Exploring Art, Film, and Summer Vibes: From Philadelphia Heatwaves to Hidden Cinematic Gems

In the Hand of Dante (2025) Review: Julian Schnabel’s Visionary Netflix Drama Starring Oscar Isaac, Al Pacino & Martin Scorsese | The Film Buff Podcast

In this episode of The Film Buff Podcast, Peter A. DeLuca (AKAPAD) dives deep into In the Hand of Dante (2025), the ambitious Netflix drama directed by Julian Schnabel. Based on Nick Tosches’ novel, the film stars Oscar Isaac in a dual role as both a modern-day writer and Dante Alighieri himself, alongside an extraordinary ensemble that includes Al Pacino, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, John Malkovich, Jason Momoa, and Martin Scorsese.

Released on Netflix in June 2026 after premiering at the Venice Film Festival, In the Hand of Dante explores the discovery and controversy surrounding an original manuscript of Dante’s Inferno. Schnabel’s bold visual approach—present-day sequences shot in striking black-and-white, historical scenes rendered in vivid color—elevates a story about art, authenticity, forgery, and the enduring power of literary legacy.

Despite its star-studded cast and visionary filmmaking, the movie received surprisingly little attention from critics and audiences. In this candid episode, recorded amid a muggy Philadelphia summer of heat waves and rainouts, Peter makes the case for why In the Hand of Dante deserves far more recognition. He also connects the film to Schnabel’s wider artistic world, including his 1996 biopic Basquiat, and reflects on the challenges of discovering quality cinema in today’s overcrowded streaming landscape.

If you’re looking for an overlooked 2025/2026 Netflix gem with serious artistic ambition, this Film Buff episode is essential listening.

Summary

In this candid and wide-ranging podcast episode, host Peter A. Duca reflects on his summer experiences in Philadelphia amid hot, muggy weather disrupted by rainstorms and volleyball league cancellations. This backdrop serves as a segue into a deeper conversation about his passion for film—especially independent and arthouse cinema—and his ongoing search for noteworthy movies amidst a cluttered streaming landscape. He shares his process of curating watchlists across multiple platforms and the challenges of finding distinctive films to discuss on the podcast.

The episode’s centerpiece is an enthusiastic discussion about a lesser-known 2025 Netflix movie focused on the discovery and controversy surrounding an original manuscript of Dante’s Inferno. The film, starring an exceptional ensemble including Oscar Isaac, Al Pacino, Gerard Butler, and Martin Scorsese, creatively uses black-and-white visuals for the present and color for the past, illuminating themes of art, authenticity, and historical forgery. Duca praises the film’s visionary approach and criticizes the film community for overlooking its quality and importance.

He also delves into a documentary about Julian Schnabel, an eccentric, multifaceted painter connected with influential figures like Andy Warhol and actors such as Willem Dafoe and Al Pacino. Through this documentary, Duca links Schnabel to iconic artist portrayals in cinema, contrasting films like Basquiat (1996) and Pollock, highlighting the evolution of American art biopics.

Throughout, Peter injects personal anecdotes—his affection for black-and-white photography, evening coffee routines, and delayed episode releases—creating an intimate atmosphere that blends lifestyle musings with film criticism. His unmistakable enthusiasm for underappreciated artists and films encourages listeners to look deeper into artistic legacies and emerging cinematic offerings.

Highlights

• ☀️ Describes Philadelphia’s intense summer weather and the challenges it brings to outdoor plans like volleyball.
• 🎥 Shares the complexities of managing multiple streaming watchlists to find quality films for the podcast.
• 🎞️ Discusses a fascinating 2025 Netflix drama about the hunt for Dante’s Inferno manuscript featuring a star-studded cast.
• 🖤 Explores a Julian Schnabel documentary connecting art, filmmaking, and legendary figures like Willem Dafoe and Al Pacino.
• 🖼️ Reflects on the power and aesthetic of black-and-white photography and film.
• 🎬 Compares Basquiat and Pollock as pivotal American artist biographical films.
• 🎙️ Critiques the film community for ignoring visionary but lesser-known movies.

Key Insights

• 🔥 Environmental Context Shapes Creative Expression: Peter’s vivid description of Philadelphia’s muggy and rainy summer sets a tone of discomfort and resilience, paralleling the theme of persistence visible in the artists and films he discusses. This environment influences his daily routines and creative workflow, underscoring how physical settings impact artistic consumption and production.
• 📊 Curation Challenges in the Streaming Era: Managing multiple watchlists across several platforms necessitates significant data collection and filtering. This highlights a modern viewer’s struggle to discover unique or independent films amid an oversaturated content environment, suggesting the need for improved aggregation tools or trusted curators.
• 🕵️‍♂️ The Dante’s Inferno Film as a Case Study in Artistic Innovation: The 2025 Netflix film stands out for its narrative choice—juxtaposing black-and-white present-day sequences with colorful historical flashbacks—a storytelling device that deepens the film’s themes of memory, authenticity, and artistic legacy. The star-studded cast and complex plot about forgery and manuscript valuation reveal ambitious filmmaking rarely recognized by critics.
• 🎨 Julian Schnabel’s Multifaceted Artistic Vision: The documentary showcases Schnabel’s dual identity as a painter and filmmaker, blending eccentricity with obsession and creativity. His connection to figures like Andy Warhol and portrayal through cinema exemplifies the porous boundaries between visual art and film, and how each medium informs the perception of artistry.
• ⚫⚪ Black-and-White Imagery as a Timeless Artistic Medium: Peter’s personal affection for black-and-white imagery emphasizes its emotional and aesthetic power. This preference resonates with cinematic techniques used in films like Basquiat and the Dante’s Inferno drama, reaffirming black-and-white’s capacity to evoke mood and historicity, transcending mere nostalgia.
• 🖌️ Comparative Study of Artist Biopics: Comparing Pollock and Basquiat as “two-headed dragons” establishes a critical framework for understanding how American cinema portrays artists. While Pollock focuses on emotional and psychological depth, Basquiat offers a more expressive and varied narrative approach, illustrating different cinematic strategies to capture the artist’s spirit.
• 🎥 Film Criticism and Industry Attention Gaps: The episode critiques how the broader film community often neglects visionary yet less commercial movies, a phenomenon that leads to missed opportunities for cinematic enrichment. Peter’s praise for Netflix’s support of such projects points to the platform’s role in expanding artistic horizons, even if industry recognition lags.

Table: Contrast between Pollock and Basquiat

This comparison frames an appreciation for different cinematic languages addressing complex artists’ lives.

Here is the transcript for this Film Buff Episode featuring a discussion on Director Julian Schabel and his 2025 film In the Hand of Dante from Netflix.

00:00:01
quiet on the set. Grammar speed down production page one >> action >> earlier uh on this podcast the film podcast that’s what you’re listening to right now hosted created uh forwarded and obsessively produced by yours truly Peter A hold up it’s in the morning it’s very early I I need a little bit of coffee sip the coffee while you’re recording thing. Get through, just get through the process. But Peter A. Duca here, everyone, the film buff, coming to you from Philadelphia, PA. Uh, one of the

00:00:46
greatest cities for summertime. Uh, it’s summer. We just got through a heat wave. And the last couple days it has been So, every single I’ I’ve been playing in this volleyball league every single Tuesday for the last month. We’ve had one out of five showings for volleyball. So, it we we’ve been rained out. It’s Tuesday morning. Clouds have already rolled in. Uh started raining yesterday, but we went through this heat wave. We’re going through almost like a storm wave. And

00:01:22
what what creates what happens within the city is you get these hot days. So you kind of like, you know, like you you dress down, then it rains and then there’s a level of muggginess that that come in and it the heat just like you’re you’re walking through this like hot air. There’s very little you can do to be comfortable. So a lot of times I’ll be in full uh work dress and yesterday I forgot to pack my change of clothes. I keep a a couple quick things to change into in one of my work bags. Uh forgot

00:02:01
to pack it yesterday because we uh yesterday was very early in the morning for me. Uh early in the morning is is a little bit code for uh all hands on deck. Everyone’s showing up at a particular uh boardroom at particular building in a particular spot. And I don’t know exactly who’s going to be there. I just know I have a request to be there. Uh there might be a couple quick conversations I’m expected to have or uh you know just to sit down uh go through something with someone, explain

00:02:33
things, so on and and so forth. So that’s a little bit of what yesterday was and I get back and I’m not joking AK Patter, this is what summer is like sometimes in Philly. I get back from a you know full full day at the office. I’m like drenched in sweat and it’s just from my walk home. Now given sometimes as my day is like dwindling down, I’ll bounce uh around a couple coffee houses. I’ll spend like $30 on coffee uh just working out of coffee houses. Uh, I I’m not one of the the the few the weirdos

00:03:12
that go into a coffee house, use their Wi-Fi, take a seat, and not purchase trees and snacks and so on and and and so forth. I I spend money where I put my butt. So, yesterday was uh the the Big Odyssey episode, and wow, a lot of you guys, a lot of you out there, a lot of my film buffers showed up for that. Amazing. Uh I I’m not done talking about The Odyssey. I’m not done speaking about the career of Christopher Nolan, uh or all of the the wonderful conversational controversy that came up around that

00:03:51
film. So, between the sweaty mess of Monday and the early Tuesday morning, I I’ve been up since about 5:30, I didn’t know what to breach. Like, what what are we going to talk about? And as often as I I I battled two things and and they’re essent it’s essentially like like a two-way list, right? Like a like a double double column list. That’s what I’m trying to say. The one side of the list is what I’ve been watching moviewise, streaming wise, TV show wise, uh even a couple uh YouTube things. And

00:04:32
on the right side of that is all the newer movies that are either out where they’re at, what I can watch. Now, in all of the streaming apps, I keep a, you know, somewhat strict dedicated watch list, but even aggregating all of that gets very confusing because I it’s it’s five or six se separate watch list. Amazon pulls in some of them, but not all of them. It just so maybe I’m like down to five or four, not five or six, right? makes it a little bit easier, but I there’s still a a level of data

00:05:09
collection I have to go through to pinpoint the best new movie to bring to you when I sit down to record. And then we have like Fridays, we like to do independent movies. Uh, a lot of times I’ll watch an independent movie and I’ll go back and forth with, you know, discussing it. Today, for example, should I wait till Friday? Is it really independent? Uh, you know, like our independent Fridays are a battle sometimes. And I had a a nice independent movie, but we’ll talk about that this Friday. Uh, it’s AMC Plus is

00:05:45
is incredible with with some of their releases. So, I’ve been I went back and forth and my whole way home yesterday, I’m I’m thinking like, what am I what is happening on Tuesday? I have all my night episodes for about a month already recorded. Uh last night I think you guys got uh Spider-Man 3 because yeah, it’s it’s Spider-Man time, right? We we’re getting another Spider-Man movie on the 31st. How exciting is that? I don’t care what what people say. It’s Spider-Man. Yeah,

00:06:17
you you got to see it. Like you you got to put that on your schedule. So, I started watching this documentary on a guy that just I’m not familiar with, but it came up on on Tuby. Thank the heavens for Tuby. Julian Shanabal, that’s his last name. Shaabal. Julian. and he’s a painter and he’s with pictures with Amy Warhog, John Batis Basqueot. Within this documentary, you you see them they’re erecting like 40 foot high like twotory high paintings of his and this guy and then they they speak about

00:07:06
him of being uh just a multiaceted talent and he’s just like obsessive and he works and and kind of like normal like they he’s he’s eccentric in some ways but he’s not this uh living artist that we all imagine. And then they start talking to William Defoe in this documentary. And then they start talking to Alpuchccino. And I’m just saying to myself, I’m like, wait, wow. Like why? Like Hollywood showing up poor this one artist. I’m not familiar with this guy. And then they get into some of his film

00:07:46
making. And you see him like even like saying that with Annie Warhol in front of a screen. Uh, it’s just a black and white still picture and it’s just like, okay, so he he made those weird art house films and yeah, let’s be honest, Amy Warhol made some weird art house films and okay, so he was maybe like a part of the factory and and did a couple things and then the then there’s a picture with him and Gary Oldman and then it hits me because the still shot, the black and white still shot and

00:08:20
I love black and white pictures. I just love them. Uh in in my Instagram feed, I I told my fiance, I just want all when it comes to like our personal pictures, I want them all to be black and white now. Uh I went through this black and white photography book and it just blew me away, you know? Like it just made me realize the beauty of black and white. If you asked me in the past, I would have always said it, but it it’s different when you say things to when you realize it. So, we get this black and white picture

00:08:53
of this guy with Gary Oldman, and I knew it. That’s from the set of Bas Basque, the 1996 movie that we spoke about earlier last year. Basque, in my view, is the second greatest portrait of an artist that we ever got on Cellul. The greatest being Ed Harris’s Pollock. Uh, a part of that is just the way Pollock looks, the tone, like the the color tone of the movie and then the music and just the way they heighten uh when he falls into creativity like the music and just the process of him working just it it’s the

00:09:41
way it runs. It’s it’s amazing. But and Bas a little bit of the flip side because Ed uh Ed Harris is so skilled because he he wrote and directed Pollock is so skilled in showing us what it feels like, right? Like it’s more expressive here. Julian with the 1996 Bosque explains it and he’s able to show it in ways that and explain it in ways that I I think are Now, it breaches high arc and Basua and and Pollock really are like it’s a two-headed dragon of this uh the rise of American art bio art film.

00:10:27
So, I go through this guy’s filmography and I I want to say if I go back to listen to my Posia episode, Before Nightfalls, I I I have yet to see it. The diving bell and the butterfly yet to see it. Lou Reed Berlin documentary yet to see it. Mariel yet to see it at Eternity’s Gate with William Defoe. So that explains how William Defo is in this documentary and and at Eternity’s Gate which is our boy Vincent Van Go. Someone who uh perception wise, right? Like I battle with my perception of Van Go because I really

00:11:07
think he was a loon. I think he was nutty and I don’t think he can hold a candle to any of his contemporaries. I just think uh uh postmodern culture made Van Go into a name and rightfully so. Uh he not much happened with him when he was painting uh because he wasn’t that good. Like that’s my Vango take. Very controversial. So like like my mind is blown and then I get into a 2025 movie that I had to research because I’m pretty I thought I was pretty positive in bringing you guys at the hand of Dante

00:11:52
this movie. Can we go through the cast? Oscar Isaac, Gail Gaddat, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Martin Scorsesei, Al Pacino, Jason Mimoa, Benjamin Clementine, Sabrina Maketi. This is one of the best casts in a drama we’ve had in the last couple years. So, why is this movie stacked? What’s this movie about? Why haven’t you heard of it? It’s from Netflix. And Julian does something here that I absolutely love. Modern day is black and white in the past is in color, right? It like that’s

00:12:39
a point. That’s a point right there. This is about the discovery, the hunt, the battle for what is to believed to be a original manuscript script of Dante’s Inferno. And we get into the creation of Dante’s Inferno. we get into the hunt for the manuscript the way it’s being uh manipulated the powers that be and at the ending tragically for a lot of people and the manuscript gets lost in time as it originally was and we have ways of understanding the forgery of documents the forgery of the

00:13:30
history of some of this stuff uh who you need who you need approval from, uh, who needs to sign off, what do they need to see, how exactly do they need to see it, and then if you have something that the world’s going to want, you need to you need to have it verified before it’s verified. And that’s a little bit of Walter uh Oscar Isacson’s character. And then he plays kind of plays like dual roles here in two different centuries, which is incredible this movie. And I wanted to speak to you

00:14:03
guys about it and speak to you a little bit about Julian Chael because this movie came and went and no one spoke about it. It stuck with me. I mean, I’m able to I watched this movie when it dropped on Netflix. Uh was it June 12th, 2026? June 24. Released on Netflix June 20 uh June 24. It’s a 2025 movie, but it it got released in Netflix June 24, 2026. Enough of this movie stuck with me to I I can just sit down with you and discuss it. I don’t have to rewatch it. I don’t have to do anything.

00:14:44
So, I felt a little guilty realizing I I, you know, with my own research. Didn’t record this episode. Didn’t release it. Didn’t drop it. So, that’s why you’re getting this one a little bit late today. But I think uh it’s for a good reason. I think it’s for right appropriate reasons. Uh a lot of times I will wait until I’m absolutely uh excited and inspired uh just to sit down and bring you guys a movie that I know that the world passed up that you should be paying attention to. And I do

00:15:15
feel like this viewing experience is a little bit of enrichment because we should understand uh the circumstances around uh Dante’s Inferno and in hand the value of it, right? Like what’s the value of it? I I I love what he did here. This is in my view a visionary movie and shame on the entire film community, the film critics. These I don’t know what these people do. I don’t know how they eat their lunch or look themselves in the mirror is so frustrating from my perspective that

00:15:52
this film doesn’t get more attention, more agilation, and bravo to Netflix and giving this guy the money and giving this guy the the talent and and pipelining it and greenlighting it. all of it. Uh, I think it’s well earned. I think it’s there. All right, AK Patterns. I love you guys. Rock and roll. Okay, that’s a wrap. [applause]

PETER A DELUCA AKAPD

AKAPAD is a versatile thinker known across Philadelphia, Europe, and even in the vast Multiverse as The Electic One. By day, he excels as an IT Mastermind, assisting individuals, both big and small, with a wide range of simple and complex solutions. In contrast, he is also a talented illustrator, a passionate comic book enthusiast, a creative content creator, and an active live streamer. Additionally, his podcast, “AKAPAD The Film Buff Podcast,” boasts an impressive catalog of over 500 episodes available on nearly every major platform.