The Family Pictures Podcast

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore how the quiet persistence of women’s work—and a single act of moral courage—reshapes a frontier story built on male bravado.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore how The New Land reveals the frontier not as mythic violence but as decades of labor, loss, and quiet perseverance.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith trace how Shane creates a double image of masculinity: the domestic father who builds a home, and the gunfighter who sacrifices himself so that home can exist.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith take a journey into the West’s darkest myth—where family, race, and vengeance shape the American imagination.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith dive into Paul Thomas Anderson’s absurdist epic One Battle After Another , tracing how a botched revolution, an absent mother, and a very tired dad collide into a father–daughter story about surviving the fallout of ideology.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith look at Children of Men as a story about the memory of family at the end of time—a world where nostalgia replaces birth, and the smallest spark of new life becomes a collective act of faith.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith trace the collapse of a patriarch’s paradise, where the dream of self-sufficiency turns into a theology of madness.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore Running on Empty as a portrait of the revolutionary 1960s ideals colliding with 1980s family life — a story about parents on the run from the past and a son who just wants a future.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore Hanna as a story of overprotection and isolation—a father so intent on keeping his daughter safe that he leaves her unprepared for everything that isn’t lethal.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith unpack Tamara Jenkins’s semi-autobiographical tale of a family chasing stability in the fringes of 90210.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith dig into Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm (1997), where suburban Connecticut families freeze under the pressures of shifting social mores, crumbling marriages, and one fatal ice storm.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss Todd Solondz’s 1996 indie darling Welcome to the Dollhouse. Dawn Wiener faces the brutality of junior high, the cruelty of family favoritism, and the faint promise of escape through music, fantasy, and misfit connection.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith frame a new lens on Kids (1995): how the real “kids” built a family in the absence of parents, and how that story was twisted by outsiders.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss Nai Nai’s proverbs to AIM slang, as Dìdi reveals how families and friends communicate expectations and escape them.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith talk Weapons as it confronts America’s cycle of denial — from Sandy Hook to generational rot — asking if the real horror is how much we want a scapegoat.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith dive into the house that bleeds, locks its doors, and bankrupts the Lutzes—turning the American Dream into an American Nightmare.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss snowsuits, pajamas, and psychoplasmics—Cronenberg’s rage babies embody the horror of childhood shaped by parental wounds.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discover when the American Dream breaks down, even the family dog learns to kill.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith dive into Jaws, the 1975 blockbuster that emptied beaches and flooded minds with nightmares. At the center is Chief Brody — not just hunting a shark, but navigating fatherhood, fear, and outsider status in a tight-knit town that doesn’t trust him.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith cover Hooper's nightmare of when the nuclear family collapses and the cannibal family takes its place. 

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith revist how John Hughes turned detention into confessional, capturing how teens both resent and crave their parents’ attention.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith look at the generational blind spots in Fast Times, where both parents and producers underestimated what teens could handle — and audiences noticed.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith unpack how Sixteen Candles balances teenage independence with the lingering need for parental affirmation.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smithrevisit The Wild Life, a film about kids chasing parties and independence, but always punching the clock to afford it.

It’s still you using me — and a father trying to steer a son’s life. JIm Groom and Michael Branson Smith dive into Some Kind of Wonderful's confrontations about control, expectation, and self-worth.