Biopic: A Podcast Story

• 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. 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: [email protected]

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• Bonus Episode! Irrelevant Host Banter 11: Gandhi and The Duchess

  Hooray! We have a bonus episode: our 11th 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 21: Gandhi Episode 22: The Duchess Highlights include: Blade Runner Rutger Hauer monologue appreciation. More fun tidbits about rotten boroughs. Rena’s loathing for antimaterialism. Why corsets are less barbaric than going to the gym. Kevin Costner being a big man-ho in the 90s. And much more, of course!  Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it. 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: [email protected]

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• 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. 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: [email protected]

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• 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! Instagram: @biopicapodcaststory Bluesky: @biopic-podcast.bsky.social Threads: @biopicapodcaststory Website: https://biopicapodcaststory.podbean.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/biopicapodcaststory Contact us: [email protected]

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• Episode 60: And the Band Played On, the Story of the Early Days of the AIDS Crisis

  It’s been a minute since we’ve reminded our audience that Ronald Reagan is trash; there’s no better illustration of the hell he unleashed on America in one of our most mean-spirited decades by pretending that AIDS didn’t exist, or deriding it among his cabinet with giggle fits.  You know who’s not trash? The many scientists and activists who are featured in this groundbreaking 1993 TV movie, And the Band Played On, based on Randy Shilt’s groundbreaking nonfiction chronicle of the early days of the AIDS epidemic (except the Patient Zero business, and we’ll get to that).  At the wrap-up of Pride Month, Rena and Sara discuss the heroic efforts of Aaron Spelling (yes, that Aaron Spelling) to get this film made, the mini-masterpiece performances by Richard Gere, Swoosie Kurtz, and Steve Martin, how Charles Martin Smith is always the hero you want, the 1990s as the golden age of sex ed in the public school system, and the lost art of shaming.  And the Band Played On is directed by Roger Spottiswoode and stars Ian McKellan as Bill Kraus, Matthew Modine as Dr. Don Francis, Glenne Headley as Dr. Mary Guinan, Richard Gere as the Choreographer, Saul Rubenek as Dr. James Curran, Richard Masur  as Dr. William Darrow, Alan Alda as Dr. Robert Gallow, Lily Tomlin as Dr. Selma Dritz, Charles Martin Smith as Dr. Harold Jaffe, Patrick Bachau as Dr. Luc Montagnier, B.D. Wong as Kico Govantes, Richard Jenkins as Dr. Marcus Conant, Tchéky Karyo as Dr. Willy Rozenbaum, Donal Logue as Bobbi Campbell, with Steve Martin, Swoosie Kurtz, Anjelica Houston, Phil Collins, and Stephen Spinella.  Sources used in the episode include… And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts This amazing interview with Aaron Spelling: https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/aaron-spelling?clip=54430   Spoiler Warning: We spoil everything. And we enjoy it. 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: [email protected]

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