Mama Needs a Movie

Anne and Ryan delve into the drama of the newly released IT ENDS WITH US starring Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj and Brandon Sklenar. Based on the bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover, the movie follows Lily Bloom (Lively), a florist reconciling her father's death, beginning a relationship with a surgeon and reuniting with an old flame. As the story unfolds, darker them...

In this unlocked episode of Mama Needs a Movie's Patreon spinoff podcast, ATTENTION MUST BE PAID (patreon.com/MNAM), Anne and Ryan look back at Lynne Ramsay's MORVERN CALLAR, a 2002 Scottish drama anchored by a haunting performance from Samantha Morton that is worthy of far more attention. Traumatized by the suicide of her novelist boyfriend on Christmas morning, Morvern Callar (Morton), s...

Anne and Ryan discuss the newly-released disaster sequel, TWISTERS starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell. Lee Isaac Chung (director of 2020's Minari) helms this fresh follow-up to Jan de Bont's 1996 original. TWISTERS follows meteorologist Kate Carter (Jones) as she re-enters the dangerous world of tornado chasing after a tragedy. When Kate meets Tyler (Powell), a hotshot hillbilly wi...

In anticipation of the newly released sequel, Anne and Ryan take a look back at 1996's original TWISTER starring Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, Cary Elwes, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Lois Smith, Jeremy Davies, Todd Field and Alan Ruck. Director Jan de Bont's disaster spectacular follows a group of amateur storm chasers across Oklahoma, flirting dangerously close with tornados as old fla...

Vroom vroom! Writer Eva Anderson returns to the podcast for a joy ride with THE BIKERIDERS starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy and Mike Faist. Jeff Nichols wrote and directed this pedal-pumping drama based on Danny Lyon's book of the same name. Based on real figures from 1960s Chicago motorcycle scene, THE BIKERIDERS finds the brooding Benny Cross (Butler) torn between his wife Kath...

Writer/director/actor Courtney Davis returns to the podcast to help us judge Alan J. Pakula's 1990 legal thriller PRESUMED INNOCENT starring Harrison Ford, Raul Julia, Bonnie Bedelia, Brian Dennehy, Paul Winfield and Greta Scacchi. Based on the best-selling novel by Scott Turow, PRESUMED INNOCENT spins the engrossing tale of a respected prosecutor accused of murdering a colleague. To give away...

It's raining men on Mama Needs a Movie with our first ever doubleheader review, discussing Richard Linklater's comedy noir HIT MAN and Chris Pine's lighthearted mystery POOLMAN. HIT MAN stars Glen Powell as a mild-mannered philosophy professor Gary Johnson, moonlighting as an undercover fake hit man, who falls for Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman who hires him. Debuting to critical prai...

We push the pedal to the metal in our discussion of George Miller's post-apocalyptic actioner, FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Burke. The fifth installment of Australia's venerable Mad Max series finds a young Furiosa kidnapped by biker warlord Dr. Dementus, and forced to watch her mother be murdered. After growing to adulthood at the Citadel, Furi...

Artist, writer and comedian Raft joins for a discussion of the new romantic comedy, THE IDEA OF YOU starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine. Directed by Michael Showalter, this Prime Video release tells the story of Solène (Hathaway), a Silver Lake art gallery owner and divorced mother turning 40 whose accidental Coachella encounter with 24-year-old pop star, Hayes Campbell (Galitzine) leads...

Anne and Ryan volley points back and forth on Luca Guadagnino's tennis romance, CHALLENGERS starring Zendaya, Mike Faist and Josh O'Connor. CHALLENGERS is the chronologically jumbled story of two young tennis players, Patrick (O'Connor) and Art (Faist) who meet another pro, Tashi (Zendaya) and are immediately drawn to her. Years later, Tashi has coached one player to numerous titles, w...

Actor and podcaster Craig Jorczak ( The Oscar Should Have Gone To ) joins to discuss the newly released action thriller, MONKEY MAN starring Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Pitobash, Vipin Sharma and Sikandar Kher. The film marks Patel's directorial debut in which he plays Kid, a young man set on taking revenge against the corrupt police chief who murdered his mother. Plagued by injuries sustained...

Director and writer Harrison Atkins ( Lace Crater ) joins for a discussion of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's rhapsodic 1947 drama, BLACK NARCISSUS starring Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, David Farrar and Sabu. Based on Rumer Godden's novel, BLACK NARCISSUS tells the story of Anglican nuns establishing a convent on a Himalayan mountaintop. Overwhelmed by the region's natural bea...

Mama Needs a Movie celebrates 100 episodes of flawless podcasting with a telephone survey of former guests Danny Jelinek, Allan McLeod, Jessica Lee Williamson, Alex Kavutskiy, Courtney Davis, Meghann Murphy, Caramel Nguyen, Jon Millstein, and Rachel Lee Goldenberg.

Anne and Ryan serve up a spicy discussion of Denis Villenueve's DUNE: PART TWO, the second installment of the epic science-fiction saga starring Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, and Javiar Bardem. Based on Frank Herbert's classic novel, the film picks up where 2021's DUNE left off: In a distant future, after the fall of the House...

Actor, comedian and playwright John Ross Bowie (Brushstroke) joins to discuss the 1954 animated adaptation of George Orwell's ANIMAL FARM featuring the voices of Gordon Heath and Maurice Denham. Co-directed by John Halas and Joy Batchelor, ANIMAL FARM is a beast fable symbolizing decades of Russian history as an animal uprising on a brutally-maintained farm. Partially funded by the CIA's O...

Actress and writer Meghann Murphy (host of The Oscar Should Have Gone To ) joins for a look back at James Cameron's Oscar-winning romance TITANIC starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and Billy Zane. Set aboard the ill-fated vessel, the story finds a newly-engaged first class passenger Rose (Winslet) falling for a free-spirited artist (DiCaprio) in third class. Cameron's ambitious epic,...

Anne and Ryan discuss Yorgos Lanthimos's gothic comedy POOR THINGS starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafoe. Based on a novel by Alasdair Gray, POOR THINGS tells the fantastical tale of Bella Baxter (Stone), a Victorian era woman resurrected from the dead through a brain transplant. Escaping her constrictive environs with a rapidly maturing mind, Bella experiences an intellectual and...

Anne and Ryan look back on their most memorable movie experiences from 2023 in this special year-in-review episode. Buckle up for a spoiler-heavy discussion of 2023 films including: AFIRE, ALL OF US STRANGERS, AMERICAN FICTION, ANATOMY OF A FALL, THE HOLDOVERS, THE IRON CLAW, KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, MAY DECEMBER, NAPOLEON, PASSAGES, PAST LIVES, SALTBURN, THE ZONE OF INTEREST, plus first-time w...

Our "Alone for the Holidays" series concludes with our final episode of 2023, a discussion of Andrew Dominik's bleak 2012 crime drama KILLING THEM SOFTLY starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta and Richard Jenkins. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 financial crises, KILLING THEM SOFTLY follows a pair of low-level criminals pulling an opportunistic heist, then switches to...

In this special holiday bonus episode, Anne and Ryan have seen MAESTRO and simply must have an emergency discussion of Bradley Cooper's long-gestating 2023 biopic of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. Cooper's drama largely focuses on Bernstein's marriage with Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), and the couple's many challenges in the face of Bernstein's success. Enjoy this surprise discussio...

Writer and performer Brian Finkelstein returns for our "Alone for the Holidays" film series, discussing Robert Zemeckis's survival tale, CAST AWAY starring Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt. In CAST AWAY, Hanks plays a time-obsessed FedEx employee who survives a plane crash on Christmas Eve, drifting ashore on a deserted island. After years of learning to survive in solitude, he must decide w...

Musician Owen Ashworth (Advance Base) joins our ongoing "Alone for the Holidays" series with a discussion of JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES starring Delphine Seyrig. At the age of 25, Chantal Akerman wrote and directed this slow-burning Belgian drama depicting the daily chores of a widowed mother in exacting detail. Through a series of static long takes, we become ac...

Our "Alone for the Holidays" season kicks off with writer/director Pat Bishop ( This Fool, Corporate ) joining to discuss Wim Wenders's 1984 road film, PARIS, TEXAS starring Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, and Dean Stockwell. Scripted by Sam Shepard, the film opens in the Mojave desert where Travis (Stanton) emerges from years of self-imposed isolation. After reuniting with his...

Writer and performer Joan Ford returns to the podcast to discuss Mama Needs a Boo-vie's final spooky October selection, Paul Schrader's CAT PEOPLE (1982) starring Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell and John Heard. This loose remake of Jacques Tourneur's 1942 supernatural classic follows Irina (Kinski) traveling to New Orleans to meet her brother, Paul (McDowell). As incestuous underton...

Writer Dave Ferguson ( The Birthday Boys, I Love You America ) braves our October excursion into cinematic scare fare with a discussion of David Cronenberg's 1986 classic THE FLY starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis. The Canadian auteur injects his unmistakable brand of body horror into this sci-fi fable of scientist Seth Brundle (Goldblum) whose experiments with matter transport go awry whe...