Advertise on podcast: Stories in Motion

Peter Berg’s Netflix WWII drama follows four star college football players who enlist in the Marines after Pearl Harbor and end up in the bloody Battle of Okinawa. It premiered at AFI Fest, and it hits harder than you’d expect. We talk the brutal, immersive combat, the brief game that gives these guys one last taste of boyhood, and why this might be one of the most effective antiwar films in years.

A24’s surprise documentary “You Can See Everything” just posted a record-setting Metacritic score and a $15 million opening weekend, and suddenly the Best Picture race looks wide open. We talk about whether a documentary can finally land a nomination, whether it can topple Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” and which contenders could still shake up the field.

Three movies into the DC Universe, the weirdest one might also be the best. James Watkins turns a shapeshifting actor with a ruined face into an R-rated body horror throwback that needs zero franchise homework. We talk the practical effects, Naomi Ackie’s scientist with a conscience, the plane turbulence scene that will haunt us, and why this one actually feels like its own thing.

Taika Waititi tackles Kazuo Ishiguro’s AI novel with Jenna Ortega as a robot companion praying to the sun to be chosen, and it should have been a perfect match. It wasn’t. We talk the candy colored Friend Store, Natasha Lyonne’s den mother energy, the “Jojo Rabbit” comparison, and why a film about mortality and obsolescence ends up so obvious and tonally confused.

Ti West’s A24 horror comedy drops a crew of scrappy adult filmmakers onto a Texas farm owned by a very unhappy elderly couple, and it’s as wicked as it sounds. We talk Mia Goth in two roles, the 1970s grindhouse spirit, the slow burn tension that West does better than almost anyone, and what the film has to say about youth, sex and getting old.

Paul Bettany returns as Vision in Marvel’s “VisionQuest,” a “WandaVision” follow-up about an android trying to understand his own feelings. We talk about why a Victorian mansion full of AI assistants, including a scruffy James Spader as Ultron, is the show’s best idea, and why the convoluted lore leaves viewers as emotionally disconnected as its hero.

From Venice to Telluride to TIFF and NYFF, this fall’s festivals introduced a fresh wave of performers poised for stardom. We meet seven standouts, including Mathilde Arcel’s shape-shifting Volpi Cup win, Eldar Isgandarov stealing scenes in two of the year’s best films, and Caleb Hearon’s move from internet comedy to leading man.

Laika’s sixth feature is its biggest swing yet, a 130 minute stop motion fairytale about a Portland girl chasing a murder of crows into a forbidden wilderness to save her baby brother. We get into the handmade textures, Carey Mulligan’s villain, the surprisingly intense PG-13 opening, and why a story built from borrowed fantasy parts still feels like a new standard.

Brad Bird's Netflix animated mashup premiered at the London Film Festival, and it throws Bogart noir, "Blade Runner," "Roger Rabbit" and the Star Wars cantina into one blender. Sam Rockwell is an analog private eye in a digital future, Scarlett Johansson is a pop star in deep trouble, and Tom Waits is the cyclops partner we didn't know we needed. We talk Metropia, the Bogie and Bacall energy, and why this might be Netflix's ticket to an Oscar nomination.

Robert and Michelle King trade Chicago for Silicon Valley in CBS's new legal drama Cupertino. We dig into how Mike Colter and Rachel Keller's scrappy law firm takes on AI giants, and why a show about algorithms keeps asking questions that sound a lot like theology.

Sorkin returns to Facebook sixteen years after The Social Network, this time with the whistleblowers. We dig into whether the sequel earns its place, what Fincher's absence costs it, and why a story that felt urgent once now feels like a history lesson.

Luca Guadagnino's OpenAI origin story premiered at NYFF after Amazon reportedly got cold feet about releasing it, and once you watch it, you understand why. Andrew Garfield plays Sam Altman as a man who shapeshifts depending on who's in the room, Yura Borisov plays Ilya Sutskever as the true believer watching his dream curdle into something uncontrollable, and the whole thing plays less like a tech biopic and more like a modern Frankenstein story that might already be coming true.

Tom McCarthy recreates an actual 1980 congressional climate conference, pulling dialogue straight from real transcripts, and the result is quieter and stranger than you'd expect. We get into the committee room politics, the forgotten nuclear energy argument nobody wanted to touch, and why a movie built entirely out of talk ends up feeling like a warning we still haven't learned from.

Tony Gilroy's first film since "The Bourne Legacy" follows a session cellist drifting through affairs, movie score gigs, and a mystery involving a teenage avant pop star. Pedro Pascal actually learned to play cello for the role, nine film composers contributed to the score, and somehow it's still not quite "Tár." We get into the meta score gimmick, Olivia Wilde's stalker energy, and why this one's more scherzo than symphony.

Paul Thomas Anderson points a camera at Cameron Winter alone at a Steinway for 75 minutes, and somehow it's one of the most hypnotic concert films in years. We talk Dylan comparisons, that candlelit 35mm glow, and why a guy from Geese turned out to have this voice hiding inside him the whole time.