Biopic: A Podcast Story

Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter 13: Ray and Liz & Dick

Hooray! We have a bonus episode: our 13th edition of Irrelevant Host Banter, with a flashback to mid-2024 with Episode 25: Ray and Episode 26: Liz & Dick.
 These are some outtakes that were cut for running time, and/or because we were digressive or repetitive.
Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs. We jump around in a senseless, context-deprived manner, and you should definitely skip this episode and download any normal episode from “Episode 10: Cobb” onwards if this is your first time listening.
Includes material cut from:
Episode 25: Ray
Episode 26: Liz & Dick
Highlights include:
Rena fuming about other podcast hosts boring her by talking about what they are wearing or drinking.
Another dead brother.
The time that Sara and Rena saw the Cats movie together: “Do you remember like halfway through that when we realized when I was like, their ears are moving. Like the horror was like the horror washed over you so slowly.”
David Eigenberg appreciation.
Speculating on the budget for Liz & Dick.
Love for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
Relief that Lawrence Olivier did not win an Oscar for Othello.
And much more, of course.
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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Bluesky: @biopic-podcast.bsky.social
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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/biopicapodcaststory
Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter 12: The Pride of The Yankees and Saint Joan

Hooray! We have a bonus episode: our 12th edition of Irrelevant Host Banter.
These are some outtakes that were cut for running time, and/or because we were digressive or repetitive.
Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs. We jump around in a senseless, context-deprived manner, and you should definitely skip this episode and download any normal episode from “Episode 10: Cobb” onwards if this is your first time listening.
Includes material cut from:
Episode 23: The Pride of The Yankees
Episode 24: Saint Joan
Highlights include:
Unimpressive Greatest Generation-era honeymoons
More fascination with the Gehrig family’s premature aging.
More on Henry VI’s “Love Day.”
Rena’s classmates emotionally wounding her by laughing at the sentimental bits in Casablanca.
Sara’s Saul Bass appreciation.
Sara’s Thelma Schoonmaker appreciation.
And much more, of course! 
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!
Instagram: @biopicapodcaststory 
Bluesky: @biopic-podcast.bsky.social
Threads: @biopicapodcaststory
Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/biopicapodcaststory
Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Why There Is No Episode This Week, and Why We’re Going on Hiatus During August

Sara and Rena have an announcement to make about why there is no episode new this week, and why we'll be taking a hiatus for the month of August, 2025.
We will be back on September 2 with Tombstone. Until then, we have over sixty official episode plus bonuses that we're hoping you'll check out.
See you in September!
 
Love, 
Rena & Sara

Episode 64: The Rise of Catherine the Great, Produced by Alexander Korda

We return to the depression era to watch the rise of a delightful, curly-haired naif who charms everyone — the help, the military, and her cynical, wealthy new family. No, we’re not doing John Huston’s noted biopic Annie, we’re doing 1935’s The Rise of Catherine the Great.
We explore the many, many links back to the godfather of international cinema Alexander Korda, lavender marriages, Peter the Great’s descendant Peter the Meh, OG nepo baby Douglas Fairbanks Jr., German expressionism, and so much more as we watch this very, very, very old movie. 
The Rise of Catherine the Great was produced by Alexander Korda, directed by Paul Czinner, and stars Elisabeth Bergner as Catherine the Great of Russia, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., as Grand Duke Peter (later Peter III), Dorothy Hale as Countess Olga, Flora Robson as Empress Elizabeth, Gerald du Maurier as Lecocq, Irene Vanbrugh as Princess Johanna von Anhalt-Zerbst, Diana Napier as Countess Vorontzova, Griffith Jones as Grigory Orlov, and Gibb McLaughlin as Bestujhev.
 
Sources used in the episode include…
Elizabeth and Catherine: Empresses of all the Russias, by Robert Coughlan.
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert Massie.
 
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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Bluesky: @biopic-podcast.bsky.social
Threads: @biopicapodcaststory
Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/biopicapodcaststory
Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Episode 62: Florence Foster Jenkins, Starring Meryl Streep as the World's Worst Opera Singer

When do shenanigans cross the line into elder abuse? That’s the hotly debated issue at the heart of our vastly different experiences watching 2016’s Florence Foster Jenkins, directed by Stephen Frears and starring the legendary Meryl Streep as Florence Foster Jenkins, a syphilis-suffering patron of the arts and absolutely beyond-the-pale terrible singer.
Who is this movie for, exactly?
Come for the charming(?) Hugh Grant’s tireless work in creating a scaffolding of lies, delusion, and gaslighting to make Florence feel good about her talents as she spends the last year of her life preparing for a concert at Carnegie Hall. Stay for the nausea-inducing bathtub filled with mayonnaise-based potato salad, the invention of irony, tales of Rena’s high school trauma, more conversation about Sharknado than necessary, the suffering (both on and off-screen) of Rebecca Ferguson, and the lamentably brief appearance of the preternaturally gifted Nina Arianda.
Florence Foster Jenkins Is directed by Steven Frears from a script by Nicholas Martin and Julia Kogan and stars Meryl Streep as Florence Foster Jenkins, Hugh Grant as St. Clair Bayfield, Simon Helberg as Cosmé McMoon, Rebecca Ferguson as Kathleen, Nina Ariana as Agnes Stark, Stanley Townsend as Phineas Stark, Allan Corduner as John Totten, Christian McKay as Earl Wilson, Brid Brennan as Kitty, David Hague as Carlo Edwards, Mark Arnold as Cole Porter, and John Cavanaugh as Arturo Toscanini with a cameo appearance by Josh O'Connor as Donaghey.
 
Sources: 
Florence Foster Jenkins: The Inspiring True Story of the World's Worst Singer by Nicholas Martin and Jasper Rees
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Follow us!
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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Episode 63: Alexander, The Oliver Stone Alexander the Great Movie from 2004

This week, we’re back with our old pal Oliver Stone for his 2004 biopic of the world-conquering bisexual Alexander the Great, aptly titled Alexander.  
We welcome Colin Farrell to the show, and rejoin one of our favorites, the late great Val Kilmer, and our not-so-favorites Angelina Jolie and Jared Leto, for this sometimes brilliant, often literal film of a decade-long cultural appropriation-and-violence-filled rumspringa, a magical horse named Bucephalus, a mother with an Olive Garden accent and an obsession with snakes, wigs on wigs on wigs, and talky talk talk about Zeus and Achilles. 
Also covered: Germany’s pre-2006 filmmaking tax benefits, Oliver Stone’s judicious use of CGI (we’re not always being dicks, guys), Donald Sutherland, elephants, guyliner, and how to get impregnated by a God. 
Alexander is directed by Oliver Stone and stars Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Brian Blessed, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Anthony Hopkins, Rosario Dawson, and many, many animals who may or may not have been harmed in the making of this film. 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Emergency Episode 2: The Deliver Me From Nowhere Trailer, with Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen

First shots have been fired in the Oscarbation Wars of 2025 / 2026, and those shots are coming to you from Bruce Springsteen, in Brokendreamsville, New Jersey, in a biopic that will certainly cover territory that we’ve already seen many times this year in our emergency breakdown of the Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere trailer. 
Will this movie have enough self-serious white men over-explaining the significance of the album Nebraska to satisfy Hollywood's annual quota of self-serious white men over-explaining things? Did the hotel room in which Bruce Springsteen recorded the album serve as a murder room for one of the many serial killers who haunted America in the 1970s because of the excessive use of lead paint? Are we going to see an actor’s interpretation of record executive John Hammond for the fourth time since we’ve launched this show? 
Most important: how important is that hole in the floor that Jeremy Strong talks about in this trailer going to be to the plot of this film? 
Come for the rage and the coverage of everything from former New Jersey governor Chris Christie’s unrequited passion for Bruce to how Gaby Hoffman’s Jersey hausfrau turn makes us feel old, stay for Sara’s truly vexing true-or-false quiz about Bruce Springsteen.  This movie comes out on October 24 and you bet we’d prefer not to see it. 
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is directed by Scott Cooper and stars Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen, Stephen Graham as Douglas “Dutch” Springsteen, Paul Walter Hauser as Mike Batlan, Marc Maron as Chuck Plotkin, Gaby Hoffman as Adele Springsteen, David Krumholtz as Al Teller, the magnificent Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau, some bottle blonde actress as a woman who is probably not Patti Scialfa or Julianne from Sisters as “The Girl 🙄,” and soon-to-be-breakout-star Cormac Fingeret as “Man Riding in Truck with Man Yelling ‘Bruce, You Suck!”
The trailer’s here: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2147076121/?ref_=tt_vids_vi_1 
 
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

Episode 61: Malcolm X with Guest Star, Filmmaker Brandon Wilson

This week, we welcome our special guest star, the very, very smart and insightful filmmaker, critic, and educator Brandon Wilson, to celebrate the 4th by dropping Malcolm X on Plymouth Rock. 
Given [gestures around at everything], we wanted to celebrate the decaying, never-actually-real American Dream with Spike Lee’s revolutionary, game-changing magnum opus Malcolm X, which is, of course, about the revolutionary leader Malcolm X (and a lot of other things). 
The original recording was almost 5 hours long, so we had to cut a lot of amazing convo since we’re two broads and not an idiotic white man who works overtime to humanize monsters and has the capability to sway elections and get people to disbelieve common sense science. 
However, we cover plenty of other things as we take the plunge into this very long but deeply exhilarating epic, including the genius of Spike Lee, the astonishing snubs this film received from the Academy (but hey, Howard’s End and Enchanted April, right? And Scent of a Woman?), having the Jersey shore stand in for Mecca, how the hell this film got made, and so much more. 
Malcolm X stars Denzel Washington as Malcolm X, Angela Bassett as Betty Shabazz, Spike lee as Shorty, Kate Vernon as Sophia, Delroy Lindo as West Indian Archie, Theresa Randle as Laura, Al Freeman Jr. as Elijah Muhammed, Albert Hall as Baines, and many, many more.
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Follow us!
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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com