The Rolling Tape

In one of the most meme-worthy, yet highly anticipated comedy thrillers of the year, Elizabeth Banks’s loosely based on real life events film Cocaine Bear is sure to leave its mark early in 2023. Joined by guest Jamie Arena, we review the film starring Ray Liotta, Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, and one coke-snorting mammal. Chapter Timestamps: 0:00:00 Introduction 0:04:19 Cocaine Bear Non-Spoiler...

The Oscar for Best Picture at the Academy Awards is the highest award that can be allotted to a film in the Hollywood Film Awards Circuit. With the 95th Oscars upcoming, we take a look back at last year’s winner CODA paired with a previous Best Picture voted by our listeners, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. We discuss what elements of a film can lead to a Best Picture film and analy...

With the third installment in this franchise which has now reached a trilogy, Steven Soderbergh is bringing the magic of Mike Lane back to the big screen this week in theaters. We review Magic Mike’s Last Dance as well as announce the nominations for the 1st annual TRT Awards and cover industry news including the start of the Berlin Film Festival and new trailer releases. Chapter Timestamps: 0:00:...

The romance film is a genre that elevates in popularity during the Valentine’s day season, but the classic romance film relationship with the protagonists getting back together against all odds isn’t for everyone. Real life relationships are often much messier and grounded than the Hollywood romance idealization, and that’s where the anti-romance comes in. For the Valentine’s Day cynics out there,...

After the Oscar nomination announcements, we are joined by Reece Beaumont to break down the results by analyzing all of the expected nominations we received along with the surprises and snubs. We reveal how accurate our final predictions were before we move into analyzing the final phase of Oscar campaigning leading up to the announcement of the winners of March 12th. Chapter Timestamps: 0:00:00 I...

The biopic genre is one that has come to dominate Hollywood studios in recent years but has also been present in filmmaking since the earliest era of cinema. Often featuring a well-known public figure in history that dramatizes an event or time in their lives, films of this “biography” style have become well acquainted with Academy Awards and audiences alike who are well connected to the lives of...

Oscar Nominations for the 95th Academy Awards have been announced! Here are our live, uncut reactions to the nomination announcement ceremony. The Rolling Tape is a multimedia film and entertainment outlet for podcasts, online publications, and film production. The podcast is a TRT production covering weekly film reviews, industry updates, and awards season news. Find The Rolling Tape everywhere:...

With Oscar nomination morning just around the corner on January 24, we break down category by category our final predictions for what will be nominated at the 95th Academy Awards this coming March. We discuss our predictions for everything from Best Makeup & Hairstyling to Best Picture and all of the categories in between by giving our Academy predictions as well as honorable mentions that we...

The “Silent Film Era” was the foundational period of film history that saw the earliest innovations to cinematic storytelling. This era of filmmaking from the 1890’s to the 1920’s lacked the ability to record synchronized sound as we recognize it today, but also set forth many technical achievements that are still utilized today. Films of this period were forced to convey emotion and narrative thr...

With 2022 and the first calendar year of The Rolling Tape in the books, we celebrate the year’s best moments in cinema by talking about our favorite movies, performances, and scenes before releasing our team’s Top 15 films of 2022. We then look ahead at 2023 and talk about our most anticipated releases that will be screening and streaming for the next 365 days along with our team’s movie watching...

Women Talking (2022) directed and written by Sarah Polley is an adaptation of a novel of the same name by Miriam Toews. The novel is a fictionalized response to the true story of a Mennonite community in Bolivia in which 150 women and young girls experienced sexual abuse, resulting in the imprisonment of 8 men. Polley’s film adaptation adds another layer to this story, centering the narrative on t...

Coming of age movies come in many shapes and sizes, but it is a subgenre of films that often evokes a sense of nostalgia for its central characters who are dealing with the challenges of growing up in varying capacities. These films often follow the primary arc of a protagonist moving into the next stage of their lives and center around major changes and milestones, making them frequently relatabl...

The holiday season is one of the best times of the year to celebrate cinema and all of the movies that utilize Christmas as setting or subject to their stories. To celebrate this magical season, we discuss the winner of the Best Christmas Movie bracket, It’s a Wonderful Life directed by Frank Capra in 1946. Considered one of the most recognizable foundations to the “Christmas movie” we discuss why...

In Darren Aronofsky’s first film since 2017, he returns with The Whale , an adaptation of a play by Samuel D. Hunter of the same name. Starring Brendan Fraser as a reclusive English teacher suffering from grief and obesity, the film also features Hong Chau, Sadie Sink, and Samantha Morton. The Whale opened at Venice International Film Festival and is currently in theaters, so we discuss our review...

Ever since the advent of color in the 1930's before it became mainstream in filmmaking in the 50's and 60's, filmmakers have found creative ways to utilize color as a tool in storytelling. Often utilized as a storytelling device to tell something more about the story that cannot be conveyed by the performances alone, color can be used to translate emotions, imbue symbolism, and have...

Damien Chazelle has returned with his first film since 2018 in the form of a grand epic about the transition in early Hollywood to “talkies.” Starring Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Brad Pitt, and Jean Smart, the film is among the last to release in 2022 with a December 23, 2022 wide release date. We are joined by guest Sean Place to review Babylon and the efforts of Chazelle and his collaborators an...

Guillermo del Toro returns to the big screen to bring us the latest iteration of the classic tale of Pinocchio, this time in stop-motion form. Now in theaters and on Netflix, del Toro brings a new visionary approach to a story that has been adapted multiple times, yet manages to bring new life through the precision handicraft he brings to the stop-motion approach. We also discuss news surrounding...

Genre is a term that sets a framework of expectations for an audience based on themes, aesthetic qualities, and narrative characteristics that help to categorize a film’s visual language and storytelling approach. Throughout the development of genre over the years, filmmakers have utilized techniques to subvert genre expectations by bending narratives between multiple generic frameworks. In this e...

Rian Johnson and Detective Blanc are back and bigger than ever in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, the follow up to the 2019 whodunnit mystery, Knives Out. Now in a limited one-week theater run before going to Netflix December 23, we are joined by guest Chase Hutchinson to discuss in a Thanksgiving Bonus Episode the twists and turns of the newest edition to the Benoit Blanc cinematic universe. T...

Since its world premiere at TIFF where it won the People’s Choice Award, Steven Spielberg’s autobiographical “love letter to cinema,” The Fabelmans , has been the presumed Best Picture favorite as it details the legacy of Spielberg himself through his coming of age through a love for making movies. With its wide release in theater, we review the film and assess its awards season potential. We also...

Violence has been depicted on screen since movies were first made, and the contexts within which it has been portrayed have changed over the course of history. In this double feature, we discuss the ethics of violence in cinema and the moral justifications (or lack thereof) that can be associated with these depictions, specifically often within the war genre of films. The two films that compose th...

Martin McDonagh returns to direct the dynamic pairing of Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson by returning to the UK with The Banshees of Inisherin, his newest film set in Ireland. McDonagh and the film are major awards contenders this year, so we review the film from its simple concept to larger thematic metaphors about the meaning of life. From there, we cover awards season updates on AFI Festival...

Many of our greatest films have derived from adaptations of books and other source materials begging the inevitable question of whether the book was better than the movie. This is often relative to the faithfulness of the screenplay to its source, but there are many other films that thrive on its ability to differentiate themselves from their original material and use the medium of film to capture...

Todd Field is back in the directorial chair after 16 years with his new film, TÁR, starring Cate Blanchett as the first-ever female music director of a major German orchestra. With Lydia Tár at the center of this monumental effort, we review the themes of cancel culture and separating the art from the artist presented in the film as well as its Oscar potential. In the news, we discuss the recent a...

Psycho (1960) directed by Alfred Hitchcock is often regarded as one of the most important contributions to the genre of horror filmmaking in the history of cinema. With widespread impact on how horror movies have been made over the past 60+ years in addition to an indelible mark on pop culture, Psycho continues to be regarded as a yardstick against which all other horror films are measured. As the...