Mise en Screen
This week we have a special episode for you. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the nominees for the upcoming 98th Academy Awards, and we have some opinions on them. We then wrap up 2025 with both Ben and Steven listing out their top 5 films of 2025 with special (and not so special) Miseys awarded intermittently. They also go over the best and worst punishment films that were doled out and the bottom five films of 2025. Time Stamps: (01:15) The 98th Academy Award nominations (35:29) Top 5 of 2025 & 1st Annual Miseys (1:49:00) Best & Worst Punishments...
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Hamnet - a 2025 biographical drama directed by Chloe Zhao, written by Zhao with Maggie O’Farrell, based as stated on the 2020 novel of the same title by Farrell. It stars Jessie Buckley as Agnes Hathaway and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, who after a courtship and shotgun wedding give birth to and raise a daughter Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach) and twins Judith and Hamnet (Olivia Lynes and Jacobi Jupe). The death of one of their children sends them both into a spiral of grief, which may only be arrested by William’s work on the Globe Theater in London. Time Stamps: ...
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No Other Choice is a 2025 dark comedy directed by Park Chan-wook, written by Park Chan-wook, Lee Kyoung-mi, Don McKellar, and Lee Ja-hye. It is adapted from 1997 novel The Axe by Donald Westlake. It stars Lee Byung-hun plays Yoo Man-su, who has lost his longstanding position at a paper mill and must search for work in a shrinking job market. To reduce the competition he enacts a plan to kill the better qualified individuals for a job opening he will create through more murder so that he may once again provide for his family. This family includes his wife Lee Mi-ri (Son Ye-jin),...
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Is This Thing On? is a 2025 comedy-drama directed by Bradley Cooper, written by Cooper, Will Arnett, and Mark Chappell, starring Will Arnett and Laura Dern as Alex and Tess Novak, a couple whose marriage is on the rocks, leading Alex to discover stand-up as a way of processing it. They are joined by Bradley Cooper himself as Alex’s best friend Balls, Andra Day as Balls’ wife Christine, Christine Ebersole and Ciaran Hinds as Alex’s parents, Jordan Jensen as Jill, one of the comics Alex befriends; and Blake Kane and Calvin Knegton as Alex and Tess’s twin sons Felix and Jude. Time Stamps:...
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Song Sung Blue is a biographical film about the married musical artist duo Lightning and Thunder, Mike and Claire Sardina, a Neil Diamond tribute act, though they refer to it as “interpretation,” while navigating the ups and downs of their regular lives. It is based on a 2008 documentary of the same name by Greg Kohs. Also starring Michael Imperioli as Mark Shurilla, a Buddy Holly impersonator; Ella Anderson as Rachel Cartwright, Claire’s daughter; King Princess as Angelina Sardina, Mike’s daughter; Fisher Stevens as Dave Watson, Mike’s dentist and manager; Jim Belushi as Tom...
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Marty Supreme is a 2025 sports comedy-drama film directed, written, produced, and edited by Josh Safdie, with Ronald Bronstein co-writer, co-producer- and co-editor. In this film we follow Marty Mauser, an aspiring table tennis player who seeks to become the world champion of the sport while simultaneously outrunning the consequences of his various scams, affairs, prideful boasts, and collectors. Co-starring Odessa A’zion as Rachel Mizler, his paramour, Gwyneth Paltrow as Kay Stone, a formerly famous actress who Marty pursues, Kevin O’Leary as Milton Rockwell, a wealthy businessman and...
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In this episode we discuss a litany of films we watched to fill in the gaps of 2025 releases, full spoilers for all films discussed. Time Stamps: (5:49) Broken Church (19:36) Star Trek Section 31 (26:07) Avatar: Fire and Ash (33:21) Black Bag (38:28) Sovereign (43:31) Eephus (49:58) Train Dreams (56:41) The Phoenician Scheme (1:01:21) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (1:06:15) Ballad of a Small Player (1:09:49) The Mastermind (1:13:48) Presence (1:17:37) Weapons (1:22:17) Hag (1:28:24) Novocaine (1:32:42) Flight Risk (1:37:00) One of Them Days...
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Wake Up Dead Man is the latest Knives Out mystery film from writer-director Rian Johnson. In this film we find Father Jud Duplenticy (Joh O'Connor) under suspicion of the murder of Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Joshj Brolin), stabbed in the back in a storage closet during his Good Friday service. The ensemble this time is played by Glenn Close as Martha, a lifelong servant of the church, Jeremy Renner as local physician Dr. Nat, Kerry Washington as attorney Vera, Andrew Scott as author-in-exile Lee, Cailee Spaeny as Simone, a disabled woman and the church’s biggest donor, Daryl McCormack as a...
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Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair is a re-release of Kill Bill Volume 1 & 2 as one four hour thirty-five minute film with one 15 minute intermission. In this film we follow The Bride, played by Uma Thurman, who is pregnant and rehearsing for her wedding when her ex-lover Bill (David Carridine) arrives with the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah) and kill her. She inexplicably lives through this, wakes up four years later, and begins taking her revenge on each member. Time Stamps: (00:56) A Karate Christmas Miracle (26:41) Mishima: A...
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Rental Family is the latest feature film by Hikari, cowritten by herself and Stephen Blahut, starring Brendan Fraser as a struggling American actor living in Japan who stumbles into a job working for a rental family agency who hire out actors to play unconventional roles for clients such as hosting a funeral for a still living individual, staging a wedding, playing a father for a mother-daughter who are trying to get into an elite school, cheerleading for an older live performer, interviewing an aging and forgotten actor, and even just to play Dreamcast games split screen with a hikikomori...
info_outlineBugonia is a 2025 film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. This is an English remake of a 2003 South Korean film called Save the Green Planet! which was directed by Jang Joon-hwan. In Bugonia Jesse Plemons stars as Teddy Gatz, who together with his cousin Don, played by Aidan Delbis, kidnap and imprison CEO Michelle Fuller, played by Emma Stone, whom Teddy believes to be an alien.
Time Stamps:
- (04:41) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
- (18:26) The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017)
- (28:54) Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025)
- (57:13) Spoilers
- (1:18:34) Next Time: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro, 2025)
Works Cited:
- The Body Snatchers (Jack Finney, 1955)
- Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara, 1993)
- Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025)
- Commentary: Friends of this L.A. teen will soon find out his big secret: He's co-starring in 'Bugonia' - Los Angeles Times (Mary McNamara, 2025)
- The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
- Dogtooth (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2009)
- The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)
- Fire in the Sky (Robert Lieberman, 1993)
- The Invasion (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2007)
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017)
- Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024)
- Klute (Alan Pakula, 1971)
- Leo DiCaprio: Alien Seductor? So Says Director Jang Jun-Hwan. - The Village Voice (Chuck Stephens, 2005)
- The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015)
- The Parallax View (Alan Pakula, 1974)
- Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2023)
- Riyadh Comedy Festival criticized by Marc Maron, Human Rights Watch : NPR (Chloe Veltman, 2025)
- Review: 'Bugonia' is definitely about alienation, if not aliens themselves : NPR (Glen Weldon, 2025)
- Save the Green Planet! (Jang Joon-hwan, 2003)
- They Live (John Carpenter, 1988)
Email us at Miseenscreenpodcast@gmail.com!
Find us elsewhere!
Ben Verschoor
- https://cinema-purgatorio.ghost.io/
- https://letterboxd.com/jamn4sure/
- @benverschoor.bsky.social
Steven Santana
- https://breakingarrows.substack.com/
- https://letterboxd.com/number8axel/
- @number8axel.bsky.social
Opening music is Root Beer Rag by Billy Joel
Closing music is G-Spot Tornado by Frank Zappa
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