A right-wing folk singer runs for Senate, and the cameras can't tell fact from performance. "Bob Roberts" kicks off Smoke and Mirrors, The Next Reel's new series on how politicians manipulate their own image and the media covering them, starring Tim Robbins as the candidate, Giancarlo Esposito as the journalist chasing him, and Alan Rickman as his campaign chairman.
Pete and Andy dig into how directly the film borrows its documentary style from a famous Bob Dylan concert film, why a scrappy, British-financed production ended up predicting American politics decades later, and how Alan Rickman helped keep the production funded. It's a sharp, funny, increasingly uncomfortable rewatch. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
🎥 Watch Our Full Conversation on YouTube
📄 Full Show Notes and Resources
Watch the Film: Amazon | Letterboxd | Trailer
If You Liked This Conversation, Try These from the Next Reel Family:
The Parallax View—the paranoia-thriller playbook this film's conspiracy thread is speaking to
Network—the media-satire classic sitting right alongside this film's target on press complicity
The Hudsucker Proxy—more Tim Robbins, in a very different register
The Shawshank Redemption—Robbins' most iconic performance
Bull Durham—the role that made Robbins a star
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The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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A telemarketer discovers a voice that gets him everything he wants—and everyone else pays for it. "Sorry to Bother You" closes out The Next Reel's Platformed Lives series, from writer-director Boots Riley. LaKeith Stanfield stars as telemarketer Cassius "Cash" Green, with Tessa Thompson as his girlfriend Detroit and Armie Hammer as the CEO who takes a sudden interest in Cash's rise.
Pete and Andy dig into the film's overdubbed "white voice" device and how far the movie's satire stretches before it works against itself, then weigh it against the two entries that came before it in the series, landing on real disagreement about how well it all holds together. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
🎥 Watch Our Full Conversation on YouTube
Full show notes and links
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The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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Some people fall into the worst version of themselves. Lou Bloom arrives already there. Dan Gilroy's 2014 neo-noir thriller follows a petty thief who discovers freelance crime videography and finds in it the perfect profession—one that rewards exactly the qualities that make him dangerous. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance is a career landmark, and the film around it is darkly, uncomfortably funny in ways that sneak up on you.
Pete Wright and Andy Nelson dig into what makes Nightcrawler tick as both a media critique and a character study—why the self-help language Lou speaks is terrifying precisely because it works, how Rene Russo's Nina gets pulled into Lou's orbit, and where this sits in the Platformed Lives series alongside The Truman Show.
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Full episode resources and transcript.
Watch on YouTube.
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
• Your Hosts: Andy | Pete
• Merch Store | Audible

One man's entire life has been broadcast to the world without his consent. "The Truman Show" opens a new Next Reel series called Platformed Lives, directed by Peter Weir and starring Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank, with Ed Harris as the show's creator and Laura Linney as his on-screen wife. Small cracks start showing in the world around him, and he can't look away.
Pete and Andy dig into how the film anticipates reality TV and social media surveillance decades early, and trace the wild path the screenplay took before Weir signed on to direct. It's a perfect launch for a series built around the idea of consent. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
🎥 Watch Our Full Conversation on YouTube
📋 Full show notes and resources
🔒 This episode includes member-only bonus content. The movie ends. The conversation goes further—and there's more of it in the member feed. Become a member. 🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family.
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
• Your Hosts: Andy | Pete
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What happens when grief turns into a game nobody can stop playing? "Talk to Me" is the 2022 feature debut from brothers Danny and Michael Philippou, starring Sophie Wilde as a teenager pulled into a supernatural ritual that spirals into addiction and tragedy, alongside Joe Bird and Alexandra Jensen.
Pete and Andy dig into the film's ambiguous ending and the recurring kangaroo image that ties directly into its themes of grief and inaction. It's a sharp, unsettling watch, and one that returns to their Horror Debuts series for a strong one-off. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
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🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family.
Watch on YouTube here. 
Find full episode resources and transcript here.
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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• Your Hosts: Andy | Pete
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"Gun Crazy," the 1950 film noir from director Joseph H. Lewis, stars John Dall as Bart Tare—a man obsessed with guns since childhood who draws the line at killing—and Peggy Cummins as Annie Laurie Starr, a carnival sharpshooter with no such reservations. Some obsessions ignite the moment two people look at each other, and the life of crime they fall into feels less like a choice than a collision they were always heading toward.
Pete and Andy dig into what makes this Couples on the Run entry so distinctly noir—the fatalism, the femme fatale who craves the act of crime itself rather than the money, and the filmmaking Lewis pulls off on a shoestring budget. The bank robbery oner alone is worth the conversation. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
🎥 Watch Our Full Conversation on YouTube
🎬 Watch & Discover
Watch the Film: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd
Original Theatrical Trailer
If You Liked This Conversation, Try These from The Next Reel Family:
Couples on the Run — the full series
Film Noir — The Next Reel — more from Andy and Pete in the genre
Film Noir: Crime and the Ordinary Man — Cinema Scope — a companion conversation on the genre
🔓 The movie ends. The conversation goes further. Become a member.🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family.
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
• Your Hosts: Andy | Pete
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Zhang Yimou's 2018 wuxia epic "Shadow" achieves its ink wash painting look in-camera: every set and costume designed in black, white, and grey, every outdoor scene filmed on rainy days to drain remaining color from the environment. At the center is a secret double—a man groomed since childhood to stand in for the ailing commander he resembles, now navigating palace intrigue, poisoned loyalties, and a duel that could take back a city.
Andy Nelson and Pete Wright dig into the film's yin-yang philosophy—how the shadow figure, the feminine fighting technique, and even the warlord's name all map onto the same duality—alongside the spectacular bladed umbrella weapons, the two female characters whose parallel arcs quietly hold the story together, and where "Shadow" lands in Zhang Yimou's career after his Hollywood detour with "The Great Wall." Both hosts have a great time with it.
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Watch this episode on YouTube.
Find the full episode resources and transcript here.
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

Connect With Us:

• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
• Your Hosts: Andy | Pete
• Merch Store | Audible

Love cuts through every mission, every loyalty, and every survival plan in House of Flying Daggers. Zhang Yimou's 2004 wuxia, part of The Next Reel's Zhang Yimou series, stars Takeshi Kaneshiro as a government officer who goes undercover to infiltrate a rebel group, Zhang Ziyi as Mei, the dancer he falls for, and Andy Lau as the officer who sent him in.
Pete and Andy dig into the tension between what the film promises and what Yimou actually delivers—a love triangle that swallows the political conflict whole. They examine the film's saturated cinematography and standout fight sequences, and take an honest look at how the men pursue Mei. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
🎥 Watch on YouTube
Watch & Discover
Watch the Film: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd | Original Theatrical Trailer 
If You Liked This Conversation, Try These from the Next Reel Family:
The Zhang Yimou Series on The Next Reel—the full arc of our conversations about Yimou's career 
Wuxia Unleashed – Cinema Scope—Leon Hunt and Chris Hamm on the martial arts tradition this film sits inside 
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – The Next Reel—part of our Foreign Language Films Nominated for Best Picture series 
Full episode resources here. 
🔓 The movie ends. The conversation goes further. Become a member. 🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family.
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
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Zhang Yimou's "To Live" is the most personal film he ever made—a 1994 historical epic that strips away his signature visual spectacle to follow one Chinese family across four decades of civil war, forced labor campaigns, and cultural upheaval. Ge You plays Xu Fugui, a gambler whose recklessness costs his family everything; Gong Li plays Jiazhen, his wife, whose capacity for endurance and eventual forgiveness gives the film its moral center; and Jiang Wu is Wan Erxi, their son-in-law, who arrives as a stranger and becomes the warmth the story needs. Pete Wright and Andy Nelson track the film's shadow puppets as an emotional through-line, dig into the novel versus film question, and wrestle with why this particular Zhang Yimou—the quietest, most naturalistic one—might be the best one.
The conversation covers Ge You's transformation from comic actor to Cannes standout, why Andy reads Jiazhen rather than Fugui as the film's true change character, the food motif threading through tragedy after tragedy, and why the story of how this film came to be banned is more procedural than political.
Watch our full conversation on YouTube.
Full episode resources—including streaming links, the Yu Hua novel, and the full transcript—are available here.
🔒 This episode includes member-only bonus content. The movie ends. The conversation goes further—and there's more of it in the member feed. Become a member.
🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family. 
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

Connect With Us:

• Web | Letterboxd | Flickchart | Instagram | Bluesky | YouTube | Discord
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What does it mean to carry something the world insists on explaining? "Resurrection" is a drama-fantasy from director Daniel Petrie, following Edna Mae McCauley—played by Ellen Burstyn—a woman who survives a car crash and returns with an inexplicable gift for healing others. Sam Shepard plays her mercurial lover Cal, and Richard Farnsworth is the eccentric who runs Last Chance Gas. A one-off entry in our Ellen Burstyn series.
Pete and Andy dig into what makes "Resurrection" so unusual—a film that refuses to assign its central miracle to any doctrine, religious or scientific. The conversation moves from Burstyn's steadfast performance to a complicated father-daughter relationship that cuts deeper than the film's more obvious conflicts. We have a great time talking about it, so check it out then tune in—The Next Reel on TruStory FM, when the movie ends, our conversation begins!
🎥 Watch Our Full Conversation on YouTube
🎬 Watch & Discover
Watch the Film: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd | Trailer
If You Liked This Conversation, Try These from the Next Reel Family:
The Next Reel — Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore—keep going through the Ellen Burstyn series with the film that won her the Oscar
The Next Reel — The Exorcist—start here if you're new to the series; Burstyn at her most extreme is the best catalog entry point
The Next Reel — Requiem for a Dream—complete the picture of Burstyn's range with her most harrowing work
Sitting in the Dark — Possessed—if the faith and possession themes here send you somewhere (and if you're a fan of The Exorcist), this is where to go next
The Exorcist Minute—the deep-dive show for anyone who loves The Exorcist and wants to go further
🔒 This episode includes member-only bonus content. The movie ends. The conversation goes further—and there's more of it in the member feed. Become a member.
🎧 Members get this episode early and ad-free in their private feed—plus every show in The Next Reel family. 
The Next Reel Family of Film Shows:

• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

Connect With Us:

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• Merch Store | Audible