Tom Hanks. Emma Watson. John Boyega. Dave Eggers. Patton Oswalt. Bill Paxton, in his last film. The kid from Boyhood. The guy who directed The End of the Tour and The Spectacular Now. Yes, The Circle is a movie with nearly unparalleled pedigree, based on a well-regarded book by one of America’s most beloved authors. So how in the world did The Circle end up being so jaw-droppingly horrible? We try to dig into what happened.
Then, in our Reboot segment, we look back at 1951’s A Streetcar Named Desire, with Vivien Leigh, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden and, of course, a feral Marlon Brando in a performance that changed screen-acting forever. And we wrap up with 2005’s A History of Violence, David Cronenberg’s adaptation of a famous graphic novel that features Viggo Mortensen, Mario Bello, Ed Harris, and William Hurt grappling with, well, violence and its history.
We hope you enjoy. Let us know what you think @griersonleitch on Twitter, or griersonleitch@newrepublic.com. As always, give us a review on iTunes with the name of a movie you’d like us to review, and we’ll discuss it on a later podcast.