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Home to The Playlist Podcast Network and all its affiliated shows, including The Playlist Podcast, The Discourse, Be Reel, The Fourth Wall, and more. The Playlist is the obsessive's guide to contemporary cinema via film discussion, news, reviews, features, nostalgia, and more.
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![‘Heel’: Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough & Anson Boon On Grief, Redemption, More ‘Adolescence,’ and ‘Mobland’ Season 2 [The Discourse Podcast]](https://s3.castbox.fm/d4/61/dc/312c4e80137a692358cde60b95ebe2214c_scaled_v1_400.jpg "‘Heel’: Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough & Anson Boon On Grief, Redemption, More ‘Adolescence,’ and ‘Mobland’ Season 2 [The Discourse Podcast]")
At first glance, “Heel” (released internationally as “The Good Boy”) looks like it might be a grim captivity thriller. A troubled young man is abducted and chained in a basement by a grieving couple. But filmmaker Jan Komasa has something stranger and more psychologically rich in mind. Instead of a story about imprisonment and escape, “Heel” becomes a meditation on grief, redemption, and the uncomfortable idea that compassion can sometimes arrive in deeply unsettling forms. The film stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon, and opens in theaters and on-demand March 6.On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo spoke with Graham and Riseborough together, followed by Boon in a separate conversation, about the film’s unusual premise, the emotional core behind its darkness, and the different ways each actor interpreted the story.READ MORE: ‘The Bluff’: Priyanka Chopra-Jonas & Karl Urban On Brutal Location Shoots, Colonial Reckonings, ‘The Boys’ Finale, ‘Citadel,’ & The Hope For More ‘Dredd’ [The Discourse Podcast]For Graham, the script’s twisted premise wasn’t the point. What grabbed him was the emotional logic behind it.
![‘DTF: St. Louis’: Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini, David Harbour, & Steve Conrad On Vulnerability, Sexual Secrets, & Jason Bateman's MCU Character [Bingeworthy Podcast]](https://s3.castbox.fm/4c/df/74/32ad393f145b054b1b91a2453fa1e4672b_scaled_v1_400.jpg "‘DTF: St. Louis’: Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini, David Harbour, & Steve Conrad On Vulnerability, Sexual Secrets, & Jason Bateman's MCU Character [Bingeworthy Podcast]")
There’s a specific flavor to a Steve Conrad show. A little awkward. A little hilarious. A little sad. A little dangerous. Sex, lies, murder, and old smut. That tone is back in full force with “DTF: St. Louis,” the HBO Max series that follows adults who think they’re signing up for an app that's simple and transactional, only to discover that intimacy is never that clean. The ensemble includes Jason Bateman, Linda Cardellini, David Harbour, and Richard Jenkins, and like Conrad’s previous work on “Patriot,” it blends weaponized awkwardness with genuine emotional exposure.On this episode of Bingeworthy, Mike DeAngelo spoke with Conrad and the cast about where the idea began, how you calibrate a tone that’s funny and unsettling at the same time, and what it’s like to shoot your first scene together at eight in the morning while sitting on Jason Bateman’s face.For Conrad, the origin point wasn’t a character or a crime, it was the app itself.“It was the brand name of that make-believe app,” he said. “It opened up everything for me, because only a sucker would believe that that’s all anybody is down for. I mean, life has its surprises, but the idea that you can have an intimate relationship with somebody, shake hands and say, now go on with the rest of my life — unlikely that that is always going to go that way.”
There’s a blunt-force clarity to “The Bluff.” Cannons roar, cliffs loom, and survival comes down to grit, guns, and one badass mother who refuses to bend. Directed by Frank E. Flowers, the 19th-century Caribbean thriller follows Ursell (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), a former pirate whose quiet life is shattered when Connor (Karl Urban), a betrayed former ally, arrives with vengeance and unfinished business on his mind. What unfolds is part Pirate-themed, “Die Hard”-esque siege movie, part reckoning with empire, and, in Urban’s words, “actually a love story with the volume turned up.” The film hits Prime Video on February 25 and also stars Temuera Morrison, Ismael Cruz Córdova, Safia Oakley-Green, and more.On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Karl Urban to talk about the sweat, the history, and the franchise futures looming on both of their horizons.When asked just how physically punishing the shoot for “The Bluff” was, Urban did not romanticize it. “At the end of every single day, I would go and get all the stuff taken off, and I would have a double tequila ready to go and ready for that car ride home,” he said. Chopra-Jonas raised the stakes. “I definitely needed a tetanus shot, and margarita, and a bottle of wine.” The production was shot entirely on location, on a tight schedule, and there was “no time for anybody to fall sick. There was just no room.” Chopra Jonas admitted. “But, I mean, it looks great, and it turned out great.”
There’s a very specific kind of comfort that only “Scrubs” can deliver. It’s the snap‑cut from slapstick to soul‑crushing. The hallway daydream that detonates into real grief. The sense that medicine is both sacred and absurd, and that humor is the only thing keeping anyone upright. The new “Scrubs” revival understands that alchemy. It is not interested in embalming the past. It is interesting to ask what happens when the dreamers become the grownups, when the interns who once hid behind fantasies now have to lead.On this episode of Bingeworthy, host Mike DeAngelo sits down with Bill Lawrence and Aseem Batra to talk about bringing “Scrubs” back in a way that honors its past without getting trapped by it. The revival premieres with two back‑to‑back episodes on Wednesday, February 25, on ABC and streams the next day on Hulu.For Lawrence, the return starts with gratitude. “Not every show that you worked on gets to have a fan base so passionate that they continue to do it,” he said. That passion, he noted, is alive and well, citing everything from obsessive continuity questions to fans who never stopped revisiting Sacred Heart.
You've really got to love the jolt of pure cinematic adrenaline that hits when a movie announces itself with extreme confidence instead of apology. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” does it by storming into a Los Angeles diner and unleashing a crazed, high‑wire opening monologue that plays like a dare, a sales pitch, and an exhausted rallying cry all at once. From the jump, the film makes it clear it is not here to calm you down. It’s here to wake you the hell up. THE ROBOTS ARE COMING! THE ROBOTS ARE COMING!Directed by Gore Verbinski ("Pirates of the Caribbean," " Rango"), the film follows a mysterious man from "the future” (Sam Rockwell) who arrives at a diner with one urgent task: he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one‑night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence. That reluctant group includes Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña, Haley Lu Richardson, and Juno Temple. What unfolds is a kinetic collision of sci‑fi, action, romance, and social satire that never lets up until the credits roll. Think "Terminator" on a healthy combo of acid & mushrooms and you've mostly got it. Joining The Discourse for a set of conversations on the film, Gore Verbinski, Sam Rockwell, Zazie Beetz, and Michael Peña dug into how the film’s energy, tone, and unapologetic weirdness were not accidents, but the entire point.
![‘Crime 101’: Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, & Bart Layton On Heist Films, Breaking The System, & ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ [The Discourse Podcast]](https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_episode/2006249/2006249-1770741343770-719b43d333.jpg "‘Crime 101’: Chris Hemsworth, Halle Berry, & Bart Layton On Heist Films, Breaking The System, & ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ [The Discourse Podcast]")
There’s a particular kind of confidence required to make a modern Los Angeles heist movie without flinching at the shadow of “Heat.” It’s the cinematic elephant in the room, the reference point that inevitably looms over any story involving meticulous thieves, dogged cops, and asphalt‑level tension. With “Crime 101,” filmmaker Bart Layton acknowledges that lineage without trying to wrestle it. Instead, he builds something adjacent: a grounded, contemporary crime film that uses the genre as a delivery system for deeper questions about identity, status, and obsession.Based on the novella by Don Winslow, “Crime 101” follows a precise, disciplined jewel thief (played by Chris Hemsworth) whose carefully calibrated life begins to fracture as an obsessive LAPD detective (played by Mark Ruffalo) closes in. Sound familiar "Heat" fans? Luckily, we also have other stories running parallel, like Halle Berry as Sharon, a woman boxed in by institutional disrespect and professional diminishment, slowly realizing that the systems she has played by were never designed to reward her. The ensemble is stacked with Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Nick Nolte, and more, but the film’s real engine is tone: tense, patient, and uninterested in clean moral answers.READ MORE: ‘Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie’: Matt Johnson & Jay McCarrol On Time Travel, Friendship, The Show’s 3rd Season, & Filming Without Permits [The Discourse Podcast]Joining The Discourse for two separate interviews, Layton, Hemsworth, and Berry dug into how “Crime 101” consciously avoids Hollywood shorthand while still delivering a propulsive, white‑knuckle ride.
“The Beauty” is nowhere near subtle about its ambitions & its message. FX’s provocative sci‑fi drama isn’t content to simply unsettle you; it wants to corner you, interrogate you, and then quietly ask how much of yourself you’d be willing to trade for comfort, power, or control. Episode 5 is where that thesis sharpens into something genuinely frightening, and it does so by re-introducing one of the series’ most corrosive figures yet: billionaire Byron Forst.On this spoiler‑heavy episode of Bingeworthy, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by Vincent D’Onofrio, who guest stars as Forst, a grotesque avatar of unchecked wealth and impulse who ultimately becomes “The Corporation” after taking The Beauty, the post‑human evolution later embodied by Ashton Kutcher. It’s a role that arrives with deliberate whiplash, and D’Onofrio leans into that discomfort with gusto.D’Onofrio admitted he hadn’t fully watched the series yet, though his daughter’s reaction told him everything he needed to know.
Some movies are about finally arriving somewhere. ‘Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie’ is about two people refusing to stop walking the same thankless path together. Built from decades‑old footage, rewritten realities, real stunts, and a running gag that has never paid off, the film disguises something deeply human inside its most absurd impulses. Beneath the time travel, the public stunts, and the escalating chaos sits a simple question the movie never stops asking: what does it mean to keep choosing the same collaborator, the same friend, long after logic says it would be easier to move on?That tension animates both the film and this conversation with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, who have been in and building some version of Nirvanna The Band together for nearly twenty years. While the finished movie feels precise and inevitable, Johnson was clear that its existence was anything but. There was no groundswell of industry interest, no clean path from cult series to feature film. The only reason it exists is because of a blank check they received after the success of their film, "Blackberry."
There is a point while trying to explain “The Beauty” where the description simply gives up. FBI investigations. Global travel. Corporate greed. A miracle cure. Bodies everywhere, beautiful and horrific. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the sentences collapse, because the show isn’t interested in being neat or easily digestible. It wants overload. It wants provocation. It wants you pausing mid-thought and realizing you’re not doing it justice.Adapted from the graphic novel and brought to the screen by Ryan Murphy, “The Beauty” imagines a world where physical perfection is contagious. Beauty is a man-made virus, a commodity, and a power source capable of reshaping global economics and personal identity at the same time. The story jumps between Paris, Venice, Rome, New York, and beyond, moving like an espionage thriller while constantly undercutting itself with body horror and satire. The show stars Evan Peters, Rebecca Hall, Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, and more.READ MORE: ‘His & Hers’: Tessa Thompson On Dual Perspectives, THAT Ending, Valkyrie’s MCU Return, & ‘Creed 4’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]On this episode of Bingeworthy, Peters and Hall talk about what it was like stepping into one of Murphy’s boldest creations yet, and why neither of them needed convincing.
Some shows live comfortably in one gear. “Landman” decidedly does not. Season 2 is best when it’s bouncing between tones, when a moment that plays like broad comedy suddenly curdles into something personal and more uncomfortable. One scene has you laughing at unchecked confidence. The next reminds you that this confidence has consequences, usually paid by family.Set in the oil fields of West Texas, the Taylor Sheridan-created series is still very much about power, money, and leverage, but Season 2 makes it harder to separate those things from the personal damage they cause. Ego doesn’t clock out at the end of the workday. It comes home, pulls up a chair, and waits for dinner. With the Season 2 finale now aired on Paramount+, the show is officially BINGEWORTHY!READ MORE: ‘Landman’ Review: Taylor Sheridan’s Oil Series With Billy Bob Thornton Is Mostly Entertaining & Speaks To A MAGA Worldview
Sweaty palms, bad decisions, and the creeping realization that the walls are closing in have always been Joe Carnahan’s cinematic comfort zone, from the raw nerve of “Narc” to the adrenalized chaos of “Smokin’ Aces.” With “The Rip,” Carnahan distills that obsession into its most claustrophobic form yet, a lean, pressure-cooker cop thriller that weaponizes procedure, grief, and mistrust by refusing to let anyone leave the room.Premiering January 16 on Netflix, the film follows a team of law enforcement officers tasked with counting a massive cash seizure inside a private home, only to realize the money has placed them squarely in someone else’s crosshairs, turning routine protocol into a moral and physical siege where loyalty fractures and survival comes at a cost. The film stars Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, Kyle Chandler, Scott Adkins, and more.On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by writer-director Joe Carnahan to discuss how “The Rip” grew out of deeply personal real-life experience, why confinement can be more terrifying than scale, collaborating with Damon and Affleck as producers, and why character-driven crime stories continue to pull him back more than any franchise machinery.
There’s a certain kind of midnight movie that feels like it crawled out of an alley, brushed itself off, and dared you to follow it home. “Night Patrol,” the new wild horror stew from writer-director Ryan Prows, is exactly that. A vampire flick with cop-movie nerves, magic, and a nasty little conscience, it’s the kind of film that can play as pulpy, borderline campy fun and still leave you chewing on bigger questions about power, ideology, and what “monsters” really look like when the credits roll.On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by Justin Long and CM Punk (Phil Brooks) to talk about the film, their characters, and the strange, rewarding contradictions baked into Prows’ nightmarish world.For Justin Long, the role arrived at a time when his career seemed to be moving with wild, genre-hopping momentum, but he’s not exactly sitting at home drawing a master plan on a whiteboard.
![‘His & Hers’: Tessa Thompson On Dual Perspectives, THAT Ending, Valkyrie’s MCU Return, and ‘Creed 4’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]](https://s3.castbox.fm/fa/24/a3/2c43d01427cd064686fac5168ad5285bba_scaled_v1_400.jpg "‘His & Hers’: Tessa Thompson On Dual Perspectives, THAT Ending, Valkyrie’s MCU Return, and ‘Creed 4’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]")
There’s a specific perverse pleasure in watching a murder mystery show that knows exactly when to let you feel confident and exactly when to pull that confidence out from under you. Netflix's “His & Hers” does that trick over and over again. You think you’ve got a handle on it. You start building your little internal conspiracy corkboard. Then it quietly slides one detail out of place, and suddenly the whole picture looks different.The series follows Anna (Tessa Thompson), a once‑prominent journalist who returns to her hometown just as a murder investigation begins to unravel long‑buried secrets. Told through competing points of view between Anna and her estranged husband, Jack Harper (Jon Bernthal), the show builds its tension around who controls the narrative, and what happens when truth becomes a weapon rather than a destination. The ensemble cast also includes Jon Bernthal, Pablo Schreiber, Marin Ireland, Sunita Mani, and more.
Disaster movies are built to end things. Cities collapse, the planet cracks open, and whatever survives crawls out into the credits. Sequels are supremely rare because escalation usually feels beside the point. But “Greenland 2: Migration” exists because director Ric Roman Waugh never viewed the first film as a one-off thrill ride. For him, it was always the opening chapter of a single emotional story about family, survival, and legacy.The sequel again follows the Garrity family as they must leave the safety of the Greenland bunker and embark on a perilous journey across the decimated, volatile wasteland of Europe in search of a new home. The film stars Gerard Butler, Morena Baccarin, Roman Griffin Davis, William Abadie, and more.On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by director Ric Roman Waugh to discuss why “Migration” was never conceived as a traditional sequel, how emotion allows spectacle to breathe, reuniting with Gerard Butler for their fourth collaboration, and balancing franchise expectations with the fear of repetition.
The Wasteland doesn’t care who you are. It burns everyone the same. "Fallout" returns for Season 2 with a broader canvas and more confidence, expanding its ensemble-driven apocalypse while keeping its eye on the emotional wreckage left behind. Set in a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, the series follows citizens forced to survive in underground bunkers while the surface world fills with radiation, mutants, bandits, and moral rot. The show stars Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Moisas Arias, and more.Joining Bingeworthy for this episode is Walton Goggins, who returns as Cooper Howard / "The Ghoul," and he’s quick to frame Season 2 as an evolution rather than a victory lap. Having lived through shows that found new depth after their first year, he knows the difference between simply getting louder and genuinely digging in. “If you can get a Season 1 right, if you tell a story that moves you or makes you feel something, then with the second one, if you care about it as much as the people on this show care, you can really dig deeper,” Goggins said. “That’s what these writers did. That’s what these directors did. Everybody showed up and gave their best every single day.”
![‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’: Rohan Campbell & Mike P. Nelson On Bloody Holiday Romance, Nazi Christmas Parties, & Defending ‘Halloween Ends’ [The Discourse Podcast]](https://s3.castbox.fm/fc/a3/c9/51f6e3da2c8a12e3e82a4ae99e6f5faa3a_scaled_v1_400.jpg "‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’: Rohan Campbell & Mike P. Nelson On Bloody Holiday Romance, Nazi Christmas Parties, & Defending ‘Halloween Ends’ [The Discourse Podcast]")
Holiday horror is usually all tinsel and trauma, but the new remake of "Silent Night, Deadly Night" decides it also wants to add a warm hug, a nervous breakdown, and a full-blown Nazi Christmas party for good measure. Director Mike P. Nelson takes the infamous killer Santa premise and rebuilds it as a supernatural slasher with a bruised, endearing Hallmark heart at the center, following a gentler, wounded version of Billy Chapman and the woman who accidentally falls in love with the monster in the red suit. It is romantic, nasty, and weird in exactly the right Christmas-y ways.On this episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by star Rohan Campbell and director Mike P. Nelson to delve into reinventing a cult slasher, balancing sweetness with splatter, staging set pieces like a Nazi Christmas party and a nightmare ball pit, and exploring where a potential sequel could take Billy and Pam.
Childhood fears, bedtime monsters, and the hazy membrane between imagination and trauma collide in “Dust Bunny,” the feature directorial debut of Bryan Fuller, a filmmaker whose storytelling instincts have always lived in the space between the two B’s - beauty and brutality. It is a film that feels handcrafted out of nightmares and fairy-tale sugar, a creature feature through the eyes of a child who sees the world in magic and menace at the same time. Rich with color, shadows, and emotional ambiguity, it is unmistakably a Bryan Fuller movie, which is to say that it’s tender, violent, mischievous, and sincere in equal measure.Joining The Discourse in today’s episode is Bryan Fuller himself, the writer and director behind shows like “Hannibal,” “Pushing Daisies,” “American Gods,” and “Star Trek: Discovery” (in its early days). Fuller’s signature blend of genre storytelling and emotional excavation finds a new form here as he steps behind the camera for his first feature-length film, crafting a story about a little girl who hires a hitman to kill the monster under her bed and discovers that nothing is simple when your fears have roots. The film stars Mads Mikkelsen, Sigourney Weaver, David Dastmalchian, Sophie Sloan, and Sheila Atim.
There’s refined British comedy, and then there’s “Fackham Hall,” a movie that waltzes in wearing period-accurate garb on the outside and immediately trips over the furniture. It’s the kind of delightfully silly romp where aristocrats brood, servants scramble, romance simmers, relatives wed, and the background is working twice as hard as the actors to steal every scene, like “Downton Abbey” politely offering you tea while “Airplane” swaps the sugar for gunpowder. Set between the wars, the film follows starry-eyed servant Eric and rebellious aristocrat Rose as their forbidden attraction detonates inside a household already teetering on the edge of absurdity. The ensemble includes Thomasin McKenzie, Damian Lewis, Katherine Waterston, Tom Felton, and a sprawling cast of blissfully serious performers.Joining The Discourse in today’s episode are “Fackham Hall” director Jim O’Hanlon and star Thomasin McKenzie, who break down how the team crafted a period comedy where the jokes never stop multiplying and the sincerity has to be played with absolute conviction.
Kingstown never sleeps. It snarls. It churns. It eats the weak. With “Mayor of Kingstown” returning for Season 4, the Paramount+ thriller doubles down on the brutal machinery of power, corruption, and survival that has defined the series from the beginning. But this year, something shifts. A storm hits the city in the form of Edie Falco, who joins the show as Nina Hobbs, the new prison warden and a razor-sharp antagonist to Jeremy Renner’s battered fixer, Mike McLusky.Joining Bingeworthy for this episode are Jeremy Renner and Edie Falco, who break down the fierce chess match between Mike and Nina, the sense of doom that defines their characters, and the existential question haunting this season.READ MORE: ‘IT: Welcome To Derry’: Andy & Barbara Muschietti, Jason Fuchs & Brad Caleb Kane On Pennywise’s Origins, Their Multi-Season Plan, And Their Experience on ‘The Flash’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]Renner said the fun of their dynamic comes from how quickly civility slips into threat. He explained that their very first exchange set the tone. “From our first scene, it’s like the lightest version of that, but it does just keep going, that chess match. But it’s really good writing and when it’s not, we fix it. And the job’s easy and it becomes fun when you have really talented people to work with. You can really find nuances to things and not be like, it’s not posturing. It becomes a really wonderful dance.” He added that beneath the barbs, both characters genuinely want some level of cooperation. “We are not playing like we hate each other. We want to work through this, but this is what I got to do.”
![‘IT: Welcome To Derry’: Andy & Barbara Muschietti, Jason Fuchs & Brad Caleb Kane On Pennywise’s Origins, Their Multi-Season Plan, And Their Experience on ‘The Flash’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]](https://d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/staging/podcast_uploaded_episode/2006249/2006249-1763656509208-ccab8692a032e.jpg "‘IT: Welcome To Derry’: Andy & Barbara Muschietti, Jason Fuchs & Brad Caleb Kane On Pennywise’s Origins, Their Multi-Season Plan, And Their Experience on ‘The Flash’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]")
In Derry, the past never stays buried. Set in 1962, "IT: Welcome to Derry" rewinds Stephen King’s nightmare town to a moment of postcard innocence and slowly peels the veneer off to show the rot underneath. The new HBO series acts as a prequel to "IT" and "IT: Chapter Two", following the Hanlon family as they’re pulled into another brutal cycle of disappearances, hauntings, and a certain grinning figure who feeds beneath the streets. Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise, joined by newcomers James Remar, Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, and Chris Chalk.Joining host Mike DeAngelo for the podcast are executive producers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, along with co-showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane, who walk through how this new cycle came to life and why the Kingverse has far deeper corners than the films could ever reach.
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what an AWESOME discussion of the film. I enjoyed it so much! love both of your perspectives.
😅😂