Everybody loves Rafiki, the wise old mandrill voiced by John Kani in the new animated musical prequel “Mufasa: The Lion King” (Disney, December 20). But not everybody — including IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” podcast hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio — loves Barry Jenkins’s quote-unquote photorealistic animal adventure that traces the origin stories of Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) and even Scar (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), known first as Taka.
In the movie’s commitment to realistic images, what gets lost is any sense of imagination or, even worse, fun. Jenkins himself has been candid about the virtual set as being not really his bag. We need Barry Jenkins’s voice, which is hardly here at all. Still, the kids’ movie might still end up taking in dump trucks of money over the holiday season. (Read IndieWire’s mixed review by Alison Foreman here.)
Elsewhere on this week’s episode, we take in the 2025 Academy Awards shortlists in 10 categories, including Best International Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, shorts, crafts, song, and score. Coming out ahead are “Emilia Pérez” with six spots and, of course, movies like “Wicked” and “The Wild Robot.” It’s not surprising “Anora” isn’t on this list — it’s not a movie heavy on score or sound design or, obviously not, visual effects — but we do discuss recent internet controversy around the film and Mikey Madison explaining why she declined Sean Baker’s offer to bring an intimacy coordinator onto the set. (That went viral out of Variety’s Actors on Actors special segment with Pamela Anderson, though Baker and Madison have made this fact known since Cannes.)
Meanwhile, “Screen Talk” is breaking on December 27 but will return on January 3 to preview the Golden Globes, which take place January 5.
Listen to the episode below or watch in the video above.
Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify, and hosted by Megaphone. Browse previous episodes here, subscribe here, and be sure to let us know if you’d like to hear the hosts address specific issues in upcoming editions of Screen Talk.
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