Biopic: A Podcast Story

Episode 16: Cleopatra, the 1963 Elizabeth Taylor Version

Holy sh%t you guys. Rena and Sara dive into this colossal fiasco of a motion picture and come dangerously close to anhedonia as they stare into the void for four boring hours. Get on board for a lengthy history lesson about one of the film industry’s greatest cautionary tales. How did everyone involved do so little with so much? Was Richard Burton’s Roomba charging station filled with whiskey? How long was Cleopatra standing expectantly at the top of that giant plastic Sphinx?
The ridiculous props, excessive premature use of marble, Joe Mankiewicz’s gift for creating job security, the chaos of Burton and Taylor’s love affair, and Rex Harrison’s dark personal history come up as Sara and Rena wander through this dull as dirt abyss of excess.
Cleopatra stars Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, Richard Burton as Mark Anthony, Rex Harrison as Caesar, Roddy McDowall as Octavian, and Martin Landau as Rufio.   
 
Sources: 
The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Richard Burton: Prince of Players by Michael Munn
Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Iconic Flops by James Robert Parish 
The Worst Movies of All Time by Michael Sauter
The Studio by John Gregory Dunne 
Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris 
My Life with Cleopatra: The Making of a Hollywood Classic by Walter Wanger
Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century by Sam Kashner and Nancy Shoenberger 
CaroleLandis.net 
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/1998/03/elizabeth-taylor-199803
https://frockflicks.com/cleopatra-1963/
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/15/how-we-made-cleopatra
 
Promised link to the first episode of the BBC’s The Cleopatras, a more entertaining rendition of this story that will take up only 45 minutes of your time. This thing is bonkers.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x35sa5m
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter 5: Race

We had a lot to say about Race, so much that our fifth edition of Irrelevant Host Banter is entirely composed of material that we cut from Episode 14: Race.
 
Think of it as Sara and Rena having a conversation in non sequiturs, mostly about Race.
 
Highlights include:
The sentimental way that Rena commemorates D-Day every year.
Spoilers for Jordan Peele's Nope.
Sara marvels at the wonders of the postal service.
The Lion King's visual references to Triumph of the Will haunt Berlin's Museum Island.
Sara and Rena discuss possible future films and how to prioritize them.
And more, of course!
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
Trigger Warning: Contains mentions of the Holocaust.
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Episode 15: Prefontaine, Starring Jared Leto as Steve Prefontaine

Did you even medal, bro? White male mediocrity (compared to last week’s movie, at least) gets its due as we watch one of two debatably necessary Steve Prefontaine biopics that arrived in the late 1990s. What exactly did this guy do except run really fast on the collegiate level, witness the Munich Olympics’ atrocious massacre unfold on television, and serve as a Nike footwear beta user?
Sara and Rena take a one-way, no-exit trip into dialogue clichesville, where they discuss the Jared Leto problem, how Ed O’Neill always rises to the occasion, whether everyone in Oregon has access to weapons-grade dynamite, and what it means to turn distance running into a “blood sport.” Bonus discussion:  Who even are these people? Will anyone ever let Germany host another Olympics? 
Prefontaine stars Jared Leto as Steve Prefontaine, R. Lee Ermey as Bill Bowerman, Ed O’Neill as Bill Dellinger, Breckin Meyer as Pat Tyson, Lindsay Crouse as Elfriede Prefontaine, Amy Locane as Nancy Alleman, Kurtwood Smith as Curtis Cunningham, and Laurel Holloman as Elaine Finley.
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter 4: Becket & Frida

Hooray! We have a bonus episode: our fourth 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 12: Becket
• Episode 13: Frida
 
Highlights include:
Rena's rant about her unintended visit to Casa Trotsky.
An extended cut of portions of our "Would You Hook Up With this World Leader?" quiz.
Further discussion of Harvey Weinstein's repulsiveness.
More about the history of forks in Europe.
A definition of negging for listeners over sixty.
The "Second Opinion" for Frida that didn't make it into the episode.
Sara's vehement reactions to unprofessional, drunken behavior by Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton on the set of Becket.
And more, of course!
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com
 

Episode 14: Race, a Jesse Owens Biopic

All it took for a feature film about American hero, sports pioneer, and Third Reich-bitch-slapper Jesse Owens were French, Canadian, and German film producers to team up to get it off the ground. The results are mostly magical, with a compelling and winsome lead performance from Stephan James and a budget stretched to the max to bring the cringe-inducing Hitler Olympics to life. 
Sara and Rena go in deep talking about the corruption of the IOC, the pointlessness of boycotting the Olympics, and the profoundly crappy way Jesse Owens was treated on his return to America after hurting Himmler’s fee-fees and ruining Leni Riefenstahl’s film. As important: lengthy appreciation for director Stephen Hopkins and a brief celebration of the sanity and bravery of German athlete Luz Long and the skills of Eulace Peacock. 
Race stars Stephan James as Jesse Owens, Jason Sudakis as Larry Snyder, Shanice Banton as Ruth Solomon, Carice van Houten as Leni Riefenstahl, Jeremy Irons as Avery Brundage, William Hurt as Jeremiah Mahoney, Shamier Anderson as Eulace Peacock, and David Kross as Luz Long. 
 
Sources:
Triumph : The Untold Sto7.75ry of Jesse Owens and Hitler's Olympics
By Jeremy Schaap
 
Berlin 1936 : Sixteen Days in August
By Oliver Hilmes   
Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it.
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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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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com

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

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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Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/
Contact us: biopiclistenermailbag@gmail.com