Biopic: A Podcast Story

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

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Contact us: [email protected]

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 

 

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]

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!

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]

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

 

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]

“You ruined it with your stupidity!” Rena’s favorite line in the history of film comes alive (albeit not the way she remembers it) in this absolutely magical biopic about the compassionate genius Temple Grandin, a true doctor Doolittle (unlike alleged murderer Rex Harrison). 

Through almost starting to cry again, we discuss the David Strathairn exception to the dangers of being hot for teacher, how the squeeze machine could have been a very different project at Vassar, the need to better honor our Swiss Army knife film directors (like Mick Jackson — who directed this movie and the feelgood film of 1984, Threads).. and so much more. 

Temple Grandin stars Claire Danes as Temple Grandin, Julia Ormond as Eustacia Grandin, David Strathairn as Dr. Carlock, Catherine O'Hara as Aunt Ann, Stephanie Faracy as Betty Goscowitz, Barry Tubb as Randy, and Melissa Farman as Alice.

Sources used in the episode include…

Podcasts

Episode of Star Talk,  Neil deGrasse Tyson’s podcast that Temple Grandin guest starred on.

Books

Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin.

Temple Grandin: Voice for the Voiceless by Annette Wood.

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: [email protected]