Biopic: A Podcast Story

Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter, 3rd Edition: Cobb & Evita

We have a bonus episode: our third edition of Irrelevant Host Banter. These are some outtakes that were cut for running time.
Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs.
Includes material cut from:
• Episode 10: Cobb
• Episode 11: Evita
 
Highlights include:
• The extended take of our reactions to Eva Peron’s corpse.
• Extra criticisms of Robert Wuhl’s performance in Cobb.
• A look at insider trading laws and the history of Coca-Cola in cans.
• Lots more!
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
 
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Episode 13: Frida, with Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo

Salma Hayek’s passion project Frida—a gem of a film directed by the confounding, singular talent that is Julie Taymor—is under the microscope this week. At play: what’s the deal with communist men and the civilized way they hang out with their exes? Why are there so many children’s books about Frida Kahlo, a completely badass artist who played by her own rules, hooked up with everybody she felt like, created complex and colorful art about infidelity, politics, and miscarried babies, and endured decades of chronic pain? How hot are the communist Brangelina, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky? 
Sara and Rena also discuss Harvey Weinstein’s monstrosity and terrible influence over this film, which past world leaders are worth swiping right on a time traveling, metaphysical Tinder, and how Alfred Molina is impossible to hate.
Frida stars Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo, Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky, Valeria Golino as Lupe Marín, Ashley Judd as Tina Modotti, Mia Maestro as Cristina Kahlo, Roger Rees as Guillermo Kahlo, Antonio Banderas as David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Luna as Alejandro Gómez Arias, and Edward Norton as John D. Rockefeller Jr.
 
Sources:
Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo by Hayden Herrara.
The Heart: Frida Kahlo in Paris by Marc Petijean.
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Episode 12: Becket, Starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Richard Burton as Thomas Becket

How’d we get a biopic about the one-time Archbishop of Canterbury and his bromance with King Henry II before Roberto Clemente? Should we have watched this movie during Pride Month? Rena and Sara debate these and other issues like when forks actually arrived in Great Britain and whipping-as-penance. Sara has many dumb questions because she majored in Valley of the Dolls Studies at college, but Rena has answers because she has been fascinated by the Plantagenets since middle school.
There’s a struggle to stay on task as other issues are considered: the charmlessness of drunk performers, irresponsible speculation about why this class of Brit actors enjoyed blacking out, bad actions from the Boston archdiocese, and profound confusion about why Becket decided to go full obnoxious born-again Christian.
Becket was directed by Peter Glenville and stars Richard Burton as Thomas à Becket, Peter O’Toole as Henry II, and Sir John Gielgud as Louis VII.
Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jan/01/reel-history-becket
https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/1964-glenville-becket/
https://frockflicks.com/tbt-becket-1964/
 
Peter O’Toole: The Definitive Biography by Robert Sellers
Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel : A Nine-Hundred-Year-Old Story retold by John Guy
Eleanor of Acquitaine: A Biography by Marion Meade
Tales From the Long Twelfth Century : the rise and fall of the Angevin Empire by Richard Huscroft
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Episode 11: Evita, with Madonna as Eva Peron

Rena and Sara confront the ghosts of their theater-kid selves while exploring the Madonna-starring Evita, the film version of hopelessly middlebrow composer Andrew Lloyd Webbers’s musical. Come for Sara’s appreciation of director Alan Parker’s oeuvre and Rena’s impassioned take-down of the least convincing pair of brown contact lenses ever used, stay to ponder “How much Madonna is too much Madonna?” and the impenetrable four-dimensional horseshoe of Argentine politics in particular and South American politics in general, and to think about the more interesting and macabre tale of Eva Peron’s corpse, which has had both a biopic and a prestige series of its very own.
Evita stars Madonna as Eva Peron, Antonio Banderas as Che Everyman-Possibly-Guevara, and Jonathan Pryce as Eva’s husband, the Nazi-harboring dictator Juan Peron, and future In The Heights abuela Olga Meridiz as one of Evita’s sisters. It was directed by Alan Parker from the concept album-turned musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and adapted to screenplay by Parker and repeat biopic offender Oliver Stone.
Featuring over 80 amazing wardrobe changes, a star ego trip by Madonna that excludes all other solo female voices, some exemplary production values, objectification of baby Antonio Banderas, the pre-Guiliani squeegee men who ruined pre-teen Rena’s birthday trip to see Miss Saigon, numerous tanks of embalming fluid, and some imaginary Mossad agents not hunting for Madonna’s missing Best Actress Oscar nomination.
 
Sources:
Evita, First Lady: A Biography of Evita Peron by John Barnes (Author)
Evita: the life of Eva Peron by Jill Hedges
 
A bunch of podcasts and articles that we found on the internet, including:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18616380
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter, Edition 2: Milk, Bessie, Rocketman & Gia

Just in time for 4th of July weekend 2024, we have a bonus episode: our second edition of Irrelevant Host Banter. These are some outtakes from the episodes that we released in June of 2024 that were cut for running time.
Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs.
Includes material cut from:
Episode 6: Milk
Episode 7: Bessie
Episode 8: Rocketman
Episode 9: Gia
Highlights include:
Rena hates surprises.
An intense, literalist deconstruction of the lyrics to "Rocket Man".
Our sadness that racism did not end in 2008.
The time that Elton John bought a dinosaur from Ringo Starr.
Attention-seeking foster cats.
Lots more!
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Visual Aids: https://imgur.com/user/BiopicAPodcastStory
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Episode 10: Cobb, Starring Tommy Lee Jones as Ty Cobb

What better way to celebrate America’s birthday than with a baseball movie with exactly one scene of baseball, elder abuse, racism, and Robert Wuhl? This week we will be talking about Cobb, starring returning champion Tommy Lee Jones as rather evil baseball legend Ty Cobb, who might be less evil than Al Stump, this film’s proposed protagonist. This episode features a passionate if unintentional defense of Ty Cobb’s honor by two non-sportsball fans, as well as digressions about Kayfabe, a proposal for a reverse Driving Miss Daisy, and a pitch for Al Stump to be recast with the dog from Air Bud.
Cobb stars Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Wuhl, Lolita Davidovich, the amazing Lou Myers, baby Bradley Whitford as “Process Server” and Jimmy Buffet as “Armless Guy”  
Sources:
Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty by Charles Leerhsen.
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Episode 9: Gia, Starring Angelina Jolie as Supermodel Gia Carangi

Is it a movie about the 1970s and 1980s fashion scene if there’s no fashion in it? Rena and Sara are varying degrees of annoyed at this biopic about legendary supermodel Gia Carangi, whose meteoric rise and devastating fall in the modelling industry is kind of documented in this film. Who’s the worse pastiche character – the grubby modelling agency owner or the makeup artist, who came straight to this set from a Newport News catalog shoot? Why can’t we get a period-accurate needle drop in this film? Where are we and when are we? So many questions, so few answers, including whether or not it’s fair to criticize any art if you haven’t made any. 
Gia stars Angelina Jolie, the legendary Faye Dunaway, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mercedes Ruehl, and Eric Michael Cole, and was directed by Michael Cristofer, and written by Cristofer and Jay McInerney.
 
Sources
Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia by Stephen Fried
Model: The Ugly Business of Beautiful Women by Michael Gross
The C Word episode: Gia
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Episode 8: Rocketman, the Elton John Biopic Starring Taron Egerton

Rena and Sara discuss Rocketman, the 2019 musical biopic about the life and work of the one and only Elton John. 
Are musicals realistic biopics, or not? We discuss the parameters of why they totally are, and why everything about this movie is pretty darn delightful, from the brilliant costumes, the fabulous singing and dancing, and the stylish exploration of the sad, desperate world of being a superstar drug and alcohol addict. Come for the world’s most improbable twelve-step meeting, stay for the glorious digressions about football hero John Madden (no relation to Richard), Bernie Tau-PAHN, Queen Latifah, inner children, bad parents, and how Taron Egerton makes Elton John so freaking hot.
Rocketman stars Taron Egerton, Richard Madden, Jamie Bell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Gemma Jones, Stephen Graham, and Harriet Walter, and is directed by Dexter Fletcher and written by Lee Hall. 
 
Sources: 
Was Elton John’s Manager John Reid Really Such a Jerk?
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/elton-john-manager-john-reid-jerk/#:~:text=Richard%20Madden%20stars%20as%20John,television%20credits%20to%20his%20name.
Scattershot by Bernie Taupin 
Me by Elton John
Rocket Man: The Life of Elton by Mark Bego
Captain Fantastic: Elton John's Stellar Trip Through the '70s by Tom Doyle
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Follow us!
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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com