Directed by: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim
Written by: No writing credit (documentary)
Starring: Elizabeth Holmes, Nathan Fielder, Billy Evans
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt45368240/

In this episode of Mindframes, Michael and Dave discuss You Can See Everything (2026), the A24 documentary in which Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim move in with Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans in the 34 days before she reports to prison.

The discussion explores what Fielder and Oppenheim each bring to the partnership, whether a film this staged still counts as a documentary, how Holmes compares to her portrayal in The Dropout, and whether she is a fraud, delusional, or both. Along the way they compare the film to the work of Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, Primetime, Dick Johnson Is Dead, and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. Both hosts give it five stars, though Michael says the fifth was especially hard won.

You Can See Everything explores the gap between access and knowledge: total access, zero knowledge.

The film gives us more of Elizabeth Holmes than anyone has ever had, at home, on the beach, with her kids, inches from the camera, and she only gets harder to read the closer it gets. Michael and Dave ask whether she is unknowable because people always are, or because she has made herself that way, and whether a filmmaker who openly shapes the story can still get any closer to the truth.

• Primetime (Lance Oppenheim, 2026)
• Some Kind of Heaven (Lance Oppenheim)
• Ren Faire (Lance Oppenheim)
• Nathan for You, The Rehearsal, The Curse (Nathan Fielder)
• The Dropout (Hulu)
• Bad Blood (John Carreyrou's book)
• Errol Morris, Standard Operating Procedure
• Werner Herzog
• Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (Jane Schoenbrun, 2026)
• Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
• Naza (2026)
• The Voice of Hind Rajab (Kaouther Ben Hania)
• Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson)
• John Candy: I Like Me
• Ken Burns, The Civil War
• Michael Moore
• Tiger King
• Trainwreck: Poop Cruise
• Fyre

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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

Directed by: Steven Spielberg Written by: David Koepp Starring: Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Colman Domingo, Eve Hewson, Wyatt Russell IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15047880/

Special guest: Tarek Fayoumi (movieswithtarek.com), director of the Chicago Independent Film Critics.

In this episode of Mindframes, Michael and Dave — joined by returning guest Tarek Fayoumi — discuss Disclosure Day (2026), Steven Spielberg's return to the alien genre and his first big sci-fi swing since War of the Worlds.

The conversation works through Spielberg's recurring obsessions (renegade heroes, shadowy government forces, ordinary people swept into something enormous), Janusz Kamiński's return to the diffused-light, lens-flare look, and John Williams' 30th collaboration with the director — before splitting hard over whether the film's hopeful thesis actually lands. Comparisons run from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and War of the Worlds to Contact, Minority Report, and Coppola's Megalopolis as a fellow "late master with something to say."

Verdicts split three ways: Michael 2.5/5, Dave 3/5, Tarek 4/4.

Disclosure Day asks whether an undeniable, truthful image can still unite people in a cynical age — Brian Tallerico's "undeniable image" framing, run through the show's central question: not is there proof? but does proof still work on us?

Michael argues the truthful image isn't wounded but dead — a shared reality the film is nostalgic for, but one that no longer functions when people deny what they're shown. Dave counters that the film's real hope is empathy and human-to-human connection replacing the broken image, while conceding Spielberg doesn't earn that buy-in the way his early work did. The film ends not on a revelation but on Margaret turning to the camera, saying "Listen," and cutting to black — proof getting humanity to the threshold, with faith and empathy left to carry it the rest of the way.

Note: recording was split into two files; Part 2 times below assume the parts run continuously (Part 2 offset by ~50:03). Verify against the stitched audio.

• Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg)
• E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg)
• War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg)
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg)
• Minority Report (Steven Spielberg)
• Jaws (Steven Spielberg)
• Schindler's List / Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg)
• The Terminal / Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg)
• The Fabelmans / West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)
• Jurassic Park / Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (David Koepp & Spielberg)
• Contact (Robert Zemeckis / Carl Sagan)
• Explorers (Joe Dante)
• 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
• Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
• Super 8 (J.J. Abrams)
• Watching the Skies (Norwegian sci-fi)
• Poltergeist / Gremlins (Spielberg-produced, 1980s)
• The Outer Limits — "The Architects of Fear"

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

Directed by: Curry Barker Written by: Curry Barker Starring: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37287335/

In this episode of Mindframes, Michael and Dave dig into Obsession (2026), Curry Barker's micro-budget feature debut that turned into one of the biggest horror phenomenons in years — a $750K film bought for $15 million out of TIFF that went on to gross well over $148 million worldwide, growing at the box office in consecutive weekends rather than declining.

The discussion explores the film's monkey's-paw premise, its working-class Gen Z setting, the moral architecture of Bear's wish, and the central question of whether Bear is the film's actual villain — while comparing the film to Weapons, Pearl, Get Out, The Witch, and Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire.

Obsession explores consent and agency — what happens when desire is granted without consent.

The film suggests that Bear doesn't earn or deserve Nikki's love; he eliminates her will and replaces it with his own. As Curry Barker has put it, "love is earned, not demanded," and "any time you wish for something, it's probably going to be selfish." The true engine of the horror isn't the curse twisting the wish — it's that the wish works exactly as asked.

On-air verdict — Is Bear the villain? Both hosts landed on no. He's flawed, selfish, and prolongs the harm once he knows better, but he's the story's antagonist rather than its villain — if anyone is the "real" villain, it's the cursed object itself. Michael's framing: not every flawed person is a villain, and the film is more interesting because its characters are layered rather than purely good or evil.

On-air verdict — the ending. Dave correctly intuited that Nikki originally killed herself in an earlier draft — that actually was Barker's original Romeo-and-Juliet mutual-suicide ending, before his playwright father pushed him toward the survival cut used in the final film. Michael argued the survival ending is more thematically persuasive: if the theme is one person's coercion of another's agency, the resolution should be Nikki's, not a mutual destruction that treats the harm as shared. Bear's selfishness has to die for Nikki to live.

A live reference worth flagging for listeners: Michael cited Naomi Serpell's New Yorker piece "The New Literalism" (March 2025) as a framework for questioning how intentionally — and how literally — modern horror handles its themes of trauma and control.

• Weapons / Barbarian (Zach Cregger)
• Pearl (Ti West / Mia Goth) — Barker has cited this as a major influence
• Get Out (Jordan Peele)
• The Witch (Robert Eggers)
• Backrooms (Kane Parsons)
• Hurry Up Tomorrow (Jenna Ortega)
• Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire

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