#445: Machine Learning, Pt. 1 — The Iron Giant

Edward Berger’s new CONCLAVE is a low-key, intimate political thriller full of unexpected reveals, but fundamentally about power, purity, belief, compromise, perception, and committee decisions. This week we share our thoughts on CONCLAVE’s insular focus and messaging around religion and politics before considering how its power brokers and kingmakers compare to those found in the 1964 presidential-candidate drama THE BEST MAN, and the two films’ overlapping ideas about whether politics demands hypocrisy. And for Your Next Picture Show, we offer a recommendation for THE DEATH OF STALIN, a radically different movie about the vacuum left when a powerful man dies, and the jockeying and chicanery that follows. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE BEST MAN, CONCLAVE, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Sean Baker’s ANORA and Garry Marshall’s PRETTY WOMAN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While the new CONCLAVE concerns the election of a new pope, its intrigue, backstabbing, and backroom deals have many echoes in secular politics, in particular those found in 1964’s THE BEST MAN. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and written by Gore Vidal adapting his own stage play, the film’s depiction of the behind-the-scenes machinations involved to secure an unnamed party’s nomination for the presidency is relevant both to its era and our current political moment, albeit in different ways. But how deep does its cynicism about the system of elections, and those who manage to make that system work for them, go? We talk through that, as well as how THE BEST MAN’s women function within that system, before taking on some listener feedback about streaming availability that doubles as an excuse to endorse a system we can all get behind: public libraries.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE BEST MAN, CONCLAVE, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In its attempt to capture the chaotic comedic alchemy leading up to the first-ever SNL broadcast, Jason Reitman’s SATURDAY NIGHT is carrying the weight of the show’s nearly 50-year legacy and its personification in protagonist Lorne Michaels. Whether it manages to get off the ground despite that is up for debate in the first half of this week’s discussion, before we bring in another tense evening in ’70s New York to see how ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY compares in its depiction of a late-night highwire act and the pressure to pull off a performance with many moving parts on a deadline, and what each depiction reveals about the nature of creative collaboration. And in Your Next Picture Show we offer a brief glimpse at an alternate-universe episode in which we paired SATURDAY NIGHT with Robert Altman’s final film, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY, SATURDAY NIGHT, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Edward Berger’s CONCLAVE and Franklin J. Schaffer’s THE BEST MAN Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Capturing the tense hours leading to a pivotal moment in live TV history, the new SATURDAY NIGHT is defined by a looming deadline that reminded us of another New York-based all-nighter captured on film: D.A. Pennebaker’s 1970 TV pilot turned documentary film ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY. Despite being less than an hour long, the fly-on-the-wall document of Stephen Sondheim and company recording the definitive version of their Broadway hit in a single night provides no shortage of nuance to dig into like we’re Sondheim parsing an F sharp that’s drifted to A. And in Feedback we bring a comment from a recent bonus episode on BLINK TWICE over to the main show in order to discuss the relative value of movie twists. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY, SATURDAY NIGHT, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new Dreamworks animated feature THE WILD ROBOT is partially about the struggles of parenthood, partially about the joys of community, and the larger idea bridging those two parts — that of being more than you were “programmed” to be — is also what links it most directly to Brad Bird’s THE IRON GIANT. But there’s a lot more going on in THE WILD ROBOT besides that, arguably too much, which forms the central debate of the first half of this week’s discussion. Then we bring THE IRON GIANT back in to compare these films’ shared big ideas about selfhood, souls, and sacrifice, how they’re filtered through robots as metaphors of strength, and their respective depictions of humanity on the precipice of apocalypse. Then for Your Next Picture Show, we offer a trio of recommendations for films that account for other parts of WILD ROBOT’s source code. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE IRON GIANT, THE WILD ROBOT, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Jason Reitman’s SATURDAY NIGHT and D.A. Pennebaker’s ORIGINAL CAST ALBUM: COMPANY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s understandable that new Dreamworks feature THE WILD ROBOT pulls some of its source code from THE IRON GIANT, considering the latter’s towering reputation as one of the greatest animated films ever, robot protagonist or otherwise. But the enduring legacy of Brad Bird’s debut feature was far from assured when it blipped through theaters back in 1999, so this week we’re examining what’s behind the film’s upgrade from box-office flop to stone-cold classic, one known for its ability to reduce viewers to tears with a single word of dialogue. And in Feedback, a listener offers a different interpretation of a character moment from our discussion of THE SAVAGES. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE IRON GIANT, THE WILD ROBOT, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Azazel Jacobs’ HIS THREE DAUGHTERS is, like Tamara Jenkins’ THE SAVAGES, a film about the heartbreaking experience of caring for an aging parent, but even more so it is, also like the other film in the pairing, about adult siblings reuniting and renegotiating their relationships under those fraught conditions. We’re decidedly more mixed on Jacobs’ film, however, which often plays like a stage adaptation — at times that works, at others it doesn’t, and we talk through both in the first half of this discussion. Then we bring THE SAVAGES back in to consider how each film is shaped by its relative proximity to the end of life, their overlapping perspectives on professional caretakers and those who deal with death for a living, and the realism and usefulness of their pop-cultural reference points. And in Your Next Picture Show we take a brief tour of Tamara Jenkins’s short but mighty feature filmography to date.  Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE SAVAGES, HIS THREE DAUGHTERS, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Chris Sanders’ THE WILD ROBOT and Brad Bird’s THE IRON GIANT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caring for an elderly or infirm parent is a common experience that is less commonly depicted on screen, particularly with a comedic bent, which is why Azazal Jacobs’ new HIS THREE DAUGHTERS inspired us to revisit the 2007 dramedy THE SAVAGES, which writer-director Tamara Jenkins drew from her own experiences dealing with a father with dementia. Much of the film’s success lies with the performances of Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman as siblings whose estranged father’s deteriorating condition serves as catalyst for their own midlife crises, and a script that trusts in their performances to convey the situation’s unexpected yet accurate mingling of tragedy and comedy. Then in Feedback we get negative, with one listener writing in about why a recent film we covered “broke” them, and another inviting us to share the beloved films that we just can’t help but dislike. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about THE SAVAGES, HIS THREE DAUGHTERS, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeremy Saulnier’s REBEL RIDGE puts a distinctly 2020s spin on the one-man army formula established in the era-defining ‘80s action hit FIRST BLOOD, resulting in a film with more nuance, less firepower, and equal amounts of ass-kicking. We parse that equation a bit more in-depth in our spoiler-light discussion of REBEL RIDGE, before bringing back FIRST BLOOD to see how the decades between the two films shape their respective ideas about escalation of force, small-town policing, and genre politics. And for Your Next Picture Show, we offer a quick-hit ranking of Saulnier’s filmography to date. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about FIRST BLOOD, REBEL RIDGE, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Next Pairing: Azazel Jacobs’ HIS THREE DAUGHTERS and Tamara Jenkins’ THE SAVAGES  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Genre specialist Jeremy Saulnier’s latest banger, REBEL RIDGE, owes an obvious debt to the film that kicked off Sylvester Stallone’s second long-running franchise, 1982’s FIRST BLOOD, but the two films are of very different eras with very different core concerns about policing in America. So this week we’re focusing on the shadow of Vietnam that falls over the Pacific Northwest in the form of John Rambo, digging into the deeper themes that lie beneath the proverbial pissing contest between FIRST BLOOD’s ticking time bomb of a protagonist and the antagonistic police chief who foolishly sets him off. And in Feedback we revisit our ALIENS discussion with a deep reference and some head-cannon fodder from our listeners. Please share your comments, thoughts, and questions about FIRST BLOOD, REBEL RIDGE, and anything else in the world of film by sending an email or voice memo to [email protected], or leaving a short voicemail at (773) 234-9730. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices