Milfred and Hands talk politics and film with Wisconsin native Michael Bauman, the cinematographer for "One Battle After Another," which won six Oscars last month. Bauman, who grew up about 60 miles northeast of Madison in the Fond du Lac County village of Brandon, was nominated for an Oscar and won a BAFTA Award for best cinematography. He talks about the blockbuster movie and its implications for immigration and border policy. He also recounts his experience in the film program at UW-Oshkosh and explains why bigger productions shoot in Illinois rather than Wisconsin -- including "Monster: The Ed Gein Story," which he worked on. Hands thinks Sean Penn's character, Col. Lockjaw, for which he won a supporting actor Oscar, is too real in the Trumpian era to be absurd. Milfred, who grew up with Bauman in Brandon, picks a star to play Bauman in a future biopic.

Milfred and Hands assess the flurry of data centers being proposed across Wisconsin in communities such as Mount Pleasant, Beaver Dam, Janesville, Grant County and, until recently, DeForest. The billion-dollar projects are needed to support our phones, computers, electronic devices and artificial intelligence. But they also will consume, in many cases, more energy than the cities where they hope to locate. That risks undermining Wisconsin's goal to be carbon neutral by 2050 if the Public Service Commission approves more natural gas plants to power the centers. Our political podcasters play audio clips from the Wisconsin Policy Forum's recent forum in Milwaukee on data center development.

Milfred and Hands play Nostradamus, with apologies to Conan O'Brien, predicting who will win the races for Wisconsin governor, state Supreme Court, Trump's affections and the Big Ten conference in 2026. Milfred sees a future with lots of candidates lining up to run for Madison mayor. Hands makes an easy call about the direction of Madison's property taxes.