Biopic: A Podcast Story

Episode 85: Dolemite is my Name, Starring Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore, aka Dolemite

This one is just FUN. Dolemite is his name and … we can’t write the rest. Eddie Murphy gives us a gonzo, super-delightful ride through the world of “Godfather of Rap” Rudy Ray Moore and the making of iconic blaxploitation film Dolemite. 
We are way out over our skis here as two east coast ladies with a passing grasp on the blaxploitation genre, but we loved this, we loved Dolemite, and we love Eddie Murphy, comic genius and embarrasser of the guilty (ahem, John Landis). While we discuss this film, we also talk about cultural gatekeeping, appreciating art that wasn’t made to be spoon-fed into your individual brain, if Dolemite is as artistically ambitious as Mean Streets and the work of John Cassavetes, German filmmaking nepo babies, Tyler Perry’s Madea, and so much more. 
Dolemite Is My Name is directed by Craig Brewer and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, and stars Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore, Keegan Michael Key as Jerry Jones, Mike Epps as Jimmy Lynch, Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Lady Reed, Tituss Burgess as Theodore Toney, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Nick von Sternberg, Craig Robinson as Ben Taylor, Ron Cephas Jones as Ricco, Snoop Dogg as Roj, Luenell as Auntie, Tip ‘T.I.’ Harris as Walter Crane, Chris Rock as Bobby Vale, and the one and only Wesley Snipes as D’Urville Martin. 
 
Sources used in the episode include…
 
Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema
By Odie Henderson
Bustle: Rudy Ray Moore's Real Life Is Just As Wild As The Story Of 'Dolemite Is My Name' 
 
https://www.bustle.com/p/how-accurate-is-dolemite-is-my-name-theres-plenty-of-truth-to-the-biopic-19742402
 
USA Today: Fact-Checking Dolemite Is My Name: 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/10/25/dolemite-is-my-name-fact-checking-eddie-murphy-netflix-movie/4062293002/
 
UCLA: Nicholas is my Name 
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/nicholas-is-my-name
 
Film Talk: Nicholas Josef von Sternberg: “There’s no doubt that my father was a highly respected film director”
https://filmtalk.org/2019/08/28/nicholas-josef-von-sternberg-theres-no-doubt-that-my-father-was-a-highly-respected-film-director/
About the Dunbar Hotel:
 
https://www.laconservancy.org/learn/historic-places/dunbar-hotel/
https://www.pbssocal.org/history-society/when-central-avenue-swung-the-dunbar-hotel-and-the-golden-age-of-l-a-s-little-harlem
 
https://lamag.com/l-a-on-screen/dolemite-is-my-name/
 
“Eddie Murphy Nearly Physically Assaulted John Landis While Making ‘Coming to America’,” from Cracked. 
https://www.cracked.com/article_41377_eddie-murphy-nearly-physically-assaulted-john-landis-while-making-coming-to-america.html 
 
“He fucked me over”: How John Landis betrayed Eddie Murphy over ‘Coming to America’, from Far Out 
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/director-betrayed-eddie-murphy/ 
 
Diary of a Mad Black Woman review, Variety 
https://variety.com/2005/film/markets-festivals/diary-of-a-mad-black-woman-2-1200527749/ 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q
 
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Episode 84: Selma, Starring David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., with Special Guest, Filmmaker Brandon Wilson

Week 2 of Black History Month brings us to 2014’s Selma, Ava DuVernay’s masterful look inside the life of Martin Luther King (you’ve probably heard of him unless you’re home-schooled or live in Florida), as he leads the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights marches (which were initiated by minister James Bevel). This movie might have been nominated for 2 Academy Awards, but it’s wildly underrated. 
We couldn’t be more excited to welcome back a special guest star, the very, very smart and insightful filmmaker, critic, and educator Brandon Wilson, to talk about the casual polymath genius of Ava DuVernay, the importance of a humanized portrait of MLK, strategic political theater, and so much more. 
Selma is directed by Ava DuVernay, written by Ava DuVernay and Paul Webb, and stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr., Tom Wilkinson as President Lyndon B. Johnson, Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, André Holland as Andrew Young, Giovanni Ribisi as Lee C. White, Lorraine Toussaint as Amelia Boynton Robinson, Stephan James as John Lewis, Wendell Pierce as Hosea Williams, Common as James Bevel, Alessandro Nivola as John Doar, LaKeith Stanfield as Jimmie Lee Jackson, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Fred Gray, Dylan Baker as J. Edgar Hoover, Tim Roth as George Wallace, Oprah Winfrey as Annie Lee Cooper, Colman Domingo as Ralph Abernathy, Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Bayard Rustin, Stephen Root as Al Lingo, Tessa Thompson as Diane Nash, Omar Dorsey as James Orange, Henry G. Sanders as Cager Lee, Jeremy Strong as James Reeb, Trai Byers as James Forman, Corey Reynolds as C. T. Vivian, Niecy Nash as Richie Jean Jackson, E. Roger Mitchell as Frederick D. Reese, Ledisi Young as Mahalia Jackson, and Nigél Thatch as Malcolm X. 
Read Brandon’s essay for RogerEbert.com, “Look Away, Look Away”: https://www.rogerebert.com/black-writers-week/look-away-look-away’
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q
Sources
Books:
King: A Life by Jonathan Eig
Robert Caro on LBJ
 
Articles: "Why Martin Luther King Jr. Loved Star Trek"
MLK was a Trekkie. Throwing that in there for the nerd contingent. I’m not sure that we have any way of knowing 
https://time.com/4478354/martin-luther-king-star-trek/
 
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Episode 83: Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, starring Halle Berry

It’s Black History Month and we’re celebrating at Biopic: A Podcast Story. First up is HBO’s Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which introduced us to the depth of Halle Berry’s capabilities as an actor back in 1999. (You see what we did there.)  
We couldn’t be happier to see the first Black woman nominated for a Best Actress Oscar get proper attention, however, this movie is also a product of its time and its HBO-in-the-late-1990s trappings. We’re in a cradle-to-grave race through Dorothy’s triumphant and tragic life in two hours or less, but everyone is doing a lot with those limitations so we’re trying not to be jerks about it. 
We welcome back a more nuanced Otto Preminger than the one we met in Trumbo (Rena loves him a little for spoiling the Bernsteins’ Black Panther Party, but Sara hates him for ruining Jean Seberg’s life), complain about how stupid racists are, discuss the agonies of tranquilizers and childbirth, meet a host of new recruits for the Bad Husband Hall of Fame, and, because William Atherton is here, take a side trip into the Aesthetic Realism movement and The Day of the Locust. 
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge was directed by Martha Coolidge and stars Halle Berry as Dorothy Dandridge, Klaus Maria Brandauer as Otto Preminger, Brett Spiner as Earl Mills, Obba Babbatunde as Harold Nicholas, Loretta Devine as Ruby Dandridge, Cynda Williams as Vivian Dandridge, Latanya Richardson Jackson as Auntie, Tamara Taylor as Geri Nicholas, William Atherton as Darryl Zanuck, and D.B. Sweeney as Jack Denison. 
 
Sources used in the episode include…
 
Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography by Donald Bogle
Hollywood Black: The Stars, the Films, the Filmmakers by Donald Bogle
You Must Remember This podcast episode on Dorothy Dandridge
https://frockflicks.com/tbt-introducing-dorothy-dandridge-1999/
Rena watched Carmen Jones.
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q
 
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Episode 82: I, Tonya, in Honor of the 2026 Winter Olympics, Starring Margot Robbie as Figure Skater Tonya Harding!

Sara would like to make it very clear that she doesn’t have experience in hiring a hitman in this episode about 2017’s amazing and revelatory I, Tonya, the story of Tonya Harding and 1994’s “the incident.” While it’s pretty difficult to turn Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan into anything besides the most beautiful freaks walking God’s green earth, their outstanding performances go the distance to transform them into, respectively, one of the most polarizing and exciting figure skaters the U.S. has ever seen and one of our most hapless criminal masterminds. 
This episode is pretty freewheeling as we discuss how the 1990s was a hellacape of cruelty (we were kids; what’s your excuse again, Jay Leno?), our memories of watching these events unfold, the deep intricacies of figure skating scoring history, and the man who should be king, PAUL. WALTER. HAUSER. 
We also try to figure out: should we even say Derrick’s name? Did the Ukrainian skaters have access to a Zamboni (btw, Slava Ukraini!)? Does Rena know who Richard Marx is? 
I, Tonya was directed by Craig Gillespie and stars Margot Robbie as  Tonya Harding, Sebastian Stan as Jeff Gillooly, Allison Janney as LaVona, Julianne Nicholson as Diane Rawlinson, Paul Walter Hauser as Shawn Eckard, Bobby Cannavale as Martin Maddox, Bojana Novakovic as Dody Teachman, Caitlin Carver as Nancy Kerrigan, Maizie Smith  as Tonya Harding (3 1/2 Yrs), Mckenna Grace as Tonya Harding  (8-12 Yrs), Anthony Reynolds as Derrick Smith, and Ricky Russert as Shane Stant.
 
Sources used in the episode include…
Sharp Edges, directed by Sandra Lucknow, a documentary on Tonya Harding that was made in 1986, when she was just 15.
Tonya Harding Would Like Her Apology Now, by Taffy Brodesseur-Akner, New York Times, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/movies/tonya-harding-i-tonya-nancy-kerrigan-scandal.html
A Fact-checked Guide to I, Tonya
https://www.vulture.com/2017/12/a-fact-checked-guide-whats-true-and-whats-not-in-i-tonya.html
And many, many online videos.
 
And for the heck of it:
 
Chess for Girls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1YSQJXMbUI
 
Chris Farley skates with Nancy Kerrigan
https://www.wckg.com/chris-farleys-snl-figure-skating-sketch-turns-25-today-and-its-still-a-classic/
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q
 
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Episode 81: Hitchcock, the Story of the Making of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, Starring Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock!

 Do you like the movie Psycho? Have you ever thought yourself, I wonder what it was like to make that movie, and I hope that Ed Gein’s spirit was there to guide Alfred Hitchcock’s creative process? 
Look. No. Further. 
While 2012’s Hitchcock suffers from not being as good or interesting as the film it documents the making of, it’s still a mostly engaging ride through the creepy genius Alfred Hitchcock’s approach - and a look at the woman who served as his equally genius partner in creativity, Alma Reville. However, according to Sara, this is actually a movie about Lew Wasserman, a man she was once told, with conviction, that she looked like. 
We’re greeted by a record number of returning champions as we discuss: why do we, as a society, love Vertigo so much? Why on earth did Vera Miles want to pick up her own dry cleaning? What more fun than a place of business run by a man who likes pranks and spying on his female actors? How did we get so lucky to see Danny Huston two weeks in a row? Sources used in the episode include…
The You Must Remember This episode on Hitchcock.
Sara unfortunately could not find the paper she  wrote in 8th grade about Hitchcock but is sure it was insightful. 
Rena skimmed parts of several books about Hitchcock including the one by Stephen Rebello that the movie Hitchcock was based on. She also wrote two papers for her college film class.
Rena rewatched Psycho.
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv
Follow us!
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com
 

Episode 80: The Conspirator, Starring Robin Wright as the Traitor Mary Surratt!

Have you ever thought to yourself: “You know what my life is missing? A movie that looks sympathetically on the legal rights of the traitorous crew of Confederates who devised and executed the plan to kill Abraham Lincoln because they were butthurt over losing the war they started and thus, their rights to own people.” Look no further: We’ve got the movie for you, 2011’s The Conspirator, directed by Robert Redford and starring a veritable cavalcade of great actors who spend the film more or less throwing up their hands and saying, “A lawyer is duty bound to zealously represent their client.” 
Maybe it’s just the fun times of 2026, but O.G. Karen, Mary Surratt—played by Robin Wright—and the suspension of her habeas corpus rights at the end of a contentious civil war and immediately following her role in an assassination didn’t hit the right notes for us. THANKS OBAMA. 
Nevertheless, we’re joined again by the delightful Stephen Root. Some other questions: Is Sara a member of the Bar because of her participation in high school Mock Trial? Should these alleged murderers be able to have their mothers hand-deliver their meals while they’re in jail? Has our love of humanity been pushed too far by this movie? Where have you been all of our lives, Kevin Kline?
The Conspirator was directed by Robert Redford and stars James McAvoy as Frederick Aiken, Robin Wright as Mary Surratt, Kevin Kline as Edwin Stanton, Evan Rachel Wood as Anna Surratt, Tom Wilkinson as Reverdy Johnson, Justin Long as Nicholas Baker, Danny Huston as Joseph Holt, James Badge Dale as William Hamilton, Colm Meaney as General Hunter, Alexis Bledel as Sarah Weston, Johnny Simmons as John Surratt, Toby Kebbell as John Wilkes Booth, Jonathan Groff as Louis Weichmann, Stephen Root as John Lloyd, John Cullum as Justice Wylie, Norman Reedus as Lewis Payne, John Michael Weatherly as George Atzerodt, Marcus Hester as David Herold, Chris Bauer as Major Smith, and Shea Whigham as Captain Cottingham.
 
Sources used in the episode include…
 
American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies 
by Michael W. Kauffman
 
The Assassin's Accomplice : Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln
by Kate Clifford Larson
 
Hanged! Mary Surratt and the Plot to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln. 
by Sarah Miller
 
Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
by James L Swanson
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q 
 
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New Year’s Special Episode: The State of the Biopic in 2026

2026 sure looks like it’s going to be a year with movies in it. Rena and Sara break down what we know is coming—Michael, Jimmy, Young George Washington, Madden—and what we know will never come (give up the ghost, “Devil the White City directed by Martin Scorsese” shippers), and where the biopic stands as we leave the hellscape of 2025 and enter the hellscape of 2026. 
We don’t have all the answers, as we ask, what, exactly, is a KJ Apa and what is he doing here? How many new houses will the executive producers of Michael build on their altar of lies and bullshit? When you can write a verse of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” containing the insane number of producers on a project, does that mean that movie is going to be bad? Does Nicolas Cage in Madden look more like a sleep paralysis demon or Cabbage Patch Kid? What is more sinister: the presence of David Mamet or John Travolta on your film set?
This is far from complete (there’s a biopic of Stallone made by the Farrelly Brothers due out this year, people), so there’s more to mock as the year goes on. Buckle up, we’re in for another year. 
Sources used in the episode include…
https://www.salon.com/2021/12/30/its-a-wonderful-life-harmful-message-sacrifice/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/hollywood-winners-losers-2025-best-worst-movies-tv/lost-prestige-biopics/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/04/21/remake
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q
 
Follow us!
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Episode 79: Oppenheimer, Starring Cillian Murphy as Robert Oppenheimer!

It's a very Oppenheimer holiday season 2025! Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus about the work of one of America’s most brilliant scientists, and his leadership in creating our first weapon of mass destruction, is a GD masterpiece, and we love it.  
Enjoy the end of the year with this feel-good tale of that time we built and used nukes and it was never, ever a problem ever again. If those feels aren’t good enough, enjoy the throughline in which we watch  Oppenheimer’s patriotism and service to America in one of its darkest hours get desecrated by a bitchy, self-centered former shoe salesman/"Admiral" who labors under the illusion that Oppenheimer talked shit about him to Einstein one time.
Also discussed: How do all of these scientists know each other? Would J. Edgar Hoover have a file on this podcast, were he still alive today? Are we ever going to sit in the chairs in a hotel room again? Are we going to spend every Christmas with Rami Malek? 
This episode is a long one, however, it would have been longer if we kept in the parts where we re-litigate the foreign and domestic policy choices made by U.S. leadership in 1945, something we’re both deeply qualified to do and that we know our audience would just LOVE.
Oppenheimer was directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Alden Ehrenreich as Senate Aide, Scott Grimes as Counsel, Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, Macon Blair as Lloyd Garrison, Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, David Krumholtz as Isidor Rabi, Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Alex Wolff as Luis Alvarez, Josh Zuckerman as Rossi Lomanitz, Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Jefferson Hall as Haakon Chevalier, Guy Burnet as George Eltenton, Tom Jenkins as Richard Tolman, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, Louise Lombard as Ruth Tolman, David Dastmalchian as William Borden, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Dane DeHaan as Kenneth Nichols, Olli Haaskivi as Edward Condon, Jack Quaid as Richard Feynman, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, James Urbaniak as Kurt Gödel, Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi, Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs, Rami Malek as David Hill, Máté Haumann as Leo Szilard, Olivia Thirlby as Lilli Hornig, Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, Gary Oldman as Harry Truman, and Hap Lawrence as Lyndon Johnson.
Sources
Podcasts:
Star Talk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson, episode on Oppenheimer.
 
Books:
American Prometheus, by Kai Bird.
 
Magazines
 
Vanity Fair
Jean Tatlock: The Tragic Story of Robert Oppenheimer’s “Truest Love”
by Katey Rich
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/07/oppenheimer-true-story-jean-tatlock
https://www.fourthwallcontent.com/blog/colour-as-a-storytelling-device-in-films
https://filmustage.com/blog/the-power-of-color-in-film-learn-from-10-cinematic-examples/
Congressional Records
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=wsorGFIlEawC&pg=GBS.PA766&hl=en
https://www.congress.gov/86/crecb/1959/05/20/GPO-CRECB-1959-pt7-1-1.pdf
 
FBI Files
https://vault.fbi.gov/rosenberg-case/robert-j.-oppenheimer
https://vault.fbi.gov/Katherine%20Oppenheimer/Katherine%20Oppenheimer%20Part%2001%20%28Final%29/view
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Our theme music is by Ben Patch: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5BB01QpPE7HBGacGAlullu?si=gp_6jbvsThWXg_sSLVcv6Q
 
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