Cinemaholics

Now on Netflix, The White Tiger is the latest film from director Ramin Bahrani. Based on Arvind Adiga's debut novel of the same name, the film centers around a young Indian servant (Adarsh Gourav) who falls in with a wealthy couple (Rajkummar Rao and Priyanka Chopra) who push him to rethink his place in society.

Start spreading the news. The Cinemaholics are back this week to discuss the latest Tom Hanks movie directed by Paul Greengrass, which just happens to be a western set in post-Civil War Texas. Fun! We also review The White Tiger, In & of Itself, Our Friend, Some Kind of Heaven, and The Marksman.

Phyllida Lloyd, director of Mamma Mia! and The Iron Lady, returns to the big screen with Herself, a new uplifting drama starring and co-written by Clare Dunne. The film had a warm reception at Sundance last January and is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

The first "major" COVID movie is here! And it's a romantic comedy...heist movie? Sort of? Join us as we parse through the insanity that is Locked Down, which just released on HBO Max. It was directed by Doug Liman (Edge of Tomorrow) and written by Steven Knight (Locke). The film stars Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and a star-studded cast of Zoom call cameos we probably shouldn't give away here.

One afternoon on a Sunday, the Cinemaholics got together to review Regina King’s debut feature film, One Night in Miami, which stars Kingsley Ben-Adir, Leslie Odom Jr, Eli Goree, and Aldis Hodge. Also in this episode, you’ll hear some mini reviews for “WandaVision,” The Ultimate Playlist of Noise, and more. And some extended discussion over Locked Down and Herself.

OK, “reel” talk. 2020 was…interesting. It was definitely the most unique year of film in the last century of moviegoing. But throughout all the weirdness, we here at Cinemaholics found ourselves captivated by no small number of great projects from veteran filmmakers, first-time directors, and plenty of independent voices. In our annual “best of the year” show, we each discuss our general thoughts on 2020, our honorable mentions, and of course, our respective Top 10 choices. Plus, we share voicemails from some of you listeners discussing your favorite films of 2020.

We’re celebrating the new year with some tonally different new movies this week. First up is Pieces of a Woman, a new melodrama hitting Netflix this week, which stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf. Then we get into Sylvie’s Love, a new throwback romance on Amazon Prime starring Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha. Finally, Will and Abby discuss The Midnight Sky on Netflix, directed by George Clooney, who also stars in the film alongside Felicity Jones. We also cover a few mini reviews in Off-Topics, which include “Cobra Kai”Season 3, We Can Be Heroes, Shadow in the Cloud, and News of the World.

To officially conclude this year's Extra Milestone lineup, Jon Negroni and Will Ashton of the Cinemaholics podcast joined forces with me one last time to discuss two distinct (and oddly holiday-centric) auteur-driven classics. We start our conversation by digging through the muck of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a bureaucratic odyssey of madness often regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. After that, we jump forward to Edward Scissorhands, an intensely personal story from Tim Burton that is both lighthearted and melancholy, and which has affected us all at one point or another.

We had an out-of-body experience over the holidays checking out some major blockbuster films that hit streaming instead of theaters. There’s Pixar’s Soul, the latest from Pete Docter, which stars Jamie Foxx and Tina Fey. And we also cover the controversial Wonder Woman 1984 from Patty Jenkins, which stars Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, and Pedro Pascal. Finally, we end the show with review of Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, another controversial film that was a hit on the festival circuit, and it stars Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham.

We love watching movies around Christmastime, but we all have our favorite "unconventional" picks for the holiday season. Julia Teti joins us for a bonus discussion to discuss some of the best alternative Christmas movies, from recent favorites like Hustlers to perennial classics like The Apartment (which Julia contends is a New Year's Movie for some reason).

Welcome to (perhaps) the largest Extra Milestone yet! In an Anyway, That’s All I Got reunion for the ages, I’m joined by Anthony Battaglia, Guy Simons Jr., and Jason Read to discuss three of the biggest epics of the 21st century! First up is Barry Lyndon, the passion project of Stanley Kubrick released in 1975, and a film that’s quite well-loved among hardcore cinephiles. After that, we circle back to Spartacus, an earlier Kubrick film that is rarely discussed in the context of his filmography, and perhaps for just reason! Finally, we jump forward to another one of the great directors with Ran, Akira Kurosawa’s massive and operatic masterpiece from 1985, and which only one of us had seen!

We’re sounding off this week for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the new Netflix film that has Oscars in its sights for Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman. We also cover Nomadland, a Best Picture frontrunner from writer/director Chloé Zhao and starring Frances McDormand. And there’s also Greenland, the newest Gerard Butler disaster flick that is surprisingly decent! Last, we do a retrospective of Small Axe, a collection of five films from director Steve McQueen, which you can now stream on Amazon Prime Video.

Emily Kubincanek makes her welcomed and triumphant return to Extra Milestone, and this week's selections are among the most varied yet! We begin by celebrating the 95-year anniversary of Sergei Eisenstein's magnum opus Battleship Potemkin, a film more fundamentally significant than almost any other when it comes to the art form of editing and propaganda storytelling. After that, we take a lighthearted and melancholy stroll into the world of Henry Koster's Harvey, a rich and complex comedy featuring one of the best performances by the great James Stewart. Finally, we get to the bottom of Jonathan Lynn's Clue, a cult-classic murder mystery that neither of us had seen before, and were delighted to discover was great!

Colman Domingo stars alongside Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which hits Netflix on December 18 after its limited theatrical release. In addition to his acting work in films like If Beale Street Could Talk, Assassination Nation, Zola, and the upcoming Candyman, Domingo brings a wealth of experience as a writer, director, producer and actor on the stage, making him an obvious choice for Ma Rainey, which is based on the August Wilson play. I talked about the film with Domingo over Zoom, as well as his acting influences, his camaraderie with the late Chadwick Boseman, and what film lovers might get out of George C. Wolfe's latest directorial effort.

The holiday season is upon us, so you know what that means! Time to celebrate the…prom? Well, OK, we’re really celebrating the annual big-budget December movie musical, which this year is Ryan Murphy’s The Prom, now streaming on Netflix and starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and Keegan-Michael Key. We cover several other movies as well, which include Julia Hart’s new indie noir drama I’m Your Woman on Amazon Prime Video starring Rachel Brosnahan, Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk (also starring Meryl Streep) on HBO Max, the hand-drawn animated film Wolfwalkers on Apple TV+, the time-bending indie Wander Darkly starring Diego Luna and Sienna Miller, and Songbird, which stars KJ Apa and Sofia Carson.