This week on WVIA Pop Shop, Allan Austin and Patrick Hamilton take on The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to The Social Network, starring Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison and Jeremy Strong.

The film revisits the world of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg through the story of whistleblower Frances Haugen and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, whose reporting helped expose troubling practices inside the social media giant.

But does The Social Reckoning have anything new to tell us about Facebook, corporate accountability and the influence of social media?

Allan and Patrick examine Sorkin's distinctive storytelling style, the film's comparisons to classic investigative journalism movies like All the President's Men, and whether its optimistic portrayal of whistleblowing and journalism holds up when audiences already know what happened afterward.

Then the conversation turns to a much bigger question: What good is exposing wrongdoing if the public and the institutions responsible for accountability don't respond? And what does it say about us that we continue using social media platforms even when we know their potential harms?

Plus, the guys debate whether The Social Reckoning needed to be made at all, and why a movie about such important issues ultimately leaves them underwhelmed.

This week on WVIA Pop Shop, Allan Austin, Patrick Hamilton and Kara take on Digger, the ambitious new black comedy starring Tom Cruise as an oil tycoon whose disregard for warnings triggers an environmental—and potentially global—disaster.

With a cast that also includes Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Jesse Plemons and Sandra Hüller, Digger certainly looks like a prestige picture. But underneath its Oscar-friendly cast and highly stylized filmmaking is a sprawling satire about corporate power, political corruption, environmental catastrophe, consumerism and our complicated relationship with art itself.

In the spoiler-free first half, Allan and Patrick ask what actually makes a "prestige picture" and whether Tom Cruise might be making a serious run at an Oscar.

Then the movie takes a turn.

After the spoilers begin, the conversation shifts to what Digger may really be asking of its audience: Are corporations solely responsible for the world they've helped create, or are consumers complicit too? Can art inspire people to confront difficult problems—or can it become another distraction that helps us live with them? And what happens when facts have to compete with a better story?

Plus: is Digger an ambitious big swing or an example of cinematic hubris? Kara isn't convinced. Patrick is pleasantly surprised. And Allan may have found his new favorite Tom Cruise movie.

⚠️ Spoilers begin at 15:27.

This week on WVIA Pop Shop, Allan Austin, Patrick Hamilton and Kara take on Primetime, the new film starring Robert Pattinson in a highly fictionalized retelling of the story behind NBC's To Catch a Predator.

The movie portrays Chris Hansen as a man driven by a complicated mixture of justice, ambition, celebrity and ratings—and uses the rise of his controversial television series to ask uncomfortable questions about the relationship between journalism and entertainment.

When crime becomes content, can the pursuit of justice remain the priority? What happens when public accountability becomes spectacle? And who gets to decide what justice looks like when television cameras, audiences and ratings enter the equation?

Allan and Patrick also examine the film's depiction of vigilantism and moral certainty, while Kara weighs in on the movie's deliberately uncomfortable visual style and the ways sensationalized crime can make the unfolding story more important than justice itself.

Plus, the Pop Shop crew is divided over Primetime: is its deeply unpleasant viewing experience one of the movie's biggest flaws—or exactly what makes it work?

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