Talking Pictures

Latest Episodes:

Mel Brooks Feb 13, 2024

Show notes

Host Ben Mankiewicz hangs out with his friend, 97-year-old legend Mel Brooks (The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein) in this often hilarious and sometimes poignant episode. Mel reminisces about Gene Wilder, David Lynch, his wife Anne Bancroft, and best friend Carl Reiner. He also recounts a tremendously funny dinner with Alfred Hitchcock. Mel Brooks has spent a lifetime watching and making movies so you don’t want to miss his answers to our Super 8 questionnaire.

Films Mentioned:

Blazing Saddles*
Young Frankenstein
The Producers
High Anxiety
Psycho
Vertigo
The Elephant Man
Eraserhead*
Frankenstein (1931)
Casablanca*
Swing Time
Top Hat
Broadway Melody of 1940
Ninotchka
The Gods Must Be Crazy
It Happened One Night
Spaceballs*
Random Harvest
Alexander’s Ragtime Band

*Available on Max as of 2/13 (Availability of titles subject to change)

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Cord Jefferson Feb 06, 2024

Show notes

Writer director Cord Jefferson (American Fiction) and host Ben Mankiewicz talk life transitions, bravery, and family for this in-depth conversation. Jefferson charts his path from journalist to TV writer to first-time film director of 2023’s celebrated American Fiction. He shares the movies important to him and gives his take on the ending of Shawshank Redemption.

FILMS MENTIONED:

American Fiction
Saltburn
Promising Young Woman
Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Master of None
The Good Place
Succession*
Watchmen*
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Do The Right Thing
Jacob’s Ladder
Clueless
Cruel Intentions
Dangerous Liaisons
Punch-Drunk Love
Shawshank Redemption
Paths of Glory
The Killing
Eyes Wide Shut
Full Metal Jacket*
Pulp Fiction*
Young Frankenstein
Blazing Saddles*
Philadelphia

*Available on Max as of 2/6 (Availability of titles subject to change)

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Emerald Fennell Jan 30, 2024

Show notes

Writer-director Emerald Fennell has made two of the most talked about movies in recent years: Saltburn and Promising Young Woman. Fennell tells host Ben Mankiewicz why she makes uncomfortable films, why she prefers directing over acting, and shares a formative experience watching Jurassic Park. She also challenges Ben on his knee-jerk aversion to costume dramas. You don’t want to miss that!

FILMS MENTIONED:

Barbie*
Promising Young Woman
Saltburn
Casablanca* The Favourite
Smokey and the Bandit
Star Wars
The Death of Stalin
Dangerous Liaisons
Napoleon
Jurassic Park
Midnight Run
Out of Sight
Bridge of Spies
Ben-Hur
A Walk To Remember
Cape Fear (1991)
Cape Fear (1962)
Natural Born Killers*
To Die For Killing of a Sacred Deer
Beau is Afraid
Melancholia
The Shining
Mrs. Miniver
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Random Harvest
Brief Encounter*

*Available on Max as of 1/30 (Availability of titles subject to change)

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Steven Soderbergh Jan 23, 2024

Show notes

This episode of Talking Pictures is special for host Ben Mankiewicz, whose favorite film of all time is Out of Sight, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Ben sits down with Soderbergh (Ocean’s 11, Full Circle, Erin Brockovich) to talk ‘70s films, George Clooney, and how one maintains a 35-year career as a film director. Soderbergh also offers a little relationship advice and answers the Super 8, during which he reveals how many movies he watched in high school. Trust us, it’s a lot.

FILMS MENTIONED:

Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Ocean's Eleven
Ocean’s Twelve
Ocean’s Thirteen
Magic Mike
Magic Mike’s Last Dance*
Out of Sight
Schizopolis*
Gray’s Anatomy*
The Last Detail
Seconds
The Parallax View
Wanda*
Carnal Knowledge
The Landlord
Being There
Mad Max
Witches of Eastwick
Kafka
King of the Hill
The Underneath
Erin Brockovich
Michael Clayton
Contagion
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Casablanca*
Mildred Pierce*
Four Daughters
Angels with Dirty Faces
The Knick*
Jaws
Planet of the Apes
Three Days of the Condor
EO
Au Hasard Balthazar
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Happy as Lazaro
The Maltese Falcon
Stormy Weather
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.
Behind the Candelabra*

*Available on Max as of 1/23 (Availability of titles subject to change)

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Nancy Meyers Jan 16, 2024

Show notes

Our first guest on Talking Pictures is writer director Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated, The Holiday). Recorded at her home, host Ben Mankiewicz talks with Meyers about casting Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, getting script advice from Sunset Boulevard director Billy Wilder, and they discuss what it’s like to become famous for her interiors. Spoiler: it’s frustrating! Nancy Meyers also answers our Super 8 questionnaire and reveals which film had her running from the theater in absolute terror.

FILMS MENTIONED:

Something’s Gotta Give
It’s Complicated
The Holiday
Sunset Boulevard
His Girl Friday
Harry and Walter Go To New York
Terms of Endearment
About Schmidt
Reds
The Magnificent Seven
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly*
The Misfits
The Graduate
It’s a Wonderful Life
North by Northwest
Private Benjamin
Baby Boom
Double Indemnity
Stalag 17
Ace in the Hole
Some Like it Hot*
Sabrina
The Apartment
Lost Weekend
The Philadelphia Story
Bringing Up Baby
Trouble in Paradise
The Intern*
The Exorcist*
Love in the Afternoon*
Rear Window
Day For Night
A Man and a Woman
Paddington 2
The Worst Person in the World
Modern Times*
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
The Great Escape

*Available on Max as of 1/16

(Availability of titles subject to change)

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Coming Soon: Talking Pictures Dec 19, 2023

Show notes

From TCM and MAX, this is Talking Pictures: A Movie Memories Podcast, hosted by Ben Mankiewicz.

We all remember the first movie to really scare us, or the movie a parent loved and watched repeatedly. We know which movies changed us, inspiring a move or a new career path. Mankiewicz, the Turner Classic Movies host, collects these moviegoing memories from Hollywood’s most interesting writers, actors, and directors in Talking Pictures. Listen in as movie-lovers swap stories, jokes, surprising moments, and endless movie recommendations; then watch some of those very same films on the streaming service MAX. For the cinephile or the casual movie lover, this is a conversation about all the life that happens because of watching movies.

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