Show Notes
Our twenty first film at Toronto tells the wild true story of how Sylvester Stallone refused every payout Hollywood offered him just to star in his own script. We talk about Anthony Ippolito's uncanny transformation into Stallone, the scrappy low budget decisions that accidentally made Rocky a classic, and why this story of stubborn self belief hits just as hard as the movie it's about.
More from Stay Through the Credits
A24’s surprise documentary “You Can See Everything” just posted a record-setting Metacritic score and a $15 million opening weekend, and suddenly the Best Picture race looks wide open. We talk about whether a documentary can finally land a nomination, whether it can topple Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” and which contenders could still shake up the field.
Three movies into the DC Universe, the weirdest one might also be the best. James Watkins turns a shapeshifting actor with a ruined face into an R-rated body horror throwback that needs zero franchise homework. We talk the practical effects, Naomi Ackie’s scientist with a conscience, the plane turbulence scene that will haunt us, and why this one actually feels like its own thing.
Taika Waititi tackles Kazuo Ishiguro’s AI novel with Jenna Ortega as a robot companion praying to the sun to be chosen, and it should have been a perfect match. It wasn’t. We talk the candy colored Friend Store, Natasha Lyonne’s den mother energy, the “Jojo Rabbit” comparison, and why a film about mortality and obsolescence ends up so obvious and tonally confused.
Ti West’s A24 horror comedy drops a crew of scrappy adult filmmakers onto a Texas farm owned by a very unhappy elderly couple, and it’s as wicked as it sounds. We talk Mia Goth in two roles, the 1970s grindhouse spirit, the slow burn tension that West does better than almost anyone, and what the film has to say about youth, sex and getting old.
Paul Bettany returns as Vision in Marvel’s “VisionQuest,” a “WandaVision” follow-up about an android trying to understand his own feelings. We talk about why a Victorian mansion full of AI assistants, including a scruffy James Spader as Ultron, is the show’s best idea, and why the convoluted lore leaves viewers as emotionally disconnected as its hero.