Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu Written by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Alexander Dinelaris, Nicolás Giacobone, Sabina Berman Starring: Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jesse Plemons IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31450459/

In this episode of Mindframes, Michael and Dave discuss Digger (2026), Alejandro G. Iñárritu's satirical black comedy starring Tom Cruise as an oil tycoon racing to prove he's humanity's savior before the disaster he caused destroys everything.

The discussion explores Cruise's prosthetics-heavy turn against type, Iñárritu and Emmanuel Lubezki's bleached, stage-like VistaVision look, Riz Ahmed's grounded performance, and the film's sharply divided reception, before the spoiler section digs into how a culture retells its catastrophes to itself. Along the way they compare the film to Birdman, Dr. Strangelove, Network, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Producers.

Digger explores what we carry: how art turns a shared catastrophe into shared memory, and whether that memory needs to be accurate to do its work.

The film suggests that coming together to remember, laugh and grieve is its own kind of healing, even when it can't undo the damage, and even when the version we remember is simpler than the truth.

Time

Segment

03:03

Intro & setup

07:20

Expectations: Tom Cruise against type

08:54

Iñárritu's themes and visual style

15:44

VistaVision, Lubezki and the gray palette

17:55

Who is Digger? The premise and the cast

23:46

Spoiler-free reviews

34:43

Spoiler section begins

35:07

A divided reception: critics vs. audiences

43:22

What We Carry: the play within the film

50:56

The falling tree

53:57

Kenny's speech: accuracy vs. the story

59:40

Building cultural memory

1:04:40

Final interpretation debate: do shared memories need to be accurate?

1:20:06

Closing thoughts

• Birdman / Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• The Revenant / Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• 21 Grams / Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• Babel / Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• Biutiful / Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• Amores perros / Alejandro G. Iñárritu

• Dr. Strangelove / Stanley Kubrick

• Network / Sidney Lumet

• Magnolia / Paul Thomas Anderson

• Tropic Thunder / Ben Stiller

• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance / John Ford

• The Producers / Mel Brooks

• Synecdoche, New York / Charlie Kaufman

• Don't Look Up / Adam McKay

• Asteroid City / Wes Anderson

• Megalopolis / Francis Ford Coppola

• Schindler's List / Steven Spielberg

• To Kill a Mockingbird / Robert Mulligan

• The Lord of the Rings / Peter Jackson

• Talk to Me / Danny and Michael Philippou

Web: https://mindframesfilm.com Facebook: Mindframes Network: Now Playing Network Email: info@mindframesfilm.com

Directed by: Lance Oppenheim
Written by: Ajon Singh
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Skyler Gisondo, Merritt Wever, Creed Bratton, Alex Winter, Anna Faris, Phoebe Bridgers
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34206385/

In this episode of Mindframes, Michael and Dave discuss Primetime (2026), Lance Oppenheim's first fiction feature. Robert Pattinson plays To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen in a dark comedy that slowly turns into a gothic horror film.

The discussion covers what it was like to watch To Catch a Predator when it first aired, Oppenheim's recurring interest in performed reality, and Pattinson's performance, which the film frames like a horror villain. Michael and Dave also talk about the network machinery that rewarded the show, and the decoy actor who acts as the audience's conscience. Along the way they compare the film to Elvis, Network, Moby-Dick and Nosferatu.

Primetime asks whether Chris Hansen is a man or a monster: a person caught in a ratings machine, or a creature feeding on the darkness he claims to hunt.

The film never settles whether Hansen has an arc, and the camera treats him both ways. Sometimes it shoots him like a horror monster stalking prey, and sometimes like an ordinary man unwinding over a drink. As the story moves toward its tragic Texas sting, the film gets literally darker and turns into gothic horror. That shift suggests the hunt didn't create the monster so much as reveal it.

• Primetime (2026) / Lance Oppenheim
• You Can See Everything (2026) / Lance Oppenheim & Nathan Fielder
• Some Kind of Heaven (2020) / Lance Oppenheim
• Ren Faire (2024) / Lance Oppenheim
• The Python Hunt (2025)
• Predators (2025) / David Osit
• Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) / Jane Schoenbrun
• Elvis (2022) / Baz Luhrmann
• Priscilla (2023) / Sofia Coppola
• Network (1976) / Sidney Lumet
• Nosferatu (2024) / Robert Eggers
• The Lighthouse (2019) / Robert Eggers
• The Drama (2026) / Kristoffer Borgli
• Mickey 17 (2025) / Bong Joon Ho
• Twilight (2008) / Catherine Hardwicke
• One Hour Photo (2002) / Mark Romanek
• Insomnia (2002) / Christopher Nolan
• Aladdin (1992) / Ron Clements & John Musker
• The Social Reckoning (2026)
• Moby-Dick / Herman Melville (novel)

Web: https://mindframesfilm.com

Directed by: Destin Daniel Cretton Written by: Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers (based on the Marvel comic by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko) Starring: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Jon Bernthal, Michael Mando, Mark Ruffalo, Liza Colón-Zayas, Florence Pugh IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22084616/

In this episode of Mindframes, Michael and Dave discuss Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026), a soft-reboot superhero film that finds Peter Parker fighting crime full-time in a New York that no longer remembers he exists.

The discussion explores whether the film's quieter, more introspective first act successfully re-energizes a fatigued genre, the wisdom of internalizing Spider-Man's central struggle as his own spider-DNA begins to take over ("spider puberty"), and a plot the hosts agree is overstuffed with characters and motivations. Along the way: Jon Bernthal's softened Punisher, Sadie Sink's tangential villain, an unnecessary Hulk, and some of the most aggressive BMW product placement either host can remember. Reference points include Sam Raimi, The Empire Strikes Back, and the boring-superhero cautionary tales of Superman Returns and Man of Steel.

On-air verdicts: Dave — 4/5. Michael — 3/5. (Dave really enjoyed it; Michael landed mixed — "10% greatness, 90% mid" — praising the third act while faulting the loaded first two.)

Spider-Man: Brand New Day explores loneliness, and the idea that community is vulnerability.

The film suggests that even with superhuman strength, no one gets through isolation alone — that reaching out, being earnest, and letting people back in is the actual work, and the only real cure. Peter erased himself from everyone he loved to keep them safe; the film argues that choice was the wound, not the protection. Both hosts landed on the thematic point being earned: the melancholy is felt, the reconnection with Ned and MJ is left meaningfully ambiguous rather than reset, and Sadie Sink's character works as a dark-mirror counterpoint — the same loss, but a person who pushes everyone away instead.

• Sam Raimi / the Raimi Spider-Man films
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Destin Daniel Cretton — Short Term 12, Just Mercy, Shang-Chi
• Superman Returns, Man of Steel, Godzilla (the "boring superhero" cautionary tales)
• Bryan Singer — X-Men, X2, Apt Pupil
• Supergirl, Fantastic Four
• Iron Man & Watchmen (iconic mask removals)
• Doctor Strange (Benedict Wong)
• Baby Driver, The Odyssey, Weapons, Marco Polo, Breaking Bad, Stranger Things

Web: https://mindframesfilm.com Facebook: Mindframes Network: Now Playing Network Email: info@mindframesfilm.com