The Playlist Podcast Network

You've really got to love the jolt of pure cinematic adrenaline that hits when a movie announces itself with extreme confidence instead of apology. “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” does it by storming into a Los Angeles diner and unleashing a crazed, high‑wire opening monologue that plays like a dare, a sales pitch, and an exhausted rallying cry all at once. From the jump, the film makes it clear it is not here to calm you down. It’s here to wake you the hell up. THE ROBOTS ARE COMING! THE ROBOTS ARE COMING!
Directed by Gore Verbinski ("Pirates of the Caribbean," " Rango"), the film follows a mysterious man from "the future” (Sam Rockwell) who arrives at a diner with one urgent task: he must recruit the precise combination of disgruntled patrons to join him on a one‑night quest to save the world from the terminal threat of a rogue artificial intelligence. That reluctant group includes Zazie Beetz, Michael Peña, Haley Lu Richardson, and Juno Temple. What unfolds is a kinetic collision of sci‑fi, action, romance, and social satire that never lets up until the credits roll. Think "Terminator" on a healthy combo of acid & mushrooms and you've mostly got it. 
Joining The Discourse for a set of conversations on the film, Gore Verbinski, Sam Rockwell, Zazie Beetz, and Michael Peña dug into how the film’s energy, tone, and unapologetic weirdness were not accidents, but the entire point.

There’s a particular kind of confidence required to make a modern Los Angeles heist movie without flinching at the shadow of “Heat.” It’s the cinematic elephant in the room, the reference point that inevitably looms over any story involving meticulous thieves, dogged cops, and asphalt‑level tension. With “Crime 101,” filmmaker Bart Layton acknowledges that lineage without trying to wrestle it. Instead, he builds something adjacent: a grounded, contemporary crime film that uses the genre as a delivery system for deeper questions about identity, status, and obsession.
Based on the novella by Don Winslow, “Crime 101” follows a precise, disciplined jewel thief (played by Chris Hemsworth) whose carefully calibrated life begins to fracture as an obsessive LAPD detective (played by Mark Ruffalo) closes in. Sound familiar "Heat" fans? Luckily, we also have other stories running parallel, like Halle Berry as Sharon, a woman boxed in by institutional disrespect and professional diminishment, slowly realizing that the systems she has played by were never designed to reward her. The ensemble is stacked with Barry Keoghan, Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Nick Nolte, and more, but the film’s real engine is tone: tense, patient, and uninterested in clean moral answers.
READ MORE: ‘Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie’: Matt Johnson & Jay McCarrol On Time Travel, Friendship, The Show’s 3rd Season, & Filming Without Permits [The Discourse Podcast]
Joining The Discourse for two separate interviews, Layton, Hemsworth, and Berry dug into how “Crime 101” consciously avoids Hollywood shorthand while still delivering a propulsive, white‑knuckle ride.

“The Beauty” is nowhere near subtle about its ambitions & its message. FX’s provocative sci‑fi drama isn’t content to simply unsettle you; it wants to corner you, interrogate you, and then quietly ask how much of yourself you’d be willing to trade for comfort, power, or control. Episode 5 is where that thesis sharpens into something genuinely frightening, and it does so by re-introducing one of the series’ most corrosive figures yet: billionaire Byron Forst.
On this spoiler‑heavy episode of Bingeworthy, host Mike DeAngelo is joined by Vincent D’Onofrio, who guest stars as Forst, a grotesque avatar of unchecked wealth and impulse who ultimately becomes “The Corporation” after taking The Beauty, the post‑human evolution later embodied by Ashton Kutcher. It’s a role that arrives with deliberate whiplash, and D’Onofrio leans into that discomfort with gusto.
D’Onofrio admitted he hadn’t fully watched the series yet, though his daughter’s reaction told him everything he needed to know.

Some movies are about finally arriving somewhere. ‘Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie’ is about two people refusing to stop walking the same thankless path together. Built from decades‑old footage, rewritten realities, real stunts, and a running gag that has never paid off, the film disguises something deeply human inside its most absurd impulses. Beneath the time travel, the public stunts, and the escalating chaos sits a simple question the movie never stops asking: what does it mean to keep choosing the same collaborator, the same friend, long after logic says it would be easier to move on?
That tension animates both the film and this conversation with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, who have been in and building some version of Nirvanna The Band together for nearly twenty years. While the finished movie feels precise and inevitable, Johnson was clear that its existence was anything but. There was no groundswell of industry interest, no clean path from cult series to feature film. The only reason it exists is because of a blank check they received after the success of their film, "Blackberry."

There is a point while trying to explain “The Beauty” where the description simply gives up. FBI investigations. Global travel. Corporate greed. A miracle cure. Bodies everywhere, beautiful and horrific. Somewhere in the middle of all that, the sentences collapse, because the show isn’t interested in being neat or easily digestible. It wants overload. It wants provocation. It wants you pausing mid-thought and realizing you’re not doing it justice.
Adapted from the graphic novel and brought to the screen by Ryan Murphy, “The Beauty” imagines a world where physical perfection is contagious. Beauty is a man-made virus, a commodity, and a power source capable of reshaping global economics and personal identity at the same time. The story jumps between Paris, Venice, Rome, New York, and beyond, moving like an espionage thriller while constantly undercutting itself with body horror and satire. The show stars Evan Peters, Rebecca Hall, Ashton Kutcher, Anthony Ramos, Jeremy Pope, and more.
READ MORE: ‘His & Hers’: Tessa Thompson On Dual Perspectives, THAT Ending, Valkyrie’s MCU Return, & ‘Creed 4’ [Bingeworthy Podcast]
On this episode of Bingeworthy, Peters and Hall talk about what it was like stepping into one of Murphy’s boldest creations yet, and why neither of them needed convincing.