The Long Take Review Jen Sopchockchai Bankard

May the 4th be with you! Just in time for Star Wars Day this year, The Phantom Menace, the 1999 prequel film written and directed by George Lucas, returned to theaters in honor of its 25th anniversary. In those 25 years, the film has been on a tumultuous journey. After its initial release, it withstood harsh reviews from critics and backlash from fans. The more toxic among them harassed actors like Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best. Fast forward to today and the film seems to be beloved by many. In fact, to the surprise of The Hollywood Reporter, The Phantom Menace came in second at the box office this past weekend, beating out Zendaya’s new film, Challengers.
In this episode of The Long Take Review, P.T., Greg, and I take a trip down memory lane to our initial reactions to and relationship with The Phantom Menace, as well as reflect on our experience seeing the film again in theaters this past weekend. We try to make sense of the public perception of this film over the years, contemplate its broader influence on the history of cinema, share all of our favorites, and end by, of course, discussing what Oscars the epic space opera could have or should have won. Every podcast has a beginning, and it does seem as though this film was a genesis moment for all three of us.
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image Credit: StarWars.com
Looking Back at 1999 We each share memories about the first time we saw The Phantom Menace. 3:52
The Legacy of The Phantom Menace How did this film forever change filmmaking? 17:48
Our Re-Release Experience in 2024 We each share our experience seeing The Phantom Menace in theaters this past weekend. What did we notice this time around? 33:45
The Rhetorical Situation Jen pathetically attempts to explain the concept of homosocial male desire from literary theory and how it guided her interpretation of the film. 1:06:53
Our Own (Unsolicited) Notes What would we go back and change about this film if we could? 1:31:55
Our Favs We try (and mostly fail) to name our favorites in a lightning round fshion. Includes favorite character, glup schitto, cringy line of dialogue, Queen Amidala fit, pod racer, Jedi council member, scene, and shot. 1:55:37
Oscars Watch Did this film get nominated for any Oscars? In which categories would we have given it a golden statue? 2:20:15
Show Notes:
This is the TED podcast with Ahmed Best that Greg referred to during the episode.
Jen referred to “Dave Filoni’s transcendent” monologue about how The Duel of the Fates connects to Return of the Jedi. Here’s an IGN article about it. You can also watch the whole thing during the episode of the Disney Gallery about The Mandalorian (on Disney+).
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After a strike-induced 8-month delay, Luca Guadagnino’s psychosexual sports drama, Challengers has finally bounced into theaters. The film follows a tennis coach and her star player husband who find themselves competing against a former friend and lover. A powerhouse trio comprises the cast: household name Zendaya, Mike Faist, who stood out as Riff in West Side Story, and Josh O’Connor, is best known for playing Prince Charles on Netflix’s The Crown. Guadagnino, for those who might not know, directed Oscar-winner Call Me By Your Name (2017), starring Timothee Chalamet. Since Amazon MGM Studios has distribution rights in the U.S., Challengers will likely be available to stream on Amazon Prime Video after its theatrical run. 
In this episode of The Long Take Review, Antonio, P.T., and I volley a variety of reactions to and interpretations of the film, which is aggressive and bold in its style yet subtle or ambiguous in its storytelling. Antonio lends his expert knowledge of tennis to our discussion as we assess this as a sports movie, Jen overanalyzes the relationship drama, and P.T. brings a critical eye to the film form and character development. For about 15 seconds there, we were actually podcasting.
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Imag Credit: The Hollywood Reporter
Movies News Update Quentin Tarantino makes a big announcement. 3:35
The Short Take We each share our general impressions of Challengers. 6:16
The Recommendation Algorithm Who should see this film? Do you need to be a tennis fan to enjoy it? Does the marketing of the film set false expectations about how much sex is in it? 13:08
SPOILER MODE What actually happened in that final scene? 26:07
The Rhetorical Situation Jen pathetically attempts to explain the concept of homosocial male desire from literary theory and how it guided her interpretation of the film. 1:02:55
Which character is our favorite/for whom were we rooting during the film? 1:15:24
Oscars Watch Does Challengers have a shot at any Oscar nominations? 1:37:54
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We’ll basically take any excuse to talk about Dune on this show, but for this episode we had two fairly good reasons. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two recently became available to rent or buy at home, and it likely won’t be long before the science fiction epic hits streaming services — I would guess on Max this summer. Now that the film has become more widely accessible, we thought that it would be a great time to revisit it and dig a little deeper. 
Meanwhile, we have a cadre of Star Wars podcaster friends who have not had a designated place to geek out about the Dune franchise. So, for this episode, we recruited Greg McLaughlin of The Rebel Base Card Podcast and Ross Hollebon of The Album Cockpit Podcast to reflect on what makes Dune: Part Two so exceptional. They share their respective experiences watching it, their prior relationship to it, and, since we’re all Star Wars fans, we contemplate the extent to which Star Wars and Dune intersect or influence one another. After that, we round out the conversation by picking our favorite characters and scenes, with a little bit of Oscars talk thrown in at the very end. Keep listening after the outro for our own “extended edition” of the episode. 
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image Credit: Elle
Note: The Director’s Cut DGA Podcast episode with Steven Spielberg and Denis Villeneuve that Greg C. referred to during the episode.
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At the Long Take Review, we have one eye always on the Oscar race. Usually, that means we are looking forward to the upcoming Academy Awards, talking through the race as it happens. But given our collective history of caring about these silly awards, we thought it would be fun to occasionally step back and train our eye on an earlier year in Oscar history. Regular listeners know we frequently talk about what we would change in the current race if we had the power of an Oscar Fairy; we decided to use that magic wand on the past with this Oscar Fairy Flashback, in which we’ll discuss what we would, in hindsight, like to change about the nominees and winners from a chosen year.
To spice up the discussion, P.T. designed a point spending system. Antonio, P.T., and I each start out with 10 points. To swap out a nominee in a below-the-line category (the technical and production crew categories as well as speciality film categories like International, Animated, Documentary), we have to spend 1 point; swapping out a nominee in an above-the-line category (screenplay, acting, or directing) requires 2 points; and swapping out a best picture nominee is 3 points. To change the winner within a given category costs double points: so 2 points to change the winner below-the-line, 4 points for above, and 6 points for best picture.
In this episode’s Oscar Fairy Flashback, we go back a decade to the 86th Academy Awards, held on March 2, 2014 and honoring the films of 2013. Some of the big contenders that year were American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, The Wolf of Wall Street, Captain Phillips, The Dallas Buyer’s Club, and Nebraska. Which got more nominations than they deserved? Which will we refuse to touch because they were so good? What other films from that year deserved to be in the Oscars conversation to begin with? And will P.T. whine about Martin Scorsese not winning enough? (Spoiler: he will.)
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Movie News Update: WGA winners, Cannes Film Festival Line-up, and CinemaCon buzz. 3:22
Oscar Fairy Flashback:
P.T. reviews the rules and provides an overview of that year’s big winners. 12:15
We share who we were and what we were doing during the year leading up to the 2014 Oscars. 16:38
We propose our desired changes and hash it all out from there. 29:27
Editor’s Note: P.T. checked the math on our final picks after we finished recording, and it turns out he did have enough points left for all the screenplay changes he proposed. So he gave 2 points back to Antonio and used his remaining points. The changes we made as a group do not change; only who spent the points on those changes.
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Monkey Man, directed by and starring Dev Patel, opened this past weekend. That, apparently, was a small miracle. The cast crew had to maintain a covid “bubble” during the pandemic, Dev Patel broke his hand during filming on location in Indonesia, Netflix dumped the film, their co-financier Bron Studios went bankrupt, and then, after all seemed lost, Academy Award winner Jordan Peele and Universal Studios swooped in to revive it.
Now, the film seems to have risen above all that, receiving rave reviews out of the SXSW Film Festival, where it premiered, and recouping its 10 million dollar budget opening weekend, second only to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, whose budget was upwards of $150 million.
The brutal action film marketed as “John Wick in India” tells the story of Kid, a monkey-masked fighter who plots to avenge crimes committed against his village and family. In the process, he realizes the extent to which corruption, capitalism, globalization, and the vestiges of colonial rule have systemically oppressed the poor and powerless around him. 
In this episode of The Long Take Review, Greg, P.T., and I debate to what extent the John Wick comparison is accurate. We then go on to unpack the many narrative layers of the story, share our thoughts on the style of filmmaking, and try our best to examine how contextual factors such as the tumultuous production, the globalized political milieu, and Jordan Peele’s potential editorial influence impacted this film.
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Image Credit: Variety
The Short Take We each share our general impressions of Monkey Man. 2:55
The Recommendation Algorithm Who should see this film? How much is it actually like John Wick? 13:19
SPOILER MODE How simple or complicated is this story? How are the different layers working together? What does this film have to say about Indian society? Politics? Religion? Mythology? Socioeconomic disparities? 25:05
The Rhetorical Situation We attempt to piece together the timeline of challenges Monkey Man faced in its making. Why did Netflix drop the film? How has the rise of global tech companies influenced filmmaking? What influence did Jordan Peele have on the final version? 1:09:28
Oscars Watch Does Monkey Man have a shot at any Oscars? 1:50:00
Notes:
Here are the news articles that informed our discussion:
Slate’s “Dev Patel’s Monkey Man Has a Bold New Vision.”
Vulture’s “How Did Monkey Man Swing from Netflix to Universal?”
Deadline’s “Dev Patel On How Jordan Peele Swung A Theatrical Release For ‘Monkey Man.’”
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With the Oscars for 2023 releases in the rearview mirror, we look to the movie slate for the rest 2024. And we’re left with a lot of questions. With the studios’ slow resolution of the actor and writer strikes halting production for months, for example, will the release schedule feel thinner than years past? And considering Marvel has scaled back in the wake of recent flops and the loss of an actor who was supposed to play their primary villain for the foreseeable future, will the handful of summer blockbusters lined up be enough to keep the box office afloat? Will there be less competition at the Oscars next year?
In this episode of The Long Take Review, P.T., Greg, Antonio, and I try to wrap our heads around the rest of the year in film via a Movie Hype Draft. Each of us must select four different films that we think are the most anticipated — in the eyes of the public, critics, Oscar voters, or maybe just our hearts. In the process, we discuss sequels and prequels, rising stars, insanely early Oscar buzz, and the types of movies we can never resist.
We plan to score our picks this time next year, using three combined metrics: box office, awards, and our own happiness score. Once a film was selected, it was no longer eligible, which means that some of us tried to strategize based on our turn order and what we thought our friends would pick. After you’ve listened to the episode, we’d love to hear your thoughts on whose roster gets you the most hyped.
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[SPOILER WARNING: I will list our final picks below. If you have not listened to the episode and would prefer to hear our discussion before voting, please turn back now!]

Antonio’s Picks
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (dir. George Miller)
Ella McCay (dir. James L. Brooks)
We Live in Time (dir. John Crowley)
Hard Truths (dir. Mike Leigh)
Greg’s Picks
Megalopolis (dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
Monkey Man (dir. Dev Patel)
The Nickel Boys (dir. Ramell Ross)
Twisters (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)
Jen’s Picks
Blitz (dir. Steve McQueen)
Nosferatu (dir. Robert Eggers)
Deadpool & Wolverine (dir. Shawn Levy)
Bird (dir. Andrea Arnold)
P.T.’s Picks
The Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim (dir. Kenji Kamiyama)
Kinds of Kindness (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)
I Saw the TV Glow (dir. Jane Schoebrun)
Evil Does Not Exist (dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi)

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