RRR (2022) with Scott and Drew

RRR (2022) with Scott and Drew

This week on Story Punk, we conclude our international cinema series by going gloriously over the top with RRR, S.S. Rajamouli’s 2022 Telugu-language action epic starring N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. For me (Scott), it was my first experience with Indian cinema. For Drew, it was another chance to celebrate one of the most joyous, sincere, and spectacular blockbusters ever made. Inspired by the lives of Indian revolutionaries Komaram Bheem and Alluri Sitarama Raju, during British colonial rule, RRR imagines the two men meeting, becoming friends, and unknowingly pursuing individual secret missions that will put them at odds with one another. Their relationship becomes the emotional engine of a movie filled with superhero-scale action, musical spectacle, historical fantasy, revolutionary fury, and enough slow motion to fully satisfy a Zack Snyder fan. We discuss why the film’s nearly three-hour runtime never feels empty, how Rajamouli establishes its heightened reality from the opening scenes, and why every impossible stunt works because the movie makes the audience care about the people performing it. The conversation explores the theme of unity, the instant chemistry between Bheem and Raju, and the emotional sincerity that separates RRR from blockbusters built only around noise and digital spectacle. They also break down the bridge rescue, the animal-filled palace attack, Bheem’s public whipping, the prison escape, and the Oscar-winning “Naatu Naatu” sequence, where a dance competition becomes cultural resistance, romantic comedy, character development, and pure cinematic electricity. They also discuss the differences between Bollywood and India’s many regional film industries, the international breakthrough of Telugu cinema, the movie’s fire-and-water imagery, Ray Stevenson’s vicious colonial villain, and why Hollywood’s largest action films could learn from a movie this committed to friendship, emotion, and story. Plus: magnificent mustaches, airborne motorcycles, weaponized wildlife, heroic posing, forty-minute opening credits, and why RRR may be the perfect gateway into the enormous world of Indian cinema. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

The Secret Agent (2025) with Scott and Drew

Episode 046: This week on Story Punk, we continue our June international cinema series with a trip to 1977 Brazil for The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s sprawling and unsettling political thriller starring Wagner Moura. Moura plays Armando, an engineer living under the alias Marcelo after a confrontation with a powerful businessman forces him into hiding. He travels to Recife hoping to escape the country with his young son, finding refuge among a community of ordinary people whose lives have been disrupted by political persecution, corporate influence, and a government that can make its enemies disappear. We explore how The Secret Agent uses the ingredients of a conventional espionage thriller, including secret identities, surveillance, code names, hired killers, and political conspiracy, while refusing to become a traditional spy movie. The real threat is larger and harder to see: a system in which wealthy corporations, police, and state power overlap until no one can tell where one ends and another begins. They discuss the movie’s patient world-building, the slow accumulation of dread, and why the danger becomes more immediate once it finally takes human form. They also examine the film’s shifting timelines and its portrait of political violence echoing through children, families, buildings, and entire generations long after the original victims have disappeared. The conversation also covers Wagner Moura’s grounded performance, and the film’s remarkable ensemble, its blend of professional and nonprofessional actors, Udo Kier’s memorable appearance, Recife’s distinct identity, and the strange legend of the murderous Hairy Leg. Plus: corrupt cops, casual brutality, movie-palace ghosts, Jaws, The Omen, David Lynch energy, regional accents, fever-dream heat, and why the most frightening villain may be one too large to fit inside a single frame. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Parasite (2019) with Scott and Drew

Episode 045: In this episode of Story Punk, we put Parasite under the microscope, the 2019 South Korean film directed by Bong Joon Ho. Winner of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film at the 2020 Academy Awards, Parasite follows the struggling Kim family as they infiltrate the wealthy Park household by posing as unrelated skilled workers. The episode explores why the film remains one of the most acclaimed movies of the 21st century. We discuss Bong Joon Ho’s direction, the film’s class commentary, its shifting tone, the shocking basement reveal, the use of smell as a marker of poverty and class separation, the Park family house, the Kim family’s flooded apartment, and the movie’s unforgettable third act. The conversation also covers Song Kang Ho, South Korean cinema, Memories of Murder, Snowpiercer, The Host, the film’s production design, its Oscar wins, the Criterion edition, the black-and-white version, and why Parasite works as a thriller, comedy, tragedy, social satire, and class-war horror story all at once. For fans of movie podcasts, film analysis, Bong Joon Ho films, Korean cinema, international movies, Best Picture winners, social thrillers, class satire, and conversations about why stories matter, this Story Punk episode is for you. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Sentimental Value (2025) with Scott and Drew

Episode 044: This week on Story Punk, we begin our June international cinema series with a trip to Norway for Sentimental Value, Joachim Trier’s 2025 family drama about art, absence, memory, and the complicated wreckage parents leave behind. The film follows sisters Nora and Agnes as they reconnect with their estranged father, Gustav, a once-celebrated filmmaker hoping to mount a comeback by turning deeply personal family history into a new movie. When Nora refuses the role he wrote for her, Gustav casts an eager Hollywood star instead, setting off a quiet emotional collision between career ambition, unresolved trauma, and the question of whether art can repair what real life has broken. We dig into why Sentimental Value feels different from the usual Story Punk fare: more contemplative, more emotionally layered, and more interested in connection than easy answers. They discuss Gustav as a charming but deeply flawed father, the bond between Nora and Agnes, the film’s use of the family house as both memory capsule and battleground, and why the ending gestures toward healing without pretending forgiveness is simple. They also get into Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, the film’s performances, Joachim Trier’s visual choices, the blend of present-day story and generational memory, and how Sentimental Value uses filmmaking itself as a way for damaged people to speak when ordinary conversation has failed. Plus: Scandinavian movie vibes, absent fathers, artistic narcissism, emotional generosity, family cycles, 35mm close-ups, 16mm flashbacks, and the uneasy truth that sometimes connection is not the same thing as forgiveness. Listen now to Story Punk, where story matters.

Wonder Boys (2000) with Scott and Drew

Episode 043: This week on Story Punk, we revisit Wonder Boys, Curtis Hanson’s 2000 literary comedy-drama starring Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., Frances McDormand, and Katie Holmes. Based on the novel by Michael Chabon, Wonder Boys follows Grady Tripp, a once-celebrated writing professor whose life has stalled somewhere between a never-ending manuscript, a collapsing marriage, a complicated affair, and one increasingly chaotic weekend. What begins as a story about writer’s block quickly becomes something stranger, funnier, and more human: a movie about people standing at the edge of major life changes, trying to figure out whether they are stuck, lost, or finally ready to become someone else. We dig into why Wonder Boys has become one of those “why didn’t more people see this?” movies, while also debating why it may not connect with everyone. They discuss Michael Douglas as the rumpled, self-sabotaging Grady Tripp, Tobey Maguire’s mysterious James Leer, Robert Downey Jr.’s comic energy, Frances McDormand’s emotional gravity, and the film’s mix of literary anxiety, academic chaos, dark humor, and midlife unraveling. The conversation also covers Curtis Hanson’s unusually varied career, the movie’s place in the late-’90s/early-2000s wave of adult character-driven studio films, Dee Dee Allen’s Oscar-nominated editing, Bob Dylan’s Oscar-winning “Things Have Changed,” and why this is exactly the kind of messy, funny, mid-budget movie Hollywood rarely makes anymore. Plus: impossible manuscripts, stolen Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, dead dogs, Pittsburgh, Alan Tudyk sightings, L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile, The Big Lebowski, and the danger of turning your life into a first draft you never finish. Listen now to Story Punk, and remember story matters.