one of those ones where you go, Oh, will grandma like it?

We'll send grandma to this one. It isn't. It isn't one of those Clint Eastwood kind of things where you go, Yeah, this is just exactly like the kind of movie somebody who goes once a year should see. It's it's a way, for those of you who have seen Indiana Jones like Indiana Jones, to kind of finish it off.

Okay, You can't watch Lord of the Rings without seeing the third one.

We're introducing our kids to Indiana Jones right now. We got through Raiders of the Lost Ark. We got through Temple of Doom. Between the vacation and the fact that I want my kids to understand what Indiana Jones is before we take them is just kind of what's been slowing us down a little bit there, too. So where were.

Yes, they absolutely loved it. And even though it's a little bit more intense, a little bit more in some scenes, scary, they kind of equate it with national treasure in a sense, because it's got that similar history looking for relics kind of thing. So they they really love the national Treasure movies. So I can't explain to them. It's like it's a little bit like that to a degree, but, you know, a little bit more violent.

Love, though, how they always get the right clue, you know? Are they always able to? Yeah. Okay. This is the one that. What about a false clue where it sends them off on a real goose chase and they can't figure out what's going on. They don't do those in those kind of movies. They don't do that in this one either.

But, you know, yeah, I, I think they'll like it. But just now, two and a half hours.

Two and a half large beverage. Yep. Well, we got the bucket. The bucket of was ready to go.

That's all.

You need. All we need a big bucket of popcorn. So we're also middle of the summer. We are getting a steady stream of new TV shows popping out here and there. And there's another one and you've got some interviews with that. So can you talk a little bit about what's coming up?

Sure. Well, I just give you one little quick one to watch on Netflix. Sure. I think this will fit in your wheelhouse since you've been away from these things. It's a documentary on Wham and it is really fascinating because you tend to cut Andrew Ridgeley short and you don't think that he did that much. And you realize that it never could have happened without him.

It's a remarkable quick documentary that you don't see them now. You don't see them. They just you just hear them talking over footage from that time and what was going on and the things that they were worried about and how they. Yeah, one of the my favorite things was they had this last Christmas said they were going to have four number one hits in one year and they were all excited that they were going to have the number one Christmas song that year.

And then there was the be like USA for Africa British version. That was a Christmas song. And George sang on it, but it didn't they didn't get the number one hit and they realized that that was not necessary. We didn't see that. What the big thing was is that we were giving money to a cause that helped. But it's fascinating and how they all evolved from this because it was like they were 19 and 20 years old and they were thrust in the middle of all of it.

But that's it's wham, it's on Netflix as one you want to see.

Is it a just a single movie or multi-episode?

It's just one. It's a documentary one. Okay. Not even 2 hours. I think it's 90 when you Yeah, when you look at it on the thing, it looks like, oh, is this some kind of teeny bop thing that they're trying to do? It's not. It's a very well-done documentary, but don't expect to see interviews with them looking like, you know, all their old you don't see the old versions of either of them.

But they both do talk throughout the whole thing.

And. Well, and unfortunately, George Michael passed away in 2016. So but I guess, you know, they could have even brought some some more modern footage into it.

But know what, I, I think there's a whole other documentary that could be done about George Michael Post Wham!

Mm.

And you'll see how he was huge with that. But what was remarkable is that he never really got that the street cred from the business. I looked at 1 to 2 Grammys in his whole career. Come on. You know, this is one they're going to be doing a Bohemian Rhapsody about. At some point there's going to be a good George Michael movie that some actor is going to want to make because there's just so much there to uncover.

But yeah, that's one that you you should put in your list. And also starting this week is the BFI season what we do in the shadows about the vampires from your homeland?

My homeland of Staten Island, New York.

Yeah. Not Transylvania. No, but yes. And you've never watched this?

I have it. No, no. Some of those shows I'll catch like half of them. And then the other half just kind of completely elude me. Like I'm into shows. Like. Like Dave. Because that's an artifact show, right? And there's a few others that pop out there, like Fargo. I think that was an F show, right When that one's right on TV.

Did you watch Dave this year?

Yes.

Yes, I did. You see the Brad Pitt episode? Yes.

Yes. That is some of the funniest TV ever.

They're talking Brad Pitt for best. That's the former performer for that role. And I thought he was great.

Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that was I it was just a a bet. You know what?

Crazy, right?

The episode with Ray Stalker and what was his name? He like? He's like, no, no call. You can actually call me. And I can't remember what it was. Yes. My real name and then I had to Google is like, is that really his name? It it is a.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Did you watch the the bear?

I have not quite started the bear yet. That is that is like waiting for me now that I'm back from vacation to start diving into it.

Okay. Well when you get to the Jamie Lee Curtis episode, you will see the winner of next year's Emmy for best guest performance. Jamie has never been better. She plays the mother and she is unbelievable in that. And it's about I think it's episode six. But you want to ask now back to my what we do in the shadows, because you must see this if you haven't gotten involved.

You know, it's odd that something like Dave and something like the Bear the Bear can be considered comedies.

Right.

When this is out. Now, comedy, this is just unreal. Well, it's about these vampires living in Staten Island, and they have a familiar Guillermo who helps one of them and then really, in exchange wants to become a vampire and they kind of, you know, dangle the carrot before him and like, yeah, yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that.

Well, this season, he doesn't want to wait anymore. He doesn't want to have to hold on to, you know, whatever. So he becomes a little more independent and that forces them to be a little more independent, too. They go to the mall for the first time, which is interesting. Last year, Colin Robinson, who was the the energy vampire, and you have these at work, I'm sure, Right.

Well, you suck all the energy out of you. And, you know, they stand around your desk. You say, oh, please, go away. Please, please, please do not stand here. Don't ask me anything. Well, last year he had died the year before, and then last year came back as a baby. Colin Robinson. Then, then adolescence and Colin Robinson, then teenage Colin Robinson.

Well, now he's back to being himself and he's kind of as surly energy vampire at this point. And he works at a restaurant. And if you've ever had a surly waiter, this is Colin Robinson, you'll enjoy that. So he's back. But then the other one's Nadia. Last year had a restaurant of her own where people like Sofia Coppola traffic there and everything.

It all kind of went to hell. And so she's trying to pick up the pieces after the restaurant or the nightclub has closed. And Nandor, who is the boss of Guillermo, had Trouble with Love last year and is kind of searching this year, looking for where he might fit in at what will be his place, what will he be able to do.

And the guide, played by Kristen Schaal, is in this as a regular this year, and she is she becomes friendly with odd, different people. So there's a very big mix of characters and you'll get a chance to kind of see them in different settings. There is no one, I think one plotline that kind of carries through you just every time just go and you're going to enjoy politics becomes part of it.

So if you know anything about politics in Staten Island, it might be worth your while to watch that. But I had a chance to talk to five of the actors. Well, yeah, and you'll hear a little bit about what they have to say about this season and what prompted some, because I had quite longstanding questions that I wanted to know the answers to.

Nadia Neistat, Natasha, who plays Nadia, has this little doll that's kind of a doppelganger for her, and the doll is a ghost. It's as this is so complicated, you must watch it from the beginning. But the ghost kind of comes through that doll. And I asked her about playing with the doll, and I asked Harvey about the changes that he has as Guillermo and then the energy vampire and what that really means to everybody.

So there's a lot there to to unpack. Hopefully we'll be able to and hopefully you'll be able to tell who's talking at what time.

Okay, so let's set this up. So we I know with the interviews you had one set of interviews with three of them and then and then so who we want to go to first.

We'll start with Kristen Schaal and Harvey Guillén and who are Guillermo and The Guide. And they talk about the really the trick to being successful in a series like this and also what secret they've learned about being character actors. You are you have such a life where you're able to pop in and do whatever you want and it's like, what is I mean, right, Harvey Isn't.

That the way she is? I was ecstatic when we were lucky enough to get this. And like, I said this before, but I'm such a fan and I fanboy over her and quoted I met her at a party first beforehand and was already like an on then found out at the party that she's friends with Germain and stuff and and they had worked together obviously before and we got lucky enough that we were able to have her come play with us and then to have to come back again and to be recurring on this show and be such an addition, we're just lucky enough to have her.

And and I'm still a fanboy.

And say, Harvey, what is your Venmo handle.

That.

That is how it is done. It is done.

So so please do it.

Is it fun to be with them because they are. I have never seen a show that seems like it's this exciting.

It is the most exciting thing in the world. I mean, it every every episode is having something dumb, a spectacle, something that's never been done before, something that you'll come to work and you know you're going to be doing something you've never done before and you'll never do again penance. So rather you're going to be being with Richards, you're going to be watching, you're going to be staying irreverent things and and you're going to be doing it with some of the best people in comedy.

So my one of my most favorite jobs that ever had and I'm really proud of the show, too. Like I sometimes I'm proud of myself, but I get a little shy around some of them, but this one, because it's such a beast of hilarity every time someone they love the show, I go crazy too.

But does the guide have a name?

Well, so the guide had a name, but she forgot it.

So.

We can call her. And what's the deal with Familiars? Why doesn't everybody have a familiar?

Hmm. I think a lot of people do have familiars. I think that, you know, we look at the workforce and a lot of people are familiars in a way. They are longing to be promoted, they are overlooked, they are underpaid, underappreciated and kind of slave to labor to get that big promotion, to break that, you know, door open.

And sometimes it is come and sometimes you, you know, build a life around the career that you think will be a big payoff at the end. And it doesn't work that way. So I think gear represents a lot of us in that way where we see ourselves in Guillermo because, yeah, we've all been there. We've all been in love with someone maybe from afar, that we can express, having been real with our, you know, our honest, our feelings about something or our sexuality, our, you know, our overlooked for something at work, hate our boss or upset or our coworkers or I hate having roommates.

Like it's very relatable just because it's all human storylines with the I.

Just you covered all of us in him, right? He is.

Like, Yeah, this is it.

But you know, the strange thing is this was a real big break for you, right? How has your life changed after this? Because this is unbelievable. I remember when we first met you and it was like you couldn't believe that you were getting the job, and now you're on everything.

I still can't believe I am getting the check. Yeah, it's been an amazing, you know, launch pad, I guess you could say, with the show. And I didn't really think about the longevity of the show when I first started. I, you know, we got past the pilot because I really love the show so much. And to go back on season one and then season two and find out last season that we got picked up our season three to be up at ten for six seasons or two seasons out next, which is incredible.

And it's just such a gift, especially in this day and age. I feel like that's incredible. And, and yeah, I, you know, it's basically, you know, the show that I get recognition for other projects that in voiceover or live action or theatrical or whatever it is it's like I'm such a fan and would you love we would love for you to play this role.

And lucky enough that I've been playing different things a year or more, which is really nice because it would be easy to just kind of get stuck on one thing. But I'm very fortunate, very grateful to this show and and loved doing it. What was success.

Where you thought it would.

Be? I mean, what is success? You know, I feel like in my head I always wanted to act and and make a living off of that. And I think as long as you're happy doing it, even if it's a room of 99 seater or 2 million people and through a movie screen or a television screen, then you're giving it your best.

I always pride myself in doing the work that I would do regardless of the budget or the popularity of the project. As long as I can walk away from the project saying I gave that my best and I can say that I did my best, that's all I can do.

Yeah, well, Henry, I think you always been ready to be a star.

This is my mom. You see, Kristin, Rosalie, this. This going to ask.

You how much money you don't know, right?

Yeah. My Venmo is going to go through the roof that.

It's at orange it. But, Kristen, you are always busy, you're always working. And I don't know. What I can say is the reason other than you're really good at it. But is there something is there a secret to this that, you know, everybody wants to work with you? What is that?

She's amazing and everybody wants to work with you. So it's it's an easier thing to do when you work with someone as talented like Kristen at five in the morning after working 12 hours or 14, 15 hour days on set and you never want to bump into someone in the hallway that you want to be like, gosh. And every time you move into Kristen, her energy is so positive they can go another 12 hours if you need to, because that's the kind of energy and talent you want to be surrounded with.

So it's easy for me anyways. Anyways, I took.

A lot to pay out. Okay, lot the back.

But what is it? Is it because you bring a different sensibility to these roles or what is it?

Well, you know, I'm I li one of the things that I that is really exciting is yeah, like my friend Jemaine wrote the World Apart for me to be on his show and and remembered me from way back when. And and I find that when I get invited to play on different shows, it's usually to, to play roles that are going to be different and a little bit weird.

I like to think that I am really brave when I act and I'll just do whatever people say. Maybe that'll go down well, but well, if you have that much, I can't. I couldn't tell you what it is without saying that I'm the best actress in the world. No, I don't know. I.

You know, what? Can I tell you what I think the key was, both of you, is that you really love character parts. And too often I think people get into the business where they think I need to be the leading man. I need to be the the, you know, the debutante, whatever it might be. And you guys just find these characters that are so good that you can sink your teeth in, pardon the pun, and really enjoy.

And I think that's the trick, is that when these kids come out of these acting schools, they don't realize it. The best parts are not the leading man or the leading woman.

Bruce, don't print that. Now you do that. You did that. I, I think you and Mark Blackwood's approach could have stayed the same thing. Like, oh, being a character actor is the best gig in the business because the characters are always going to be different and unique and fun then, as opposed to the leading man or woman has to start to relate to a bigger audience.

But we get to play like very offbeat when we get to do the weirdest things. And we also don't have to see our faces on screen the whole time, and that feels good to get to.

All right, Bruce, thanks for that interview. Now, you also have an interview with three more actors. Can you set that game?

Tires? Come on, you don't tires.

Oh, I'm sorry.

All the time. So a three vampire kind of thing is is, I think, a trifecta. You get that there. So this time you're going to hear Mark Proksch, who plays Colin Robinson, and then you'll hear Kayvan Novak, who plays Nandor, and then Natasia Demetriou, who plays Nadja. And they are they interplay a lot on the show. So you'll see them interacting a lot on the series this season.

But here they are together, so good luck for me, right? You know, trying to sort all this out. But it's what we do in the shadows. And this is another set of vampires. Yeah. I'm Bruce Miller from the Sioux City Journal. You know, I looked at all of the the episodes they let us see. And I realize that this season is a lot about change.

Do you see that, too, that there's a lot of change in all of your characters?

So yeah, why not? I think, you know, our characters are always evolving, devolving and, you know, that's part of what makes the show appealing, I guess.

Change like, well, why does Nandor always go back to the the health club to find his changes?

You'd have to ask Nando that. I think you know he's it goes back to that was you know because he likes.

Doing weights man he likes being around other dudes.

And getting sweaty and like, you know, flexing his muscle.

That's the secret. That's easy. But Mark, you had the biggest the biggest shift from last year. How was that that season even? Were you even around that much or how was that how did that play out?

No, I wasn't around all that much. I filmed almost all of the the child sequences back in Los Angeles. And it wasn't until I hit well, Colin.

Hits puberty, I guess.

That I was on set and back. It was that was really exciting. I mean, it breathes some fresh air into the character for me, just like being.

Back this year was a breath of fresh.

Air for me and getting to be back with, you know, my friends and and acting against.

Them. You also a big change, though, in terms of potential career. There is an episode where you consider something else, and I don't want to say anything for fear of being killed, but you know, talk about vampires. There you are.

Yeah. And you know, what better place than politics for an energy vampire to cast its web? Yeah. I mean, this year was that there is a lot of change, and Colin is still trying to get his feet back underneath him and kind of get his groove back, I guess you would say. And, you know, there is some love interest there for him.

You know, at the beginning of the season, he's a waiter. Then he goes into politics and then there's another little shift at the end of the season. So it's it's a fun season.

I think, for all actors. I missed the nightclub, I got to say, not just was just wonderful. Do you miss it as much.

As I do?

Yeah, I was. I did similarly love it as a like, just as like, I guess as an actor, just there are certain sets that are really like, comfortable and fun to hang out on and fell. And that set was, was definitely one of those, unlike the attention to detail, maybe a little bit the fact that my name was in lights wherever I looked really, really lapping and being in that space.

So. And did you make.

Did you take anything from that set?

I did know to take a lot of napkins. Well, they basically like they properly, as always on this show, the set designers and props people like went above and beyond and all the not like napkins, bar mat straws like covered with my name. So I did take a few all those things and I still have my eye on one of the like big signs and lights.

But I also you've got to check yourself with this stuff. What you going to do, put off in your own house?

Yeah, of course you do.

Too, I think. I think my friends and family would disown me if I started, you know, one too many portraits of yourself in your own house. You know what I mean? I've already got about 15, so.

You know, And there's never too many. There's never too many. Why does Nandor add the only familiar? Why doesn't everybody else have a familiar.

I think, Laszlo, in that you did have a family. I think we had a series of families, but they kept dying, right?

Yeah, that was it. Kind of left off.

Do you just kind of let them go or decant You applied for new ones?

I mean, I think we probably heard, but we kept having a really hard time. They kept dying and really disgusting ways. And then we got so far who obviously, I think lips and they sort of a sweatshop underground and you're a slow they're kind of each other's Nadia in a weird way I think and they're also way less codependent than Nando and I think the reason why Nando still has a family and still has, you know him around is because it's Gamow.

It's because of their very, very intense friendship passes relationship.

But this could be the, you know, the end of that. So I'm just putting that out there. There there could be some trouble just saying. Right. And why is Nandor never happy?

It's a good question. He's been a miserable as any for quite a few seasons now, um, which are quite like playing, I think playing miserable is easier than playing kind of incredibly happy all the time. Um, he's searching, man. He's lost, you know, He's a lost soul. He doesn't know what he wants.

Is know where to get get it.

You know? Yeah. Mo makes him happy. But now again, why makes him sad?

Yeah, You want to hug him. And even though you think that'd be the person, you probably hug because he is kind of intimidating, right? Right there. The hug is there for you. I just know it's there right after this. Many years, though, do you guys say, how long can we do this show?

No, really. I mean, I think it's you know, it's still super funny. I think this last season, that's the season about that's about to drop is one of our funniest seasons. And I there's some examples of shows that keep going and keep being hilarious Like always Sunny in Philadelphia has been on for three seasons and it's still funny and inventive.

And as brilliant as it was day one, if not better. But when you started this, did you think it was going to be this long? No.

No Day and age?

No. Because, you know, all experience I'd had up until this was like, you do a pilot, does it even make it to television? Probably not. And then you're like, like at the end of season one, I was genuinely like, my cards was so sincere and like, it's been, you know, like because I was like, I'm never going to see these people again.

This is it, you know, like, it's so generous with morale. And then and then like, Oh, we're coming back. And I honestly, I just don't have a point of reference to say, you know, like, yeah, there'll be a season two and three, you know, you know. So yeah, it's, it's, it, it's really like sometimes I can't believe it when I think about it.

Yeah, well.

I think it could keep on going forever because vampires last come on a show about vampires could last two.

Thank you, Bruce, for those interviews. It sounds like a good season, and I think you're right. I got to go back and we got to start watching this. Yeah. Staten Island, baby. That's where I'm from. One of the five boroughs in New York City.

More than anybody. You are going to love this thing. And there's a movie that started the whole works and then it led into this series. But you must watch it and then you'll be asking questions. Say, was the one playing that person. You know, it's it's it's very fascinating. And you think, where are they going to go with this?

How could they keep going? But you could because everything is kind of a new a new world for that, even going out in the daylight. Another and it you know something I don't think I ever see. So we're good. But I want to mention one more thing before we before we log off for the week. Here's a movie that did not really have any kind of premium.

Let's see. I mean, people talk about it as that. But is this going to be it's called the Sound of Freedom. And Jim Caviezel, if you don't know who that is, he starred in The Passion of the Christ as Jesus. And like his good friend Mel Gibson, he likes doing issue films. And this is about child sex trafficking.

And it is getting huge audiences. Now, I don't know if there's like an underground of people saying, You must go see this film, but it's a hard watch because of the topic, and yet it does get you talking about the subject. So if you're looking for something and you haven't figured out where do I, what should I go see?

I don't want to see Indiana Jones. It might be something that you're interested in. I went to Joy Ride and I was shocked at how funny it was. Joy Ride was incredibly funny, but so dirty. This is the hard hour show that I thought our feelings was going to be. There are things in that movie that my mouth is still dropped open, but fascinating.

And it could be another one of those ones that cracks the the door for Asian actors because it's largely an all Asian cast. And they tell stories that are, you know, interesting. I've not heard it before and fun. And it's like watching The Hangover, but it's an Asian female hangover. Japanese shoe is in it. Yeah, Lee Park is in it.

So, you know, they they're starting to get big names. I thought, oh God, they're going to have Michelle Yeoh be in here somewhere. Right. But she wasn't so they're, they're branching out and I think we're doing a better job of that. But it's fun. It's fun, but it is a hard, hard. R And you can tell it's a hard hour because the previews are all hard are previews and you go, They can't do that in a preview, can they?

And they do.

Is that the one where they give you that instead of the green.

And the Red Band is the Red Band trailer.

That's right.

Okay.

All right, Bruce, thanks again. Another great episode in the books. And we will be back again next week with another episode of Streamed and screened.

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With the Independence Day holiday coming up fast, it seemed like a good time to talk about some of the best movies with a patriotic theme of all time, along with a handful of television shows sprinkled in for good measure.

There are classics like "Born on the Fourth of July," "Patton" and "Saving Private Ryan." Don't forget comedies and sports movies such as "Private Benjamin" and "Miracle." Actions films like the "Top Gun" and "National Treasure" films are patriotic. And of course, you can't beat a good film about the space race with the Soviet Union with "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13."

There are also a number of classic limited series on TV, such as "Band of Brothers," "From the Earth to the Moon" and just about anything from Ken Burns including "The Civil War" and "Baseball."

With the holiday week, we'll be taking a little extra time off before coming back on July 11 with an episode that discusses the upcoming fifth season of "What We Do in the Shadows." Co-host Bruce Miller also has interviews with members of the cast.

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and Screened and Entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with The Patriot of the Cinema, Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and the long time entertainment reporter. Bruce. That is so good. I can I have that as a calling in cards or anything?

Yep. Get them printed up. Patriot of the Cinema. I think that that's a good thing. You know, it's funny because during war years, patriotic movies do really well. People love that kind of stuff. And then in non patriotic times, good luck. Good luck. World War II, build with that. Now we're fighting aliens. That seems to be the the common enemy.

But it is interesting how they will touch a vein. You're in there. We have one that that has some ties to Iowa. Saving Private Ryan. Oh, yeah. Is based on a family. And I mean, there's there. It's not. It's not one for one. It is not a biography of that at all. But you can relate to it. And then you see.

Yeah, you know what? I can I can get this. I understand this, but there are a lot of you'll see them now when you watch on TV, especially on those channels where they're trying to push the stuff, you're going to see a ton of them that they bring out 1776, which is unwatchable. Basically comes out all the time this time of year because they think, Oh, you're in the mood for a patriotic film.

Let's look at those old declaration of the Independence guys. And it's slow. It wasn't even a hit when it was out. So the idea that you would go back to that, but one that you probably have watched in recent years that is fun in this way is the live taping of Amell Ted Deutch from odd Wait. And that, I think, is a great patriotic film to watch because it really does point out that these are fallible men and women, that they can make mistakes and we shouldn't look at them like they're statues or pictures on the back of money.

Yeah. So I think Hamilton is a good one If you're going to look for one this time of year to look at. Go back to it, because that's the gold standard for those kind of Broadway capture films. They did a beautiful job with that. Yeah. And that was a really good introduction for me because obviously I knew about the performance, but I hadn't seen it to that point.

So to see it on Disney Plus and my kids, we watched it with the kids and the kids loved it. There's still they still play the soundtrack all the time. And we took them to see the the touring version of Hamilton about a year ago. You know, with the the TV version, it has the subtitles that you can then read along with if you think the rapping is too fast.

And I think sometimes when you see it again in a theater, you miss some of the raps because either the sound isn't all that good or they're going too quickly. And at least when you go back to the the Disney Plus version, you can read it if you need to. It's great for old people, which is amazing in my crowd.

So there you are. Yep. So at the 4th of July holiday, we're going to go through here and just talk about some of our favorite patriotic films. And what else do you have? All right. Top Gun one and Top Gun two. Oh, absolutely. Right. Yep. It's a good I'm I'm on my list, Both of them. Those are. I don't even know which one I like better, because Top Gun two is one of the rare instances where where the sequel might be better than the original, I think.

Well, but you know what? You needed the one to understand the two. Right. We wouldn't it Val Kilmer out. How kind of vibrant he is in the first one. And then you see him near death in the second one. You kind of need to know both. So I don't know that Maverick stands alone, but I'd watch him together as a double feature.

Yeah, they're great. And I think what makes those films especially good is when you watch the original, they don't really say that you know, it's the Russians or the Soviets or anything, but, you know, and it's kind of the same thing with Maverick where they don't tell you who it is. But, you know, and it kind of makes it timeless, too, because you're not necessarily pinning it on any one nation.

So it could be just whatever you watch a 30 years from now. And whoever, whoever the villain of the time is in world politics, you can just say it's them. They're the ones that were fighting. Well, okay, so then we're in the mode of Tom Cruise. What about Born on the 4th of July? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a classic.

Born on the 4th of July. He was one of those two that Oliver Stone, because he he had also done Platoon. So staying within that theme of of the Vietnam War and just kind of different perspectives of course so. Absolutely fabulous movie. Yeah and hey Tom Cruise does a great job He's very good and very believable. You know, we don't just see him as a gung ho kind of military man in this one.

He's also an activist. And you can see other sides of things. The Vietnam War had so many sides to it, so many angles to it that to call a movie the Vietnam movie, is just impossible. And we'll still be dissecting that for years to come now, because it isn't just a one shot thing. And I think that's where a lot of people get kind of, oh, wait a minute here now, aren't we patriotic?

What's wrong with us? It's because during World War Two, they were gung ho on the American effort and all of those films had to have some kind of, if you will, a supportive statement that that guided it and deservedly so. When you look at the Vietnam War, people were questioning it all the time and wondering, should we really be there and what's the point of all this?

So it's a different war, a different kind of a situation, but I think it is a good one to look at. What about a a war movie, but a little bit more on the fictional side, like a Red Dawn from the 1980s. Red Dawn is BOND Yeah. And that that skews to a younger audience, too. Gives you a chance to see you know and look at just even last year where we saw all quiet on the western front how really young we realized those kids were in that situation.

And that's why Red Dawn does, too, is it shows you that sometimes we're sending children off to war. I remember that movie, too, and I loved it at the time. It's been a while since I've seen it. I should go back and watch it. But at the time it really it kind of scared me too, because it felt so real.

Because, you know, at the time you know, I never really thought the Russians or the Soviets would invade us, but it wasn't completely out of mind either. I mean, that's certainly within the realm of possible loyalty. And I think that added some reality to it. And on top of it, it didn't necessarily have a happy ending, like some of our heroes from the movie didn't make it to the end.

And these are kids. And it was you know, it was a tough movie to watch at times. Yeah, it was. Had a lot of adventure, too, depending on where you are in that in your life, you see it in different ways. You know, as an older person, you start like, those are my kids. These are like, they could be my children.

You know, as a kid, you're like, That could be me. So it's a different perspective. Okay, what's on your list? Let's hear some more. You mentioned Saving Private Ryan, which was on my list, but now I know we're talking mostly about films, but I do want to tie in here with Saving Private Ryan and the brothers and the brothers in the Pacific.

Now, the Pacific, I didn't find as good as Band of Brothers, but Band of Brothers is maybe one of the best limited series ever. I mean, is there anything better than that about World War Two? The people who were in it were nobody's, you know, the at the time. Yeah. And now you can just go through and go, Oh my God, that's old Mike.

Oh, look who's there. They're there. There's a bunch of them in it. And so if you go back for a second view now, it is long. It is. I did ten parts. 12 parts. It's a lot. And we don't see that anymore because we're so used to six parts and out or eight in and out. But it's worth it.

It's worth the, the set. I think it's a good a good film. And Tommy was involved in Tom Hanks is involved. And it was it was really good. Now, related to Tom Hanks is another arc that I'm going to throw at you. And it starts with the right stuff, which is, of course, a look at. Yep. And then Apollo 13 starring Tom Hanks.

And then, of course, Tom Hanks parlayed Apollo 13 into From the Earth to the Moon on HBO, gets that series. And then even more recently, even though it's completely fictional for all mankind on Apple TV. Plus, I love those space movies. And for me, from a from a patriotic stance, it's the rivalry between us and the Soviets to get to the moon, to get into space.

It's just a really great story. As in Hidden Figures, Many women played a part in this and was kind of like not a subplot any of those. So there are lots. The space race was clearly the Sixties story to tell, and I think when the Cold War was on, this was the way that we were fighting those battles.

We'd be first. You know, we'd haven't mentioned a comedy at all. A comedy? I would give a Benjamin, Sir. Private Benjamin That's a really cool look at how a spoiler woman, for lack of a better term, is thrown into this situation and becomes much better as a result of it and comes out of it and yet you can laugh along with her and you see her grow and you see that she's doing it in service to our country along the lines of comedy.

Would you throw stripes into that mix also? You could, but I don't know that that would out as patriotic. It's just more fun. Yeah. If if you want to do a military comedy, there you go. It might work a little bit better. Well, and then if you look at other ones, Clint Eastwood, he had a whole raft of patriotic like films that he did.

And he did the two parter thing where he showed one side and then he showed the other side flags of our fathers and the letters from Iwo Jima. Right. So he has his kind of, if you will, patriotic theme is like Spielberg has his. Yep. You can you can kind of trigger these Oliver Stone they're they all the almost behind that as a way to at least identify their filmmaking skills or to highlight them.

I don't know. What about some of the historical Lincoln like oh yeah Lincoln is one of my all time favorites because Daniel Day-Lewis always always dug in and would become the character. And honestly, after you see that, you think, I can't imagine anybody else as Lincoln. And we've had so many Lincolns over the years. But man is Lincoln is the way I want him to be, not to take this too far off topic, but is Daniel Day-Lewis the greatest actor ever?

The man retired because he he just couldn't do it anymore. The way he throws himself into it, he may not be the greatest, but he was the most selective. And he knew that if he was going to choose to do something, he was going all in and he didn't do. You know, you don't see some crap films on his resume where you go, Oh, that was a dog.

He shouldn't have done that. He waited. Yeah. And that I think that the real hard part for some of these actors today is they think that, you have three in your out, you know, you can have three flops and then if you don't have a good hit after that, you're down doing something that you don't want to go and you never did that.

And so I think the idea that he retired was maybe a great move. It's like Johnny Carson. He left and didn't do anything after that that you would say, Oh my God, look what happened to him. He looks so old or He doesn't quite have it anymore. But I know Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the treasures of the American cinema and not three Oscars.

Not at right. If you look at somebody like Jack Nicholson, Jack Nicholson has a very stellar career. But Jack Nicholson was playing Jack Nicholson a lot of those times. He did disappear in the character like Daniel Day-Lewis did. Sure. If that means anything. Okay, Peyton. Okay. What most about Peyton? I remember that big flag that he stands in front of.

Yeah, right. It's been a while. Oh, yeah. The flag. That was what George See, Scott played Peyton, Correct. I the personality. I think he was just more of the personality for, for, for me. I mean, it's been a really long time since I've seen Peyton, but it was one of those that it would just keep on showing up on either cable and I would just every time would come on, I would have to watch it because I just I was sucked in by the performance and how intense he was as a general.

Again, it's one of those things where you think I want the character to be like that because then it explains a lot of things. And maybe George C Scott was just doing his version of it, and Peyton wasn't like that at all, but it certainly plays well and it made the movie this huge hit. It was a big hit at the time it came out and people were, look at that.

It was like there was a 1970. Yeah, it's the Vietnam era, basically. And we're seeing a military film and we're saying, Oh my God, it's so great. That really took something that took some work to make that pass through all that all of that time, and then let you see what it's like behind the scenes. So he has Peyton is a real good one.

Great one. There's a lot of patriotism in sports to miracle. Yeah. Do you count that as one? Yes. I could get the I get the Olympic kind of thing. But I think with Miracle, because you're talking about the 1988 Olympics, which was, of course, around the time of the boycotts, because the U.S. boycotted the the Summer Games and then ultimately the Eastern Bloc boycotted the 84 Summer Games in L.A. You look, there was a time before professional athletes before like Western professional athletes went to the Olympics.

So it was about amateurism. And it was this one opportunity where a bunch of amateurs in a sport that the US doesn't even dominate in. I mean, we've got a lot of of great American hockey players, but they don't stand up with the Canadians or the Europeans or the Soviets or anything like that. So to be able to go out on your home ice and and to be able to beat the Soviets during the height of communism and all of that, I think that's a highly patriotic movie.

You know, though, isn't it funny how they've tried so many times to use that that kind of formula in another in another setting, you know, and and bring it around and it it doesn't work as well as that. You imagine Olympic films and Bud Greenspan would do an Olympic film every time there was an Olympic year. Mm. 16 days of glory.

I mean you throw them out there and those are always and it was a tough day for so-and-so and you know, and, and you do get that kind of moment where you think, Oh my God, this is bigger than what we think it is. It's not just somebody out there running as fast as he can. There's more on the line now.

TBS borrowed that concept and does these little kind of vignettes. It drives me crazy when they do it with American Idol, where everybody is supposed to have a story and our we're judging you on your story, not necessarily on your talent, but they've done that now. That was kind of what drove all of his documentaries, is that it was the story.

You didn't know about this. You know, it could be a runner who's able, but nobody's going to say anything because they don't want to spoil the day. And he gets out there on the day and he's running like a lightning bolt and he wins and then they tell you all the trouble that goes into that. Those are fascinating films to watch because you really don't know what's going on until they spell it out for you.

And he did a he had a very successful run of those kinds of films. And largely there were a lot of Americans that were featured because it's financed by American resources. So, yeah, Olympics are always good, always good for that kind of stir of patriotism that we feel. And come on, don't you don't you cheer for the Americans when you see the Olympics on?

Of course. Of course. Yeah. I'm you know, I'm I'm the kind of a yell out foul ball when it's not an American. So get out what else you have on your list and the others glory with Oh, yeah, with Denzel. I thought that was great. I have Gettysburg and I have a national treasure. Yes, that's on my list, too.

That's an interesting one, because you hit on what's come on. It's a mystery kind of, you know, Da Vinci Code ish kind of thing. But the idea that you get to visit some of those spots are what make it kind of fun to see. I really enjoyed those. Is a history buff, too. And my kids like them. And I've kind of used that as a gateway to introduce them to Indiana Jones.

Also, which I don't think it's quite as patriotic, no national treasure, but it's the same idea of like an archeologist kind of person who's into relics. So it's just from from a as a gateway into Indy for my kids. The National Treasure Series, I think is good and it's pretty low key. It's pretty kid friendly one I do not like.

Are you up for that? Sure. The Patriot. Okay. With Mel Gibson? Yeah. I think it's really heavy handed. And I think after I don't need this, you know, Liz and I. Yeah, I didn't blow it out for you. Yeah, I. I'd have to go back to my review because at the time I remember going we are they ever trying to manipulate us And frankly that's what all political ads are now is a manipulation.

So whenever you see any of these ones, who's got the bigger flag? That's what they're looking for. Who can who can sound like the bigger patriot and you know what? Patriotism is not something that you can put on. It's something that's in you does make sense. It does not sound like I'm reading from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations or something deep thoughts that nobody is running to see.

I see that so much with with politicians where they try to out patriot each other and like I am behind America more than you are, and I will salute more than you will. And no, and you know what? I remember the VFW and the American Legion man would walk in a parade on the 4th of July and they would salute.

And you felt every bit of their pride and the effort that they put into their country. And I don't know that that's at all what politicians are selling. You sound I'm against this this sponsored by the Adria. It's for Miller campaign. That's right. That's right. You know, it is it is really different. And I think we have not yet seen that great 4th of July movie, a 4th of July movie where maybe it's a small town that they're putting together, a small town celebration.

And you get a sense of what it means to be that kind of America and how it how it shuffles down. I mean, look it now, I said earlier, it's aliens were fighting and you'll see the Independence Day and you'll see all those kinds of, you know, I special effects kind of films where is that really it? I don't think that's it.

I don't think it's ahead Independence Day on my list for no other reason than it was. I don't know if it was a patriotic as much as just we're trying to save the world, but and it's titled Independence Day. So it's one day if you just kind of bring out for Independence Day. It's interesting and we'll see a lot of it.

Yeah, it'll be run like crazy over the 4th of July holiday, especially since now the 4th of July falls close to the middle of the week. Right. We'll have a whole weekend full of these. You know, they're going to be showing them wall to wall from Friday until Tuesday. So we'll see what happens. But, you know, we talked a little bit about, you know, World War two movies, Vietnam movies we're starting to see in the last decade or so movies with their more modern kind of wars, post-9-11 films like The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark 30, American Sniper.

Any thoughts on those? They're hard to watch because they are so real for us because we experienced a lot of it on the news. You know, we'd see these kinds of things and the whole bit with Taliban and all that. Are we are we through it? I don't know. And all of the 911 films that come about, you know, I think a lot of that is real, very difficult for those of us who've lived through it, to really sit and see it as something other than and, you know, one I'd like to push out there if you really want to look at a sense of history.

Ken Burns does such incredible documentaries about just every aspect of American life and the ones that, you know, he just did one about the Holocaust his last year, the U.S. in the Holocaust, and he's done the Civil War, he's done baseball, he's done Nashville, he's done, you name it. And he he touches on various aspects of our lives.

And I think inherent in all of that is a sense of patriotism. Yeah, he is a real proponent of, you know, who we are and what we learn. And where does this lead us? What what will we get from this? And that old line about how don't ignore history because you're doomed to repeat it. You know, I think he's reminding us, pay attention to your history.

Learn what happened so that then you don't make the mistakes again. I really wasn't thinking too closely about those Ken Burns documentaries because I was more in movie mode. But when you bring it at the Civil War, baseball, the one about country music, even though there are three separate subjects, they are very much intertwined in a sense, because it is about, you're right, patriotism, the fabric.

You know, baseball is is being like the fabric of America and one of those things. So, yeah, no, I love all those. You dropped me in front of a Ken Burns ten part documentary, and I'll see you in a week and then you're you're waiting. Well, wait a minute. I got to hear that voice because there are certain voices that always have to be in on these.

Wait a minute. Does he have them? And it's a very predictable kind of format, but he always has interesting tidbits that you never knew when he did. Ben Franklin, the Roosevelts. I mean, things that you go, Oh, really? I didn't know that. How come I have a knowing this all these years? And I think it's a matter of just digging in and finding this stuff and putting it in perspective.

What does this mean for the world at that time? Baseball is a real good one. With that, where he talks all about the players and what their place was and how important they were to, you know, maintaining morale in our country, black baseball players and what their struggle was like. There's a lot lot there to to unpack. But I think Ken Burns, if we're going with somebody who can really capture our times and our people and he doesn't like to do anything that's that current.

So you asking like, well, what would you do? It's about Trump. What kind of a Trump document he said is too close? We can't that we need to have perspective to be able to look back on these things and then see what we learn from that. That's yeah, that's fascinating. Maybe that's why some of these newer war movies should have been fewer of them to begin with.

But you just we haven't gotten enough time in between. And and we are seeing even now like a return to, you know, World War One and some of those earlier ones which we had kind of moved away from those early war. But we've we're kind of moving back almost to those just a little bit. You know, one fascinating thing, too, that you bring up with Ken Burns and those documentaries, if you remember in the baseball documentary, one of the guests, one of the figures talking about the history of the game was somebody that was I think he's always wearing a red sweater.

I don't know if you remember that guy in he kind of became known as like that red sweater guy in baseball. His name is Daniel Okrent. Right. He's an editor. I think they listed him in his he's an editor. He actually invented fantasy baseball. Oh, my gosh. He's the guy him in some friends of his created this thing called like they had a Rotisserie League Baseball thing.

That was the genesis to all of modern sports. So if you like, even if you're getting into some NFL fantasy football thing, you know, during the football season, it can all get traced back to that guy that was on Ken Burns Baseball. Did he make a dime of it? I don't know. No, I don't think so. I made those best ideas yet.

Know where. Right, Exactly. Exactly. Any other any other films you want to touch on before we head out? There are I mean, a number of just just Google patriotic films you like. I say, the World War two ones are fascinating because you'll find a story about a wife who's at home and what she has to deal with and the struggles and the pressures.

And that is very fascinating to see how they played that out or somebody going off to war, even something as simple as White Christmas. If you go back and look at White Christmas, where they're going to help this this fellow soldier there, their commanding officer, give him a better life. And you see that tie that something like the military does bring where you go white Christmas patriotic.

And it is it is a patriotic bill. So look at that kind of that period and look at those kinds of things they did. Even though they're singing and dancing, it could be a patriotic film. All right. Well, on that note, I think we'll sign off. Yep. Salute you all. Enjoy the 4th of July holiday. Throw some burgers and dogs on the grill, grab a cold one.

Fireworks. I love fireworks. It's the best thing ever. And you know they're not Eric. And I know. And a little trivia for you, Bruce. It will be my 15th wedding anniversary. Oh, my fourth. My wife and I got married in the 4th of July. We got married on the 4th of July. So 15 years this year. Oh, yeah.

So how do you celebrate? We usually go see fireworks. Okay, so we do that. But yeah, no, it's. We got married. We we had our ceremony, we had a reception, and then we. We drove out and watch fireworks. My wife, I was still in my tux. My wife is still in her wedding dress. Little girl comes up to her.

Did you get married today? And it was. It was fun. Oh, wow. But, you know, you can never forget it. So I've maybe that was that was that her choice? She said, let's get married on the 4th of July. It was my choice so I could never forget. So I was a kid. Well, you can always say these fireworks are just for you.

That's right. Exactly. Well, happy nursery and have a great 4th of July. We'll be back next week and we'll be talking to the cast of what we do in the Shadows. If you're a fan of the vampire show on Fox, we've got scoops for you about the next season and you are going to be surprised about what's coming.

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The summer season opened with a number of big movies but a pair of films that opened last weekend fell short as "The Flash" managed only $55 million and "Elemental" took in only $29.6 million in U.S. box office results despite finishing in the top two slots.

Expectations were particularly high for "The Flash" considering the hype behind Michael Keaton reprising his role as Batman helping Ezra Miller's Barry Allen/The Flash character.

We dive into the movie — yes, there are spoilers — to discuss its standing in the DC Extended Universe, the various Batman and Superman cameos and the use of the multiverse as a plot device.

We follow that up with a discussion of Peter Sohn's latest Disney Pixar film "Elemental." While better than Sohn's first Pixar film "The Good Dinosaur," the movie lacks star power beyond Wendi McLendon-Covey and Catherine O'Hara and runs a little long.

What does this mean for the rest of the summer? It's hard to say for sure, but films up next might want to take note and be prepared for subpar results.

Where to watch

"The Flash" in theaters
"Elemental" in theaters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the Master of the Multiverse, Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, when you're in the multiverse, like, what are you doing in your other What's the other?

Bruce Miller doing right now? Other one is actually enjoying himself. This one, it's like the third circle of hell, You know, where you go, What am I doing? Why is this one so tough? But I think they always say that a different one gets you a better life. So I'm hoping that the better life is in another, more diverse universe.Unknown

Okay, so you brought it up now. You were the one. The flash. Yes. The Flash has these multiverses. This is the the kind of the overriding narrative that drives this thing, that there are many multiverses out there just like Spider-Man has the kind of the other world. And all I realize that this is is an excuse to be able to get rid of the actor that they don't want or is asking for too much money.

Because if you say, well, I'd like a dollar more to be able to do this, it got near you. We're going to go to another multiverse and they'll be different. We'll be fine or we'll go back to an old one. I don't know. I'm sick of that. And I really don't want those things to color. Just a straight old story.

Right. It's not. Whenever they need to get out of a problem, they just zip over to another multiverse verse and try and solve it. And that's what happens in the Flash. The flash as how much do we dare tell? Well, I'm out. If you haven't see the flash now, you're not going to see it. Right. So let's. Let's do this.

Should we just. This is a spoiler. This is not a spoiler free episode. Let's just now let's just go for it, because I'll tell you, I did like Ezra Miller as The Flash. I thought he was really good, and I liked him playing off himself because he has a two version kind of thing where he is good and at that kind of give and take.

He's funny and I know that they're trying for their own Spider-Man because Spider-Man skews young and I think The Flash, they need something like that in that old timey DC Comics universe. So all that is there was a good idea, and I'm glad they kept him. They didn't reshoot all that stuff, but then they decide that they're going to go dig back in some other universe.

And we see a Batman. We get a Batman. Ben Affleck, who I don't like as Batman, I never have and never will. And I think his term could be up, at least in my house, that he is. And then they go in and they find an old Batman, which is Michael Keaton. And Michael Keaton is a good Batman.

But they must have decided somewhere along the line that he needed a little more to do. And so they make him into Howard Hughes, and he's living in this old kind of rambling building or house or mansion or whatever you want to call it. And suddenly he's got more skills and toys than I ever remember because that Batman the thing with Batman.

Sorry, I'm on a rant, but the thing with Batman is he is a human. He's one of the only human people that don't have special powers or aren't from another planet or any of that kind of stuff. And now he's got a kid that can do everything. I'm not so sure about all that. I really I question it.

Yeah. So. Ezra miller. Forgetting about the controversies I thought was fine. No problems with Ezra. It was a solid, solid performance for as much as you could do with that role. It's, you know, obviously, it is what it is. And I had no problems. So I thought from. From just that aspect of it, totally fine. You and I have talked before.

I'm not a huge comic book movie person. It's just not my thing. I do like the Batman movies I like or I like seeing Batman movies. I don't always like the Batman movies. I like kind of the Superman thing. A little bit of Wonder Woman here and there, but that's kind of the extent of my superhero kind of movie going that I'll do.

I've never really seen any of the Marvel movies. Like one of them I saw That was probably a bad one, right? No, it was. Which one's with Ryan Reynolds? Oh, really? Ryan Deadpool. Deadpool. Yeah, Deadpool right now. Guy He's kind of in his own universe. He doesn't wrangle the others. No, that's. That's probably why I liked it. And it was just kind of somebody told me, Go see it, you'll like it.

And actually it was funny. And he makes fun of superheroes. That I like that. That's probably why I liked it. So. But my problem, my my problem, especially with these Batman movies and the whole DC thing is just the constant reboot after reboot after reboot after reboot in this. Like your point to the multiverse helps us because now you could just throw it all out and it doesn't even matter anymore.

Now there's another there's another movie franchise that I absolutely love, which is called the James Bond franchise. Now, they, of course, have had like seven James Bond's. But the difference there is the stories don't really conflict, right? You have you know, you'll get like six episodes of Sean Connery. He bows out. You bring in Roger Moore to do a half dozen, plus he bows out.

There's only been a couple of instances with short term bonds with George Lazenby doing that one that bridged the two. Connery's had a Timothy Dalton had two, and, you know, Pierce Brosnan by standards. What a year. You only had, I think, four movies. So that was on the shorter side. But, you know, even with with Daniel Craig, he was even though he didn't do the most movies, I think he was in the role for the longest.

Like he he was even longer than Roger Moore. He just he just kind of packed in more movies over a shorter period of time. I'm fine with that because it's just all those stories kind of live outside themselves. There's a little bit of crossover, a little bit of a nod here or there, but it's I'm fine with that, but it's just the constant starting and stopping with all these different actors.

I can't keep up. I don't even remember who Batman is anymore. And one other point that I'll make, too, is what I loved about the Tim Burton Batman with Michael Keaton, is that, sure, there's special effects? Sure, it has a certain look to it. But as you said, he's a superhero, but he's a human who's just taking he's a vigilante, Right?

So he's just kind of taking these extraordinary measures to kind of save save the day. They're vomiting special effects at us now. And I'm of the opinion that less is more. You don't have to. Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. And I think another franchise that kind of brought this back a little bit was Star Wars, where, you know, you had the original Star Wars, which sure had lots of special effects, but they they kept it pretty low key because they couldn't do more at the time.

And then I think the huge mistake with George Lucas when he did the prequel and back then, he just he went back. He like he re-edited the originals and put in all the special effects, which did not help. And then those prequel movies that he did, it was all shot against a green screen and it looks like and it doesn't feel real.

And what I think has been good with The Mandalorian and the newer ones is they went back and they're actually doing puppeteering again and the special effects that they do use in it, like let's De-Age Mark Hamill, because we can't have a 70 year old guy playing young Luke Skywalker. I'm totally fine with that. You know, you can bring Grand Moff Tarkin back because he's been dead for so long.

But those things I'm okay with, But you don't have to throw up special effects at me nonstop. So that's my rant, you know? Well, what I found with the Flash is they go back and visit all these other characters, right? And you have to remember too much. You need to know something about that version of whatever. And they have a number of Superman that comes when, of course, there's that the heart tugging moment when you see Christopher Reeve as as Superman come out.

That's that's the gold standard for that, even though his films probably don't hold up at all. But you see that and you go all and then they toss in a Nicolas Cage Superman with a film never got made. And so the idea that that they would do that, but they conveniently don't hit all of the Batman. And it must have been something where, you know and you think all well they get that's choices as artistic choices.

No, it was probably because Christian Bale said, there's no way in hell you're using my image in this film. And he had it written into a contract. So you get a little bit of Batman from the Adam West years, and then you go, Well, now what's that about? Because that's TV. Do we do TV Batman? Or is that not, you know, so there are these things that are choices that they make that I'm sure it's because do we have the right go call on this.

Call the lawyers, see if we got the rights on this one. We're going to throw this one in just because I think they got nervous at the end and they decided we've got to have all these people show up, not unlike Space Jam, where they took every cartoon character they could throw in. That was a Warner Brother cartoon and then just have you kind of go nuts about it.

And you go, Well, wait a minute, why is there Wizard of Oz in this? I didn't know The Wizard of Oz was part of Space Jam, but that's what they do. And I think they get nervous and they don't trust their artistic instincts and they just do this stuff. And I don't think all that was necessary. We caught the concept That was enough.

You didn't need to show a world revolving with every character there was in it. I would hope that if they go back to the Flash and do it again, he gets new adventures with different characters. That Zod thing crazy and it can be more, more Shazam like if you will. And and I think you got a good actor.

Let him just do what he can do. They obviously with the multiverse have set up a total reset of the DC expanded universe because they've kind of just said, you know what, we're going to we've closed the door now. On Ben Affleck as Batman, and it seems like they're largely closing the door on probably some of the other ones.

I mean, there's going to come back here. Any idea is that Superman not there shouldn't be another shot at it, you know, So it's selective lawyering is all it it. Yeah. I loved Wonder Woman when that came out. The first one I thought I thought 1984 was just terrible. I was so disappointed when that one. I remember even telling my wife I'm like, honey, I saw, I saw the Wonder Woman and it's fabulous.

We need to go. And it was on HBO. It was it was during the pandemic, and it was just on HBO. I'm like, Let's watch it. You'll love it. It's actually like, I don't like, you know, I don't love comic book movies. And then we sat through it. I'm like, I'm apologizing to her after because that's how bad I thought it was.

So I even with her roll, are they going to bring her back for another Wonder Woman or have they said, you know, the last one wasn't good? Like we hit we hit a homerun with one second, one was there. So we're kind of we're going to reset that now, too. This is our deal breaker. This is the way we cut the contracts and move on and whatever it wants to be, it'll be.

But I think blast is worth keeping. I just wish that they would do different things that they and not this concept of let all or nothing forget it, make it 90 minutes, make it good, Give us a situation and a and a character. You got it. Who is the new Batman? Is the new Batman George Clooney? Well, who knows?

Oh, you know what? You know, he's back and I can see why this is not doing well in the theaters. I think you've got to realize that you cannot rely on the Old Faithful, the comic book nerds who will come do this no matter what, because took in other people. And I think that's where Marvel went wrong, too, is that they want to tie too much together and if you're a casual viewer, viewer like you, Terry, where you see one, you go, What is this crap?

I don't know what this is all about. You've got to make it stand alone. It's like we say, you know, I, I read the book and there are lots of things aren't in the movie that were in the book. Well, it's the movie has to stand alone. It's got to be able to tell its story and move on from there.

And so that's that's where they go wrong. I agree with you. And you know, it only did 55 million It led it led the box office almost almost doubled, elemental. But the 55 million is a terrible, terrible opening when you consider we're getting back to a point where movies are opening at 100 million plus and you know. Yeah.

And Flash is clearly I mean, it's not going to it's not going up. I mean, next week it's not going to do 90 million in week two. It's only going to go down. So, you know, will it even recoup its money? And, you know, you bring up the point of the casual viewer. I was lucky because I had seen, as I said, I see the Batman movies, I see the Superman movies.

So when I saw The Flash, it all made sense to me. But if you're a casual viewer and you didn't know what the deal was with Zod and all that stuff, you would be so lost. Like if you came in because you're like, I love Michael Keaton from those those early Batman movies with Timothy Burton, you're just going be lost because you're going be like, What is going on here?

You just dropped the storyline. Makes no sense. Ellen Slater, if you were familiar with Ellen's later way back when, her appearance doesn't mean anything to you. So it is what it is. I think that they did a great job with the Flash on TV when it was on the CW, and I think he was a perfectly good flash.

But when they're going in another direction and you're doing something that it's a little quirky stick with the quirk. Don't feel that you need to go back to the traditional and grab something there. One other point I'd like to make. We talked about the multiverse, the concept of the multiverse, right. And how big it's become because we're seeing it in a lot of different things, you know, Spider-Verse and and we saw it obviously everything everywhere.

I wonder, I was thinking this is a it's a concept that basically replaces time travel or it sort of replaces time travel because that was such a driver of of, you know, show movies, shows of the 6070s, eighties, you know, like Star Trek when they would get stumped in like, well, what should we do? Well, how about we just send the Enterprise back 200 years to get a humpback whale and bring it back to the future?

Right. And then, of course, there's back to the future. So I started I'm going into this movie knowing that it's the multiverse and thinking to myself, like, yeah, this is completely replace like the concept of time, travel back to the future and all that. And what did they do is this they heavily referenced back to the future in the flash where in this multiverse Eric Stoltz is not the part got the part you know and again you have to have a point of reference to enjoy the laugh.

And if you're a young kid, did you know that Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly? You didn't. So it it kind of falls flat on that. I is this made for critics? Maybe it is I don't know they just want them to say nice things. I mean it's cute. It's a cute concept. They do hammer it a couple of times and maybe I don't need to two or three times of that to get it.

Now, let's talk about Elemental, because I you know, I'm a huge Disney fan. I love all those animated things. But boy, did it take effort to like Elemental. I'm not going to call it the worst Pixar movie I've ever seen that Cars. It's definitely not the best Pixar movie I've ever seen it. From my perspective, it was fine.

It checked all the boxes. We went on Father's Day. We took the kids. The kids enjoyed it my way. Restless? Nope. They liked it. They liked the movie. My wife cried during a couple scenes. She enjoyed it. I was fine. I was fine. You know, I walked out of it and I was like, That's fine. That's fine. It's a fine movie.

It's not great. It's not terrible. It's fine. I got what they were trying to do. They're trying to talk. Really. It's the immigrant story. Did you come to another country and you feel like you are alone and you don't fit in with others and you don't want to mix with others? And maybe mixing with others is a good thing.

And we see how this works out in everything. But I think it tries way too hard to be jokey and it tries to make every person it can think of. Like I could see them sitting around a table and saying, Okay, fire. Think of all the things that you can think of that have fire in it that we can use.

This is hotter than and you know, and they would just throw this out and then try to kind of squeeze that in in the process. And the idea that wind water, earth, an air or a soundtrack by Earth, wind and fire, how they don't, you know, combine. Well, they do. And if you just did a simple experiment, you'd know that all this does work together.

And so they needed another villain. They needed somehow somebody to cause the problem that encourages them to come together to solve it. And they didn't. They kept these kind of universes or these worlds separate. And it was like, Oh, that's where the rich want people live. Oh, that's where the poor down and outer fire people live, you know?

And I don't know, it's a basically it was good to look at I don't know how you make a stuffed animal out of a fire, but yeah, I really had a prop. This is me now. I had a problem where they show this baby fire sucking on a can of lighter fluid. And I thought, this is like, wrong.

You don't if you image that to any little kids and they say, oh, lighter fluid, I could see a kid sucking on a bottle of that. I could. And so I think they didn't think through some of the things that they were playing. They just thought it was a cute gimmick and there it felt wet. I can see that, you know, as someone who grew up was born in New York and very familiar with the city culture and the concept of of a bodega that's run by an immigrant family, it resonated a little bit with me to an extent.

I got what they were trying to do again with the concept of, you know, a melting pot. And there were moments to even when I would lean over to my wife, it's like, is this family, is it is it a Greek family? Do you think they're touching on agriculture is No, no. Maybe it's Turkish. You know, it's like, oh, no, no, no.

Maybe it's like Pakistani or something like that. And, you know, and then of course, you see the relationship, the Korean heritage relationship, you know, to the Peterson And so and I think that's the point is you're not actually supposed to figure out what it is because it's this concept that it could be anything. Right. It's it's you know, these are the anyone that's an immigrant to this country or any country is going to face obstacles and discrimination.

And it doesn't really matter where it's from. It's just, you know, we're just going to bring in these concepts. So, you know, I think it's a good movie for lessons of inclusion and whatnot, but it just felt, you know, it's fine. As I said, I don't know how else to describe this movie other than it was fine. There was no stars in this movie.

No. And I tried to raise the voices and I thought, is this anybody? Is this somebody who is? And I thought at one point it was Miley Cyrus doing the voice of the Amber the flame girl. But no, it's it's not at all. Catherine O'Hara is in there is the mother. That's. Wait, wait. And it's that's the the the most notable actor that they they cast in it, which is kind of interesting from a few aspects because if you think back Disney up until really what the nineties largely just relied on on mostly unknown voice actors to do the roles and I think it was a lot of it had to do with like Toy

Story and The Lion King where you started casting bigger screen actors to take on these roles. So I am wondering a little bit because they went low key, because it wasn't just this barrage of A-list actors. Did that hurt this at the box office? Because there isn't that that big name? You know, normally what they do is they have and I was waiting for a Justin Timberlake song, actually, I thought this is almost like rolls.

They should throw in a Justin Timberlake song because there is a song in there. I think this is like one of those things they let people do with short subjects. They let them kind of go very creative and try things out. And maybe this one, they, you know, let's let's just give it a whole movie. Let's not give it a short subject because it seemed like a short subject concept.

And there is kind of a pattern to Disney Pixar characters that have a certain look that you can turn into merchandise. And like I say, I don't know how you merchandise this at all unless everything is just a character on a on a t shirt. But we'll see. It'll, you know, they'll do it. But I yeah I thought that of that kind of odd mix inside out did a better job of kind of blending things and making it seem like, okay now I don't have to think too hard on this.

And I thought too hard on this. I was trying all the time to make sense of it and I couldn't. The movie was a bit long for my tastes. Well, we again, animated films. Come on, I the kids start running about the 30 minute mark. And if they're not stopping by the 60 minute mark, you've gone too long.

I hate to get up to go to the men's room during a movie because I don't want to miss a thing. And as soon as the credits started rolling because and with these Pixar movies, you don't want to miss something at the end. So it's like the movie. The credits started rolling. I like beeline out, leave my family behind, take care of business, come back in because that you know, that gallon of soda I was drinking went right through me.

And then I was disappointed because there was nothing in the credits either. It just kind of they just straight rolled it. But it was it was a story that that I agree with could have been told in about 20 fewer minutes. And it would have been completely fine to keep the kids entertained. And I and I will say this, too, with Peter Sohn, who directed the movie, it's definitely the better of his two movies that he's done now for Pixar, because I.

I absolutely hated The Good Dinosaur. Did. Do you remember that one? I hated that, too. I hated it. Well, one thing I notice when you think of the good dinosaur, the only thing I remember was the grass looked good. It looked Grant's look good in. And that was and I remember walking out of it with my kids because they were a lot younger than am.

I like one of my daughters is crying. She's like, Dad, does this mean you're going to die, too? And because they killed now, they killed a dad. And I didn't like, Oh, good Lord, God, like you have to do. You have to kill a parent in every movie. Yeah, well, you know, interestingly, I think this is the only Pixar film that doesn't have a John Ratzenberger appearance.

Might be that could be a curse. That if you don't use him, you're in trouble. So I'm throwing out there that maybe they should have had him in there somewhere as somebody. But yeah, ice and earth. Did you ever see anything earthy besides that little kid picking the flowers out of his pits? Yeah. Yeah. And then they. The wind people.

It was a game, and that was it, Right? Right. And I would say that was somebody, too, from The Goldbergs, the mother on The Goldbergs as the voice of the Wind. Okay, Thank you. Wendy covered MacLaine to make clear she has a hyphenated name. When Wendi Mclendon-Covey Wright. Thank you, Your Honor. I'm sorry, Wendy. I apologized profusely, but you got a long name, you know.

Yeah, but Elemental 29.6 million to open. That is not. That's not where you want to be if you're Pixar. And on the heels of Disney wiping out a huge chunk of the Pixar department recently, maybe this is my this is well, it also came after light year because light year did not do well last year either. It's very much like Zootopia.

And I think if they're going to go back to that, well, Zootopia is a better way of dealing with it, because when you had characters who were goofy animals, you could be you could be snarky with them. And I think they wanted to be a little too noble. Yeah, Yeah. So Flash 55 million. Elemental 29.6 million. Not a great weekend for too big.

It's supposed to be two big heavy hitters. What do you think this this means? You know, coming up, is this just a blip on the radar? I don't think. Come up or what? What what do you think? Now, interestingly, we have no hard feelings. And Wes Anderson's new movie coming out this week, those will be low key because they're not expecting anything out of that.

I think no hard feelings will do really well once the word of mouth gets out there, because it's the old school R-rated comedy where it's like, ah, if you know what I mean. And I think people are looking for something like that, so that'll be a surprise. And then we get into Barbie week and boy, I'm seeing a lot of Barbie and I'm hearing a lot of Barbie, but it isn't all that positive.

So we'll see what happens. I want it to be very positive, but I think you know, it's going to be I think we're still on the roller coaster. I don't think we're there yet. We're not heading toward the the entrance of the theme park ride. So it'll be like Indiana Jones that'll go big. There's nerve endings about that thing, too, that it is not as adventurous as they want it to be.

These are viewers who've seen it and maybe, yeah, it'll still do well, Open. Well, it'll open big. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Like, it'll, it'll people like me will want to go see it because we're huge fans of the franchise, but we'll go see it. Maybe not like it and then not go back. So I don't know that it'll have a long run, but I think it'll open big.

Yeah, a little up, a little bit down. We'll see what comes in the next few weeks. Next week we are getting ready for the 4th of July holiday, so we are going to dive into our favorite patriotic movies of all time salute right. All right, Bruce. So thanks again and thank you all for listening to this episode is screened and screened.

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We're heading into Father's Day, so there's no better time to take a look back at some of the great fathers in television and film history, as well as some more forgettable father figures.

Our list touches on a wide range of fathers, including Atticus Finch from "To Kill A Mockingbird," Phil Dunphy from "Modern Family," Walter White from "Breaking Bad" and Frank Costanza from "Seinfeld."

We won't give away the entire list, but rest assured there is some discussion of Homer Simpson, Jack Pearson, Darth Vader, Mike Brady, Tony Soprano and Cliff Huxtable. Yes, we're all over the place.

In other topics, the show covers "Jury Duty" and season 2 of "The Bear," plus new movies coming out including "Elemental" and "The Flash."

Where to watch

"Jury Duty" on Freevee and Amazon Prime Video
"The Bear" on FX and Hulu
"Elemental" in theaters
"The Flash" in theaters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and Screened and Entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with my entertainment journalism father figure. Bruce, you're editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Hey, Papa. How are you? We'll try to talk to you.

Yeah, it's you know what? I've seen so much and been around so long that you can drop a name, and I think I can grab it. I think it's that easy. Yeah, I got to tell you, you know, even though we're entering that kind of dull season where all I watch is American Ninja Warriors, last night, I truly like that.

I that is my obsession. And I couldn't make it past the first one. But I loved watching that thing. And I never, ever, ever see the last episode of that. Never. I never know if anybody won or if it's it's just that whole thrill of the hunt. But last night, I decided I was going to binge something because I've heard too much about it.

And that's jury duty. Jury duty. I've been called for jury duty, but I've never I've never served on jury duty. But it's a reality show where everybody in the show, except one guy, is an actor. So there's this one gets kind of a Punk'd thing where they are trying to, you know, show how he would react during this situation, how he doesn't catch on.

I don't know. But James Marsden is in it as one of the people called to jury duty. And he's kind of an elevated sense of aspect of himself. You see this kind of pull of himself actor who you like, you know, third tier credits that they mention. Very funny. And I was just I was smitten with it. It's not necessarily well done, but there are so many moments that are such laugh out loud, funny moments that you got to see it.

It's on Amazon Prime and Freebie had it first, and I think you can find it through Amazon, but it is eight episodes and you just it it's like eating candy and I had such a great time looking at that that then you go to the next dig where you try to look up these people online to see if you've seen them in something else.

Because some of the actors looked vaguely familiar. And I think if I were that one guy, the first question I would have is why are we sequestering the jury for this little kind of two bit case? Why are we here for 15 days or whatever the amount of time was? But they don't seem to question it. It's like, well, I got a vacation and I'll be doing this, and here we are.

And then when they start spelling out the case and the guy who is, you know, defending the guy drops everything that the audio visual stuff doesn't work. You would be I would be very curious, like, something's up with this. And then I would look in my hotel room and think, I think this place is bugged. It's got to be bugged somehow.

But I do watch it because I think it is one of those kind of fun little summer things that takes no effort out of you. You don't feel like you're worn out after you've watched it. You do feel like it's something that you go, okay, like I had a good time. I love those little ones. They'll pop up on Netflix here and there.

Hulu or Prime, as you said, there's no effort, there's no thought process. I like like there's a few of them that'll show up on Netflix. They'll do those little documentaries like they the kid that wanted to buy the Harrier jet with the Pepsi points and they did four episodes on it and I couldn't stop watching it because it's just it's just a fun little romp.

So, I mean, I'm into selling Sunset on Netflix. That said, you know, Los Angeles area high end real estate show, and it looks like there's two bad little real estate offers on the sunset Strip. It looks like, you know, you could have a 7-Eleven next door. That's how dinky it looks. And yet they act like they are all, you know, catering to everybody who starts at $1,000,000,000.

And they basically seem to show the same house. It's like the same kind of URLs. All the houses in Los Angeles look alike. But selling sunset is another one of my binge binge. Crazes like that where you don't think and I think I need that after work is where you don't think at all and you let these people kind of just wash over you.

So for a make a reality show, remember, no thinking, wash over you. Here you go. Anything else you're watching or any movies on the horizon? Well, there are some things coming up I've been looking at, but I've not yet to tell. Not yet. And they had the big premiere last night of Indiana Jones. And so we're going to start hearing a lot about that.

If you haven't buried yourself already, please get on to one of those apps and you can put your picture inside a thing where it calls you a Barbie of some sort. Nice. That's out there in case you're looking for fun. Elemental. Have you seen Elemental or is that that's about to come? Elemental? No, I did go last week to Transformers and I will admit it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Okay. I'm still not going to see it. No. What it does, though, you know, these they make no symptoms. They absolutely make no sense. And it started out with a toy that made no sense. And then they decided there was a film franchise. But in this one, they kind of back up and give you a little history about the things and why they are what they are and how they came into being and why they want to dominate the world.

So there's a little kind of a tutorial, if you will, that helps you understand this. And then they go on their little journey and transform into gorillas this time. Okay. Okay. And that is Optimus Primal. Not Optimus Primate, but Optimus Primal. Interesting. Interesting. I am looking forward to Indiana Jones. We've talked about this a few times that I've been hearing reviews, very mixed.

Like some people are loving it, some people not so much. So I'm really curious to see where that one falls. I could see that one getting very mixed reviews from critics, but doing very well with fans also gets critic proof. This is not one of those things that no matter how much people rant and rave, they're still going through it.

Absolutely. And I will dying to see it as soon as I can get to it. I am absolutely going to go see it. I'm just like a hardcore Lucasfilm. Indiana Jones Star Wars junkie. So I think they're absolutely, absolutely. Somewhere I have a whip and a hat, and that is one of the early warheads that's in my basement full of crap.

You'll find it out. If you ever want to excavate, that can be your Indiana Jones story. You go down there, dig out that stuff you got. Here's that whip. He was talking about. Yep, there's a whip down there. But you're going to see Elemental this way. Yeah. Father's Day. I love the idea that you get to pick the movie.

I know. Well, the options were. Hey, Dad, what would you like to do this weekend? And I'm thinking, I'm not sure. And then when my daughter says, Well, let's go see Elemental, so I'm okay, that sounds fine. The other option would was was Little Mermaid, and that was Oh, no or no on that one. And and the Barbie movie isn't out yet, which I, I kind of want to see that I'm kind of.

You want to see that. I want to see that one. So and I told them, I said I will absolutely go with you to go see the Barbie movie. But Elemental, I feel like you can't really can't usually go wrong with a Pixar movie. I love most of them. They've been a little bit more missed and hit the last couple of years.

But, you know, and they did just fire a whole bunch of Pixar people, like long time Pixar people, Disney. So that would be a great opening, wouldn't it? Yeah. Back. You'll have to pay for your own popcorn. Exactly. Yeah. I don't know if you saw that, Bruce, but. But Disney, because they've been cutting down because the revenues haven't been quite there and they wiped out a huge chunk of the Pixar Department and it included a lot of folks that had been there from the beginning.

Even they had a whole studio in Orlando that if you went to the Hollywood studios aspect of Disney World, you could watch them making, you know, God knows what. But it was animated films and they were actually doing the work there. And then they that one down and they shut some other ones down and then they went over to another country, did things there.

So who knows with that? And they almost shut it down before the original Little Mermaid came out. So it's hard to tell. I'm sure somebody in the in the money department looks and says, I think we need to make some cuts here. And the lowest profit area was. And that's where they go. Exactly. There is another program coming out soon.

Now, you have not gotten any advance screening of this, but you and I are both a bit of a fan of the show. The Bear season to come, it affects you. I have talked to people about the bear. I have done interviews for the bear. I've written a story about the upcoming bear, but they are very guarded about season two.

They are not letting out any kind of screeners. Now, that always is a bad sign when you do that with a movie. If you don't let anybody see it in advance, it's like, oh, we're worried about the about the kind of reviews we might get. But I think this one, because they've got really great people working on it.

I think what it hinges on is what this new restaurant is, because if you may remember, this is spoiler alert. So turn me off. They found a lot of money at the end of the episode. The final episode of last season. So they have the money to be able to make upgrades to this little the beef or whatever it's called restaurant.

So that it's not was kind of a hit and run sandwich shop. It's much more than that. And I think they don't want you to know what it's going to look like. I don't think they want you to know how the plot is going to unfold. And I can still see chaos in there in the kitchen. It'll still be there.

But it's that kind of surprise element that they want to say. And that premieres next week. Yeah, it's it looks like the 20, maybe the 22nd on Fox and then a day later on Hulu, I got into the show pretty hardcore last year. I didn't see it when it dropped immediately, but my brother reached out, one of my brothers who's a chef, and he said, You know, that's how this always works.

Like I go see the journalism things. And then, you know, he goes, sees the food ones, but he's like, Hey, you go watch them. Yeah, exactly. But he, he, he thought it was really good and just mentioned, hey, you know, if you're looking for something, then check out watch it. And I got hooked pretty hard. Now, I found with the show that I couldn't watch really more than one episode because by the time I picked it up, it was already season one was already done.

So but I couldn't binge it because I would get through one episode and there's so much yelling because it's in a kitchen, there's a lot moving on and they're yelling at each other and they're bickering because they're family or longtime friends and that kind of thing. And I just felt exhausted, like emotionally drained by the end of it.

But it's a fun it's a comedy and it's a good feeling. But it's a good feeling. Yeah. Like it wasn't a horrible dream. Like I'm never going to come back to this. It just felt like, you know, I gave the show my all for 30 minutes of sitting here doing nothing, and I just can't go anymore. I need I need like a one day buffer before I come back on episode two.

Well, and this was one of those kobin shows that they were in a bubble and they weren't able to do a lot of, you know, exterior things, a lot of stuff outside of their little bubble. So they stayed in it and they had a culinary producer, somebody who showed them how to do like chopping or where you would grab for a bowl or where pots and pans needed to be located.

So if your brother has a lot of like technical knowledge about all those things, it was absolutely technically correct. And they all felt that they had some degree of facility with all of that. But what the goal of the producer was was to throw you into that atmosphere so you didn't know anything. So that's why you felt the tension is because you felt like you were right in the middle of that kitchen and all that trouble happening.

And one thing that he discovered, well, he was like, you know, planning all of this show is that there were a lot of times he would order Uber eats and then it would be like, you can't we what is this? And that figured into one of the episodes where, you know, suddenly they get a jillion orders at once and they can't keep up with it and so they'll just turn off that app again.

They won't come. So that was a surprise to me when I first I thought, wait a minute, is this why I'm not able to order at 7:00 at night? They've shut me off. That's what the trick is. So there are a lot of things that we can learn in the process of this, but it also makes you very appreciative of what goes into a kitchen.

I think I saw Bob ODENKIRK is listed as a guest star for season two. I don't know in what capacity because obviously they won't screen it. But coming off a better call. Saul, I guess he's looking for work. Yeah, well, he is. And he had the lucky egg. Yeah, he's getting all over the place. And that will be, by the way, if you want to jump ahead to that concept, the they're really doing a lot of pitches for what will be nominated for Emmys because the Emmy Awards will be coming out pretty shortly, the nominations.

And will a Better Call Saul get something in its last season because it's been really cheated a lot. But will the bear get something? That's another one, because technically it's classified as a comedy, but it plays really dark. And and then you have ones like Ted Lasso who supposedly are wrapping it up. You give them one more shot, you know, So there are a lot of questions that are rolling around the Emmys right now.

Well, we'll have to come back at that as soon as the nominations come out to new movies we have or Mantle and we have The Flash coming out this week. And you could pick the Flash. I could have and you did. Kids didn't want to go see that one. Well, I think there are some parts that maybe you'd go, kids, maybe we shouldn't be watching that.

Probably. Yeah. Yeah, they would. They wouldn't understand. They wouldn't understand the Michael Keaton aspect of it either. They're not going to get excited. Yeah. Who's that old guy? That's Batman. And it's not Batman. That's somebody else. I think Superboy super be in it. Yeah, I'm not going to say, but yeah. So there are so elementals all fresh and new and it's a not unlike the inside out which took on emotions.

Right. And this is another one where it's element s so air, wind, water all that is kind of swirled together into one thing about learning something from yourself. I don't know I Good luck. Thanks. This better be a popcorn movie. It's. Well, I'm bringing back the bucket. Remember, I bought my my annual bucket. That will give you popcorn galore.

Exactly. I'm coming back with my refill and everything. So that's my Father's Day. Your Jurassic Park bucket. Exactly. So that's my Father's Day. So we also figured for this week we're going to talk a little bit about Father's Day. So we're going to just kind of segway from that theme over to the big day and and talk a little bit about some of our favorite fatherly figures from TV and movie history.

What do you got for us? Well, you know, whenever you say who is the best father in film, it goes to one and one only. Atticus Finch from To Kill a mockingbird is Bar None the best dad of all times in films. That's what whenever they survey people. And then maybe because that's the one they remember most. There are others.

There are many, many others. Field of dreams, you know. I mean, you could just go down the line, but I think Atticus Finch is the one that people are most tied to in terms of Father, do you agree with me or I? It has been so long since I've seen that movie. I don't know if I can agree.

I've seen it. I've absolutely seen it. It's just been so, so long now and it's been on a a a theater tour because it was on Broadway several years ago. And Richard Thomas from The Waltons is playing Atticus Finch. And, you know, it's it's one of those cases where dad tries it's, you know, set years and years and years ago, tries to convince his children that, you know, maybe sometimes the people that you suspect are right aren't necessarily right.

And then they rewrote the or brought out an earlier version of the book. And that had a different take on things. But it's Gregory Peck. Come on. Gregory Peck. Yeah. You wrong? Gregory Peck has always And maybe he felt that that was limiting, too. In the later films he made. He did MacArthur after that. So there are all these kind of larger than life real heroes.

I think he played Lincoln at one point. And so I think that kind of dogged him, if you will. But he was like the perfect dad. Now, who did you think was a great movie, Dad? A great movie, dad for me. You had mentioned Field of Dreams, and I always kind of come back to that movie. It's a movie about fathers and sons relationships.

It's a movie that I watched just a few days after my my dad passed away earlier this year. And it's something that we watch because he he died in, you know, march right around the start of the baseball season. It's a movie I go back to year after year. And I also think, you know, for myself as somebody who's in his upper forties and getting a little bit older and but I have kids and, you know, it's a little bit of a midlife crisis kind of movie, too.

You know, it's it's like you're maybe in that job, which isn't as fulfilling as you thought it was going to be or you're not progressing through life. You know, you had all these dreams as a kid. You wanted to be a baseball player or a movie star or a rock star, or maybe just be sitting on a pile of cash doing whatever.

And here he's just an average guy farming, and he's having a midlife crisis and trying to find a way to reconnect his dad. So, you know, Kevin Costner, I thought, really did a great job of that role. It's one as I said, I go back to that year after year after year to watch it and I get choked up every time I watch it at the end when he's just going out to play catch with his dad.

Yeah, yeah. It's a touch. It can really it can really get you when you need that. But there are other ones, you know. Clark Griswold. Yeah. He's a nearly good dad. Come on. He's trying to give his family the kind of vacation that they've always wanted. Yeah, if things go wrong. But his intentions as a father are good, I think.

Yes. Then you go to Steve Martin from Father of the bride. He wants to make sure all of that pulls off are right. You have the dad from Mrs. Doubtfire, Mr. Mom, Finding Nemo. Yeah, and that's a good one. There are good dads in there. The one that I hadn't really thought of recently. Minari. Do you remember that?

Did you see Minari about a family that moves to They're in an Asian family to move to the Midwest and and they're farming and everything kind of goes wrong. But the dad wants to make sure everything is right. It won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, a woman who plays the grandmother. And that dad was a good dad.

You know, Ethan Hawke in boyhood, if you remember. Oh, that movie. Yeah, right. And then we get to The Godfather. Carmen, can you be better than The Godfather? Very overly protective. Dad's there. Yeah, He's the one that you touch. My kid. I kill you. Yeah, well, and even the The Godfather Part two, when Michael Corleone slams the door, not even a slam.

It's just more of a a hard shot. And Diane Keaton, like I'm the dad, the cutting. You want your mom, you've made your choice. Yeah, And parenthood, if you're that and then one that's going to cross over. Now, when I talk about this is Friday Night Lights, the movie Taylor the coach. Now in the movie it was Billy Bob Thornton, but in the TV series, you cannot get better as a dad than Eric Taylor.

He was a dad to all those kids on the team. And I kid you not. That is one of those shows that I. I have the entire box set that I will if I need to can go back to that because it's so inspirational and it's one that I can't watch the end because I don't want it over.

But they talk all the time about rebooting it, but there might be a class reunion with that. But Eric are three Taylors in TV that you want to think about Tim Taylor, Andy Taylor and Eric Taylor. Okay. Andy Griffith, Come on. Andy Taylor was the best dad from my childhood. He was always so protective, so fun, so willing to do whatever.

Great. Tim The tool man. Taylor Come on. He was like the fun dad that you could climb, right? And then we get to my Eric Taylor from Friday Night Lights. Those are three big TV TV dads that that resonate the John Hughes dads, too, because we've talked about John Hughes movies previously, the Dan Aykroyd and John Candy and the Great outdoors, just constantly trying to one up each other or at least John Candy, just trying to keep up with Dan Aykroyd.

Right. That was always fun and trying to eat the £96 steak. Right? Right. There's nothing on that plate but fat and grizzle. And then you look at the bad dads ones we'd find on TV. Homer Simpson, come on. Does it get worse than Homer? I don't know about Red Forman from that seventies show. Oh, he was kind of always grumpy and and barking orders at people.

And, you know, one day that I really hated Mike Brady from the Brady Bunch that Brady anything he just sat there and he was like doing architecture stuff for the kids were whatever but I really thought he was a bad dad if you were picking them out and more recently on TV, Jack Pearson is a good dad. Oh, yes, right.

Yes, This is us. This is us. Yes, he is that all-American dad. He everything is always positive, can do anything wrong. And he would be willing to go to the ends for anyone. I don't know. When we first saw him bad in the course of that series. No, I mean, he might have done things that were like. But I don't think you could ever classify him as a bad dad.

Still makes me nervous every time my wife pulls out the crock pot, though you don't wear it out of the house. You know, I'm not looking at about it was so angry. It's same and same. It's a slow cooker. It's fine. Oh, man, you know, You know who I always loved for? There's a couple of dads. I wouldn't necessarily call them good dads, but they were just to me, very entertaining TV dads.

Frank Costanza by Jerry Taylor from Seinfeld. And then the relationship between Ray Romano, Peter Boyle and Everybody Loves Raymond. I thought that connection was just really especially coming from a new York background, the the complaining about everything and just a very relatable relationship for me. You know, it's funny because in the new series Barb Kiss with Pete Davidson, he kind of has this thing, you know, in real life.

He lost his dad in 911, right? He had this kind of projection, if you will, with Ray Romano and Everybody Loves Raymond. And you see kind of a sense of that in this show. And Ray Romano does a kind of a cameo bit in the in the thing. But it is interesting. What about Phil Dunphy from Modern Family, isn't he like every dad who tries too hard?

Yes. I never could quite figure out if I liked him or not through the whole series. Like there would be some weeks where you just love Phil Dunphy, but then other weeks where he's just so ridiculous that I couldn't put up with him. And that was a show, too. I love Modern Family. I don't think I watched the final season.

I think I kind of tapped out. Oh, no. Yeah, you get that? It hit that point where I just. I saw enough and it was kind of the same thing for me, episode after episode, where it just kind of lost me that last year. And I just said, you know, I'm good. We peaked. Yeah. Is there a dad that you relate to?

What kind of a dad are you? I'm not Darth Vader that I know people yet. Not yet. Who am I? I do think I am a little bit of a rake in, Sela. I'm not ready to take up my backyard yet, but I feel like. Like a you know, I'm kind of in in that point in my life where I'm things aren't always what they were meant to be.

And I've had to go through some changes here and there. And, you know, can I this has always been my theory because I'm so old that I can have that Yoda like turnabout experience in your twenties. Anything's possible, right? In the thirties, you realize I got to get something done or else I'm going to be kind of wasting this life.

Forties. You feel like, Oh, did I make a mistake and go the wrong way? Am I? Should I regroup and start over fifties? You think you know what? I don't care. I have made my point. And in the sixties you're just glad you're around. So I'm still I'm still okay. But it's it's that kind of you know, and it's like class reunions where you go, well, I've got to prove to them that I've done something or, you know, whatever, and you find usually if you go to a class reunion, you'll find that the person that you really didn't see as the most successful is the most successful.

It could have been. The kid who was quiet in the back, got C's and didn't really cause a wave. And the one that you thought was the most likely to succeed maybe didn't. But look at those. Look at those ears and see what you if you don't agree with me on that, because I find that in the twenties you were just like, Oh, I can have fun, but I better hurry up because I've got to do something with my life so that it makes sense.

And that's the thirties where you're like all freaked about what it is. And then the forties, you're sadly for a little something. And then like I say, the fifties and sixties weren't we don't care and you can easily badmouthed people in the older years too. That's always good. I've got a couple of years still until I hit my fifties but I'll I'll give that some thought for just know that that's where your head is so great where you don't give a damn that I have that and I like I can hardly wait until it's the unfiltered years.

The seventies in the eighties when when I can just say whatever I think about somebody or doubt, worry about it, let it go. That's my my grandfather, who's 93, my last living grandparent, and he just doesn't care. He just totally unfiltered. Yeah, I think you look a little fat. Don't you? And you go, Wait a minute, You're not supposed to say that.

You're supposed to be nice, right? Yeah. I remember even with my in-laws, one of my wife's grandmothers who passed away a number of years ago, the one of the last time I saw her before she passed away. She's like, You've put on some weight since the last time I saw you. And I'm like, okay, we're we're good here.

If a whale came in the room, you wouldn't say those kind of things, right? So, yeah, but you'd say, My God, in your head, this one really looks like it got out of hand. But in your mind, Oh, you. You look like you're so healthy and you're having such a good time. How are things going? You know, that's what I'm waiting for is the unfiltered.

I'm just saying it like it is. So. You look marvelous, Terry. Thank you. I appreciate it. One last bother on my list that we didn't touch on Tony Soprano. Yeah. And is he a good dad? I don't know that he is. I think he's very protective of his family. I also thought, you know, he was a great dad when he took Meadow up to New England to go looking at colleges.

And he was very, very much wants to make it a dad daughter weekend, help her find a school. He found a rat. He took care of that, cleaned himself up after the murder, and then went ahead and finished a very nice weekend with his daughter. So I think he could have a moment there. You know, he took care each care business, but also took care of family at the same time.

Don't you think that his wife had a stronger influence on the kids than he did? Yes or no? I think that Carmela and there are all these similar types of movies and shows that get into that mafia stuff. It's it's always the same where they try to paint the spouse as kind of like, you know, some unwitting bystander.

But they're fully they know everyone. They know everything. She know she knows where the guns are hidden in the wall. So, yeah, it's like The Real Housewives of New Jersey, as much as they act like they don't know what's going on in their businesses, they're right there. And when they go to court, they're just as guilty as the husband.

So I've probably seen every episode of The Sopranos at least three times because I watched it when it came out initially. And then I also a long time ago was writing a weekly column for newspapers in New Jersey with my thoughts about The Sopranos each week. So I'd watch it then. And then a few years ago, I actually rewatched the whole series again, and I thought it held up.

Other than the flip phones, you know, the cell phone technology changed. But I thought by and large, the show itself held up very well. It was always the same thing with Carmela, where she would get angry. Tony got a change and then he would show up with a Porsche Cayenne or a diamond necklace. And then she's like, I love you, Tony.

And then I would it would totally change her demeanor for about three episodes, and then it would kind of go back in the other direction. That's the secret. That's the secret that a father learns about a mother. Yep. Right. Absolutely. Okay. Red Forman was a loud, mouthy one. But then you get to Ward Cleaver. What in the hell did Ward Cleaver ever do?

When he put on the suit? He went to work and he came home, and then he was served a drink or whatever, and he read the newspaper and had to be kind of the judge of the kids went, Oh, you better go see your father. And then he would kind of like take an eyebrow to them and, and well, now, Beaver, what happened?

All that kind of Well, weren't Cleaver was a big a a big fake he did nothing so yet he gets on the list of the best of the best dads and then I'd be remiss not to mention Cliff Huxtable. Oh, yeah. I didn't know what to do with him. What? I loved it. Well, now we're we're doing the character, not the not the person.

All right. But what I loved about Cliff Huxtable is that the kids tried to schmooze him and, you know, they would try to use that. Oh, dad, you're just so wonderful. And you kids are just stupid. He would just call them out on things. And it was like it was a dad who was on to them. And I don't think we had seen dads who were on to their kids and how they just kind of work their wiles because I'll bet any money that your daughters work you.

Oh yeah, yeah. You know, And yet here was a dad who said, No, I'm not buying into that. And I don't know what you know his job. Well, what exactly was it that he did? Because he stayed at home all the time. But I did enjoy watching that dynamic. I liked the dynamic. And then the wife who had the upper hand on him was a an interesting kind of dynamic.

I thought Walter White, could he be considered a good dad or a bad? That I don't know. I was wasn't sure if I wanted to put him on my list or not. I one hand I thought he was you know, he's thinking about himself. He's he's presumably terminally ill and he's looking out for the long term good of his family.

But he also had a lot of flaws in his planning and execution. Can bad equal good? I don't know. That's one of those things. All right, then what about the monster dads like Gomez Addams or Herman Munster? They were fun dads. Do they fit in there? Do they? You know, and I don't saw I didn't see any kind of parenting that went on with them.

No, there was none. I always I think I preferred Gomez Addams. So as a father, yeah, Herman was stupid. Yeah. And he was just kind of bumbling around, which isn't unlike a lot of men currently. We've still got Dan Conner on the Conners and he has changed over the years. I've probably seen two episodes total. I think I watched maybe one episode when they rebooted it as the new Roseanne show, and then not long ago, just almost by accident, I kind of watched a bit of an episode of The Conners and it was fine.

I liked him as a dad in the original series, but I also thought he was a classic blue collar, right? Do we know what he even did? I don't even remember. But he was a working man's dad. You work at some kind of factory plant, whatever. But he was. He was a solid Midwest. Yeah, working dad. It was.

He would make sure they stayed afloat no matter what. It meant that he had to do another job or had to do something else. They were going to stay afloat. And I like that he did in Indulged Roseanne in her kind of pipe dreams. Mm hmm. Which was interesting. But I think things are a little a little back to normal with the new series.

I don't know. But how about Full House Danny Tanner? Yeah, he was a little too upbeat for me. I don't know that the show was fun to watch as a kid. My daughters watch that show on stream. You know, we we turned on Fuller House for about 30 seconds and then flipped it off. And I, I at the time when it came out, we thought it was a little too grown up for my kids.

Yeah. So they could probably watch it now. They watch they watched the original series Front to back and loved it when it aired originally. I enjoyed it. I watch it now and the shows are to me are very tough to watch because I think it's just it's not realistic. Like you can afford this house. It's probably $8 million and San Francisco, your buddies are living with you.

What's that all about? It's just it was a strange, you know, in retrospect, a very strange show to me. A lot of memories with those characters. But yeah, well, that's. Oh, and then more recently, Blackish Dre. Interesting. But I found that he yelled a lot and I did not watch that show. So yeah, I thought he yelled too much for his own good and was always kind of flustered and I didn't really care for that.

I like Anthony, though. I think he's a great actor, but I don't know that he necessarily he was more in the line of George Jefferson. I want to be honest about all that. And yeah, and so right now, I don't know that there is a dad like Jack Pearson where you would go, okay, that's our big TV dad right now.

What about All in the Family? There's a classic TV dad for you. Yeah. And I don't know that he was really that fatherly knew. He didn't think Meat Head was good enough for his daughter. Right? I mean, he's protecting his daughter, but I don't know that he ever did anything. You know, particularly I don't know Dad, like, know about when he was in Archie's place.

But I Yeah, I just I don't think he's considered a dad at all. No, I think that's more of the show is, you know, the Archie Bunker character very ground breaking for the time, you know, to tackle issues with race and in all of that during the seventies. But beyond that, it does a great job of capturing I mean, I don't think those episodes could ever run today because there were too much political discourse about the points that they take.

But it is fascinating when you look at them in retrospect and you think, my God, these were things that were being thrown out on the television airwaves when we were just, I guess, naive. Yeah, a lot has changed since then that is. I don't know which you could do it. Is that the last? Yeah, I think that's about it on my list.

You covered a lot of ground there. I had a few in mind Again, Darth Vader. Not the best, Dad. He did try to reconcile with his son at the end. Okay, but now think about this. Were we just duped into thinking he's bad because of the perspective we got? Or was he just. Yeah, you sound very Obi-Wan Kenobi there.

It's just from a different point of view, right? I mean, from his perspective, he was probably a great dad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Know, he slaughtered all the younglings. That's all we know. He went into the Jedi temple. And what you won't do for your kids, right? I know, Right, Exactly. We're going to go refill that bucket, though. That's right in the middle of the mantle.

When you think, oh, I can't watch this anymore, you go back and get an extra fill. I am looking forward to my popcorn. Any anything on the horizon, Bruce, before we sign off, you know, I really do want to dig into the flash, so if you get a chance, zip over to flash and see that because that has been such a troubled film all during its duration.

And now let's see if the hype actually if that was part of the hype or if indeed this was that film that had to be released because it is so great. So if you get a chance, please see that. And we'll talk the Flash next week, because I really want to know where you said I'm going to try to get there because my family is heading out of town, but I'm sticking around.

So maybe I will. I will have a date date evening with me, myself and I. And there you go and bring that bucket And I absolutely bring in the bucket. All right, Bruce, thanks again for another episode. Well, Terry, Happy Father's Day, too. And have lots of fun. And to all the fathers and listeners out there or the fathers that want to be fathers or whatever it might be, happy Father's Day.

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It's another week of the summer movie season, meaning another big movie is on the way. This time it's "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" that will be trying to knock "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" out of the top spot.

"Spider-Man," along with "The Little Mermaid," "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," "Fast X" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" have collectively grossed more than $1.3 billion which begs the question: Are movie theaters finally back to pre-pandemic levels?

Co-hosts Terry Lipshetz and Bruce Miller discuss the topic before moving into things to watch, including the low-budget film "To Leslie" that raised eyebrows when Andrea Riseborough was nominated for an Oscar. That film is now on Netflix. "The Full Monty," a series that reunites the case of the film 25 years later, comes to streaming on June 14.

Also coming on June 14 is the second season of "The Wonder Years," a reboot of the original series that aired 114 episodes between 1988 and 1993. While Fred Savage, the star of the original series who was a producer on the new program, is not back for season two, hear interviews Bruce has with all four of the main stars.

We first hear from Elisha "EJ" Williams, who plays the son Dean Williams along with Dulé Hill, who plays his father, Bill. We then hear from Saycon Sengbloh, who plays Dean's mother Lillian, and Laura Kariuki, who plays Dean's sister Kim.

And, in a plot twist only available on Streamed & Screened, Terry shares that he went to high school with Dulé Hill, who was a child star who got his big break on Broadway in "The Tap Dance Kid." Both graduated from Sayreville War Memorial High School, and photographic evidence is available in the 1993 yearbook, although Hill goes by Karim Hill in the listing.

Where to watch

"The Wonder Years" on ABC
"To Leslie" on Netflix
"The Full Monty" on FX and Hulu

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. We are not even into the dog days of summer yet, Bruce, but it's heating up, and I am.

I'll tell you, I went to see Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse over the weekend, and I had a tough time getting a seat. Now, that's surprising because normally in summertime you can barely you can get it. You don't have to worry about getting a seat. And normally that buying your tickets in advance thing was, I thought a dog. I didn't think it worked at all.

I didn't think I needed to do all that. And this week I went to the theater and they said, Well, we just have a couple of seats left. And I thought, really, there's like 40 performances of this thing, and I'm going to have to sit, like, near this screen and I did. It was like the second row. And I thought, Oh my God, this is what those immersive art exhibits must be like, you know, like where you go to then go and you're surrounded by it.

That's what it seemed like for me. But I think I think the numbers are there now to prove that people are going back to the theaters. Yeah, I want to ask you about that because I was looking this weekend. The big one is going to be Transformers Rise of the Beat. So DEADLINE is reporting that the expectation sounds is that worldwide it should do at least 155 million and domestically it could be in the 70 million.

Now, it might not knock off Spider-Man, but it's going to be, you know, top two, top three. Absolutely. This week, which is kind of interesting. I was looking at the box office. Now this is just the U.S. domestic box office through the weekend of June two through four. And last week, Spider-Man did 120 million in the U.S. Little Mermaid through two weeks, 187 million Guardians of the Galaxy through five weeks, 323 million Best Acts or Fast ten 128 million through three weeks.

And even Super Mario, which is it feels long in the tooth at this point, but it's been out nine weeks and it just keeps on cranking and money 566 million. So those five movies alone over $1.3 billion U.S. are movie theaters back. I think so. I really do. And Mario Brothers is going to DVD right away. I think next week is DVD week for that.

So you look at that and you say people must really want to get out of the house. I think they're eager to see something in a different environment. And we'll see with Transformers, because it doesn't really have names with it anymore. These are people who are, you know, also in the cast. And if it does really well, then that says, A, they want to get out and be the franchise is stronger than the participants in the franchise.

So what happens with that? I you know that I don't like those films. I don't like the Transformer films. I think they're stupid and I think the toys were stupid back when they came out, too. But this does have an audience and we'll see. It could you know, it might be the film world's equivalent of a monster truck show.

I don't like that movie either, but it's people go see it. I mean, it's kind of like the Fast and Furious franchise, which I enjoy, but a lot of people hate it. But it's just one where, you know, I think you're either into it or you're not, and it just has an audience and people keep going back into it.

Now, we talked a while back. You had it brought up the idea that maybe movie theaters, it's going to be a little bit more of an event that people aren't necessarily going to go for the smaller films. Are you still thinking that is? I do, because I think that there is no place for them. And even if they do get in the theaters, they're going to get one theater in a Cineplex.

They're not going to get ten screens. It's unreal. Now, when you go to the movies and you may see four movies listed, and that's because they've sucked up all the screens. So I think I think you've got to have a reason. And if you're if you bought into a franchise like Transformers, you're going to say, Oh, yeah, yeah, you're kind of getting a guarantee.

We're going to get something that we know is going to entertain us. We know it's going to be special or big, and we know that we're going to come out of there saying we didn't waste our money. Whereas if you're taking a risk on something you haven't seen, good luck. It's it my equivalent to this is like going to Broadway.

You will go to Wicked because you know, it's big. You know, it's something that people like, you know, that people will tell you. Yeah, there's a lot there for you to see. So it's kind of a guarantee, but you're probably not going to take a risk on an unknown quantity until it becomes something like that. So I think that's what we're seeing with the with the movie business is they're looking for guarantees and they will go back to those old wells and see what they can, what they can dredge up.

And now, if the writers strike keeps going on, you know, maybe they will start remaking old films with old scripts. I think the numbers also bear out your theory, too, because, you know, Spider-Man 120 million. So that's that's a really solid opening. But Little Mermaid in only its second week, had already kind of crashed to 41 million. And number three in the theater last week was the Boogeyman, which opened last week to only 12.4 million guardians, was down to 10.7 million.

Fast X was at 9.6 and even Super Mario at fifth place, $3.4 million. That's hardly anything, right? When you go to the movies, how much does it cost if you take the family? I mean, tickets alone, you're looking if we can go to a matinee, we might get lucky and it'll only be maybe $30, but it's really pushing 40.

And then on top of that, once you add in popcorn or anything, you're looking at 60, 70 bucks. So it's not cheap. You see where it has to be a commitment that, you know, is going to bring results or you get grandma to take the kids. You know, I mean, there's there's some kind of a trade off there, but you're not going to take a risk on something that you're not sure that people are talking about or they, you know, is going to be something you'll like.

Right. Or if you have a loyalty card. So that's part of I think the advantage for me with the family is, you know, okay, we'll go. But those 60 bucks I might spend will equate to 20,000 points, which will get me a $5 reward certificate a little bit quicker. Do you ever bring in candy? No, Bruce, I would never I would never bring in because that would be dishonest.

And we are supposed to. Of course, I bring in Candy. What do you. Well, you know, I would I would really be worried if I was hauling kids with and, you know, our kids can get restless when the movies get a little dull and you think, oh, I got to get them something to eat. But it's a porch, and you pay what, upwards of ten, $10 and up for popcorn.

And that's a lot just to try and say, I'm quieting you down with this. So I would always have M&Ms in a pocket. You know, all that out. And here you go, kid. We're shutting up now. We invested the last time I was at the theater for $20 is a little cheaper because I was a loyalty member of AMC because it's normally about 25, but $20 for the annual bucket of popcorn.

And so you get 20 bucks, you get the one fill of popcorn, and then you can get it refilled once for free, and then you can bring that bucket back the next time you come. And then you just pay for it once. So you pay your $8 or $10, whatever popcorn costs, and then you can bring it back up for another free refill.

So it gets substantially cheaper every time you go, you know, to bring that bucket. So I think we're kind of like, All right, kids, we're going to just get popcorn. If you want to get a slushie or something, that's fine. We'll get a drink. But we're bringing the bucket back with us and we're going to save a few bucks.

That way is the bucket tab like Jurassic Park Outfitters? How big is it? Real old. No, it's it is designed it says the year 2023 on it. So that way, you know, when I go on January 1st then I'm stuck having to buy the new bucket. But yeah it's it is it has some design of something. Oh this is a good one.

We can use it. It's refillable. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's just strange because whatever the lights start going down after the previews have been on in the theater, you can hear. Yeah. Where they're opening up cans of pop that they've gotten because they spend the money on on the drink and I will buy the drink. I you know what I finally get?

I get a junior combo at my theater, which is basically a kid's pack. Oh, because it's enough popcorn and it's enough drink. And then I think they also throw in some gummy bears or something like that. Well, it's nice, and it's actually cheaper than buying one of anything. If I bought a one small drink, this is still cheaper than that.

It's enough to keep me occupied, but it's not so much. And I. I fully admit I'm hauling in a kids thing. Okay, so don't make fun of me. But that's. That's how I roll. Yeah. I've been known to go through colors and just get myself a kids meal because you get a free ice cream coupon with it, too.

When I was able to eat McDonald's, I always got the Happy Meal because I wanted the toy. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, I had one other question, though. Or at least an observation. And this was a Super Mario Brothers, because we talked also about that dual release, right, where you release a movie straight to theaters. But then you also simultaneously go to two streaming.

And I think we agreed a few weeks ago that that that's not a feasible option, especially with some of these bigger movies, at least because it's going to drain the theater gate. But I did find it interesting was Super Mario, you can already stream it. We went with our with our family. We headed down over Memorial Day weekend to visit friends in Illinois.

And my daughters are the same age as our friends daughter. And, you know, we're out playing cards and having a good time. And, you know, the kids are watching TV and all of a sudden I start hearing the songs from Mario Brothers, the movie. And I look in and they're renting it because I saw it with my daughter, one of my daughters, but my other one didn't see it and their friend hadn't seen it either.

So they're having a good time watching Super Mario. And this is, you know, three weeks ago or so where the movie is still going strong in the theaters, but it's already available for streaming. So is that do you think that's the compromise, is that, you know, it's going to come to streaming sooner than before, but not necessarily day of?

I think they're going to try and extend as much time as they can before they cut off their their own notes, because I think they want to get that money that you can get in theaters, even though they you know, do we care? Not really. But it does say it's a yet. But you know, what you don't know is your kids are probably in the liquor in the other room.

They're there. They're opening up all the alcohol that they've got in the other room and they're enjoying Mario at home. So it's it's even better. But no, I don't truthfully, as much as they tried to say that these things are going to kill all that, I don't think so. I think what you're going to see is smaller films are going to be taken over by streaming services and it's blockbusters that are going to be in theaters.

That's how it's going to squirreled out. And, you know, this week, Netflix just started showing to Leslie and to Leslie was this if you remember back at Oscar time, Andrea Riseborough was nominated for best actress. And they all said, well, where did this movie come from? And it made like $27,000 in the theaters, but it had this kind of email chain on her friend chain from among a lot of actors who said, nominate her, nominate her.

And it brought up a whole controversy with the Academy about how you can campaign. But the movie is on Netflix now and you must see it. It is really good. And she is incredible. And I think that's one of those ones that maybe we missed because we're so busy looking for the big get that you don't see the little films that should be seen.

And it's a marvel of and she is really, really good. What was the premise of that film again? You said, Well, she won a lottery. She won like a Powerball, whatever it might have banned. And it was like 190, $180 million or $800,000. So it's enough that it would make your life a little different, but it doesn't change your life.

It was 180 million, which I hope to win tonight on the Powerball. It would change your life. But with this, it's just enough. And I say to her, what we what do you plan to do? And oh, I'm going to open up a restaurant and my son wants a guitar and we're going to do all this. Well, then flash forward and you see that she blew through all the money and she's alcoholic and she really doesn't have anywhere to go.

Her son is now, I think he's 20 when she sees him again and she just tries to crash in his house and she makes all these false promises about, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to get a job and I'm going to be clean and I'm not going to do it. And you just see how she keeps trying to hoodwink people into thinking that she's changing.

And then there is something that happens that that maybe changes there. But a fascinating, fascinating character study and she does a beautiful job. So I don't think it was one of those wasted campaigns for best actress. But it's nice to see that we finally get to see this film because back when the nominees were out, I looked everywhere for that movie and I couldn't find it on any streaming service.

So it must have been just distributed to Academy members so they could vote on it. I'll have to add that to my to watch list, because now that the the family has done with school for the year, it's it's time to ramp up to streaming. My wife can stay up later than 830 at night now so put this one down and another thing to do all those event films, look how long they're going.

Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse was 2 hours in like 20 minutes. And a lot of these little films that are on streaming services, 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours maybe. And I think that's another consideration. You know, when you're going out, you're making it an event. So. All right, I'll sit for two and a half hours, unless you're to Avatar, and then you've got to go to the bathroom three times.

Anything else coming out now on to streaming or TV because we have the writers strike on. There are some problems in getting new product for next fall. So you know, that next fall is going to be a lot of reality and a lot of game shows. But there are series that were scheduled that are starting to come out.

I think I did. I mentioned to you last week that I watched all of the Righteous Gemstones and that's coming on HBO, but also coming is Full Monty. And this is a look at the characters from The Full Monty after that film and what happened. It's not old men who are going to strip. It's not that at all.

It's like, how were their lives affected by that moment? And it's very, very interesting. A little maybe a little darker than you think and how they affect their family and their and their show. So that's a new one that I would look for. And then coming this next week on broadcast television, the Wonder Years, and this is the rebooted Wonder Years where it's about a black family.

But it also no longer has Fred Savage as a producer. Fred Savage was the star of the First Wonder Years, and then he was a producer of this Wonder Years. And then there was some kind of some discussion about maybe he was overstepping his place as a producer, but they just decided it would be better for the show not to have him as a producer anymore.

So he's not. And I do think there is a shift. I do think there's a change in the tone of the series. It's still set in the late sixties, but there is just another another quality to it that isn't so wonder years like the first one. It still has the narrator, It still has the kids at a certain age, kind of reflecting about what that time was.

But you're getting a different perspective. And what I love about this is because it is a black family, you're seeing the civil rights movement from a different perspective. And and they're still a lot of fun in it. You know, Patti LaBelle comes on as a the mother of Dulé Hill and she's the choir director at their church. And she runs that choir like a drill sergeant.

She has every know you're doing a role, you're not weird. And they you think that they just given a performance of a lifetime and she's we really had a lot of problems today. So she becomes this kind of force that the choir is not all that thrilled with. And yeah. And her the mother in the wonder years, who is her daughter in law, and she becomes the soloist and how that affects all the rest of them.

Very fascinating. But it's a different perspective because I, you know, not having grown up in the black church system and what that that kind of power was for the choir director, I think that's really fun to see. And it's an interesting look at everything. And then when you couple that with she's the mother of the dad in the Wonder Years, that adds a little more to it is Patti LaBelle.

Now she just making a guest appearance or is she going to be a regular? She's in a couple of episodes. I think you would class fires recurring, but she hasn't in every week. She's in this one. It comes early in the run and you'll see her, you know, doing the choir. And then there's another episode where they come back.

But there's there's resolution to all of this. And it's fun to see her kind of mom, you know, as much as Dad thinks he's in charge, Mom is the one who rules the roost. So you have a couple of interviews with stars this week. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. I talked with Dulé Hill and E.J. Williams, who play the dad and then the young boy in one interview and then I talked with Saycon or Saycon you decide how to say it?

But I remember her essay song because it's a French name. And when she was she was actually at the Donna Reed Film Festival in 1996, I want to say. And she won it. And that was here in Iowa. And I've followed her career over the years, but she plays the mother. And then there's also the young woman who plays her daughter in the other interview.

So we have two interviews, but you have a connection to do a HBO now, Do you remember it was on West Wing, and I know him as this dramatic actor. And the thing I was really shocked when I started reading things about his past is that he was in the Tap Dance kid on Broadway. And I went back and looked in all my files, and I found the playbill that he was in the tap dance.

And I saw him as a kid who that. And he is from Sayreville, New Jersey. So you obviously do these interviews in advance and you send them to me. And then, of course, I listen to them before we have these conversations so we can have a coherent, intelligent conversation. So I'm listening to it and and you're talking to him about, you know, like your own personal wonder years, right?

And growing up and and that type of thing. And Dulé starts talking about, well, you know, when I was growing up in Sayreville, New Jersey, and then I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what did you just say? Did he just say Sayreville? So I had to stop it, backed it up, listen again. And sure enough, so I started looking and I was going back through all the information.

But he was when he was growing up, his first name is actually Karim, so it's Karim Dulé Hill. And I believe he went by Karim in school and he's a year older than me. He graduated class in 1993 from Sayreville High School. I graduated from class 94. Our public library keeps your books on file. So I went back and just like, checked.

And there sure enough, there's Karim Hill, looks just like Dulé Hill. And it's just, you know, a little bit of a baby face because he's he's so much younger, 30 years younger. But it looks like if you looked at him, you would know, Oh, yeah, that that is Dulé Hill. And then I did like vaguely remember, like I remember that face, you know, So I don't know because we were a year apart.

I don't know if we really had very many classes together. We probably interacted at some point, you know, and the way with high school classes where you might have a little bit of the blending of the classes, where you might have something where freshmen and sophomores are kind of in it or juniors and seniors. So we probably crossed paths.

But I do remember at that time, while a few years earlier, the big talk of the town was like, Hey, there's this kid who's part of the tap dance kid, and he was on TV and and I was talking even with because I went back and looked at his credits. He played the character Larry Seifert on Ballers, which was one of my favorite shows on HBO with Dwayne Johnson.

I'm like, Oh, yeah, I know exactly who he is. He was in the movie Holes with Sigourney Weaver and Jon Voight. My daughters watch that in the last year, and I were having dinner last night and I'm like, Hey, girls, you remember that movie whole? Yeah, yeah, we remember. You remember the character Sam, The Onion Man from Holes?

And they're like, Yeah, well, I went to high school with him. What? So it's you. You went to school with everybody because there's the Jon Bon Jovi is from Sayreville, New Jersey. So there's been times where I've I've met him one time. His youngest brother is about two years older than me. And I remember seeing his his youngest brother was a little bit of a rock star in middle school.

And there was one time there was like a little crowd around him. And it was it was a couple of years after Slippery When Wet Went wild. So. So he you know, I remember those moments, but I didn't really know him at all. Dave Sabo from the guitarist from the hair metal band Skid Row is from Sayreville. So there's been these these small, you know, pockets of celebs.

We've had a few athletes that have made it big. I played Little League baseball with the son of Tom Kelly, the former manager of the Minnesota Twins. So, yeah, it's these little crazy connections. But yeah, it took me until this week's to realize that that Dulé Hill was in, you know, a year ahead of me at my high school.

And it just I completely missed that, you know, my encounter. I mean, certainly I interviewed him during the years of West Wing, but I never, ever thought that he had a musical background, a musical theater background. And then I saw him on Broadway in a show called After Midnight, and he was dancing Up a storm. And I thought, where was this talent?

Where did this come from? Well, then you look back in his credits and he was a child phenom back in the day doing all these things. He was also in bring in Denise, bring in the funk, which, by the way, is coming back to Broadway. So, you know, who knows how they can have these different identities wherever they might land.

But if do we want to run the the interview with Dulé and A.J.? Yeah, sounds good. So we'll listen now to E.J. Williams and Dulé Hill. I must ask you two, why has it taken us so long to get this second season? I have been waiting and waiting and waiting and where? Wherever you bet. And, well, it's an experiment called absence Makes the heart grow fonder.

If you let people wait long enough, then they really will hopefully be just ready for right at the right time. And that's where we are right now this summer. I think the anticipated help, too. I mean, what is being on you could still binge the first season. And now that we have, you know, a day we're coming back, it all makes sense.

So that's definitely one to, you know, the thing that struck me funny about all this is that both of you really haven't had the Wonder Years kind of childhoods having been involved in the entertainment business. I'm assuming that you didn't get that kind of, if you will, nuclear thing because you were busy working. Well, I mean, everybody's wonder years are different in my opinion.

You know, everybody's childhood, not everybody lives the same way. You know, you have some kids who aren't even in the entertainment business and are still homeschooled. So one person's normalcy is in another person's normalcy. So I think for me, because, you know, I'm the only kid here I did, the wonder years are still happening. They're just happening differently.

And, you know, you experience things just at a different level, you know? So I'm still experiencing school, except my school's in a trailer. It's not in a classroom with, you know, 30, 60 kids. I'm still going to graduate middle school. I'm still going to graduate high school. I graduated elementary. I still went to kindergarten. You know, So the the years are the years are still going.

Time is still moving. And you just got to appreciate it while it's here, man. You know, I like to say that kids on television grow up faster than kids. You are in the entertainment space, which I know it's not true, but it seems like that, you know, a lot of times, you know, four seasons, you people coming back say, man, you look older.

And, you know, to me I'm like, do I like it? It's because, you know, when people see you on television so much, they're looking at it. And then when you So the Wonder Years are definitely still happening. It just looks different from what we do here is like, you were on Broadway, for God's sakes. I was an outgoing.

I'll say, I don't know what you just talking about. I mean, I'm only 15 years old, so there's two kids and I don't know what he's talking about. I'm aware you got that from, first of all. But nobody but I will say I started I was doing the stage in New York, but I did have that nuclear family.

I it was always there in the midst of when that was the Broadway experience on a stage experience was added on to it. I came along that was added on to what was already there. But I have so many memories of growing up in my hometown in several New Jersey, with my cousins, with my friends, riding the bike in the park, getting into trouble.

You know, all these stories that we had in the Wonder years. I can relate to all of that. My parents telling me to stay out of growing folk's business and all that kind of stuff and E.J. is right way is different. Because once I started doing theater growing up, that was an added thing. But the core of it is the same.

The root of it is the saying, which is about family. It's about them. When they tell you that your mother is Patti LaBelle, how does that land move? Oh, my God. Well, it's like a piece of delicious pie, sweetie, But it is. Well, you know, you can't ask for a better mother than Patti LaBelle to be able to share the screen with an icon.

A legend such as Miss Patti is something that I don't think any of us take lightly. She brought such magnificent energy to the role and to this set. Just being the light that she is. And I think the audiences are really going to enjoy what she brings to the Williams family because, you know, the matriarch is always the matriarch, and she really had to apologize to anybody.

So when she comes, she's got to really have her way. She captures the rules aspect of the game. It's very much you listen to her or else you're in trouble. I think that's great. I love when you guys get to go to New York. I wanted that to last longer. Is there a chance that you would go back or do more episodes where you go to New York again?

I mean, you never know. The thing about scripted television is, you know, writers have endless imagine, imagine. And so you never know where story could land. We've been talking about New York since the first since the first season. You know, with Bill getting his job, finding out it's in New York, even with Lillian's opportunity of her going further away in Alabama, being away from home, you know, so the possibilities are endless.

You never know what a pencil or a pen can do for a person. So, I mean, going back to New York wouldn't be a bad idea. You never know how this story would play out. But in terms of the episodes, I mean, it was great. You see that experience and you see people in the different different worlds. So, you know, you have Dean outside of school, outside of state.

He's in a place he's never been before, you know, meeting new people, seeing different things he hasn't seen before. So, I mean, you never know. How was it for the two of you working together, you know, pretty intensely in that episode? Was it good to be able to bond a little bit more, or what was that like? Oh, definitely.

I mean, I learned a lot from Dulé. I mean, I started the show when I was 11, you know, I'm 14, even even facial hair tips. You know, I ask him, how does he ever feel hair? It's known his size because I feel like I'm it you know, I I've learned so much from him. So, I mean, you don't the bond only grows stronger.

I mean, I've gotten a lot of great advice from delayed delays. He's a great person. He's a he's a gentle soul. He's a genuine person. So, I mean, being with DeLay is great. And even even filming, I mean, the filming chemistry is just it's a laugh on set, man. So it's one big job even though do like you learned from him but that I was loving him.

Yeah. They persistent in achieving your goal. That's what I learned from Jay. He really had this goal of being a hilarious comedian, and he keeps on working at it. Even at first you don't succeed. Try and try again. And again and again and again. Okay. You see a little of yourself in him at all? Yeah, I can. I can definitely see that just because of the fact of being a young I started as a young actor or young artists in his journey and seeing where he is.

But a lot of things that I can relate to, I wouldn't even go so far as to say I see myself reflected because I think that takes away from the gift that is the uniqueness that is him. But I do admire the journey that he's on and the way that he's handling the success that he is having and navigating this crazy business called Show, because it is a hard industry to keep your feet on the ground.

And Jay and his and his family has done a phenomenal job in staying connected to the real world. And for that, in the midst of his brilliance, I applaud him for that. Well, where will Bill's career go? I mean, certainly this writing gig in New York is something that opens things up. And then he has the school where where will he land?

And that's something, you know, we'll have to see over time. I mean, you mentioned before about will he go back to New York? I think Sally Patterson probably have a better grasp as to whether we will ever get back to New York. But Bill is always trying to balance his passion versus his responsibilities. And I think you know what?

He's an artist, so I think he will continue to always keep trying to achieve this, this untouchable thing. It's always so close this this fame to stardom, the success in terms of music. And I think we'll see how that plays itself out. At the same time, he is also very thrilled to be able to still do what he loves to do.

If he can't do it in this way, he's going to do it another way. And that's where I think the teaching comes in, can always affect young minds and to Echo would relate to that is a where he said it's always that one step. I think he's definitely right even trying to find the laughter and all the seriousness, you know, and the best example I have is when he's in New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

We all know where that song is now. But just think that one line that he said was stupid could have made the Williams family rich. So yeah, you know, so I think you're right. You're always reaching for a goal and trying is the best thing. Well, now your costar got a singing episode. Do you get a dancing episode?

Will there be something like that at some point? You know, You know, we've talked about it. I think if the show is blessed to be able to afforded the opportunity to have many seasons, I would not be surprised 1 to 1 thing about the way the show's cracked it is that Dean has a whole imagine it. It is.

His imagination is vast. So if Bill was going to show up dancing anyway, I think it would be in the midst of one of Deen's flights of Fancy and hopefully we said if we're afforded enough seasons that I think you might see Bill do a soft. She were too. You know that was the biggest surprise I had about you do was that I did not know that you were a singer dancer Broadway person because I had watched all these TV shows.

And then I remembered I had seen you in tap dance get I even looked up the the wow. You know, And I thought, oh, my God, here's what happened to that kid. And I'm wondering if with E.J., you say, where will his career go? I mean, the like I always say, possibilities are always endless. I'm never trying to say no in one box to be in the industry.

They call it typecast it. But, you know, in real life, you know, you never want to stick to one thing unless that one thing you're doing is absolute, which you love. I love the entertainment in Charlotte. Put a smile on people's faces. You know, people, even as my jokes as Dulé was saying, people may not like my jokes, especially him, but it puts smiles on people's faces and that's all that really matters to me.

So whether that be outside of the entertainment industry or like I am right now inside, the entertainment industry put smiles on people's faces, is my passion. It's what I love to do. So and you know, career, you can do that in any career. So I mean, you never know I think I will say be I think the sky is the limit for E.J. because I said before he's very talented as an actor, but he's also very brilliant in his mind.

And he I'm going to say it now, but he's also very gifted with even with the basketball. So I think wherever he wants to go, he's at a point in life where he has multiple roles that he can it he can take. And it will be very interesting to see what happens 15, 20 years. And then my amazing comedic jokes, I mean, he's in the things that I say that he's very gifted at.

I mean, I don't know about, you know, some things you just you just don't have something. She does not call for you saying I'm saying the damn thing. She just being better left undone, right. All right. Thanks, Bruce, for that interview. And now we have one with Saycon Sengbloh and Laura Kariuki. Yeah, they played the mother and daughter on the Wonder Years and say, Con or as I call them, pronounce it say say song, because I that's how I remember that she pronounced it back when she was in Iowa.

So maybe things have changed. She talks about working with Patti LaBelle. Come on, Patti LaBelle is your mother in law. That has to be something. And and then her path, too, was a lot different than then. Laura's in terms of getting a career going and what they're doing. She was big Broadway as well. She had she was in all the big shows.

She was in Aida, she was in Wicked. She was in hair. When they did the revival of Air. But then she got Tony nominations for a play and not a musical. So she really in the two years she was on the TV series Scandal and a couple of others, she hasn't been singing. This is kind of her big shot at putting her singing on TV.

And when you see that choir episode, you'll go, Oh my God, what a voice. She needs to be doing more singing. Her last film role was in respect. She played Aretha Franklin's sister and they were together singing, but it wasn't like an Aretha solo. So yeah, it's fun to hear what they have to say. You'll enjoy their whole.

How long had they been talking to you about doing a music episode? Well, did a little music in the first season as well, because, you know, Dooley's character plays a music teacher and he right leader. And then of course, I'm a singer and, you know, I moonlight in between my accounting, Lillian's singing, but you know that Miss Patti LaBelle was coming.

It was like Patti's coming to town. Like, I mean, I was lot more excited than even a kid waiting for Santa Claus. It was it was the best thing ever to get to sing with Patti LaBelle. Did you ask her any advice? You know, I actually did. I can't share all of that. I asked Patti some personal advice.

You know, you know, she is the ultimate glamor diva, a singing domestic goddess, of course. Right. So she brings so much history and allure with her career that, you know, of course, I had to I had to pick her ear a little bit. We did a Broadway show together years ago called Fela, So and I didn't get to talk with her as much.

I think I was more shy. So it was really nice to to be all grown up and get to experience. Mr. LaBelle Well, and may I just tell you, it's one of my favorite episodes because I really think it brings your character out. I think she she really comes into her own. Did you start in a in a church choir?

Was that how you started singing? Incidentally, I started in the choir in middle school. I was singing in middle school choirs. I sang a little bit in church. Vivian much loved her. She she does all the church singing in my family and she pulls me in from time to time. But I started off singing in, you know, the chorus, the middle school and the show choir, jazz hands all.

Well, it was meant to be, right? Yes. And we have to. Laura is kind of shy about her singing, but Ann is a beautiful singer as well. We got to get her to sing. And I think there's an opening in the choir, right? Yeah. Oh, Lord. You do have if you get fun with and Jackie, which I think is just the coolest, because we all need an Aunt Jackie in our lives somewhere, Right?

Well, how is it being rebellious? Is that a fun part of this character? It's one of the best parts of this character. I feel like Laura myself, I've I've always been a pretty by the books girl and not really rebellious. So getting to play a character who sticks up for herself, like to her parents kind of does what she wants to do, still being respectful.

But, you know, she's got she's a rebellious little girl. So Kim is very, very fun to play. And the fan favorite word is shenanigans. Shenanigans up to some generic. Right. But her her clothes, she gets to have the coolest clothes, the coolest wardrobe. I, I want to take everything home. I would wear most of that stuff now. Kim has such cool and it's even in the jewelry and the skirts and the boots and oh, I love her fashion.

But Suzanne, you don't get those kind of clothes. You get it looks like polyester. You get a lot of polyester to wear. You know what? You know what I get? I get those waist control girdles. You know, I love it. I you know, I'm a fan of Dita Von Teese and she's all, you know, the whole burlesque glamor, the bodysuits and all that.

So. So I love I love all that waist control as one of my favorite things. I love the vintage vibes of it all. So we have fun. But yet every day Laura comes on set and just shut the down. Every time she comes in and we're like, because she's she's given like a supermodel vibe. She wants right legs.

You can't deny it. You cannot deny Laura and her boots and her starts. She's undeniable. How did you two bond on this show? And with with the guys, too. But how did you become that kind of mother daughter relationship? Because it seems stronger this year. You know, I think we're closer. We're probably closer to each other then. Then we hang out with each other.

We have a little molly-mae. Laura would be like, You want to get dinner? So say me a little text message. So I think we've just had a nice opportunity to spend time or the pandemic is not pandemic ing as much. So we were able to be together more, I think just life and being actresses. And, you know, we sneak off to the corner and have a little talk, you know, wouldn't say yes or so I feel like all of us season one already, like bonded super well together and then season two just expanded even more.

There's Laura asked you advice or not. Yes icon like she's been in the industry so I'm very very fresh so I will always ask for advice, whatever I need. And she's helped me a lot with a lot of any of the press from her. You know, she this is like her second gig. It's like she got two major TV shows coming right out of school.

So, like, I'm telling her, just take the bull by the horns and work girl as this time period ring true it all for you. I mean, you see things that you guys can relate to because it is against your it isn't really your time period. Oh, 100%. And I think that's what makes our show really, really beautiful is, yes, it's taking place in the 1960s, but a lot of people are still having boy issues.

People are still having arguments with their parents. People are still dealing with the world. Then, as we are now, things are very, very still very, very relevant. No matter the time period. Yeah, a lot of serious topics. Even Roe v Wade, which was happening in that era originally, and now it's become a topic again. The the the life issues.

Life doesn't stop life. And, you know, from from the sixties decade to the 2020s decade it's it's it's a powerful thing to to be a human being in this world having lived through that era, I, I could relate to a lot of things that you guys are doing. But it surprised me how totally different it is from the first wonder years.

I mean, it is a total different show, but it's things that I related to because I had black friends during that time and I remember them pulling back, if you will, when they're with around people who were not black. And they would just there would be a different attitude. And I see that in this show as well, where there's just you know, it's a little I'm not going to confront you about this and I'll just pull back.

Do you see that as well? I it's just that's interesting. You spoke about pulling back. You know, the civil rights movement was very strong in the late sixties, in the early to mid to late, you know, I mean. Right. So much happening in this country. And we did also have a resurgence of people fighting for their rights, for equal and fair treatment in life and not being unfairly targeted.

I don't know about pulling back. I guess it depends on who you're around and and what's going on. But definitely a lot of things that that happened in that era are still in a place of change is still happening. But also love is still happening. Choose and picket in a college is still happening. All the things that that that happened on the original Wonder Years in terms of family dynamic, that real family dynamic is here our show as well.

And you know, I look at it like like Star Trek, there's just different universes. You know, there's different different worlds and different people, you know, But I could I could see so many different ways that the Wonder Years could appear with different types of families. Right. I'm so glad you're back. I really missed you. And I. Let's get singing.

Come on. That's that's the bottom line here. The choir is in session. Oh, yeah. We had a lot fun in the church. Just even in between scenes, some of the costars and the guest stars. There was one lady who she was in the choir and she was just like the the the characters who were in some of those scenes and watching them interact with Miss LaBelle was just, Oh, it was awesome.

All right, Bruce, thank you again for those interviews. So it looks like I've got to actually reach out to Dulé Hill, get caught up, you know, since we were such good friends in high school. And just see. Come on. Exactly. Exactly. So just about your shared wonder years. Right. Exactly. Growing up in Sayreville, New Jersey, these are our wonder years.

Oh, yeah. Maybe I'll say, Weren't you that kid? I hate it. I think you hit it in school, you know, And then you go, Oh, no, no, that wasn't me. That was my brother. That was my brother. Right. But, you know, next week we've got Father's Day coming up and maybe we need to talk about fathers next week.

Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, well, if you've got an idea about Father's Day, maybe it's our week. Maybe. All right, Bruce, thanks again. And thank you all for listening to streamed and screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

After talking about the summer's big blockbuster movies during two of our past three episodes, we return to the small screen for a bittersweet conversation about fan-favorite streaming programs.

HBO's "Succession" and "Barry" both concluded their runs after four seasons for each program. "Ted Lasso" on Apple TV+ came to an end after three seasons. And Amazon Prime Video's "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" closed after its fifth season.

While we don't reveal any major plot points about the final episodes from each series, there are some light spoilers about each season to help keep the conversation moving along.

Next week we talk about the second season of ABC's "The Wonder Years," the 2021 series inspired by the 1988 show of the same name starring Fred Savage. We'll even have interviews with some of the stars of the show.

Where to watch

"Succession" on HBO/Max
"Ted Lasso" on Apple TV+
"The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" on Amazon Prime Video
"Barry" on HBO/Max

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;15

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode. Before the introduction, I did want to mention that we are talking about the series finales for Ted Lasso, Succession, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Barry. We do not give away any major plot developments about the final episodes of the shows, but do share some less consequential spoilers to help move the conversation along.

00;00;25;17 - 00;00;47;02

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter who is back from the big city scarfing down dirty water dogs on the sidewalk.

00;00;47;02 - 00;01;06;12

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Right. You can't beat a city that serves orders all day long, right? That's New York. But, you know, I went on the subway. No, I did not get attacked by anybody. And I was reaching for the pull that you grab on to. And apparently the train started moving before I got to it. And just as I grabbed it, I did a pole dance.

00;01;06;16 - 00;01;12;20

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I was all the way around and on the floor by the end of it, and nobody applauded. Now, how bad is it?

00;01;12;23 - 00;01;16;16

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Oh, man, you did a show. You were on Broadway. A Broadway performance.

00;01;16;18 - 00;01;39;24

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Was way right. And then there were a lot of protesters because the Writers Guild strike is still going on. And you saw them out in front of it used to be MTV. Now it's a CBS branded building on in Times Square. And so they were marching there and you could vaguely recognize some of the people you think, well, isn't that somebody who is also a performer?

00;01;39;26 - 00;02;01;27

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

But it will have an impact because the Tony Awards, which are coming up next week, cannot have any scripted material. They can have off the cuff introductions, but they can't have, you know, little goofy skits or anything that will introduce them. So it might be a good award show. We might be able to enjoy just seeing who wins here, their speech.

00;02;01;27 - 00;02;25;18

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

They won't be, you know, running them off because nobody wrote that stuff. It's all from the heart. So that was interesting to see. And I'll tell you, New York was packed. It was stuffed with people. So it must be back. Now, people are interested in going and seeing and doing things. And one of the fun things we did get to do while we were there was Lin-Manuel Miranda does a thing every Friday called AM for Ham.

00;02;25;24 - 00;02;44;29

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And what he does is he combines his cast from Hamilton with shows that are on Broadway right now. And so it's been all the Tony nominees lately, and they come out and sing a song from their show and then they move on and they do another show and they know that's maybe 15 minutes and the thing packs the streets.

00;02;45;06 - 00;02;51;01

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It's wall to wall people just watching this. And you get to see all the stars of the show. So it's kind of fun.

00;02;51;04 - 00;02;52;13

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

It's a lot of fun.

00;02;52;15 - 00;03;00;17

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Yeah. You didn't pay $300 for a ticket or have to, you know, wrestle somebody down in the in the ticket line to try and get there.

00;03;00;20 - 00;03;12;20

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

It is good for these shows, too, especially people go to New York. It's so expensive, so expensive to go in New York these days. And they have something like that. It's a good way to give back to the community.

00;03;12;20 - 00;03;13;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And, yeah, allow.

00;03;13;26 - 00;03;16;26

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

People to experience something that maybe they can't afford.

00;03;16;28 - 00;03;35;06

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And, you know, interestingly, you mentioned about how expensive they're charging for bags. Now, come on. You go to a store and they say it's a nickel if you want a bag, what am I going to do all this crap out in my arms and look like I'm not stealing merchandise from their store? A nickel for a bag they can afford the nickel.

00;03;35;12 - 00;03;43;21

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

You've added in more than that on your on your fees. But yeah, that was a new one to me is that I got to pay a nickel to put this stuff in a bag.

00;03;43;24 - 00;03;46;20

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Did you grab breakfast from a bodega while you were there.

00;03;46;23 - 00;03;53;16

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Did not. Did. Now I was, but I was proud of myself because they only eat burgers once.

00;03;53;19 - 00;03;54;14

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Okay.

00;03;54;16 - 00;04;09;08

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

So that was pretty. That was pretty good. But all during this time, you know, the big thing that was blowing up was Little Mermaid. Little Mermaid was like, huge there. People were all rushing to see that. And I finally did see it and I was not impressed.

00;04;09;11 - 00;04;21;15

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

We talked about this a little bit on our last episode, and neither of us were really thrilled with the concept of remaking a classic Disney cartoon as a live action show.

00;04;21;16 - 00;04;48;27

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Well, they they've dumped things and added new songs or Lin-Manuel Miranda to write. And they're not that good. They're really not that the idea. The young woman, Halle Bailey, who plays Ariel is good. She's very good. And they've really expanded the part of Eric, the boyfriend. So he's got a whole storyline now, too, that I didn't really care about.

00;04;48;27 - 00;05;14;15

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I didn't need it. And then all of those creatures look very scary. Sebastian actually does look like a crab and flounder. He's out of water more than he's in water. And I'm thinking, How does he do this? This is this is really weird. But I was it's excess. It's a lot of stuff and way too much unnecessary stuff.

00;05;14;17 - 00;05;29;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And so, you know, I will do well. I suppose it will, because parents got to take their kids to something and that's available. But that was a surprise to me. I thought it was going to be a little better and it wasn't.

00;05;29;29 - 00;05;36;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

What is the deal with these actors who suddenly have children when they're in their late seventies and early?

00;05;36;28 - 00;05;39;09

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Pacino Pacino's got to keep up with DeNiro.

00;05;39;12 - 00;05;54;12

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I know I was going to see the DeNiro film, and then I thought, Oh, do I need this? This is, you know, Father's Day. We'll wait for Father's Day and I'll go see it then. And then the news breaks about Al Pacino, and you think, What is up with all this? Is this kind of a contest? And maybe it is.

00;05;54;15 - 00;06;02;02

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Where is Nick Cannon in all of this? You know, is Nick Cannon still going to be having kids when he's 79 and it will be up to child 43.

00;06;02;05 - 00;06;08;20

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

I just saw Harrison Ford with Calista Flockhart. They were at their son's college graduation yesterday.

00;06;08;22 - 00;06;11;09

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Well, see, then life is good.

00;06;11;11 - 00;06;12;05

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah.

00;06;12;08 - 00;06;27;19

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Life is good. But, yeah, there are these old guys that are doing a lot of work, which I think is just to be able to pay the bills and then having new families. These families will never see their dads after they've graduated from high school.

00;06;27;21 - 00;06;42;11

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah, it is kind of sad. Personal choices do whatever you want to do. But I always think about that where you know, when you're 60, 70, having a kid, the kids, you're not going to see this kid, maybe even graduate high school.

00;06;42;13 - 00;07;06;04

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I've had friends who had children, and I'm thinking I will not get to see this kid get married because it's enough years that, you know, I'm out of here. But it's it's bizarre. And so, you know, whatever they want to do, let them do it. It's fine. But it also has been a big week for last episode's. A lot of the streaming series have been running their last episodes.

00;07;06;08 - 00;07;26;06

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Succession was the big one that everybody was waiting for. You know, how will this and who will get control of that company? What's going to happen to all of them? I am not a succession person. I'm a I'm counting on you to be my succession guru this season.

00;07;26;08 - 00;07;51;11

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah, I've been the best man in the best. It was so good. It was. I really love the first season and even the the second season was pretty good. I thought last season was all over the place at times because you start getting tired of it, right? The idea of like, okay, it's it's going to be Kendall, who is the oldest son, but then Kendall has some issues.

00;07;51;11 - 00;08;19;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

So then it's, you know, it's going to be Roman, but Roman has a lot of issues, like Roman is a man child. And then you have Siobhan, who's she's a liberal. Will she take over the conservative media company? Is it a fit? So you have all of these things and then you have Logan, who at the beginning of the series, looks like he's not going to have the mental capacity to continue on and then all of a sudden he's he's like back and he's fine and he's running things again.

00;08;20;01 - 00;08;44;00

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

You have four seasons of constant jockeying. You know, we know Logan, regardless of of what you know about the show, there has to be an end. And there obviously is a show called Succession. There has to be somebody at the end that's going to win regardless of how we get there. Somebody has to get there. This last episode, it was like 90 minutes long.

00;08;44;00 - 00;09;12;14

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

It was it was basically a movie and it felt like 15. That's how quickly this thing flew. The only dry spell was there was this this moment kind of midway, two thirds of the way through where the those three kids, Kendall and Roman and Shiv, they kind of got together and they were trying to, you know, come to some sort of agreement, who's going to run the show, who's going to who's going to take over?

00;09;12;20 - 00;09;38;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And then they kind of had this like, playful moment in a kitchen where they're kind of their siblings. Again, they're not these media moguls. And at that point, you're kind of wondering, well, what's going to go on here or not? And, you know, from that point, though, then it gets serious again. And I always felt I wish I could go back in time and just write down what I thought would happen.

00;09;39;00 - 00;10;01;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And I in my head, I had kind of like two possibilities of how the show would end with, you know, who would who would get it among the cast of characters we know. So obviously, right. One of the options could have been somebody comes out of the blue, buys a company and just takes it. But if it if it's only the characters we know, who would those characters be?

00;10;01;28 - 00;10;10;04

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And I wish I could have written them down, put it into an envelope, because the final two were the two that were like down to the wire.

00;10;10;06 - 00;10;11;28

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And now there.

00;10;11;28 - 00;10;25;11

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Is like twists and turns and you just it always felt like, okay, it's going to go back here or is it going to go here? And I loved it. I thought it was just like a phenomenal ending to the series.

00;10;25;15 - 00;10;33;02

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Could they reboot it with, you know, starting with whomever they had chosen to go ahead or would that not work?

00;10;33;04 - 00;11;02;05

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

These characters are so self-absorbed and so, so crazy. Sure. But I really liked how it ended. It just kind of it just kind of ended not not like Sopranos ended where, you know, it went to black. You just kind of it kind of like got to a point. There was a winner. Somebody came out on top and then the credits rolled and that's all you kind of needed because it's it was the journey.

00;11;02;05 - 00;11;04;27

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

The show is about the journey and we finally got there.

00;11;04;29 - 00;11;13;27

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

This is not a spoiler because everybody should know it by now. But the dad died early in the show this year. Was that a good thing to have him exit that early?

00;11;13;27 - 00;11;41;24

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah, I was a little unsure when it happened, but I thought it got him out of the way. So it could come down to the kids just fighting with each other. Because as long as Logan was there, he was always the puppetmaster pulling the strings. So it's like, Yeah. Kendall, you're back on my good side. Oh, no. Roman How about how about, you know, we we boost you up and, you know, you can be my protege and and why don't you go fire Jerry now?

00;11;41;24 - 00;11;58;26

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And, you know, it's time to get tough, and then, you know, and then it's like shiv, like, I don't know, Shiv. It's. I think. I think we we need a female touch here. It's time for you to take over the company. And he was always playing them off of each other, either either on purpose or even just because he was just that kind of guy.

00;11;59;02 - 00;12;00;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It's like what you do at home, Right?

00;12;00;26 - 00;12;23;17

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Exactly. Exactly. Getting him out of the picture just allowed those three to kind of go at it along with the other half of the company, because it was it was coming down to there is a deal on the table to sell Waystar Royco and there was obviously the faction with the kids. You know, would they sell? Wouldn't they sell?

00;12;23;17 - 00;12;51;29

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And then you have the people that are still on the board that, you know, obviously want to sell to kind of cash out and get their golden parachute. So you have those players and Alexander Skarsgard, who was playing the character of Lucas Mattson, who is the CEO of a streaming giant, Gojo. So he was the one trying to acquire the company and was really largely replaced.

00;12;51;29 - 00;13;21;08

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Logan is kind of like that, that hovering figure, you know. But again, they're playing each other to the end, like they're playing. They're playing him off of each other. So it was just it was just a really great episode that that left you kind of guessing until the end. You kind of as that episode is slowly coming to an end, you kind of got a sense where it was going, but yeah, it was, you know, a lot.

00;13;21;08 - 00;13;28;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And Cousin Greg, for anyone that loves Cousin Greg, like he he plays very prominently in this final episode.

00;13;29;00 - 00;13;40;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Well, now I'm excited to see it, but I went through a couple of other ones that had their final episodes, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Did you see the last of that?

00;13;41;00 - 00;13;43;17

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Not yet. I'm like two episodes away from getting there.

00;13;43;22 - 00;14;09;02

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Okay. It it brings everything up to, you know, the latest it can. And still you find out what has happened and you get a chance to see Mrs. May's. I'll do what I think is her best stand up routine In the course of all of that. You also find out about the relationship with her ex-husband. You find out about the relationship with Susie, her manager.

00;14;09;02 - 00;14;37;23

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It's very good. But I really felt that it became the Joan Rivers story. I really think that they were leaning into that a little bit more than you might have wanted. I had a friend who saw it and he said I he was very disappointed in the ending and he thought that they spilled too many things early on in the in the last season where, you know, by doing those time jobs, it kind of ruined the the surprises that you get at the end.

00;14;37;25 - 00;15;04;03

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

He said. I already knew what she was going to be like because they had done a 60 Minutes story on her early on in that run. And so that was interesting to me. I did see the last Ted Lasso, and I loved it. I loved it, I loved it. I loved it. Not because it was cheesy, which is what I'm hearing all over the place, but because it did wrap things up if they want to end it.

00;15;04;06 - 00;15;23;09

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

You had no questions as to where things were going to go. They they talked about, you know, the final game that they had with Ted. And it's no secret that Ted had been plotting to leave the home all season long. It wasn't like suddenly heat. He came in and said, by the way, I'm going to leave. Goodbye. We'll see you all.

00;15;23;12 - 00;15;47;01

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

They were able to address that and there is one moment with the players and I kid you not. It's the dumbest move that you'd ever see in a show like this, but it's the perfect move and the players all get together and say their goodbye to him. And I thought it was remarkable. Cheesy. You betcha. And it was just it was really, really fun to watch.

00;15;47;07 - 00;16;16;22

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And there were tears throughout the whole thing. When he says goodbye to certain people. And again, I don't want to be too specific about this. You feel it because they built this show. This was a pandemic show that we started watching when we were all kind of sequestered, and it was about somebody going outside of their comfort zone, which we were, and went to this this team that he knew really nothing about and was able to find his way in with them.

00;16;16;24 - 00;16;36;06

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And they talk about that bleed sign that he put up on the on the wall and what that meant to the rest of them. And that plays a factor in the in the final episode as well. So it was I thought it was very good. I thought it was really good. And I do see an end to it.

00;16;36;06 - 00;16;58;02

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And I do feel like, all right, the pandemic is largely over and it's a nice way to end it. You don't need to have like seven seasons, 20 seasons, whatever it might be of a series to just really appreciate an ending. It's like a British series where it's built to last for maybe two years, three years, and it's done.

00;16;58;04 - 00;17;03;13

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And if they want to reboot it, there is an opening to reboot it in a different way.

00;17;03;20 - 00;17;15;07

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Okay, I was going to ask you about that. Now, I haven't watched the season yet because we've talked about this before. I kind of like ADD and drop Apple TV, you know, as the wind blows. So I was.

00;17;15;07 - 00;17;19;09

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Waiting for a product and they actually me a free subscription.

00;17;19;10 - 00;17;40;04

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah. You've read me like a book. So, you know, I'm probably going to resubscribe to it this weekend and just knocked through the episodes really, really quick. But the, the thing that I had read a lot of after those first couple seasons was this was always planned as a three season arc. You'd have that beginning, the middle, the end, and that would be it.

00;17;40;04 - 00;17;55;29

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And Jason Sudeikis is very clear about it. But after that second season, and I think because of the popularity, the show and the awards and the accolades and all that, there was some discussion that like maybe, you know, yeah, we're going to wrap it up but.

00;17;56;00 - 00;17;57;07

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Need more money.

00;17;57;09 - 00;18;01;07

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah. So what do you think? Is it are we going to see more Ted, or is this really it?

00;18;01;12 - 00;18;23;10

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I really think that they could take supporting characters and make them leading characters and you could continue the story and you could do a movie too, if you really wanted to. It's interesting because you get to see Ted back home, and I don't see this kind of longing that I've got to be back with my team. I have done that.

00;18;23;17 - 00;18;44;16

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I'm moving on to something else, so I don't he doesn't need to be in it. But I do think that you could take Rebecca any of those characters. Keeley any of them, and make a series. And then there's also the team. The team still has another season if they want it, but you do get them in a game situation near the end.

00;18;44;20 - 00;18;51;12

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Who we get a spinoff of? Roy Ken That's what I would pay good money for. Eric. Roy, Roy, Ken Oh.

00;18;51;15 - 00;19;12;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Perfect, Perfect way to do it. I think what they'll do is take a little time and act like they were really thinking about this and they'll come back with that because it's it's too good and the characters are too ideal for a situation like this. And again, you can do the short term run with all of it and nobody is in forever.

00;19;12;29 - 00;19;17;15

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I enjoyed it and I think it will lead to something more.

00;19;17;17 - 00;19;37;07

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

All right. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I've been trying to stay away from from spoilers or anything. So, yeah, I'm going to I'm going to resubscribe to Apple TV pretty quickly and jump on this one. You know, there is one other very notable series finale this past week as well, and that's Barry also on HBO.

00;19;37;10 - 00;19;39;14

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Oh, yes. And did you watch?

00;19;39;15 - 00;19;41;08

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

I did. I did.

00;19;41;09 - 00;19;44;00

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Yeah. Were you shocked at.

00;19;44;02 - 00;19;59;22

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

How good it was? Who? Yeah, I was. I was very I guess. Well, it's a show about a hitman, so, you know, I guess we shouldn't be too shocked by what happens. Have you watched Barry at all? Are you a fan of Barry?

00;19;59;22 - 00;20;18;02

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Yeah, I know the. I mean, I'm the tie. This is me. Okay, I'll skip the middle parts and go right to the ending. I am like the type of person who will read the murder mystery the last chapter, and then go back and see if they did a good job of leading up to it. So, yes, I do know how Barry ends.

00;20;18;02 - 00;20;22;05

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I did see the Barry ending and I did not see that coming.

00;20;22;05 - 00;20;37;02

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

I was very surprised. Yes and no. Like, I mean, obviously, it's a show about a hitman. Anything can happen. I thought the ending was, wow, we have we have no no happy endings.

00;20;37;04 - 00;20;38;26

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

But it makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

00;20;38;26 - 00;20;39;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Right? It does, yeah.

00;20;40;00 - 00;20;41;19

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Person Yeah.

00;20;41;21 - 00;21;04;16

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Yeah. It's a an episode that I was shocked at, kind of how, how, how quickly things develop. Like, you know, we're like, okay, we're going to go do this and then it nope, we're on to the next thing and then, you know, next thing and nope, we're on to the next thing. And then the way we kind of like closed up the chapters, you know, each storyline.

00;21;04;16 - 00;21;23;04

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Barry and, and Sally and Fuchs and, you know, NoHo, Hank, all of those characters. I didn't, you know, if you told me one of those things is going to happen, I'd be like, okay, you know, I could see that. But to have each of those things happen for all of them is like, Whoa, that's that's a little shocking.

00;21;23;11 - 00;21;52;27

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

I felt that this season, I like I liked it. I you know, I've always loved the series. I came into it. I think I started watching it maybe near the end of season two. I didn't watch it the very first season. And then I was talking to somebody one time during that fine. I think it was the final season of the Game of Thrones and it was the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones, the Long Night, where they're fighting the white walkers.

00;21;52;29 - 00;22;15;16

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

So the night that that aired, there was also an episode, a new episode of Barry, and I believe the episode was called Ronnie and Lily, and it was a phenomenal episode where Barry goes to make a hit on somebody who's like a Taekwondo instructor. But he was also, you know, he needed to be killed. For what? I don't even remember The reason at this point.

00;22;15;18 - 00;22;38;09

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

So he does it and it's a little bit, you know, it doesn't go as planned to begin with. But then after that, Ronnie's like ten year old daughter comes out of nowhere and is stalking him for the rest of the episode. And it is like to go from the long night Game of Thrones to this Ronnie Lily episode was just like emotionally draining and it was crazy.

00;22;38;09 - 00;22;56;08

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And that was kind of, yeah, and that was kind of like when I heard about that, I whipped back, watched all the episodes, got caught up with Iranian lilies, like, Whoa, how, how do you drop this episode on the same night as Game of Thrones? So it's kind of a long way of saying, though, is we didn't have in this season that Ronnie and Lily moment.

00;22;56;10 - 00;23;15;25

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Even the third season, there was this episode where Barry was. He was trying to get somewhere. I can't I think he was, you know, going to go see Gene or something, and he ends up in this crazy chase with dirt bikes and and it was like this chase on the highway and there's crash is and shooting and it was bananas.

00;23;15;25 - 00;23;38;02

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And it was like that was another attempt to do that just crazy off the wall episode. And I don't feel like this the season the Barry had that kind of craziness. There was one, you know like second to last, third to last episode of the season where it goes a little bit off into the future so you can kind of see how things have developed.

00;23;38;05 - 00;24;03;07

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

But yeah, it just never quite it never quite hit that craziness for me. And and I always feel like with Barry, it's it's gotten a lot of accolades, it's gotten awards, but it's also never quite cleaned up at the awards season. Right. Like we've gotten a few Emmys here, but they've got a lot of nominations, so it's always playing second fiddle to Ted Lasso or something else.

00;24;03;07 - 00;24;07;15

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Like, it's a really good series, but it's just not quite as good as some of the others.

00;24;07;18 - 00;24;50;00

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

You know, what I find interesting about this is and you look at both Ted Lasso and Barry, they're both created by people who were on Saturday Night Live, knew that work ethic and then got into this and realized, I don't want to be stuck for a long period of time. They got great success after their first year and then I think had those moments where they go, All right, can we end this so I can try something else because I know what a long run is like, and maybe I don't want that as creators here with the their series, they were writing for everything and, you know, being real big, real big forces in the

00;24;50;00 - 00;25;06;25

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

development of it. They weren't just actors. And so I think that does take its toll. And I think that more than anything will help create more of these short run series. They'll give deals to people, but they'll the people will say, I don't want to go five years. I would like to go three or maybe two.

00;25;06;29 - 00;25;25;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

I agree. And I, I think that this show, it definitely did not need to go any more in this. Like when I knew that Barry was coming back for season four, part of me was like, Please, please, please make this the last season because I love it. But this is a show that really doesn't need to keep on going on and on and on.

00;25;25;28 - 00;25;30;05

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

And I kind of would have liked it to have wrapped up even after season three.

00;25;30;08 - 00;25;52;12

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It could have been a movie. Yeah, it could have been a really good movie. And same way with Ted Lasso. That would have been a really cool movie where this goofball from the United States goes to Great Britain, gets involved very much like these coach stories that we see where the coach kind of pulls this ragtag team up to winners.

00;25;52;16 - 00;26;17;03

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It's Friday Night Lights or you name it and could it could exist as just a film itself. But I'm glad that you know what, again, this pandemic time, they these were things that got us through those days where we were sitting at home and thinking, what is life like outside my house? And they they helped us laugh. They gave us something to care about, and we got involved with the characters.

00;26;17;05 - 00;26;25;15

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Did you know that there was a huge thing with Jason Sudeikis shoes that he had like different shoes on all the time, which I had no clue about.

00;26;25;15 - 00;26;26;15

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Until I know.

00;26;26;17 - 00;26;47;07

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

This and that. He wore different Nike shoes throughout the course of this show, and there were certain pairs that were favorites, and they do come back in the final episode. And if you're Asian, if you're one of those shoe fans, you can look and go, Oh my God, there's no shoes that they talked about. There they are. And they had some meaning for certain times.

00;26;47;10 - 00;26;50;27

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

So, you know, we'll be rewatching this stuff for years to come.

00;26;51;04 - 00;26;58;00

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Several prominent shows are now gone, but that means we've got more to watch. So what's on the horizon?

00;26;58;02 - 00;27;21;06

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Well, I'll tell you, I am going to be talking with the folks behind the Wonder Years. Remember, they rebooted the Wonder Years like more than a year ago. And then it's been a big pause ever since because there have been some issues. Fred Savage was a producer. He left the show because of some claims about him. And I think they were in a kind of a a shift.

00;27;21;12 - 00;27;40;25

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

So I'm talking to people from the Wonder Years and that'll be coming up this summer in June. It starts in mid-June. And where they go with that, and I've watched an episodes of it and it is interesting, very interesting because it's not the Wonder years that I remember. It's not like the Fred Savage Wonder Years. It's very much its own show, and I think that's a good thing.

00;27;40;25 - 00;27;45;12

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It would be a perfect fit with Abbott Elementary if they put the two together.

00;27;45;18 - 00;27;58;01

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

I have not watched the rebooted. I watched the original pretty religiously, at least through the first few seasons. It was one that I kind of drifted off on as it went along but have not had a chance to watch the new one.

00;27;58;03 - 00;28;20;29

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

It's set during the same period, but it's from a black perspective and it's really, really, you know, it's interesting how telling some of this is because you'll remember this situation. You go, Yeah, I remember my black friends acting like that and I didn't know why. And so it's Dad gets to work with Marvin Gaye. Mom is singing in the choir.

00;28;21;00 - 00;28;35;23

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I mean, there are a lot of things that are fun to see in this new season of the Wonder Years. So I think it'll be a welcome summer addition, particularly since we're getting way, way, way too many game shows and reality shows.

00;28;35;26 - 00;28;36;15

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

That.

00;28;36;17 - 00;28;47;25

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I, I am tired of celebrity Family Feud. I am tired of Celebrity Wheel of Fortune. I'm tired of all those things that maybe give somebody a job, but I don't care.

00;28;47;27 - 00;28;55;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Every commercial I see now on TV is like, we got a new game show coming out. Like, Oh no, we have a writers strike, don't we?

00;28;56;00 - 00;28;57;29

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

Would you go on a game show?

00;28;58;01 - 00;29;11;23

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Maybe. I always there used to be a version of Jeopardy called Rock and Roll. Jeopardy! And I would watch it and I knew pretty much every answer. So I kind of wanted to go on that one, but I don't know if I would do that.

00;29;11;29 - 00;29;35;29

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

I find that I would be the one swearing throughout the whole show because my buzzer doesn't work. Come on, my buzzer isn't working that way. I'm not getting it. That wouldn't be the answer. I blurt out the answer before the person got it. So I'd be just a real mess on those shows. But you watch Jeopardy and you think I'm pretty good at this stuff, but a lot of it has to do when you click in.

00;29;35;29 - 00;30;05;08

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

And I think you have to wait three of time and then you click in, I don't know those stupid prices, right? Games where they do somebody you'll give like $1,200 and then the jerk next to you says $1,201 and you want it to kill. You think right there, I'd kill that person because I do not want somebody to steal my little good beard because you were just standing in the right spot.

00;30;05;10 - 00;30;10;14

Speaker 1: Bruce Miller

So anyway, that's what we're looking forward to embrace the series when you get them.

00;30;10;16 - 00;30;22;28

Speaker 1: Terry Lipshetz

Well, on that note, I think we'll we'll wrap this show and look forward to next week when we talk a little bit more about the Wonder Years. As always, thank you for listening to stream that screen.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Two weeks ago co-host Bruce Miller offerred up his a list of the top 6 summer blockbuster films to see in 2023.

But there are many more highly anticipated films (including a few already in theaters) that are hoping to draw big audiences this summer. The list includes:

"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" in theaters now
"Fast X" in theaters now
"The Little Mermaid" out this weekend
"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" out June 2
"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" out June 9
"Asteroid City" out June 16
"Joy Ride" out July 7
"Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" out July 12
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" out Aug. 4
"Gran Turismo" out Aug. 11
"Blue Beetle" out Aug. 18

Listen here to our previous episode on summer blockbusters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of Streams and Screens and Entertainment Podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with the star of our blockbuster sequel. Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, we we exploded a couple of weeks ago, exploded with six movies to watch.

But there's a lot more than six movies coming out this summer, so we just had to do more. Can I tell you, you have a career as a publicist. You could really sell anything, right? Yes, I can. You make me sound good. Well, that's like good luck. You were here during the show. Here he is. And now, ladies and gentlemen, for your dining and dining pleasure, please wear one of those.

But there are you know, Memorial Day is usually the start of the big movie summer movie season. And I think I mentioned this before on the on the podcast. It really didn't start until Jaws. Jaws was the one that kicked off the blockbuster. The concept of the blockbuster. And after that, in 1975, it became this thing that you needed to have big films during the summer that would draw crowds at a In the old days, it was because you got air conditioning.

People wanted to come in. It's name, but this is a good way to park kids, too. If you don't want to mess with kids and you don't have to worry about them, shove them to the theaters. They can watch this. And as long as under PG 13, you're good. It's a way to get out of the house. During the hot months of the year.

I mean, most of these movies are not going to win an Oscar. I mean, you might get one or two here. That's. Yeah, Yeah. Explosions, big bangs. Well, over the more Memorial Day weekend, you will see vast X or vast hand, whichever you prefer to call it, as kind of the one that's going to dump a lot of things because, you know, Fast and Furious, all they need to do is show up for a party.

They could film the party and they would still get $1,000,000 billion. Right. Yeah. So we're we're going to skip over that list of six that we did a couple of weeks ago. A link to that episode is in the show notes. So if there's a movie that we pass over here, you're like, Why didn't they talk about Indiana Jones?

Well, we talk about it already, so no Indiana Jones. We that was in our list of six that you must see. But we're going to kind of come back now. So guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, it's already out. So that was kind of the start of this summer's and is doing very well. It's not bad. It's not bad, but it is one of those ones that if you're starting with three, you won't know where you are.

So you just have to kind of go with it, enjoy the moment, enjoy the story, and then go back and catch up. All right. Well, I haven't seen one or two, and to be honest with you, I lost you will be so lost. Is Deadpool in it? I mean, that's it's like the only. Well, there are no doubt there are new characters and Groot.

Rooney is this kind of tree that. Yeah, Vin Diesel is the voice I rude, but that's all he said. I am Groot. So you see how. How are you doing that? I am Groot, and it's just different inflections that he uses. But in earlier editions, this is your spoiler alert. He had to be regenerated. So he's a little baby Groot, and now he's back to being full sized Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy three.

So I am Groot. So Vin Diesel is Groot, and he just says that and he probably gets paid $20 million. Can you believe it? We are in the wrong business. All we had to do was say one line, and I didn't even need to memorize it. And. Yeah, and you get big bucks and he's a breakout character. It's one you want.

But the movie belongs to Rocket the Raccoon, and that's played by Bradley Cooper or voiced by Bradley Cooper, Brad Little Rocket Raccoon suit and pretend like he's he's one but yeah and he's good and it's his story and then you see what happens to him in the course of this. Well the other guardians try to help him through his crisis.

The other movie that and we touched on this a little bit that I'm kind of excited for is either fast facts are facts ten, whatever you want to call it, which is the penultimate installment to the series, which has been going on for eons now. I was at the Super Mario Brothers movie with one of my daughters a couple of weeks ago and during the trailers they had a trailer for Fast X and my daughter is looking at it and she seems kind of like mildly interested like that might be interesting to see, but probably not.

And I said to her, I'm like, okay, see, this is a series of movies that Dad likes to watch, but it's completely ridiculous now. It's like completely jumped the shark because originally it was just like an FBI agent race. It's Oh, right. He's going after a bunch of bad guys who are like racing cars and stealing things, and now they're sending cars into outer space.

It's completely ridiculous. But, you know, every episode they add somebody else in another action star. This time it's Jason Momoa. We're adding some legitimacy with some Oscar winners with Rita moreno and Brie Larson. So we're this is this is an Oscar movie, right? Is that what we're we're going to see here high toned right there, But that, you know, count the lines that some of these actors get.

They barely speak. It's all action. And I swear they work a week. They probably go in a week, record, whatever they need, and then everything is created around them because all those car chases, those aren't they aren't actually racing those cars. They're done in special effects. And so, you know, unless you have a director who comes out and says, No, we really did do this, it's special effects and if you stay at the end of the movie where it must be 2 hours of just in the list credits, you know that somebody else is drawing those cars.

Yeah. The real stars of the show are sitting in a in a climate controlled computer room, probably with carpal tunnel and all the. Yeah, all the all the hand movements they're going through to to try to do that stuff. Another movie that's coming out May 26, The Little Mermaid. Now this is the live action version of it. You have Ali Bailey as Ariel, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

Have you seen it or what are your thoughts? I'm out of fence about it because I know that people have raved and said, Oh, it's just wonderful. That's great. I don't like taking an animated film and turning it into a live action. I really don't. I they've done it with Lion King, Jungle Book. You name a Disney, if they've made an animated one, get ready, because they're coming out with a live action one pretty soon because it's another way to make money.

They've added some songs. Lin-Manuel Miranda is writing some stuff for this. He grew up with the original Little Mermaid. Love The Little Mermaid. But I. I don't know. When you look at Flounder and Sebastian. Scary, scary, if you ask me now, The Little Mermaid, she could be great. But I just I don't know that it needed to be done and time will tell.

We'll see what happens with this. I saw the live action of The Lion King. We went to a drive in theater, actually, and saw that a few years ago when it came out, it was okay. I, I didn't see the point of doing it other than Disney was just looking at a new avenue to make money. Mulan, which was the I think that went pretty much straight to Disney Plus where they did it was during, I think during the pandemic.

Yeah, they tried to get you to buy it first and then that didn't quite work. So then they just released on Disney. Plus it's become a running joke in my house because we watched it on New Year's Eve that year, and my wife says to me, It's like I fell asleep in it, like right after that scene with the chicken.

And then I said to her there was a chicken because I, I fell asleep before the chair. And the chicken was like 2 minutes into the movie, I guess. So it's like, it's like the credits, roll the movie, hit the screen and then I was out cold. I have no recollection of that film whatsoever. But you notice how sometimes that movie is a good nap.

Yeah. Boy, I can go to the theater and as like. And I'm out. And maybe it's just the atmosphere. You're in a soft chair, the lights are out, you know, you have somebody talking in the background, but you don't really pay attention. That's what that's about. It could be. But I think the jury is out on The Little Mermaid.

I don't think that we have a verdict yet another one that's coming out shortly after that. And I'm kind of kicking myself. I feel like I need to go and see it because, you know, it's one that I probably meant to watch initially. And I just for whatever missed it was the Spider-Man across the Spider-Verse Yeah, into this break was the first one and it won the Bear Best picture.

It was wonderful because it it doesn't have a Spider-Man like you think. And there are so many other elements to it. I watched it on a plane and I thought, Well, this is one I haven't seen. Let's catch up. And I was disappointed that I hadn't seen it in the theater because it is good. It is really well-done.

The storytelling is wonderful. And I have every confidence that because the same people are involved, this one's going to be good, too. Yeah, I have to go back and watch it because I and we've talked about this before, I'm not a huge comic book person, with a few exceptions, a little bit of Batman, a little bit of Superman.

And I do like, you know, some of the Spider-Man movies, But just for whatever reason that kind of came out, I meant to see it and I just didn't. So I'm going to try to get back and watch the original and then maybe even get to the theater this summer and check out that one when they get to some of those super those Marvel superheroes like Doctor Strange.

Oh, Pass. I do not need some of those ones in my life. And I think they need to be a little more discriminatory in what they're bringing out because honestly, they just don't throw everything at us. It's the same story. Basically, they're just wearing goofy costumes, but this is a good way of taking I tried thing and really flipping it because there are many spider verses, and I think the last Spider-Man film learned a lot from the first animated version of this.

So now the next film on my list, I have I have not say, you want to see this, I am disowning you. This is Transformers Cancer. And those films I hate the Ones Rise of the Beast, you name. I have a confession to make. Not that this is you probably respect me more. I have never seen any of those Transformers movies I flipped one on one time.

It was on maybe HBO or Showtime. It was, you know, Long Pass at the theaters. And I flipped it on briefly. And I think it was on for about 30 seconds. And I went, Nope, clicked it off. It was just so, so bad. I mean, I see the concept. It was based on a toy. And the toy was you could turn a toy into like a a big robot is one of them.

And it was like car you, you it's like a Rubik's cube. You kind of move a little bit and then it becomes something else. But what's the story? Well, there is no there is none. No. Right. It's just the the thing turning into whatever. Optimus Prime was the king of all of that. And I frankly, I do not care what happens to Optimus or any of his brands.

And I thought that once we hit the scrapheap, we were done with up. But apparently not because they're bad. Well, they obviously make money if they keep making them. We know nothing. We know nothing. It's huge. You probably need to go back and do all this and read or see all those and you'll say, Oh, I really think I need to see more of that.

No, I know. I'm going to completely skip that one and but it'll probably make a ton of money. Is that going to be one where it will make it'll make like $100 million the first week, but then lose 75% of its box office will be number one the week it opens. They always are. And then it dwindles from there.

And that is one of those kind of like, well, let's send the kids to this. It can't be too much. You know, it's not going to hurt them. Let's send the it's a that's that's what rules all these kind of things because you got who would make this you had that kind of money to spend on a film and this is what you're coming up with.

There's no I did read I think one of them came out when the writers were on strike in dozen years ago, and it doesn't. Yeah, that was basically the thing. It's like we're just blowing things up. It really didn't matter. They just they just kind of went ahead and and did it anyway. They throw in a narration at that a long time ago, it a century which we were an end.

This is happening and the world was coming to an end. But we had Optimus Prime and that badly frozen crap like they had on it and that's they get, they get people watching Stupid Night. So the next movie on my list here comes out a week later. My guess is it will not make a ton of money limited really as you age, but it's one that I want to see.

Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Wright, Margot Robbie, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton. Cast like that can only mean one thing. It's Wes. Wes Anderson. Yeah, yeah. And it's set in 1955, so that gives you another little boost. And it's about a science fiction convention. So it's like, God, there's a lot here to pick of a lot of things that you could.

It reminds me just on first glance of Hello tomorrow, if you've seen that show on, on streaming, yeah, this is on Apple. But it's about one of those kind of things where they're wanting to send trips to the moon and there's, you know, and how people were all kind of all in on space travel. But something happens at this convention and it changes things.

And then I don't want to spill anymore. The only I think real notable thing out of that, no. Bill Murray, It's like the first Wes Anderson movie in 20 years or more that that does not have. Bill Murray I read that he had COVID and had to be replaced by Steve Carell. He works though. NASIR can make it.

Let's get Steve Yeah, right. So. Well, I think it now will be one that people who are kind of movie snobs will say, Oh, wonderful film, loved it. It was great. It was great. And yes, fabulous film. In the third hour. It was very, very, you know, that kind of stuff. But it's about the funny thing is I watch a lot of my movie trailers on YouTube.

So then when you watch something on YouTube, you start getting recommended videos to watch. After that, I started getting hit by these YouTube recommendations for these fake trailers to Wes Anderson movies where it's like Wes Anderson reimagines Star Wars and it has like this ridiculous concept of a movie. And then, you know, like each person that's playing like Owen Wilson is Darth Vader and Bill Murray plays AI.

Whoever Obi-Wan Kenobi, those are great and they are hilarious. A.I. is going to help them the most. So if we can make that, you know, really blow up, it's because air has made it easier to do. Exactly. So side note, go to YouTube, check out the trailers for the Wes Anderson Star Wars movie. There was one for I think it was Lord of the Rings, and there might have even been like a Harry Potter one, too.

And they look hilarious. I would pay good money to see Wes Anderson reimagined any of those films. We talked about this next film a little bit last week on our episode, Joy Ride out July 7th, kind of like a hangover type or film concept, but it's it's starring a bunch of female actors Ashley Park, Stephanie Shue, Terry Cole, Sabrina Woo.

It is directed by Adele Lim, who co-wrote Crazy Rich Asians. So that looks interesting. It looks like a fun movie. Yeah, it'll be a fun trip, a romp. And I think this is your, you know, each like I say, you can put these in categories. These are the girls are going out movies. Mom wants to get out with her girlfriends.

They're going to have a couple of drinks before we go to the movie. We might have dinner, we might go shopping. This is your movie? Exactly. I guess this next one is a completely opposite direction and it's probably going to be a huge one this summer. And it was one that I thought might have made your list know when you did you your sex and you know, didn't.

The reason I'm not on that list is because it's part one. Same with Dune. Dune was a part one and it drives me insane that they would split these things up. I would rather sit for 4 hours and see the whole thing than to have to wait a whole year to get the next part. What happens if you're hit by a truck in that next year and you never saw the end of it?

Doesn't make sense. So that's a good point. So Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Part one out July 12th. So this is supposed to be the final two installments of Tom Cruise's journey through Mission Impossible. First off, do you believe that? Are these really going to be the last? And this was the one where he got mad at the crew and he yelled at them and said, come on, we've got to make this, you know, anything?

Well, maybe not. Maybe we don't need to. But we'll see what happens. I'm sure that it'll end at a very crucial point, and then we'll be ready for the next one next year. But as far as I'm concerned, it's okay. It can go without me. It is what it is. And a Tom Cruise proving that he can do stand still.

I, I don't need to know that. I don't need to know that he can jump across a building to another building. I don't need to see him hanging out of a an airplane or climbing the top of a building. I don't need any of that because I know you can do it. But why? What's the point? And besides, Mission Impossible, we used to watch us as kids.

It was a TV show and at the end of the instructions, the cassette started burning in the cassette player and it was like, Your mission, should you decide, is to accept it, you know? And then we will disavow any knowledge of your existence. If this goes badly. And then they send people out. One person puts a mask on and suddenly you've got this big hoo ha.

Well, they had how many years of Mission Impossible. So if he really wanted to keep doing it, there's enough copy there that they could just pilfer. My suspicion on this one is that they're they're going to continue the story. It's almost going to turn into a James Bond situation where it's going to live in perpetuity because you can just kind of recast the role.

I mean, we've we've been through like six James Bonds now and they're still fine. I love the James Bond series, and I've always enjoyed the Mission Impossible series. So I feel like it's just going to kind of move on and Ethan Hunt will go away. Yeah, exactly. Now, so and nobody else. Yeah. Yeah. It'll make a ton of money, you know, 500 million and.

And we'll get excited or I'll get excited. You won't. But, you know, now that's we're on the set of They had Mission impossible one of the earlier ones in four D Have you ever that. No. Well it's a 3D film but they also have like the seats move. Oh, so they kind of shake you during those rate times Every It would've been perfect to an earthquake.

Now, I know you're too young to ever have been when earthquake was here, but he had what was called sense around and all they did was basically turn up the speakers in the theater. But you thought the theater is falling apart. Oh, my God. It sounds like it's all but it's is one of those he's so this bawdy is a way to kind of like it's a ride, it's erratic and it's fun.

Yeah, I've been to a couple of things similar to that. We're looking at where the aquarium in Chicago. I think that's one of them, where you go, you sit in your chair and you watch a movie about whales, and then the whale goes flying out of the water and then hits the ocean and then you get separated by phase.

Yeah, Yeah. So that would be kind of fun. And the sound, too sound is the evening at the theaters were rigged for the best sound. You'd have them start in one end, and then you hear them kind of walking all around you and you go, Oh, what is this? This is kind of different. But I don't know if the average screening of Mission Impossible is going to have all that kind of detail.

Just know he's going to be hanging off something, skipping ahead a little bit now to August. August 4th, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem, is it? I don't know what to think about that. Yeah, it's animated. I'm not sure what to think about this. This might be just like a summer animated film to get kids out. Do kids still like the Turtles?

I don't know. See, I think the Turtles in had their day and I think the turtles would resonate more with dad than they might with the kids, because, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. When I was when I was sitting in Mario Brothers, this was another one of those trailers that aired. And I kind of got mildly excited at first, Lego Ninja Turtles, and but then I'm thinking myself, Do I really want to see this?

And I don't know. I like this one. It's they're going to be a complete box office disaster or it's going to make 200 million and people are going to be like, Oh, look at that. It just knocked off Mario Brothers is as this big movie. Well, and when they try to make them look too realistic, I think they ruin it.

I think this one's going back to the real kind of and drawn look. Yes. Yeah. Well, I think that might be in its favor. You know, it's really weird. A number of years ago, I went on a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World with a little boy. From here. He was maybe four or five, yet he had cancer. And his wish was he wanted to meet the Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And they were at the Disney MGM Studios at the time, or whatever it's called now. I think it's called Disney's Hollywood Studios. Okay. And they were they're doing like a stunt show, whatever. And he wanted to see the Turtles. Well, we all we went to this thing and the turtles were like greeting people, high fiving up. It was really cool.

And the little boy who had been very ill, he was not feeling well that day. He started to come to light. He was like, Oh my God, it's the turtles. The turtles are here. And his mother said, Just wait. They're going to come over and see you. And he was so thrilled. And they came over and they hugged him and they lifted him up.

And they they really they had a moment and his mom said already, ask your question. And the little boy said, Oh, he said, I don't know. And he said, no. She said, go ahead, ask that question. And the question was, Will you watch over me at night because I'm afraid of cancer. And he has a poster in his room of the Turtles.

And they said, yes. And he was so thrilled. And I swear that he helped that kid through all of this kind of situation. So as much as I might bad mouth the turtles, I had a moment where the turtles gave a little boy hope. And I loved that. And I live with that story all the time because you never know what kind of thing someone might say that could make your day just a little bit better.

Yeah. Wow, that's great. So there's my turtle story. There's your turtle story. Wow. You'll see Bruce, if you come with that turtle story one more time. Right. We've got a couple more on this list. This next one, I'm not I'm kind of very surprised because I'm taking credit for some of these because I know I made my some of those bad movies that you get terrified.

Oh, that's right, Granturismo out August 11th. Now, this is kind of an interesting one. I used to play the video game when I was in college. Yeah, Yeah. So it's like it's another one of these, you know, because we saw Last of US on HBO, which was based on a video game, and that's what Granturismo was. It was a it's a racing game, but it's also based on a true story for the movie of a of a racecar driver.

And it stars or costars David Harbor from Stranger Things. So I, I don't know what to make of this one. It's like it might do well, it could be terrible. Well, what do you do? What's the goal? You just drive. You just drive. You drive and you win. Well, how is that a story? Well, is it Ford versus Ferrari?

I mean, if a dad and I actually had a real race is in it. So what's the deal? Yes. I mean, Granturismo it's listed as an upcoming American biographical coming of age sports drama. So it's based on reality. So, yeah, okay, let's go for it. This is not too far afield from past eggs. You know, that's what that was when it first started out.

Remember where they were not did you recall old things but Fast and Furious? The Fast and the Furious based in various Tokyo Drift Ohio draft. Yes. All those. Wait, that must be the most work they put in on those movies is trying to figure out what we're going to call this thing. You know, we've already dropped the articles, so we can't use that.

We're going to add some more. The best of the various, you know, really, really fast and super duper furious. So, see, Granturismo could take over for that good. And it could grander, too. Rees-Mogg The next I feel like it's going to be an interesting one to just keep an eye on because it is on one hand, it's like based on a video game, On another hand, it's based on reality.

I don't know, you know, if uppers down or what. Okay. As a person who does video games, when you see a film based on a video game, does it get you excited because they're kind of doing a better job of visualizing what's on a video game, or do you feel like you want to control it? Yeah, I don't know because I haven't played a lot of video games since becoming a parent.

And, you know, it's something I did when I was a kid and through college and kind of even my early marriage years. But I just to me, video games is just an escape and you kind of sit there. My I have a brother that really like the last of us because he played the video game and he said it was pretty much, you know, they made some changes here or there that because the video game aspect of it wouldn't work on TV or vice versa.

But he enjoyed it. And, you know, I like I just I played the original game. It was a Sony PlayStation game and eon ago and I always enjoyed playing it with my college roommates and we did it. But yeah, I don't I don't it's I'm so far removed from it now. I don't know what to make of it.

I'm back from the days of Pong, so, you know, Pong. When will there be a movie? Could that be a movie somewhere, I think, Or a little pad opening across the screen? Yeah, Well, boom, boom, boom. That's a blue beetle is another one that's coming out, and that's a superhero one. Yeah, That was the last one on my list here.

So, you know, we are coming to the end of this episode that's out August 18th. It's a DC Universe movie. This is on my list to not see because I'm just I have just no interest in it. I've never. What are your thoughts, Needle? You know, and I think it just takes all it takes is a good film and if it's done well, people will come and see it.

If it's a bomb. We've seen the last of the blue beetle. They won't try to reboot it. There's too many other things that are hanging out there that they could do, but it's DC, so who knows? You know, is looking for something that's going to bring them in. I still am going with the Flash, though. The Flash is going to be their big summer thing.

Yeah, yeah. The Flash is really the only superhero movie I'm interested in seeing this summer and Beetle and it. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a different. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Superhero, I guess. Comic book movie. Yeah. If I'm going to go comics, that's really the only The Flash is the only one I've any interest in seeing. You know, I loved Jaws and Jurassic Park.

I really enjoyed those this summer. All the bad iterations of Jurassic Park, I, I enjoyed it because it is like you are going somewhere else and you know that when it's over, you'll get out. Yeah. During the moment that you're in the middle of the whole whatever. It's fun to be in that, that environment. And I think that's what we like.

I mean, it's like going to a theme park. You could have a great day or you could have a really bad day depending on what rides you get on. And, you know, with these, these rides are going to be pretty well engineered. Yep. So I think that's yeah, that's what we're missing from this summer's list is we need something like that.

I don't think the Transformers is going to be that Jurassic Park jaws kind of experi and said thrill. And you need to have that kind of scariness where you know you're going down a and a hallway and you think something might be behind you. Then you turn around. There's nothing there, and then you look the other direction and there it is.

I think that's that was what's so fun about those films, is they really are serials for the 21st century. I think my take away on this summer is last year Top Gun got me back into the theater, but there wasn't a whole lot else that got me back into the theater. And I actually looked at my my purchase history in the app and I went to see Top Gun.

Then I went to see Avatar and now I just went to see Mario Brothers. Those are the last three movies I've seen since that final Star Wars movie came out in £29 since since the pandemic. And it's just been a combination of some just, you know, things going on in life and, you know, family things that they got to get done.

So I just haven't been able to get to the theater. But I also think it speaks a little bit to the lack of really good films that have wanted that I've wanted to go and see, especially since I think the one thing the pandemic did is, is I learned that I could just sit on my couch and watch movies over a over 65 inch TV.

I'm sitting really close to it, so it's not a whole lot different. And I have the comforts of home and I'm not paying ten bucks a ticket and, you know, $10 for a bucket of popcorn. And I could just watch these things. I'm already paying for them anyway, through my streaming service. Yet streaming has changed their world and I think you need to have event programing.

It's got to be really big to get you to get out of the house and go to the theater and they can't throw it on streaming right away. They really have to hold it. That's what Topgun did a marvelous job of holding it from that that crowd for a while, so that then you had to go to the theater to see things.

And I think more could be that way. I thought air could have been in theaters for a long time before I went to Amazon Prime. So, you know, who knows what it is. But I think it is a game changer and they've got to watch that. And you have to look for the the big hits. The big hits are what people will go to the movies for.

All right. Sounds good. So we're going to wrap up the show. Thank you once again for listening to streamed and screened. And we will be back again next week.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

View Details

Move over Mando, "American Born Chinese" looks to become the next must-watch show on Disney+.

The new series based on the graphic novel comes to the streaming platform on May 24 and includes "Everything Everywhere All at Once" Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. We have an interview with the show's stars Ben Wang and Sydney Taylor, who talk about winning with the Oscar-winning actors.

And speaking of "Everything Everywhere," Oscar-nominated actor Stephanie Hsu will be starring in this summer's "Joy Ride" film starring Ashley Park, Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu. The film also is the directorial debut for Adele Lim, who is best know for writing "Crazy Rich Asians" and "Raya and the Last Dragon."

Finally, Bruce talks about the new four-part documentary "The Secrets of Hillsong" on FX and Hulu.

Where to watch

"American Born Chinese" on Disney+
"Joy Ride" in theaters on July 7
"The Secrets of Hillsong" on FX

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz is senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with someone who will be starring on Broadway very soon. Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal, longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, you're hitting the big city soon on the streets of Broadway.

I will not be on Broadway. I'll be in front of the theater. Is looking at shows. Yeah, my sister and I usually spend Memorial Day weekend. This is. I'm giving this to you as a potential thing you could do. We go to New York because nobody seems to be in New York over Memorial Day weekend. They all go somewhere else.

The Hamptons, the, you know, the shore, whatever it would be, the Jersey Shore. But people aren't normally in the city. And so it's a very good time to go to things like plays, like shopping, like eating, because the normal crowd isn't there. So we've done this for at least 30 years. Colbert threw us off because we didn't do it during those years.

Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. It's a chance to get to see what we might be seeing in other venues in years to come. It might be a streaming film, it might be a touring production that comes to your community. There's still there's a lot of stuff there to see. Fun stuff. I'm going to Sweeney Todd attend The Tale of Sweeney Todd.

I'll be there. That sounds fun. I just hit a little Broadway myself this past weekend in traveling Circa, we saw The Lion King came to Madison. Yeah. Second time seeing that. Yeah. It's great show. My wife and I saw it probably around 2008 or nine. We were just married and just kids. Do they go to play?

Yeah, exactly. So we used to go to the theater a lot when we were, you know, before kids. And then we had kids and we stopped going. Of course, But we've gone now. We took the kids to see Hamilton last year, and now we took them to go see Lion King, which is fun. There's an interesting scene. I'm not going to say spoiler alert, because that show has been out on the road for 25 years now.

But there is an interesting scene and I said to my wife, like, they've obviously changed this, but I don't know what it was beforehand. There's this scene where Zazu is being held captive by Scar. The lion and scar is like Entertain me and Zazu starts singing and he starts belting out lines from Let It Go from Frozen. Any scar is like, stop torturing me with that.

But you know, anything but that song. But I'm thinking to myself, Well, what was the other song? Because this show has been out on the road forever. What did that like? They obviously added that in recently, since, Yeah, know, it was probably another show that, you know, I wish I could tell you. Yeah. But there probably was another show they referenced just to be able to see under.

Yeah, it could be, it could be something like that. But what I want to know is did you get out of the this show without buying anything. Yes. Yes. That, that is like merchandise heaven. Yeah. I saw a lot of the parents there with the kids that are of the age where you need to buy something. My kids are not that age anymore.

They're 12. We walk in, we take our seats, we watch the show. We walk out in and out without. Yup, everyone is fine with that. So we've trained them well. We didn't you know, we took them to things like Disney on Ice when they were four or five. We would say to them like, Hey, kids, see, you know, you're going to see a lot of kids with all these toys and stuff that their parents buy them at the show.

They're really, really expensive. And do you really need that? Will you be honest with them? And they be like, no, we're fine. It's it was yeah, we know those are the limits. Those kids are troubled. They're not happy. So giving those toys, that's just trying to solve something that isn't there. And so we don't need that, do we?

Nope. Now, of course, I would be the kind yelling for everything if I don't get it all. I. I'm not. And that's me now. Yeah, now I if I don't come now, When? This next weekend. I'm going to six shows right. If I don't come back with six T-shirts, it's been a wasted trip. I at least have to have the t shirt, get shirts.

Yeah. Hit a bodega, get a buttered roll. Okay. That's a very New York thing to do. Just get a budget roll. It's just a big roll hardball with like a pound of butter on it. And then you have to decide how much of that butter you actually want to eat and then you don't need to eat. So the money that I spent a year would have been money I would have spent out of food.

Yep. The New York Times actually did an article one time called The Ode to the Butter Roll on how like utilitarian it is and how New York it is. So check that out. It's actual reading before you go to New York City. I will do that. Yeah. Yeah. So have fun with your trip. And when I'm wearing T-shirts, just know that you have to be jealous.

I will be okay. I'm just jealous. You're going back to my. My hometown. I was born in New York City, so let's start spreading the news. I know, I know. So kind of getting back to movies and entertainment and that kind of thing. We thought we were done talking about Everything Everywhere all at Once because we're past Oscar season and that kind of did its thing.

And but it's sort of back in the news. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, because many of the people who were involved in that film are also part of a new series on Disney+ called American Born Chinese. And this is based on a graphic novel that won a bunch of awards. And what it is, is it's taking the story of a boy in high school who is Asian-American, who really doesn't feel like he fits in.

He feels like, you know, I am the only one, it seems. And the teachers bring to him the new Asian kid years, a new Asian kid. And you're going to of course, you'll be the one to show them the ropes, right? Well, and what he realized is, is is this other kid is from a different world. He's from a much higher realm.

And he has all these skills and he's able to do all this kind of stuff. And his aunt is actually the goddess of mercy, played by Michelle Yeoh. So there are there's this kind of otherworldly element to this typical high school kind of growing up a story. And you see how he learns about other things that are around him, how the bullies, how do you deal with the bullies?

Will you see that reflected in the the situations that the gods and goddesses have to deal with on a higher level? So and it's very fun. If you've not seen the graphic novel, please read it. It is so fun. The panels are very snarky and they're really very cool. And these are these characters are ones that are just made whole cloth.

They're talked about in Chinese culture quite a bit. So they are gods and goddesses who actually are part of their their lore, their history. And so it's not like something that was just made up. It's like, what happens if these people come to visit? And I got a chance to talk to two of the stars of the film.

And I was really curious because when this was being filmed, it was kind of the the start of everything everywhere, eating up. It became something while they were there and what it was like to be with these people to see through their eyes what is their that whole experience like. And I, they were very forthcoming. Ben Wong, who is the lead in this show he plays Jin Wong, is a young actor from Minnesota, oddly enough, who just kind of made a decision that he was going to go to musical theater school and that Sidney Taylor, who is his costar in this, plays The Lust Object, who he really loves in this school, but doesn't know

that the relationship will ever amount to anything. And they were the two I talked to in conjunction with American born Chinese. All right. So let's go ahead and listen to that interview and we'll come back and talk a little bit about that show, the two of you, when you were making this, I would assume it was the same time that everything everywhere was just blowing up.

Was that true? And it came out while we were filming? Yes. What did you learn from Key and from Michelle about dealing with all of that? Because that was just huge. Well, I don't know. They were every time we so like, we shot the show, that movie came out and then, you know, we all went our ways and we get back together once in a while for pro for promotional stuff.

Right. And I'd see them every month or two. And I feel like every time I see them, they're they're like pedigree just get bigger and bigger and bigger. So but at the same time, they always remain the same people that we've met On day one before that movie had come out, you know, just humbled. No down to earth and kind and generous people.

And so that's what they did. You ask them for acting advice or anything about the business Now? I didn't dare. I was like, if they have, we didn't want to be a**holes. Terry's act. But just like, well, been growing up in Minnesota, how did you even think the idea was going to happen? That you would be in the business?

Oh, I didn't either. But I didn't know about the business. I didn't know what the business meant or was or could be. And I definitely didn't see a place for myself in it. But I kind of took a leap of faith. At the end of high school, I decided I was going to go to New York and and and train and in musical theater at NYU.

And it was sort of a decision that I made kind of on my own. And yeah, it was really only after I came out to New York and started really understanding what the business was. But now growing up, I was like, This is fun, this is cool. And that's all it will probably ever be. But I'm glad I was wrong.

Yeah, always. It's good to be wrong, right? Had you to read the book before this all started to happen? Were you familiar with it or not? No, I wasn't familiar with it at all. I hadn't heard of it, but I read it before our chemistry read. We had one chemistry before the audition process was over and I read the whole thing and in probably under an hour and couldn't put it down myself.

Yeah, same I had. And I didn't have it growing up in Minnesota. It wasn't in our public library, unfortunately. But yeah, I read it for the first time right after I got the audition size, which is the couple of scenes they show you. I was like, I need to find out more about this project because this just just the few scenes they gave me to audition with were incredible, I thought.

And yeah, I ran to the library. I was in Connecticut. I ran. Yes, ran. Not walked, ran, not walked to the to the Stamford, Connecticut public. That's where I was at the time. And I found it and I read it and I was crying and crying on the carpet. And the night guy like the janitor was telling me that we were closing in 6 minutes, You have to leave.

And I was like, Please, I need this to 20 or I need the book, right? Yeah. You're just like, Yeah, well, you know, had you found anything like that before where you said, you know, this I can relate to at all? Never, Never. And that was what was so incredible. It made me realize that it's doing media is not always just sort of an empathetic act, right?

Where you're learning about some something else and relating to something that's not quite like what your experiences are. For the first time, I was like, Oh, you can read something and feel like it's about you. And that was really powerful and it made me, you know, really want to get to work on the show because I know this show is going to be that for you.

Now, during this time, what is that like, that anticipation that this could really be something huge? Yeah, it's we've been sitting on it for a year and I just want people to see it. But I also I don't want like my life to change or I just want people to see it. Exactly. I want people to see it and enjoy it.

Yeah. And doing that kind of there are a lot of special effects in this. I was surprised at how many there actually are. Is that difficult to do? I mean, if you go to acting school, I'm assuming that you go, Well, they didn't talk about this. They didn't tell you about the iron diaper in an acting lifting. That's a that's a that's something you used to fly.

Oh, I let you elaborate. Let me elaborate more. They put on you this, like Kevlar iron, the thing that looks like a giant diaper that they attach wires, suicide. And there's two guys standing on ladders and pulleys. You know, you growing up watching these movies, you think, oh, it's all must be robots and like, high technology. But no, it's just too big.

Do you do on ladders? And then the stunt coordinator goes, okay, action. And they jump off their ladders and you go this way. So it was it was an adventure. It was an adventure. And it was fun, but also kind of terrifying. And Sydney, how did you know that you two were were a real good team together? I we both knew that from like the first day we actually met.

We met for the first time in person during the cast dinner and the whole time we were essentially just talking to each other was like this long table with like desks and Cretton and Kelvin. You had Michelle Yeoh and Qi and, and all of these wonderful, wonderful people and me and better at least a small team of people that, you know, bring everyone.

And I felt bad, but like we really did just like have a really good connection from the start. I think we bonded over a lot of things that our childhood and shared childhood challenges. But yeah, bring us together. Bonded over it. It's fine. Thank you guys so much. I'm dying for the series to be really a huge hit.

So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Bruce, thanks for that interview. Sounds interesting. What's the target audience on this? Have you seen. Yeah, really? They're trying to hit the high school audience and they want to they want to age up a bit so that all Disney shows aren't seen as, oh, they're for kids. They're not Adults can watch it.

It's it has a very Mandalorian kind of vibe to it, if you will, where you can put the whole family in it and they're still going to find something and they're looking to a second season. So it isn't like one and done. I think what it does, though, is it opens us up to a bunch of Asian stories that we've never heard before.

And I think by doing that, we're going to see much richer stories. There's going to be more storytelling that isn't repetitive. And I think there, you know, even now, when you look at some of the summer movies, there are influences that we're seeing that are already starting to appear. Yeah. So there's also that connection too, with everything everywhere now, Michelle Yeoh is in this and she was obviously in everything everywhere you played.

Kwan Yeah, you get it. And then the director of the Shang, she is also involved in this and you'll see a lot of those kind of it's a small community, a lot of those connections, six degrees of separation that come into play in this in this series. And that's kind of fun to see that they got together and they said, you know what?

We should be working on these things together and I think what we'll see is they'll it'll be their own little kind of Marvel Universe where they will create more content that will see their world spread out in other ways. And everything everywhere kind of did the same thing. This this series does is it combines two worlds, an otherworldly kind of thing.

And then the kind of mundane world of a laundromat owner. And you see how those two can swirl around. Just like this boy in high school and his new friend who has this great extensive relative chain, if you will. I think that's I think we're going to see more of that. I think that's this is the sign of things to come.

And why not? You know, if you look back, name Asian age, Asian movies that you really warm to. Are you remember Asian series Fresh Off the Boat was like the last thing I can remember that had any kind of theming like this. Let's see these stories because they're interesting stories. They're fascinating stories. And I think it's it's a brand new world for everybody.

So looking a little bit further now out into the summer, there's another story which also has a little bit of a connection to everything everywhere. Stephanie Hsu, who we saw on Oscar, right? She is an Oscar nominee for that movie. She's going to be in a movie this summer. That was directorial debut by Adele Lim, who co-wrote Crazy Rich Asians.

Joy RIde Yeah, And Joy Ride is like a lot of those girls Trip hang over any of those ones. They were kind of a group of people getting together and getting in trouble. And now we're seeing it in theaters with older actresses. Look at the book club, the next Chapter 84. Brady All these are kind of really takes on Golden Girls.

You look at the Golden Girls, you see they put four people together there. Each one represents a different kind of aspect of a community. And then how do they cope when they get into trouble? And that's joy, right? Right there. Yeah. And it's also, I guess, an opportunity to to kind of break out because it's one of those buddy movies to an extent, but it gets away from the traditional body of just, you know, three or four dudes kind of hanging out together.

It's it's yeah, it's an extension of yet more opportunity to find somebody you like. You know there's a character you can relate to and you always think, which one would I be? I would be the whatever what. So yeah, I think it's going to be big. I think this will be a big film. And I do think that the momentum that we've been seeing with shows like Everything Everywhere and also with now American born Chinese, and I'm not I'm not trying to shine you on with this, but I do think it's going to be huge this summer.

I think it's going to be one of those TV shows that you're going to say, I must watch it. I must see this, because it's fascinating, fascinating to watch. It does look pretty good. I know when you forwarded me the the audio, there was some press materials included. I may have you might have copy. I might have snooped a little bit, looked at a clip here or there.

It looks really good. I'm kind of excited for this. And I, I think as a family, somebody who's looking for family entertainment because it's really getting hard sometimes to find. And my kids are at that age where they're too old for the little kids stuff. But some of the other shows that are out there are just a little too mature for them still.

And it looks like that type of show where as a tween even, they'll be able to kind of get into it. So I'm kind of looking forward to it. With the writers strike going on, I think you need to embrace these things that are written because we are going to have a long stretch of reality shows, game shows, sporting events that will make you glad that you saw something that was scripted.

They've already announced the fall schedules for the networks and they're just packed with game shows. And I don't know, even if it's Jeopardy, I don't know how often I can watch it. I can't take any more of that. I just I have to hope and pray that my New York Mets are going very deep into the playoffs because there you go.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what looks like we're going to be basing. But can I tell you another one that I have been watching and it's coming out this next week. It's called Secrets of Hillsong and I don't know about the Hillsong Church, but the Hillsong Church was the one that Justin Bieber started attending. It's kind of a hip megachurch and the the preacher, there was somebody that, you know, I mean, come on, you think he's hip, he's cool.

This guy, Carl Lentz, is his name. He is just the man. And you can see why celebrities were attracted to him. A lot of basketball players were members of the church. And then he had a fall and he was apparently seeing more of the babysitter then or the nanny then the kids were. And so then he resigned and is no longer at the church.

But he participated in this documentary that talks about Hillsong. And Hillsong is a huge force in the Christian music business because they do a lot of Christian albums. They've won Grammys. I mean, it's they're they're the big deal. But it started in Australia and it goes back and it kind of shows us how this church got going. What spurred the church and what keeps it going.

Now they don't talk to the guy who founded the church and it says at the end of every episode we tried to reach him. He would not return our calls. He is not. So this is not a complete documentary where you go, Oh my God, this is what really is going on because it's still successful. Hillsong is still going.

There are still many ministers who are, you know, doing their thing and bringing in that hipper, younger audience. But that's something that you hear at churches all the time. How do we get the young people? How do we get the young people? Well, here they show you in this documentary how they got the young people to come to their church and what that meant.

And then those young people talk about what the church either did or didn't do for them. But it's a fascinating documentary. And yes, Carl Lentz does talk in this and he talks about his experience and the things that he did wrong. That's on Epix and also Hulu. And you'll see that coming out this next week. All right. So that's another one.

Check out last week's episode that we did. We looked at six movies to watch the summer episodes done very well so far, but we only touched on six movies. So next week, seven, we're going to kind of yeah, we're going to do the top 100 movies that you may now want to watch. Yeah, no, we're we're going to look at there's kind of like, I guess to some degree it's the best of the rest movies that are coming out this summer, but also an opportunity for us to maybe pick out some that we think might just like crash and burn horribly.

It should be fun. So come back next week and we will extend our summer blockbuster preview. And until then, thank you for listening to streamed and screened.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Memorial Day weekend is often viewed as the start of the summer movie season, although several big movies are already in theaters or will be out before then, such as "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3" and "Fast X."

We don't want to do a podcast that will eat up an entire day, so we've thinned the list down to six movies you'll want to put at the top of the list. That's not to say skip the others. No, there are a lot of great options still out there we didn't have time to cover.

But these six offer a little something for everyone depending on your interests. And we will be back with another pass at the best of the rest (along with a few we think might crash and burn) in two weeks with our episode leading into the long weekend.

So get a big bucket of buttery popcorn and buckle in for the top six films to see this summer.

Bruce Miller's recommendations:

"Barbie" out July 21
"Elemental" out June 16
"The Flash" out June 16
"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" out June 30
"No Hard Feelings" out June 23
"Oppenheimer" out July 21

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and co-host of the program with Bruce Wayne. Wait, I am sorry. Not, Bruce Wayne, I've got I've got that right out of the mind. I've got Batman on my mind numbing. Coming in a new film he is has.

Oh, that's right. So I've got Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal, and a long time entertainment reporter. But he is a superhero in my world. Oh, you're so sweet to say that. And that's because we're not in the same room. That's right. It is. And that's it. But, you know, the movie season is starting. This is it.

We had Guardians of the Galaxy come out last week, and that, I think, is the the official kickoff of the summer movie season. Summer movies are huge. And this is when they make big money. And we didn't have summer blockbusters during the COVID years. It really took a toll. So I think this is the year we're going to see things back.

Its its you kind of get back into the theaters, eat a lot of greasy popcorn and watch every kind of movie you could possibly pick up. Yeah, I mean, last year it was basically the summer of of Top Gun being the first real big blockbuster to make it back and do really, really well since since COVID started. And in preparation for this episode, I'm going through the list of movies and I'm thinking, there's no way we could even touch on all these or if we're going to do a 19 hour episode.

So what we're going to do is you just wrote a column on basically six movies to really focus in on for the season. So let's we're going to dive into that and then we're going to do another episode next week and then the following week, which will be in advance of Memorial Day weekend, which is again, like that huge, huge weekend for seeing movies.

We're going to hit like our other ones either to watch that or we think might be duds or just they're going to be just pure popcorn movies where, of course, they'll be terrible, but we will all go and see them because that's just what we're going to do this summer. So. Bruce, why don't you get us moving? I'm going to do it alphabetically if you're already picked.

I'm fine with that. The one you must see if you've been seeing any of the. And you know, right now we're getting all of the trailers. So if you watch any movie in the theaters, Guardians of the Galaxy, I saw so many of the summer movies. I thought, Oh, my God, I got to see that. I got to see that.

I got to see that. I got to see that. There were a lot of them. But the one that has drawn the most kind of curiosity is Barbie. Yeah. Is it like a spoof of Barbie? Is it a real story? Story of Barbie? Is it what? And it's got a lot of big names behind it. Greta Gerwig directed the thing and wrote it, and she has always been kind of a favorite in Hollywood.

These smarter segment of the industry. And she has been able to corral a lot of people. You see Ryan Gosling and you see Margot Robbie in the ads for this, but they are the tip of the iceberg. I think this is going to be like the the musical. The Book of Mormon was back when that first premiered. And nobody knew what it was.

They had no clue what their show was. It was called Book of Mormon. That's the same way with Barbie. You think it's going to be a film about just Barbie and Ken kind of playing around in her pink Ferrari? Is it a Ferrari or is it a Corvette or is it what is Barbie's car? I think it's changed over the years.

My girls had a Barbie. It might have been a beetle, a Volkswagen Beetle. Really? It was changed. It was pink. Yeah. They got well, Barbie and can get kind of drummed out of Barbie land, and they have to try and make their way in the real world. So this is like, okay, let's see how this plays out. Will this land and are people making fun of Barbie and can or are Barbie and can too smart for the real.

And there are multiple Barbies and cans so this is you see all those ones in me in the department store or the, you know, toy toy store. There are a lot of Barbies and a lot of cans. Interesting. Only if there's only one. Alan, by the way, little one. Alan. But I think Barbie is going to be a big, big, big film because the kids will like it and then their their parents will like the kind of snarkiness that comes with it.

I wasn't sure on this movie, but then when I saw that Greta Gerwig was attached to it, I thought, Well, you know, this one might be one that I'm willing to sit through. Now, I'm not sure if my kids will want to see it because they're they're 12 and they're kind of at that point of maybe too old for Barbie, but maybe not.

So we'll see if they want to go see it or not. But I think that Greta Gerwig, you got Ryan Gosling. It's an interesting enough concept. And if it's that alternate reality type thing, is it almost like the Smurfs or the Brady Bunch where they're living? It's it's that fakeness, but it kind of lives in the reality. It's like Whoville, you know, you're living the world.

I think it'll be fun. I'm. I'm waiting to see it. I think it has a real kind of extra quality. And when you look at the people involved, it's not like all were taking a risk. I think they know what they're doing and they're releasing just enough information all along the way so that you are kind of eager for it.

And that's not coming out till July. So we have a time between now and Denver to really become part cold, hot again, lukewarm and then who knows what will happen when it opens. But I still think it's going to open big. So, you know what else is kind of hot and cold and lukewarm, but coming out maybe a little bit earlier than that is elemental.

Another one and this is Pixar's. It's like they're inside out where they want with emotions. This is elements, air, water, land. And when they're all characters and they interact and I think they're trying to teach you a larger lesson, I don't know that that always works for Pixar, though. I think sometimes they go a little too deep. Yeah, I'm not sure on this one.

I love Pixar movies, so like, I love Toy Story, the whole franchise, and I love Monsters Inc, but some of their movies are a little bit of a miss for me, and I don't know where this one's going to fall, so I want to see it. But I also I'm like, You have to go. Yeah. Now I saw that Peterson was directing this one.

He did The Good Dinosaur, which was another one of those Disney cartoon animated movies, which I didn't love when it came out. Like I, I went to it took the kids in. It was fine looking at how grass looked there, I wasn't I wasn't thrilled. But there's a sea change at Pixar, different, different management now. And so you'll see that there's a different maybe mindset, but what they have been doing in recent years is letting you know newcomers to the business get a swing.

They'll put them in to a short subject. They get a chance to kind of tell a story that they want to tell. And maybe this is one of those those situations where we're going to see kind of a different viewpoint, a different voice. Otherwise, this summer is going to be thin for animated adventures. I mean, we've got the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and then Spider-Verse, which I think will be big.

But as far as Disney and Pixar, this is kind of be it again, like when they hit the Toy Story franchise, I ended up Finding Nemo franchise spectacular. But some of these others that are kind of the one offs, they don't necessarily you know, Coco was fine, but it was just it was fine. Like I didn't love it.

I didn't hate it. It was fine. Soul was fine. The reason I love soul, but I don't think my kids loved it as much. But I'm originally from New York and there was a lot of New York, like inside New York references. And they were also poking fun at the New York Knicks multiple times to Lyles, which I love the Knicks, but they've been awful for the last decade or more than that, too.

It's probably going closer to 30 years than than 20. Look how bad light year was. Yeah. You know, that's another one of those. And swing and miss and yeah I a we'll see what happens but I think it could tell them you know let's not go so much over the heads of the the audience. Look at how Mario is doing.

It's like huge and that isn't exactly a master's thesis in anything. Right. So I think if you try too hard to educate and entertain or edgy teen as they like to say, you could miss, you could miss big, We need a cute little character that can be a stuffed animal. There always has to be one of those in every in any animated film.

So elementals out June 16th, another one that's also coming out June 16th, which should be huge. The Flash. Yeah. And there's this one that, you know, they weren't going to release. They had this whole thing like, No, we're just going to bury it. It's going to be in the back and we're not doing anything about it. But then test audiences got to see it and they said, This is like the best superhero film we've ever seen.

And Ezra miller, who plays The Flash, was in some, you know, trouble, and that was kind of the like, could we really have a superhero that has been arrested for something? And then we have to deal with all of that fallout. But I think they realized that there's so much riding on this, particularly for DC Comics, that they have to release it.

What really is surprising about it, Bruce Wayne, is that Batman is in this film in a number of ways and we get to see old Batman, if you will, because he's able to travel through time. So I think it has success written all over it. If it was that good in test screenings, it's got to be great once they, you know, tighten everything up and get it ready for an audience.

So I think is going to be huge. I agree. And it's one where I wasn't sure if I wanted to see it initially because, again, I'm not a huge, huge comic book movie person, but I've always enjoyed Batman movies and Superman movies to an extent. And then, you know, when you found out when we found out that Michael Keaton was going to be coming back in some way, we didn't know exactly how, but Michael Keaton was coming back.

And to me, that's probably the best Batman movie of all time. Between that one and maybe the Christopher Nolan era, the Tim Burton. Christopher Nolan. Those two to me are just spectacular. So to see that trailer where Michael Keaton is back on the screen as Batman, I'm thinking myself, I got to go see this movie. Yeah, I think there's a lot there, too, to digest.

And I think it will be the start of better days for the Warner Brothers series of superheroes. We've been overwhelmed with way too many Superman kind of takes bad Aquaman, bad Wonder Woman. I mean, there's a lot of kind of baggage there. And this could, you know, start a new trend. They've got big people. They've got big, big names that are in there.

And yes, Ben Affleck is in it, too. So exactly. I think the flash will be one of, if not the biggest movie this summer. One of the biggest. Yeah. But it it is crucial for DC to land this one. They got to stick the landing on this because Marvel is just rolling over them right now in terms of universes.

And James Gunn, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy, is moving over to DC ahead of their division. So we'll see what happens with that. That could be really a big sign of things because his latest is good. We're we're halfway through your list of six. The next one, this next one is the one I've just been dying for.

And I'm I'm hoping it's not terrible because the last one in the franchise was not good. Indiana Jones and the Dial Destiny out June 30th. Yeah. And I you know there's a lot riding on it but George Lucas wrote it so if he's putting his hand back in and you've got Harrison Ford, you know, they're going to try and tell some kind of maybe an ending story, I don't know.

But there is something that he wants to say with that, and I think that's what will help this. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is incredible and is a great writer in her own right, is in this. And she could easily have suggested a line or two that might really make it that kind of, you know, how Indiana Jones always had that kind of odd way of phrasing something or you think it's going in this direction and then he turns it in another direction.

You, you know, there'll be snakes there. It has to be snakes, of course, But it's that whole kind of world of Nazis and all that stuff that during the forties people were like, Oh my God, what is this? And they would go to serials and I think it's going to be good. I think it will be good. And I think they will address the fact that Indiana Jones isn't 30 and running around right there.

I think it'll be a good kind of, if you will, closure to the to the series. I agree. I've seen the trailers now and especially that full one where they gave you a little bit more the two minute one. And it looks like they're going to you know, it's more of a modern thing maybe in the sixties or early seventies, that kind of thing.

And he's he's about to retire as a college professor, so he's older. But then it does the time jump and they've really gotten good at the De-Aging process. We've seen this now in the Star Wars movies where they're able to, you know, have the actors perform but use CGI to make them look like they did as as younger people.

So I think it they'll probably be able to make Harrison Ford look like a younger Harrison Ford, sell it and really hopefully wrap up the series in a good way. Now, it sounds like this is it definitely for Harrison Ford because he's come out and it maybe even thrown a bucket of cold water on hopes from Disney that he might come back in some capacity for a TV series on Disney Plus.

And it just sounds like he is he is done with Indiana Jones forever after this one is done. So let's hope that, you know, we can go out on a high note. That last movie was not good. It's and I've always loved the franchise. So I'm hoping that we can just kind of forget about that one. And maybe it's one of those things, too, where if you look at the series as a whole, Raiders of the Lost Ark was a great movie.

Temple of Doom was kind of and it was fine, but it wasn't a high note. Last crusade. A lot of the the Indiana Jones fan site is back to where it should be. Maybe they kind of missed the mark on the last one. So maybe it's just one of those every other thing they could nail it and we'll go out on a high note.

Fingers crossed I'll be there. So what do we have next, Bruce? Well, then we have you. This is going to be interesting. It's called No Hard Feeling. Okay. Are you good with that? Okay. And this is we haven't seen Jennifer Lawrence in quite a while, right? Right. Act now. And she's going to play this woman who is hired by a wealthy couple to kind of make their son, I don't want to say popular, but maybe not as nerdy just as they expected him to be.

The son is played by Andrew Barr, Feldman and I, Andrew Barr Feldman is kind of a one of those success stories that that New York is able to promote. He was in, I think, called the Jimmy Awards. The Jimmy Awards are high school equivalent of like the Tony Awards. So if your kid he is a star of his high school musical, you know, Fiddler on the Roof, he's playing Fiddler in the show.

And then they take those kids and they put them in a competition in New York City, and one wins the Jimmy Award, one male, one female, and then see what happens. Well, Andrew, Bart Feldman won the Jimmy Award and immediately they put him into Dear Evan Hansen. He did a year with that. He did. He was in High School Musical, The musical, the series he's had, like a lot of stuff, but he's still going to college too, at the same time.

But they cast him in this, and I think this is good. He's also doing a thing with a ratatouille musical, but he you'll be introduced to him in a big way. And oddly enough, this is a lot like Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The dad in this movie is played by Matthew Broderick. So there is it I and you get a little sense of that, but I think that's going to be hugely funny and I think it's going to be one of those ones You go, okay, I'm up for it.

I think this will work. You know, you mentioned Matthew Broderick and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and of course, we did an episode in talking about my affinity for that kind of era of movies to begin with. But the concept of this reminds me a little bit of a movie from that era in 1987 Can't Buy Me Love, where a guess Patrick Dempsey plays kind of that nerdy kid who's a little bit awkward in high school and he's going to spend his lawn mowing money on a really expensive telescope.

But he also, you know, he's got interest because he's he's a he's a young man and he's, you know, trying to impress the ladies. And Amanda Peterson plays a young woman who's need something. I think it was a dress. And he, instead of buying the telescope, helps her out. But under the agreement that she dates him and I can't remember, it's been so long since I've seen the movie, I can't remember every little piece of it, but it has a little bit of that kind of feel to it as well.

Yeah, a little risky business. Yeah. So here's a little about the genre that was very popular in the eighties, I think is now they're looking for how do we bring this back? This would be great. And like I say, you watch Andrew Barr. Feldman remember, that name is going to be big because of it. And Jennifer Lawrence, I think she plays that kind of snarky comedy that she's really good at.

And I think in this case, it'll work. It'll really work. So. And Matthew Broderick, no hard feelings. Look for that one this summer. All right. That one is out June 23rd. And then we have one more that we're going to talk about today. If I were to pick and I only got six, these are my six, but the other one is my first and only real Oscar bait.

I mean, the others, if they got something, you'd see Barbie in costumes or you might see Indiana Jones in the special effects or the flash and special effects, but one that would be a best picture potential, maybe some best acting potential. Is Oppenheimer about J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was the the father of the atomic bomb. And it's it's done by Christopher Nolan.

So you know that there's something more there. And I think it's not going to be just one of those kind of long dredges that you sit and watch. Oh, God. And now they're going to do what, from the the the trailers I've been able to see. It does look like it has a movement and it does have kind of some energy that I didn't think was going to be there.

And the look is just spectacular. Jillian Murphy is the star of this and Kenneth Branagh is in it. I mean, you just go through the list and it's blue chip all the way. Robert Downey Jr. So he's not Iron Man in this one. Yeah. No. Yeah, this one sounds like a one that I definitely want to check out.

Obviously, Christopher Nolan being attached to a huge directing name. It's a little bit of a departure from some of the things that he's done recent. Right. And then I think because it's specifically based on history, he is in kind of free floating with a lot of this depth. Some of those last ones were like, what in the heck is this?

But I think this one, it'll hold up and you'll go, I think that guy's got an Oscar. Come on. Yeah. So that's that's definitely this is a real solid list. Bruce So we haven't touched on everything, though. I mean, there, there is. Think that's my first my first blush, if you will. Okay. By the time I get to the the next, give me a week or so and I can give you a little better picture because some of those ones I will have been able to have seen.

But I think right now those are the ones that I intrigue you the most. They're the ones that you go, Yep, I think I've got to look at that and and there are ones that come on based X and it has to be on a list. Right. But that that's a no brainer. That is not even one that you would hesitate if you are fast and furious fan like I think you are too.

I will be there. Yes I that those movies have just gone off the rails but I don't know. Yeah. The idea that they're going in space and they're going to do all these kind of oddball things and these were street writers, right? They were right. It is work. I almost have to go back to the first one and watch it just to try to figure out what wait, what was this originally about?

Because it has gone so far in the other direction. And every movie, if we're adding in more people more and more characters like who? Wait, who? You're Jason Momoa, you're in it now. It's crazy. It's everybody that is kind of of a larger size, I guess comes into this as a villain at some point. Exactly. But it's also I mean, it's not just Jason Momoa, but Rita moreno is going to be in it.

Well, Brie Larson, Charlize Theron. And then you have Helen Mirren has been in this thing we renewed. It is like a marvel franchise where you figure, I better have that on my resume or else I'm really sunk. All right. So we're going to come back and talk about Fast X mission Impossible Blue Beetle Art Boy, right? Yeah. This is just one.

This is just part one. So we'll we'll be back in Little Mermaid. Oh, yeah. So many. We're going to come back in two weeks and kind of just touch on everything else that that we didn't include in this one. And then next week you've got a bit of an interview scheduled. Can you talk about what that's mean? Yes.

There is a really, really big TV series that's starting this month called American Born Chinese. And if you do any kind of research on this, you'll discover that this was one of those make or break kind of things. Everything everywhere, all at once really cracked a barrier and brought a lot of Asian stories and Asian actors and whatnot into the business.

Well, this actually was made before all of that happened. They started filming American Born Chinese. Well, that was Pop act. And when it did pop, interestingly enough, they are going to be a beneficiary because it has all the big stars at one Oscars or that movie in their series. So it's fascinating and it's a way of opening up a door to stories we haven't heard about.

Now, there are characters in this that, you know, if I threw a party, you'd go, Really? I've never heard of that. The Monkey King. I don't know what you're talking about, but are very popular in Asian culture. And it's a way of trying to introduce an American audience to some of these characters with a very simple story of a boy trying to fit in in a high school.

And we'll talk to the young actor who plays the boy and what he what he has to say about the big stars. So we'll talk about the show a little bit more. Fill you in on that next week, American born Chinese, and we'll have an interview for you as well. Thank you for listening to streamed and screened.

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Late night television programs have turned to reruns and soon production on scripted shows may halt as the Writers Guild of America went on strike.

The first Hollywood strike in 15 years meant 11,500 members stopped working with the expiration of their contract as they look for improved pay during the streaming era.

We have several interview clips with celebrities like Jimmy Fallon and Josh Gad weighing in with their support of writers. How long will the strike last? Co-host Bruce Miller suggests 100 days, which could delay the start of the fall season and lead to more reality shows.

In the meantime, we turn our attention to the coming-of-age movie "Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret." The film is based on the 1970 novel of the same name from Judy Blume. The film adaptation stars Rachel McAdams, Abby Ryder Fortson, Elle Graham, Benny Safdie and Kathy Bates.

We then turn our attention to icons. What makes an icon? Philanthropist billionaire David Rubenstein, who is a collector of historical artifcats like the Magna Carta and Declaration of Independence, is the host of "Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein."

Miller talks with Rubenstein about history, iconic items and locations, and collecting. You can also read more:

READ MORE: Icons help tell America's story, says philanthropist David Rubenstein

Finally, Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz talk about the upcoming summer blockbusters, which we'll preview in next week's episode. Did you know "Jaws" is considered the first summer blockbuster?

Where to watch

"Iconic America: Our Symbols and Stories with David Rubenstein" on PBS
"Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" in movie theaters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

They've got to get a fair deal. So, yeah, I'll do whatever I can to support them. Those are the sounds of picketers as well as a clip of Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon as the Writers Guild of America went on strike. Audio Courtesy The Associated Press. Welcome to another episode of Streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV.

I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee Enterprises and the co-host of the program, along with the iconic Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, you are an icon, aren't you? I have been through many writer's strikes in Hollywood and seen different things that they've done over those years. I remember one time actually being in Hollywood when the writers strike began and there were picketers out front of our hotel because producers were in there and they wanted to to let their message be known.So I guess I've seen writer's strikes like you can't believe, you know, the people ask, Well, now are we having no television? Has there been no movies? Is everything going to disappear? This is just terrible. Well, settle down. You'll be okay. This is how we got reality TV. If you may remember, in 2007, it wasn't that big of a deal.

And reality TV is supposed oddly unscripted, even though it is largely scripted. They give them an outline, but they don't have to come up with the lines themselves. So I think what you're going to see are these things where, you know, you don't need any kind of writing done. They don't need to write the questions. It will affect things like Jeopardy because they have to write those questions.

So game shows aren't necessarily immune from this. Some talk shows like the late night shows, are scripted. They will not be around. They'll show reruns. You'll be able to see those things for a while. The stuff that you really don't care about, probably you'll see more of it. Sporting events, they'll do that. Award shows. This will be our first test.

The ACM awards, Country Music Awards that are coming up would probably have some scripted stuff if they haven't written it already. They're going to have to just ad lib. And so I don't know how good Dolly Parton is at ad libbing, but we'll this will be a test of what it's like. She'll be on her toes. Yes, she'll be good.

The Tony Awards are coming up. Are they going to be able to do any kind of writing around those things? Who knows? But it will be interesting. And they're assuming that it'll go at least 100 days. Wow. Because within that 100 days, there are other contracts that would come due and it gives the the companies, the studios, the whatevers an opportunity to end those contracts.

And they they spent a lot of big money buying talent. You know, when streaming came in, it was like, oh, we've got to lock up x, Y and Z because then they'll make product for us for the next ten years. You saw Ryan Murphy got a big contract. Shonda Rhimes got a big contract. So all those people have these contracts that could be affected by that.

And then they can just say, We no longer have that contract, let's renegotiate, let's see what happens. So the 100 day window is kind of awaited. Now, they could end it by this week and then everything all bets are off. But likely there will be a ride out there because they want to see this kind of change. They want to see change because everybody went crazy over streaming and spent a lot of money.

Now, what does this leave us, the viewer, at home? Well, if you noticed, we were seeing a lot of shows from Korea. We were seeing shows from other countries. There's Swedish shows, Norwegian shows, Spanish shows. And they would subtitled them or they would dub them. That's likely that we're going to see a lot of those. And how else did we get things?

Like Parasite was a foreign made film that came over here, did very well. The Squid game, there's another one that you know did well, and that was a foreign product. So I think you would see other shows that we didn't get a chance to see from other countries. That's where they'll look for some of the product. A long time ago, they took old scripts and just rebuild them.

And that was, I think, a bust, a real bad idea because do you want to see new people playing Mission Impossible? You know, with a script written in 1967? I don't think so. They can't make changes and they can't do things. Now. Some scripts are already written and they would be able to film them, but they wouldn't be able to like if they didn't like the way a line landed.

They couldn't fix it. They'd have to just go with the line as it was. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Because really the I mean, we see the immediate impact with late night TV, Saturday Night Live, that kind of thing, because it's live, it's daily or weekly. Right. And obviously this the strike has shut them down. But in reality, anything that was kind of already written and in production is probably okay other than what she said.

You know, if there needs to be changes or rewrites, that would be the biggest problem. Yeah, they wouldn't let them do that. Now, you know, news shows technically are written, but they get a pass because it's the news. And so they would be able to still do those kind of scripts. You know, look at some of Fox News.

A lot of times it's just people sitting around talking so they're not affected by those things. Probably the fall season is where we might run into the biggest. If it goes like you said, three months. If it goes beyond three months or why would even imagine if it went a full three months? Because it's already May right now.

So, you know, those September shows will probably go into production when? In July? August. But August is usually kind of the starting date for many of their if they're coming back, if there are new show they they've made their first episode, they may have made a second episode, but they wouldn't go back into production until August because they figure September would be the start date for all of that.

So, you know, and they could always delay the start of a season if they knew that they'd be done by September with the contracts and all this. They could back it up in the fall season, wouldn't start October or November and then fill in with with, you know, other kind of special programing that they might have or a very special episode of whatever or bingeing.

And I think that's what what hurt all this really is They used to have orders for 22 episodes a year, and that kind of ensured that you were going to get a decent paycheck if you were a writer, because you would be on staff for 22 episodes. That doesn't mean you're writing all 22, but you would be under there under their contract, if you will, and you'd get a paycheck now because there are ten episode shows, eight episode shows.

That's a short run. And they're, you know, the production companies are saving money on this. And so they're not making what they thought they were and they're having to look for another another line of work. So it is, you know, there's a reason for them to strike. Let's go back to some audio. I've got two more clips. One is of Josh Gad.

He's a comic and an actor. You probably know him, of course, as the voice of Olaf in Frozen. But we also have a writer named Sean Crespo, who's I would consider a little bit more of a rank and file writer. This is somebody that is really going to be affected by the writers strike. So let's go and listen to them now.

But as sort of a hybrid here. I'll just speak on on behalf of the actor side of me is we are nothing without their words. We have nothing without them. It's just a pile of abuses that have you know, you can't address them every day. They only negotiate once every few years. So these things have piled on like this.

There's just not there's too much work and not enough pay. Like there's no there's not really a path to middle class living anymore as a writer, I have a friend who just got a job on a series and now won't be writing because they're they're striking. So, you know, what do you do? You have this job, do you all the time open and don't do anything.

Do you go work at a grocery store? What do you do during that interim? So it is a concern and it's a trickle down. If they're not producing shows, that means people who are in the, you know, not non front of the camera jobs are also unemployed. So it just it trickles down. You don't have people who need to do the costumes or do the sheds or whatever it might be.

They're unemployed as well. So it isn't an easy thing and it is a big A you are looking at George Clooney suddenly losing a lot of money or anybody like that. It's it has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with being a little fairer about spreading the wealth around to those who are making it.

A lot of these executives will get huge bonuses and none of it trickles down, even though maybe their network or their their streaming service performed really well. This doesn't save that poor guy is making whatever from doing another kind of job. He isn't going down to the Kroger's and saying, suddenly I'm going to be I'll stack shelves for you, you know.

So and it happens all the time. They should be prepared before it even gets to this point. I mean, I think the misconception, too, is because we heard from, of course, like Jimmy Fallon and he, of course, wrote on Saturday Night Live. So I presume he was a striking guild member at some point. But he's obviously at a point now where he's got a big contract as a TV host.

But he's a small piece of this puzzle. It's you're talking about a lot of gig workers. A lot of folks said, well, not even gig workers. They're contracted workers. And if the show goes off, they're not making a salary. So it's you know, a lot of folks that are just kind of getting by. And it's you've got your your light crews and your audio crews and your camera crews and all of those folks aren't aren't working right now, but they're sticking together.

And I did see that NBC, at least for a short period of time, it sounds like they're going to pay the writers, the crew members, I think like two weeks from The Tonight Show, for instance. And I think Jimmy Fallon is going to pay another week out of his own pocket. So the writers and the crew members, they'll get about three weeks of pay.

But then it's kind of, you know, buckle up for the long haul. We're not going to keep paying you. We won't have to worry about what we're going to watch. There will be content and there probably is content that's in the hopper right now because they've already filmed it and they can just start, you know, sorting it out.

It's a year from now that you'll have to wonder what what are they going to do because they aren't done with that. And technically, writers are prevented from writing. Well, they're on strike, you know, you say, oh, write a movie, just write yourself a little another series or something. You can write all of it. Well, they're not supposed to do that.

So the idea that you would suddenly end the strike and come in with ten episodes of a show, that's not going to happen. Exactly. So we'll move on now from the writers strike to what's going on in the theater. See anything good recently, Bruce? You know, I did see. Are you there? God, it's me, Margaret, not my wheelhouse.

I'll just be honest. It was not a film that I was, you know, excited about. But I do remember vaguely the controversy about Judy Blume's book and that she was writing these very adult books for young people. And now when we hear all this, you know, we've got to ban books because they're telling kids too much stuff. Mhm.

If this was something they were worried about, boy I can give you a list of stuff we should worry about now that it's very benign. If I had a kid, I think it would be even a little too juvenile for somebody who is the same age as the characters in the sixth grader. She's about 12 and they, you know, barely, barely talks about puberty and change of life and things like that.

Barely. It's more like, how do you deal when things happen? She moves, for example, from New York City to New Jersey. And that is a big trauma for a kid. You know, I'm going to have to go to a new school. I'm going to meet new people, where will I fit in? But this being a thing that you would even consider banning is like beyond me.

I thought it was very harmless. I thought the Wonder years as a TV series which covered the same era, was far more adult and far more educational. Maybe in some of those areas, like when I watched The Wonder Years, I go, Oh yes, I remember that kind of situation and what that. And they also played world affairs a little better.

They talked about the Vietnam War. They talked about other things that were happening in the world. Well, they were doing that the the living, if you will, with this idea. There really isn't that much about the world around them. Mom is living in a town where she isn't working. She's a stay at home mom. And that's different for her.

And trying to adjust to that. But for the most part, I thought it was a a pleasant little film, but hardly a controversial one. So Rachel McAdams plays Barbara. The mother thinks she's not given enough credit for the things she's able to do. But even with just a look, she can convey things that weren't in the script at all.

And I think she's really, really talented. And I hope this doesn't mean that now she's just going to play mothers because I think there's a lot more for her to do. Abby Ryder Fortson played the 11 year old Margaret in the movie. How did she perform? Just a sweetheart. She you know, you feel her a more pressing issue with this is religion.

Her father is Jewish, her mother is Christian, or they're from those families. The mom and dad really don't practice religion. And so she really doesn't kind of know where she fits in. Is she Jewish like her grandma? Is she Christian like her grandparents on the other side? Where does she fit in all of this? And she even goes to a priest at one point and goes to confession and thinking maybe that's what she needs.

But it's a more questioning film about religion. And where do you fit in with that? It doesn't answer the question, but it does help you. You know, consider that maybe that's an important question to be asking at that age. This sounds like a movie for me, Bruce. I know my dad is Jewish. It's my dad is Jewish, my mom is Catholic.

I they moved me from New York City to New Jersey when I was five. So not quite 11. Yeah, this sounds like God, it's me, Terry. I think my wife is going to take my daughters to go see it, though. My my girls are they just turned 12. Have twin daughters. They're they're in sixth grade. So this is in their wheelhouse in interesting thing because it is based on the Judy Blume book.

You can't find this book anywhere. So my wife has been checking out like every library in the area. Yeah, Yeah. It's no, it's not bad. You just can't get it because everybody wants it because of the movie. Yeah. So the local library, it's checked out and there's like 12 people in front of us that want to reserve it.

She was checking with another library. She checked her school library. She checked the middle school library. She teaches. She's kind of friendly, of course, at the library and in the school and the library and says, Give me a few minutes. I'll check it out. I'll see if I can find it. And she tracked down a copy at the high school and they were going to pull it over.

So my daughters to read it, you know, in that case, I would buy it. Yeah. That was going to be the next step, you know, like this thing called Amazon I've heard of. Have you heard of it? I've heard, yeah. You know, at the top of the show, I asked you, Bruce, are you an icon? Are you an icon?

I am not an icon. You're not? No, no, no. I. I wish I were. Wouldn't that be fun? Is there anyone here that can identify an icon? Well, and a yes, an icon is something that you can look a picture a if there's a picture of it and you can immediately identify what it is, you can say that is a Coke bottle, for example, that would be an iconic sculpture container, whatever you might want to call that.

But you would look and, you know, as that kind of green glass, it has that kind of ribbed look and it has the Coca-Cola script on it. So that's iconic. Mount Rushmore is iconic because you look at it, you mean identify it, the Statue of Liberty, iconic. Those are things that that stand the test of time. But then there are things that disappear.

I talked to David Rubenstein, who's doing a PBS series on icons, and he wanted to look into this and see what really fit that definition. And he said, you know, sometimes things are like the Ambassador Hotel, the ambassador Hotel was where Bobby Kennedy was, was shot and they closed the hotel. And then it just sat there for a long time.

And now they've torn it down. But, you know, at one point they used it for filming TV shows. I went there and saw a filming of Love Boat, and they were filming inside the hotel like it was a cruise ship. And so it was still used, but it wasn't used as a hotel because it had perhaps a negative connotation and people didn't want that to be kind of the the overriding attention it got.

But that would be considered the Oscar. The Oscar is an icon. You could easily look at that. And there are so many stories about that. You know, where where did it get its name? Even the people who are doing research on it, I don't agree. They don't you know, it's maybe this person, it's maybe that person. It could even be Betty Davis.

And they've all been kind of debunked in terms of who actually gave it the name and why it happened. But icons are things that are around us that we can immediately identify and why are they iconic? And that series is kind of fun to lean into. I had a chance to talk with David and he explained some of the things.

He's a huge collector. Of course he's also a billionaire. So I guess if I were a billionaire, I could be an iconic whatever. But he collects a lot of things and what he loves loves to collect our documents. What would you think immediately you'd have to have a copy of, I don't know, the Declaration of Independence. A declaration?

And he does have the Declaration of Independence. And, you know, and I thought, Well, why do you want this? And he said, it's to be able to give it so that others can see it. He loans these things out, these documents out to libraries, museums, whatever, so that then we all can have a shot at looking at we all can go to the Smithsonian, we all can't go to the White House, we can't go to those places.

But if they tour and travel, you would get an opportunity to look at those things. So icons, He talks about what makes an icon interesting. So let's go ahead and listen to that interview with David Rubenstein. We'll be right back.

Can I ask what what really makes an icon? What is an icon? An icon is something that people no know it. They think they know a lot about, about it. They don't need to know as much as they think. But for example, if I showed you a picture of an icon, you would say, Well, I know what that is.

So I showed you a picture of the White House. You would know what that is. I showed you a picture of the Washington Monument. You know what that is? Those are iconic because they are so well known that everybody kind of has a sense of what they mean. And the purpose of this series, we took iconic symbols that mean some things to people about our history.

So Statue of Liberty means something to people or the Golden Gate Bridge or Hollywood sign, things like that. You look at things like that. Andy Warhol did. He painted a lot of things that he, I think, even had a series called Icons. He did. He he did. And yes, he what he did is when he did the Campbell's Soup thing, he basically was taking something everybody recognized and he made it a work of art.

And yes, you're right. So could those things, though, fall out of favor we look at now when they when statues are taken down. And I'm sure for many people in that area, a statue would be considered an icon for them. Yeah. Yes. Well, nothing is forever. So there may be some iconic buildings that are torn down, You know, let's say in Hollywood or L.A., there was an iconic hotel.

Was that the ambassador or the one that and Robert Kennedy, an ambassador? Yeah, I think that wasn't that torn down. Yes, it was. Right. So there is an iconic building is gone. So sometimes iconic buildings, they don't stay forever iconic things. All the things that we did in the series are probably likely to be around for a while.

When you were making your list then of the ones that you wanted include how long was the list and then how did you winnow it? Well, we went through maybe 25, 30 that we thought were appropriate. And then you have to you want to have a balance. We wanted something from the South, something from the West, something from the Midwest.

So we wanted that. Secondly, we wanted things that we thought would have an interesting story. So, for example, take the Statue of Liberty. Everybody thinks they know what it means, has nothing to do with immigration. When it was put together, it was really for Franco-American friendship and thanking us for getting rid of slavery. Thank you. You know, it's, you know, so we're we're trying to do is have iconic symbols that people think they recognize it, but they don't really know the history of it.

So, for example, take the the American bald eagle. It's many people think that's our national bird. We don't have a national bird. We never had one. There's a old story that Benjamin Franklin wanted to be the turkey over the bald eagle. But that isn't true either. But bald eagle. Why did that become such a iconic symbol of our country, even if it's not officially national?

Bird And what's so unique about the bald eagle? And you know, it's only in the North America, though, there are there are these American bald eagles. So we wanted to educate people about it. Take the American cowboy. American cowboy is an iconic thing. The Marlboro ad is the most famous ad, but turns out that cowboys are not what you probably saw on TV when you were growing up.

It turns out that cowboys were not fighting Indians. They were really hurting cattle to take them to slaughter. Really. That's what their real mission was. And they weren't all white. They were indigenous, they were white Latinos, they were African-Americans, and they weren't even carrying guns. They basically were just dealing with the the cow. And they it's a tough, tough job they have.

But it was not something people think they know something about, but they don't really know as much as they think they do. And that's why we try to educate people about it, where, one, I would think that you would automatically have it would be Mt. Rushmore. But is that too easy? Is that one that people would say, Oh, come on now, everybody knows what that is.

And it isn't to Mt. Rushmore. If we did another eight, probably that'd be a good one to do. Mount Rushmore is one we thought about. It's it's it's it's a good symbol. The controversy was very controversial. Pick who the presidents were giving their person the permission to do it. He had some really controversial things in his background. And interestingly, though, the man that carved that got yeah.

Hudson Borglum you know, he actually carved the was responsible for the initial effort to carve the Confederate symbols in Stone Mountain. And and he was was a member of the Ku Klux Klan at one point. So so some of these stories go much deeper than we would even expect when you take I mean I think I know a reasonable amount about American history for a nonprofessional, but I was astounded to learn some of the things I learned about some of these symbols.

You know, when we look today, though, and things that are happening in politics, people trying to co-opt symbols as somehow they they have a greater hold on it than anything else. And the flag is a real example, a perfect example. Richard Nixon started wearing a little flag here was that means he's more patriotic than I am if I'm not wearing it.

But I think the Republican Party has done a pretty good job of for a while for Democrats going on to having flags in the backdrop when we're on Reagan to make speeches, they put flags behind them. Right. So Democrats finally figured out that's a good thing. But but it wasn't that for a while, Richard Nixon kind of co-opted the idea that the American flag was something that was Republican and he was more American than the Democrats.

Yeah, it's just in, say, how you want to scream at times and you think, wait a minute, now, you don't have the right to this just yourself. But I guess it's first come first gets and well that somebody probably thought up some of these things but think about you know people today they wear symbols on their lapels, you know, Ukrainian Americans or whatever.

And they they're trying to co-opt iconic symbol and make people think that they all kind of own it or they're more Ukraine pro-Ukrainian than I am because I'm not wearing a Palestinian ribbon is when ribbon started coming out. And then it became like, well, what does this color mean and what is this for? And it's it it just keeps going.

You know, if people want to co-opt the iconic symbol because they want people to think about them, a certain thing and a symbol can can do it quicker than a word, than words. Other words. Richard Nixon doesn't have to come out and say, you know, I really I'm more American than George McGovern. Just wears a little lapel here.

The flag and the symbol does it like, you know, pictures worth a thousand words I say. So you're a collector, right? How do you choose what you collect? I collect different types of things. But in the historic documents area, there are a lot of very famous historic documents. And so I want to get the ones that are they're available.

But the most I'd say the most famous one I own is the Magna Carta. But but in this country, people know the Declaration of Independence better. So I own probably more copies of the Declaration, anybody. But I put them all on display so people can see. And my whole effort is to educate Americans about our history on the theory that we have a more educated population, we have a more informed democracy.

When that country was set up, they the theory was that white Christian men who owned property would be the guy People voted, but we wanted them to be educated and that we can educate. Now. All voters are better off. People don't know what they're voting about. That's not good. And we don't teach history or civics as much as we did 40, 50 years ago.

Does it lose value then? Because we know. Sure. So, for example, if you don't know, two thirds of Americans, when asked in a survey, what are the three branch of the federal government cannot answer the question. So is that a good thing? It's probably not a good thing. It's better to have people know a little bit more about the history of your country.

Also know the bad things. The theory about studying history is that you want to learn the bad of the past so you don't repeat it. That's the main point of learning history and you can learn about the good and hopefully get a better. But you want to learn something like, for example, when you went to grade school, were you what?

There was a beat in over your head that Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were slave owners? Probably not. I didn't have that when I'm obviously older than you, but when I went to school, I was George Washington, the great man, never told a lie, chop down a cherry tree or his father, all that stuff, which wasn't true. And he didn't emphasize he was a slave owner.

Thomas Jefferson said all men are created equal, and he did that when he had slaves with them and he had 600 slaves in his lifetime. So I think we should educate people about the good and bad and then just make sure people can can make informed decisions about the future. And if you put your collection on on display at all times, well, it's a very is places.

So I have collections on display in lots of places around the country. But I, for example, buy a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and Lincoln signed the original, which is in the archives. He signed 47 souvenir copies of which 20 are left. I own two of them. I put one in the African-American History and Culture Museum and one tours around the country or the 13th Amendment, which I in end of slavery.

I own four rare copies of that. And I put I put them on display at various museums or or exhibitions that people ask me to. Are there holy grails that you're still looking for, that you're trying to get the Gettysburg Address? There are only five copies of that Lincoln actually brought out five copies of They're hard to get those.

One is owned by Cornell, one of the Lincoln Museum, one in the White House, and two in the Library of Congress. I probably market to better by them. But the problem with being a collector is what do you do with the collection? And you can only do three things for them. In the end, you give it to a museum, you sell it and take the prophecy abuse for yourself or you, you know, make a charitable contribution with it or you give them to your children.

I have three children. They're all well-educated. I went to great schools, Harvard, Stanford and so forth. They have no interest in any of my collections, so they don't want it. They just said, We don't care about it. So I could go to museums and give them my collections and maybe I'll do that. I, you know, I'm the chair of the Library Congress Board, so obviously you invite them and I was the chair of the Smithsonian.

And so I think the Smithsonian is great, but I haven't decided yet. It's in my will if I die tomorrow, there's a way to handle it. But I'm always changing my mind so I know you know who's nice to me today is the person who gets it right? Right. With the Hollywood side. That is such a kind of an interesting choice to be on this bunch.

Well, we wanted to do things on all parts of the country. And this was a poor Southern California. It's an iconic symbol. You can find others. But it's interesting. Most people think it's designed to promote Hollywood. As you may know, it was a land development company, Hollywood land. And then it over the years has been it's almost taken down.

It's been fixed, it's been restored, and it's become a symbol of Hollywood. Now, Hollywood, as you know, is doesn't really exist in a meaningful way. All the Hollywood studios are not in Hollywood, but it's kind of a symbol. So if you go to somebody in Iowa and say, if you let's go to let's go to Hollywood, we'll see some movie stars, they might think that there's actually some movie stars walking around all of that, but there's nobody there.

The idea, though, that they would do a second one on the other side of the mountain I think is a really stupid idea. Maybe that's just my. Oh, that's the other side. Yeah. Another take where you could actually have your picture taken in front of the Hollywood sign and it would be easier to get your picture than it would be to, you know, where do you hike to get the best picture of you and whatnot.

And I find, you know, should there be more than one of some of these things? I don't know. Oh, obviously devalues the currency of you're more of them. But for now. But what I really want do is people talk about history and talk and learn more and and appreciate more about American history. Well, the theory that they will make us a better country.

All right. Thank you, Bruce, for that interview with David Rubenstein. You know, I actually met his ex-wife. Did you know that I was? Yes. Yes. Not nobody, Nothing. Nothing. When I wasn't the cause of their divorce or any money woes, Buzz cries. No, no, no. Alice Rogoff is his ex-wife. And actually, I believe the mother of his children is a media publisher.

She she used to own the Alaska Dispatch. She purchased the Anchorage Daily News in I think it was like 2014 or so and merged them to the Alaska Dispatch News. So she was the publisher of that newspaper paper. And as publisher, it took a few editorial staff members to the Poynter Institute, which is now. It's an organization that helps journalists like you, like myself.

It's training and things like that. And we were in a group together and at the time I was the digital director at the Louisville Courier Journal in Kentucky. She was the publisher of the Alaska Dispatch News. Her paper, my paper, along with the Denver Post and The Virginian Pilot, we were in a group together, so I met her.

We talked a bit. We we were collaborating. Did she say you want to look at the Magna Carta? I've got one in my bag. She didn't know. She did not bring up the Magna Carta at all. But what was funny is this is in 2017 and it was part of a year long program. So we went to Florida, we all met.

We all hung out together for a little bit. And then shortly after we met, the paper went into bankruptcy. Oh, no. And then she was forced to sell. So then when we got back to in 2018, she wasn't there. The newsroom was kind of reorganizing and and that was kind of that. But yeah, that our six degrees of separation are you, you, me, David Rubenstein.

Very small. We didn't even have to get to Kevin Bacon. You know, he said his kids don't want these things. So do you think we could be in the will? Maybe we have a personal connection to the family. He's there right with us. Right. I'll take one of the documents I can bring Mom. Right. Well, Michael's. I'll go to Michael's with my my Declaration of Independence and I'll say, yeah, could you frame it So it looks nice.

It's. It's a gift from a friend. You got to wait, though, with Michael's until they've got that, like, buy one. Yeah. I want 50% of the coupon. Yeah. Yeah. I can't do it unless I can save some money. No, no, no. We're. We're going to do it right. But on a budget to do the, the decorating. Want it to look nice so it hangs in our office and we could point to and say, there's my Declaration of Independence.

There it is. The Magna Carta, though. So just now. So I will take the Magna Carta. You're going to take the declaration I get the number because, you know, I write Big I and I'm sure we get at our names on the bottom if you wanted to, we'll just we'll just add John Hancock to the bottom. We can, but we can put some some tape, some electrician's tape or something, and then we'll write our own names on the bottom.

So if we needed to keep it right, we were B, we'd be okay. Hey, you know what's coming up this next week? What's that? We're getting into the big summer movie season, and yeah, it's not affected at all by the writers strike. It is not going to be stopped. Barbie is coming this summer. Barbie, goodness be with us so we don't have to worry about.

Suddenly she's holding out and saying, No, I'm not going to do a movie. It's done. So next week, let's look at those new kind of summer movies. That should be the it's always considered blockbuster season in the summer. And this week we started with the first one. Really, that'll be a big moneymaker and that's Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, the last one of the films.

So watch that. We'll talk about that one and then we'll will preview the ones that are coming up next week. That sounds good. So before I let you go, though, why do all the blockbusters come out during the summer? What is is it just because everyone's off from school and they're on vacation? I always wondered that, like why?

Why is it like basically Memorial Day through almost like July 4th is kind of the big drop, too. Why is that? There was a little film back in 1975 that changed the course of history. That little film said that people would flock to the theaters if they weren't in school, if they were, and they wanted to have something fun to see.

And it made a huge amount of money. That movie was Jaws. Jaws considered the first blockbuster, and it did so well that they realized they should program for that. And they looked for those kind of high concept films that would be good to release at those times. There are seasons that are big for this. Memorial Day weekend is always big.

4th of July is always big. Labor Day is Christmas and the fall are considered far more, I don't want to say intelligent pictures, but certainly ones that take a little they're they Oscar bait. They're going to be the films that are going to win awards, but summer ones are usually ones that are fun, exciting and have a lot of action in them.

And get you to eat and drink a lot. And you're more willing to do that when you feel like you're on vacation than any other time. So you can blame Jaws for setting off the concept of blockbusters. It is readily recognized as the first big blockbuster. Oh, I did not know that. So little, little history. Some iconic history.

A little history there. Yeah. And Steven Spielberg has to be the king of blockbusters because he had a lot of them. And yes, was his company is behind a big one this summer. That's right. We'll talk more about that next week. Until then, thank you for listening to streams and screens. We're not going on strike.

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May the 4th be with you! As always, May 4 is the unofficial holiday dedicated to the "Star Wars" franchise.

Co-hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz talk about the classic movies and new TV shows, which include the recent end of the third season of "The Mandalorian" and the second season of "The Bad Batch" plus the upcoming "Ahsoka" series.

They also discuss the three new movies that were recently announced at Star Wars Celebration Europe 2023 in London by Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. James Mangold, Dave Filoni and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy were selected to direct the films.

There weren't many details, but Mangold’s film will look at the early years of the Jedi. Filoni’s movie is expected to tie together the various Disney+ series he's involved with and Obaid-Chinoy’s movie will feature Daisy Ridley, who returns to the role of Rey from the sequel trilogy.

After "Star Wars," the discussion shifts to the more serious topic of the World War II and the Holocaust. National Geographic launches a new limited series on May 1 called "A Small Light" that follows Miep Gies (Bel Powley) and her husband Jan (Joe Cole), who were critical in the hiding of the Frank family from the Nazis.

REVIEW: 'A Small Light' offers new take on Holocaust experience

The show also stars Liev Schreiber as Otto Frank, Amira Casar as Edith Frank, Billie Boullet as Anne Frank and Ashley Brooke as Margot Frank.

Miller has an interview with Powley and Cole, who talk about taking on the roles and how the themes translate to modern times.

Where to watch

Watch all the "Star Wars" movies and television shows on Disney+
"A Small Light" on National Geographic and Disney+

Stars Wars & Lucasfilm Rumors

In the episode we briefly discuss rumors and speculation about the future of shows and movies from Lucasfilm, which is owned by Disney. Further details to read and watch:

SWCE 2023: Three New Star Wars Movies Announced from StarWars.com.
Indiana Jones Series Canceled At Disney Plus from Cosmic Book News.
‘Willow’ Canceled After One Season On Disney+ from Deadline
Victoria Alonso FIRED by Marvel, SNEIDER'S STAR WARS SCOOPS, John Wick 4 Review - THE HOT MIC from YouTuber John Rocha
Disney Big Plan To FIRE Kathleen Kennedy! This Is New Now! The Good & The Bad (Star Wars Explained) from YouTuber Mike Zeroh
WILL Kathleen Kennedy be Fired Next? BOB IGER RE-HIRED AS DISNEY CEO from YouTuber Star Wars Theory
Kathleen Kennedy REVEALS Rey Movie Plot and Luke's Return - My Thoughts from YouTuber Star Wars Theory

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee Enterprises and the co-host of the program, a Padawan, if you will, to Bruce Miller, Jedi Master of entertainment journalism and editor of the Sioux City Journal. Bruce, it's a little early, but May the Fourth be with you!

You should have said Yoda, because, you know, I'm that old. I had it in the script. I was going to call you Yoda, but I didn't want you to feel that way. I am so Yoda. It's ridiculous. That's it's is apt and it's fitting and it's me. Plus, if I were collecting anything, it would be Yoda. Got to love Yoda.

Always one of my favorite characters. And he didn't show up right away. He wasn't in the first one. The second one? Yeah. Yeah. And I remember now. Okay, so this. This shows you how old I am when they did a big reveal on Yoda for Empire Strikes Back. It was a special press kit that was just about Yoda, and it had a picture and I mean, it was quite the big deal.

I remember getting it in the mail and it's like, Oh, what have we got here? This is really great. But I remember back with Star Wars, we didn't know what it was. We had no clue. You know, they talked about serials, they talked about Westerns. They talked about all these things. But when until you saw Star Wars, you weren't really sure what this thing was.

And I went to a screening of Star Wars back in. Yes, 1977. And I was unsure the place was packed. And I remember a woman in the in the audience screaming out, Ooh, that Wookie. He's really cute. And so that's what I remember about the first time. I also remember that the vehicles didn't look like they had wheels or they touched to the ground.

I thought that was really cool. But it did feel like you were dropped into a world that you had no idea what was going on. It's really amazing when you look back at the Times. I mean, today movies are so overboard with CGI and animation and green screens and everything. The fact that they were able to do a space Western because that's really what it was, you know, you equated it to a Western, but even George Lucas thought of it as a space weren't Western.

And it's amazing that they were able to do what they were able to do back in 1977. When was the last time you've seen the original one? A couple of years, probably. You know, it's one of those things that it shows up on TNT all the time. Or my daughter, who's a really So I've got twin girls, but one of them is just hardcore Star Wars like I am.

So she'll have it on from time to time. So I'll sit down and watch a little bits of it. But what disappoints me though, these days is they effectively retired the original cuts at the movies and they went to the special editions from the 1990s. But even though those were cleaned up, you still have those elements from the original.

Yeah, that the sets are kind of wonky I think when you're running down the hallway and you think, I think I've seen that hallway, it looks very familiar. Well it probably was right when we had it here with a symphony underneath it where they did a live the live score and it's very fascinating. But it was an older version.

So you got a chance to kind of delight in in those kind of simpler things. And I think it works better. I don't think you should have messed with that stuff. I thought you should have left it alone because it is a piece of its time, you know? But hey, if you're George Lucas, you do what you want.

You can you can do that. Absolutely. So it's, you know, with the I guess, the unofficial holiday, May the fourth with Star Wars. Just thought we would talk a little bit. There's there is some news kind of out there with Star Wars. So we just wrapped the third season of The Mandalorian. We do have the new show, Ahsoka coming up in August.

We also wrapped season two, the bad batch, around the same time as Mando. There's another series called The Acolyte, which is due sometime next year. It takes place in what's called the High Republic era, which is is leading into that prequel trilogy that George did in the early turn of the century.

And there's some other things kind of coming along, too. But we also had the Andor series last fall, which did very well, Obi-Wan Kenobi, which was kind of mixed reception on that. So there's there's a lot going on. But they just had the Star Wars celebration in Europe a couple of weeks ago in London. And Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy announced three new films.

One is going to star Daisy Ridley as Rey. So she's going to reprise her role that she brought forth in the three most recent films from that new trilogy. There's going to be one that takes place in The New Republic, which is post Return of the Jedi. But before the the Rey version comes up. So this is basically taking the the shows that we see on Disney Plus now, and they're going to somehow intersect into some sort of film.

And then there's going to be another film that's going to look at the Dawn of the Jedi in the New Republic. So that's kind of what's that's what's on the horizon. There's been some speculation I don't know how much you follow on this, that Disney isn't particularly happy with the direction of Star Wars because the idea originally was they bought it.

They want movies coming out left and right. Some of those did very well. Some of them didn't sit so well with the fans. And there's been some rumors out there in the Star Wars universe that maybe Kathleen Kennedy's job is is on the line. If she doesn't produce another Star Wars movie. Her contract, I guess, is up in 2024 and allegedly an ultimate aim was place that they need to have a movie out by 2025.

So it's an interesting thing. You've got this huge series, this huge enterprise. I mean, it's a it's a behemoth of when you compare it with all these other tent pole type of, you know, DC Marvel and all these that are continuously putting out films and Star Wars, they kind of sputtered a little bit, but they're still doing very well with the TV programs, it seems.

Yeah, I think there are too many things out there. I really do. We waited so long just to get Star Wars films that now they have a glut of them. I, I don't know that that's in their own best interest is I know they want money. I know they're there. There's really we've got to get more money out of this.

How can we get more money out of this? Let's do this. Let's do that. Come on, we'll have it. Yeah, yeah, let's do TV. Let's do a podcast. Or how about, you know, and it's just this whole range of stuff and there is a limit to it because if you are new to any kind of franchise, you may not go in, you may not be interested in that because it's too much to learn.

I know that was the case with Marvel. People thought that they couldn't get into that world if they hadn't started from the beginning and they need to be a little better about their standalone Star Wars films. And I really think that's where you could fall into Quentin Tarantino's The People who are kind of a marquee name, and let's see what they would do with it.

It doesn't necessarily have to follow everything, or it could just be people who were around during the same era but aren't caught up with this this fighting good against evil. Maybe there were people who didn't pay attention at all in Star Wars land to what was going on. You know, was there a PTA meeting going on somewhere? Could that have sparked something?

Who knows? And then, you know, they never really do want to toy with anything beyond a PG 13. Why can't there be an R-rated Star Wars film? Yeah, that would be an interesting one. I mean, you can you can maybe get to I mean, it is it's space war. So you could take up the violence level a little bit and maybe and they did it with with the comic book movies.

You do have a couple that have gone beyond PG. PG 13, right? It's possible. But you see, it's Disney. So there are kind of those those boundaries that are put into play that I think hinder what they can do. So I. Hey, Kathleen, I'm with you. You just sit there and say, you know what, We can't do everything, but let's try something and let it be standalone.

It doesn't shouldn't have to be part of the trilogy for anything that, you know, the how I feel about those I do not want to have to worry about. I've seen too I die and I don't get the third one. That's ridiculous. But you can easily be in that world and still still show us what's what's going on.

I'm with you with the standalone movies. I thought that Rogue One is perhaps one of the best movies, Star Wars movies of all time. And it's because, you know, we knew what was going to happen, because we knew that it led up to the original 1977 Star Wars with the Death Star. So we knew going in the movie is basically about them stealing the plans to the Death Star.

It was a great movie from start to finish and it's kind of followed through now with Andor the series where, you know, you can only do a couple of seasons of that because eventually there's an end point, right? So I think they really did a great job with that. I'm kind of hopeful that with James Mangold, maybe that's that director that they're bringing in, like you suggest, because he's doing the new Indiana Jones movie, The of Destiny.

But he's done Ford versus Ferrari. He did Logan, He did The Wolverine. He did the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. So he's done a lot of different films and he is an A-list director, so they can bring him. He's got that star power, and it's a little bit different than even when they had Ron Howard, who of course, is a giant in directing because he was brought in to rescue the the Han Solo movie, which was kind of fallen apart.

So, you know, here they're going to let him do it from the scratch. I agree to that. I don't want a trilogy every single time, especially after the newer trilogy, which I thought was a bit of a disaster because it was so disjointed. Right, Right. Well, if you look back at the original, the whatever the you call those first three films, George Lucas handed the reins over to Lawrence Kasdan after the the first one and said, You write this thing, let's see what's going on here.

And I think those new ideas are what helped keep it fresh and keep it going instead of this huge book that somebody has to go, Well, wait a minute now, according to chapter 33 here, you're not supposed to do this. It's chaos. And I think that's why I've turned off from for Marvel. I really don't want to have to try and remember something that happened in or films prior to this one.

Yeah, I think Star Trek had a little problem with that as well, where they're, you know, they're trying to many worlds. And now where are they? I really don't know where Remember the the kind of reboot with Chris Pine? Is that going anywhere? Is that going to be something more or are we going back and looking at old characters like Picard?

You know, what is that? And I think it becomes a thing when money people are making decisions and their demanding things by a certain time because they've got to meet a budget or we need to make so much money by this date that it kind of spoils the creativity of the whole thing. Well, that's kind of the thought, too, with where, you know, if those rumors are true, that that Kathleen Kennedy's job may hinge on on a film.

Is it or bringing back more films, is that you've got the money people. It isn't just about the storytelling when when Lucasfilm was that standalone company because even if you go back to that original trilogy, the first Star Wars movie, if that thing bombed, it ended. You didn't need to wait for two more movies because it had a beginning, a middle and an end.

And at that end, you could have been like, okay, we're good. I don't need to see anything ever again. But they came back with Empire and then return. And I think the other piece of it too, is even though he did hand it off to other directors to kind of tell a story, he was still part of the storytelling process.

So it was his concept where he worked with other writers and directors on the finer points, which I think in comparison to the new trilogy, J.J. Abrams was there. I know he was the executive producer on the second one, but he kind of stepped way too far away. And the movie went in a totally different direction. And then he had to come back to kind of rescue the third one, and it just turned into, I guess, a bit of a hot mess.

But yeah, you know, Disney, there were rumors that they were going to do an Indiana Jones series on Disney Plus and that has kind of been put on hold. And Willow, I didn't even get a chance to see this Willow series on Disney Plus. And apparently season two was canceled because they're like going all in with the Lucasfilm stuff back into Star Wars.

And because that is that is the franchise out of Lucasfilm. So it'll be interesting to see where that goes. The interesting selection and directors of these movies is Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. She is a two time Oscar winner because she won Oscars for documentaries, but she's attached to the film. A little bit of an unknown, but I guess her star has been on the rise because she's done some directing work on the Mrs. Marvel series.

Thoughts on her documentaries and short subjects are kind of the gateway to getting into bigger pictures. So she was probably tested through these kinds of things. She has a very female perspective, a feminist perspective that might help play well with something that's seen as a very kind of boys club. And it gives an opportunity for the Star Wars universe to kind of crack open to other stories that could be told, because I think we've kind of worn out our welcome with some of these father son things.

I don't think we need to go into that a little more. But she might bring us a whole new a whole new world of of opportunity. And it would be interesting to see what happens. You know, I want to see what are what people are doing in other parts of that universe. And I don't know that we've necessarily seen that they're also caught up with this rebel forces kind of thing.

And really, though there have to be it's like today there are people that you can't ask anything about the news because they don't watch the news. They don't listen to the news, they don't read the news. And those are people with a story to to tell. And how do they do it? I think sometimes we get a little too caught up in the mainstream of what people are talking about or what influencers are telling us.

We should talk about that. We don't realize that there's a whole subset of people out there talking about nothing that relates to that. So this thing is one of those things. I think he made an interesting point to about a different perspective, because for me, as somebody 47 year old man who grew up on Star Wars when I was a kid, the boys like Star Wars and most of the girls like something completely different.

You know, you had some some girls liked it, but it was a boy's club. And I think they really tried to expand it and attract a much wider audience. Now, I think to my daughter, who's 12, who absolutely loves Star Wars, she wants to watch the shows every single week. And if you ask her who her favorite characters are, it's Rey, it's Ahsoka Tano.

It's these newer characters that they introduced that have expanded the universe to just more than boys and men. And the Jedi can be a girl, you know, A Jedi can be a woman. Look at how animation was largely seen as, you know, female driven. It always has to have a heroine who falls in love and gets out of her situation.

And then they realized, Wait a minute, we've got some boys out there that might be interested in watching animation. And they did do a shift and there were some male kind of dummy and Star Wars was pushed them. They were the ones who said, Get over there, come on, you got to do some male animated films. And we're seeing them now.

So I think same thing could happen with Star Wars. So once again, may the force be with you, Bruce, but we'll turn our attention now to a much more serious job and anybody. I do. Yeah. You also on April 20th, one two on people at 420. Yeah we're not not in Wisconsin. I'm based in Wisconsin. That stuff's not that's not going to talk that way, right?

Yeah, not here. Not at our borders. That is correct. No, but we're we're going to shift over to a little bit more serious topic now and one based in actual reality coming back from science fiction into history. A slight bit of research. Is that sound like enough? No, sir. But there have been Holocaust films since the early 1940s, 1940 was the first time they ever mentioned a concentration camp in a film.

Since that time there has been a Holocaust related film. Every year. It's interesting to see that that's that's lasting like that, but it's one of those things that you need to remind people because otherwise they're going to say it didn't happen. And I think a lot of times you'll see in the documentary categories of the Academy Awards, there will be something about someone.

Now that generation is dying out. There aren't many more Holocaust survivors around who can remember what went on or what happened. But what we're finding now is that people are kind of stretching their their boundaries of what stories they already know. And one of those ones is a diary man. Frank, That was a huge, huge, huge book. And it was taught in schools.

I don't know if it still is because I don't know if it's on a list somewhere. And then they say we can't teach that one in schools. But it was what a girl viewed the Holocaust situation like. She was hidden in an attic over her father's business. And they couldn't leave. They couldn't go anywhere. And they had their own kind of world, if you will, hoping that somebody they could get out because the Nazis wanted to do something with them, i.e. they wanted to kill them.

And so we saw that perspective on the Anne Frank story. We saw her perspective because her father saved the diaries and brought them and said, you know, is this something we could publish? Is there something here so that people know what went on in our world? And now there is a new limited series called A Small Light, which focuses on Miep Gies.

Yes. Miep was a secretary of Otto Frank, who was the one who helped him during all of this. She, he said, would you help me get things to my family? Can you be there for us? And will you promise not to tell anybody? In retrospect, meet said, You know, I didn't do anything. It was a small light that I was able to turn on in a dark room and it what she tells us is that there are things we can do, things that maybe we should be looking at now in our own world, where we can make a difference in somebody's life.

And we see this with bullying in schools. We see this with loudmouth politicians who are shouting each other down and for no good reason. They're they're sideswiped by people who never asked for this kind of attention. And it becomes a very volatile situation that we don't need to live in. And I think what this limited series tells us is that there are little things we can do along the way that can make somebody else's life a little easier.

And why are we doing that? Why am I standing by and not saying, you know what, you're a bully and you need to stop this right now? I always had parents who would stop me and they would say, You are not doing that. We do not do those kinds of things. You are not going to bully somebody. But today it seems like we're a parentless society where nobody tells the people who are in authority or power, you can't do that.

You can't treat people like they're somehow lesser than you. You can't make fun of them because why? What are you gaining by that? You're doing nothing. So this is this miniseries here at Roundabout Way. This was me on a soapbox. Did you see that? Dare you to just get the idea that picked up on it. The series lets us know that there are little things we can do, and I think it reminds us that we don't have to be some Schindler's List rescuer kind of person.

We don't need to be that guy who runs in, saves a bunch of people, and then you're considered, Yeah, that's what we need to do. It can be something as simple as maybe talking to somebody else, maybe comforting someone during a tough situation. Maybe it's bringing food to somebody. You know, it's so, so simple. And this is a very slow kind of building Mini-Series I'm not saying it's a slow miniseries because it's not, but you see how she grows, how meat grows in the process of all of this.

I think it's fascinating. It's one of the best things that we've seen on TV this year. And it starts May 1st, I believe it is is the first first two episodes, and it's eight episodes in all. I got a chance to talk to Bell Powley, who plays Miep Gies, and Joe Cole, who plays her husband, Jan. For them, they were you know, they weren't filled in on what their story was until they started researching it.

And interestingly enough, and you'll hear this is that they did not realize that John didn't talk about it. He really did not want people to know his part because he didn't think it was that important. And Miep didn't write a book until many, many years later talking about what she did in all of this. So it's a fascinating, fascinating story.

I think you'll be really taken in by it. And you'll also see how contempt jury they are. You know, it's not like the when we see a film that's set in another era, you go, oh, they're old timey people and they just do old timey things, right? And they wear old timey clothes. And these are like so contemporary.

You think, I think I could hang with these people. I think these are people that I would like to be around. And that's where sometimes when they do do films about these things, they tend to take away that kind of humanness and they want to set them up on a pedestal and make them something other than real people.

And this is one that shows you the real people behind the story. All right. So let's go to that interview and then we'll come back and wrap up the show during this. When did you guys say, could I do what they did? Was there a point in when in the making of this where you thought, do I have what it takes to do what these two did to hide people, to kind of divert people?

I think that's what's important about the show. Hopefully it's going to make a lot of people think, could I do what they did? Because it's about two very ordinary people. It's not big sweeping historical statement or like larger than life characters. These are literally just two young people who are going about their lives. You ended up doing really, really extraordinary thing, and they have the same attributes that loads of young people have.

I mean, they were newly married. They love going out dancing like she was a big party girl and then their lives were turned upside down when they made this really heroic decision to have hired these eight people. So hopefully it will make lots of viewers think, would I be able to see this Is your answer? Yes. Or is it?

I really would. It's hard to. That's such a hard question to answer because it's so late. You just sound like such an arrogant, provocative. So, yeah, I mean, I think what they did was so extraordinary and so incredible. You know, I, you know, thankfully will never be put in that position, you know? But what one kind of a role models for you.

But, you know, one incredible thing they did is I see today that there are parallels because, you know, and you go, well, why am I not stepping out of my comfort zone and just saying something to people, say, you know, you're wrong. Yeah. But it's also, you know, the show's called a small light because, I mean, famous quote, anyone, no matter who you are, can turn on a small light in a dark room so anybody can do a little something for somebody.

So I'd like to think I could definitely do a little something for somebody. You know. And what they did was was a little something. Somebody turned out to be a huge, huge thing. And they represent a huge number of people also doing that all over all over Europe. You know, they weren't the only ones. I remember seeing another movie about this, and I think I did interview me to really?

Really. Yeah. And I did. Really? Yes. Yeah. It was a TV movie that they had done, and I think Mary Steenburgen played her. Yeah. And I don't remember her being as playful as you are in this. Well, obviously, it's in Tony and Joan's take on her and that and that writing of her. But I read her book and Frank remembered a few times that was kind of my main source of research.

And her voice really does come out in that book and she does talk like you get the sense that she was quite cheeky and playful and she talks about how much she loves going out dancing and partying with her friends and how she found her husband so attractive. And, you know, the funny kind of conversations she had with Ann.

So and then obviously that filtered through Joan Rita, our writer's voice. She very much has those sentiments herself and then filtered through mine. Our take on her is that But I do believe that she was right. That was their relationship a true love thing, or did it grow into a love? It's interesting question, isn't it? I feel that was true.

A true love. Yeah. Because because they there was this huge barriers in that way. You know, y'all was married previously me did was wasn't married at 20 sort of into her mid twenties was read at that time and sort of spoke about how she could have gotten her brother come out and she could have got a man who would that and talks about not wanting family and doing things that, you know, possibly do anything in a very different way to how they would have done things in those in those times.

There's a there's a there's a process of how how you live your life. You have kids early. You get married, you stay at home. So she's doing things very differently. And John was previously married. So I think that I think definitely that it's more romantic because they really wanted to make this work. And and he had to divorce his partner and all the rest of it.

It's like it's a social faux pas. Those things. Did they do all those things in the bathtub? Because I thought, Oh, that's really cool. I mean, I don't know. I know they used to they used to to get away from everybody. They'd go like that. They said that that's a great thing. I think it's a huge, huge idea.

Kids were running the bathroom and Susanna direct and like one of the first conversations I have with her is that she really wanted to make this relationship, even though it's a relationship in the forties feel real. Like we wanted to have those small moments of like them chatting together in the bath or like him asleep in bed and like seeing her get ready for bed and like all of the things that make a relationship feel like a tangible to an audience.

Sure. Because even though it's in the forties, I feel that was know that a lot of guys don't meet like they don't and that was it was the prep for that And so and I think that's the problem that too many people make is that or they think it's a whole different era and it's a whole different thing and it's like they're us.

Exactly. Yeah. What did you two learn from this? What did this teach you? I mean, this is a really good question. I mean, historically, it taught me no end to is, you know, just on on the surface, sort of people have become into this. The prelude is a sort of is the and frank story. Right. So everybody feels like they know I'm frank and they know the story.

And it was a young girl in the annex and the rest of it. But I feel like the reality is people don't know the story. And how many episodes of you said you mention that you've seen two. Okay. So there's so much that you're going to hopefully learn and become aware of what was going on outside the annex, what was going on in the streets of Amsterdam.

Yeah. So on a kind of more superficial level, if you were like historical level, here's a great deal for me. Just, just sort of kindness can, can win over everything and love and love, kindness and compassion, peace, bees, evil and beat hatred. And and just a reminder to everybody, the title of the show know every day you can fight.

You can show the other acts of kindness and they and they feed into one another throughout the day. Sure, you can do that. And so there's always little things you can you can always look good, look for people who look to you. And yeah, I just learned so much about I'm like heroism and bravery on like a small scale from like to ordinary people.

There were so many I've even seen two episodes, but like, as you get like into the depths of this show, there was so many anecdotes and stories that we tell that you will watch and be like, That must be made of what these people did. And we had that literally. Every time we got a new script, we were like, Whoa, Tony, Joe, like, is this really do they actually do this?

Think the lengths that these people went to when they were literally just a secretary and a social worker and a young people was absolutely insane. So, yeah, I learned so much about being brave and also the amount that one human being can actually do so that that the best, most unfathomable stories are often the ones that are real.

Yeah. So we've got it. Well, this Tony's made this up. This is too extravagant and sure and crazy. And it was always true. Thank you guys so much, love. It's amazing. But nice to meet you in great fun and good luck with this. I hope it all turns out to be a huge hit. All right, Bruce, thank you for those interviews.

The show sounds fascinating. I think I'm definitely going to tune in and I think we've talked about this before. But, you know, for me personally, I have some Jewish heritage. So to these types of stories I really like to hear, you know, I enjoyed movies like Schindler's List, but even when I was in college, I took the history of the Holocaust, which was just a fascinating semester, very depressing semester.

But one of the things they did is the professor, who was a retired rabbi, brought in a friend of his who was a Holocaust survivor. So he spoke to the experiences of what he had to go through, you know, in a concentration camp and showed the tattoo on his arm of, you know, how he was numbered. And one of a couple I've seen a couple of survivors in person.

And it's sad because there's really not many of them left. So it's great that we can have stories like this, find ways to to have these stories, to share those experiences, but also, as you said, have a contemporary message as well. And I think there are applications that we can look at. Hopefully, we will never get to the point that our situation today is what it was back then.

I've been fortunate to interview a number of survivors and they all have a different story to tell, different things that happened to them, different kinds of people who came into their lives and were the ones who really helped them through a situation. There is a documentary called Nicky's Family that you must see. It is so good. It's about a British, you know, a businessman who helped these children get to safety during World War Two.

And he would find them places where he could live. They were they could live while they were separated from their parents or if something happened to their parents. And he he kind of he did this very clandestinely. He was a businessman. He was able to go over to places and he would create passports for them. He would do all this stuff.

And he helped kind of get these kids out. It was hundreds that he was able to help. And in this Nicky's family, you must, must, must see it. You see him finally realizing the impact of his work. And they have this kind of, if you will, it's a program, a this is your life kind of thing. And they're introducing that he had done this and telling other people about it.

And again, he thought he really I don't know what I did that was all that great. But when he realizes, you know, that somebody is making something out of this, they say, well, now the person next to you, she was one of the ones you helped, and the person next to her was somebody you helped. And before you knew it, it was everybody in that theater was somebody who he had helped and he had never met them.

Wow. And here was the chance to see how the man was really, really moved by this that, you know, you do things that you think are the right thing to do, but you never see the results of it. And it is so powerful. But that is one of my favorite films of that era. And it shows exactly what somebody did and how.

And children of those Holocaust survivors and how they wouldn't have been around without him helping them out and by just doing what he thought was the right thing to do by creating passports. And you'll see where he cut things out and pictures out and made these passports and got the papers they needed. It was fascinating that this man would do this kind of stuff, and he was knighted for his work.

But it's just fun to see this old man just get really tickled by all these people. It's a really cool thing. So that's that's what I think we're our takeaway is that we can do something. Absolutely. So yeah, that's definitely one I'll put on my list to check out. Bruce What are we looking at in the coming weeks?

Well, you know, I also like talk about getting to talk to people that make a difference. David Rubenstein is a billionaire who's done a lot of different things, but now he's doing a TV series about American icons, things that are iconic in the United States. Now, I said right away, Well, Mount Rushmore, of course, isn't that an icon?

And he said, well, maybe if we do another season there, it might be in there. But he looked at things like the Hollywood sign would be an icon. And it's things that really immediately you identify and you can see something there, but it's a fascinating discussion we have about what is iconic and what does somebody like him with all that money do?

And he does collect things. The Declaration of Independence, He has a couple of those. I think he has the papal papers. He he has a Magna Carta that things I've got lying around the house. I think they're in the basement in my house somewhere. I just had to dig them out. But this is what he is interested in.

And he says he does it because he wants other people to be able to see these things. And so he loans them to libraries and museums so that then we can go there and say, you know what, people did do these things. They did exist. So his Magna Carta is like me owning a couple of copies of like a Mike Piazza baseball card.

Basically, if you kept it in good shape. Or is it near mint? One of those kind of things, you know, because that is there are some guys sitting in a room that says this is a seven. It's just right. Somebody actually gets paid to do that. Yeah, but here's the job I know.

And then, and so we have that coming up and then in a couple of weeks too, we're going to look forward to the summer. The summer, it's the big summer. We're going to do it. So there are movies besides Indiana Jones coming out. That's all. Barbie, Barbie, Barbie movie. We've got to get into that, man. Awesome. So we will come back in a couple of weeks and do that.

All right. Well, until then, thank you for listening. And we'll be back soon with another episode of Streamed and Screened.

Be the small light.

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It's spring, which means it's time for another season of Major League Baseball. And on this episode of Streamed & Screened, Bruce Miller quizzes co-host Terry Lipshetz on his favorite baseball movies.

Watching the New York Mets isn't always easy, so the list of movies that includes "Bull Durham," "Field of Dreams," "Fever Pitch," "The Bad News Bears," "The Natural," "A League of Their Own," "Eight Men Out," "The Sandlot," "42" and "Sugar" can get you through a long season.

They also touch on TV programs such as Ken Burns' "Baseball" documentary that originally aired on PBS, the adaptation of "A League of Their Own" for Amazon Prime Video and "Brockmire" that aired on IFC.

The conversation then shifts to the the Amazon Original limited psychological thriller series "Dead Ringers," which is based on the 1988 film by David Cronenberg starring Jeremy Irons.

The new series stars Rachel Weisz and we have an interview with co-star Poppy Liu.

The show wraps with a look ahead to a discussion about "A Small Light," a new series coming to National Geographic on May 1. The show follows Miep Gies, who helped hide Otto Frank and his family, including Anne Frank, from the Nazis during World War II.

Where to watch

"42" (2013)
"A League of Their Own" (1992)
"A League of Their Own" (2022) on Amazon Prime Video
"The Bad News Bears" (1976)
Ken Burns' "Baseball" (1994) originally on PBS
"Brockmire" originally on IFC
"Bull Durham" (1988)
"Eight Men Out" (1988)
"Field of Dreams" (1989)
"Fever Pitch" (2005)
"The Natural" (1984)
"The Sandlot" (1993)
"Sugar" (2008)
"Dead Ringers" (2023) on Amazon Prime Video
"A Small Light" (2023) on National Geographic

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and Screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee Enterprises and the co-hosts of the program, along with first ballot Hall of Famer Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. I set you up. Good, good, good, good. You did good last week.

You were a little disappointed I didn't hold you in high enough esteem. There you go. You know, I called my people. My people said, get him on that. What's going on? This is not right. But that's very good. I'm so thrilled. Baseball movies? Yes. Are you a big fan or not? I am. So, you know, we kind of preview beforehand what we might talk about on the show and I told you yesterday, I am very behind on things right now.

I've been watching a little bit here. I'm a little Mandalorian, a little bit of Barry. Season four is back Succession is back. But I'm squeezing these things in because the New York Mets are in the middle of a West Coast swing. So I'm watching games at like ten, 11, 12:00 at night. I'm a huge baseball fan, Bruce. That's all I like.

I buy the baseball package so I can watch watch the Mets every game. And I pretty much I probably get 120 games in a year easy. The Mets are your team. They are? Yeah. I'm from New York. Just because my dad, he was a he was a Mets fan. Okay, So I grew up in New York. In Jersey.

So it's the jeans. It just. Yeah, do the jeans. That's how that works. And I'm a glutton for punishment, too. Well, you know, it's a lot like being a Cubs fan. It is. When you have that winning gear, it's it doesn't get any better than that. But think of the all the baseball movies then, that you've been able to squeeze in in your lifetime.

Which do you like? Which ones stand out for me? Like every year. I don't do this quite as much now because I've got the kids. I've got a lot of lot of things in my life. But I used to be for the season or between the spring training and maybe that first month of the season, I would make it a point to watch as many baseball movies as I could year after year.

So the ones that I would go to and so and I did it this year. First movie, I always pop on Bull Durham, always Circle Durham. Yep, because it takes place in the minor leagues. So to me it's like I'm getting ready for a full season of baseball and I love it. It's a great comedy. 1988 you've got Kevin Costner playing that aging catcher who should be kind of higher in the minor league system at that point.

You know, he should have been a major leaguer at that point, but he never could quite crack. It wasn't quite good enough for for the big leagues. So they send him down to A-ball to work with a young pitcher who is Tim Robbins. Crazy, crazy. He's off the walls. He doesn't you know, he's a bonus baby and he's got to show him the ropes of both minor leagues of being a professional baseball player.

But it's also kind of life coach as well. So and then I love it. Brandon Come on. Sarandon And of course, Susan and Tim Robbins, it's they ended up they never got married, but they they ended up going into a really long term relationship and they have a child or children, I mean, yeah but yeah so there was a that Bull Durham who's jerk struck something, right.

Yeah. So Bull Durham is is my go to start movie of the baseball season so not field of dreams Field of Dreams is kind of like that Number two which is another you know Kevin Costner Costner's got that trifecta of baseball movies. So that is actually the one that I turned on second. And I watched it. It was a little bit tough to watch this year because it's about relationships.

Is that that relationships between sons and their fathers. It came out a year after Bull Durham, which is kind of funny, but yeah, Field of Dreams, I threw it on. I showed it to the kids for the first time. They enjoyed it this year, but I was like ball in my eyes. Out from start to finish. My my father passed away recently.

He's a huge, huge baseball fan. And it was a little tough to watch, especially in that last scene, you know? Yeah. You know, you can forget the field of dreams if you like. Oh, you have already have, Yeah. And did you run the bases? I did know. So I don't know if you know this, but if you go on Sundays or at least when I went at the time, I don't know if they changed anything, but if you go on a Sunday during the summer, they bring out a collection of ballplayers, they walk out of the cornfield and they put on a little bit of an exhibition right there.

So it was like, Yeah, yeah. Well then did you get you got down on the field though, didn't you, to take pictures and stuff. Yeah. Oh yeah, Yeah. We, we kind of hung out, We sat on the sidelines, we watched the game is a little, a little long in the tooth, you know, they probably could have shortened it up a little bit, but we took the kids into the corn and walked out and saw the house and bought some trinkets and.

And then drove. That was good. Yeah. Do these refreshments or not? They have a concession stand. I believe that you can make some purchases. It's been a few years. I think I was there in 2016, so it's been a while. So this was before they put that big stadium up for. Yeah. Okay. And I know they've I know they've expanded and added in like a more proper concession stand and merch and all that stuff.

Like they had things. Then I bought a shirt and something else. A little field of dreams boss, maybe a little toy, but sitting in a box somewhere that I can't find, you know, that was always our vacation. When I was a kid. We would always go see, I'm sorry, the Minnesota Twins, but we would get there before I think anybody did, you know, because the parents were always making sure that we weren't late.

And we would sit there and the stadium was empty. There was nobody there. So I had already kind of scoured the whole place, looked at every piece of merchandise. There was eight, like nine different things. And then by the time the game came, I was okay. I could go home. Now that park is in the Mall of America.

That's right. Home plate in the Mall of America. But I always remember that. And the twins never won when we were there. So we had to be the bad luck charm for them. Well, I have a little a little Minnesota Twins trivia for you or a fun fact. Okay. So the old days, not super old, but do you remember Tom Kelly, the manager of the twins, in the 1980s?

So Tom Kelly, he grew up in South Amboy, New Jersey, which is kind of the area where I lived. I played Little League with Tom Kelly Jr. You're kidding. Was a kid. He was okay. He was good on the team. And there was a time where we were playing a game when I think the twins were in town to play the Yankees and they had an off day.

This was the year before Tom Kelly was elevated to manager. I think he was the third base coach at the time and he was hanging out on the on the sides and just watching and taking in the game. But Tom Kelly Jr who sadly passed away he's he's about my age. He's in his mid-forties and he he passed away a year or two ago.

Oh no yeah tragically but he had a huge glove which was given to him by a player. So it's like way too big for a 12 year old, ten, ten year old, whatever it was at the time. He had this big puffy jacket that said Hubert Humphrey Metrodome on it. It was fun. Yeah, well, did Dad yell things to him or was he pretty good?

He he stayed as low key as possible. He didn't want to. He didn't. I think he he knew his place and that was not managing ten year olds. Did you have those those bad parents though, that did that. I mine were pretty good with watching. I know there are definitely I've run into him I coached softball now there come on I periodically my my parents are pretty good but I've I've had issues with other parents and yeah I hey I know we're have you speak okay well then what about the A league of Their own?

Did you like that movie? Yeah, that one's another favorite of mine. But Tom Hanks and I, I have yet to watch that remake the Amazon Prime TV series. You know what? I'm very disappointed. They are only going to do a handful of episodes for season two to kind of butt up. But I think it started in one direction and went in a whole different direction.

It was more about, Oh, what's the term I want to use it wanted. It really leaned into the LGBTQ audience and you know, they wanted to somehow say that there were a lot of gay female baseball players back in the day, but it that derailed the whole idea of women being treated equally on the field. And I think it got away from the sports aspect and went into a whole other thing with even like a factory nearby and so I was not as the first episode was fine, but then it started waning and I thought, I don't know if I can watch this anymore.

And it's not that I have anything against anything that they were doing. It's just it seemed like bait and switch. So I still want to maybe go back and watch that. The movie itself with Tom Hanks. I watched did a few months ago with my daughters because I thought it would be a really good one for them. They're about 12 years old now and I, I really think it's important in this day and age to make sure that they see really strong female role models.

Sure. Because if you think about it, I mean, things like even high school sports, they weren't playing high school basketball until like the seventies. I mean, college basketball for women wasn't really a thing until it didn't really break through until the early 1980s. I don't know. Yeah. And it's really taken a long time for for women. And I don't even think they've gotten equal footing to this point.

It's much better than it used to be. So I think it's really important for my daughters to see really strong, positive role models like that in sports. So I it was one that I really wanted to watch with them and they enjoyed it. They did? Oh, good, good. How about how about the natural I'm throwing ones out at you.

Yeah, you can do that. The natural. I like it. I don't love it. I think that's one where a lot of baseball fans absolutely love the natural. I thought it was a little bit over the top and kind of almost unbelievable. I do like a sense of reality with my baseball movies and there's tons of of legendary baseball players who can do extreme things.

I just thought that that was just a little too much for me. I think it was too glossy. I think it didn't have the the the reality that it needed, you know, what, about 40 to 42 with Chadwick Boseman, that. Oh, I did watch it. I have not I'm trying to think when I did it was really good.

I, I think, you know, that's another one of those movies where from a historical standpoint, I love watching that kind of movie I like, especially Jackie Robinson. He, you know, seeing the story the way he broke it. And I love movies that are historically accurate or true. And as somebody who studied history in college, too, and being a huge baseball fan.

So yeah, 42 solid movie. Yeah. Well, Chadwick Boseman, if you go back and look at his list of work he played a lot of people who were who existed and that he was so versatile that he'd play these ones. It's amazing that he wasn't nominated for one of those roles because they were always very inspirational and very, very believable.

I mean, you bottom is any number of people. Yeah, how he dug in and actually did the work to be a baseball player. So you'd buy the the kind of things he'd do on the on the field. It was interesting. Okay. Sandlot love the sandlot, you know. So there there's one where I still haven't shown it to the kids because I think my wife isn't too thrilled with some of the themes in it.

Yeah, it's kind of in that they're, they're 12. They can probably watch it. It's fine. It goes back to I mean, they've already seen it in school. They probably have. I grew up seventies into the eighties. We played so many baseball games in the mid eighties. We would my summers as a 11, 12, 13 year old, we would wake up in the morning, we would walk up to the baseball fields that were at the end of my block.

We would play in to lunch, we would go home and get lunch, and then we go back and finish playing until the parents got home and had dinner. So for me, like The Sandlot was just an extension. It was life. It was life. Yeah, exactly. You're killing me, Smalls. Yes. Isn't it funny how that film did produce lines that you can repeat and have repeated?

I'm sure it was Bad News Bears then. Were you a fan of that? Yeah, and that's probably of the early movies. One of my favorites. Now they did what was it? Bad News Bears did a bunch of them. They were big. Yeah, they were bad. That original, though, is a classic and I think it gets into even if you played Little League, you always and I was on one of those teams where the coach was like, I had a coach one time who the reason why he was coaching was part of community service because he like it through a trunk.

It was like literally the Bad News Bears. We didn't have uniforms. It was really weird. So yeah, the Bad News Bears, I could very much relate to it. It was a fun movie. Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal It's just it's a good one. Well, and they took that template and used it for other other films like The Mighty Ducks.

I mean, you could see the things that they had. It's just let's just switch the sports. They'll never know. It's the same film. It is the same film. Yeah, that's all The Mighty Ducks was showed showed the Mighty Ducks to my kids. They did not enjoy it as much as they didn't like it. Now. Yeah. Yeah. Different sport.

Yep. What other ones do you like? Are there one and out one for me. So I'm a I'm like just a I could be like a crazy fan. I've mellowed out my old age a lot, but fever pitch. Do you remember fever pitch? Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. So that one, it's it's based on a Nick Hornby movie.

Their book Fever Pitch A Fan's Tale. But it's the book is soccer, Right? And they turned it into a movie where Jimmy Fallon is a crazed Boston Red Sox fan whose team never wins and they fail him every year. And he goes through this whole ritual but at the same time is trying to have like a relationship with with a woman.

And, you know, I always thought it's funny that they were doing it. And then while they were filming that movie, the Red Sox actually were good and they had to shoot a new ending for it to capture the fact that the Red Sox won the world Series. But it's a fun one. It's from the same author of High Fidelity.

So if you're a fan of of his book, High Fidelity or the movie that came out years ago and even there was even a Hulu TV series, but it's a similar theme, I like to think that I was never quite as crazy as Jimmy Fallon's character in that movie, but I probably was a little bit close. You know, I think it shows that Jimmy Fallon isn't really an actor, Right.

But they worked well together. Drew and Jimmy were a good pairing on the screen. It was you know, you don't really need all the extras. I, I do wonder what it's like trying to film something like that, you know? Do you just kind of you're at the park and you do it on the off days and then they bring in the do they have extras or do they just film on a day that, you know, there is a team there?

It's it's fascinating to see how they they might play that whole thing. But one of the ones that I like is a series. Okay. Brockmire Oh, yeah. Brockmire. Hank Azaria Yeah, this kind of washed up. ANNOUNCER Yep. Has to go to this. This I don't even know what league it would be team to be the announcer there. And I always thought it was so funny how they tried to maintain the semblance of, yeah, we're, we're, we're professionals.

We're. Yeah. What do you mean? And they were so bad. Yeah, but. And Hank can really do that. Yeah. Pretty good at playing that. That kind of a role. I love the first two seasons of it. It kind of fizzled out in that last one. I don't know if you made it through the whole way. It was that that last season was in the future, set in the future, and baseball was kind of on the demise and Oh God, no.

It was it was really weird. I enjoyed it. I tried to get if I had another friend that got me into it that he really liked it. We kind of crushed through it one weekend together and it was really good. I've tried to get a few other people into it who just couldn't get into the concept. I think you have to be a certain level too, of baseball fans may be appreciated.

He did. Hank Azaria modeled the character off of a little bit off of Lindsey Nelson, who is a broadcaster for the New York Mets back in the sixties and seventies. So did he. Yeah, I guess he did. Yeah. It was a little bit more of a deadpan approach to broadcasting. Maybe I like those kinds of films because it's about losers.

Yeah, Yeah. And for some reason you want to just cheer because if it's a winning team, think of any movies that were winning teams. I don't know that there were. It's always the come from behind concept that seems to to work. So Major League major League. Oh, my point, which is funny because I love Ted Lasso, but Ted Lasso is nothing but a major league rip off just soccer instead of baseball.

But and I love them both. But but Major League is another one, which I think has all those quotable moments that you can dig out all the time. And it had such a fun ensemble cast of Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Wesley Snipes. It's fine. And it was filmed in Milwaukee, even though it takes place in Cleveland.

That first one. Wow. My grandparents went to one of the filming. They they needed fans to fill the stands at county, State Old County Stadium, which is very similar to Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. And did they say it was fun or do they say they enjoyed it? I really was going back. They went and they spent the night.

They were I guess they were given instructions to like cheer at this moment and then they would have to cheer six times because they had to keep redoing the take. And that it's kind of funny knowing that having that context that it is County Stadium and that they had to cheer at certain moments. If you go back and watch the movie, even though I can't see my grandparents anywhere in the movie, I can kind of envision them being told, okay, like cheer now, don't cheer now look happy, don't look happy, that kind of thing.

Because you can start sort of pick through those moments in that movie a little bit. Yes, yes, yes. Well, somewhere I have baseball cards from Major League. Do you? Yeah. They sent it back in the day. And don't ask me where it is, but, you know, when the vast heap is sorted and multiplied, we'll find it in there and I'll give them to You can have.

I appreciate that. You know, Topps, the baseball card company occasionally has done it was like weird subsets within their annual sets of cards and they did one a few years ago with cards for the it was like the anniversary of Major league. And they did cards for that. And they they've done a couple other movies. I can't think of them all offhand, but they've had they've had a few of those in the past where they were.

Yeah. You know, they're I had to buy them on the secondary market. I had yeah. They weren't crazy price but they, and they included some inserts like, you know, autographs from Wesley Snipes and but how many did he do. Like two. And then you're really a rapper and you can't find one of them. Yeah, exactly. And that one where the honors kid that's where that went you know, from a historical standpoint to eight months out is another good one.

The 1919 Black Sox scandal. Yes, it's a little dense. And I think when I first watched it, when it came out, so that came out in 88 and it was probably around 13 or so when it came out. It was a little dense for me at the time, but I've come to appreciate it now. It's just the audience, you know, you were expecting sandlot and instead more than you cared to know.

Another thing that I do like to pop out, I haven't watched it really this year, but was the documentary Baseball by Ken Burns for PBS, which is just a really deep dive into each inning, is basically a ten year span, more or less in the history of baseball. And you can tell that he's a fan. Yes. Just by the way, that all put together.

And I'll I'll stop because I can't think of the guy's name, but he brought a I'm a Negro League player and he was featured heavily in the in the series. And the guy was the sweetest man you've ever met. He was just it was really fun to talk to because he talked about a game that maybe we didn't realize it was there.

You know, you're out in in Iowa. Yeah. Do you ever see the movie Sugar? Sugar? It's from 2008. It was kind of a low ish budget. I don't know if is made for TV or just one of those that went short term in the theaters and then flew out. But it was really if you if you get a chance, go back and check this one out.

It takes place in Iowa. Okay. It follows a player that gets signed out of the Dominican Republic, which is is a big thing in baseball. And it follows him for basically a season where he goes to spring training. He doesn't speak any English. This player, along with several other players who don't speak English, they go out to breakfast every morning and the only thing they know how to order is pancakes.

So they they get pancakes every single morning. And then he gets assigned to a team in the Quad Cities and he basically lives with the host family for the whole year but is struggling to adapt. And it follows him through this entire season up until kind of like the end where he he runs into, you know, problems. And it's really heartbreaking because I think they tried to make it as accurate as possible to what a foreign born young player who kind of, you know, he signs a bonus.

It's probably you know, it's not a ton of money. It's but but for for a young player who's poor in the Dominican Republic who maybe gets a $10,000 bonus or whatever it was, it's a huge sum of money that he can support his family. But then he's dropped in to America and he doesn't know how to live. He has no connections, he doesn't speak the language.

And it's really heartbreaking. I must see that sugar, sugar. I'll look for it. No, I didn't see it. It was not here. So I didn't have the exposure to that. But that does sound fascinating because, you know, there are kind of tropes that they rely on, which is, you know, the losers becoming winners, the bad boy suddenly deciding that he's not he's not going to go in that direction.

So you don't get to really see what the reality of the of the thing is. And I always wonder, you know, what about those who get cut? What happens to them and what career do they have after that? And do they still talk about their baseball years or are they you know, that's that's in their past or do they live in the past?

And that's all, you know. So there's a good Pete Rose story in there somewhere. So you would I think you would like sugar then because it kind of gets into that check that one out definitely for well, the season has begun. Are you are you as dedicated this year as you were in past years or are you pretty sucked in?

I mean, the Mets 101 games last year and they're looking pretty good this year. So I'm I'm I'm going to be locked in for the better part of the summer and will probably be crushed by the end of it. It's going to make it all the way. Come on, you guys are. I'll be crushed. I'll I'll. It always ends in disappointment for me.

That's that's life of a mets fan. And then you say, well, I'm just wearing this shirt because I'm a rapper. That's right. That's my, my, my phone. Yeah. You know that the League of Their Own is one of those things that we see now with a trend, as I can see it in television, which is rebooting ideas or concepts and putting them out there on the small screen in a different way.

And they did twist that one in a different way. And also the new Greece one, the rise of the pink ladies that goes in another direction as well. And there are other ones down the road, but one that I wish we could talk about is Dead Ringers. The show was a David Cronenberg film with Jeremy Irons, and I remember seeing this thing and it was a scary as you could get because they were two doctors.

And you know, at the time when I saw it, I always believe that you trusted a doctor. A doctor was he was citing gospel. So if he said that you needed to use some weird thing that he had invented, like the Mantel brothers do, I would go for it. Right. And then I guess we're a little savvy or now about all those kinds of things.

But they've changed. They've shifted it. So it's not twin brothers that are in the medical profession. It's twin women. And they're they're still called Beverly and Elliot Mantle, both played by Rachel Weisz. And they are interested in obstetrics and what they can do with that and how they could control life and birth. And I mean, it opens up a lot of areas that the first film never did, and it talks about the the high cost of medical care and how it isn't necessarily a, you know, kind of a what we would consider a public kind of nonprofit kind of thing.

It's a profit center for people. And there are rich people investing in the kind of concepts that the mantles come up with, and they're seeing it as a great revenue stream. And this thing digs into that concept where, you know, they don't really care if they're hurting people in the process. They're going to make some money off of this.

So it's fascinating to see how they go through all that. It's a they open it up to a different world and the cast is largely female and the people behind the cameras are female, too. So they're giving a female perspective of all of all of this. I got to talk to Poppy Lou, who plays the assistant to the Mantles.

I don't want to call her a maid, but she's certainly there all the time with both Beverly and Eliot. And she gets a chance to see how kind of corrupt they are and what they're doing. And the fascinating thing and you'll see this when you listen to the the interview is that Poppy is a dual in real life.

She actually does have birthing experience with other people. And she talks about the life of a dual life. But it is fascinating what she was able to glean from all of this and what she learned from the process. So that's in our interview with Poppy Lou from Dead Ringers.

Poppy, can I ask you about being a do a lot. How does that play with this? Did this give you, like different insight or different a different view of everything that goes on in the film? Yeah, I mean, I was a jeweler before this project happened. It kind of was just like a really serendipitous marriage of like worlds and interests.

But yeah, I like, I think being a doula is something that so near and dear to my heart. I think about sort of the reproductive state of this country a lot and that I think to like encounter a script that is so captivating and compelling as a story and also is very deeply embedded in the themes of, in my mind, reproductive rights, reproductive justice, the the difference in birthing experience for different people based on their background, their race, their class status, on how much the medical system fails us to have that as an undercurrent, a backdrop for this incredibly visually captivating, dark, moody, sexy story.

So cool. I was fascinated by the way the monitor is an aspect of it, how, you know, it's like having a child knowing that we're making money off this and it's like, wow, it literally is, though. Have you seen the documentary called The Business of Being Born? It literally I mean, like even I think this is no shade at all.

It's like doctors or unions, like heroes. Incredible love. But it really is the medical system, you know, like like it's really based off of an industrial factory mentality where, like, people are like the products, like you want them in and out as fast as possible. It's based on efficiency, it's based on cutting costs because that's how everything is based, you know, And it ends up being that like the care and like what people actually need to have, like a holistic and even holistic, but just like a, like a positive experience is it is not is it prioritized by how the system works?

It's really like, get in, get the baby out or like whatever, and like la la la la. And I think you encounter care through like individual people, but not because of like the system. That to me, that was even scarier than all of the kind of other things, especially when we saw the Cronenberg film where they had all those kind of tools and whatnot that scared the hell out of me.

But the idea that everything is so kind of old and calculated, I guess, is what I see it, is that for you, you dealt with both Beverly and Elliot. Yeah. How good is that or how easy was that? Or how fun was that? It's easy and fun cause it's Rachel and she's a genius and it's incredible. But I mean, yeah, we for the scenes where they're where both twins are, and then we just.

We have to sell them twice or twice as many takes everything. She'll play it as one of the twins. Katie Hawthorne was incredible, who is both Rachel's body double and also plays the young version of Rachel's mother in the final scenes is incredible, everybody. And she'll stand in for the other twin and you'll just then, you know, they'll be like a 30 minute or whatever changeover Rachel will get from Beverly to Elliot or Elliot to Beverly come back again.

And like, I think even when you watch it the way that these two characters are so specifically different, like, like there's even a scene where the two twins, like, they play each other as themselves. And the fact that that's done with so much like, like the specificity and realness, like, I think Rachel's a genius, you know, she's playing two different people and then she's playing them play each other.

It's it's fun.

All right, Bruce, thanks for that interview. You know, you were talking a little bit about a lot of program now seems to be remakes of things or maybe stuff that's been sitting in development for a little while. We're in this threat of a writer's strike it I correct right. But what is going on there? Well, and it could really delay the fall season.

It could make content, you know, kind of disappear. They would end up doing a lot of game shows and things that didn't need scripting. But what they also did back the last time I can remember is they took old scripts and reshot them. So they didn't need to have new writers. They just did old shows and I'm sorry I can't get one off the top of my head.

But it didn't work. It was a concept. It didn't work. Reality TV, however, was a good answer to all of that because they said, Well, we really don't need a script there. You know, they're just talking mirror. And so I think they would lean in heavier in that aspect and maybe they would bring back stuff and say, we're going to remake it.

I don't know. Interestingly, next week we're going to talk about a small light, which is a National Geographic miniseries. And they had done a movie about the people that are covered in this, but not in such an extensive way. And it's about the people who helped the Franks hide out during World War Two. MEEP Jeez, does that name ring a bell?

Meep Geese. She was a an assistant or a secretary of sorts to Mr. Frank and he just he said, you know, we've got to get out. Can you help us? And she didn't pause for a minute. She and her husband were very good at keeping their secret, hiding them, bringing them food, doing all this kind of stuff. And they really never got the attention that others thought they should have because they were very courageous in what they did.

Well, now this miniseries opens that up and gives you a real good look at what they actually did and others like them and what kind things they were able to do during World War Two. But I talked to the the stars of that show, and they're a unique perspective, particularly since, you know, they're young and they didn't have a point of reference for a lot of the things that were going on.

So that'll be next week. A small light and we'll talk to the stars of that. I saw that live Schreiber is in that is he's out of frame Yeah yeah he you know he's not in it that much but it is one of those ones where you go I didn't recognize them because it isn't it isn't one of those kind of roles that he's used to playing it is, it is a a leap for him as well.

Okay. Well, I'm looking forward to that one because as I said, I love historical dramas and as somebody who's got Jewish heritage, it certainly will, you know, be a little bit touching for me as well. They went on location to film a lot. They didn't film the Anne Frank House, but they did film nearby a lot of places.

There's one where they jump in the water and what you'll find I thought really interesting about this is that they were far more contemporary. I mean, you know how we think of people in the past, how kind of maybe closed up they are and these are not these people aren't like that. And they were very fun. And Miep is one of those ones who just will.

She's not going to think about it if she should do it, just jumps in and does it. And she's very good when she's dealing with the Nazis and how they want her to talk. So you'll enjoy I think you'll enjoy how it how it spills out. And it also tells us that we too, could make a difference if we only speak out and and do what's right.

Wonderful. Well, we'll we'll dive more into next week. Until then, thank you for listening. Until then, batter up.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's the end of the road for an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning comedy series.

“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is back for its fifth and final season, with episodes dropping weekly starting April 14 on Amazon Prime Video.

For this episode of Streamed & Screened, hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz, provide a (mostly) spoiler-free analysis of the the program, which is a favorite of both. Also hear from the stars, including clips from Rachel Brosnahan (Miriam "Midge" Maisel), Alex Borstein (Susie Myerson), Tony Shalhoub (Abraham "Abe" Weissman) and Kevin Pollak (Moishe Maisel) who reflect on the characters, the series and whether we might see them all reprise their roles in the future as part of a feature-length movie.

Bruce also has an interview with Michael Zegen, who plays Midge's ex-husband Joel Maisel, who offers thoughts of his own on the program.

Whether you're a longtime fan of the show or looking for an introduction before you binge the whole thing over a long weekend, you'll want to give this episode a listen.

About the show

Read more: REVIEW: 'Mrs. Maisel' ends with marvelous update

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

Cast:

Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam "Midge" Maisel
Alex Borstein as Susie Myerson
Michael Zegen as Joel Maisel
Marin Hinkle as Rose Weissman
Tony Shalhoub as Abraham "Abe" Weissman
Kevin Pollak as Moishe Maisel
Caroline Aaron as Shirley Maisel
Luke Kirby as Lenny Bruce
Jane Lynch as Sophie Lennon

Created by: Amy Sherman-Palladino

Executive producers: Amy Sherman-Palladino, Daniel Palladino

Producers: Dhana Gilbert, Matthew Shapiro, Salvatore Carino, Sheila Lawrence

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Adobe Premiere and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

A lot of young women trying standup comedy for the first time, which is so awesome and long overdue. It's been incredible to hear how his legacy has already affected people, and I'm really excited to see how she lives on.

That voice you just heard was Rachel Brosnahan, who stars as Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel in ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee Enterprises and a co-host of Streamed and Screened, an entertainment podcast about movies and TV. Joining me, as always, is the incomparable Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter.

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is back for its fifth and final season with episodes dropping weekly starting April 14th on Amazon Prime Video. Bruce It will be an end of an era for one of the most popular shows on that platform. Certainly big shoes to fill.

First of all, why was it not the marvelous Bruce Miller? This is now this is how this should be. This is how he introduced me. Right. It's interesting because this is a show that I think people lost track of because of the big gaps between seasons. Was it over? Is it over? And when they see this fifth season and I've seen the whole thing, they will go, Oh my God, there's so much in that fifth season because they do a lot of time jumps.

So you're not going to just see one season, one year play out. It goes into the future and you find out things about her children. You find out things about her husband, her ex-husband, her friends, Susie. All of those people come into play at some point. And so it flashes back and forth and it's I think it pays.

It rewards the people who have been loyal. And you get to see a lot of fun. So there is and I you know, I'm really I should say nothing. But there is one kind of cute thing where they're showing, you know, did she have a lot of dresses? And they show the racks of her clothes all. My God, what is this?

She did have it because I don't think she ever wore anything twice. No, I don't remember it. And you also, I think, see growth in Mrs. Maysles comedy career, how she's able to tell, you know, I always thought, is she making this crap up on the fly? And every night, is she not writing this down so that she can, you know, retell it at another place?

It seemed like every every routine she did was just of the moment. And you see how she does all that. And there is a scene in the last episode that is on Be Livable, and that's as much as I can tell you on the spoiler end of things. But okay, no spoilers. You know, when you first watched it, what surprised you most about it?

For me personally, I was sucked in because I'm a native of New York City, okay? And for me, my wife is from just outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. And it's been an interesting ride because she's she's Catholic. I was raised Catholic, but my dad was Jewish. But for me, it's kind of seeing that cultural the cultural phenomenon of New York, the Jewish culture, even though I'm I didn't grow up in the fifties or sixties, I was born in the mid seventies, but for me I could relate to it.

And I thought that they kept this show like it's fiction, but it's also really easy. And I think it was that reality that kind of kept bringing me back. So a couple of things, if you don't mind me throwing these out, because we're going to be talking a lot about I mean, we're basically going to just talk about the show with Mrs. Basil.

Yes, this is the Mrs. Maisel episode. So first off, the beauty of streaming is if you have not watched this show yet, just go back and watch it. You know, go get Amazon Prime if you don't have it already and start cranking through them. My wife and I didn't start this until the 2020 lockdown. There was already in between season three and seven season for that really long gap they were talking about.

But we had nothing to watch during it. So we're kind of crushing through Netflix and Hulu and anything we could find. And we hopped into Mrs. Maisel and for some reason I didn't know much about it at the time. I was saying, What is this like some superhero thing? Because it kind of played with some of those Marvel titles that you hear.

But it's a it's a comedy. It takes place, I guess, you know, like late 1950s, early 1960s. Rachael Brosnahan plays Miriam Midge Maisel. She's a housewife with very strong Jewish personalities in her life. Between her her husband and her parents and her in-laws. Alex Borstein plays Susie Myerson. She manages The Gaslight Cafe.

Becomes a manager.

She wants to be a manager. She's there. Michael Zegen is Joel Maseil while her husband and there's a Tony Shalhoub is in it as her father. There's a lot of actors you will know. Kevin Pollak is her father in law. It was a Jane.

Lynch turned up as.

Jane Lynch. Yeah. So it's it's an awesome ensemble cast. So and it's also a lot of reality. So Luke Kirby plays Lenny.

Bruce.

Right? So he's a real person, very controversial comic of the time, but becomes Midge's friend over time and helps guide her career. Midge Maisel, a fictional character, but she's based on Joan Rivers, who had a relationship with Lenny Bruce and started at the Gaslight Cafe, which was a real location. It's where, if you've ever heard of a musician named Bob Dylan, you've heard of Bob Dylan before.Bruce Never heard of him. Never heard of him.

So he was a young man. Robert Zimmerman out of Hibbing, Minnesota.

Probably did. Well, is he did.

He did well. So he came to New York City and was kind of brought under the wing of a folk singer named Dave Van Ronk, who is who is the mayor of MacDougal Street down in the village of New York City. They performed at the Gaslight. This is a real location. So it's the beauty of this show is, you know, you're getting a little bit of a history lesson of the time and it but it's still a fictional comedy.

It's hilarious. I love it. It's very you know, some of it is kind of on the surface kind of comedy and you pick it up really quick. But some of it's very deep, too, and it kind of gets into, you know, the place of women at the time in the 1950s and, you know, kind of being you're the housewife.

Take care of the kids. Joel wants to be the comic. He's the one that's going to be the comedian. And of course, the tables get turned. But yeah, you're right. I mean, with the dresses, even as the show progresses and, you know, she's short on cash, sometimes it's like, how can you afford this apartment? Where are all these dresses coming from?

It's ridiculous.

The clothing budget does not suffer. She will always have a great outfit. What I find fascinating was each year it got bigger. You know, you start out and it's kind of like, Oh, this is doing a period show is expensive. And they didn't. They just threw it out there. They went to a summer camp, you know, and that can't be easy to recreate, particularly of that era.

Then they go to a USO show, which is huge in an airplane hangar. They go to Paris, for God's sakes. This season, you're going to see them in New York and you're going to see a lot of landmarks in New York, particularly Rockefeller Center, which they use like a drum. They are around that building all the time. So that's that's fascinating to see.

And the cast, there are so many people over those four seasons that get a return visit in the fifth. So it's it's kind of like a reunion. And you go, Oh my God, That was from remember when they did that? And she was in that. And then there's also a bit of, Oh, how can I how can I say this without saying this?

It reminds you of if you saw my favorite year, if you saw laughter on the 23rd floor, if you saw any of those kind of looks at what Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Carl Reiner and Howard Morris did during the early days of television. With your show of shows, there are references to those kinds of things, so you get a real sense of the time.

I think you really get to see what the fifties and sixties were like. There's a sort of Johnny Carson character. They mentioned Jack Paar in the course of the the series. What I love are these time jumps where you find out exactly what happened to Mrs. Maisel. What did she fizzle out and become? Nothing. Did she come a big star?

Was she like Joan Rivers? You know, that is an easy comparison. But there were other female comics of the time, Tony Fields, if you remember that name. I don't know if it moms Mabley, these were all ones who were working that Phyllis Diller. And they kind of had to be aggressive in their approach to comedy because otherwise they were going to just be bulldozed over.

And I think that's what you get out of out of Midge, is that she is not going to take no, but she is going to get knocked down.

I can't wait to dive into this. It's exciting. I always love those just the characters. They even if they're playing such a really small role, it feels like they're playing a much larger role than it actually turns out to be.

There are little in this one, you know. I don't know if you ever remember those kind of industrial shows that used to be big in New York, where it would be like, Oh, soap or whatever. And they do a huge thing for all of their their corporate people around the country. They'd come in for a day or whatever a weekend, and they do an industrial show, which we are.

A lot of Broadway people would get on stage and sing the praises of, you know, Lox or whatever it might have been, or a new car. And they did these elaborate stage shows and fact there's a documentary out about them that is just fascinating because it's a world we don't know. We weren't in that industry. We weren't in that that thing.

But people made a lot of money off that writing those shows. And you get a sense of that as well. There's a big convention of sorts that that Midge happens to be involved in. So you get another you know, it's this history lesson that you're getting a lot of stuff, even though it's not a real person. You know, if she were real, I think you'd look at it differently.

You would say, Oh, well, you've got to have this moment. You've got to have that, and you really don't know what could happen. And Joel does not get shortchanged either. You know, I thought that maybe he would kind of just disappear as the years go by. And he has a very, very strong presence in the final season.

That's great. I always loved his character. I always was afraid that as the ex-husband, estranged husband, he might just kind of slowly walk out of the show. And in the fact that not only has he remained at the forefront and kind of done his own thing, too, he's found his place and kind of escaped the shadow of his very overbearing parents.

But the fact that he's still in it and that his parents are still in it just really makes the whole program him.

And they do interweave those things, too, you know, that he was building a club. He was trying to get a club off the ground. And you'll see more of that in the next season. And his parents are big players with Mrs. Maysles parents. Interestingly, I don't think you see enough of Tony Shalhoub. I think he has a very secondary presence in in this year's show, and that's surprising because he won an Emmy for it, and I would have thought they would have leaned in a little more, maybe he just wasn't available to do a lot more.

That's interesting. I also wonder, too, if it's is it part of character development, too, where they they want to highlight certain characters each season kind of give them because he did seem to have a very prominent role last year.

When he was doing The Village Voice and he's a critic. And now he's getting the reaction to what life is like as a critic, which is I think, just fascinating.

That's your favorite part, isn't it?

Yeah, that's the cool part. Yeah. I lean into the critic aspect. I don't do I care about the comic? I don't know if I do, but I do care about the critic.

You know, you talk a little bit about the characters and the reality and whatnot. One of my favorite things from the series and this is because, you know, and we've talked about this my my fan of of I'm such a huge fan of music. I have a very large record collection and just I feel like I have a pretty solid knowledge and I'm watching I think it was season it was season three when Midge was out on tour, was Shy Baldwin.

Right. So she was doing comedy to open up for his big band performance. So he was performing. He had that ensemble band behind him. There was the one character who kind of became her friend of sorts. Carol Keane, who is a fictional musician. However, she was based on a real person. She played. Carol Kaye, if you at all familiar with her, is a legendary bassist, and she's part of what's known as The Wrecking Crew.

The Wrecking Crew in the 1960s was this group of musicians that would come in and they were studio musicians. So you would have performers who weren't necessarily the best bands. They would go out live. But when it came to actually recording the albums, the producers were like, Let's you guys are in quite good enough. And it was even the Beach Boys, like the Beach Boys, didn't perform their own instruments in the studio.

In a lot of cases. It was a lot of times it was The Wrecking Crew. So Carol Kaye, the real person was the basis to put down the bass line. That famous bass line in In These Boots by Nancy Sinatra. The bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. So that was Carol Kaye and the fictional character in Mrs. May's All, who is also the bassist in the band and a befriended Midge and that season.

So that was for me, another piece that I just really love about this.

That's where rewards you for being astute in other areas, correct?

If you if you know things like if you you know, if you don't if you don't know these things, that's that's totally fine. You're just going to be entertained for for an hour or however long the episode is. But if you if you're familiar with pop culture in any way, you don't need to just know the real people like Lenny Bruce.

But it's knowing little things like The Gaslight Cafe. Carol Kaye, These types of people, you know, they are based on actual folks, even if it's just very loosely.

Yeah, it's fun to see who they might be. You know, Sophie Lennon, Who is she referring to? Who is she trying to be that you would know as a fellow comedian? You know, is she somebody that or is she just whole cloth, a fresh character? And that's I think that's kind of picking the brain of Amy Sherman Palladino, the creator of this show.

If you know her from Gilmore Girls, you know that she loves dance scripts, she loves the idea that there's there are more words there than really you need to do a half hour or 45 minutes of a show, but she packs it and I would assume it would be very difficult to to learn all those lines, particularly when she wants that kind of rapid fire way of talking.

And that's how she is. She's just like that. She usually wears a hat, too. She loves wearing hats. She's short. She's not unlike Susie. I would assume that a lot of Susie's personality comes from Amy, and her husband. Daniel is also a producer on the show, and he writes as well. So they're they're kind of in sync with what this mindset is all about.

And I'm sure she had a grand plan as to where she was going to take this whole thing. Now, you can easily see that they might have gone seven or eight years with this, but I think the idea of cutting it off now opens up other opportunities like a movie. And I think for them, let's let's try and make the fifth season as packed as we can and then we can go on and do those other things and not have to worry about time limitations or we've got to meet a deadline to get this on the air by a certain time because it's it's expensive.

It is hugely expensive.

Bruce, I don't think you know this, but you have just set up the perfect segue way into, oh, wow, some audio here. So we already heard from Rachel. Now we're going to hear from Tony Shalhoub, who plays Midge's father. He talks about how they didn't know how long this series was going to go, but felt that both Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino were able to wrap up the story perfectly the way it was supposed to be.

So let's let's cut ahead to that clip.

From what I understand, even though we didn't know how many seasons it may go or may not go, Amy and Dan always had, they always had the final scene in their heads. They always they didn't know exactly how we were going to get there, but they knew where we were going to land and then I think we all by osmosis, we all felt that cool.

All right, so that was Tony Shalhoub. Bruce, does that sound accurate, like what he's talking about? Does it feel like the series wraps up perfectly?

I think it does for me it did anyway. And I thought, like I say, the last episode is one you can't miss because it's and I, I cheated, all right? Because I was afraid I was doing an interview and I thought I better see the end just in case this character is dead. I don't want to end up asking, Well, like, you know, what about those later years are, well, I'm dead, so I won't be in those later years.

But that wasn't the case. There wasn't anything. But I did watch the last episode before I finished off the other ones before it, and the last episode is a great example of standalone television. You could take that episode out, not see any of the rest of the series, and you would still get a really good sense of a story.

It's like a little mini movie in itself, and it's interesting how they all are able to get friends in. There is a roast at one point that has a lot of comedians that you know, are friends of a lot of the actors that are in the shows. And there are ties. I think Rachel's husband is a character in the show.

There are people that are all people who've been on Gilmore Girls, people who've been on Bunheads, people who have been, if you will, loyal over the years. And they repay that loyalty by giving them a shot in this last season. I mean, it's remarkable. If I sat and made a list of all the people that I saw, I, you know, a character that they introduced last season played by Gideon Glick, he's this magician and kind of an offbeat magician.

And you go, What is this? I love that character. And he returns this season and he has a lot of really goofy things. He's afraid of flying. So that's a fear factor. And there there is a picture that you'll see out there somewhere that is JFK, the the airport. So you'll be able to see what that looks like inside.

And it's just fascinating to see these characters. The last time I saw it was Catch Me if you can, and just to look at that and now there's a hotel there that you can stay at there. It's very commercial where you could go and actually do tourism things there. But it is featured in this season. Again, huge, huge landmarks that they're using in New York.

I think it's fascinating to to realize that somebody didn't say no. Nobody was saying them, No, you can't do that. We can't afford to do that. It's like I'm sure she dreamed it. And very much like Susie, where she's not going to let somebody else tell her no, she's just going to keep going ahead and doing it. And I think that's in a nutshell.

Amy.

Amy Palladino I can't remember the timing of this. Was the JFK airport at the time, or was it still Idlewild?

Yeah, it was, Yeah, it was, but as I know it is.

I know I always wondered because it transitioned.

It was not named. No, it was not named JFK because, you know, and interestingly, I don't remember that they've even mentioned that Kennedy has died at that point. But you'll see the eighties, you'll see the nineties, you'll see the seventies, you'll see various different time frames over the course of the of the of the episodes.

Wow. So another character that was mentioned and we talked briefly about her was that of Alex Borstein. She plays Susie Myerson. You know, you had mentioned the connection with her to Amy Sherman-Palladino and whether it's the connection there. But we have a we have a clip of her also. Now, if you're familiar with her, she's also the voice of Lois on Family Guy.

She's a comedian. She's been around for a really long time. But I think this is kind of like probably her biggest breakthrough screen role that I can think of on screen role. So we have a short clip of her talking about her relationship with Midge. So let's go to that.

For a bit. Like Mutton, Jeff, It makes no sense. And yet there's just this chemistry. There's something that draws these women together and they've got each other's backs and it's not about finding a mate. It's about achieving something in their lives that they want. It's about filling a hole within and they complete each other.

All right, Bruce So that was Alex Borstein talking about the relationship that Susie and Midge have. Is that connection? Because that was always one of my favorite things was the interactions between Midge and Susie and kind of the weird polar opposites that they are, but they have this great presence on screen together. Do we get more of that in this first season?

We do. And you also get fighting. And that's as much as I can say about that. You know how they it's like on a soap opera where they love to put people together and then they like to tear them apart. And I think this falls into that. You know, there's there's a reason for them to be at each other's throats and maybe they both don't pay attention enough to what the needs are of the other person.

But you see how how Susie is just giving her life for this person that maybe she might be a little too protected. You know, Mitch can Mitch has the ability to go and do this because she has her parents to fall back on if she really needs them. Her husband, her ex-husband is still there in the picture for her.

She doesn't have that kind of if I don't do this, I don't know what will happen to my life. There is a safety net for her, and we've seen that over the years where she's taken jobs at other places and done other things and she gets a new job this year. And that's a safety net of sorts, too.

But there's always this comedy where Susie has nothing. Susie is like she's all in and she will do whatever she needs to do to further the career of her client. Hopefully there will be more clients, but you know, you look at it and you say, Oh my God, she's just doing all this for one person. Is that friendship?

Is that is that, you know, just survival? Is it? She's enamored with her. What is the what is the deal for her and why is she doing this? And you get answers to all of that stuff. It's just it's really fascinating. I remember when they went to the to the Catskills and they were staying there and I think she had a hammer or something.

And she was like trying to do things with the hammer. And you go, Oh my God, this is unreal. And she's always treated like dirt by everybody. Everybody sees her as like their batboy for anything that goes wrong. Susie, we're going to go to you.

Yeah, She said that season at the Catskills was just incredible. I mean, they basically took it was pretty much the entire season was more or less on location up there. And you still had to work her in somehow. And she obviously she doesn't dress like somebody that belongs there. So she just walked around with that hammer and like, I think a plunger, too, just looking like a maintenance worker and nobody would question it because that's what she did.

But that relationship, you know, even though we're we're avoiding spoilers for season five, we had that adversarial give and take relationship between them throughout all the seasons. Because you're right, she didn't have anybody. Susie doesn't have anybody to fall back on, so she has to make a living, which meant at times taking on other clients. You know, she didn't want to be Sophie Lemon's manager, but she needed the money and then kind of had to deal with that abuse as well as the abuse of of Midge, who couldn't believe that she would support Sophie Lennon, who is her her nemesis.

Right. Yeah. So, you know, that that to me has been just a great, you know, relationship. But it always comes back to when they meet in the diner, which is such an iconic New York thing. Like, I just love I miss diners so much. Bruce Living in Wisconsin, there's no diners out here. People who think there's diners out here, there is no diners out here that is.

Have a drive thru with it, too, right?

But it's such a it's just such a new York, New Jersey, East Coast cultural thing where you go to a diner and you get that triple decker club sandwich or the pastrami or whatever it is and a pile of food.

You come all the other way, it's on you. Who knows everybody's order.

Yeah. You know, you get that big pickle spear which probably sits on every plate, and they just move it from plate to plate so I don't touch it.

The end. They do. Go back to the diner. You'll be seeing that and you'll be seeing various and sundry combinations of people talking. So it's a it's a key place. And like I say, these sets that they build the apartments, the business places they go to, it's unbelievable. I don't know how I would love to see what the budget was for this because it had to be huge because it looks good.

And I there's a thing and there's this coming season where they mention something as a giveaway, okay? And I thought, oh no, that it's it's wrong. It's not the same time. And I had to look it up to make sure that that was within that time span. It was exactly in that time span. You know how you would say I like a yo I don't want to see what it is because again, this is one of those things.

But if it was a yo yo and you say, well, yo, yo, what year was a Rubik's cube? That would be one a Rubik's Cube. Why are they giving away Rubik's cubes? They weren't available in 62 or 61 were they. I don't I think they didn't come until the seventies, but that's not yet. But there is another thing like that.

And damn, if they didn't nail it. And I looked it up and it was exactly right, it it fit with the time frame. You'll see stuff like that that it just you want to play gotcha with them and they, they already know they're much better than we are at vetting these kinds of things.

Yeah, they, they're really good. It's just nailing history. It is a history. Even though it is fiction, it is a history lesson throughout pop culture, history lesson.

Were there characters that you really like that maybe aren't around or have, you know, dropped in for an episode or two?

Well, you know, the Carol K one was one that I really liked. The magician that was in there in season four when Midge was working at that theater. And, you know, it's kind of the adult content. It's not quite a strip club, but it's that kind of like a doll that the manager of that club was. It's just a lot of those little characters like that.

I really love the characters that I really felt a personal connection to, and we'll kind of kind of move this forward too, with some some clips that we have coming up. So we have Michael Zegen, who plays Joel Maze, all his parents. Kevin Pollack plays Moisi Maisel, his father, and then Caroline Aaron plays Shirley Mays or his mother.

So I had mentioned earlier that that my mom was Catholic, my dad is Jewish. His parents, um, his mother died. My, my paternal grandmother died. I was probably about 15 years old when she passed away. She wasn't a very devout Jewish person.

My grandfather was he was it could be. Yes, it was.

That was probably about it. My grandfather was always a little bit more religious. And then after my grandmother died, he got remarried a year or two later is very quick. And the woman that he married, her name was Mildred. We all called her Millie and they became very devout again. He would go to temple. They kept kosher, but but Millie had a very unique personality.

So when the show started and I started watching it, and when Joel's parents were finally introduced and Shirley Hazel comes on screen, I turned to my wife immediately and I'm like, Oh my goodness, that is Millie.

That's Bella.

Is Millie. Looks like Millie. Sounds like Millie. Acts like Millie. This is not like you can think that that there's there's acting here and we're over the top and there's no way people could be like this in real life. Surely Basil is Millie or Millie was Shirley. Mabel, whichever reality. So it to me there was just that personal connection that that strong, very strong personality with her.

And in the father, I would I don't think my grandfather was any way like my she they had certain crossovers but you know Shirley and Millie were two peas in a pod.

Shirley is a big fan of pop culture, and she knows all the names that Midge might throw out there. She has like she could give you an encyclopedia about the person, and she's so excited about everything. And of course, when Midge invites them to come to various and sundry things, oh, she's right there. She's ready to come. Whereas her own mother is like, well, this interrupt with what I'm doing.

I don't know if I want to come and see you perform in front row is always Shirley. Shirley is there. She's all, This is wonderful. You're doing a great job. I love you, you're great. And you'll see they do a lot with them during this next year, so you'll enjoy that.

I'm looking forward to that because that interaction with them and in some ways to my my maternal grandparents who were Catholic, they never interacted that often with each other. But there is always a very strange relationship between like my mom and her parents and my dad and his parents when they would interact. It was very I don't know if his adversarial is quite the way, but culturally very different.

And I kind of get that with this show, like like Midge and her parents were very much one way, and Joel and his parents are very much another. And there is that that onscreen dynamic that I just love. And it kind of clicks with me a bit.

Yeah, and they're together a lot. The four of them do a lot of things together. You'll be you'll be thrilled.

You know, speaking of Moisi, Mazal, we do have one more clip of Kevin Pollak, and he's talking a little bit about the future of Mrs. Maisel. So let's go to that.

Yeah, we're not going to ever say goodbye. And I predict now for you, in 4.3 years we'll be here talking about the amazing movie. There I said it.

Kevin Pollak leaves a little bit of that door open. Could we see Mrs. May's old movie?

I think it's the door has been cracked. Look, the way they need content these days and you know that it'd be an Amazon film in a minute. And, you know, so they put it in theaters. They could get a lot of attention for it. And then you just put it on streaming again. I think we've seen the model for all of this.

And like I said, it would help pay the bills for all that expensive stuff that they're using because it looks like a Cinemascope film. It's shot. Well, it has great I mean, the scoring, they created original songs for this. Now, really for a half hour you're going to do that. And the sets, the costumes, the whole and, you know, the first season they won a lot of Emmys for those kind of below the line things.

And I think this year they're going to be well rewarded for what they've done because it is so vast and so unbelievable. But, you know, it did not go unnoticed by the actors. I think they believe that they landed into a great situation. And I don't think it was by chance either that they were selected. I think these people, they knew who were the hard workers, they knew who the ones that would deliver for them.

And it it it seems like it's a brutal show to do because it isn't just getting up and saying a line against somebody. You know, what's interesting is you'll see a little a clip of a TV show that stars Hank Azaria and Sutton Foster within the show. It looks it has a bit of Dick Van Dike to the quality of it.

And Sutton Foster kind of seems like a mary Tyler Moore. And you think the idea that they would write this script for a show within a show that really isn't seen that much, you get a couple of lines out of it. And, you know, they did you know, they probably wrote the whole script or this sitcom that they were trying to reference in some way.

And it's done in black and white. And you get all of that that kind of little homage. But clearly they are fans of the medium. They are ones who want to make sure that it comes across and you do get that sense of what the time was like. You know, it was not easy being a female comedian in New York, Hollywood, wherever.

And I don't I think now it just seems too easy because we see comedians all over the place, you know, doing a one hour special on Netflix. But the idea that somebody would have had that or got that an unreal, unreal. And if I was able to interview Joan Rivers Times and she net, you know, as much as she was kind of oh what's the term I want to use not boisterous but she was you know, she seemed like a very like she would just tell it like it is and not worry about the consequences.

That was not Joan. It was a character that she was portraying. She was the most loving, wonderful person who would would take you under her arms and just treat you like a friend. And that's the I think that's the same kind of disconnect you get here with Mrs. Maisel. She is two different people, but I can see easily that she is the the Joan Rivers is the template for Mrs. Maisel, even though their lives are much different.

They don't they don't wind up the same way. They don't have the same dynamics. There aren't the same, you know, cards being played. But there is that kind of idea that I'm alone. I really am alone in this venture and I've got to do what I want to. Another series that it kind of seems similar to is Hacks, because you see Jean Smart showing what a comedian's like after the big days are over and how does she keep that going?

And there's a glimpse of that with this fascinating because I think I think Joan Rivers is the mothership for all these kinds of things because of what she did do and the idea that look at Joan went to QVC and sold crap just to make money, you know, and what she had to do, she alienated Johnny Carson at one point and then she had her own show.

But the one thing that she valued most was The Tonight Show. And there was no way they were going to let her back on with that because she had, you know, went as she had. She'd gone against the master and she wasn't sorry enough for Johnny to make this really work. And I think that was a big failing in Joan's life, is that she felt that somehow that relationship was not really repaired and she never got The Tonight Show.

She didn't get things she wanted, but in the end, she did get a lot. And she is viewed as somebody they all look up to. You know, they say, well, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for Joan Rivers. And I think that's the path that you're looking at with Mrs. Maisel as well.

So with Mrs. May's all leaving Prime Well, not really leaving. It's going to be there, but but this is a big tentpole production for them. What's left for Prime. They do have a lot of shows, but I also don't find myself going to Prime very often for original programing. It feels like a weird, weird platform to me compared some of the others in some ways, maybe a little bit like Apple Tv+, which has several big productions.

But when there's nothing there, you know, when you run out of something like Ted Lasso, it feels like there's a long gap until something else comes. What what's your thinking on on Prime right now?

I think, though, they're doing movies and a lot of those movies will draw the attention. And so I think that's where they'll get whatever. And they also have a lot of limited series that are ten and down or eight and done. And I think that for them is a better model then a series that who knows if you know the the the suits the executives who are in power may not like that series.

And there it's just like network TV. As soon as one regime is out, there's do we have support? You know, unless you're the number one show on television they'll be looking to dump. Yeah.

So we've been sprinkling clips throughout this episode, which has been fun because we don't always have audio from so many different people. But we do have one more and it's a little bit more than just a 1015 second clip. We have an interview. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, I got to talk to it to Michael Zegen, who plays Mr. Maisel. And it's fascinating because I was always under the impression that his job could be gone at any minute. I really thought that Joel is not necessary to this show. He was important in the first year, but would you stick around? And so we got to talk about that and what this last season was like and what, you know, what what comes next.

He is working on the Penguin, which is the new I think his HBO Max series with Colin Farrell, and he's a mobster in that. And so that's an excellent he'll be doing it Fascinating. And he feels very blessed, very blessed that he was a part of this because he knows it's magic in a bottle and you don't get that many times.

Michael, how is it to say goodbye to this? I would think that would be very, very difficult.

It is You're you're correct in you're you're sentiments. Yeah it's it's it's definitely difficult but it's some I don't know it doesn't feel like it's ended just yet especially you know we we still have all this and we're going to France together and I you know we still have this group text chain. So it's I don't think it'll ever quite feel over over.

But I, I, you know, I know the reality of it. And we're not going to be filming anymore, which is devastating.

Well, the last season is so stuffed with information. I mean, there's a lot there to unpack. What was it like when you were doing it? Did you say, Oh, my God, I can't believe this happened? And that happened. And, you know, there's a lot.

There is, but there's always a lot. I feel like, yeah. And, you know, there's a lot of dialog. I actually think this year the scripts, they're always long, you know and I guess in our show is is supposed to be like, you know, 55 to 60 pages, our scripts are like 90 pages to 100 pages. So they're always long.

I do feel like this this season, though, they were longer than most.

And the locations, I mean, you're everywhere, you're doing the years, the whole all of it. That's why I thought it seemed like an awful lot. But maybe it's let's get it done and then move on to something else.

Well, the show is big. It's been big from the beginning. You know, we went to Paris in the in the second season and the Catskills and Miami. So it's it's it's always been very big. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff, but somehow it just it still flows just as nicely as ever. And it's, you know, it's still.

Mazal.

When it started, did you feel, oh, they're going to get rid of my character at some point.

I, I was just saying this in a in a previous interview. Yeah. In the first episode when I read it, I thought that was it for Joel and I thought it was going to be a guest star. I didn't even I, I looked at the you know, I was auditioning for it. They send you the cast breakdown and it said that he was a series regular.

So I was like, Oh, even better. I had no idea. I really honestly thought this is it for him. And later. But but, you know, luckily that wasn't the case. And they were able to to create this this whole journey for and this evolution for this character.

And there have been so many subplots of his that he just kind of owns. That must be a real cool feeling to have them kind of right for you, if you will.

Yeah, we all get our subplots. But yeah, I mean, I think Joel's is is probably, I guess the most separate from from everybody else is they all kind of I mean, look, he's still in Midge's orbit, obviously, but but I think, you know, he's probably the he's like Pluto as opposed to, you know.

Tony's not Venus. Right. What were you miss about this show? Because you had such a huge cast and of really great people?

Well, that's what I mean. That's in that's it in a nutshell is the cast I, I, I, I'll miss everyone terribly isn't. And really, it's not just the cast, it's the crew. It's it's you know, our writers, Amy and Dan, obviously, I I'll miss everything about this show. Literally everything. This has been the greatest experience of my life so far, you know, work wise.

I don't I was just talking to Tony and Kevin Pollak and they were saying, you know, by the way, no way, you're going to top this. So, like, they felt bad for me because they they were saying they're like, you have like years and years left. We only have like three and, you know, and I'm on it. It's over for me, basically.

But I mean, I don't believe that, but I do I do believe that it's going to be very hard to top something like this.

Do you think it's because of the writing that made it such an iconic show or was it something else? Is it spending a lot of money and doing a lot of things, making it bigger than normal?

I think that the money is certainly helps. You know, luckily we had Amazon behind us and anything really Amy and Dan wanted they got because I think, you know, Amazon loved the show just as much as we did. But what was the first part of the question?

Well, did did you think that it was going to be this this big, this kind of whatever, or was it the writing that really kind of sold all of this thing?

It's really everything. It's the writing. It's like I said before, the crew, I mean, we had, you know, people at the top of their game in every, you know, whether it's lighting or set design or acting. I mean, it was just the whole the whole project was just lightning in a bottle. And and I think that's that's really just what made it so special.

But yeah, did I have any idea I, I didn't know that it was going to be this big. I knew people were going to like it. I liked it. So, you know, I, I think I've got pretty good taste. And, you know, my if you look at my resume like I've done really good shows before and I've done shows that people watch.

But but this was this took it to a new level. And, you know, right out of the gate, we we got nominated for all these awards and we won and we won the Golden Globe, you know, And that that was like, okay, yeah, we were right. Like, this is something special. And and now, you know, then we had to top that.

And you got the Emmy. So there you go.

Yes, We did.

Talk about, though, Amy, as a as a force. I have my views of what she'd be like. I always see her in a hat and I always think she's like, she's marshaling troops. But is it like that or what is she like on on set?

She's honestly just the best. You know, you talked about the writing. It doesn't get better than that. And and honestly, like, I'm a little sore about the fact that for, you know, the past couple of years at the Emmys, she's not even nominated for writing. I mean, this is the best written show on TV, you know. Yes. There's succession.

There's all these other shows. But like in terms of comedy, it doesn't get better than this. And, you know, it's so rare for me to read something, especially when I'm home alone and I laugh out loud. That doesn't happen. And that's been happening on this show from day one. The minute I read the pilot, I was I was laughing.

And and so, yeah, she's she's just, you know, there's there's a level of trust involved with her that that is unparalleled that I haven't I haven't experienced with anybody else. She shows up to set. I mean she's a former dancer, you know, and she thinks like a dancer. So, so even even our background actors, a lot of them are dancers.

I don't know if you know that, but it's true. A lot of them are dancers and it's it's always a dance when we're rehearsing a scene because we don't have rehearsals, like prior to showing up to set and doing the scene. We, we, we get there on the day like, you know, 530 in the morning, whatever it is, and then we start blocking it out.

And sometimes they're huge scenes. But I mean, you know, she's she's obviously in charge and there's this level of trust that I'll just do anything she wants because, you know, she knows what she wants. And to have a director who knows what they want is sometimes I mean, honestly, in my experience, it's rare.

So what is it like watching Rachel do stand up?

I mean, Rachel can do anything. You know, she's she always talks about how nervous she is. Like, I don't buy it. Like she's she's a she can do anything. She she's that type of actor where again, it's that level of trust. Like, I mean, any time I got to work with her was a joy and all of our I think you know all of our scenes that we got to do together were always my favorite.

And yeah, I mean, you know, she talks about how nervous she is, how the audiences keep growing and growing for her character. And honestly, like, that stuff doesn't faze her. She was born to perform. And, you know, I don't I don't know if she would be a standup comedian, but but I'm sure she can handle that as well if she wanted to.

Hey, and you can, too. So that might be even the next step. So. Hey, thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate it. And I thank you for all those years of really great television.

Oh, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Bruce, for that interview with Michael Zegen. What do we have on tap?

Well, I'll tell you, I do. And tell me if you don't agree when you start watching this, this series by, because I think it's going to be in for a lot of Emmys, you know how they come and go. And they kind of had a down year. Never. They weren't getting nominated. And the things I think this year they're coming back with a vengeance.

And I don't know how you could deny Rachel Brosnahan, the Emmy for best actress. Really? There are there is a moment there that you will go, Oh, my God, I'm glad I watch this series because it builds to this moment and it's unbelievable. And you'll, as you heard from Michael, you know, watching her was just unbelievable. But next week, we're going to talk about dead ringers.

Here's another opportunity. And you wondered, where is Amazon going? Well, this is another series they've got, but it's a limited series. It's based off a movie. If you remember the movie by David Cronenberg, starring Jeremy Irons, he played brothers, twin brothers who were odd, to say the least, and they were involved in obstetrics and making all kinds of weird tools and instruments and whatnot.

And they had freaky obsessions. They I mean, watch the movie. You'll see what I mean. It was one of those movies. Take me out for the longest time. Well, they've redone the movie and it's now a limited series, and it features two women as twins. Beverly and Elliot Mantle are now played by Rachel Weisz and Rachel really digs into it.

She's and she has lots of fun. And you'll see a different Beverly and a different Elliot. And then it's at one point they play each other to try and dupe their friends. So it's a fascinating look at characters, but I do think they made a horrible land. I just kind of have that feeling knowing how the movie went.

But that's next. We were talking to people who were involved in Dead Ringers, and that'll be coming as a limited series later this month.

All right, Bruce, thanks again, as always. And tune in again next week for another episode of Streaming & Screened.

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View Details

In this episode of Streamed and Screened, we dive deep into the latest entertainment offerings, from new movies and TV series.

A trio of musicals are dropping, including "Schmigadoon!" on Apple TV+, "Up Here" on Hulua and "Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" on Paramount+.

New movies like "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" are in theaters and no gaming knowledge is required.

We also chat about the return of HBO's hit show "Succession," which is back for its forth and final season, discuss the early success of "The Night Agent" on Netflix and talk with actor Jesse Metcalfe about his role in the film "On a Wing and a Prayer," which will get a limited theatrical release and is streaming now on Amazon's Prime Video platform, just in time for Easter.

Where to Watch

"Succession" on HBO
"The Night Agent" on Netflix
"On a Wing and a Prayer" on Amazon Prime Video
"Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" in theaters
"Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies" on Paramount+
"Schmigadoon!" on Apple TV+
"Up Here" on Hulu
"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" in theaters

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was created by Podium.page and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

Transcript generated by Podium.page
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0:00:03
Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. Rises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and cohost of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, Spring is here. Weather is getting better, but it it seems like we might be heading back to the movie soon. A lot of good stuff coming out. You know, we're in that period now. Where you're gonna see new stuff that maybe won't be Oscar bait, and it isn't quite holiday fair, you know, like, or it's lie is big time, Memorial Day is a big time, Labor Day is a big time. They all have tentpole, which are kind of considered the big money grabbers. Features, but there will all be also be a lot of these ones that, you know, there's a place for them and they'll make money. So we're starting to get into that era. And we're also seeing, like because of the holiday period, there will be a lock out there so that everybody has something. You will find something for grandma, something for mom, something for dad, something for the kids, and if you hold a bunch to the theater, you'd say, well, that's just all those separate ways and see what we wanna see. So there are enough enough movies out there to keep us kind of interested, but there are also TV series that are are popping now too. And I don't know why this kind of Third season is rising up, but there are a lot of things that are happening. In fact, it's odd. There are three new musical series. That are popping right now. What what is that a second season? But Schmigadoon!, did you see Schmigadoon! last year? I did not know.

0:01:42
This spoof of Broadway musicals. So last year, they did forties and fifties. This year, they're doing sixties and seventies. And it was supposed to be called Shnicago but they realized that they couldn't change the name without, you know, kind of confusing people. So it's called Schmigadoon!, but it's said in Chicago. Okay.

0:02:02
It spoofs musicals for, like, a pippin, a hair, Jesus Christ superstar, and it's about this couple that kind of wander into this goofy town where they all will act like characters from these shows. He and Michael Key and essentially strong are the are the two who enter into the world. And then it's just a herd of Broadway people. Then the people who are behind the cameras on Broadway or behind the scenes rather have made a thing called up here. And Up Here is kind of a What would it be like if musical set in New York City? And it's big names, the people who did Frozen hamilton, you name it, they are doing something, and it was their big pandemic project. And so they did this whole thing, wrote this whole thing, got it all together, and now it's finally premiering.

0:02:56
And then finally, the the last of the three big musical shows coming out is Grease Rise of the Pink Ladies. And that's a prequel to the grease that you see as a movie. So it set four years earlier and how did those pink ladies kind of come to be a a gang, if you will, and what do they represent? It's a way for them to kind of correct some of the myopic views of the movie. So you're going to see a much more diverse cast. You're not going to hear the songs from Greece except the title song. And then you'll see other characters. And there is hope that at some point you will see Sandy and Danny come into the thing in, like, your three or your four if it lasts that long.

0:03:41
So it'd be, like, freshman kinda coming into Right. So you say who is that one? Yeah. I don't think he would hire John Travolta to come in and play himself as a high school freshman. But, you know, strange or things have happened. Could they bring in John Travolta to play like a teacher, kind of. But it would also be bringing him back kind of because he started on Welcome Back, Kotter. And he could almost turn the tables on him career wise.

0:04:10
I like the way you think. Doesn't matter how that goes. Yeah. And they can get them to do a cameo or a thing. Huge. But I think it's got a built in audience as it is because kids love to sing those songs and it's filled with a lot of original content. A lot of original songs that were written just for this. So those are just three musicals that we've got coming on streaming and television networks.

0:04:36
And then you get all of the the kind of the creepy ones that are out there. There's a bunch of creepy shows HAR does really well. And for some odd reason, at last night, I watched a preview of a horror film that's how do I explain it? It's a gay bachelor party where they go to an old mansion and they are gonna have a say odds to call on a mother who killed her son in the house. The concept. I mean, how do they come up with this stuff? It was another pandemic project, but you're gonna see a lot of horror films around this time as well. So those are the big things itself. And then the big ones that we've got, duchess and dragons, honor among thieves, that's already in theaters. And it'll do really well because it's very adventurous. It's like an Indiana Jones film. So I never play dungeons and dragons. Did you ever Nor will I.

0:05:33
I think it has too many pieces, too many characters, too many things to learn. And this is very good at kind if it's like the the game at all, it pulls you through it, and it makes you understand what they're doing and where they're going. And it's kind of a dumb down version, I would assume. But it does allow you to kind of laugh with them and add them. And then there's a Hugh Grant. Remember how we talked about Hugh Grant at the Oscars and how he was kinda snarky with one of the interviewers? Well, that's That's the character. He was he was probably just coming off the set or whatever because he's very kind of Pattington too in his approach to this, but he's the villain, and he's trying to steal this daughter away from Chris Pine And they've got to try and rescue her. That's all it is. It's just to rescue, search and destroy. So it's some so it almost sounds like even though I'm not a Dungeons and Dragons person and you aren't It's entertaining. It's something that you don't have to be into it. Yeah. And Mario brothers is another game that they are are throwing out there this time.

0:06:41
And I think it's finding how you can make something that really has no plot have a plot. That's the the goal of all these things. Yeah. I could give you, you know, sorry or scrabble or something as a series or a movie. But what's the plot? You know? And at least with these are adventures of some sort where they're getting to somewhere, they're always on levels. We're always going to another level. With this. And I think that's what you'll find with these. They're realizing they've got to have a plot.

0:07:12
Imagine if they did monopoly the the TV show. It would be twenty hours long, and you would just be frustrated and hate yourself at the end of it. At some point, somebody tips the the gameboard. That's how it always I've never finished a game of monopoly ever because somebody gets mad at the person who buys up all of the properties and puts hotels on them and you have no money and so you're just bankrupt. And then they leave and they're mad. They're sitting in another room. And then you've got two people as well. Do we really wanna continue this if it's not we're not having everybody else? And then you just throw the table away. I've never finished it. I've never figured out who is the winner of a monopoly. It's such a frustrating game.

0:07:50
I'll I'll play it. My kids love to play it and then I'll get rope and Sure. Sure. That sounds like a grand idea. And I'll be the banker fourteen hours later. I'm just like, why are we doing this? This is the worst decision of by weekend. Right. You need something like Yatze, where it's done after a few roles, and then you're even gonna move by any more. That'll be a good Yatze, the movie. Yatze, the movie.

0:08:13
So I've been watching some shows too. Were you a fan or a fan at all of succession on HBO that is back? I well, you know, this is the last year. Right? I was not a hardcore succession person because it reminded me too much of reality. It is. It's like what's going on in the media world beyond us, way beyond us. But you see these it's very fox news ish, I think. It's like the the family that's running all of that. And that's all it is. It's you know, Logan Roy, who's played by Brian Cox, is the head of Waystar RoyCo.

0:08:50
And this fourth season just kinda picks up a few months after the end of the third season. So if if you watch the end of the third season, there was a lot of drama his the three younger kids who were looking to kinda up him up end him, the plot was turned, the tables were turned because Shiv's husband, Tom, kind of played the other side, Logan Roy. So it kind of picks up at that point. You know, the three kids are trying to make a deal for a company. The question is, is will they kind of hold him hostage he looks on load, but he's also gonna hold on to his Fox News channel, ATN. He's gonna hold on to that, and he's looking to make a move And then Connor, who's the older son, who's played by Allan Rock, who was Cameron Fry and Ferris Bueller's day off. He's looking to get married, but he's also running for president, and he's polling at, like, one percent. So that's not going well.

0:09:50
You know, we're back in the thick of things to session. It's one of my favorite shows that they've done in recent years. It's part of the reason it it's is is succession the best show ever to come off of HBO. No, but it feels like it's just another in a long line of very good programs. Do you see where I will end? I mean, can you see kind of hints that this is the end. Yeah. I mean, my assumption is that we'll get a resolution on the company in somebody's gotta come out on top. You know, whether he sells and the kids take over or or what.

0:10:25
But who knows? It could be just you know, like, reality is reality, and sometimes it's just, you know, something will happen at the end, and we're gonna be, like, what happened to Tony Saprano? We'll just cut to black really hard. And and like you know something will happen after it, you're just not gonna do a season five. It it could be, you know, if you may remember Rupert Murdoch just stopped a paper in London. It had so many lawsuits and everything and they just said, we're done. And maybe the ones that they do is they just you know, or somebody gets sent to prison. And then, you know, it's left open. So if they wanted to do a movie, they could do a movie, then you figure out who actually is the one that's running the place.

0:11:02
So who knows? Well, I'm glad it's good. It's it's one of those ones that I started watching and I was just too nervous by it because it reminded me too much of everything. And so I just let it go and I'm okay with that. I don't need it, but I know that those who love it are clearly devoted, hopelessly devoted. I am hopelessly devoted. I love it. And I I will I'm gonna be sad when it's off the air because it's just it's one of those programs that It had it even had large gaps in between c's and not just because of the pandemic, but because of the locations they were filming at.

0:11:35
So it always felt like season one ended, when is season two coming? Season two ended, when is season three coming? Because it wasn't on that traditional twelve months later, it's coming back. It's coming back at weird intervals. So it just feels good that it's back, and then I'll I'll be sad to see it go It's just great drama. And, you know, it it is the reality, you know, that that, I guess, you don't like. You you wanna get away from the reality. But I I kind of find it fun in just this context of of media and what's going on in the world today. And it's watching entitled people get annoyed about things that, like, what who how is this even a problem in somebody's life? I would love to have that when you're having.

0:12:17
Do you like the way they just drop an episode or do you really like when you could binge it? I go back and forth. I mean, I I like the binging concept because it just especially if it's a show that I'm watching with my wife, which is kinda going on right now with Netflix in the night age which I'll I'll mention in a moment. But for a show like this, I I just watched it by myself. She watched season one with me and kinda liked it, and then tapped out in season two. Just really didn't want to keep going with it. So from that perspective as a weekly program, I'm fine with it because we'll watch things together during the week. And then, you know, she goes to bed early and I might stay up a little bit. I'll watch it on my own. So I I don't need to have all ten episodes right there. So I like I like both concepts.

0:13:03
It just depends on the program. Do you feel like I've gotta see it right away when they drop it on Sunday night? Or Oh, yeah. Like, kids go to bed. Daddy go to bed. Everybody go to bed. It's Terry Scott. Watching his show now. Right? Everybody leave me alone to tuning into succession. Speaking of, you know, those bingible programs, Netflix dropped one. Kinda out of the blue. I wasn't really looking for it or paying attention for it, but it's called the night agent. And it's trending on Netflix right now. It seems to be pretty popular. It's got some good write ups on rotten tomatoes from from fans and reviewers.

0:13:44
So it takes place, like the concept of this, is that there is a FBI agent. He's played by Gabriel Basso. And at the very beginning of it, he prevents a bunch of deaths on a subway explosion. He finds a bomb. Right? But what happens is there's some accusations by conspiracy nutjobs and, you know, was he involved with it? So he kinda has to take a year off and and they fast forward a year to where he's working in the basement of the White House, sitting in a room with a telephone that probably will never ring, but one day it rings. And it's to to take a call from a like a devout agent in the secret agent and to kinda help them through a situation. Meanwhile, you have this other character Lucy Ann Buchanan, who's kind of a newcomer to acting, doesn't really have a whole lot of credits where whereas Gabe Gabbasa, he played J. D. Vance and Hillbelly, LG. So he's been out there before But Lucy Anne, a little bit more of a newcomer, she plays a cybersecurity person entrepreneur who loses her company, you know, so she's got this company at the start, fast forward a year, and she's staying with her relatives, her her aunt and uncle.

0:14:57
Who are all of a sudden murdered and she has to make the phone call. They're like, you gotta call this number, get help. And that number goes to Gabriel Baso in the basement. So it's it's a spy thriller. It's pretty intense. You know, it's who's playing? Who? There's the the thought that there's, you know, some some bad actors in the White House. What's gonna happen? It also stars Hung Chow. She plays Diane Far, the White House chief of staff. You would of course know her. She was nominated for best supporting actress in the whale.

0:15:30
So we've got a few names in this program. It's pretty good. I I've we've gotten roped in only a couple episodes in I'm not gonna drop any real spoilers. That's just the basic plot development to get you going through the first ten minutes of of episode one. But, yeah, it's it's a pretty good show and and we're gonna keep coming back to it. Did you ever see the Knight Manager Tom Houston. He played the manager of a very high end hotel, and he was also an agent where he was trying to dupe a lot of people that come into the hotel, basically. He had all this access to stuff fascinating series. They're gonna do another season of it. So if you happen to see that floating around, don't confuse the two, but it's very much that kind of duplicity that you wonder about. What's going on here? This is this is kind of fascinating. I'm I'm intrigued.

0:16:22
Let me rail for a minute about Netflix. Because they have the worst way of letting people know about something that's coming on. I mean, until you hear people talking about it, you have no clue that these things are popping. And they just will drop and they'll get foreign language series that were huge hits in, you know, whatever is Slavia. And they'll just drop it on there. And then you'll hear everybody talking about this. And maybe that's their their method. But I find it's really kind of undercutting because then you think, well, I'm missing out on something. How come I don't know about this? And then sometimes they'll do way too much where you'll see Adam Sandler on every talk show there is talking about the movie he did and it's okay. So I really wish they would be either a little more discriminating about what they push or help us through it a bit.

0:17:18
I don't remember ever getting any messaging because I'll get those emails maybe on a weekly basis saying, you know, based on the shows you've watched, hear something coming to Netflix that you might be interested in. I don't remember ever seeing anything for the night agent. You know, I've seen plenty of other things out there, but that one just we're we're literally out of things to watch because we kind of finished up one show looking for something new and we're just skimming through the Netflix and what's out there and we we kinda got sucked in by a trailer and thought, okay, well, let's let's give it a whirl. The categories that they have and that, you know, when you go to that kind of the directory page, you might like. And then you're thinking, what have I watched that they think I would like this crap? And there's a whole bunch of, like, goofy films that you think, I this is not me. Are you profiling me somehow? I don't know what you're doing. I don't know where you came up that I wanted to see elf part three, but, you know, it's on there. So I that's another thing that just throws me. And then you keep scrolling down because they have different different categories for things.

0:18:24
Shows people are talking about. Shows nobody's talking about. Shows you could talk about comedies that you haven't seen in a long time. You want to watch this. Now maybe you want to watch it again. You know what? It just keeps going. You think, oh, please. Please. Please. Please. So be careful what you watch because it might come back to haunt you. Yeah. There's my rant. Was that my rant for the day? That's your that's your rant for the day. But yeah. And, you know, it's funny how Prime Video, which used to be called Amazon Prime, but it's now called Prime Video, have been putting out an awful lot of product. In fact, I've been inundated with a lot of interviews. You'll see as we go along, but they have air coming out this this weekend, which will be huge in theaters. And that's the story of Nike when they pitched Michael Jordan to be their standard bearer for basketball shoes. And fascinating look at a true story with Ben and Matt. That'll be big. But they've got a lot of these other series too where they're remaking things, re kind of molding things.

0:19:31
And one of the things that I actually saw was a what they they consider a faith based film. Faith based film. Now, I don't know what that means to most people. I always think, oh, it's a religious film. You're trying to show me a religious film. Is that what it is? But it's not necessarily that. It's it just says that people believe in some kind of higher power. And this one is called on a wing and a prayer.

0:19:59
And it's a true story about a a businessman who takes a couple of lessons of flying lessons, but doesn't really, you know, think much of it, and then ends up in a plane with his family and the pilot dies. And he's gotta figure out how do I land this plane. Because I really wasn't paying attention that much when I was, you know, in classes. Because I figured I wouldn't need this. Right? So they get the dead body in the back of the plane, and then he gets behind the in the cockpit and starts trying to figure out how do we land this. And they bring in help from the outside. One of the people they find is somebody who actually flew one of those planes and he's played by Jesse Metcalf.

0:20:47
Jesse Metcalfe, you may remember was the gardener, the hunky gardener that Eva Longoria fell for in desperate housewives. And this is his way of trying to move into a different layer of filmmaking. So for him, it was a good move to let people see him as something other than the hunky garter. And then he was on a long time on hallmark channel. He he's been in every Christmas iteration you could find, and he was also in Chesapeake Shores, which was a series that they had on the Hallmark Channel. So I was able to talk to him and we have us his interview, I believe.

0:21:25
And you'll find out about what actually happened with on a wing and a prayer. I guess faith based, there's there's that element of Is there divine intervention to perhaps intercede? I think they're pitch on this is there are angels among us who help us through these kinds of situations. And the angels could be even the person on the ground that tells you what button to press at the right time. Gotcha. And the film also, it stars Dennis Quade. Correct? Dennis Quade, Heather Graham. So there are some some big names in this. Yeah.

0:21:55
Dennis Quinn plays the the guy who has to pilot the plane. Okay. Heather, the name is his wife. I replaced his wife. And, yeah, and you'll find other you know, they do a little bit before we get into the plane, they do a bit of back story. So you get to see what he's kind of a, I think, a very swaggerish businessman. You know, they're kind of or if you will would say they're kind of full of themselves. So I think it's a humbling experience for him when he gets up in the plane and realizes, hey, I don't know how to do this. He thinks he's a big barbecue guy and He wins barbecue contests and but not they have a huge in the film. They have a huge house that looks impressive, very impressive. And if he's going flying private, come on. He's gonna have a buck or two. Right? Right. End of the film, you get to see the real guy and the real people who helped him out. Okay.

0:22:48
So Dennis Quinn, he's it's interesting because he it feels like he's in these types of feel good movies he's done it before. He was in that movie, the rookie, that Disney movie, where he he was a a baseball pitcher. It it was a true story where, you know, he came back at ages like forty, whatever, and made it to the big leagues despite, you know, our injury. So it feels like he likes to do these feel good movies now. He likes to make money too. So I could be behind it. But I'm I'm tired of seeing him in these kinds of roles, to be honest. I'd like to see him as a good old villain because I think he's really good at playing a villain. And you know, maybe he doesn't have to be the star. Maybe he's like the third build, who always is a villain, by the way. If you ever look at a movie, Which one is the villain? Look who's third in the villain? They're always the one who's the villain. So maybe now with your when you're looking at the night agent -- Mhmm. We can see his third build. That's your problem at all right there. But yeah. And he gonna it's it's a feel good one for the holiday weekend and the holiday week.

0:23:56
It will be in some theaters and it will also be on Prime Video. So you'll see it on your Amazon Prime channel if you have that. If you bought enough crap on Amazon and you have the free shipping, you'll get this show. So you'll be able to see it. But it's it's nothing complex. It's something that you could watch while you're doing something else. And then you go, okay, that's good. I I understand what was going on there. It's a happy movie for this time of the season. So We have an interview with Jesse Metcalfe, so let's go ahead and listen to that.

0:24:34
Have you ever been in an emergency like this in any kind of transportation thing or not? I was on a private plane once where there were some concerns. I wouldn't say it had really gotten to this level. I certainly didn't have to crawl into the cockpit and lay on the plane. But I I understand people's fear of flying. I mean, I started flying at a very early age. My mom would ship me off to my grandparents at, like, six or seven. So I I don't have a fear of flying, like, at all. And actually, you know, after the experience I had, the wonderful experience I had on this home. I'm considering getting my pilot's license. I think it'd be really, really amazing.

0:25:18
Yeah. Look how good you are. You can help somebody. Yeah. What is that like when you're going through things and what is this? I don't know what these words are, what they mean. How do you you know, get a grasp on that so that you can convey it in the right way. That's that's a great point. You know, I had to look basically everything up. There's a lot of aviation jargon specifically for my character. And I definitely had to at least have a cursory understanding of what I was talking about. Certainly walked away from this movie with a greater appreciation for aviation and for pilots.

0:25:53
When you're sitting there and you're like giving them instructions, who are you talking to? Is somebody else reading the lines of things to you? Or I mean, because you're very into you're good at being intense in those situations. I'm like, Who is he talking to? I'm sure they're not there. Thank you. That's a that's a high compliment. I appreciate that.

0:26:11
Generally talking to, you know, either the assistant director or sometimes like you're standing. Really, anyone who's available to read the dialogue off camera and You know, I'll be honest with you. Not a lot of care is is taken when, you know, someone's reading this dialogue off camera. It's usually pretty flat and monotone. You know, you can you can ask them to pump it up a little bit. But it's really, you know, it's our job to bring all that emotion and energy to to our performance, you know. I mean, that's that's what we do as active guy.

0:26:46
I didn't get to meet I didn't get to meet Carrie, unfortunately. Hopefully, I'll get to meet him in the future, but I just basically looked up everything I could find on him, print interviews, what little video there was of him out there, I mean, the picture that was painted of him within our script was more than enough for me to grab hold of as an actor. Sure. You know, this coming at this time in your career, what is that telling you? Is it are you going in another direction? Is there something new that we're seeing with this film? Well, it's funny that you asked that. I mean, that's the plan. I mean, you know, I definitely want want to move away from the matinee Idol and move into more serious roles and, you know, work with you know, more producers and directors that I that I really respect. I mean, such a great team on this project with Roman Downey, Autumn Bailey Ford, Sean McNamara, who I I had previously worked with, and I was really excited to get the opportunity to work with again. I think it was just it was the right team on this one with the right script and I'm really proud of what they produced.

0:27:54
I mean, it's a very watchable movie that really keeps you on the edge of your seat. You know, they talk about this being a faith film or a faith based film. And I don't think that it's you know, I wouldn't use those terms for it. I think the faith is is underlying. Absolutely. But it isn't something that hits you over the head. You know what I mean? We're a lot of those things, they're like, oh, I'm not going to that. No. No. I I agree with you completely. I mean, honestly, I don't I don't consider this faith based movie at all. And I I think this this movie is of the caliber that, you know, could have gotten a theatrical release. I mean, it's just it's It's a different landscape these days. Very happy to have been picked up by Amazon Prime Video. They're really behind the movie. Yeah. I mean, you know, when people believe in a project and they know that the the the the content is good, I mean, it's just it's a it's a good feeling, you know, to have to have that kind of momentum.

0:28:51
Take me back to those days of desperate housewives. How how really unreal was that? I was it was incredibly unreal. I didn't anticipate the success of that show at all. Coming off of daytime television, moving into a nighttime show, but that felt very daytime. It was a easy transition. I mean, look, it wasn't the most challenging role in the world, but I tried to bring, you know, your vulnerability and and depth to the role. But, I mean, it was a it was a whirlwind, you know, that just, like, kinda swept me right off my feet. I didn't anticipate the success.

0:29:30
And to still be talking about the show twenty years later, I mean, I guess it's achieved some level of, you know, iconic television status which is something I'm, you know, I'm I'm proud to have been part of. Did it did it just kind of throw you coming so early in your career? Or was it You know, I I I had been in the business for for five years on daytime television, but, I mean, you know, daytime television and primetime are just, you know, their their night and day. Right. They they really are. You can we can work on daytime your entire career and he, you know, the average person might might not know your name. You know, so to to become a household name pretty much overnight was was definitely interesting.

0:30:17
Was it good to learn those lessons early on? Or do you say, oh, I'd be much more prepared now if I had that, like, real heat? Well, hindsight is twenty twenty, you know. So I I'd be much more prepared now, definitely. And I'd like to think you know, I'll I'll have some of those big opportunities again. I I mean, I'd like to believe that that the best of my career is is still ahead of me here. You know? Yeah. I I know I know I know I'm ready for it now. That's for sure. All we need to look at is this year's best picture winner and you look at those people and you say, all of them were at some point told you're out of the game and look at them now. They're on top of the game. So it's just It's very it's very only one project away, you know? Right. This could be yours. You never know.

0:31:06
Then you you have your kind of I I I love to see these different periods that you've had. You have your hallmark period. What is that world like? Well, I mean, the hallmark channel was very very good to me. They allowed me to executive produce some projects with them and kinda, you know, be involved in the creative and the casting of those projects. I really learned a lot during my hallmark period. And, you know, I'm I'm proud of a a lot of the work that I created during that period as well with this show that I did for them called Chesapeake shores where I played, performed, and wrote some of the music for the show. Right. I mean, you know, I I give a hundred and ten percent to everything that I do. I mean, I I'm one of those actors that really cares. Maybe I care a little too much, but, you know, I like to look back at different periods, as you say, and and be proud of those periods. So, you know, that that was a great time in my career.

0:32:06
In the learning process, do you go, oh, that's something I'll never do again? Or is it, okay, this is how I would change those things up if I did this again? Well, there's always lessons. You have to find the lessons in everything you do in life. But specifically in this business, You know? I mean, you wanna continue to become a better actor. You know, I I am very interested in doing more producing and executive producing. So you know, you have to learn those lessons, but it's really about it's it's it's it's about relationships and it's a it's a it's a very people oriented business. It's a collaborative art form and you have to work well with others. And, you know, I mean, those are the best lessons, I think.

0:32:50
What is it like when you wanna create something? Is it hard to actually get others on board with you? Or what do you to me, it'd be a big sales job. I'd have to sell others on my vision and I don't know that I could do it. While producing is a big sales job, isn't it? You know, I mean, generally, you're trying to find financing for ideas that you have. And that that can be a little soul sucking at times because as artists, you know, we don't wanna be, you know, making phone calls and sending emails begging people for money. You know, but there's also some great facets to executive producing or producing as well, you know, kind of like being in charge of the entire picture.

0:33:33
Which sometimes, you know, when you're just an actor on a project, you know, hire to do one specific thing, it can be a little limiting. Specifically when you see things that could be better or, you know, maybe, you know, holes in a story that could be patched up and you have ideas for that, you're not always you're not always in the position to share those ideas. Would would you ever not act? Would that ever be in the cards? Would I ever not act? Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that could be in the cards. I I think I would like to move behind the camera, you know, specifically in producing roles. And and and I have I have an interest in directing. I mean, I went to New York University for writing and directing teach school of the arts But over the over the years, I've seen how much work directing is. I mean, you're literally, you know, the first person on the set, the last person to leave and up all night preparing. So, you know, I I think producing might be my lane. Better. Yeah. Is another thing.

0:34:36
You know, and how they I forgive me for not knowing what this is like, but when they're judging you to to cast you in a role, based on a look, how how do you deal with that? I I would find that very difficult. Well, a lot of people say that there's a lot of rejection in our business, but I think you can't look at not getting a role as rejection. Because getting a role is like finding a needle in a haystack. You know, there's so many variables as to what our producers and directors and casting directors are looking or for a specific role. So I think, you know, you have to just put yourself out there, give the best audition possible, and if it doesn't go your way, just let it go. I mean, easier said than done, but dealing with the rejection would be the very difficult thing. Well, why wasn't I right for this. Exactly. I mean, hey, nobody likes dealing with with rejection, but that's life. It's life. Right?

0:35:32
What's next then after this? Are you already working on something? Well, I have two other films coming out this year. I mean, three, actually. One's called the comic shop. Which is kind of like a Kevin Smith esque story about a disgruntled comic book store owner who had some trials and tribulations in his life. It's kind of a interesting story. Then I have another one that's on the festival circuit right now called the Latin from Manhattan. And then I have a a a a a VC Andrew series of movies coming out on a lifetime where I I play dad in the early sixties. So it's it's my first dad role, so I'm kind of excited about that.

0:36:13
See, I've seen -- Oh. -- I've seen -- Oh. -- I've seen -- Oh. -- I've seen -- Oh. -- I've seen -- I've seen -- I've seen -- -- I've seen -- -- I've seen -- I've seen -- I've seen -- wonk long. I've I've seen some of the footage actually doing a ADR for the for the movies and I I play opposite this adorable you know, effervescent actor of Breck Bassinger, who's from from the series star girl. I play her father And it's very, very charming actually. I'm I was really, really pleased with it. I'm excited for people to see it.

0:36:40
Well, you know, if we're ever on a plane together and something happens, I'm calling you into action here. You're gonna be helping land the plane Okay. I know nothing about that. You might wanna call Dennis, but hey, you know. Yeah. I would run up and down the aisles going, no, we can't do this. This is not good. This is terrible, but it was very fun to watch you in this. I enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Alright, Bruce. Thank you for that interview. What else do we have on top? Coming up. Big big big kind of surprising thing. Rachel vice, Oscar winner, Rachel vice.

0:37:16
Is in a new adaptation of dead rangers. It's about twins who are in the birthing business, if you will, and if you may remember Jeremy Irons started in this film in the nineties. It was a David Cronenburg film Well, now, Rachel has the part where she plays two characters. And she's trying to get this clinic off the ground, a birthing center. And she has to appeal to various and sundry people and how it's a very kind of political world to be in the medical field, but it's also really, really creepy. So when you see this, you'll see the creep factor. One of the people we talk to is Poppy Lou who plays their kind of assistant, and she has a big handle on the differences between Beverly and Elliot Mantel. So we'll have that next week and we'll talk about some other kind of creepy ones that aren't coming. Alright. That sounds good. So we'll look forward to that. Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of streamed and screened.

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Whether it's Sean Connery, Roger Moore or others portraying James Bond, or Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the "Mission: Impossible" film series, we find ourselves sucked into the world of espionage thanks to the spy genre of television shows and movies.

In this week's episode of Streamed & Screened, hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz have a brief discussion of the genre to set up a conversation with Guy Pearce, the star of "Spy Among Friends," a limited series available now on MGM+.

Read more: Guy Pearce, Damian Lewis ponder betrayal with 'Spy Among Friends'

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was generated by Podium.page and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

0:00:03
Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened in an entertainment podcast about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and cohost of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce, I I wanna pass you a note. I've got some secrets. Do you have any secrets? Can you share anything? Yeah. Send me a text. Okay? That might be the best.

0:00:28
In the old days, you know, spies were so much different because they would sit on a park bench and they pass an envelope between each other. Right? Right? Now it's like we're hacking into systems and we're going to we always you notice how they always have that clock that counts down until the file is uploaded, and it's like, oh, is it gonna happen? Is it gonna happen? Well, there, all you had to worry about was did somebody grab the envelope or are you just letting it go? So it is a different world.

0:00:57
And there's a new mini series or limited series, whatever you wanna call it, that has been airing in Great Britain already, and it got huge reviews. They loved it over there. It's called a spy among friends. And we're getting it now on MGM Plus. And it is the the sort of true story of Kim Philby. You probably have never heard of Kim Philby at all. But he was a traitor to Great Britain. He was a spy, but he was getting information from Russia. And when they found out that he was defecting to Russia, they sent his friend to try and talk to him about all of this. And, like, would you keep this information? I don't know how I could ever be a spy because I talk too much. And I think I I would tell too much. But that your your best friend could not guess that you were gonna be a traitor. And, you know, wouldn't you have dropped some kind of message about this? I find that just really hard to believe. Yeah. But but yeah. And that was a big scandal in the sixties. And people remember the name Kim Philby because he was this trader who went to Russia. And he was very well known. Today, it doesn't graze the radar. People really don't know who he is, or who his friends were.

0:02:17
But the film, which kind of looks at the class system that's very popular in Great Britain, tries to explain all of that by that because there was a group of young man who thought that they were if you will, better than other people because they went to the right schools, they had the right majors, they had the right connections, their parents were probably somebody. And as Damian Lewis says, they dabbled in communism. And so they thought that this was kind of a cool thing that we could do, and they wouldn't be caught for anything like this. Well, Kim Philby, didn't just dabble. He was doing a little bit more with all of that. And I got a chance to talk to Guy Pierce who plays Kim and he was talking about acting acting and acting as a spy. How much acting is involved with all of that? Do you really Do you feel you need to pretend all the time? And he said this class system is something that kind of it didn't matter. You didn't have to do that because they just accepted whatever you were doing was just temporary, and they were allowed to do that. And he and the the creator of the series, Alexander Carey, talk about how this is kind of important again today. Because we're seeing a class system that's being created in just all parts of the world, where some people think they're above the law, and they don't have to worry about consequences. And then others who don't don't seem to be able to catch a break no matter what. That's fascinating.

0:04:00
What's your general thought on on spy movies and TV shows in general? Do you do you enjoy them? Do you get sucked in? Oh, you know it. I I it's strange how something like James Bond has changed so drastically. Because in those early days, you know, with Sean Connery, maybe Roger Moore, who didn't they did a lot of things that was they they were just conversational. That's how they got their information. And then they started getting all those toys. And then they started having gadgets and, you know, I mean, come on. Where do you find all this stuff? And how would you be able to create all this? And then you have all these kind of inched people. How do you keep anything from somebody else that they wouldn't know? Today, it's so over the top. Look at how, you know, it takes several years for somebody like Tom Cruise to make one of his spy films. So it's a it's a different game. I think it's changed. But I think they suck you in all the time because you always wonder That was the bad guy. I'm not really sure I know who the bad guy is.

0:05:06
Did you see the spy a couple years ago. That was the one. It starred Sasha Baron Cohen, you know, who everybody knows is Borr at, but he did a really serious take He played Eli Cohen, who's a Israeli, and he was spying in the nineteen sixties. And ultimately was caught, but it was the the true life story and it was a very serious role for him. But it was a real fascinating look into into espionage.

0:05:36
Could you be a spy? I thought about it. I I think I could. Really? Yeah. I don't know how you do that in school, where you say, alright, I'd like to go on the spy track, please. Could I please take those classes that are necessary for that? I I couldn't. I know I couldn't. Because the I mean, I can keep a secret, but I don't think I could like the Americans, I don't know I could do what they did, where you just suddenly assume new identities and live among people for years, and then you're kind of trying to get a little bit of information out to the others. I don't know that I could do that. At some point, I would break.

0:06:12
And I think where they always go wrong with these kinds of films is they have families. Right. And I think a true spy has no connections. That's why you see James Bond as such a good spy. Because he always seems to be a loner. Once they get him with somebody, then it becomes, uh-oh, I've got to worry about somebody killing this person. You know, to get to me. So if you're as bi, you should be a loner. It never worked out well for for James Bond in those movies because he would he would either meet someone and they would end up dead or they would end up turning on him.

0:06:51
Well, could you imagine that this day if you were, like, googling pussy galore, I think it's a reminder. I think it's a reminder. You know, they in when that movie became out, they released trading cards for that movie. Did you say that? No. Because I I wasn't born back numbers, but but they changed the name of that character to Kitty Galore because we couldn't we couldn't go that. It's a little too dirty for the kids back in the sixties. So, yeah, that that was always kind of fun, Goldfinger. But, yeah, I I don't know if I could be a spy.

0:07:29
Like, it it always sounds cool, but then you think about, well, you got all these crazy secrets. You can't settle down with the family. Somebody's gonna keep a secret in your own house. If you get kids, come on. They don't have work. They do. Right?

0:07:43
I always wonder too when watching things like mission impossible. You know, that that that this recording will self destruct in ten seconds. But it it goes up in flames. Nobody notices that. Nobody sees this, like, flaming package that's sitting next to you on the train and and it does it not set off as smoke alarm?

0:08:02
You know, for many years, studios would send out DVDs of their films. And they would disintegrate. I mean, after you had watched it once, you couldn't watch it again. And they always said, well, that's how they should have done that stuff. Because a tape recorder that's burning yeah. That's not gonna happen. Not a problem. That might that might raise a couple of red flags.

0:08:25
Well, and you could never rerun. You know, you never could go back and look at a scene again. You saw once. It's on your computer. That's it. It's done. Now you can go back to screening lengths and go back and see things if you wanna look at the more than once.

0:08:39
But yeah. So the spy world? No. The the best best thing about me is I couldn't remember anything because I think I've learned so much in my lifetime. There's so much crap in my head. That we have to we have to empty the trash at some point to try and remember these things. So if you put me under oath and had a lie detector and everything hooked up, I'd be good because I couldn't remember a darn thing that you'd told me.

0:09:04
Does did Guy Pierce talk about at all? Like, how he how he researched for this. Yes. You're using. He did. And and that's that's in the interview. I want you to listen to the interview, you know, talk to some of the kind of research he did. And how it would kind of work for him? How he would be as a if he could be a spy? So there's a lot of interesting things there. I think you should unpack it. It's not that long.

0:09:29
We have Guy Pierce and Alexander Carey talking about a spy among friends. Can a spy really have a friend? I think I think friendship is the main currency of of spies. I think that I think I think I mean, it's a good question because on one side of the relationship, yes, that question is pertinent. On the other one, it's pertinent in a different in completely the opposite way. Yeah. It it just it struck me as if I were a spy, I would not be friendly with anybody. I would just let it go. But there also is an element of acting that's involved. And Guy, would you make a good spy? Well, look, I I may make a good spy, you know, on the surface, but I mean, of course, I can work as an actor on screen but it's never a life or death situation. I don't know how I'd I don't know how if I've got the Hutzpa to to, you know, act as well when I know that there are lives or countries or at stake. So probably not, I think, is the answer.

0:10:40
How does spies operate today when there's just so many ways that the truth could come out? Is it a a whole different world and what? Because the the sixties is kind of a a a real romantic period at at least for spies. Well, you're I think in the sixties, human intelligence, in other words, human to human getting information in sort of bars and on park benches and all the rest of it was a reality. And and was the the the the the main way of of getting and passing information these days. There's a lot more of sort of cyber espionage and all the rest of it. And I think you'll find that in various intelligence agencies. There are also still two factions. You know, there's the there's the one that goes, well, human intelligence is really the only the way that you're gonna get the definitive stuff or the stuff that's gonna be, you know, keep on giving. And then there are people who are gonna go, no. Let's just put a drone up. So so So, you know, they're very different these days. But Yeah. But that's the friendship thing. The friendship thing is important for a spy. Yeah. It doesn't seem as much fun, but maybe I'm wrong, never been a spy, can't can't weigh in.

0:11:52
Guy, how much did you read about him before you actually started doing this? Did you know much about him or not? I didn't know a lot. No. I mean, I'd seen a couple of films that had been made and I'd seen a documentary once about the Cambridge five. So I didn't know a lot. I knew of Kim Filby, of course, but knew no detail about about him really and certainly knew nothing about this relation it between he and Nicholas Elliott.

0:12:17
I read a number of books before we started and through the course of making the show. One in particular, I think, was a was a helpful piece, which was written by Eleanor, his third wife, his American wife, the wife that he was with in Beirut when he when he left. She wrote a book that that that looked at some of the letters between the two of them, you know, that published the letters between the two of them through that time. So there was something personal and human about the way she wrote. And so that was an interesting little way in for me into into Filby. But, yeah, I read I read bits and pieces of all sorts of things before we started. But of course, I always would would come back to the the script.

0:13:07
And at a certain point, I find I have to sort of let the let the research material go. Were there things you could relate to? And did you like him at all or not? I never know the answer to the liking question because whilst making I'm so in I'm so embedded in into him that I lose myself in a way. So it's not necessarily that I have then have an opinion of him. I'm I'm I'm so sort of, yeah, lost in trying to just become and understand him. I think the bigger question is is is whether I understand him and and, you know, I'm that's what I'm searching to do through the process and and, you know, you can probably only understand any character, you know, this much at the best of times when you're dealing with someone like Philby, you can probably only understand him this this much because he's a mystery to everybody. So it was a complex and challenging process. Yeah. Well, thank you. Both it's been so exciting to watch this unfold. And I'm just playing dumb through the whole thing. I'm not I'm not looking ahead to find out anything. I don't wanna know anything, but it is fascinating. It's a a different world, a different time. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thanks, Bruce. Nice to meet you. Alright, Bruce. Thanks for that interview. A fascinating discussion there.

0:14:37
Did you get to talk to anybody else from that Phils from that series. Who is who plays the friend that, you know, has to try and talk to this Kim Philsby. I did get to talk to him. And I do have a story Maybe you can add a link to this. And if you don't wanna read, you'll see some more stuff from him about this whole project. But it's a six part limited series on MGM plus. And, Eric, could you do anything this next week that I worry about? I'll know you're a spy. Sounds good, Bruce. So we'll have a link to that article in the show notes of this episode. And otherwise, we will see you next week with another episode of streamed and screamed. Have a great one.

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Do you love the 1980s? John Hughes comedies such as "The Breakfast Club," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," "Sixteen Candles," "Pretty in Pink," "Weird Science" and "Some Kind of Wonderful" captured the struggles of teens during the period.

Hughes later shifted toward adulthood during the later part of the decade with movies like "She's Having a Baby," "Uncle Buck," "The Great Outdoors" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."

John Hughes films and the nostalgia of the 1980s helped serve as the inspiration for and provided some themes in the new film "Prom Pact" that debuts March 30 on Disney Channel and Disney+.

Co-host Bruce Miller spoke with stars Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Blake Draper and Margaret Cho, as well as executive producer Julie Bowen of "Modern Family" fame and director/executive producer Anya Adams.

Before those interviews, Miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz discuss "Life Moves Pretty Fast: The John Hughes Mixtapes," a box set compilation of music from those 1980s movies from Hughes that was released in November.

The talk about how the songs provided the backdrop in key scenes in the movies and how some of the selections came about, as well as Hughes' love for music.

About the show

Episode transcript

Note: The following transcript was generated by Podium.page and may contain misspellings and other inaccuracies as it was generated automatically:

0:00:03
Welcome everyone to another episode of streamed and screened and entertainment podcasts about movies and TV from Lee Enterprises. I'm Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer at Lee and cohost of the program with Bruce Miller, editor of the Sioux City Journal and a longtime entertainment reporter. Bruce How's everything going? You know, Terry, come on. I lived through the eighties, and now you've discovered something from the eighties that I urine all excited about. You got a a big kind of album collection, if you will, or a a what do they call box set? A set. Is that the term that you are you young people using that term box set today? Or is that just something from the old days? But it it samples John Hughes movies. That is correct. Let's hear all about it because I've the eighties are big. If you didn't know, the eighties are back. And we're gonna relive them. Babies are back in a big way. So recently, this isn't a yesterday release.

0:01:00
This came out in the late I I think it was pretty much for Christmas that that selling period. Life moves pretty fast. The John Hughes mix tapes. It's a box set. It was released in England.

0:01:14
They put out several configurations. There was, like, a two l p version of a condensed mix. Six LPs, four CD box set, and then there was like a deluxe four CD box set that also had a a seven inch single and a cassette. But what it did was it collected the key tracks? It's not like complete soundtracks from each movie, but it's a lot of the key tracks from John Hughes movies of the nineteen eighties. So we're talking sixteen candles, the breakfast club, weird science, ferris bueller, And then it kinda brings everything up to Uncle Buck, which was released in nineteen eighty nine. So that was the last movie that they really sampled from. So there's nothing new or none of the like, Christmas tracks from home alone or any of those. But it's it's that huge period.

0:02:04
And and for me, you know, when I was boy, probably ten years old or so, my aunt took me to see Ferris Bueller's day off in the theater. And it was the greatest thing. And and that movie, Weird Science, some kind of wonderful these were movies that I just loved watching and growing up too, so they they kinda hold a special place in in my heart as a movie. But as a music collector, somebody who's got a really large collection of of CDs and Vinyl, I always love a really good soundtrack. And one thing that has eluded me all these years was a soundtrack to Ferris Bueller's day off because it never came out. They never released one. So this was kind of a fun way to collect not all the tracks from Ferris, but it has pretty much every key track you can think of from that movie in this box set.

0:02:56
Is that something about a certain age when something strikes and hits you? That you go, I have got to have that. I've got to own a piece of that somehow because I remember that with my first Disney cartoon. It was stored in the stone. And I wanted something from sword and the stone in the worst way. Then it became I wanted something from midnight cowboy. Because that was my first x rated film that I'd ever seen. But I've never had it with music because I think I've gotten more than enough and a lot of times I don't listen to music more than once. I know that sounds really terrible, but it's like watching a TV show. I can watch it once, but then we're gone.

0:03:36
The thing about John Hughes own, I think we've talked about this before. I've interviewed him many times during that eighties period when he was doing all these films, and the people who were in his films thought he was the coolest man ever. Just the coolest guy. He was like that uncle that always had the right record collection and would turn you on to things and make you feel like oh, yeah. I've got to know that too. So I does that come through in the music selection? Absolutely. So a lot of the songs in the box set. And and also just from his all of his movies in general kinda come from a certain period. He's a huge he was he obviously passed away a number of years ago, but he he was a huge music collector. So he would go to the studio, do his thing, leave in the early hours, go to the record store, kinda clean them out, you would be hanging out and whether it'd be at home, or in his office. He had, like, records all over the place, cassette he would make mix tapes, and that's kind of where The name of this album came from is the John Hughes mix tape because they found boxes of his mix tapes that he put together kind of with the soundtrack in mind that he wanted to use for the movie. So they they pulled the bits and pieces out of this, but you're right, even in the liner notes of this, It talked it talked a lot about the affinity that the actors had toward John because he was really about maybe ten years older than a lot of these.

0:05:06
So the the cool uncle piece really comes through because I think he was born around nineteen fifty, but that brat pack era of actors, they were born right around like nineteen six feet. Right? So, you know, to to them as teenagers, here's this guy who's, like, twenty five, thirty years old, who has this cool record collection. He had he had a job. He was an advertising executive for a while and then, like, blew that off. And got into movies. So he was just this cool guy who when you're at that age of of, like, in your twenties, late twenties, you feel like you can still connect to younger people, but, you know, you're not necessarily a parent yet, so you don't, you know, you're you're not too restrictive and and you're kind of that that cool guy. It's funny because he looked like somebody who went to an Ivy League school and kind of, if you will, lorded it over you that he had more knowledge than you did. This is just impressions I remember from being around him. But he was always very giving and very friendly. And he would talk about these things, the inspiration. And I if I remember right, he would let the actors know about the songs that he wanted to use So they would be inspired by that music when they're when they're doing the acting. So he was very good at kind of creating an atmosphere that they could they could get into and understand and then hopefully project it on screen.

0:06:31
The liner notes of this box that really got in deep into the weeds. So a lot of times when I'll get liner notes in in an album, I'll read them. I'll glance through them, but this one really sucked me in because they gave you each and every track in the box. And it would say, you know, such and such song. It came from this movie. This is the scene it was used in. And then they talked to the people that were involved. So it was mostly tarkin Gotch.

0:06:58
He was a British music executive. He wrote the bulk of the liner notes, but along with him and a few others, they they kinda had the backstory of how these songs came into existence. So one really good example was with she's having a baby, which was a very personal story to John Hughes because it was a bit autobiographical with the birth of his son and kind of and it it was even in the movie. He was a advertising executive in Chicago, which was a lot like him. So he had planned out the scene and he filmed it and he had in it a song. It was called song to the siren. It was from an gear music band called Myrtle Coil. Okay? So he he films it. They've got the music over it.

0:07:43
And then at that point, they're just like, okay, we gotta get the rights. We gotta pay the band and and we'll include the movie. So they go to them and they're like, no, we don't we don't wanna do it. So they just thought it was they're playing around. They just want more money. It's John Hughes, he had already made a name for himself. So they're like, alright. Just go back and pay him more money. And they're like, no. We we don't want that. And then finally, it got through to John, and they're like, John, they're not gonna accept any level of money. They don't wanna do anything that's seen as, like, commercial because it's unhip. It's not cool.

0:08:15
So he was devastated because the entire scene of this movie, it it's that that and at the House spittle when, you know, will the baby survive? Will his wife survive? And so tarkin goes, says, I'm friends with Kate Bush. Let me talk to her and see if she'll do a song. So he talks to her. They bring her the end clip of the movie, probably on like a VHS tape or something. She watches a scene, composers a song, sings it, they get it back to John, and they're at this point, they're thinking we're gonna just to redo it and, you know, nice effort. And it's this beautiful song that they end up playing over it. The only thing he had to do was add in a couple your scenes because he didn't wanna trim the song. He wanted it to run its entire duration. So it ended up into this, like, wonderful piece of history, but you wouldn't know it without reading these liner notes, the back story. It was really cool. That's that's fascinating. It's It's weird how when you do see those scenes without any music behind them, how really like, this is gonna be this is gonna work.

0:09:25
Really? I'm not so sure. You know? And then you can get a song that really pulls it together, and it's incredible. It makes a whole difference. I don't know how you, you know, as a creator, how you would envision that, especially if you have your mind set on something. Like, how do you regroup after somebody says, no, you're not having our music. We're not doing it. And that ends up being a real problem for some of these films coming out in any kind of other market because they didn't make a deal with them upfront for DVDs or whatever else streaming, whatever it might be. So sometimes you get those films and they don't have the real music with them, and I think it kills it. Didn't when they put married with children when they ended up releasing that on DVD years after the show aired on TV, they had to replace the theme song because they didn't have the the DVD rights to do it.

0:10:20
But it it it was really interesting because they, you know, talking about songs, they took the final edit of planes, trains, and automobiles and started showing it to test audiences. So originally, the plan was to use nothing but, like, a country and western song. So they had, like, Steve Burrow and Emily Lou Harris, and it was gonna be nothing but, like, a country and western soundtrack. And the test came back and they're like, well, they kinda liked the movie, but they hated the music. So they had to go back to the drawing board and they still use some of them, but then they added in some more kind of popular tunes too to to bring it around.

0:10:59
Again, you could look at those movies and you think this is a bomb. I've been at a couple of test screenings for things and you go, holy man, they're not this is not releasable. And then it ends up being one of the biggest hits because they tweak the right things. And like I say, music is a huge, huge part of that. But well then, what did you find out about Ferris Bueller? So Ferris Bueller was an interesting one too because if you watched the credits. Right? And it's the that song, yellow, the the oh, yeah. Right? That that rolls over and that they're on the school bus. At the bottom of that, at at the very end, almost when they cut back to the scene where where Matthew Broderick walks back in and you're still here, it says, like, by the soundtrack to Ferris Bueller's day off on cassette and record. And and I remember asking for it as a gift Christmas, and nobody could find it because it just it never actually existed. They never produced it. So what had happened, what they mentioned in in the liner notes was right around that time.

0:12:04
The popular lore is that that John Hughes as well, the soundtrack wouldn't work well as a soundtrack. It's just a collection of songs. You know, it just doesn't make sense to release it. But that's b s because he he did that for every movie up to that point and he did it with every movie after that point. But what happened was right around that time he was trying to launch his own music label called Hughes Music. And they think what happened was it was just the timing was terrible. They couldn't release it on Hughes music because it was still, I think, on Arista, most of those and it just they couldn't get the rights worked out. There was a lot of conflict. So it just never came out. He put out a couple seven inch singles for for fan clubs, but that was it. And it was a very popular soundtrack of songs.

0:12:52
Like, because each of those songs plays so uniquely with different scenes. You know, I sadly, I probably have that that because I should look. I should dig in my archives somewhere because I do remember that when we did the junket for that, there was something kind of interesting. Now, do you remember anything about The the song that was on the in the parade. Was it twist and shout? Was it twist and shout? Yeah. Yeah. We always have twist and shout, or do they have something else? No.

0:13:23
That was that was kind of planned out. They the the funny thing was is I think there was actually, like, another song that they're gonna add in they were gonna like, they did that and they did Dunkin' Shay. Right? But they ended up deciding, like, this whole scene is getting way too long and that's that's fine. So I think they had originally talked about doing maybe another song in the parade. There were also a few other scenes that they were planning to film and they had songs in mind for them. But the movie like, the original cut off Harris Bueller was, two hours and forty five minutes. It just went on forever. Now they'd let them do that. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Extremely. We're gonna yeah. Just take it up. We just we can get more ads for that. So, yeah, go for it. Well, that's fascinating because that was such a huge, huge part of our lives in the eighties. Those films were seminal, I think.

0:14:16
And it's funny that somebody hasn't gone back and done something about him. I mean, is there a book about him? Is there a movie about him? Is there something about him that they could easily tie these things to. Because, you know, I think he was at the time as big as Steven Spielberg. Because you you know, here's who's influencing a generation. Now when you look in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't hold up. But at the time, I remember the wait for a John Hughes film. It was like guaranteed it was gonna be something you would go to. Because he didn't he didn't repeat himself, and he was always on the cutting edge of whatever was was trendier current at that time. So if you wanted to be a hip teenager, you had to be part of that that whole world. Yeah. They made a couple interesting notes about that in in the liner notes. They talked a little bit about how popular his films were during that time, but he never got to do he probably was deserved because comedies, they don't get nominated for anything. Right? It's just dramas and -- Right. Bad. So your your ferris bueller is not gonna get nominated for best picture. So that was part of it.

0:15:34
And a lot of his films too were actually filmed on pretty small budgets. And if you look at the release of some of those films, he was cranking out like two movies a year. It was eighty five. He did the breakfast club in weird science. Eighty six. He did pretty in pink and ferrous bueller's. Eighty seven was some kind of wonderful in planes, trains, and automobiles.

0:15:53
And he said, I always have to do a movie because he was worried that one would bomb and then the studio would say, you're done. So he said if I'm always working, they can't cancel me. Yeah. Well, you get three in those days, you get three films. Right. You get one, you say hit, then you have two more that will kind of hold you. But if you're not by the third, coming back with another hit, you're out of the business. That's how brutal it was. Yeah. One he one film when you're out. Yeah. So he would have, like, one one kind of in post production are ready to go, and then he'd already be working on the next one. And then the first one would do good. So then he would it would buy him another film after through that. And he was just kinda hop scotching from one to the next.

0:16:40
One other interesting point too from the soundtrack It only included one song from vacation, which was holiday road by Lindsay Buckingham, which was actually very interesting when you read the notes because he hated kind of like mainstream rock and roll in a lot of ways. He he didn't like like Fleetwood Mac. He aided Fleetwood Mac because they were too commercial. But he had Lindsay Buckingham from Fleetwood Mac to Holiday Road, but he didn't really direct that. He just kind of wrote the green play, so that might have been part of it too. But they included that song in in the box, which is fun. You know? And that's the idea that he could write was his biggest success as a director. If he wrote a script, you knew the script is good and you know all these other directors who made hay with his work. But he whenever he was writing, he would be able to tweak it as he needed to for the film he was trying to produce.

0:17:40
I remember one of the young people, and I wish I could tell you who it was. It was Rob Lowe, Demi Demi Moore, if it was Ellie Sheedy or Jed Nelson, I can't remember who it was, said that they thought he was the coolest guy ever, and they looked to him for style. And so I asked him about that. I said, they think that you're kind of like the style setter of all these above the Brad pack of whomever. And he said, me, I wear the same clothes all the time. I don't even I have no sense of style. I am not that person. But if they think I'm cool, that's okay. I'm alright with that. And I found that very fascinating because He did seem like he was at kid who came home from college, who knew a little bit more than everybody else did, and you looked up to him because he had seen the world, but he wasn't gonna volunteer what he had seen. You had to kind of pull it up.

0:18:36
You know, you had asked if if anyone ever did anything on Hughes, you know, a movie or book, the only thing that I could think of offhand was Netflix does a program called the movies that made us, which looks back at films of like the nineteen eighties and pop culture and stuff. So they did one episode on home alone. And even though he he didn't direct that, that was a Chris Columbus film. He wrote it, he produced it. And it kinda got into a lot of the background of John Hughes and because they filmed it at that same abandoned high school that they used for, like, ferris bueller and and breakfast club and stuff. So they they set up offices in there, and they I think they used to Jim to build sets on it and things like that. So that was kinda interesting.

0:19:25
But he was buddies with John Candy, and he didn't show up really to any of the filming except for the one day they had John Kandy on set to film his, like, two scenes as you know, that that guy that meets up with Catherine O'Hara at the airport. And it was funny because they said they paid scale for him. So, you know, whatever scale is and nineteen ninety ish. They they worked them for, like, twenty hours just just to get, you know, like, five minutes of screen time. They were gonna they were gonna milk that until the end and they said John Kandy ever exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. So he was exhausted. And then as soon as John Kandy was done, John Hughes took off and Chris Columbus took back over. Yeah. Is it that is weird. That is weird. But I think they would defer. I really think that was the kind of the way it was with him even though he was not listed as director, you know.

0:20:19
They they have enough of these people who are still around who would make a great documentary. I think somebody should do that and interview the alcoholic calkins and all these other ones who have been part of that John Hughes world and give people a sense of what it is today because I don't know that kids today have anything like that. There isn't, you know, one of those kind of filmmakers that you say, it's a must. I've gotta go see it. Quentin Tarantino doesn't make enough films. To really merit the loyalty, if you will, that somebody like John Hughes engendered. You'd have to go back to the old forties and fifties to really find somebody else who had that same, yeah, will go attitude. It's interesting.

0:21:03
When a celebrity dies, I'll have that moment, like, that's sad. You know, that he was a great musician, great actor, whatever. But it doesn't really I I don't feel it in any way. I the the two deaths that I could think of from from a celebrity standpoint, because it it impacted me in some way. When John Hughes died, I just felt crushed because there was my childhood. And the other one was Michael Kriton because he was my favorite author. He'd written so many, you know, Jurassic Park was I got roped in with that, but movies or books like The Androbanist rain and Congo and the terminal man rising sun. I mean, these were all really good books and and I was devastated by I think that death also. And actually, they just discovered some some books of his that were written under a pen name and they're gonna re release So I'm I'm excited about that. I'm getting ready for, like, more Michael Creighton books that that I didn't even know existed. But it it was, like, those two desks kinda just hit me hard because from as a child or as a teenager, these were huge parts of my life and a lot of other celebrities. It doesn't hit me that way.

0:22:13
Well, can I give you something that I think you should watch? Sure. I'm not sure if you're gonna go all Bruce, please. No. But it's on the Disney Channel and Disney Plus. It's coming up this week and it's called prom packed. And it's about these two friends. It's a boy and a girl who are friends, not romantically, but they're just besties. You know? And I think that's something that we haven't seen for a while. And they decide that they're going to go to prom. Which has an eighties theme for its prom. But, you know, you hear about promposals all the time, where how somebody asks somebody to go to problem. Well, in the film, they do all of these kind of bits from eighties film. So you will see a lot of John Hughes represented in the in the course of this. And they're very funny, very cool the way they they pull off. And I was able to talk with members that cast the producers and a key guestar. But I have a I have an interview here that I think you might like because it talks all about them.

0:23:17
Ram Peck premieres March thirtieth on Disney Channel and Disney Plus, and Bruce has interviews with key people from the film. In this first clip here from stars, Payton Elizabeth Lee and Blake Draper. Alright, Blake. Fill me in.

0:23:29
What surprised you most about the United States when you came here? Oh. What surprised me most, I think Self-in-depth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I when I ride and Los Angeles for the first time and I was driving around with Milo actually, I couldn't believe how many billboards that were. That's just Which is, I guess, must be strained. But in Australia, we just don't have that many billboards of films and and then television shows. So that was kind of jiring to be like, wow, this is really a town built on entertainment. Sorry. System Are you on one now? Are you guys on one now yet? I think we're on a couple. Sorry. It's a big idea. You have to get over there and pose with it. That's the deal. Yeah. No. I was I was at the shelving mall recently and I popped up on one of the screens there, and it was kind of a jump scare. People like you.

0:24:19
And So Satan believes a lot of Have you been teaching him everything? Are you now his his tudor in this too? He's he's tutor in fame. He never did that. Anything I'm doing right now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I have to I see.

0:24:33
Yeah. I needed a lot of help. Yeah. She needs more. No. I mean, I don't know enough to tutor anyone in anything. But now, they're also putting you with Milo in doggy. Right? Yes. Do you ever get rid of him?

0:24:49
I try my very best and fail at every point. It's he is a a force that needs to be tamed at some point. Yes. I do my best. I do the same. I think it's Georgia.

0:25:03
But you know, Mandy and Dewey are kind of alike, aren't they? Sorry? Aren't Mandy and Dewey kind of alike? Oh, definitely. I mean, I think they're both very strong, smart, independent women. And I just feel so lucky to be able to play both of them. And I guess if I can play a strong, smart woman, authentically, then it must mean something about me. Right. If she wouldn't like that or is she just really out of it? When you see her off the screen. This is for you, Blake. This is Yeah. She is really happy. It was just another screen. She's a mess. Don't tell them. No kidding. Pain. No sick. No pain. Pain's amazing.

0:25:48
She's a he said she said, wow. She's she's a lot of similarities with the characters that she plays. We're smart. So it's all these types. It's a vague you. It's pretty smart. Yeah. She's a smart she's she is a smart lady. She's independent. She's he's very strong. She's very head strong, which I've definitely learned. The hard way? I love the hard way, but, no, I've taken a lot from Payton. And, yeah, she's she's amazing. Payton said off the set. I want him off the set now. Is that what she does? Yep. Yep. Definitely.

0:26:20
I was shocked, though, Blakely, that you didn't know how to play basketball. Yeah. This is my first time. It's my first time learning it. Luckily for me. Or yes. Sorry. Go again. Is that easy to see? Super fast. Not easy. I for Seth. Already forgotten how to play because I haven't touched a basketball since I was lost on Seth. But luckily, if I may, my older brother is an amazing basketballist. So he actually helps coach me, which was really, really fun and I And what did he think?

0:26:49
Did he think you were any good? I think he was worried at the start. But people had a lot of time that happened and somebody's really helped me out. But I had a few other coaches You need one of them? Payton and in in Vancouver as well. So Yeah.

0:27:03
And did you use the beef method? I did actually. Yeah. I I did it. It it it it cried. My gram had a point and it and it helped me as Blake.

0:27:15
Bing and Graham. Wow. It's very matters. Isn't it? This really kind of conjures a lot of John Hughes talk, I think. Yeah. Did you see it? Did you see that kind of central election for sure? Oh, definitely. I mean, I was raised on John Hughes movies. My mom loves the eighties, the music, the clothes, the the movies, and so all of it was very infused into my upbringing. So it was really exciting to get to sort of keep the spirit of the eighties romcom alive and then, you know, make some adjustments so that it makes sense in a in a twenty first century world. But yeah, it it was so much fun to get to dive into that that sort of feeling.

0:28:01
Are you surprised by the little more adult tone that this took from other Disney films? I don't know if I was surprised. I was excited about it. You know, I think kids these days are so smart. And they're not to be underestimated. And I think it is our job to create content that speaks authentically to what it is to grow up today, what it looks like, what it sounds like, what it feels like. And so I don't know if it's more grown up, but it's just more truthful. So but it was very exciting for me because I think that's very important. Yeah. Definitely.

0:28:37
Blake, if I said, get your head in the game, would you know what I was talking about? In basketball? High school. High school musical? Did you see she tutored you on that answering. I can see that. You I do love high school musical. Our high school musical is amazing. I remember I vividly remember saying a lot. You vividly No. The last one, like, the last musical three. I remember my older brother telling me about it. Right? Is that how it goes? Hey, Thank you guys so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

0:29:11
In the second clip, here an interview with another star of the show, Margaret Cho. Margaret, what was your your high school guidance counselor like? Gosh, I don't even know if I met with my high school counselor, I think a counselor, guidance counselor, I can't remember. I mean, it didn't make an impression on me. To the point where I can say who it even was, but the one person in high school that really believed in me was I had a high school theater teacher who would sign me up for open my comedy nights when I was a really young teenager with my comedy partner at the time who was Sam Rockwell, who's a very famous actor. So we were a comedy duo and she would sign us up because we were too young to sign up So she would call the club and put in our names, and then we would go. We were like fifteen. So young.

0:30:00
But what an amazing vote of confidence and it set me off on a career in him too, I guess, for sure. I think something happened to him, didn't it? I think there's a little something. Well, today, she could get arrested for doing something like that. You know? Yeah. It's still very different. You know, it's a very different time, but she was a young woman. She was, like, in her twenties. You know, and she just saw such a energy in me and in Sam and you know, kind of gave us a lot of encouragement and really tested us to, like, okay, why don't you challenge this by going and doing something at a night club? And so, you know, when she was there to slap her own to make sure it didn't get weird. So she was like the responsible adult throughout, but at the same time was giving us this idea of opportunity, which is really important.

0:30:58
How good were the two of you as a team? Were you good? I don't really remember. I think we were just so young that people were just kind of like, what is going on with these ideas. Right? What even is it? You could see there's footage of it on YouTube of some of our stuff that we would do. And so ridiculous and funny, but it's also like just trying things out, you know, when you're a kid that's sort of what high school's about. You know, I remember when you were the queen of ABC and when all American girl came out and that that was gonna be a big game changer. And now this year, we hear about everything everywhere as a big game changer. Is it It is. It's great. It's really exciting. I wanna see more Asian American participation in film and television. In arts in general, you know, it's really exciting. I think, you know, it's a long time coming. For sure. But I'm so proud that we get to sort of see ourselves in film and this film prompt act also features and centers on an Asian American woman who's forging a pop and you know, to me, that's really exciting.

0:32:12
Did you when they approached you about this, did you say, well, I would be what? You know, I mean, did you see that the guidance counselor would be your role? Well, I I was just offered the role, but I I was really excited to do it. I wanted to work with Payton again. I'd done her show, Dewey, last year, which I I really was impressed by her acting her ability and her innovative genius when it comes to approaching these roles. And I was excited to work with her and The role was written as queer guidance counselor, which I thought was really interesting and really cool. So I really was excited to do it. Did you talk with her at all about, you know, the business? Did you give her any advice? Oh, she doesn't need advice for me. She's doing great. You know, she's, like, so I was looking for advice for me because I think I learned so much from younger people on how the industry has changed and how things are really different. You know, we're we're looking at social media differently. And there there really have so much to offer to like somebody like me who's trying to learn about what new stuff is going on.

0:33:19
Howard Bauchner: You know, when this show makes a big deal about eighties films, What did you think when those eighties films were out? Did you say, oh my god. Yeah. That's really great, or were you looking at them and saying, you know, they're really not showing the picture. Well, I loved it because they were what we had, you know. And I remember going to the first showing pretty in pink at our local theater where I was growing up and was so exciting. Because you had just a film that was about being a teenager, which I think was just so Right. And the coolest adult, which is Annie Pott's is great in the movie. And so I was really channeling Annie Pott's in prom packed because I think that's kind of the right sort of like character that absorb mind matches. Well, I hope this is the start of a lot of things for you because I miss you. I don't see you enough. Yes. We need more meat.

0:34:20
And finally, in this third clip, executive producer, Julie Bowen, known for her role on Modern Family is joined by director Anja Adams. Julie, what did you learn about producing? What did this teach you? I learned a lot. I learned that producers work much harder than actors and get paid less. That's what I learned, and I have a lot of respect for them. And will never complain again.

0:34:43
Did you find though that now I understand some of the choices they make? You know, like when you say I didn't get cast in this because Well, casting is definitely something that I I've done some directing before, so I was more familiar with that process and definitely learn to take casting less personally after being on the other side. You you realize that there's so many forces at play. It's not always the best actor, it's it you're you're figuring out a whole ecosystem on how it's gonna work. I I think I really figured out that there's a lot of you've got a partner like Disney who's great, and there's a lot of you've got to meet a lot of different needs and a lot of from the people on the set to the highest levels and sometimes there's compromises that don't make sense to somebody who's just standing on set like I used to do. It makes sense. It makes sense.

0:35:40
For both of you, this is a little more adult than most Disney films. And there there's a specific area that I could reference, but I don't wanna reference. Uh-huh. Goodbye with that. You wanna take that on yet? I mean, Disney I I feel like Disney wanted to do this movie because they also are trying to really grow their team, you know, mid kind of range viewership and and really dig into that, and this was a way to do it.

0:36:11
I mean, when you look at the other stuff that's out there for teens, it is a little bit more grown up, and they are opposed to a lot more things on the Internet and on their phones. And so it's like this movie, I think, had a real strong Disney feel But, you know, we we tried to elevate it and and just bring it into kind of the the present day as it were and, you know, blazes trail for Disney into this? Yeah. Disney wants to grow with its with its audience. They have such a solid base in the Disney channel But then when you're moving into Disney plus and you have the whole family watching, there it's not inappropriate to have references to some more mature subject matter. So we did.

0:37:01
I was saying, and I don't know if I got cut off. But I love it. Idea that there was a boy girl friendship, but it didn't have to lead to romance. I thought that was a really cool kind of aspect of the film, and I hope that that's a lot. I hope that happens a lot. Yeah. I mean, that was really important.

0:37:19
When I read the script, I was like, I don't see this. I don't see a lot of, you know, hetero kids being friends, male, female. You just don't see that. And I think it's something that is a reality in the world. And it's you can have friends with the opposite sex and and support each other and love each other and be in a friendship. And I think payton and and Milo crafted it beautifully. Yeah. I think sometimes there's too much pressure if you will. You can't just be friends that's gotta lead to something else. But Yeah.

0:37:50
Do you two remember promposals? I never had that in my day, but I'm ancient, so there you go. No. I think these are pretty recent. I I have my own theory and that is that they came along with social media and the rise of the smartphones in the late, you know, arts. Mhmm. Because before that, like, it you weren't doing big splashy things because you weren't trying to record them and show them on social media. But I could be wrong.

0:38:20
Howard Bauchner: Well, well, how are you asked to prompt? You just somebody comes up to you and says, would you like to put a prom with me and that was it? Well, I on your back and I was back in the passing note stages, I mean, I wrote my prom data letter because he lived in another city and had to fly in for it, and he did, and it was amazing. But I think if, you know, you're in a high school back in the day, you were, like, writing a letter, you had your friend go ask. It was very you know, contained. And I didn't perform I went to a boarding school. We didn't have a prom, so I got to avoid that altogether. Oh, no. This is your prom then. This is it. All the better. Right? It's my wish fulfillment.

0:39:04
There's also a very John Hughes vibe to this film. Did you plan that, or is it just because of the times? Hundred percent. It was up slowly planned in the script and in the development. We wanted to reference it. We wanted to say that those movies left us feeling really good, but then upon reflection, have some really problematic stuff, and we needed a director who could put all of that together in a visual language and and Annie did a great job.

0:39:36
Alright, Bruce. Thanks for that interview. Be sure to watch prom packed. It's on both Disney Channel and it's on Disney plus, but I must tell you the Disney channel version has been sanitized for your protection. So you're not gonna get the kind of the dirty references where they actually go John Hughes on you in the Disney plus version. So watch that one and you'll get some things where you go, oh, I didn't realize that Disney did these kind of things, but they do. And look in the background of everything because you'll see promposals that are not meant to be overt. They're just ones that you as a fan of eighties films would be able to catch the the reference. Sounds good, Bruce. So we'll be back again next week with another episode of streamed and screened.

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The Oscars are behind us, so it's time to turn our attention to new programming until the big summer movies return. But this week we find ourselves going back in time as we discuss "Marie Antoinette," a new historical drama on PBS.

The stars of the show, Emilia Schüle in the titular role and Louis Cunningham as Louis XVI, sat down with co-host Bruce Miller to discuss the program, the arc of the series that is planned for three seasons, and whether or not Marie Antoinette really said "let them eat cake."

Leading into that interview, miller and co-host Terry Lipshetz discussed how this show is the latest in a line of recent period dramas that have dominated streaming services.

"The Great" is among our favorites. The show starring Elle Fanning, which is very loosely based on the life of Catherine the Great, returns to Hulu on May 12 for season 3 with 10 new episodes.

Another show that is a bit more realistic is "The Crown" on Netflix. The sixth and final season should wrap production in a few months and could drop by the end of the year. The program, which changes ensemble casts every two seasons as characters age, is expected to bring viewers through the death of Princess Diana, but before the recent drama surrounding Princess Andrew, Prince Harry and the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

If you want some of that drama, you can watch the documentary series "Harry & Meghan" on Netflix.

Another period drama, also on Netflix, is "Bridgerton." The series is a fictional drama based on the book series by Julia Quinn that takes place during London's Regency era of the late 1700s.

Perhaps "Marie Antoinette" most closely resembles another historical drama in "The Last Czars" that aired on Netflix in 2019. That show focused on the final years of Russia's Romanov dynasty.

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“Everything Everywhere All at Once” scored seven Oscars on Sunday night at the 95th Academy Awards, including best picture, best actress for Michelle Yeoh, best supporting actor for Ke Huy Quan and best supporting actress for Jamie Lee Curtis.

The Daniels — Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — won best director and best original screenplay, and the film also took film editing. The only other movie to come close was "All Quiet on the Western Front" with four wins, while some notable nominees fell short. “Top Gun: Maverick,” which was hailed as the film that got moviegoers back into their seats, won only for sound, while another early favorite, "Elvis," went home without an Oscar.

Hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz break down the night, discussing the key wins, including Brendan Fraser taking best actor for “The Whale,” some surprises in the music categories, John Travolta's emotional introduction to the in memoriam section that featured Lenny Kravitz, Jimmy Kimmel's hosting efforts, the red ... err ... champagne carpet, the questionable inclusion of "The Little Mermaid" and, of course, Cocaine Bear.

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List of 2023 Oscar winners

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Oscar winners announced Sunday:

Best picture: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best actress: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best actor: Brendan Fraser, “The Whale”

Best supporting actor: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best supporting actress: Jamie Lee Curtis, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Original song: “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”

Film editing: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best director: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best animated feature: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

International feature film: “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany)

Documentary feature: “Navalny”

Live action short: “An Irish Goodbye”

Cinematography: James Friend, “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Makeup and hairstyling: “The Whale”

Costume design: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Documentary short: “The Elephant Whisperers”

Animated short: “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse”

Production design: “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Music (original score): Volker Bertelmann, “All Quiet on the Western Front”

Visual Effects: “Avatar: The Way of Water”

Original screenplay: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Adapted screenplay: “Women Talking”

Sound: “Top Gun: Maverick”

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We are just days away from the 95th Academy Awards, so there's no better time to discuss whether "Everything Everywhere All At Once" can follow its huge night at the SAG Awards and take the Oscar for Best Picture.

Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis and Ke Huy Quan are all up for Oscars in the acting categories and the Daniels — Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — are also nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

But before we dive into that, Bruce Miller gives his thoughts about the new movie "Cocaine Bear" and Terry Lipshetz discusses the new season of "The Mandalorian," getting caught up with "The Last of Us" and thoughts on Best Picture nominees "The Banshees of Inisherin" and "Everything Everywhere All At Once."

REVIEW: It doesn't take a cartel to see how goofy 'Cocaine Bear' is

Miller also has an interview with director Bobby Farrelly about his new movie "Champions" starring Woody Harrelson, which opens March 10.

Farrelly and his brother Peter Farrelly — also known as the Farrelly Brothers — made a name for themselves with comedies like "Dumb and Dumber," "Kingpin" with Harrelson and "There's Something About Mary."

Peter scored big with an Oscar win for "Green Book," which also created time for Bobby to do a solo project of his own with "Champions."

We will be recording our next episode immediately after the Oscars so look for that in the early hours of Monday, March 13.

Previous episodes discussing the Oscars

Previewing acting Oscars, Ke Huy Quan's career, 'The Mandalorian' is back as well as Mel Brooks
Bruce Davis reveals inside scoop on Oscars, talks about new book 'The Academy and the Award'

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In this episode, we explore the 76th British Academy Film Awards — better know as the BAFTAs — and the upcoming Screen Actors Guild Awards. These are the final two big indicators as to which actors and films might win big at the upcoming Academy Awards on March 12.

Bruce Miller shares a story about Tom Hanks' kindness toward a friend, Ke Huy Quan's return to acting with his best supporting actor nomination for "Everything Everywhere All At Once" and whether he'll appear in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." He also shares his thoughts about "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania."

Terry Lipshetz is excited for the March 1 return of "The Mandalorian" on Disney+ and shares his thoughts on how Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau can pretty much do no wrong with the Star Wars franchise after a shaky reboot with J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson's films.

The show wraps with Miller sharing his thoughts on the upcoming Hulu series from Mel Brooks: "History of the World, Part II." The series is a sequel of sorts to Brooks' 1981 film "History of the World, Part I."

Also, a program update: There will be a slight delay in our next episode as we have an exclusive interview with director Bobby Farrelly, who will be talking about his newest film "Champions" starring Woody Harrelson. Look for that on March 6.

Read more about Ke Huy Quan

Living a dream: 'Everything Everywhere's' Ke Huy Quan can't believe the Oscar attention he's getting

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In this episode, Streamed & Screened hosts Bruce Miller and Terry Lipshetz discussed a variety of topics tied to the Super Bowl, including Rihanna's performance, the touching moment between the Kelce brothers and their mother, Patrick Mahomes' trip to Disney Land, the New York Mets' million dollar ad and Super Bowl commercials tied to summer blockbusters:

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"
"AIR: Courting a Legend"
"The Flash"
"Ant-Man and The Wasp"
"Fast X"

We then discussed the new show "Hello Tomorrow" coming to Apple TV+ this week, Oscar contenders, the second half of "Alaska Daily" coming soon and "National Treasure: Edge of History."

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It's a slow season for the silver screen, but Bruce Miller shares his thoughts on two movies he's seen recently.

"80 for Brady" stars Jane Fonda, Sally Field, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin and, of course, former New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. It's a fitting, although disappointing, film heading into Super Bowl weekend.

Also out is "Knock at the Cabin," the latest horror/thriller from director M. Night Shyamalan, who made his name with "The Sixth Sense" but has not quite replicated that success since.

Miller also has an interview with Lacretta, who plays bailiff Donna "Gurgs" Gurganous on the rebooted NBC series "Night Court." The show, which stars Melissa Rauch of "The Big Bang Theory," has been surprise hit and was already renewed for a second season.

The reboot got us thinking of some other recent reboots that co-host Terry Lipshetz has loved or hated, such as "The X-Files," "Cobra Kai," "Murphy Brown" and "Seinfeld."

Contact us!

Have you watched "Night Court" or have a favorite reboot? Let us know what you think! Email: podcasts@lee.net.

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It's a new season for Streamed & Screened, and with it comes a new co-host as Terry Lipshetz, a senior producer for Lee Enterprises, joins longtime host Bruce Miller.

After quizzing Terry on the recent films and shows he's watched, Bruce shares his thoughts on this year's Oscar nominations, the new Tom Brady-themed film "80 for Brady" and some insight into "How I Met Your Father."

The focus of this show is an interview with Oscar-nominated filmmaker R. J. Cutler about his new four-part documentary on Jack Roland Murphy — otherwise known as “Murf the Surf” — “television’s first true crime celebrity.”

"Murf the Surf" begins Feb. 5 on MGM+ and you can read more about the show here:

Life of crime: 'Murf the Surf' details how television helped a con man

We also plan out a discussion for the next episode on the reboot of "Night Court," including an interview Bruce had with one of the show's stars, Lacretta.

About the show

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It's the day after the The Golden Globe Awards, which means we're looking ahead to the Academy Awards and making predictions on what effect the Hollywood Foreign Press Association might have on who gets an Oscar.

Bruce Miller is calling in from Los Angeles where he's set to get the lowdown on a ton of new TV shows and talk with stars of the so-called small-screen, so make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you get your podcasts to get every new episode as soon as we publish it.

Where to watch the Golden Globe Award winners and nominees:

'‎Avatar: The Way of Water'
‎'Babylon'
‎'The Banshees of Inisherin'
‎'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever'
‎'Elvis'
‎'Everything Everywhere All at Once'
‎'The Fabelmans'
'Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio'
‎'RRR'
'She Said'
‎'Top Gun: Maverick'
‎'TÁR'
'The Whale'
‎'Women Talking'

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

What a doll: 'M3gan' scares up plenty of fun
Harvey Weinstein's ways get a full outing in 'She Said'
Whitney Houston biopic dances around too much
Making music: All screen bios aren't always right on
'Will Trent' hints at time when Steven Bochco ruled police dramas
'Black Adam' doesn't capitalize on what The Rock could be cooking

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Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, an entertainment reporter for multiple decades who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal, Jared McNett, a reporter for the Sioux City Journal, and Chris Lay, the podcast operations manager for Lee Enterprises.

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Streamed & Screened host Bruce Miller is jetting off to Hollywood next week for a fancy Television Critics Association get together, so we thought we'd hear some of his favorite memories from the dozens and dozens of La La Land trips he's taken going all the way back in 1980.

We'll also get to hear some of his entertainment industry predictions for the coming year, as well as some sage advice on can't-miss Hollywood destinations.

And, as we mention in the episode, the whole 'prediction' prompt here is lovingly lifted from The Ethical Life podcast where Streamed & Screened's own Chris Lay has joined Scott Rada and Rick Kyte two years running to prognosticate:

'Nine bold predictions for 2022' - The Ethical Life
'How well did our predictions for 2022 hold up?' - The Ethical Life
'We boldly make nine predictions for 2023' - The Ethical Life

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Will Trent' hints at time when Steven Bochco ruled police dramas
'Black Adam' doesn't capitalize on what The Rock could be cooking
What they said: A look back at the interviews of 2022
Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt can't control the chaos of 'Babylon'
Brendan Fraser shines in beached 'Whale'
Sioux City Journal Editor Bruce Miller's Five Favorite Stories of 2022
'Banshees of Inisherin,' 'Tar' tell compelling tales

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This past year was full of dramatic ups and downs for the world of movies. A handful of massive blockbusters that had been held back due to the pandemic finally made their debut, some surprising international breakthroughs did well in theaters and on streaming, and at least a few indie movies connected with mainstream audiences and racked up some big box office numbers.

Long time entertainment reporter, and currently the editor at the Sioux City Journal, Bruce Miller, is joined by co-host Chris Lay and extra special guest Jared McNett, to wrap up their year-end collection of episodes with a conversation about the absolute very best films of the year.

Catch up on their other year-end episodes here:

Our favorite TV shows of 2022
Our most anticipated movies for 2023

You can also check out the latest Ethical Life podcast where Chris joins Scott Rada and Rick Kyte to revisit predictions they made last December, including one about the then-upcoming Oscars that has aged particularly poorly:

'Nine bold predictions for 2022' - The Ethical Life
'How well did our predictions for 2022 hold up?' - The Ethical Life

Our list of the best films from 2022:

'RRR' (where to watch)
'Top Gun: Maverick' (where to watch)
'Everything Everywhere All at Once' (where to watch)
'TÁR' (where to watch)
'The Fabelmans' (where to watch)
'Nope' (where to watch)
'The Banshees of Inisherin' (where to watch)
'Avatar: The Way of Water' (where to watch)
'Elvis' (where to watch)
'The Northman' (where to watch)
'Decision to Leave' (where to watch)
'Triangle of Sadness' (where to watch)
'Jackass Forever' (where to watch)
'Women Talking' (where to watch)
'Pearl' (where to watch)
'Bones and All' (where to watch)
'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery' (where to watch)
'Ambulance' (where to watch)
'Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul' (where to watch)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

Sioux City Journal Editor Bruce Miller's Five Favorite Stories of 2022
'Banshees of Inisherin,' 'Tar' tell compelling tales
The best television shows of 2022: 'This is Going to Hurt,' 'Andor' and 'The Bear' are among them
The best films of 2022: 'The Fabelmans,' of course and then?
Beautiful though it may be, 'Avatar 2' is too long and repetitious
'House of the Dragon' builds a 'Throne'

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We're looking ahead to 2023 with this episode and corralling the movies we're most looking forward to that are just over the horizon. Some of them are still undated, but they're all at the very least in some degree of post-production at the very least (other than the notable addition of 'Roosevelt' which will make sense when you listen to the episode).

Regardless, we covered a lot of ground and didn't even mention any of the upcoming franchise installments on the way for 'John Wick,' 'Creed,' 'Mission Impossible,' 'Fast & Furious,' 'Dune,' or the Marvel or DC Cinematic Universe that maybe go without saying they deserve a spot here.

And if you're looking for even more audio content to binge on by way of your ear-buds, you should check out the latest Ethical Life podcast where Streamed & Screened co-host and producer Chris Lay joins Scott Rada and Rick Kyte to revisit predictions they made last December, including one about the then-upcoming Oscars that has aged particularly poorly:

'Nine bold predictions for 2022' (Dec. 21, 2021)
'How well did our predictions for 2022 hold up?' (Dec. 22, 2022)

Movies we talked about:

'Infinity Pool' (dir. Brandon Cronenberg)
'Marlowe' (dir. Neil Jordan)
'Cocaine Bear' (dir. Elizabeth Banks)
'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse' (dir. Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers)
'Asteroid City' (dir. Wes Anderson)
'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' (dir. James Mangold)
'Barbie' (dir. Greta Gerwig)
'Oppenheimer' (dir. Christopher Nolan)
'Haunted Mansion' (dir.Justin Simien)
'The Exorcist '(dir. David Gordon Green)
'Beau Is Afraid' (dir. Ari Aster)
'Cat Person' (dir. Susanna Fogel)
'The Killer' (dir. David Fincher)
'Killers of the Flower Moon' (dir. Martin Scorsese)
'Napoleon' (dir. Ridley Scott)
'Poor Things' (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
'Roosevelt' (dir. Martin Scorsese)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

Beautiful though it may be, 'Avatar 2' is too long and repetitious
'House of the Dragon' builds a 'Throne'
Ron Howard works to bring 2018 cave rescue to life on screen
Jennifer Ehle makes small moments resonate in '1923' and 'She Said'
'Glass Onion' peels away layers of intrigue and fun
Marley Shelton says “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan is “transforming television”
Amina Nieves feels the weight of portraying her indigenous relatives in “1923”

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This is the first of three episodes where Bruce Miller and company are looking back on the year that was. As a special treat for long-time listeners, returning to the co-host seat is our very dear friend and former co-host, Sioux CIty Journal reporter Jared McNett who was last on for our bonus episode, The end of "Atlanta"!

On this first episode we're running down our favorite TV shows of the year. Our list includes just about as many tearful finales as it does fantastic new shows, and honestly given how great the year was for television you could randomize what we've got in our top spots and it'd still be hard to argue with. We even included some honorable mentions.

But wait! That's not all!

Right up front, we've got interviews with Jennifer Ehle, Amina Nieves, James Badge Dale and Marley Shelton, stars of the new "Yellowstone" prequel spin-off "1923," which is set to premiere on December 18 on Paramount+.

"1923" (Paramount+)

Where to watch:

"The Bear" S1 (Hulu; FX)
"Andor" S1 (Disney+)
"This is Going to Hurt" miniseries (AMC; BBC One)
"Better Call Saul" S6 (AMC)
"The White Lotus" S2 (HBO)
"Atlanta" S3+S4 (FX)
"Abbott Elementary" S2 (ABC)
"What We do in the Shadows" S4 (FX)
"Barry" S3 (HBO)
"Hacks" S2 (HBO)
"For All Mankind" S3 (Apple+)
"Reservation Dogs" S2 (FX on Hulu)

Honorable mentions:

"Old Man" S1 (FX)
"Only Murders in the Building" S2 (Hulu)
"The Rehearsal" S1 (HBO)
"Under the Banner of Heaven" miniseries (Hulu; FX)
"We Own This City" miniseries (HBO)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

Clooney, Roberts bring what star power they can to 'Ticket'
What's it like to have your life on screen? 'Spoiler Alert's' Michael Ausiello found out
'Spoiler Alert' earns all of its tears
'Amsterdam' isn't the memorable mystery some thought
'George & Tammy' offers a surface look at country legends

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When it comes to Hollywood careers, Ron Howard is in a class all by himself. Beloved as Opie Taylor on "The Andy Griffith Show" in the 1960s and Richie Cunningham on "Happy Days" in the 1970s, he made his directing debut as a under the watchful eye of trash-cinema luminary Roger Corman with his films going on to cumulatively rack up nine Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for "A Beautiful Mind."

Our very own Bruce Miller had the chance to talk to him as he's making the "For Your Consideration" rounds for his movie "Thirteen Lives," a dramatization of the Tham Luang cave rescue, as well as promoting his new book, "The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family" which he co-authored with his brother, Clint.

Also on the show we talk about new releases "Spoiler Alert" (adapted from a memoir where terminal cancer is the tragic twist) and "Violent Night" (a sort of "Home Alone" meets "John Wick"), both of which we think are very good but certainly might not make for the best double feature.

Where to watch:

Thirteen Lives (Prime Video)
Spoiler Alert (Official Website)
Violent Night (Official Website)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Amsterdam' isn't the memorable mystery some thought
'George & Tammy' offers a surface look at country legends
'The Fabelmans' is one of the year's best pictures
'The Menu' serves up plenty of attitude -- and deadly surprises
Gossip aside, 'Don't Worry Darling' bears watching
Kal Penn says Santa Claus may just be the one to bring us together
'She Said' meticulously details the Weinstein case
'Christmas Story Christmas' recalls the original's beats
Billy Eichner's 'Bros' is almost as tame as a Hallmark film

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The Hollywood awards season is heating up, with every week seeing big-name Best Picture contenders going up on marquees across America.

On this very special episode we have a full-length interview with Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for more than 20 years, who has a fascinating new book out that documents the behind-the-scenes history of the golden man himself: Oscar.

Longtime listeners are well aware that host Bruce Miller has been an avid follower of all things Academy Awards since before he was covering the entertainment beat, so the conversation touches on loads of interesting anecdotes and revelations that Bruce Davis unearthed from some of the farthest flung parts of the AMPAS archives.

You can order "The Academy and the Award" from Brandeis University Press.

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Christmas Story Christmas' recalls the original's beats
Billy Eichner's 'Bros' is almost as tame as a Hallmark film
'Wakanda Forever' is long, but worth the investment of time
'Fleishman is in Trouble' makes friendship a worthy proposition
That's what friends are for: 'Fleishman in Trouble' dissects the value of relationships

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This week we've got conversations with "Fleishman is in Trouble" stars Adam Brody and Lizzie Caplan, as well as a separate conversation with author, New York Times Magazine staff writer and now showrunner Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Before she was topping the New York Times bestseller list or being recognized by the National Book Awards, Taffy Brodesser-Akner was earning accolades as the author of profiles and magazine articles.

Also, Bruce Miller gives a quick review of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," and you can read his longer review at the link below.

Next week we'll have an interview with Bruce Davis, former executive director of the "Academy" for over twenty years, author of "The Academy and the Award: The Coming of Age of Oscar and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences," so make sure you're subscribed with the links below to get that episode as soon as it drops.

Where to watch:

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
'Fleishman Is in Trouble' (Hulu)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Fleishman is in Trouble' makes friendship a worthy proposition
'Wakanda Forever' is long, but worth the investment of time
'The Santa Clauses' goes searching for Tim Allen's replacement
Starting over: Sylvester Stallone finds new joy in "Tulsa King' mob world
'Good Night Oppy' director tells how he pulled audiences into space
"Yellowstone" stars Luke Grimes and Kelsey Ashbille talk about the series' upcoming season
Season 5 brings plenty of change for the 'Yellowstone' Duttons

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For this bonus episode we've got Jared McNett back onboard to spend some time digesting the series finale of 'Atlanta.'

Created by Donald Glover and premiering on FX in 2016, just a month before his song 'Redbone' hit the charts, 'Atlanta' started off as a show about a struggling rapper and their rise-and-grind manager. The episodes and seasons that followed stretched, distorted and occasionally even outright neglected that basic premise, with Glover and his creative partners incorporating mocumentary formats, animation, commercial spoofs and other wild techniques. 'Atlanta' could be all over the place, but despite all that stylistic restlessness the show was always deeply grounded in some combination of social, emotional, political, or cultural sentiment (occasionally all at the same time). It's a show the likes of which (rich, weird, funny and deeply rewarding) are unlikely to happen again anytime soon.

You can stream all four seasons of 'Atlanta' on HULU.

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This week we have an interview with "Yellowstone" actors Luke Grimes and Kelsey Asbille, who play Kayce and Monica Dutton respectively, and Bruce Miller gets some great insights from them about the future of their characters and the rest of the Dutton family. "Yellowstone" season 5 premieres Sunday Nov. 13 on the Paramount Network.

We also dig out claws into some questions about Marvel's new "Black Panther" film, "Wakanda Forever," specifically whether or not we think it could repeat the box office success of its predecessor (which pulled in a cumulative $1.348 billion) and challenge "Top Gun: Maverick" for its top spot the list of movie money-makers for 2022.

And, finally, if the phrase "elves vomiting glitter" does anything for you, then the upcoming Disney+ series, "The Santa Clauses," might be a pleasant addition under your streaming TV tree this year.

Where to watch:

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
'Yellowstone' season 5 (Paramount Network)
'1883' (Paramount+)
'Mayor of Kingstown' (Paramount+)
'Tulsa King' (Paramount+)
'The Santa Clauses' (Disney+)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Good Night Oppy' brings science to life in new ways
'Armageddon Time' suggests where trouble may have started -- sixth grade
You can now own a copy of 'Power of the Dog'; hallelujah!
Tracee Ellis Ross explores the importance of hair in 'Hair Tales'
New series explores world before 'Dangerous Liaisons'
'Black Adam' looks a lot like something Marvel already did
'Weird' finds a great way to tell Al Yankovic's story

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We spent a lot of time talking on the last episode about documentaries, and you should definitely go check that out if you missed it, especially to catch the interview with Good Night Oppy director Ryan White.

For the bonus episode we're sticking to the theme and jumping two years back in time, back when the show had a top-five format and went by a different name, to revisit our episode that was all about mockumentaries.

Where to watch:

Good Night Oppy (theaters now, Prime on Nov. 23)
‎The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
‎The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978)
‎Real Life (1979)
‎Medusa: Dare To Be Truthful (1991)
‎Man Bites Dog (1992)
‎Bob Roberts (1992)
‎CB4 (1993)
‎Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
‎Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006)
‎Summer Heights High (2007)
‎District 9 (2009)
‎Troll Hunter (2010)
‎What We Do in the Shadows (2014)
‎Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
‎Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Weird' finds a great way to tell Al Yankovic's story
'Top Gun: Maverick' might we worth inviting home for Thanksgiving
Sioux City Journal remembers Jerry Lee Lewis: When 'Great Balls of Fire' told his story
'The White Lotus' is still the place to be
It's great to see George Clooney and Julia Roberts back together but 'Ticket' is no paradise

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This week we're highlighting an interview Bruce Miller did with Ryan White, the director of Good Night Oppy. The film, which documents NASA's Mars rover Opportunity, is in theaters now and will land on Amazon Prime on November 23rd. It's an unexpectedly moving movie that Bruce has short-listed for his Oscar pool, and we thought we'd take the opportunity to hash out some of the other great documentaries this year, what it is that makes a great non-fiction film or series, and since Bruce also recently had a chat with the 'Documentary Now!' creators we give some shine to that consistently brilliant satirical deconstruction of the genre.

Where to watch:

Good Night Oppy (theaters now, Prime on Nov. 23)
‎Original Cast Album: Company (1970)
‎Wattstax (1973)
‎Grey Gardens (1975)
‎Hoop Dreams (1994)
‎Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)
‎Grizzly Man (2005)
‎Man on Wire (2008)
‎Icarus (2017)
Wormwood (2017)
‎Free Solo (2018)
‎The Last Dance (2020)
‎My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Summer of Soul (2021)
Sidney (2022)
‎The Redeem Team (2022)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Weird' finds a great way to tell Al Yankovic's story
'Top Gun: Maverick' might we worth inviting home for Thanksgiving
Sioux City Journal remembers Jerry Lee Lewis: When 'Great Balls of Fire' told his story
'The White Lotus' is still the place to be
It's great to see George Clooney and Julia Roberts back together but 'Ticket' is no paradise

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Because it's the season for scary things, we can't get enough horror films in our lives. Thankfully, Netflix is here for us all with 'Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.' An anthology series in the same vein as 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' they've been dropping two "episodes" a day since Tuesday. I say "episodes" because they're basically creepy cinematic novellas, each one helmed by a modern horror legend and featuring a cast-list loaded top to bottom with great actors.

As with every collection of stuff like this, it's an eclectic grab-bag but we're here to run through the episodes in a spoiler-free fashion and pick out the best of the bunch.

Disagree? Agree? Sound off with your rants and raves with a review of the show in your podcast portal preference!

Cabinet of Curiosities:

Lot 36
Graveyard Rats
The Autopsy
The Outside
Dreams in the Witch House
Pickman's Model
The Viewing
The Murmuring

Where to watch:

Dogtown and Z-Boys2001
Lords of Dogtown2005
Pan’s Labyrinth2006
Twilight2008
Beyond the Black Rainbow2010
The Babadook2014
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night2014
Crimson Peak2015
The Bad Batch2016
The Shape of Water2017
Mandy2018
The Nightingale2018
The Empty Man2020
Nightmare Alley2021
Firestarter2022
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio2022

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'The White Lotus' is still the place to be
It's great to see George Clooney and Julia Roberts back together but 'Ticket' is no paradise
Remembering Leslie Jordan and his Instagram fame
What do real documentary filmmakers think of 'Documentary Now!'?
'Nope' offers another close encounter with aliens
Hilary Swank stars in "Alaska Daily", a drama that uplifts journalism

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This weekend will see the premiere of the second season of "The White Lotus," the most-awarded series at the Primetime Emmys earlier this year (nabbing ten statues for HBO), and Bruce Miller can't wait to talk about it.

Also we've got an interview with Tony Hale about the brand new season of "The Mysterious Benedict Society" which premieres this week on Disney+. Best known as Buster Bluth ("Arrested Development"), Gary Walsh ("Veep") and Forky ("Toy Story 4"), he gets into what it's like to play both of the twin brothers Nicholas and Nathaniel Benedict.

And, finally, we unexpectedly end up arguing a little bit about how excited everyone should be for Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Pinocchio movie for Netflix.

Where to watch:

'The White Lotus' (HBO Max)
'The Mysterious Benedict Society' (Disney+)
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (Netflix)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'The White Lotus' is still the place to be
It's great to see George Clooney and Julia Roberts back together but 'Ticket' is no paradise
Remembering Leslie Jordan and his Instagram fame
What do real documentary filmmakers think of 'Documentary Now!'?
'Nope' offers another close encounter with aliens
Hilary Swank stars in "Alaska Daily", a drama that uplifts journalism

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There's a new Halloween sequel out, Halloween Kills, that wraps up the trilogy of Michael Myers movies directed by David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) and we figured we'd use that as the launching pad to talk about all the scary Halloween horror tropes that irk us to no end and recommend some examples of the genre, both new and old, that subvert expectations.

Where to watch:

Psycho
Mr. Sardonicus
Halloween (1978)
The Funhouse
The Silence of the Lambs
Midsommar
Barbarian
Halloween (2018)
Halloween Kills
Halloween Ends

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Good Nurse' gives Eddie Redmayne chilling opportunities
'Halloween Ends' stops some things, starts others
Ben Whishaw shines in the best medical drama in years
'Magpie Murders' gives Lesley Manville the stretch she seeks

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Enjoy this bonus episode highlighting Bruce Miller's conversation with actors Zach Woods and Lenora Crichlow about their roles in season 2 of “Avenue 5” which premiered on HBO last weekend.

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Avenue 5' encourages improvisation -- and a chance to spar with Hugh Laurie
Star-studded 'Amsterdam' muddies its own water before it settles down
"Avenue 5" actors talk about the show's second season
Seams show on 'Beast's' not-so-special effects
Billy Eichner's 'Bros' brings laughs, not a revolution, in filmmaking

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Despite the admittedly bad press surrounding Amsterdam, its release marks something of a beginning to the Hollywood Awards Season that will run from now until the end of the year. Studios will be dropping the bulk of their prestige films in the coming months, so we thought it was a great time to start a list of films we think are in the running to be nominated for the top Oscar category. The vast majority of these movies haven't come out yet, but between film festival buzz, trailers, and general vibes we think this is about a good a short list as we can come up with, all things considered.

Did we leave anything out? Think our picks are way off? Let us know at our contact info below!

Where to watch:

Armageddon Time (Nov. 11)
Avatar: The Way of Water (Dec. 16)
Babylon (Dec. 25, limited)
The Banshees of Inisherin (Oct. 21)
Decision to Leave (Oct. 14)
Elvis
Emancipation (theaters, Dec. 2; AppleTV+ Dec. 9)
Empire of Light (Dec. 9)
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans (Nov. 23)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix, Dec. 23)
The Good Nurse (Netflix, Oct. 26)
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (Netflix, Dec. 9)
TÁR (Oct. 7)
Top Gun: Maverick
White Noise (theaters, Nov. 25; Netflix, Dec. 30)
Women Talking (Dec. 25)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

Movies in a Minute – “Amsterdam”
"Avenue 5" actors talk about the show's second season
Seams show on 'Beast's' not-so-special effects
Billy Eichner's 'Bros' brings laughs, not a revolution, in filmmaking
Movies in a Minute – “Bros”

Recent episodes of On Iowa Politics co-hosted by Jared:

Campaign Ad Wars, Senate Republican Unity, and Iowa’s AG 'Debate'
Iowa’s Pipeline, Parents First, and Unopposed Candidates
Student Loans, Education Funding, and State a Fair Report

Follow the show:

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Jared McNett is back and joining Chris Lay for this special bonus episode roundup of the best horror movies we've seen this year so far, as well as a glance over the horror horizon at a handful of movies we're looking forward to that coming out later this month.

Where to watch:

Barbarian
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Halloween Ends
Hellraiser
The Menu
Nope
Pearl
Prey
Smile
Triangle of Sadness
Watcher
X

Recent articles by Jared McNett:

On Iowa Politics: Mike Franken and Chuck Grassley debate, Newt Gingrich visits Iowa and shares a Republican road map, and George W. Bush is in Iowa
After Sioux City Musketeers win championship, Clark Cup makes multiple stops around Siouxland
Sioux City Swedish American Fraternal Organization to host 'folk music tour'
On Iowa Politics: A Congressional debate, a budget surplus, a controversial ad, and Iowans at the insurrection
Oto home a "complete loss" after early morning blaze
Congressional candidate Ryan Melton repeatedly calls out Rep. Randy Feenstra and chastises pipeline plans, in Sioux City stop

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Streamed & Screened is a weekly podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, an entertainment reporter for multiple decades who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal, Jared McNett, a reporter for the Sioux City Journal, and Chris Lay, the podcast operations manager for Lee Enterprises.

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We are back as promised with a brand new full episode! Bruce Miller has spent the past couple of weeks prepping for the 2022 Sioux City International Film Fest so we talk about festivals before we hand it over to his interview with Bri Holland, a (deep breath) songwriter, music producer, audio engineer, singer, and vocal production specialist who was onboard to host the "Engineering Theatrical Vocal Music for Cinema" workshop.

Bri's most recent credits include Dear Evan Hansen (2021), tick, tick... BOOM! (2021) and Vivo (2021).

Bruce name-checked some of the SCIFF films in the course of the episode (Jim of Earth, Score: A Film Music Documentary, Sons of Toledo), but the full list of films screened at the festival can be found here: 2022 Films

Where to watch:

Vivo (Netflix)
Dear Evan Hansen
tick, tick...BOOM! (Netflix)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

New 'Interview with the Vampire' takes a different twist in television form
A sight for 'Thor' eyes? Latest offers laughs, Chris Hemsworth and a dark villain
Movies in a Minute - "Don't Worry Darling"
REVIEW: 'Don't Worry Darling' is steeped in atmosphere -- and questions
'So Help Me Todd,' starring Marcia Gay Harden, springs from a son's quest for justice

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One last fill-in episode before we're back with new episodes, but this is a good one. Our very own Bruce Miller was a guest on Across the Sky, a weather-centric podcast hosted by Lee Enterprises meteorologists, counting down the 10 greatest weather movies of all time. Here's the description from their side of the dial:

"Grab a bucket of popcorn and get comfortable. If you like weather and movies, you have to listen to this!

Weather plays a role in lots of films, but in some it has a starring role. With the help of Bruce Miller, from Lee Enterprises' TV, streaming and movie podcast Streamed & Screened, the Lee Weather Team takes a look at the best weather movies ever made.

Listen along as the gang counts down the movies from ten to one. What makes these films stand out? Do they accurately portray the lives of meteorologists? Do they get the science right? Or are they just too much fun to leave out?!

Find out if your favorite weather movie made the cut and which film the team crowned number one on this week's episode of Across the Sky."

More on Across the Sky

Matt Holiner of Lee Enterprises' Midwest group in Chicago, Kirsten Lang of the Tulsa World in Oklahoma, Joe Martucci of the Press of Atlantic City, N.J., and Sean Sublette of the Richmond Times-Dispatch in Virginia host a fast-paced weekly podcast that tackles hot (and cold!) topics plus what’s trending in meteorology, science and climate. The show isn't limited to hard science as our hosts and guests tug at your emotions from stories out in the elements.

Listen and subscribe: Apple | Google | Spotify

Streamed & Screened is a podcast about movies and TV hosted by Bruce Miller, an entertainment reporter for multiple decades who is now the editor of the Sioux City Journal, Jared McNett, a reporter for the Sioux City Journal, and Chris Lay, the podcast operations manager for Lee Enterprises.

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Halloween is just over a month away, so in this special encore presentation of Streamed & Screened we are looking at some of the scariest movies around.

Expect some horror classics for sure but also some curveballs including an unexpected pick you can stream on Disney+.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them.

Psycho 1960
Mr. Sardonicus 1961
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974
Black Christmas 1974
Friday the 13th 1980
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure 1985
Flight of the Navigator 1986
Fatal Attraction 1987
The Exorcist III 1990
Ernest Scared Stupid 1991
Funny Games 1997
Contagion 2011
The Conjuring 2013
Green Room 2015
Midsommar 2019

Streamed & Screened is hosted by Chris Lay, the podcast operations manager for Lee Enterprises, along with Bruce Miller, the editor of the Sioux City Journal, and Jared McNett, a reporter for the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa.

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A summer dominated by "Top Gun: Maverick" is nearly over, so in this special encore presentation of Streamed & Screened, we look at some of our favorite summer blockbusters of the past.

Links to where you can stream or rent all of our picks can be found below:

Friday the 13th 1980
Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982
RoboCop 1987
Die Hard 1988
Jurassic Park 1993
True Lies 1994
Die Hard: With a Vengeance 1995
Independence Day 1996
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 1999
Spider-Man 2002
The Dark Knight 2008
Mad Max: Fury Road 2015

Just to be Nominated is hosted and produced by Chris Lay, the podcast operations manager for Lee, along with Bruce Miller, the editor of the Sioux City Journal, and Jared McNett, a reporter for the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa.

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This week we've got an abundance of interviews with the cast, crew, and creatives behind the new Disney+ hybrid docu-series "Growing Up." Created by Brie "Captain Marvel" Larson and production company Culture House, the show premieres September 8th as part of the Disney+ Day programming jamboree.

Bruce Miller's interviews with Brie Larson, Nicole Gavlovski, Athena Nair, Gavin Arneson, Sage Dolan-Sandrino, and more, pull the curtain back a bit on the production process and the real life autobiographical stories that lie at the heart of the show.

Where to watch:

Growing Up (Disney+)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

Made in a 'Minute': Wisconsin observations help Charlie Berens launch a big career
Wishful thinking doesn't make new 'Pinocchio' any better
The steam rises off 'Tell Me Lies,' a new series with Jackson White and Grace Van Patten
'Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris' deserves the right audience
'Growing Up' shows how messy situations can still have happy endings
Brie Larson shares about her life while uplifting others in news Disney+ series 'Growing Up'
'The Invitation' doesn't require any real buy-in
Held hostage? 'The Patient' tests Steve Carell's will

Recent episodes of On Iowa Politics co-hosted by Jared:

Iowa’s Pipeline, Parents First, and Unopposed Candidates
Student Loans, Education Funding, and State a Fair Report
Biden's Big Bill, Fair Food & Speeches, and IRS Agents “Ready to Shoot”
Insulin Votes, Law Enforcement Messaging, and Reynolds' Heartbeat Bill

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On this week's episode we preview 'Mike,' the new Mike Tyson biopic series on Hulu, and the new animated series 'Little Demon' on FXX.

We take a moment at the top to critique Beast, opting to recommend a much more harrowing film in its place, and discuss expectations for 'House of the Dragon,' the 'Game of Thrones' prequel series that premiered this past Sunday.

Lastly (but far from leastly), we gather up the best biopics.

A quick programming note: We'll be changing some things up with the format with the next episode, but don't touch that dial while you pardon our dust and we'll back with even more great stuff for you shortly!

Where to watch the movies and shows we talked about:

"Mike"
"Little Demon"
Beast
Roar
Tyson
The Invitation
Samaritan
Me Time

Best Biopics

Malcolm X
Chaplin
Ed Wood
Ray
I'm Not There
The Social Network
Lincoln
Behind the Candelabra
Love & Mercy
Spencer

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

Movies in a Minute - “Beast”
'House of the Dragon' is a more accessible 'Thrones'
'This is Going to Hurt' may be one of the best series; here's why
Danny DeVito plays Satan in 'Little Demon' but he's not what you think
'Naomi' was 'one-and-done' series but it holds up
'She-Hulk' helps the Hulk find humor in dire situations
'Mack & Rita' wastes time -- yours and Diane Keaton's
Drew Minard brings Iowa cred to Broadway's big 'Music Man' revival
'She-Hulk' addresses 'fitting in' among all walks of life

Recent episodes of On Iowa Politics co-hosted by Jared:

Biden's Big Bill, Fair Food & Speeches, and IRS Agents “Ready to Shoot”
Insulin Votes, Law Enforcement Messaging, and Reynolds' Heartbeat Bill
Ernst's Vet Vote, Iowa First-in-Nation Status, and Abortion in Kansas
Kim Reynolds Court, Republican endorses Democrats, and a close AG campaign
Iowa Polls, Contraception & Marriage Equality, and Red Flags

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With "Lord of the Rings" out next week, "Better Call Saul" wrapped up, and "House of the Dragon" coming in for a (king's?) landing this very weekend, it's safe to say we've got prequel fever! And the only cure ... is to make a list of the TV show prequels we wanna see!

Also we preview the new Marvel show "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law," air some grievances about what we think are the worst movies of the year, and there's even an interview with Garret Dillahunt and Martha Plimpton who you can see in the new Freevee show "Sprung!"

Where to watch:

Beast
"Better Call Saul"
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Day Shift
Glorious
"House of the Dragon"
Look Both Ways
Orphan: First Kill
"She-Hulk: Attorney at Law"
Spin Me Round
"Sprung"
Mack & Rita
The Black Phone

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

It's a new game for 'League of Their Own'
Testing COVID's bounds: Freevee's 'Sprung' takes a comic look at lockdown and looters
Meet Greg Garcia, producer of “Sprung”
Kids highlight '13: The Musical'; adults don't
Fred Grandy scores new role but 'Love Boat' didn't help
Movies in a Minute - "Bullet Train"
Too many characters spoil 'Jurassic World: Dominion
Changes are coming to the 'All Creatures Great and Small' dynamic
What's ahead for 'All Creatures Great and Small'? We've got answers

Recent episodes of On Iowa Politics co-hosted by Jared:

Insulin Votes, Law Enforcement Messaging, and Reynolds' Heartbeat Bill
Ernst's Vet Vote, Iowa First-in-Nation Status, and Abortion in Kansas
Kim Reynolds Court, Republican endorses Democrats, and a close AG campaign

Follow the show:

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For the bonus episode this week Chris has been thinking a bunch about Netflix's new adaptation of The Sandman, Neil Gaiman's iconic comic book series which was long described as "un-filmable."

As you'll hear, the source material has been close to Chris's heart for a long while, so who better to compare notes with on the translation than someone who's just getting acquainted with the characters and story: HIs mom!

Where to watch:

Sandman (Netflix)
Jack Reacher (2012, Amazon Prime)
"Reacher" (2022, Amazon Prime)
LOtR: Fellowship of the Ring (2001, Amazon Prime, HBO Max)

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This week Bruce interviewed Abbi Jacobson and Chanté Adams about "A League of Their Own," the new Amazon Prime show that takes its source material step or two further.

We catch up with our feelings on Bullet Train, Prey, and "Sandman," as well as offer up preview Netflix's upcoming 13: The Musical.

In honor of the new horror movie Bodies Bodies Bodies premiering in theaters we've got a list of movies that incorporate some high stakes games.

Down below we've got links to all the stuff we talk about and places you can connect with us and subscribe to the show!!

Where to watch:

Bodies Bodies Bodies (Aug. 12)
"I Am Groot" (Aug. 10, Disney+)
"A League of Their Own" (Aug. 12, Amazon Prime)
13: The Musical (Aug. 12, Netflix)
Bullet Train (theaters)
Prey (HULU)

High Stakes Games!

The Last of Sheila (1973)
Marathon Man (1976)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
Funny Games (1997)
The Game (1997)
Battle Royale (2000)
13 Tzameti (2005)
Cheap Thrills (2013)
Game Night (2018)
Ready or Not (2019)
Promising Young Woman (2020)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Dr. Strange' serves as preview of coming attractions
'Reservation Dogs' returns with more heart, tears
Despite all the saccharine, 'Mrs. Harris' offers smiles
Is there crying in baseball? Kelly McCormack explains
Amazon's new 'League of Their Own' tells more female baseball stories
Eye-popping 'Pam & Tommy' delves into that chaotic world of celebrity

Recent episodes of On Iowa Politics co-hosted by Jared:

Federal abortion ban, Reynolds red flags, Scholten joins Team Franken
Iowa Polls, Contraception & Marriage Equality, and Red Flags
Kim Reynolds Court, Republican endorses Democrats, and a close AG campaign
Ernst's Vet Vote, Iowa First-in-Nation Status, and Abortion in Kansas

ALSO:

"Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian (The New Yorker, Dec. 4, 2017)

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The bonus episode is all over the place this week but it's still a load of fun so tune in to hear Bruce go all in on Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris, drop a solid teaser for an upcoming FXX animated show starring Danny Devito as the Devil, and we take some unexpected detours that touch on Y2K Beanie Babies, a weirdly specific kind of action figure, and we even find the time to recommend some off-the-beaten-path movies you might want to check out.

Where to watch:

Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (2022)
High Noon (1953)
La Grande Bouffe (1972)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Dr. Strange' serves as preview of coming attractions
Neil Patrick Harris' 'Uncoupled' looks like another 'Sex and the City'
'Nope' offers great theories about those things that can't be explained
B.J. Novak makes impressive directorial debut with crackling good comedy 'Vengeance'
Jeremy Allen White learns the ins and outs of a restaurant in 'The Bear'
DVD REVIEW: Brad Pitt sparks 'The Lost City' but he's not the film's focus
Sioux City-bound comedian Jo Koy is eager to get back to work (but he hasn't been idle)

Check out Jared on the 'On Iowa Politics Podcast' here:

On Iowa Politics

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We take a while to work up to it, but the consensus for this coming week/end of streaming and screening is loaded with lots of potential surprise breakouts. The big fish in the pond is Bullet Train, the assassin action comedy starring Brad Pitt and a stacked supporting cast, but don't discount the long awaited Sandman series (based on Neil Gaiman's comic series) that's hitting Netflix on Friday, the Predator prequel Prey hitting HULU (and its alternate audio dun entirely in Comanche), the LGBTQ+ conversion camp slasher They/Them on Peacock that connects Kevin Bacon back to his horror roots, and honestly there are too many other great options to rattle off here so you'll just have to listen in to get the lowdown on the highlights.

Where to watch:

Beavis and Butt-Head (Aug. 4, Paramount+)
Bullet Train (Aug 5, theaters)
Carter (Aug 5, Netflix)
Easter Sunday (Aug 5, theaters)
I Love My Dad (theaters)
Lightyear (Aug 5, Disney+)
Luck (Aug 5, AppleTV+)
Prey (Aug 5, HULU)
Reservation Dogs (Aug 3, HULU)
Sandman (Aug 5, Netflix)
They/Them (Aug 5, Peacock)
Thirteen Lives (Aug 5, Amazon Prime)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'Dr. Strange' serves as preview of coming attractions
Neil Patrick Harris' 'Uncoupled' looks like another 'Sex and the City'
'Nope' offers great theories about those things that can't be explained
B.J. Novak makes impressive directorial debut with crackling good comedy 'Vengeance'
Jeremy Allen White learns the ins and outs of a restaurant in 'The Bear'
DVD REVIEW: Brad Pitt sparks 'The Lost City' but he's not the film's focus

Follow the show:

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We spend the first chunk of this episode weighing in (spoiler free!) on Jordan Peele's spin on the flying saucer genre, Nope, which was filled to bursting with big concepts, memorable images, and over-the-top set pieces that deserve to be seen on the biggest screen you can find.

We also offer up a preview of Vengeance, a fictional riff on the true-crime podcast genre that was written and directed by B.J. Novak who many will likely know better as Ryan from The Office, as well as a look at Paper Girls, a soft sci-fi time travel series premiering on Amazon Prime that's adapted from a comic by the absurdly prolific writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Runaways, Saga).

Make sure you're subscribed to Streamed & Screened (wherever you get your podcasts!) so as to not miss our next bonus episode which rounds up the most exciting movies of the dozens that dropped trailers this past weekend.

Where to watch:

Nope (official site)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (official site)
Vengeance (official site)
Paper Girls (Amazon Prime)
DC League of Super-Pets (official site)
Not Okay (official site)
Resurrection (official site)
A Love Song (official site)

Recent articles by Bruce Miller:

'High School Musical' brings the Bleu back to performing
Tim Federle tells why “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series" has been a star maker
Jeremy Allen White learns the ins and outs of a restaurant in 'The Bear'
Brad Pitt sparks 'The Lost City' but he's not the film's focus
Three actors aspire for Broadway after “High School Musical: The Musical: The Series"
Little Big Town offers up another great summer song

Check out Jared on the 'On Iowa Politics Podcast' here:

On Iowa Politics

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On this episode we list our favorite movies of the year so far, yes, but before we get to that we have a nice chat about Where the Crawdads Sing, which landed in theaters last weekend, Nope, which opens this weekend, Netflix's latest attempt at a "blockbuster," The Gray Man, and Ethan Hawke's HBO Max love-letter to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, The Last Movie Stars.

After that (or scroll down if you want just the list), you'll get "our favorite movies of 2022 so far," which is a segment that ran last week for everyone who has subscribed to the show (available wherever you get podcasts). Every week we have an extra chunk that doesn't get the same big promotional push that the main episode gets, and we thought we'd plug a taste of that here for you.

Where to watch: Nope (official site) The Gray Man (Netflix, July 22) The Last Movie Stars (HBO, July 21)

Our favorite movies of 2022 so far: Ambulance The Batman Deep Water Everything Everywhere All at Once Fresh Jackass Forever The Northman RRR The Survivor Top Gun: Maverick X

Recent articles by Bruce Miller: 'Arthur' marks 25 years as a PBS staple Movies in a Minute - “Thor: Love and Thunder” 'Fleabag' techniques don't serve Dakota Johnson's 'Persuasion' 'Thor: Love and Thunder' yields a universe of ideas that don't all work

Check out Jared on the 'On Iowa Politics Podcast' here: On Iowa Politics

Articles we mentioned: 'Where the Crawdads Sing' Author Wanted for Questioning in Murder (The Atlantic) The Hunted (The New Yorker)

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On the bonus episode for this week we're rounding up our favorite movies of the year so far, with each of us bringing some sort of caveat to our personal selections. It's true that the list is right there below, in alphabetical order and with links to streaming and/or rental destinations, so give a listen if you wanna match the who and the why to each of them.

Where to watch: Ambulance The Batman Deep Water Everything Everywhere All at Once Fresh Jackass Forever The Northman RRR The Survivor Top Gun: Maverick X

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Theater marquees this weekend will be topped with Where the Crawdads Sing, the adaptation of Delia Owens' wildly successful, Reese Witherspoon approved, novel, along with the cuteness overdose of Jenny Slate's Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. At home we've got the latest season of What We Do In The Shadows on HULU, a new series premiering from Nathan Fielder, The Rehearsal on HBO, and the last set of episodes kick off Better Call Saul's curtain call on AMC. All that plus we kick things off by getting into the nitty gritty of our Thor and the #GentleMinions phenomena.

And make sure you're subscribed to Streamed & Screened on whichever podcast player you prefer, because over on the bonus episode this week we're rounding up our top films from the first half of the year!

More from Bruce Miller: 'Thor: Love and Thunder' offers a universe of ideas that don't all work Movies in a Minute - “Thor: Love and Thunder” Aliens invade Zombie world, teach lessons in 'Zombie 3'' Montana Story' peels away layers of family hurt It's all in the details: 'Sea Beast' takes audiences on a big sea journey 'Sea Beast' roars with spectacular effects, animation FLASHBACK: 'Magic City' gives Caan chance to revisit 'Godfather' aura

Where to watch: Where the Crawdads Sing (official site) Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (official site) Better Call Saul (AMC; season 6B) The Rehearsal, series premiere (HBO) What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu) Thor: Love and Thunder (official site) Minions: The Rise of Gru (official site)

Links to stuff we mentioned: Hordes of Teens in Suits Are Showing Up to the Minions Movie. The Studio, for Once, Did the Right Thing. American Ninja Warrior Episodes - Season 14 (2022)

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Another Bonus episode for the Streamed and Screened faithful! With this one we're hopping into the question of what time of day is the best to go to the movies. For sure, this is not the most pressing of matters but it's the sort of thing we have some legit opinions on and even pepper in some fun stories.

After that bit of chat we submit to the midnight society a few more or less random shows or movies worth checking out if you haven't. Listen in to hear what we've got to say about them or, heck, take a quick peek at the list below and click the links that will take you to where you can rent or stream or buy or whatever these fine examples of cultural pleasantness.

Thanks for being a subscriber and we'll see ya next week!

Where to watch: Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) What We Do In The Shadows (2014) What We Do In The Shadows (2019; Hulu) What's Up Doc (1972)

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We've got a preview of the new Marvel movie, Thor: Love & Thunder, that gives some comic book context without getting too far into the weeds, we hash out some thoughts on Rise of Gru, the latest entry in the Minions franchise, breaking $100 million in box office receipts over the weekend and whether or not that means movies are officially back in theaters for good, plus our very own Bruce Miller interviews Chris Williams, the director of Netflix's fantastic new animated feature, Sea Beast.

Even with all that, we somehow manage to cover even more topics but, dear listener, you'll have to give a listen to find out what else we've got in store!

More from Bruce Miller: Minions get shortchanged in 'Rise of Gru' Origins story explains why 'Flowers in the Attic' was so dark 'Everything Everywhere' has moments that linger FLASHBACK REVIEW : 'E.T.' stands for 'extra terrific' Liya Chu shares the secrets of 'MasterChef Junior' “Crawlspace” actor Henry Thomas, the former star of E.T., talks about new role Werewolves get pulled into the drama between zombies and aliens in "Zombies 3."

Where to watch: Thor: Love and Thunder (official site) Sea Beast (Netflix; July 8) Doula (official site) Zombies 3 (Disney; July 15) Minions: The Rise of Gru (official site)

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For Independence Day, enjoy this special bonus episode from the archives. Themed "American Movies" it was just our tenth ever, back when the show was called "Just to be Nominated" and functioned as more of a themed top-5 show since Covid had only just recently shut theaters down and our fledgling show about movies had to reformat its concept.

Here's the description from July 2020:

Last time you heard from us, we picked out some of our favorite films and shows on the new HBO streaming platform HBO Max.

For this episode, which we recorded on the Monday after Independence Day weekend, we attempted to assemble a collection of movies that paint a well-rounded picture of America.

Listen all the way to the end and you'll hear our unexpected recommendations for ridiculous new game shows!

Where to watch: McCabe & Mrs. Miller 1971 Italianamerican 1974 The Conversation 1974 Nashville 1975 Rocky 1976 National Lampoon’s Vacation 1983 Crumb 1994 Dead Man 1995 The Cable Guy 1996 Saving Private Ryan 1998 25th Hour 2002 The Master 2012 The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 Get Out 2017 BlacKkKlansman 2018

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Baz Luhrmann's new biopic, Elvis, tied Top Gun at the box office this past weekend, and we've got some thoughts on all two hours and forty rhinestone-scarved minutes of its overstuffed runtime.

It's not a wildly busy weekend at the theaters, what with Independence Day pushing most people out of doors, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun with the latest Despicable Me spin-off, Minions: The Rise of Gru.

Lastly, Bruce has a great conversation with Henry Thomas about his claustrophobic new thriller, Crawlspace. Thomas is best known from his role forty years ago as Elliot in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, but he's been a working actor ever since, most recently making a name for himself in Mike Flanagan's series of creepy films and shows you can find on Netflix.

More from Bruce Miller: Austin Butler's 'Elvis' captures the singer's electricity 'What We Do in the Shadows' has plenty planned for Season Four New 'Downton Abbey' lets everyone check in MasterChef Junior's Liya Chu cooks up a winning season 'Great American Recipe' searches for hidden tastes (and tacos) 'Lightyear' provides insight into Buzz's background Movies in a Minute - "Lightyear"

Where to watch: Minions: The Rise of Gru (official site) Crawlspace (official site) Elvis (official site) The Black Phone (official site)

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The format of Streamed & Screened is focused on working through the shows and movies whose release dates are fast approaching, which means we don't usually get to revisit things we've talked about, or put a spotlight on new discoveries.

Also: We chew through our favorite theater snacks.

Links to the movies we mentioned: For All Mankind (Apple TV+) For All Mankind (Criterion Collection) E.T. (Peacock) A Walk Among the Tombstones (Netflix)

As always: See something good!

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The King is in the building! The assuredly bombastic new 'Elvis' directed by Baz Luhrmann is hitting theaters this weekend and we're pretty excited to see what that twelve (or was it ten) minute standing ovation was all about that it got at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Along the way, we scour the archives for some relevant Elvis content that will entertain, illuminate, and amaze, which we have linked below so as to edify.

Also coming out this week is a new horror movie, "The Black Phone," starring Ethan Hawke as a serial killer whose previous victims are, from beyond the grave, trying to help free his current victim. We're predicting the movie is not entirely as it appears, but we've been burnt before, so who knows.

Also on tap is the latest Dr. Strange movie landing on Disney+, "Loot" on Apple TV+, a new Beavis and Butt-Head movie on Paramount+, and the premiere of Westworld's fourth season on HBO Max.

More from Bruce Miller: Grammy winners like Jennifer Nettles help tell heroes' stories in 'American Anthems' 'Unbearable Weight' gives a slight nudge to Nicolas Cage's career Emma Thompson gets intimate in 'Good Luck to You, Leo Grande' 'Bob's Burgers' serves up tasty big-screen fare Jeff Bridges deals with his own mortality while making 'The Old Man' Movies in a Minute - “Jurassic World: Dominion” 'Jurassic World: Dominion' makes you regret there were dinosaurs 'Hacks,' season one, shows why Jean Smart is such a treasure Bob Dylan's music comments on Depression-era story

Where to watch: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Hulu) Elvis (official site) The Black Phone (official site) Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Disney+; June 22) Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe (Paramount+; June 23) Loot (Apple TV+; June 24) Would It Kill You to Laugh? Starring Kate Berlant & John Early (Peacock; June 24) Westworld, season 4 (HBO Max; June 26)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: "Siouxlanders still remember the day Elvis came to town" (Bruce Miller, Oct 13, 2014) "The Night Elvis Presley Stopped A Fight In Madison, Wisconsin" (Late Edition: Crime Beat Chronicles)

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Our first Bonus Episode! These might be weekly or bi-weekly but regardless of how that all shakes out we hope you enjoy these bite sized episodes.

The format of Streamed & Screened is focused on working through the shows and movies whose release dates are fast approaching, which means we don't usually get to revisit things we talk about, or put a spotlight on things that are new discoveries.

Also: We dig in on where we like to sit at the movie theater and why, which is the sort of movie nerd preference that we have put a lot of thought and consideration into.

Links to the movies we mentioned: The Godfather (1972) Secret Honor (1984) Balls of Fury (2007) Spring Breakers (2012) Golden Arm (2020) The Worst Person in the World (2021)

See something good!

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As predicted last week, "Jurassic World: Dominion" did gangbusters at the box office but failed to wow critics, our own Bruce Miller especially. The summer blockbuster season continues to heat up though, with Toy Story prequel "Lightyear." And "Top Gun: Maverick" looks to maintain a steady cruising altitude and (we predict) might even reclaim the top spot from the dinosaurs in short order.

If leaving the house is unappealing, there's a long list of interesting movies hitting streaming services including a romcom re-tread, "Father of the Bride" (HBO Max; June 16), a festival darling, "Cha Cha Real Smooth" (Apple TV+ June 17), British sex comedy, "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" (Hulu; June 17), and a flashy George Saunders sci-fi action adaptation of "Spiderhead" (Netflix; June 17) from the director of "Top Gun: Maverick."

More from Bruce Miller: 'Jurassic World: Dominion' makes you regret there were dinosaurs 'Hacks,' season one, shows why Jean Smart is such a treasure Reinvented 'Company' brings laughs, new insight into relationships Six' brings out the rock star side of Henry VIII's wives 'Music Man' makes Iowans look nimble and Hugh Jackman-friendly Movies in a Minute - "The Bob's Burgers Movie" Who will win the Tonys? Look for 'Strange Loop,' 'Company' and 'Take Me Out' to tower 2022 Tony Awards preview

'Strange Loop' teems with creativity, opens doors

Warren Carlyle helps Hugh Jackman wow as 'The Music Man'

'Six' gives a pop spin to its Henry VIII history lesson

Where to watch: Jurassic World: Dominion (official site)

Cha Cha Real Smooth (Apple TV+ June 17)

Father of the Bride (HBO Max; June 16)

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (Hulu; June 17)

Halftime (Netflix; June 14)

Lightyear (official site)

Spiderhead (Netflix; June 17)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: Ages 9 To Adult (A92A) podcast

"Escape from Spiderhead" (The New Yorker)

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We're coming in for a landing after a wild ride with 'Top Gun: Maverick,' plus Bruce has three words to describe the first few episodes of 'The Boys' S3 ("...dirty, dirty, dirty!"), David Cronenberg returns to form this weekend with his old school brand of body horror, and we end things with a chat between Bruce and Craig Pearce & Thomas Brodie-Sangster the writer and star (respectively) of 'Pistol' on Hulu. They also talk about the new 'Elvis' movie coming out in a few weeks that Pearce wrote the screenplay for, connecting some of the dots between the king of rock and roll and Johnny Rotten's snot-nosed crew.

More from Bruce Miller: 'Top Gun: Maverick' sets a course for big-screen blockbusters How did the Sex Pistols rattle society? Miniseries 'Pistol' explains Pandemic stalls third season of Bill Hader's 'Barry,' but it's still surprising

Where to watch: Top Gun (official site) Crimes of the Future (official site) The Bob's Burgers Movie (official site) Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+; May 27) Pistol (Hulu; May 31) The Boys Season 3 (Amazon) Floor is Lava (Netflix)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: Star Wars: The Rebellion Will Be Televised

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To call this weekend the start of summer blockbuster season would be an understatement. The only question is if a three-day weekend will give us enough time to pack in all this action. We have Top Gun: Maverick and The Bob's Burgers Movie in theaters, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+) and Stranger Things (Netflix) on the small screen, and even with all that going on not only do we squeeze in an interview with the one and only Danny Boyle ahead of the release of his new show Pistol on Hulu, but Bruce goes so far as to try to make a brand new idiom happen. Check it out and get excited for nice long weekend of streaming and screening.

More from Bruce Miller: George Carlin is just as relevant today as he was years ago 'The Batman' is worth the time it takes to unpack 'Rescue Rangers' gleefully chips away at Toon Town regulars Rebel Wilson plays it safe in 'Senior Year' Hulu's 'Conversations with Friends' unpacks conscious uncoupling

Where to watch: Top Gun (official site) The Bob's Burgers Movie (official site) Obi-Wan Kenobi (Disney+; May 27) Stranger Things (Netflix; May 27) Pistol (Hulu; May 31) Men (official site) Downton Abbey: A New Era (official site)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: Hollywood relies on China to stay afloat. What does that mean for movies? (NPR)

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It's another week and we have another slate of movies and shows to recommend!

It's still a bit of a slow period between blockbusters Dr. Strange and Top Gun: Maverick, but art-house horror afficionados will be lining up for Men, the buzzy new movie from Alex Garland. Best known for Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018), this looks to be a step down from the standpoint of special effects while retaining Garland's trademark high concept provocation.

Also on tap are Downton Abbey: A New Era, a talent-packed reboot of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (Disney+; May 20), a collection of Jackass outtakes (Netflix; May 20), and a biopic series on Angelyne (Peacock+; May 19) starring Emmy Rossum from Nancy Oliver (Lars and the Real Girl, True Blood) and Sam Esmail (Mr. Robot).

More from Bruce Miller: Rebel Wilson plays it safe in 'Senior Year' Hulu's 'Conversations with Friends' unpacks conscious uncoupling The final days: 'This Is Us' cast counts down to the end Leave no 'Trek' behind: 'Strange New Worlds' explores life before Kirk 'Selling Sunset' has gotten even glitzier

Where to watch: Men (official site) Downton Abbey: A New Era (official site) Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (Disney+; May 20) Jackass 4.5 (Netflix; May 20) The Kids in the Hall: Comedy Punks (Amazon; May 20) Angelyne (Peacock+; May 19)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: The Mystery of L.A. Billboard Diva Angelyne’s Real Identity Is Finally Solved

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For this episode we kick things off with some immediate reactions to Marvel's latest, which finds Dr. Strange manipulating the mystical arts in a "Multiverse of Madness".

Bruce Miller's interview this week is with NBA great John Salley, who's adding a new entry to his IMDB credits with a Cinderella twist, "Sneakerella," which hits the court May 13 on Disney+.

Next up, Bruce offers an enthusiastic endorsement of the latest season of "Hacks" on HBO and "Selling Sunset" on Netflix. We have a bit of a back and forth about the new "Avatar" trailer, and finally we talk up the new Stephen King adaptation, "Firestarter," landing simultaneously in theaters and on Peacock.

More from Bruce Miller: John Salley steps out of his comfort zone with 'Sneakerella' A second-season slump isn't in the cards for Jean Smart and 'Hacks' Tom Holland builds a career with 'Uncharted' Sheryl Crow retraces the winding road to stardom in new documentary Talk about 'Encanto': Yup, Samantha Vilfort can talk about 'Encanto' Liam Neeson's 'Memory' is easy to forget

Where to watch: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (official site) Sneakerella (Disney+; May 13) Firestarter (Peacock; May 13) Hacks (HBO; May 12) Selling Sunset (Netflix)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: The trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water

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This week, team of the award-winning Streamed & Screened, fresh off its win as Best Podcast by the Iowa Newspaper Association, talks about "Doctor Strange" as well as the new Liam Neeson movie "Memory."

Plus: Bruce scored a fantastic interview with Disney animator Samantha Vilfort, one of the subjects of the new Disney+ show "Sketchbook," who talk about the process of character creation for the movie "Encanto." Do they talk about Bruno? You'll have to listen to find out!

We talk about the final season of "Ozark" and also have some big thoughts about the current state of Netflix's business affairs which could be described, generously, as "troubled."

More from Bruce Miller: Ben Foster transforms himself to play 'The Survivor' Racism and public health, social media misinformation, 'Ozark' is back and so is allergy season From the Archives: Life is a twisting road for Grammy winner Naomi Judd Home shopping gets backstage drama in 'I Love That For You' Nicolas Cage has fun with 'Massive Talent' but he could have had more

Where to watch: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (official site) Sketchbook (Disney+) The Pentaverate (May 5, Netflix) Ozark (April 29, Netflix) Memory (official site)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: 'Sioux City Journal notches 7 first-place awards at Iowa Newspaper Association event'

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We kick the episode off with our immediate thoughts on "The Northman" and "Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent," both of which are fantastic in their ways.

Not a ton of new stuff in theaters other than a Liam Neeson shoot-em-up, "Memory," and some interesting foreign films, "Hatching" and "Vortex," but over on the streaming side there are series finales dropping on Netflix for "Ozark" and "Grace & Frankie," plus debuts including "We Run This City" on HBO, "The Offer" on Paramount+, "Shining Girls" on Apple TV+, and "I Love That For You" on Showtime.

And finally, Bruce Miller talks with Ben Foster and Barry Levinson about their new film, "The Survivor," which portrays the story of a real-life survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp, forced to box his fellow inmates to survive. You can see that on HBO Max starting April 27.

More from Bruce Miller: 'Sketchbook' brings out the personality in animation Ben Foster digs into his own reserve to play a concentration camp 'Survivor' 'Cyrano' hopes to nose out others in DVD market Andrew Garfield's new series, 'Under the Banner' looks at extremes in religion, society 'Gaslit' looks at the drama behind Watergate Director Robert Eggers embraces big moves in 'The Northman'

Where to watch: The Survivor (April 27, HBO/Max) The Northman (official site) The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (official site) Hatching (official site) Memory (official site) Vortex (official site) We Own This City (April 25, HBO/Max) The Offer (April 28, Paramount+) Ozark (April 29, Netflix) Grace & Frankie (April 29, Netflix) Shining Girls (April 29, Apple TV+) I Love That For You (May 1, Showtime)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: An interview with Robert Eggers, director of 'The Northman,' plus 'Everything Everywhere All At Once,' 'Russian Doll,' the cult of Nic Cage, and more!

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This week we have a very cool interview with Robert Eggers, director of a new Viking epic The Northman, which hitting theaters this weekend. We also get real deep with how much we absolutely loved Everything Everywhere All At Once, can't wait to see the new Nicolas Cage bonanza, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and talk about some other fantastic movies and shows you should see!

More from Bruce Miller: The Northman Viola Davis says playing Michelle Obama terrified her Johnny Knoxville runs his 'Jackass' friends through the paces Time for magic: Magic Johnson details his life's ups and downs 'Swimming with Sharks' tarnishes Hollywood's rep in the best way Diane Kruger wanted to believe the myth of Hollywood, too Kathleen Robertson says 'Swimming with Sharks' has plenty of precedent

Where to watch: The Northman (official site) The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (official site) The Bad Guys (official site) Everything Everywhere All At Once (official site) Russian Doll, S2 (April 20; NETFLIX) The Flight Attendant, S2 Premiere (April 21; HBO/Max) They Call Me Magic (April 22; Apple TV+) Barry, S3 (April 24; HBO/Max) The Man Who Fell to Earth (April 24; Showtime) Gaslit (Starz; April 24)

Links to other fun stuff we talked about in this episode: Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All (GQ) In “Russian Doll,” Natasha Lyonne Barrels Into the Past (The New Yorker) Slow Burn: Watergate (Slate) Hot Dog Finger Gloves (A24)

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We're looking back real quick this week and giving some knee-jerk reactions to the new Michael Bay action extravaganza, Ambulance, as well as the over-the-top epic Indian film RRR.

Looking ahead we preview new movies in theaters (Fantastic Beasts and Father Stu), some great new shows coming to the small-screen this weekend (Roar on Apple and The First Lady on Showtime), and wrap up with an interview with Kiernan Shipka, Diane Kruger, and Kathleen Robertson, the stars and show-runner of Swimming with Sharks which premieres on Roku Friday, April 15.

More from Bruce Miller: Surprises are still in store no matter how many 'Spider-Man' spoilers you know An offer they could refuse: 'The Offer' details how 'The Godfather' almost didn't get made 'Take risks,' comedian Pete Holmes says. 'It pays off' -- even with a TV series New boxed set brings 'Godfather' back in all its glory

Where to watch: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (official site) Father Stu (official site) Ambulance (official site) Swimming with Sharks (Roku; April 15) Roar (Apple TV+; April 15) The First Lady (Showtime; April 17) Gaslit (Starz; April 24) The Offer (Paramount+; April 28)

"‘Fantastic Beasts’: How Scandal and Controversy Have Derailed the Wizarding Franchise" (VARIETY) "David Lynch Says He Doesn’t Have A New Movie For Cannes Film Festival" (DEADLINE)

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It's now been over a week since Will Smith walked on stage and slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, so we check in on if our feelings have changed over the course of the multitude of hot-take think-piece articles that have been all but unavoidable.

Also, we have some thoughts on the new Marvel-connected vampire movie Morbius, Richard Linklater's latest rotoscope gem Apollo 10½, look ahead to Michael Bay's upcoming action heist movie Ambulance, and so many other solid shows and movies heading our collective way soon!

More from Bruce Miller: Enough already. 'Scream 5' more details than you need Ken Burns documentary shows why Ben Franklin was America's 'go-to' 'Better Nate Than Ever' is a great Broadway primer Delaying the vote: Grammy picks could be off the charts this year Familiar territory doesn't help Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum in 'The Lost City'

Streaming: Ambulance (official site) Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (Netflix) The Bubble (Netflix) Moon Knight (Disney+) Morbius (official site) Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (official site) Tokyo Vice (HBO Max) Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (HBO Max)

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Well, The Oscars... sure did happen! We've got a bunch of immediate reactions to all the good, the bad, and the surprisingly ugly stuff that went down, including some predictions about the changes the Academy Awards might make in the future.

All that, plus there's a list down below of where you can stream a whole bunch of the movies, both winners and runners up alike!

More from Bruce Miller: Julia Child defied television's odds because she 'made you feel better.' Jennifer Lopez says 'I do' to only so much in 'Marry Me' 'X' doesn't mark the spot -- or anything else 'Atlanta' deals with plenty of issues in much-awaited third season Jonathan Bailey brings the heat in 'Bridgerton's' second season

Streaming: Attica (Amazon Prime) Being the Ricardos (Amazon Prime) CODA (Apple+) Coming 2 America (Amazon Prime) Cruella (Disney+) Don't Look Up (Netflix) Drive My Car (HBO Max) Dune (HBO Max) Encanto (Disney+) The Eyes of Tammy Faye (HBO Max) Flee (Hulu) Four Good Days (Hulu) Free Guy (HBO Max; Disney+) The Hand of God (Netflix) King Richard (HBO Max) The Lost Daughter (Netflix) Luca (Disney+) The Mitchells vs. The Machines (Netflix) Nightmare Alley (HBO Max; Hulu) The Power of the Dog (Netflix) Raya and the Last Dragon (Disney+) Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Disney+) Spencer (Hulu) Summer of Soul (Hulu; Disney+) tick, tick...BOOM! (Netflix) The Tragedy of Macbeth (Apple+) West Side Story (HBO Max; Disney+)

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Could there be a Power of the Dog sweep? Can CODA ride its current buzz to Best Picture? Will West Side Story star Rachel Zegler get a ticket?

As Jared says early on, this episode is chock-a-block with Oscar talk what with the Academy Awards being juuuust around the corner (on ABC this Sunday, 8:00 p.m. EST / 5:00 p.m. PST).

But first, we wade into some reactions to the new horror film X and then preview two upcoming features The Lost City and Everything Everywhere All At Once, as well as get the lowdown on the new season of Atlanta landing on FX and Hulu.

For more Oscars coverage, check out past episodes featuring Bruce's interviews with Academy Award nominees Kodi Smit-McPhee (HERE) and legendary songwriter Diane Warren (HERE)!

You can see our locked-in Oscars picks here: Bruce: https://www.goldderby.com/my-predictions/brucer/oscars-winners-2022-predictions/ Jared: https://www.goldderby.com/my-predictions/twoheadedboy98/oscars-winners-2022-predictions/ Chris: https://www.goldderby.com/my-predictions/toteschris/oscars-winners-2022-predictions/

More from Bruce Miller: What happens after 'Power of the Dog'? Kodi Smit-McPhee has a theory Who will win the Oscars? There's plenty of 'Power' in the nominations Simon Rex hangs on (to good effect) in 'Red Rocket' Characters crowd for attention in 'Welcome to Flatch' Actor Daniel Durant says the response to 'CODA' has been overwhelming

In Theaters: The Lost City (Official site) Everything Everywhere All At Once (Official site)

Streaming: Atlanta (March 24; FX/Hulu) King Richard (March 24; HBO/Max)

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This week: Bruce had a fantastic conversation with Sam Straley and Holmes, stars of 'Welcome to Flatch' which premieres March 17 on Fox. Plus: X a new horror film from Ti West (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) lands in theaters, and we talk about a handful of thrillers (most notably Windfall on Netflix and Deep Water on Hulu) you can watch at home!

We get into bunch of other interesting movie and TV stuff too, especially what with the big Oscars countdown clock starting to audibly ticking down (11 days and 7 hours as I type this) so you know things are starting to heat up over here.

AND you should check out last week's episode if you haven't already for Bruce's interview with Kodi Smit McPhee. Where? How about... RIGHT HERE

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More from Bruce Miller: Amanda Seyfried looks to see what makes Elizabeth Holmes tick in 'The Dropout' 'WeCrashed' lets Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway dig into 'WeWork' 'Nightmare Alley' puts Cate Blanchett and Bradley Cooper in play 'Welcome to Flatch' seeks to capture small-town life Pixar's 'Turning Red' addresses new issues while targeting tweens "Power of the Dog" actor Kodi Smit-McPhee talks about his Oscar nomination

In Theaters: X (Official site) The Outfit (Official site)

Streaming: Welcome to Flatch (March 17; Fox) Windfall (March 16; Netflix) Cheaper by the Dozen (March 18; Disney+) Deep Water (March 18; HULU) Life and Beth (March 18; HULU)

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Here's Bruce's chat with Kodi Smit-McPhee, who won the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe this past January, and earned an Oscar nomination, for his turn as Peter Gordon opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in across-the-board Academy Award frontrunner Power of the Dog (Netflix).

Also in this episode: First thoughts on The Batman, Turning Red, The Thing About Pam, plus some other great recommendations ranging from blockbusters on demand to sports to somehow even more(?!) Joe Exotic content.

More from Bruce Miller: 'The Batman' takes a 'Godfather' approach to fighting crime Humor often masks the real 'Thing About Pam' Tonight, it's time to extol the virtues of 'West Side Story's' Mike Faist

In Theaters: The Batman (official site)

Streaming: Turning Red (March 11; Disney+) The Thing About Pam (March 9; HULU & Peacock) Game Theory with Bomani Jones (March 13; HBO) Dune (March 10; HBO Max) Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic (March 8; Peacock)

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This week the big news is that we're finally getting to talk about Robert Pattinson as The Batman, but we've also got a bunch of ripped-from-the-headlines type true-crime...ish(?) shows premiering that we want to round up, and there are some fantastic Oscar nominated movies from last year landing on subscription streaming platforms that you are going to want to know about.

More from Bruce Miller: 'Killing Eve' has profound effect on actors Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh (Feb 27, 2022) DVD REVIEW: 'Belfast' looms as emotional favorite for Best Picture (Feb 27, 2022) Peter Dinklage shines in a 'Cyrano' that doesn't always sing (Feb 26, 2022)

In Theaters: The Batman (official site)

Streaming: Joe Vs. Carole (March 3; Peacock) The Dropout (3-Ep Ltd Series Premiere March 3; HULU) Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty (March 6; HBO Max) Drive My Car (March 2; HBO/Max) West Side Story (March 2; HBO/Max) Benedetta (March 4; HULU)

And, as promised, here's a link to the twitter thread of Guillermo del Toro dissecting a sequence from West Side Story: https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/1497625522041352192

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This week the theater marquee finally reads Cyrano in bright flashing lights, and the streaming slate is heavy on action flicks that should have done better in theaters but might find a new life now that they're easier to see in the comfort of your own home. Also on the docket is a great documentary feature from a few years back that is well-worth your time if you've missed it. You'll hear all that and somehow still even more on the other side of the play button.

More from Bruce Miller: Tom Holland sets sail in well-charted 'Uncharted' waters (Feb 21, 2022) Starting over is a big part of new 'Mrs. Maisel' season (Feb 18, 2022)

In Theaters Cyrano (official site)

Streaming The 355 (Feb 25; Peacock) Free Guy (Feb 23; HBO Max & Disney+) The French Dispatch (Feb 25; HBO Max) No Exit (Feb 25; Hulu) The Protégé (Feb 25; Amazon Prime) Three Identical Strangers (Feb 27; Hulu)

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Bruce, Jared and Chris chased down a lot of tangents this week, including some stray thoughts about the state of Star Wars shows on Disney+, the upcoming Lord of the Rings series on Amazon Prime, and just-announced Oscars hosts.

And of course they round up all the brand new movies and TV shows worth seeing:

In Theaters Dog (Official site) Uncharted (Official site)

Streaming Marry Me (Peacock, available now) Blackhat (Netflix, Feb. 16) Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy (Netflix, Feb. 16) Fistful of Vengeance (Netflix, Feb. 17) Severance (AppleTV+, Feb. 18) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Netflix, Feb. 18) The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, season 4 (Amazon, Feb. 18) Space Force, season 2 (Netflix, Feb. 18)

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Last week Bruce Miller had a great conversation with legendary songwriter Diane Warren whose song "Somehow You Do" (YouTube) from the movie Four Good Days (Hulu) did in fact get nominated for an Oscar on Tuesday morning, so go on back an episode and catch that HERE if you missed it the first time around.

No new interview this week, but we had a great talk about the Oscar nominations we liked, loved, and loath... uh... didn't like so much. Down below you'll find a handy dandy list of the nominated films you can stream right now and where to stream them.

Also we round up some of the brand new movies and TV shows worth seeing: Death on the Nile (Theaters; Feb. 11) Kimi (HBO Max; Feb. 10) Bel-Air (Peacock; Feb. 13) The Sky Is Everywhere (Apple TV+; Feb. 11) Copshop (Peacock; Feb. 10) The Afterparty (Apple TV+)

Oscar Nominated Films

NETFLIX Don't Look Up The Hand of God (International Feature) The Lost Daughter The Mitchells vs. The Machines The Power of the Dog tick, tick...BOOM!

HULU Four Good Days Nightmare Alley Spencer Summer of Soul (Documentary Feature)

DISNEY+ Encanto Luca Raya and the Last Dragon

AMAZON Attica (Documentary Feature) Being the Ricardos

HBO Max The Eyes of Tammy Faye Nightmare Alley

APPLE TV+ CODA The Tragedy of Macbeth

PARAMOUNT+ Ascension (Documentary Feature)

The 94th annual Academy Awards will be on Sunday, March 27 with a live telecast on ABC, and you can find the full list of nominees at oscars.org.

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Grab some popcorn and get comfortable as "Jackass Forever" and "Moonfall" hit theaters, while "Pam & Tommy" drops on Hulu.

We round up those along with "Nightmare Alley," "Murderville" and "Red Rocket" to give you six new movies and TV shows that are worth checking out.

Bruce Miller has a great conversation with legendary songwriter Diane Warren who, over the course of her career, has been nominated for twelve Academy Awards but somehow has yet to snag an Oscar statue.

Nominations will be announced this weekend and her song "Somehow You Do" (YouTube) from the movie "Four Good Days" (Hulu) might make it a baker's dozen and then maybe finally put her over the line with a win!

Here is a roundup of the brand new movies and TV shows worth seeing:

Jackass Forever (In theaters Feb. 4)

"It's Three Stooges-level in terms of physical comedy. They sell it perfectly. The way they set up the stunts perfectly to maximize the laughs. They're geniuses in that respect. And also it's just fun to hang out with those guys." - Jared

Pam & Tommy (Hulu, Feb. 2)

"Lily James is playing Pam Anderson and she is incredible! Incredible! She is exactly like Pam Anderson. I have interviewed Pam and I know what she's like and I know the kind of coy things she does and this woman captures every bit of it... I think they captures=d their personalities just right on." - Bruce

Moonfall (In theaters Feb. 4)

"I might just go watch people fight the moon this weekend. I'm all in on that. It looks incredibly stupid and I'm totally fine with that." - Jared

Nightmare Alley (HBO Max and HULU, Feb. 1)

"Bradley Cooper, especially the last part, is doing some of my favorite work that I've seen him do. His last little turn is fantastic." - Jared

Murderville (Netflix, Feb. 3)

"It sounds like it could be really interesting, or... not that? ... I'm really interested to see what the execution is going to be like!" - Chris

Red Rocket (A24 Screening Room, Feb. 5)

"I think there are going to be surprises, like Nicolas Cage nominated for best actor for Pig. And Simon Rex is another one that could be slipping into that category. As much as people think Denzel Washington is a lock for The Tragedy of Macbeth, I think he could get bounced by one of those two." - Bruce

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For this episode we hung out with everyone's friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in a spoiler free fashion, wandered down Nightmare Alley, and put together a top-ten list of our collective favorite movies from the year.

After all that you can hear an interview Bruce did with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill about their roles on the Yellowstone prequel series, 1883.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Bad Trip The French Dispatch Titane Pig Malignant The Card Counter King Richard The Last Duel tick, tick...BOOM! West Side Story Nightmare Alley Spider-Man: No Way Home

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For this week we are clearing the way to pretty much focus in on West Side Story, but certainly end up talking about other great new movies worth seeing if they're at a theater in your area this weekend but (frustratingly!) more than likely won't be out for at least another week or two.

For the Staff Picks section we take a look at some of the great under-the-radar roles from Andrew Garfield who Bruce had the pleasure of talking with the other day. Keep listening and the audio of that chat will be right there waiting at the end!

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. 99 Homes The Eyes of Tammy Faye Licorice Pizza Nightmare Alley Red Rocket tick, tick...BOOM! Under the Silver Lake West Side Story

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On this episode we'll be covering Ridley Scott's second film of the year, House Of Gucci, the new Netflix awards contender, Power of the Dog, and an angsty adaptation of a Tony Award wining one-act play, The Humans.

For the Staff Picks section we give you our desert island Christmas movies which end up being surprises all around!

At the end of this episode you'll get to hear Bruce's interview with Piper Perabo about her work on Yellowstone.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Bad Santa A Christmas Story Edward Scissorhands House of Gucci The Humans The Power of the Dog

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For this episode we get into the new Ghostbusters movie and explore some of the issues that franchise seems to keep having, as well as look at King Richard, the new Oscar buzzy biopic about Venus and Serena Williams' father starring Will Smith, that's in theaters and on HBO Max.

At the end of this episode you'll get to hear Bruce interview with legendary character actor Tim Blake Nelson and director Potsy Ponciroli, who have a new movie out called Old Henry so in the spirit of that chat we rounded up a few of Tim Blake Nelson's best roles in the Staff Picks section.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs C'mon C'mon The French Dispatch Ghostbusters: Afterlife King Richard Minority Report O Brother, Where Art Thou? Old Henry tick, tick...BOOM!

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This week saw the release of a handful of interesting movies, including tick tick boom!, the new Jonathan Larsen biopic starring Andrew Garfield directed by Lin Manuel Miranda, which is in theaters for a week before coming to Netflix late next week, Red Notice, a big budget action heist type thing starring the Rock, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gadot, which premiered on Netflix today, and Home Sweet Home Alone which does exactly what it says on the tin and can be found on Disney Plus.

For our Staff Picks we decided to highlight movies set in newsrooms that were about print media. Why? Well, there's a new documentary premiering on PBS this coming Monday, called Storm Lake, about small-town Iowa newspaper the Storm Lake Times, and we're pretty excited to share an interview our own Bruce Miller did recently with Storm Lake's Pulitzer Prize winning editor Art Cullen.

Storm Lake, directed by Jerry Risius and Beth Levison, premieres Monday Nov. 15 on PBS at 10/9c. Check your local listings.

More information here: https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/storm-lake/

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. All the President's Men Between the Lines Bruised His Girl Friday Home Sweet Home Alone The Post Red Notice tick, tick...BOOM! Zodiac

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This week we all caught up with Last Night in Soho, the new nostalgia horror genre pastiche from Edgar Wright, drank from the cosmological fire hose that is Marvel's The Eternals, put on our fancy pants to contemplate Kristen Stewart's Oscar odds with the Princess Diana biopic Spencer, and took a quick shot at the new Netflix western The Harder They Fall.

For our Staff Picks we took a page from the new post-apocalypse Tom Hanks movie, Finch, which premieres on Apple TV+ and rounded up some of our favorite dystopias, with a brief aside to rank the Mad Max movies.

Then, finally, we take a look at the latest movie news.

Bruce's interview with Nathalie Morris, collections curator at the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, and you can find that HERE:

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Day of the Dead Eternals Finch The Harder They Fall Last Night in Soho Love and Monsters Mad Max Monsters Old Henry Spencer This Is the End

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This week we managed to get er even more done talking about Dune, the new sci-fi epic directed by Denis Villeneuve, we cranked the whimsey up to eleven with Wes Anderson's new anthology film The French Dispatch, and went all in on the new Wendigo movie Antlers.

For our Staff Picks we were inspired by the Last Night in Soho and the latest Paranormal Activity movie Next of Kin, and have a handful of ghostly movies to recommend.

Then, finally, we take a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them.

Antlers

Beetlejuice

The Changeling

The Conjuring

Dune

The French Dispatch

Last Night in Soho

Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin

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Here's a fun little bonus convo between co-hosts Jared McNett and Chris Lay about all things Halloween related since we're still thinking about HALLOWEEN KILLS, the latest entry in David Gordon Green's eventual trilogy, and also I mean tis the season, right?

Any which way, there aren't any spoilers per se at least not any that aren't pretty clear from the outset I guess... Enjoy!

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This week we're burrowing deeper under the earth-toned blanket of October with David Gordon Green's second installment in his take on the Halloween franchise. Also on the docket is the latest historical epic from Ridley Scott, The Last Duel.

For our Staff Picks section we're channeling Michael Meyers and hashing out our favorite horror remakes and sequels.

Then, finally, we take a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. The Devil's Rejects The Electrical Life of Louis Wain The Exorcist III Halloween Kills Lamb The Last Duel Psycho The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 Titane

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This week we spend arguably too much time talking about the new James Bond movie, No Time to Die, and then get into the new cancel-culture angled slasher on Netflix, There's Someone Inside Your House.

For the Staff Picks portion of the show, we round up a handful of low-budget indie horror movies worth seeking out.

Then, finally, we take a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon The Blair Witch Project Blood Feast Casino Royale Creep Dementia 13 Dr. No GoldenEye Goldfinger Murder Party No Time to Die Skyfall There's Someone Inside Your House

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This week there are a few interesting movies to get into, ranging from the Sopranos prequel The Many Saints of Newark which is in theaters and on HBO Max, The Guilty, an adaptation of a Swedish thriller set entirely in a 911 dispatch center which is on Netflix, and Diana: The Musical, which does exactly what it says on the tin, and also hits Netflix today.

It's the first of five episodes set for October so we're using the new theatrical release, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, as a springboard to talk about our favorite examples of the "body horror" sub-genre.

Then, finally, we take a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Dead Ringers Diana: The Musical End of Watch The Fly Freaky The Guilty (2018) The Guilty (2021) Happy Death Day In the Mouth of Madness The Many Saints of Newark Venom: Let There Be Carnage

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This week the big release is the Broadway adaptation Dear Evan Hansen which, despite winning a pile of Tony Awards, has been a lightning rod for controversy and racked up generally bad reviews one of which comes from our very own Bruce Miller. Also on the slate is Birds of Paradise, a teen drama set in a french ballet school, which fared a bit better.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of Zoolander so we spend the Staff Picks section mulling over some of the finer work from Ben Stiller, even tossing out a deep cut by way of a failed TV pilot which is truly one fo the furthest out there shows to ever even get that far in the production process.

Then, finally, we take a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Along Came Polly Birds of Paradise Buster's Mal Heart The Cable Guy Cry Macho Dear Evan Hansen The Eyes of Tammy Faye Holidays LuLaRich Meet the Parents The Perks of Being a Wallflower The Secret Life of Walter Mitty World's Greatest Dad Zoolander

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The show is hosted by Bruce Miller, an entertainment reporter for multiple decades who is currently the editor of the Sioux City Journal, Jared McNett, a reporter for the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa, and me, Chris Lay, podcast operations manager for Lee.

This week the big release is The Eyes of Tammy Faye, starring Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield but, if a campy biopic isn't your speed, you can opt for Cry Macho, the latest from Clint Eastwood, or get yourself some assassin versus assassin action with Joe Carnahan's CopShop.

We devoted the majority of the staff picks section to hashing out Oscar buzz from the first half of the year as well as look ahead to some of the big awards season flicks coming out across the next couple of months.

Then, we follow that up with a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. The Amazing Spider-Man The Big Sick Copshop Cry Macho Den of Thieves The Eyes of Tammy Faye Fall From Grace The Mule Narc Running Scared

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There's a decent slate of movies to recommend this week, ranging from a Tony award winning musical premiering on Apple+, the latest horror offering from James Wan on HBO Max, a spicy action thriller hitting Netflix, and a new feature from Paul Schrader which is being dealt out to theaters.

Also: This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of September 11th, so we picked out a handful of films worth watching that present a unique perspective on that tragedy.

Then, we follow that up with a look at the latest movie news.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. 25th Hour Bitter Lake The Card Counter Come From Away Kate Malignant Man on Wire The Power of Nightmares United 93

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Not too many movies out this weekend other than the latest big budget Marvel spectacle, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, so we get into that but also some other real fun stuff.

Expect tangents taking us down a Clint Eastwood rabbit hole, chatter about the latest documentary series from Spike Lee, and a random recommendation that sits snugly in the center of a venn diagram for James Bond and, uh... Nascar.

Also we talk about the biggest bit of movie news from this week.

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Cinderella

NYC Epicenters 9/11➔2021½

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This weekend is all about... [say it with me] CANDYMAN... CANDYMAN... CANDYMAN... CANDYMAN... ok STOP!

But hey if horror ain't your thing we've also got John Cena and Lil Rel Howery in VACATION FRIENDS, a screwball couples comedy hitting Hulu, and the dark side of PBS's permed out peaceful painter Bob Ross in a documentary on Netflix.

Speaking of Netflix, He's all That, a gender-flipped reimagining of She's All That premieres this weekend and got us thinking about what movies we'd wanna see recast with opposites and why!

And... finally... we'll each take a whack at some of the latest movie news!

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them.

The King of Comedy

Dick Tracy

Candyman

Forrest Gump

Bulworth

Swimfan

Candyman

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed

Vacation Friends

He's All That

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This week provides a pretty well-rounded slate of flicks hitting screens both big and small, including the near-future sci-fi noir, Reminiscence, a ghostly thriller, The Night House, some assassin action with The Protege, and Jason Momoa fighting for his family in Sweet Girl.

In honor of the operatic arthouse musical, Annette, which opened the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, took home their award for best director, and is now streaming on Amazon Prime, we're sharing some of our favorite truly strange musical films in the Staff Picks section.

And finally... we'll each take a whack at some of the latest movie news!

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Phantom of the Paradise 1974 Xanadu 1980 Popeye 1980 Streets of Fire 1984 Dune 1984 Short Cuts 1993 Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem 2003 Super Dark Times 2017 The Ritual 2017 Free Guy 2021 The Night House 2020 Annette 2021 Reminiscence 2021 The Protégé 2021 Together Together 2021 Sweet Girl 2021

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This week we found out what Respect, the new Aretha Franklin biopic, means to Bruce, checked in with Chris about a new thriller on Netflix, Beckett, and got Jared's semi-spicy take on Don't Breathe 2, which led to our staff picks section where we kicked around the least necessary horror suspense thriller sequels.

And finally... we'll get into some of the latest movie news!

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Free Guy Don't Breathe 2 Respect Beckett Exorcist II: The Heretic Speed 2: Cruise Control The Matrix: Reloaded/Revolutions

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This week there was exactly one massive blockbuster, James Gunn's Suicide Squad, which you can see in a theater or on HBO Max ... Exactly one animated musical, Vivo, which stars Lin-Manuel Miranda and can be found on Netflix ... AND there was exactly one documentary, VAL, a fascinating retrospective of actor Val Kilmer's brilliant and tumultuous career which was just released on Amazon Prime.

Keeping with the Val theme, for the Staff Picks section we went all in on our fave Kilmer roles.

And finally... we'll get into some of the latest movie news!

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Stillwater Green Knight Suicide Squad Vivo Val Doors Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Deja Vu

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This week we covered a solid crop of new releases including hot commodities like Disney's Jungle Cruise, the new Matt Damon drama Stillwater, A24's hotly anticipated indie gem The Green Knight, and The Last Mercenary, a French action farce starring Jean-Claude Van Damme that just hit Netflix.

For the Staff Picks section we suggested a few movies set in Tokyo and maybe give a bit more context to the current Summer Olympics host-city.

And finally... we'll get into some of the latest movie news!

Below is our roundup of the movies we talk about, along with links to where you can stream them. Stillwater The Green Knight Jungle Cruise The Last Mercenary The Suicide Squad Old The Grudge Akira Lost in Translation

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This week we talked about the new Nicolas Cage movie, Pig, chewed on the Anthony Bourdain documentary Roadrunner, and rounded up new releases worth checking out.

For the 'Staff Picks' section we went deep on our favorite Nic Cage movies and hopefully put a spotlight on a couple that are in need of a little more love.

And finally, we'll get into some of the latest movie news.

Here are the movies Bruce, Chris and Jared talk about with links to where you can stream them. Pig Roadrunner Old Adaptation. Wild at Heart

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This weekend is all about the new Space Jam movie in theaters and on HBO Max and maybe the third and final entry in the Fear Street franchise over on Netflix if horror is more your speed, but we make sure to toss out a few other gems worth digging into.

Keeping with the sports vibe, we round up some of the best examples of athletes on the silver screen.

And finally, we'll get into some of the latest movie news.

Here are the movies Bruce, Chris and Jared talk about with links to where you can stream them. Fear Street Part 3: 1666 Space Jam: A New Legacy Pig Gunpowder Milkshake Shiva Baby Uncut Gems They Live Personal Best

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It's a pretty slow weekend for new releases, with only two to really highlight, but one of them is Black Widow which breaks the covid-induced two-year Marvel Cinematic Universe dry spell since Spider-Man: Far From Home hit theaters in July of 2019.

Since there's not much else to chat about, we wrangle ourselves a list of our fave films of the year so far.

And finally, we'll get into some of the latest movie news including an interesting profile of Paul Verhoeven.

Here are the movies Bruce, Chris and Jared talk about with links to where you can stream them. Black Widow No Sudden Move Fear Street Part 2: 1978 The Forever Purge @zola Bad Trip A Quiet Place Part II Nobody Judas and the Black Messiah The Mitchells vs. The Machines In the Heights

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This is a pretty big weekend for new streaming content, including No Sudden Move, a new heist movie from Steven Soderbergh on HBO Max, the first of a new horror trilogy, Fear Street Part 1: 1994, and the gleefully profane alternate animated history, America: The Motion Picture on Netflix. In theaters you've got Zola, a flashy new indie flick from A24 based on a viral twitter thread and The Forever Purge, the fifth and supposedly final film in that franchise.

Speaking of unorthodox source material, we round up a few good films that also got their start from non-traditional places.

And, finally: The latest movie news!

Here's most of the movies Bruce, Chris and Jared talk about with links to where you can stream them. No Sudden Move Fear Street Part 1: 1994 America: The Motion Picture The Forever Purge Zola The Tomorrow War

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So far as new releases go, this weekend is all about F9, which Bruce, Chris and Jared make sure to touch on, but there are also some interesting movies hitting streaming services that get highlighted as well.

Then, with Liam Neeson's latest middlebrow action flick, The Ice Road, hitting Netflix, the time is ripe to celebrate some perhaps lesser known Neeson films that are well worth tracking down.

And, finally: The latest movie news!

Here's most of the movies Bruce, Chris and Jared talk about with links to where you can stream them. Good on Paper 2021 F9 2021 False Positive 2021 The Ice Road 2021 Kinsey 2004 Walk Amongst the Tombstones 2014 Cold Pursuit 2019

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With movies now getting back to some sort of normal, Bruce, Chris and Jared had plenty of reviews to offer on such films as In the Heights, the third Conjuring flick and Wrath of Man where Jason Statham is as lovable as ever even while doing unspeakable things in the name of revenge.

Then, our intrepid hosts turn to celebrating The Fast and Furious franchise marking 20 years with the release of a ninth film at the end of the month. They pay tribute by recommending movies that fans of the series may love and debate who’s never been in one of these family films but should.

Finally, the trio talks about the latest movie news including Quentin Tarantino, again, talking about retiring after his 10th film. They’re also intrigued by the news that Rob Zombie is directing a Munsters flick and gush about Bo Burnham’s latest Netflix special.

Here's most of the movies they talk about with links to where you can stream them. In The Heights 2021 Infinite 2021 The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It 2021 Bo Burnham: Inside 2021 Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard 2021 Awake 2021 Wrath of Man 2021 Luca 2021 Queen Bees 2021

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Bruce, Jared, and Chris breakdown what's what with everything coming out worth seeing in a theater or streaming from your couch. After that they revisit the 2011 Cannes Film Festival ten years after the fact followed by the latest movie news before they round third and finish up with a discussion of literature they'd want to see adapted by the one and only Zack Snyder just for funsies!

Here's most of the movies they talk about with links to where you can stream them. Cruella 2021 Those Who Wish Me Dead 2021 A Quiet Place Part II 2020 Saint Maud 2020 Spiral: From the Book of Saw 2021 Plan B 2021 Drive 2011 This Must Be the Place 2011 The Artist 2011 OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies 2006 Booksmart 2019

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This Sunday is Mother's Day so Jared, Bruce and Chris thought it would be fun to have a little back 'n forth about the best and worst moms ever to grace the silver screen.

Before that they hash out a few news items including Paddington 2 unseating Citizen Kane as the freshest film ever certified over at Rotten Tomatoes, and also follow up on our Oscar coverage now that Soderbergh is out there giving interviews about the going on behind the scenes at the ceremony.

Below is a roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Psycho 1960 The Sound of Music 1965 Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore 1974 Carrie 1976 Friday the 13th 1980 Mommie Dearest 1981 Sophie’s Choice 1982 Back to the Future 1985 Throw Momma from the Train 1987 Home Alone 1990 Terminator 2: Judgment Day 1991 American Pie 1999 Almost Famous 2000 The Blind Side 2009 Moonlight 2016 Lady Bird 2017 I, Tonya 2017 Booksmart 2019

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Oscars! Oscars! Oscars!

Today we are all punch drunk from all things Oscar that went down last night and hoo boy do we have some thoughts!

Jared, Bruce and Chris recorded this episode directly after the ceremony ended, rather abruptly as it were, which we for sure get into. Also we hash out some of the snubs, surprises, sling a little shade, and rate the deeply divisive ceremony overall with some teacher approved letter grades.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 2020 The Celebration 1998 The Father 2020 Hillbilly Elegy 2020 Judas and the Black Messiah 2021 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 2020 Mank 2020 Minari 2020 Nomadland 2020 One Night in Miami… 2020 Promising Young Woman 2020 Sound of Metal 2019 The Trial of the Chicago 7 2020 The United States vs. Billie Holiday 2021

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Here we are, taking one last look at our Oscar picks before the red carpet gets rolled out on Sunday evening, passing our predictions on to you! We don't agree across the board, of course, but it's that kinda tension that gives spice to life, right?

Oh and also there's a very unexpected digression into the Danish filmmaking movement known as Dogme 95 but we promise it's painless and gives Bruce a good reason to bust out his Abe Froman ("Sausage King of Chicago") impression.

Make sure you're subscribed to the show so you can hear our reactions to the winners and losers and everything inbetween on Monday morning!

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Welcome to a BONUS episode of Just to be Nominated, a podcast about movies distributed by Lee Enterprises.

For this little episode, co-hosts Chris Lay (podcast operations manager for Lee) and Jared McNett (reporter for the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa) talked about The Movie Theater Experience in general, but also specifically as it pertains to seat-filling blockbuster flicks like Godzilla versus Kong, which Jared saw this past weekend in a real honest to god movieplex!

Next time we'll be factoring in winners and losers at the Directors Guild of America Awards and taking a last look at our personal Oscar expectations. So! Make sure you're subscribed to the show on whatever platform you listen to your podcasts on.

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Last time you heard from us, we were breaking down the Oscar nominations.

This time we're doing the same for the Screen Actors Guild awards handed out on Sunday which, of course, will have some repercussions on who walks away with an Oscars in a few weeks. As an added bonus the second chunk of the show is spent on an unexpected digression into why Marvel movies work and DC movies... don't.

This time, since just this morning the Academy announced their nominations, we wanted to chew the fat and share our thoughts!

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Judas and the Black Messiah 2021 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 2020 Mank 2020 Minari 2020 Nomadland 2020 Promising Young Woman 2020

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Last time you heard from us, we were going over the big winners and losers at the Golden Globe awards.

This time, since just this morning the Academy announced their nominations, we wanted to chew the fat and share our thoughts!

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 2020 Judas and the Black Messiah 2021 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 2020 Mank 2020 Minari 2020 Nomadland 2020 One Night in Miami… 2020 Pieces of a Woman 2020 Promising Young Woman 2020 The United States vs. Billie Holiday 2021

Next up we will be back here in a couple of weeks to factor the Screen Actors Guild award winners into our respective Oscar algorithms so make sure you're subscribed to the show on whatever service you're listening to us now on.

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Most of the time we pick five of our favorite films on a theme or concept and go back and forth hashing them all out.

This time is a little different since last night the Hollywood Foreign Press association handed out a whole bunch of their Golden Globe awards and we wanted to talk about it!

From the hosts and the brouhaha(s) around the Globes themselves to the big winners and losers, and maybe most important of all the effect the awards will have on the Oscars.

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Most of the time we pick five of our favorite films on a theme or concept and go back and forth hashing them all out. This time is a little different since we're fully int the throes of Award Season.

Last time you heard from us, we went category by category through the Golden Globe nominations.

The Golden Globe and the screen actor's guild nominations were announced and the oscars released a handful of their shortlists for lower-ticket awards, so we revisited some of the conversations from last week and added some Valentine's day staff picks for good measure.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Shape of Water (2017) Defending Your Life (1991) Hidden Life (2019) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 2020 Hillbilly Elegy 2020 Judas and the Black Messiah 2021 The Little Things 2021 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 2020 Mank 2020 Minari 2020 Nomadland 2020 One Night in Miami… 2020 Pieces of a Woman 2020 Promising Young Woman 2020 The United States vs. Billie Holiday 2021

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Last time you heard from us, we began hashing out what we expected to be front-runners heading into the Golden Globe award nominations being announced. This time we've got the full list of nominees at our fingertips, so to mark the occasion we checked in and went category by category with our thoughts on what made the cut, what we think will win, and what was left out.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm 2020 Emma. 2020 The Father 2020 French Exit 2020 Hamilton 2020 Hillbilly Elegy 2020 I Care a Lot 2020 Judas and the Black Messiah 2021 La llorona 2019 The Little Things 2021 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 2020 Mank 2020 The Mauritanian 2021 Minari 2020 Music 2021 News of the World 2020 Nomadland 2020 On the Rocks 2020 One Night in Miami… 2020 Over the Moon 2020 Palm Springs 2020 The Personal History of David Copperfield 2019 Pieces of a Woman 2020 The Prom 2020 Promising Young Woman 2020 Sound of Metal 2019 The Trial of the Chicago 7 2020 The United States vs. Billie Holiday 2021 Wolfwalkers 2020

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Last time you heard from us, we ran down our personal lists of favorite films from 2020 which was far and away one of the most unusual years for movies... ever.

For this episode we started up the awards chatter machine and began hashing out some of what we think are the front-runners heading into the Golden Globe award nominations being announced.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Palm Springs2020 The Invisible Man2020 Nomadland2020 The Trial of the Chicago 72020 Mank2020 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom2020

Also, Lee Enterprises just launched a really wonderful new podcast you might like, called The Ethical Life. It's hosted by Richard Kyte, director of the Ethics Institute at Viterbo University, and Scott Rada, Lee's social media manager, and every other week or so they'll explore the intersection of ethics and modern life. You can click the link above, or search for it on your pod player of choice!

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Last time you heard from us, we did the obvious thing and talked about Christmas movies! From certified classics to offbeat horror flicks, you can find that run down in our archives.

For this episode we ran down our personal lists of favorite films from 2020 which was far and away one of the most unusual years for movies... ever. Bruce had some great things to say about a recent Netflix release and all but assured Oscar contender, Chris's list was long on unsettling Covid-inspired picks, and Jared simply could not stick to movies (but no one holds that against him).

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Sound of Metal2019 Boys State2020 Palm Springs2020 The Invisible Man2020 The Last Dance2020 8:462020 Host2020 She Dies Tomorrow2020 I’m Thinking of Ending Things2020 Nomadland2020 The Trial of the Chicago 72020 I’m Your Woman2020 The Queen’s Gambit2020 Mank2020 Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom2020

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Last time you heard from us, we had turkey time on the mind and wrangled up fifteen of our favorite foodie films.

For this episode we did the obvious thing and talked about Christmas movies! Some are certified classics but others might be new to you or possibly didn't even register as Holiday fare. Any which way we hope you dig it!

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. A Charlie Brown Christmas 1965 Christmas Evil 1980 Trading Places 1983 A Christmas Story 1983 Gremlins 1984 Lethal Weapon 1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles 1987 Prancer 1989 Home Alone 1990 Batman Returns 1992 Home Alone 2: Lost in New York 1992 Elf 2003 Bad Santa 2003 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 2005 The Ice Harvest 2005

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Last time you heard from us we tried to lighten everyone's collective load in the days following the election and listed off some of our favorite mockumentaries. It's a list of flicks that might come in handy if a couple of weeks after the fact your nerves are still frazzled so check that out here if you need it.

This week, with Thanksgiving coming up on us fast, we decided to serve up a hearty list of hand-selected food-centric films to get your appetite going!

Along the way you'll hear some digressions into how many pieces of bubble gum Jared's chewed at one time, Bruce reminisces about being at the LA premiere of "Sausage Party' Chris shoes some love to arguably Steven Spielberg's biggest misfire, and the question of which fast food place makes the best french fries sparks controversy.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. The Last Laugh 1924 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory 1971 The Meaning of Life 1983 Stand by Me 1986 The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover 1989 Hook 1991 Big Night 1996 Hannibal 2001 Super Size Me 2004 Sideways 2004 Waitress 2007 Ratatouille 2007 The Trip 2010 Jiro Dreams of Sushi 2011 Chef 2014

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Last time you heard from us, we talked all about movies that creeped us the heck out as kids and as adults. It was a load of fun and you should definitely go check it out if you haven't yet!

Since, as of the time I we recorded this at least, the election has yet to be decisively called for either presidential candidate... we thought we'd round up some of our favorite mockumentaries in order to lighten everyone's collective load.

Stay tuned all the way to the end for a very special guest appearance!

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. The Town That Dreaded Sundown 1976 The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash 1978 Real Life 1979 Tanner ’88 1988 Medusa – Dare To Be Truthful 1991 Man Bites Dog 1992 Bob Roberts 1992 CB4 1993 Drop Dead Gorgeous 1999 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan 2006 Trailer Park Boys: The Movie 2006 Summer Heights High 2007 District 9 2009 Troll Hunter 2010 What We Do in the Shadows 2014 Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping 2016

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Last time you heard from us, we went all in on animated films, but this week we went the other way and got real spooky for Halloween with movies that creeped us the heck out.

Expect some horror classics for sure but also some curveballs including an unexpected pick you can stream on Disney+.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Psycho 1960 Mr. Sardonicus 1961 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 1974 Black Christmas 1974 Friday the 13th 1980 Pee-wee’s Big Adventure 1985 Flight of the Navigator 1986 Fatal Attraction 1987 The Exorcist III 1990 Ernest Scared Stupid 1991 Funny Games 1997 Contagion 2011 The Conjuring 2013 Green Room 2015 Midsommar 2019

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Last time you heard from us, we went all in on some of our favorite conspiracy-centric movies.

This week, we decided to tackle the wide world of animated films. From stop motion and Pixar to stone cold Disney classics and decidedly more adult fare, our pics ranged pretty far and wide so strap in for a fun ride.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Pinocchio 1940 Jack and the Beanstalk 1974 Who Framed Roger Rabbit 1988 Akira 1988 The Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 Waking Life 2001 The Triplets of Belleville 2003 The Simpsons Movie 2007 A Town Called Panic 2009 How to Train Your Dragon 2010 Toy Story 3 2010 It’s Such a Beautiful Day 2012 Wreck-It Ralph 2012 The Breadwinner 2017 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2018

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Last time you heard from us, we rounded up our top five literary adaptations. Books, short stories, even a graphic novel made an appearance.

This week, we fought some scheduling conflicts that may or may not have been organized by the deep state to bring you some of our favorite conspiracy-centric movies. So strap on your tinfoil helmet as your intrepid hosts wade into the cinematic swamp to see just how deep this rabbit hole goes.

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them: The Manchurian Candidate 1962 The Conversation 1974 All the President’s Men 1976 Hopscotch 1980 Blow Out 1981 Halloween III: Season of the Witch 1982 Secret Honor 1984 The Man with One Red Shoe 1985 They Live 1988 Jacob’s Ladder 1990 JFK 1991 Sneakers 1992 Wag the Dog 1997 Wormwood 2017 Tread 2019

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Last time you heard from us, was a quickie little bonus episode, but for one before that we argued over the which was the best movie year of the past two decades and defended our decision with five movies from that year.

This time we hit the books and celebrated the end of summer reading list season by talking up some of our favorite literary adaptations!

Below is our roundup along with links to where you can stream them. Metropolis 1927 The Wizard of Oz 1939 To Kill a Mockingbird 1962 The Friends of Eddie Coyle 1973 The Godfather: Part II 1974 Pet Sematary 1989 Short Cuts 1993 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas 1998 American Psycho 2000 O Brother, Where Art Thou? 2000 Ghost World 2001 Adaptation. 2002 No Country for Old Men 2007 Gerald’s Game 2017 Little Women 2019

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As a little Labor Day weekend treat I thought I'd put together a quick little bonus episode of Jared and Bruce and I talking about theaters reopening, along with assorted stray thoughts about a random assortment of other things.

If you've heard the show before, you know the kind of tangents we go off on, and if you don't know the show, well, we hope you like what you hear and go on back into the archives and check out our previous shows.

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Last time you heard from us, we rounded up some of our favorite movies that have a game aspect to them.

This week, we each set out to identify the best movie year of the past two decades and then defend our decision with five movies from that year.

Listen all the way to the end to hear Jared and Chris get blindsided by some unexpected hot takes from Bruce about a particular Mark Wahlberg movie!

Sadly, and here's a spoiler warning I guess, but none of us picked 2007 and thus this week there is no talk about BEE MOVIE, the 2007 computer-animated comedy starring Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger. Hot Fuzz 2007 Zodiac 2007 Grindhouse 2007 No Country for Old Men 2007 Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story 2007 Bully 2012 Silver Linings Playbook 2012 Lincoln 2012 Life of Pi 2012 Django Unchained 2012 First Reformed 2017 Mandy 2018 Sorry to Bother You 2018 Mission: Impossible – Fallout 2018 Roma 2018

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Last time you heard from us, we attempted to assemble a collection of movies that paint a well-rounded picture of America.

This week, for reasons that are still kind of unclear, we explored movies that have a game aspect to them. Video games, board games, hunger games, game shows... all the games!

If you listen all the way to the end you'll be treated to a completely off topic discussion about BEE MOVIE, the 2007 computer-animated comedy starring Jerry Seinfeld and Renée Zellweger that arguably should not exist. Tron 1982 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome 1985 Clue 1985 Stay Tuned 1992 Jumanji 1995 The Game 1997 eXistenZ 1999 Battle Royale 2000 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 2010 Wreck-It Ralph 2012 The Purge 2013 It Follows 2014 The Maze Runner 2014 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle 2017 Game Night 2018

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Last time you heard from us, we picked out some of our favorite films and shows on the new HBO streaming platform HBO Max.

For this episode, which we recorded on the Monday after Independence Day weekend, we attempted to assemble a collection of movies that paint a well-rounded picture of America.

Listen all the way to the end and you'll hear our unexpected recommendations for ridiculous new game shows!

Links to where you can stream or rent all of our picks can be found below: McCabe & Mrs. Miller 1971 Italianamerican 1974 The Conversation 1974 Nashville 1975 Rocky 1976 National Lampoon’s Vacation 1983 Crumb 1994 Dead Man 1995 The Cable Guy 1996 Saving Private Ryan 1998 25th Hour 2002 The Master 2012 The Wolf of Wall Street 2013 Get Out 2017 BlacKkKlansman 2018

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Last time you heard from us, we celebrated Memorial Day with a rundown of some of our favorite summer blockbusters.

For this episode, we decided to explore HBO MAX, the new subscription streaming service from HBO that offers way more than the usual fare from Home Box Office.

Links to where you can stream or rent all of our picks can be found below: Vampyr 1932 Bonnie and Clyde 1967 Point Blank 1967 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 Wattstax 1973 Wise Blood 1979 A Fish Called Wanda 1988 Dick Tracy 1990 Doubt 2008 Blindspotting 2019 Ready or Not 2019 The Not-Too-Late Show With Elmo 2020 Looney Tunes 2020 Legendary 2020 Love Life 2020

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Last time you heard from us, we were sharing some of our favorite "movies based on TV shows" since there were some renewed rumors floating around about a Community movie.

For this episode, recorded right before the Memorial Day weekend, wanted to chat about some of our favorite summer blockbusters.

Links to where you can stream or rent all of our picks can be found below: Friday the 13th 1980 Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial 1982 RoboCop 1987 Die Hard 1988 Jurassic Park 1993 True Lies 1994 Die Hard: With a Vengeance 1995 Independence Day 1996 Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace 1999 Spider-Man 2002 The Dark Knight 2008 Mad Max: Fury Road 2015

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Last time you heard from us, we (Bruce Miller, Jared McNett and myself Chris Lay) were sharing some of our favorite "sports movies" since for all intents and purposes no one really knows when we'll be able to actually get out there and root for some teams to compete against each other in... any fashion whatsoever.

This time out, since rumors of a Community movie are bubbling up to the surface again, we thought we'd run down some of the best movies that are based on TV shows.

Below are some links that will take you to where you can stream all the movies we talked about. The Muppet Movie WATCH The Meaning of Life WATCH The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! WATCH Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me WATCH The Fugitive WATCH Beavis and Butt-Head Do America WATCH Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker WATCH Jackass: The Movie WATCH Miami Vice WATCH Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan WATCH In the Loop WATCH 21 Jump Street WATCH Downton Abbey WATCH

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Last time out Bruce, Jared and Chris took a deep dive into some of our favorite "Comfort Movies" and for this episode we were thinking about things we're all going to miss out on thanks to our current state of quarantine and decoded to followed that up with a look at some Sports-centric fare.

The episode cuts off at the end due to some technical problems, but the full list (along with links to where you can watch them online) is below:

Breaking Away (1979 dir. Peter Yates) (Watch) Chariots of Fire (1981 dir. Hugh Hudson (Watch) A League of Their Own (1992 dir. Penny Marshall) (Watch) Happy Gilmore (1996 dir. Dennis Dugan) (Watch) BASEketball (1998 dir. David Zucker) (Watch) Friday Night Lights (2004 dir. Peter Berg) (Watch) Big Fan (2009 dir. Robert D. Siegel) (Watch) Moneyball (2011 dir. Bennett Miller) (Watch) Creed (2015 dir. Ryan Coogler) (Watch) Ford v Ferrari (2019 dir. James Mangold) (Watch)

Thanks for listening!

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It's been two weeks since our last episode, and in that time things have obviously... happened. We had originally planned on talking about Craig Zobel's film The Hunt (which was recently fast-tracked to VOD) but we decided to change things up and instead spend this time talking about some of our favorite "comfort movies."

Here's the quick list, with links to streaming services:

The Straight Story The Nice Guys (Cinemax) Tootsie (Netflix) Fright Night (Crackle) Logan Lucky (Amazon Prime) The Young Offenders (Netflix) Anima (Netflix) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Netflix) Hell or High Water (Netflix) The Shooting (Amazon and HBO) Jackie Brown (Starz) National Lampoon’s Vacation (Hulu) Drive (Netflix) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Netflix) Hoosiers (Starz)

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Onward comes out this weekend, so Bruce, Jared, and Chris are talking about all things Pixar, including their favorite films from the studio, which one-off movies should get sequels, and whether or not the Academy will ever award an animated film a Best Picture Oscar among other things.

You can find Bruce's review of Onward here.

Also at the end of their conversation, Chris chats with Jason Dean, a self-described “digital guy” for madison.com who, for over a decade now, has been organizing DUFF, the Digital Ubiquitous Film Festival, that every one of our listeners can take part in right from the comfort of their own couch regardless of whichever state they live in.

We'd love if you could leave us a review or tell your friends if you like what you're hearing. Thanks again and we'll see you back here in a couple of weeks!

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For the third episode of ... Just To Be Nominated, Bruce, Jared, and Chris share their thoughts about Sonic the Hedgehog, video game movies in general, the "Divorced Dad" dumping ground month that is February, and talk up some of the lesser-known movies they're most looking forward to seeing later this year.

Listen all the way to the end to get the dirt on the Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck movie premiering on Netflix this weekend that you probably didn't even know existed.

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For the second episode of ... Just To Be Nominated, Bruce, Jared, and Chris check in on their Academy Awards predictions and break down the ceremony from the sincerely confusing opening dance number to Bong Joon-ho's big win.

Stick around all the way to the end if you want to find out what film Bruce thinks will the Cats of 2020 and why Jared thinks Steven Spielberg should possibly consider retiring!

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For the very first episode of ... Just To Be Nominated, Bruce, Jared, and Chris offer up their thoughts about the Academy Awards, including predictions of who will win versus who should win, as well as notable names missing from the list of Oscar nominations.

Stick around all the way to the end if you want to find out what truly bonkers bit of swag Netflix sent to Bruce with his screener for The Two Popes!

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