Just as there are cat people and dog people, there are cat filmmakers and dog filmmakers. Sean Baker, who brought his pup Bunsen to Cannes along with his Palme d'Or–winning Anora, is a dog filmmaker. That's not to say one can't appreciate both, whether we're talking movies or pets. I myself am a cat person who currently has two dogs. But I think that on some level you are either drawn primarily to the sly, withholding spirit of cat movies or the energetic emotionality of dog movies, and nothing can alter that fundamental orientation.

On this week's show, Dana and Stephen are joined by Supreme Friend of the Podcast (SFOP) Isaac Butler, author of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act. The trio first explores The Wild Robot, DreamWork Animation's handcrafted, lovingly made film that's the surprise of the year. Lupita Nyong'o voices ROZ, an old-fashioned robot powered by supremely advanced A.I. who must learn about and adapt to her new wild surroundings. Then, they dissect Nobody Wants This, a new Netflix series starring Kristen Bell (who plays a sex podcaster) and Adam Brody as a hot rabbi. Although there are obvious charms, the show's "will they, won't they" rom-com beats can often feel, at best, gratingly familiar, and at worst, bizarre and unthoughtful, particularly in its portrayal of Jewish women.

From the very first scene of The Wild Robot, the new animated movie from director Chris Sanders (How to Train Your Dragon), adapted from the first in a trilogy of children's novels by Peter Brown, the viewer is plunged along with the protagonist into a new and alien world. A robot washes up on the shore of a lushly forested island, surrounded by the flotsam of some sort of wrecked vehicle--a plane? a spacecraft?--and immediately begins scanning the area for someone she can help. Rozzum Unit 7134, voiced by Lupita Nyong'o and soon to be known as "Roz," has been designed to, as she puts it, offer "integrated, multifaceted task accomplishment" to whatever human requests it of her. The problem is, the island where she's washed up has no human inhabitants, and the animals witnessing the arrival of this hulking metal biped regard Roz as nothing but a menacing predator to be either fought or fled. A witty time-lapse montage shows the robot powering down for a bit so her software can learn to decode the animal sounds around her, enabling her to communicate with all the island's denizens.

ROBOTS are taking over Wall Street. "Technology has utterly transformed the financial system," says Andrew Lo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The vast majority of day-to-day trading is done purely algorithmically." More and more human traders are being shown the door. And researchers like Lo are beginning to find that the more the stock market is run by machines, the less it behaves like one.

Hello, I am ROZZUM unit 7134, but you may call me Roz. While my robotic systems are activating, I will tell you about myself. Once fully activated, I will be able to move and communicate and learn. Simply give me a task and I will complete it. Over time, I will find better ways of completing my tasks. I will become a better robot.