MFM Presents…Dear Movies, I Love You

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 2 Hello. We are so excited that we finally get to make this official announcement.
Episode one of our new film podcast, Dear Movies, I Love You, has arrived.

Speaker 3 That's right. And now you're about to listen to an advanced screening of their premiere episode.

Speaker 2 Whether you're a full-on film buff or just in it for the popcorn, this is the movie podcast for you.

Speaker 3 Hosts Millie DiCherico and Casey O'Brien cover everything in the world of film from the good and the bad to the ugly.

Speaker 2 So grab your bucket of soda, sit back, and enjoy the very first episode of Exactly Right's newest member of the family, Dear Movies, I love you.

Speaker 3 And don't forget, at the end of this episode, head over to their feed, Dear Movies, I love you, in your podcast app and check out the next episode, like a double feature.

Speaker 2 Hey, and while you're there, don't forget to follow, rate, and review. It really helps.

Speaker 3 Yippee Kaya, movie lovers.

Speaker 1 Goodbye. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Hello, Casey O'Brien. Hi, Millie DeCherico.
How are you? Oh, great. I mean, you know what we're doing right now? Yeah, we are doing a new podcast.

Speaker 1 You and I, both of us, making a movie podcast together. It's thrilling, it's terrifying, and it's liberating all at once.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this is our very first episode, and we're really excited because we've got a lot of stuff to cover. First off, we're going to kick off the show with something we're calling Film Diary.

Speaker 1 And I was wondering, Casey, can you tell them what it is? Yeah, I can do that.

Speaker 1 This is our the movies we've watched like in the last week, and we're going to be discussing the movies we have most recently watched.

Speaker 1 Now, these are not necessarily recommendations, this is just like our extracurriculars. That's right, these are our studies as film enthusiasts.

Speaker 1 You know, we're trying to like mine through all of film of all of time. You know, both of us, we're both students of film.
So, these aren't necessarily recommendations.

Speaker 1 Some of these might suck, frankly. A lot of them will, probably.
A lot of them will. Yes, you got to to break a lot of eggs, kiss a lot of frogs.

Speaker 1 Also, we're going to talk about drinking in the movies.

Speaker 1 So, you know, movies that feature complete drunks or people that are trying to get off the stuff, whatever it is, we're going to be talking about it, but we're also going to really like hammer into one movie in particular, and that is 2018's A Star is Born.

Speaker 1 featuring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. And we might even talk a little bit about Bradley Cooper as a director as well.
And today we have the wonderful comedian Shalewa Sharp.

Speaker 1 She's on to talk about her area of expertise, which was important to both of us, wouldn't you say, Millie? Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 We had a very emotional conversation with Shalewa about a topic that is, you know, near and dear to all of our hearts, which is the Magic Mike franchise. Oh, so fabulous.

Speaker 1 Much more to come on Dear Movies. I love you.
Dear movies,

Speaker 1 I love you.

Speaker 1 And I've got to know if you love me too, yes or no.

Speaker 1 Check the box below.

Speaker 1 Welcome, everyone, to Dear Movies, I love you. This is a podcast for those who are in a romantic relationship with film.
That's right.

Speaker 1 Those who are down bad for film, those who have a crush on film, those who are using movies as a way to fill your sexual and amorous holes in your life.

Speaker 1 I don't know if that's the right way of expressing that, but

Speaker 1 it's for those who sincerely, sincerely love film and care about it very deeply. That's right.
I am one of your hosts, Millie DeCherico. I used to host a film podcast.

Speaker 1 It was called I Saw What You Did.

Speaker 1 It was on this very network. It's probably on the feed that you're listening to right now.
Yes, it's the same feed. It's the same channel.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can go back and listen to all 200-something episodes of it if you want to. But I did that podcast with my co-host, Danielle Henderson, who is one of my dearest friends.

Speaker 1 And Casey, you were a part of that podcast too. You were actually the producer of that podcast, right? That's right.
I produced that wonderful podcast.

Speaker 1 And this is sort of, you know, a Phoenix rising out of the ashes of I Saw What You Did.

Speaker 1 And I'm just so thrilled and thankful that you wanted to have me be a part of this show, Millie, in this capacity. That's right.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, it's not unlike a Stars Born, if you think about it, did find you in a total dump. Yep.
Plucked you out of obscurity and put you on. That's right.

Speaker 1 But anyway, the thing about doing a podcast with you is that this is like a new thing. I'm very excited by it.
I know a little bit about you.

Speaker 1 I won't say I know everything about you, but I do know that you've got a lot of film bona fides, which makes you qualify to host podcasts with me, wouldn't you say? Sure, I guess so.

Speaker 1 First of all, I produced an excellent movie podcast before this one called I Saw What You Did, as we've already covered.

Speaker 1 I've produced several movie podcasts, but also, like you, Millie, I went to film school.

Speaker 1 And so,

Speaker 1 hopefully, you know, we can, throughout the course of this podcast, we can get some of those like, you know, film school tales and we can bring up our time in film school because that's sort of a funny time in everyone's life.

Speaker 1 So, anyways, went to film school. I also would consider myself a filmmaker

Speaker 1 because I do make short films and I'm working on a feature film right now. And I really love movies.
They're a big part of my life and my creative identity.

Speaker 1 I also used to host a film podcast

Speaker 1 called Fart House, where we talked about artsy, fartsy films. And I did that with my friend Patrick Mallon.
What's up, Patrick? Listen, like, you might be wondering.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think, obviously, if you're a fan of I Saw What You Did, you have heard many episodes where Danielle and I had talked about, you know, film bros. You know, you know the type, film bros.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 We're trying to like, you know, bring some other people to the table and so for me the idea that i would be hosting a new film podcast with a guy who went to film school you know might be kind of unexpected but guess what

Speaker 1 you're a good one you're not a film bro thank you you're not a film bro i i will stand by that a thousand percent well Thank you. I appreciate that, Millie.

Speaker 1 I think that it's not unlike Worf in Star Trek. You know, he's a Klingon and a lot of people have, you know, thoughts about him as, you know, the Klingon race is very violent.

Speaker 1 But, you know, people just need to understand that Worf is a gentle soul and, you know, over time they accept him. So

Speaker 1 I'll just be plain honest with you. I have no idea what you just said.
I've never seen Star Trek in my entire life. That's fine.
I won't bring it up again on the show. But anyways,

Speaker 1 I appreciate that. And I think, you know, more than just film brodom, you know, I think there's a kind of,

Speaker 1 there can be kind of a lot of rules in terms of or and they're all imagined of course but like there's a lot of pressure to think about movies in a very specific way um a lot of that is you know it tends to be from like a more male point of view and it's kind of like these are the good movies these are the bad movies If you like these movies, you're cool.

Speaker 1 If you like these movies, you drool, you know?

Speaker 1 And I think this podcast wants to kind of dash away any sort of pretension or, you know, rules about what you need to do in order to consider yourself a lover of movies.

Speaker 1 You know, if you sincerely love a movie, even if it's considered, you know, a bad movie by some, that should be celebrated. And that's what this podcast is about.

Speaker 1 It's, it's about like enjoying film at all levels. Yes.
You know what I'm saying? I agree.

Speaker 1 And I also think it's important to say that, you know, I mean, I think obviously the title of this podcast, Dear Movies, I love you, the icon that pops up when you pull it up on your podcast platform, you know, the idea that one of our favorite bands of all time, The Softies, has done the wonderful theme song.

Speaker 1 It all contributes to this idea of like, again, having a crush on a film, having an emotional relationship to movies and how movies are a big part of people's lives and they help them through like hard times and good times.

Speaker 1 I mean, I cry

Speaker 1 all the time in movies. Yeah.
And they don't have to be sad. I cry at happy movies.
I cry at sweet movies. I cry at, you know, violet films.

Speaker 1 Like it's like, I am such an emotional person that I, you know, I've realized this over several years of therapy. I'm a very emotional person.

Speaker 1 And I think kind of what you're alluding to, like with the things that you've just said, is that like a lot of times, you know, film is one of those mediums where people feel like they got to be like super analytical or they have, you know, they got to come at it in a very kind of sterile way in order to seem legitimate or something.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, fuck that. We should be talking about our crush on movies and talking about how much we love it and how much they get us through our lives and how they're a part of our lives.
So.

Speaker 1 That's what it's going to be, guys. It's not going to be this whole like, well, the box office numbers from 1989 show that this movie did 5% better.
Fuck that. I mean, if that comes up, it comes up.

Speaker 1 But for the most part, you know, we're going to be a little sensitivo. We're going to be sensitivo.
I'm a very emotional person. You know,

Speaker 1 I said before that I consider myself a soft straight. I'm a softy.
Yes. And I love rom-coms are like kind of my favorite genre of film.
But I also, I'll throw on Sallow.

Speaker 1 Wait, who's the director of Salo? Pasolini. Pasolini, which is a movie that is one of the most, I don't know, sexually violent and perverse.
And there's a lot of like eating poop in it.

Speaker 1 It's a great date night movie. Great date night movie, but it's a very extreme art house movie from the 70s.
Is that one it's from?

Speaker 1 But anyways, you know, I can throw on that movie as much as I can throw on,

Speaker 1 you know, Sleepless in Seattle, a movie I truly love.

Speaker 1 So I think this is more about the emotional connection to film rather than any sort of intellectual debate or right study of film if that all makes sense it all totally makes sense i mean we are intellectuals we're emotional intellectuals exactly that's right i think that's i think that is what brings us together and why we thought this show would be good is because i think we both seem so tough and hard on the outside, but on the inside, we're just, we're marshmallows, you know, we're a big softies.

Speaker 1 We're not unlike John Wick, if you know what I mean. We're exactly like, in so many ways, we're exactly like John.
That's right.

Speaker 1 But you know what also I like about you, Casey, and part of the reason why I poached you from the film podcast streets to be on a podcast with me.

Speaker 1 I like that you understand

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 high art and low art, they both are able to sit at the same table. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely.
Yeah, I think that way about food too.

Speaker 1 I agree. I used to work at a very fancy restaurant in LA, Jelena, and love the food there, but I'm a frequent McDonald's.
I'm in there getting a McRib, you know, on the regular when it's there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yes, I agree. High and low.
They're the same. They sit at the same table for me.

Speaker 1 If I were to like talk about my own career and the things that I've done, like programming and writing and things like, you know, sort of being sort of general film historian type, I think that that's kind of how I approach, that's how I approach film is that I'm like, I want to speak in a smart, intellectual, kind of, I don't know, competent way about all kinds of shit.

Speaker 1 It can be highbrow, but it also, there is a way to talk about showgirls and Ed Wood and, you know,

Speaker 1 like truly depraved cinema at the same time that you talk about, I don't know, more sort of intellectual fare, the kind of criterion collection-y type of things, if you will. Yes.

Speaker 1 To me, that's kind of what I like about us both is that we're able to kind of get you a man that can do both type of feeling. Yeah.
So, and all are welcome at this table. That's right.

Speaker 1 All levels of filmdom will be excited to listen to this show.

Speaker 1 We'll talk about, you know, art house filmmakers like Ingmar Bergman, but we'll also talk about silly movies like Adam Sandler's Hoobie Halloween. I don't know.
That's just an example.

Speaker 1 A movie I liked. Who? But, anyways, that's sort of the crux of our new podcast, our new endeavor together.
And we're psyched. We're psyched about it.

Speaker 1 We just wanted to do a little intention setting before we

Speaker 1 rolled out all the other episodes. But hopefully you're on the ride with us.
I mean, if you liked I Saw What You Did, you're going to like this podcast. So we're excited.
There we go.

Speaker 1 We're excited to be here. Well, moving on, our first segment is called Film Diary.
Millie, one way of keeping track of the movies we've watched is on a social media app that we both use.

Speaker 1 And I'd love if listeners followed us on there because the comments I'm making on these movies are hilarious. Cannot be ignored.
Yeah, they can follow us on there. You like Letterboxd as an app?

Speaker 1 You use it? You're a user? I'm a user, of course. I talked about this on my Substack once about how I probably use Letterboxd in the wrong way, which is that I'm not like consistently using.

Speaker 1 So here's Letterboxd, right? If you haven't been on it before, it's basically a way for you to kind of catalog the movies that you've seen.

Speaker 1 You know, there's an ability to rate it like five stars, you know, one to five stars or no stars. You can leave reviews.

Speaker 1 There's a kind of social component to where you can friend other people and see what they've been watching and see what they've been reviewing.

Speaker 1 So it's kind of just like a big social media platform for movie nerds. And there are definitely power users out there who are writing like thousand-word essays on every movie they've seen.
Yes.

Speaker 1 I am real loosey-goosey about it. I definitely catalog everything that I've seen.
So my film diary is always accurate. Am I reviewing things all the time? No.

Speaker 1 Am I writing intelligent things in those reviews? No. Am I rating it with the star system? Not all the time.
That's another topic for another time, by the way, is the star rating system on Letterbox.

Speaker 1 Maybe that's a film grape we can talk about.

Speaker 1 Sure, yes. Because it's very contentious, and I've gotten called out on it before.
But please friend us on there because it's a way for us.

Speaker 1 We're going to be like talking about Letterboxd a lot because this is like, again, where we're cataloging what we've seen.

Speaker 1 But first and foremost, I have to say, Casey, I don't know if you remember this at all,

Speaker 1 but it took you a long time. I'm going to be upset that you're bringing

Speaker 1 upset that you're bringing this up. The people who continue know that it took you a very long time to friend me back on Letterboxd.

Speaker 1 So Millie followed me on, and it's not exactly like, you're not really friends on Letterboxd. You basically follow someone and then they can follow you back.

Speaker 1 It's not like accepting a friend request on Facebook. In your mind, it's not.
It was for me. Okay, well, Millie had followed me on Letterboxd and.

Speaker 1 I went about my life after that one.

Speaker 1 And I, I don't know if I missed the notification or something, but it took me maybe a year before I followed you back. And I mentioned it kind of like, oh, Millie, isn't it funny?

Speaker 1 I just, I didn't realize you were on Letterbox. I can't believe it took me so long to follow you back.
And you were like, yeah, I noticed. It was an offensive amount of time that went by.

Speaker 1 Like, and let me teach you, let me just tell you right now, I had not only read it you, but I'd actually commented on one of your reviews. I know.

Speaker 1 I think I had just, I assumed I had followed you back. I think that's what happened.
I think I had assumed, there's no way I didn't follow you back, but I fucked up.

Speaker 1 I don't know what you want me to say here. I was like, okay, we work on a film podcast together.
We're like in communication pretty much every other day. I know.

Speaker 1 I friended this guy because I want him to feel included in what we're fucking doing around here. And it took him a year to follow me back.
Anyway, I'm just, I'm just saying. Sure.

Speaker 1 That broke me for a while, but then you, it fixed itself and I forgive you. And now we're obviously doing a podcast together.
Now we're doing a podcast together. I've let it go.

Speaker 1 Well, and like, there's other functionality on there too. That, like, you can come up with lists.
I'm a big list person. Yes.

Speaker 1 I also, you know, like, I actually love the review component because there are people, like I said, who are using it like as like they're writing for RogerDieber.com type of thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But then there are people who are like putting one, two sentences about, you know, the thing that they've watched. That's how I do it.
I do one or two sentences and I like that.

Speaker 1 I prefer that as a user to read. I don't really want to read an essay on here, to be honest.
Oh, I know. And a lot of times it's like, and this is the way I do it, but other people do it this way too.

Speaker 1 It's like the funniest observation about a movie. Yes.
And I actually had one go sort of vi-vi, I gotta say, wow. My review for A Complete Unknown

Speaker 1 where I talked about, I don't know if you've seen it yet, I won't spoil it. Haven't seen it.

Speaker 1 Well, there's a moment of that movie that happens, which is a non-spoiler, but it was like the weirdest thing to me. That was like the one thing I couldn't stop thinking about.
And then I wrote it.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden it's like ping, ping, ping. Everyone's like, we love it.
We love the review. So that's what I like about Letterboxd is that it's kind of like.

Speaker 1 Again, I think it's a high-low scenario where you could either be really like deliberate and professional about it or you can be a fucking goon like me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, here's like kind of one of my favorite reviews. This is Eo Edibiri.
If you ever follow, she's a great follow on Letterboxd. This is her review of The Empire Strikes Back.

Speaker 1 This movie is great, but I was really shocked by how ugly Yoda was. Sorry if that pisses anybody off, but I had only seen baby Yoda and Adult Yoda is fucking busted.
I mean, that's the whole review.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 it's great. Yeah.
Anyways, this isn't an ad for Letterbox, but we love it and I use it all the time.

Speaker 1 And it's where I keep track of all the movies i've watched in the past that's right i mean if the letterbox wants to give us a check we'll take it but i'm just saying this is what we're going to be using let's go into this film diary fabulous

Speaker 1 so in the past week i've gone down this like kind of strange rabbit hole so i discovered this japanese director recently And I don't actually know how I discovered him.

Speaker 1 I feel like I'm following some kind of Instagram account that's like a Asian film archive. I I think it's actually what it's called.
And they posted

Speaker 1 a trailer or something about this movie. And the movie is called Haru, H-A-R-U.
Okay. It was directed by this Japanese director.
His name is Yoshimitsu Morita. Okay.
This movie is from 1996.

Speaker 1 And for some reason, when I saw the trailer, I was like, this seems so charming.

Speaker 1 Like, I think his filmography, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not like a scholar on him yet, but he was making movies in like most of his movies came out in like the 80s and 90s, which is a real,

Speaker 1 for me, kind of like a gap. I don't, I have, yeah, you know, I started thinking, like, have I watched a lot of Japanese movies from the 80s and 90s? Like,

Speaker 1 and then as the more I kind of was reading about him and sort of that, that era.

Speaker 1 I think actually, and like I said, I don't want to say that this is the general attitude, but I've read that, you know, people kind of actually perceive that Japanese Japanese filmmaking in the 80s wasn't very good.

Speaker 1 Like they weren't making good movies generally in the 80s. Interesting.

Speaker 1 And so I came into it going, okay, so this is supposed to be like an era of like bad Japanese filmmaking, yet I walked into this movie and was like completely charmed by it.

Speaker 1 It's essentially a movie. I mean, this movie is probably like.
as close to this film podcast as we can get. It's essentially a woman who is a cinephile.

Speaker 1 She's a single woman, a school teacher living in Japan, and she's a cinephile, and she, then she gets on like a movie message board. And this is 96, so this is early internet days.

Speaker 1 This is just like, inject this into my veins. I know.
This sounds wonderful. And I've never heard of this guy or this movie.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it basically, it's like a lot of the movie is there kind of like literally on screen. like sending messages on the message board.
It's like her and this other person.

Speaker 1 And the other person at first is, you know, know, kind of presents

Speaker 1 as a woman, but then it's actually a man, you know, because back in the day, you could really fool people about being, you know, like, I mean, I guess you could still catfish people now.

Speaker 1 Oh, catfishing is thriving right now. Yeah, thriving.
But back in like 96, man, you could literally be anybody.

Speaker 1 And so they kind of develop this, you know, I don't know, this online sort of epistolary relationship. And they're kind of like, he's in a bad marriage or he's in a kind of weird spot in his life.

Speaker 1 And they just kind of bond together. And And it's this kind of like, you got male in Japan in the 90s over the internet.
Oh my God, that's so cute. That sounds

Speaker 1 cinophiles. And I'm like, oh, it was lovely.
That's so interesting. You say, like, not knowing Japanese movies from the 80s or 90s.

Speaker 1 And I was just thinking, I was like, I don't really either, except for one of my favorite movies of all time, Tom Popo by Juzi Itami, which is also like the cutest movie in the world.

Speaker 1 And so like, it definitely feels like it's an area that I want to explore. And I definitely want to check out, is it Yoshimitsu Marita, his movies? Marita.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 These look incredible. Yeah.
And then I actually watched another one because I liked Haru so much. So there's this movie that he made in 1984 called Main Theme.

Speaker 1 And I got to tell you, I don't think it's online anywhere. I had to go through, you know, the dark web.
The dark web. Nefarious.
And Millie, she's in the dark web all too often. Always.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, actually, I get my groceries from the dark web. You know, it's, yes.
You know, I just use it for everything now. Why not? Yeah.

Speaker 1 But this movie main theme, oh my God, that movie was also incredible. It was also kind of a romance, but it had this like super

Speaker 1 whimsical. It was kind of like an umbrellas of Schurberg feel.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it was, the colors were amazing. I don't know, just the setups, the camera work, the colors, the costumes, everything.

Speaker 1 I was like, who the hell is this director? And why have I just figured him out? Yeah. So amazing.
That's great. So what about you? Now you got to tell me.
Oh my God. Okay.

Speaker 1 So full disclosure here, I'm in a bit of a horror movie

Speaker 1 zone right now. And so all of these are horror or horror adjacent.

Speaker 1 And these ain't elevated. I'll tell you that much.

Speaker 1 I saw this Quebecois film called Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person. What? Very cute.
That's from 2023. Wow.
What a title. It's very cute.
It feels like, wait,

Speaker 1 I'll read my letterbox review. It's Only Lovers Left Alive Meets Twilight.
Because it's about kind of like a, it's very cutesy, but it's also very twee.

Speaker 1 I'm like over the vampires who are like, I don't want to kill people. That's like, I find that annoying now.
And I, and sure. Vampires are, you know, they, they, they should murder people.

Speaker 1 that's that's what I took away from that are you a Twilight head were you

Speaker 1 indoctrinated

Speaker 1 I've never read any of these books but I was in college when all of those movies came out and all of my gal pals were obsessed with it and so unfortunately I have seen every single Twilight film at midnight on the day it came out so wow I know a lot about it.

Speaker 1 I think people like them now in retrospect. Those are bad movies.
You'll be surprised to know I'm a little bit of a Twilight apologist. I kind of, I've watched all of them.
Really?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And I was way too old to be into it.
Like, I mean, when did the first one come out? Like, like

Speaker 1 2008,

Speaker 1 nine, maybe? Yeah. I mean, I was a grown-ass woman in a full-time job when those movies came out.

Speaker 1 I have no business. But, you know, here's what I will say about that.
I actually kind of feel that. I might like them better now knowing who Robert Pattinson and Christian Stewart became.
True.

Speaker 1 Do you know know what it means? Absolutely. Like, I go backwards now and I'm like, oh, these, these are like two cool people making cool films.
Like, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 They made a bunch of teen shit. It's kind of cool.
I don't know. Well, and I saw them at the height of my like shithead stage because I was in film school.

Speaker 1 I was like, this isn't, you know, this isn't like the Verkmeister harmonies. Like, this sucks, you know, or whatever the name of that Bellatar film is.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think I do need to revisit them because I think they would be fun to watch now. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I agree. Yeah.
Twilight.

Speaker 1 Worth a revisit. Then I watched, okay, I saw this movie that I thought was incredible and I feel like it should be more famous.
It's called Black Rainbow. It's directed by Mike Hodges.

Speaker 1 It's starring Rosanna Arquette and Jason Robards. Have you seen this movie?

Speaker 1 It was just re-released by Arrow Video on Blu-ray. Like, Harvey Weinstein and Miramax totally fucked up the release of this movie, so it went straight to cable.

Speaker 1 So like nobody knows about it, but it's really good. It's about a traveling psychic played by Roseanne Arquette, her father, Jason Robards, and they're kind of a, you know, shysters.

Speaker 1 They like are kind of scamming people. Oh, I see.
But then she starts getting visions of people actually dying. And it's really good.
I thought it was really interesting.

Speaker 1 I will not confuse it with Black Moth Super Rainbow, which is a band from Pennsylvania. Okay, that's good.
And I believe there's a movie Beyond the Black Rainbow. Okay.
That's a different movie. Okay.

Speaker 1 That's by Panos Cosmatos of Mandy fame. Oh.
That's a different film. Okay.
Get it right. Get it right.
Pay the price. Did you ever watch Salute Your Shorts on Nickelodeon?

Speaker 1 What are you asking me right now? What? You've seen Salute Your Shorts? Are you fucking kidding me, dude? We haven't seen like every episode. Okay, doesn't Ugg say?

Speaker 1 Yeah, get it right or pay the price. Okay, okay.
Ugh says it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But Nick screwed it up. Yeah.
Okay. I'm just glad.
I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page when it it comes to salute your shorts. And now I know we are.

Speaker 1 And so we can move forward with recording the podcast.

Speaker 1 And then the last movie I watched last night, which I'd never seen before, The Crow.

Speaker 1 I loved it. I thought it was great.
The OG crow? Not Bill Sarsgaard's The Crow. Yeah.
Brandon Lee's The Crow.

Speaker 1 I have been told I look like Bill Sarsgaard. Good movie.
By two different people. Wait,

Speaker 1 move your face away from the microphone.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 a little little bit.

Speaker 1 I'm loath to say such a thing because he's like one of the hottest men on the planet, or I think he's very hot. Me too.
I will say two people told me that, but still a thrill.

Speaker 1 I would say you were a little bit Casey Affleck meets Bill Scarsgard. Okay.
Okay. Have you been told about Casey Affleck? I get told Casey Affleck frequently.
And my name is Casey. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And maybe it's because your name is Casey. Right.
Exactly. I get Casey Affleck.
Casey Affleck and who else? Oh, Paul Rudd. Paul.
Wow.

Speaker 1 You just happen to look like all the hottest men in Hollywood right now, and I, and I do not. That's what I'm trying to underscore.
And that's my burden, you know.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that was our film diary.

Speaker 1 How'd you feel? Good? First one? I feel good. It felt like writing in a real diary.
I feel relieved of some emotional baggage. That's good.

Speaker 1 Well, okay, now we're moving into our main discussion, which is again, like I said, 2018's a star was born. We're going to talk about drinking and movies.
But first, Casey, I have a question for you.

Speaker 1 Do you participate in what they call dry January? Now, this is a great question. I have, but here's a, I have a huge problem with dry January.
My birthday is in January.

Speaker 1 And that's going to be wet, you know? I'm not going to, that, I, I refuse to not drink on my birthday because it's in dry January. And also,

Speaker 1 My daughter's birthday is now in January.

Speaker 1 Now, maybe I shouldn't be drinking, you know, it shouldn't necessarily be a cause for drinking, but there'll be a party and I would be sad if I couldn't have like a beer at my daughter's birthday party, which my daughter's birthday is the day before my birthday isn't that funny oh well but i do think it is nice sometimes to dry out a little bit and just you know reconfigure because i am a drinker but it's good to you know kind of reconfigure your system i feel like i kind of participate is my answer in dry january sure okay okay that makes sense i was thinking about this obviously because it's such a huge topic right now.

Speaker 1 Because we're at the beginning of the new year. Happy 2025.
And a lot of my friends are doing this dry January thing. Yes.
White knuckling it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's so interesting because I'm kind of like, okay, A, when did we start? Like, I don't remember dry January when I was a kid. Like, I don't remember people's parents.

Speaker 1 No, I mean, it feels like it's like 10 years old. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then it's sort of that feeling too, where I'm like, I get that it's in sort of the mode of, you know, we're in a New Year's resolution phase where we're trying to be better people for a little while and then it all falls apart.

Speaker 1 But I'm also like, I guess it's because I am not like a huge drinker.

Speaker 1 So I don't need a dry January, if you know what I mean. Yeah, I think it's like people will go extra hard leading up to dry January and then go real hard after dry January.

Speaker 1 And it's kind of like, well, why? This isn't good. You know, moderation is best.
Well, and so it got me thinking, you know, because, you know, it's our first episode, it's the first of the new year.

Speaker 1 And so I was like, kind of thinking, let's maybe talk a little bit about, you know, classic movie drunks, or like movies about drinking. And, you know,

Speaker 1 not all of it is fun all the time. Yeah.
Like charismatic drunks, but mean drunks. Yeah.
And, you know, the whole gamut.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's interesting because there aren't that many movies where it's like a celebration of drinking without it being about alcoholism. Yes.
You know, or like the downside of imbibing. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, and like, so I started thinking about like, what was the last movie that I remember seeing that just really

Speaker 1 was truly about alcoholism, the darkest alcoholic, like maybe a movie you'd watch.

Speaker 1 that would inspire you to adopt a dry january or something really hardcore and i was like i think the last one i saw was a star is born the remake the most recent remake of it. Yes.

Speaker 1 Which was such a joker not when it came out. Did you not feel that? Oh, absolutely.
And it's one of those movies when I saw the trailer, I was like, oh, this is going to be so bad.

Speaker 1 I just, I don't know. Like, I was like...

Speaker 1 I was like, it's Bradley Cooper's first movie. It's obviously like this passion project.
It just, I feel like it had things going against it.

Speaker 1 It had kind of a goofy moment in the trailer that was like memed and is still memed, you know, the, I just want to take it, I just want to take it.

Speaker 1 you know, but I love this movie and I was really blown away and it was a juggernaut and it's the first movie in a while where it was like, oh, it's a big hit movie with stars and there's a huge song attached to it.

Speaker 1 Like that was fun. It kind of was a throwback to old blockbusters in a way where there's like a hit song kind of attached and embedded in the movie itself, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, so I decided that I was going to rewatch it actually during the Christmas break because I think it was on like,

Speaker 1 I don't know, Paramount. You know how it's just like movies.
I was like, oh, cool. A nice holiday movie where Bradley Cooper drinks himself to death.
Amazing. So I watched it at my parents' house.

Speaker 1 And I got to say, it's still really enjoyable. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And here's the thing that I thought was really interesting about this version of it, because if you don't know, I don't know how you, how you wouldn't at this point.

Speaker 1 A Starsborn is this like very storied franchise, really, at this point. Yeah.
It almost seems like it gets remade like every 20, 30 years.

Speaker 1 You know, the original, the very first Starsborn was made in 1937. And it was a William Wellman movie.
I'm a huge fan of William Wellman, the director.

Speaker 1 And that is my actual favorite version of the story. Wow.
is the 37

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 first of all it's like well it's the it's the original meaning the story, you know, sort of is contained in its own like little universe, right?

Speaker 1 But also the lead actor of that film, Frederick March, who is, I don't know if, if, if listeners really know Frederick March. I mean, he's kind of,

Speaker 1 he's a, he's a very famous actor of the 30s, but, you know, isn't like a Gary Cooper type. He was very, you know, like kind of

Speaker 1 under the radar. I say, if you are a Frederick March fan, we should be friends because you're a real head.
You know what I mean? That's how cool Frederick March is.

Speaker 1 He's like the big star of 1930s comedic actors. He's in a movie I like called I Married a Witch.
Of course. Yes, with Veronica Lake.

Speaker 1 Frederick March is the most charming drunk in cinema history for my money.

Speaker 1 Like, and this is what makes a Stars Born the Original the best because obviously, same premise, this guy, famous guy, you know, meets this kind of like young Hollywood upstart ingenue type.

Speaker 1 They form a relationship. Then she quickly realizes, oh, he's like a fucking alcoholic who like can't handle his shit.
And what do I do? I'm ascending. My star is on the rise.

Speaker 1 This guy is falling on his ass and, you know, peeing himself in front of the Oscars or whatever it was. But it's like, she loves him.
She's tied to him.

Speaker 1 That's the, you know, the baseline of the franchise, right? But Frederick March is so charming and funny and like sweet that I truly feel like I do not want this guy to fail.

Speaker 1 Like I want him to get his shit together and I want him to like win. But as you know, spoiler alert, he can't win.
Yeah. There's got to be tragedy.
There's got to be tragedy.

Speaker 1 So that's something I want to ask you about because you have you seen all of the Star Isborns. Yes.
I would say the Starsborn is like my Star Trek. Sure, sure.
Many have said that.

Speaker 1 Like, I am very committed. Yes.
And so I have to, I have a few questions because I have only seen the Bradley Cooper Lady Gaga one. And honestly, I'm sorry, but spoiler alert to the heavens on this.

Speaker 1 I'm not, I'm not holding back on the ending of this. Sure, sure.

Speaker 1 Does the male protagonist pee his pants in front of people in all of them? Or was that just in the Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper one? So what happens in the 30s version is that he accidentally hits her.

Speaker 1 Oh, I think. So basically, like she goes to the awards.
He does his whole,

Speaker 1 you know, interrupts the speech. And then

Speaker 1 he throws his arm back and hits her like on accident and everyone's like oh okay that's what happens in 37 now i haven't seen the 70s one in a while i actually don't think it's in there okay at all and then the james mason version no i don't think he pisses himself because they wouldn't have allowed that in the 50s yeah i i can't see yeah james mason pissing his pants on screen yeah i feel like that was something that bradley coops yeah you know he put his own stank on that moment yes so let me ask you this because I have a huge fascination with Bradley Cooper as a director.

Speaker 1 Yeah, me too. So this being his first movie that he's directed, he went ham, right? Because he's in the movie.
He sang some of the songs.

Speaker 1 He, you know, adopted this like, almost kind of like this new persona, wouldn't you say? Yeah, absolutely. It's like kind of like Austin hippie cowboy guy.
You know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's like maybe having a drink at Pappy and Harriet's in in Pioneertown or something, you know. Can I interrupt you? I have something to say to that matter.
I have a personal connection to this film.

Speaker 1 How? I went to college with Lucas Nelson, Willie Nelson's son. Okay.
He co-wrote all the music with Bradley Cooper for this movie. Oh.
And Bradley Cooper based his personality on Lucas Nelson.

Speaker 1 Is that a known fact? There are articles about this. Okay, okay.
I didn't know Lucas that well. We hung out a few times, and then he left college after his freshman year to become a rock star and

Speaker 1 lead the band Lucas Nelson and the Promise of the Real. My good friend, though, Logan Metz, was in the band The Promise of the Real.
Oh, wow. And Lucas Nelson is in A Star is Born.

Speaker 1 He's like the guitar player. Oh, I see.
Yeah. Yeah, it is interesting.
Bradley Cooper did have a new persona, and it's kind of based on Lucas Nelson. Interesting.

Speaker 1 There's something fascinating to me about because this obviously he made more movies after this one. This was the one where he was like, I got a lot to prove.
Yes.

Speaker 1 I am taking this beloved storied historical IP and I'm going to do my own weird, you know, Nashville guy thing with it, right? Yes. It was a juggernaut.
People loved it. Like, it was meme-ified.

Speaker 1 I mean, people were, you know, imitating his exit, you know, which was essentially...

Speaker 1 Let me touch your nose

Speaker 1 Sam Elliott's accent and you know I mean it left people shook I remember so I mean I hate to say this about y'all but like so many straight guys that I'm friends with were like shook by that movie yeah that they were like man what a fucking movie like they had never seen a

Speaker 1 movie that affected their kind as much as this film right my people my people like welcome to our world what the fuck

Speaker 1 like they were like oh my God, this like, you know, dramatic story is hitting me in the fucking feels.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, that's what we do here, by the way, as, you know, we cry about every movie we watch. But then

Speaker 1 he went on to make Maestro, which did you see, you saw Maestro, right? I loved Maestro. It was like one of my favorite movies of last year.
Like, I feel like

Speaker 1 a star is born is such a big swing. It's such a big risk because, like, it could have been such a flop because it's like it's so sincere.
Yeah. It's so emotional.
And it really goes for it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Maestro is much the same, but even more so. I feel like he felt empowered by A Star is Born to make a nuttier movie.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Someone pointed out that, like, every movie he's been in and has directed, he plays a genius, essentially. And

Speaker 1 there's like a martyred genius. And

Speaker 1 that's sort of funny to think about.

Speaker 1 I keep thinking back to this interview with Leonard Bernstein's children that Bradley Cooper was in that interview. Do you know what I'm talking about? Have you seen this? I think so.

Speaker 1 I think I remember it, yeah. And the interviewer asks the children,

Speaker 1 what do you miss most about him? Of course, Leonard Bernstein died in like 1991. Bradley Cooper doesn't know Leonard Bernstein, but Bradley Cooper answered the question.

Speaker 1 And he's like, oh my God, I just, I miss him so much. I just, and he like started crying.
And I was like, this is so

Speaker 1 Delulu crazy, like that he

Speaker 1 felt comfortable answering that question, that it made me like Maestro more. I mean, it's just such a like a vanity project and it's just, it's so.

Speaker 1 outrageously theatrical and they're doing so there's so much like

Speaker 1 accent and makeup work going on i mean it is so crazy. Bradley Cooper's movies are like invigorating and alive in a way and like passionate.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it just sucks me in because they aren't like other movies coming out now where so many movies that are like highbrow art house movies are so quiet and like muted and the performances are very muted.

Speaker 1 Yes. But Bradley Cooper's, they are loud, taking big swings.
And so I just,

Speaker 1 I just, it just, I just drink it all in. I just, I, I'm a fan, I guess.
Yeah, I,

Speaker 1 I'm glad you think this because I want to say that I have this very nuanced opinion of Bradley Cooper as a, a famous person, right? Yes. And that I think it is informed by my,

Speaker 1 my love and my passion and my

Speaker 1 writing about. fucking cult movies.
I mean, basically, I'm a cult movie person and I'm like, oh, so here's this like megalomaniac director type. Yes.
Like, he's basically like extremely well-funded.

Speaker 1 Ed Wood meets Tommy Wizo, meets, you know,

Speaker 1 that's not a disparaging comment, by the way. Like, I fucking love Ed Wood, but it's like in that way that's like making ridiculous, big swing artistic statements.
I mean, maybe not Ed Wood.

Speaker 1 Maybe we call him like Bob Fossey. Sure.
Bob Fosse is a good comp, I think. Yes, yes.
I appreciate there being at least one or two people at any given moment in Hollywood being that maniac.

Speaker 1 Like, I appreciate the mania, the like ridiculousness, the sort of, you know, over the top, like, you know, putting himself in his own movies, like giving himself the duty of

Speaker 1 making old classic things relevant, you know,

Speaker 1 have it feeling like you, the onus is on you to like extend the story of a stars board or whatever the fuck, right?

Speaker 1 And uh, pulling in like all of your bullshit in the world, you know, like all of your weird isms and costumes and noses and shit, you know, lots of noses.

Speaker 1 Who left Snoopy in the vestibule?

Speaker 1 Damn it, I was, I'm mad that you said that because I was, I was thinking about doing that for Halloween this year, holding a Snoopy doll. Who left Snoopy in the vestibule? Oh my god.

Speaker 1 Like, that to me is like, A, that is my actual letterbox review for Maestro, by the way, is who left Snoopy in the Vestibule?

Speaker 1 That's all you need to know about Maestro is in that one fucking sentence.

Speaker 1 But just also is the like essence of why I think he's so funny and I like him ultimately is because he's just like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like throwing that into his fucking three-hour movie about, you know, somebody that he feels like he needs to like cry about in front of his children you know what i mean

Speaker 1 and oh my god yes so i am a fan yes i look forward to whatever his next project is i hope maestro didn't throw him off course at all oh do you like the music in a star is born

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 I don't like the bop that they told us was the bop. The shallow is the shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow.
You don't like shallow?

Speaker 1 Oh, Millie. That really hit for me.
I feel like that's, man, I'm just, I'm an easy mark. I just, I was like, I just thought, I was, I thought that was a great song.

Speaker 1 And I, uh, when that, when she first sings it in the movie, I was like, I was taken away. I don't know.
It worked for me. God, the whole thing is just such a bummer.
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 Like, the whole movie is a real fucking bummer by design. It's been that way for decades.
Cause the 37 version is a fucking bummer as well. To me,

Speaker 1 I don't know. When I re-watched it again,

Speaker 1 I was like, whoever programmed this at Christmas is a G because this is like a fucking straight-up bummer of the highest order. I feel like shit.

Speaker 1 Thank you. And then,

Speaker 1 yeah, it just sort of made me like re like, just have to remember kind of this, you know, the reality that we were living in when this movie came out and how, like, you know, Riley Cooper's a maniac.

Speaker 1 Lady Gaga had, had she acted before? Or like this was her big like, God, her big thing. I mean, I think she had like hosted SNL.
Oh, yeah. And like, I think she was in the Ryan Murphy universe

Speaker 1 doing God knows what goes on there. She is so charming in this.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's a shot when he, when she's on the side of the stage and he's like trying to pull her on to sing shallow for the first time. And she's like, hi.

Speaker 1 And like, she's like acting like such a like, kind of like weirdo.

Speaker 1 weirdo like she's like totally overwhelmed but it's like it's so disarming and charming and i don't know i really i thought she was so good in this movie yeah i was absolutely delighted that andrew dice clay played her dad incredible right absolutely incredible he was great at it and considering like how obnoxious he was like in his heyday the fact that he just was like some like dad in a movie really like made me kind of happy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I was like, oh, he's like, you know, I don't know.
He's back and he's like Lady Kaka's dad who like drives a limo or whatever. I don't even know what he does.

Speaker 1 But yeah, she was really great at it. And I, you know, again, like that, that's the thing about a Starsborn.
It attempts to take that kind of like

Speaker 1 famous diva of the era

Speaker 1 and put her in that role, right? So it's like, you know, we got Judy Garland, we've got Barbara Streisand.

Speaker 1 I mean, the first one, you know, I wasn't alive in the 30s, so I don't know if Janet Gaynor was the Lady Gaga of the 30s or whatever. I don't believe so.

Speaker 1 But that's the thing: it kind of couldn't have been many other people but Lady Gaga to be this role. Were you ever influenced to drink an alcoholic drink based on seeing it in a movie?

Speaker 1 Yes, I drank a white Russian after I saw Big Lebowski. I did that too.
Thought it was kind of nasty, to be honest. I like a white Russian, but they're an acquired taste.

Speaker 1 I saw the movie North by Northwest with Carrie Grant, and he orders a Gibson,

Speaker 1 which is a martini with pearl onions instead of olives.

Speaker 1 And that's my favorite drink. Really? Yeah.
Do you eat the pearl onion? I can. I don't always, because that is a potent punch, but it is, I like the brine of the pickled onion in my martini.

Speaker 1 I love martini olives. They're great.
Oh man, I'm like, yo, put like 12 of them shits on a stick and I'm just going to dunk. Dunk, dunk, yeah, that, okay.

Speaker 1 I'm going to dunk the olive in the martini drink and just eat them. They're so delicious.
So do you like a dirty martini? A dirty martini is where they actually pour olive brine into

Speaker 1 the martini. You should try it out sometime.
I like the eating component, though. That's the one I like about martinis.
You know what's funny, Millie? This is so random.

Speaker 1 Uh, you and I have only seen each other in person for once, and it was like for 30 seconds. Isn't that interesting? Was it at the Egyptian theater or down that way?

Speaker 1 It was since you have a terrible memory involving anything

Speaker 1 with me, it was at the Chinese multiplex in Hollywood. Okay.
And you were about to see, was that a movie with Rod Steiger? No, it was, it was Paul Newman, the hustler. That's right.

Speaker 1 I got you and your wife, Tricia, into the movie. Yes.
And that was the first time I'd ever met you, even though you had been recording the podcast for a while before that, right?

Speaker 1 No, I think it was pretty early on.

Speaker 1 I think it was maybe, I've been doing it for like two months. Oh, I see.
We will be reunited at some point in person, hopefully drinking martinez and eating olives. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 All righty, that was our discussion of a star is born and getting hammered in film.

Speaker 1 So, now it's time. for our guest segment, which we're calling my area of expertise.
So this is where we're going to bring on a guest, usually somebody funny and cool, I hope. Always cool.

Speaker 1 Funny, I don't know necessarily, but very cool, always cool. Yeah, well, we're setting a high bar with the funny because Shalai was an incredible comedian.

Speaker 1 But, you know, normally what would happen is we're going to bring on somebody, they're going to discuss this like hyper-specific area that they are an expert in when it comes to movies, right?

Speaker 1 And since we spoke about, you know, know, the modern iteration of A Starsborn, which is a movie about music, obvi, we're going to bring on a guest to talk about, you know, this area of their expertise that's also sort of another example of like a modern cinematic fantasia.

Speaker 1 The magic mic franchise, I think you know. Our first guest is a wonderful human being, and I am not at all lying about that in any way, shape, or form.
I've known this woman for so, so long.

Speaker 1 She originally is an Atlantic comedian who has been in New York for decades at this point, I would say. And very funny.
She does stand-up all over the country, all over the world, to be honest.

Speaker 1 And also has this incredible podcast called The War Report that she does with a fellow comic named Gastor Almonte. They're very funny together.
And she's just a wonderful human being.

Speaker 1 And I want to bring her on the pod. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Shalaewa Sharp.
Yay.

Speaker 1 Hello.

Speaker 4 Hi, everyone.

Speaker 1 Welcome, welcome. Wait, how do you, how did you guys first meet?

Speaker 4 Oh, the dirty, dirty streets of Atlanta, Casey.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 Where there were just young people roaming,

Speaker 4 just looking for their next, you know, Brit pop fix or

Speaker 4 just

Speaker 4 any dive bar that needed people in horde rim glasses to hang out around the edges

Speaker 1 i will say this though not to say that we were not good friends before this but i feel like the event that really crystallized our friendship right in a deep meaningful way is that playboy article slash interview with john mayer that came out many years ago Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Like, I think the biggest topics in that moment were the fact that Jessica Simpson had been called sexual napalm. Remember, I know we talked about that.
And that he called his penis racist. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Which is, I think, was the biggest, that was like

Speaker 1 issue number one. I remember this now.

Speaker 1 I didn't realize it was from that article, but that's.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. I mean, when you say like, sure, I'd love to date women that aren't white, but my

Speaker 4 penis is racist. Yeah, you're going to have people who are not white sit down and go, what?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And so that's what we had to do for hours.

Speaker 1 Okay, Millie, why don't we transition a little bit into why we wanted to bring Shalewa on the show today? We like to bring people on and talk about, you know, an area of their film expertise, right?

Speaker 1 Like, have you gone really hard on like a specific director or a specific genre? Are you like very well versed in, you know, a certain type of film or like a franchise of some kind?

Speaker 1 And so when I asked you this question and you replied, yes, I do have an expertise. And then you told me what the expertise was, I was thrilled.
Let's just say that. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And I think that because Casey and I both share this passion as well. Oh, good.
So I feel like we're going to have an incredible debate slash

Speaker 1 debate.

Speaker 1 I think there's going to be a debate because I feel like over the course, I mean, let's just say it. Shalewa, what is your area of expertise that you'd like to talk about today?

Speaker 4 My area of expertise that I'd like to discuss today is the Magic Mike universe.

Speaker 4 The trilogy. The trilogy.
Yes. Okay.

Speaker 1 I would like to, first and foremost, I would like to establish a timeline, if you'll bear with me. Okay.

Speaker 1 Let's establish a timeline. of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was.

Speaker 1 did it start with the Step Up films or did you know him prior to that? Like, how did you enter the universe via Channing Tatum?

Speaker 4 It was the Step Up movie, the first one.

Speaker 4 I didn't see it in the theater, and I did end up renting it and watching it. And I remember at some point

Speaker 4 standing up and yelling, why didn't I see this in the theater? Because it's so amazing. Yeah.
But that definitely was my entry point into Channing Tatum.

Speaker 4 And I, I viewed him in a particular way, which definitely evolved as I got to know him more.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 4 Air quotes around no. But yes, he came in and he really stole my heart very quickly

Speaker 4 because he is what I like to call one of our chin strap beard warriors.

Speaker 4 And that is what I call any

Speaker 4 young Caucasian man who has an affinity for black music, for R and B, especially for hip hop, for all aspects of hip-hop, the graffiti, all of the graffiti, the break dancing.

Speaker 4 The break dancing is important.

Speaker 1 It is my kryptonite. I have gone on record.
I cannot.

Speaker 4 I truly am stone cold. I'm the deuce out here.
But

Speaker 4 if you are a young white man with a respectable fade or a shaved head and or a chin strap beard? I don't know. There's going to be problems.
I'm a weakened.

Speaker 1 I'm a little weak.

Speaker 1 And what was it when you saw it? What was your reaction to it? Was it nervous and excitement? Or like, were you surprised by your reaction to it? Were you comforted by the dancing?

Speaker 4 I fully enjoyed it. Millie, we saw it together.
Yes, we did.

Speaker 1 Full disclosure.

Speaker 4 Full disclosure.

Speaker 1 I was there.

Speaker 4 We saw it together. We like ran.
We ran.

Speaker 4 But I enjoyed Magic Mike, but it also was a little dark, yes, yes, it was, and I remember walking out, and I was like, I mean, yeah, they danced, but oh my God, what they could have danced more.

Speaker 1 Well, and this is kind of the like trajectory that I think is really interesting about this franchise because it's like, okay, the first movie was like kind of a dark drama, right?

Speaker 1 With in certain parts, and it was really mostly about the Alex Pettifer character, who was kind of like, like, because Channing Tatum, like magical Michael, if you will, yes.

Speaker 1 He was already in the world. Yeah.
And then you as a viewer were with the Adam character, the Alex Pedifer character, who was like, I'm new to this. I need some extra cash.

Speaker 1 I guess I'm going to like start, you know, down this road of exotic dancing and drugs and women and all this stuff. And that was kind of more about his descent into the world.

Speaker 1 And so there was a serious moment, you know, or two, but it was was like, it was really his story. Yeah.
And then when the second one came out.

Speaker 4 Oh, right. Yes.

Speaker 1 They basically were like, well, the public has spoken. We have heard the request.
Nothing, no more serious stuff. We don't care about this.
Who the fuck cares about Adam?

Speaker 1 We might as well kill him off. We need to get rid of the darkness.
We need to get rid of plot.

Speaker 1 We need to get rid of... you know, all the extra stuff and really concentrate.
It's a concentrated film into what is the essence. And I think Magic Mike XXL is the one that is now remembered mostly.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 4 Yeah, absolutely. I think so.
I think what they did is they took the montage in the first one of, first, they took out all the Soderberghness

Speaker 4 for XXL. They took the montage of Matthew McConaughey teaching the new kid how to move like a rattlesnake in the mirror.

Speaker 4 And then you stick it. They took that and then they took took it out of the golden hour lighting, put it in brighter lighting, did some color colours.

Speaker 4 Let's brightness up. Let's check the color of this bitch.
And then they, uh, and then they were like, let's make a whole movie of that energy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Put them in an ice cream truck and let him travel around the South.

Speaker 4 America loves a road movie.

Speaker 1 America loves it. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. They really, they remove all stakes, too.
I mean, there's like no stakes in the second one. No, really.

Speaker 1 I mean, in some ways, Magic Mike XXL feels more like kind of like an art house experimental film because you're like,

Speaker 1 Where are they going? It's not a competition. They're not going.
It's like a showcase. They don't win anything.
So there's no like prize money that they like need to get something.

Speaker 1 They're just kind of like hanging out, going place to place, you know, dropping in on all these people and thrusting on them.

Speaker 1 And it's just like, it's more of an interesting kind of experiment in what a film can be than the first one, which is more of like a traditional like arc, you know? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. The second one is definitely, it's a magic, magic, magic, magic mic.

Speaker 1 Magic, magic, magic, mic. Yes.
Well, and what I think is also really fascinating about the second one, too, is that they introduced this

Speaker 1 Jada Pinkett Smith

Speaker 1 mansion of exotic dancing men, like whatever this private club was. And that in and of itself has a lore that needs its own movie.
Totally. Like that house needs to have its own franchise.

Speaker 1 It has to have its own like ballerina, John Wick type movie. Exactly.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And I may be getting ahead of us, but this is why I was so angry with the last dance. Yes.
Magic Mike's Last Dance, the third one.

Speaker 1 We'll get there. Yeah.
But

Speaker 4 because of what they did in the second movie. like there were a couple of stories that definitely could have been just like offshoots from this main thing that would have been fine.

Speaker 4 You know, maybe not theatrical release. I don't know, but you could have thrown that either on straight to DVD or a streamer, wherever it would have fallen in the timeline of things.

Speaker 1 Pluto. Pluto.

Speaker 4 Excellent Tubi movie.

Speaker 1 Excellent Tubi movie. Yeah, it'd be like an Amazon freevie original.
Yeah, freevie.

Speaker 4 Yes, a free V original of like,

Speaker 4 what's his name?

Speaker 1 Big Dick. Big Dick Rich.

Speaker 4 Big Dick Rich. Like he

Speaker 4 finally finding his glass slipper and now moving in, like probably taking up with that woman. What did that look like? Yeah.
Totally. Also, to find out the personalities of these dancers.

Speaker 1 They were like a boy band. It was like following a boy band.
Like it was like. He had the Matt Bobber character was kind of this like Ed Kowalchik-y, like kombucha,

Speaker 1 Eastern religion guy. And you're like, why did that happen yeah and then you know you've got like the big dick ritchie story i mean even like the

Speaker 4 kevin mash had a moment right he's a painter yes he's an artist yes right and then it was in desert storm like all kinds of all kinds of stuff that it's like what and it's not like i need you to give me a um a movie for each one of these guys like a like a children's book or something i don't need i don't need to know all of that but there were a couple of things that happened to them that it's like, how did you end up here?

Speaker 4 Yeah. You know, you definitely could be, we could do a four rooms.

Speaker 1 Sure, yeah. Different directors just different directors for each one.
Like an anthology.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I feel like we could do that for them at the very least. That would have been something.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, bringing up the characters and like how you get to know them in the second one, which is like. what makes that second one so great, then they take that away immediately in the third one.

Speaker 1 I think they're on a Zoom call or something. I was so offended by that.
I was, I was like, I am walking out of this theater. And I saw the third one in London.

Speaker 4 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 Wow. I was actually in England the weekend that it came out.
And I was like, I feel like I'm in the story. You know, whatever.
Why in London? Don't know why.

Speaker 1 And then when that happened, I was like, you're meaning to tell me that the boys, the gang are going to be relegated to a fucking Zoom that was like all stuttering and like you know bad wi-fi i was like this is an insult an insult to the second one yeah i was so mad well i thought that they were like setting it up i was like oh don't worry they're gonna have to fix some things with the show and they're gonna bring the boys back to help fix the show and that did not happen no we didn't even get a good like boys in that they found that's really what it got me i was like okay it really was bad it was it was Godfather 3, y'all.

Speaker 4 It was God. The whole thing gave me my personal.
I was like, oh, this is my personal Godfather because I love the first one. I really love the second one.

Speaker 4 The second one had two stories going on, really. And then the third one is.

Speaker 4 questionable at best, but I do not like it.

Speaker 1 Well, the third one made me sad, too, because, you know, in Magic Mike XXL, it seems like he's gotten the furniture business off the ground. He's making his own money.
He's doing well.

Speaker 1 The third one one starts with him working some shitty catering job at Selma Hayek's house. I'm like, what happened? Yeah, what happened? I don't know.
It just sort of like starts us off as a bummer.

Speaker 4 I don't know. It does.
It really does. And I mean, after the first performance that he gives for, he did a few things.
I was just like, physically, I'm like, oh, wow. Okay.
You still got it, Mike.

Speaker 4 And I'm like, you don't want to train like Magic Mike the Next Generation or like a like, you know, which I think is already like a reality show or something, but sure.

Speaker 4 There was was space for him to pass down his chinstrap, like, learnings, teachings to London, where I'm sure, I'm sure the Chinstrap dude situation there is fantastic.

Speaker 4 They concentrated on the wrong thing because they paid for Salmo Hayek to be there. That's why.

Speaker 1 Do you feel

Speaker 1 like this? franchise could either be rebooted at some future point, maybe even completely different people. Right.
You know, how they do now.

Speaker 1 Or there'll be like a fourth movie way into the future that could be done. Maybe it is like a Netflix thing or something.
Like, do you feel like that's at all possible?

Speaker 1 Any future with this franchise at all?

Speaker 4 I don't think the reviews were great on three.

Speaker 4 And that may have stuck in Channing Tatum's Craw. Maybe a little bit.
Because that is, I feel like what it would take

Speaker 4 for a fourth one to be made.

Speaker 4 There's room.

Speaker 4 You can save it if you have a movie with a little life in it. I honestly, I really love the idea of doing the Jada story, but that might be too far gone now.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 But I think that they could do some sort of a reboot.

Speaker 1 Like, what if they got like Nicholas Galatzine to be?

Speaker 4 Oh, Nicholas Galatzine. That's my new favorite guy.
I love him so much.

Speaker 1 What if he was Magic Mike? The son of Magic Mike.

Speaker 4 They called it the son of magic mic.

Speaker 1 That would be enough.

Speaker 4 Son of magic mic is like so funny. Yeah, I think that's what they would have to do.

Speaker 4 They'd have to do it like they did the step-up move, like where Channing just comes through for one scene and he's literally glowing like, I don't know, Obi-Wan Kenobi or some shit.

Speaker 4 And he just kind of comes through and is just like, I give you the power or something, something glittery.

Speaker 1 And now he's able to, his son or his nephew or some some whatever is now able to i think that's what it would take yeah yeah i have a pitch just based on everything you just said shalewa so okay son of son of magic mike okay nicholas gallant how do you say gallant zine gallant zine okay he's channing tatum son

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 he has a bad relationship with his father uh-huh okay and he goes up into his attic and he finds all the old pictures and videos of his dad stripping and then he starts stripping and then Magic Mike is like, You don't want to go down that road, like, it'll ruin, it'll kill you.

Speaker 4 I love it. Let's go, let's go.

Speaker 1 In the end, the finale, Channing comes out to save his son somehow by stripping.

Speaker 4 I'm here, I'm kind of here for it.

Speaker 1 I think that would work. And the other angels, the other angels from these fucking show up.

Speaker 1 Okay, like at the end of Star Wars, you see the ghosts of Obi-Wan and Darth Vader.

Speaker 1 You see Big Dick

Speaker 1 and he's like translucent you know like smiling down

Speaker 4 because they're dead absolutely I would love nothing more than to see Nicholas Gallatin in an attic lifting out of a dusty box a penis pump yes just just

Speaker 4 blowing the dust off a penis pump and just like what is this and then like packing it all up leaving the house you know give us a little bit of the love is a battlefield Pat Benatar video vibe.

Speaker 4 Like, all of this, a little bit of Foot Loose, very 80s, like us against the system vibe. Yes.
Anything that ends with somebody with their fist up at the end in a freeze frame. I think we got it.

Speaker 4 Yeah. No, I think that's it.
Yeah. I think that's it.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 4 It's a way in. It's a way in, and it's so wild.
And then you just want to see what happens.

Speaker 1 Yes. Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Lord. I'm going to cash up my program

Speaker 1 and fun. If you guys co-write the screenplay, I will fund whatever.
I will fund the production. That's great.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm here for it.

Speaker 1 I'm here for it.

Speaker 1 Well, Shalae, well, listen,

Speaker 1 we really, really appreciate you coming on the pod to

Speaker 1 give your takes,

Speaker 1 your expertise on the Magic Bike franchise. If people want to find you online or do you have any shows coming up?

Speaker 1 What's all that info?

Speaker 4 Oh, sure. I am

Speaker 4 tragically and chronically online at still at all of the things.

Speaker 4 My handle on all of them is at silky jumbo, all one word, traditional spelling, except for TikTok, where the O at the end is a zero.

Speaker 4 But if you actually just put the O in, you'll find the other account that I forgot the password to. You'll find me.
Look, I'm there. I'm there.
I swear.

Speaker 4 My website is shalewasharp.tumbler.com because I don't know what I'm doing. Why would I leave Tumblr?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm on Instagram a lot. I'm on Twitter.
The only dead name I use. I'm on Twitter all the time.
That's usually where you can find where I'm going to be. If you are in the New York City area,

Speaker 4 UCB has a theater on East 14th Street. And on Monday nights, there's a free stand-up comedy show called Whiplash.
And I am the host of that.

Speaker 4 That's a

Speaker 4 very storied stand-up show that is back from the risen from the ashes along with UCB again. And so I'm hosting that.
So you can find me there just stumbling through jokes and

Speaker 4 pointing at people in audiences and laughing at them. And

Speaker 4 yeah, that's about it. I teach at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective online.
If you look up BrooklynComedy.com, that's them.

Speaker 4 And then otherwise, I'm just kind of haunting the streets a lot.

Speaker 4 I can easily be found.

Speaker 4 great yeah no i and then war report i gotta say such a great podcast you and castro are absolutely hilarious it's more like a current affairs like you know news of the day kind of podcast that comes like on what every week you guys had to do bonus every yeah every thursday for sure and uh occasionally on mondays that's our bonus episode that we still seem to have done uh and people expect and i'm like i don't know if we understand what bonus means all of us but uh yeah it's me and Gastor Amante, who's a very funny comedian and he's a very Brooklyn,

Speaker 4 a Brooklyn boy and just very New York. And I have to break him of that, break him of that because he's so Brooklyn and I just got to, it's enough.
It's too much.

Speaker 4 So that's, that's what we're doing while talking about news stories.

Speaker 1 Well, thanks again, Shalewa. You're the best.
We really appreciate it. Thank you, Shalewa.
This is great.

Speaker 4 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
I just would be sitting in my living room room talking about these movies anyway. So

Speaker 1 there you go.

Speaker 1 Oh, my goodness. Love Shalewa.
Man, I've known her for so long. We have been bros for so long that it's

Speaker 1 kind of like, I don't know, it's effervescent when I talk to her. And I'm just glad now you know each other.

Speaker 1 That was a hard conversation to even stop talking about Magic Mike because I feel like it really, there was so much more in the chamber there. We really, I mean, we could have.

Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. It was really hard to pull back on that.
I mean, we might need to do follow-up episodes, honestly.

Speaker 1 Yo, yo, it made me want to change the theme of the podcast to just doing one about the Magic Mike franchise. So there you go.

Speaker 1 Frankly, the format of the podcast to all of our episodes being being about the Magic Mike extended universe.

Speaker 1 So that was great. Oh, God.

Speaker 1 Okay, moving on. Let's get into our final segment of the show, employee picks.
This is where we do a film recommendation based on kind of what we talked about in this episode.

Speaker 1 Did I ever tell you about the chicks picks at Mr. Movies at my local video store? No, I love employee picks.
So tell me, tell me about it.

Speaker 1 So there was like, you know, the staff picks at my local video store, Mr. Movies, in Minneapolis.
And it was all dudes who worked there.

Speaker 1 And they were nice men. But my mom was like bothered by this, my mother.
And so she went in and she was like, you know, you don't have any women. on the staff picks.

Speaker 1 It's like five guys recommending action movies. Love that.
And the manager was like, oh my gosh, you're right. To his credit, he was like, oh my gosh, you're right.
We need to do something about this.

Speaker 1 And my mom goes, well, I have an idea. How about we do a box and women can submit their picks to this box and you can have a chicks picks row? Oh, my God.
He's like, oh, that's great.

Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe we'll get started on that. And then my mom is like, well, I already made a box for you.
So here's your box and you can put it up on the counter.

Speaker 1 So then like the next week, there was a little, you know, on one of the shelves that said chicks picks with movies recommended by women. First of all, you're fired.

Speaker 1 Your mom is hired to go outside as a meeting my mom's a pioneer i'm telling you i think it explains a lot about you to be honest that is wonderful she's like a suffragette or something i love it

Speaker 1 oh my god anyways yeah that's kind of my you know part of my film history you know as a child i was probably like 12 when my mom did that wow that's like and honestly were you ever able to create an employee pick at all in any any of your jobs?

Speaker 1 Because I take that shit real seriously. No, I don't think, I don't think I've had an opportunity to do something like that.
Oh, my God. You should just get a job where you could do it.
It is so fun.

Speaker 1 So, quit this podcast and do something else and have my mom co-host the podcast with you instead. Okay, got it.
Of course. Listen, I think we're ironing out the rest of your life here.
Sure.

Speaker 1 But I used to, you know, I worked at many record stores. I worked at Tower Records.
That was like such a huge responsibility because that was in a very prominent location in the store.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's Tower Records, of course. And I was like your mom.
I was like, this is such a moment for me. As one of the only women that work in a store, a music store, I was like, I'm doing research.

Speaker 1 I'm going to do things unexpected. I'm not doing it like the other guys do it.
So needless to say, this is the employee picks is such a part of video store culture.

Speaker 1 So we wanted to kind of replicate something like that because we just thought it would be really cool. Totally.
So imagine this on a shelf in a digital video store somewhere. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So Millie, why don't you give your pick first?

Speaker 1 So my employee pick for this week, because we are talking about dry January and

Speaker 1 drinking and films, is actually about alcoholism. It's kind of a bummer, not going to lie, but it's a film from 1952 and it's called Come Back Little Sheba, directed by the great Daniel Mann.

Speaker 1 This is a movie that stars Burt Lancaster and Shirley Booth, who is one of my favorite actresses in classic Hollywood. If you like Shirley Booth, email us at dearmovies at exactly rightmedia.com.

Speaker 1 Oh, we are going to be friends if you like Shirley Booth. But it's a movie about this married couple, you know, obviously Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, married couple.

Speaker 1 And Burt Lancaster is an alcoholic and he's in recovery. And it was one of the first or maybe the first time

Speaker 1 that Alcoholics Anonymous AA was ever mentioned in a film.

Speaker 1 So it kind of has a little bit of a little bit of historical relevance because of that, but it's a heartbreaker, man. And I love fucking 50s weepy.
I love these types of films.

Speaker 1 There's no like Frederick March being a charming, joyous drunk. This is straight up like, I hate my life because I can't have a drink and I don't know if I want to be married anymore.

Speaker 1 And then I got to watch my husband feel this way. And it's just

Speaker 1 a bummer of a film, but it is a great film. And I feel like it's not talked about enough.
So there's that. That's my rec fabulous.
Yeah. Fabulous.
I haven't seen it. I got to, I must check it out.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
My recommendation, since we're talking about drinking, is a movie from 2020. It's a Danish film.
So you will be reading subtitles, y'all. It's called Another Round.

Speaker 1 It's by the filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg. It stars the very hot Mads Mickelson.

Speaker 1 And it is about these four high school teachers who kind of all sort of have depressing lives. They're friends.

Speaker 1 And they read about this medical guy who says that you actually operate better if you're a tiny bit drunk. Like your optimal pH kind of level is if you are a little bit drunk.

Speaker 1 So they decide to test this out and like are just kind of drunk all the time.

Speaker 1 And at first it's like fun. Yeah, they feel great all the time.
And then it sort of devolves as some of these guys shouldn't be drinking all the time.

Speaker 1 It's an interesting kind of exploration of alcohol because I think it has a more complex conversation because it's not saying like drinking is bad. It's more like drinking can be bad.

Speaker 1 If your life is bad and you are drinking a lot, that is bad.

Speaker 1 But alcohol in it of itself isn't bad, but it can be and so I don't know it's kind of an interesting thing because I just feel like sometimes movies exploration of drinking is so cut and dry if you see someone drinking hard alcohol in a movie you're like uh oh something bad's gonna happen that guy that guy's tortured yeah you know so I think it's a really interesting movie by a really interesting uh filmmaker it won best international film at the Oscars Thomas Vinterberg is a very interesting filmmaker he comes from Denmark and he was a part of the dogma 95 movement which he started with another Danish filmmaker named Lars von Trier.

Speaker 1 And that was like in the 90s. And they had all these rules for making films.
It was like had to be shot on like a video camera with no tripod, no violence. They had all these rules.
That's right.

Speaker 1 They were kind of like really arthouse-y movies. And there are some really good ones.
Like one of his films, The Celebration is really good, even if it is shot on a video camera.

Speaker 1 But he kind of was like,

Speaker 1 I don't want to do that anymore. And he stopped making movies.
He stopped being like such a pretentious prick.

Speaker 1 But another round is fabulous. Leonard DiCaprio was supposed to remake it, but I don't know if that's still happening.

Speaker 1 I'm checking it out. So, anyways, another round, you can watch that on Prime.
It's on, if you're a Prime Video, I think it's you can stream it on there. Peacock Canopy, which is a library app.

Speaker 1 You can watch movies for free on there. So it's in a lot of places, but check it out.
It's a great movie. Another round from 2020.
Sounds great. I love it.
Millie. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 We recorded our entire first episode. No, we didn't kill each other by the end of it.
No, I just fired you and hired your mother.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was fired a few times, replaced by my mom, which was humiliating, but

Speaker 1 we made it to the end. We did.
We did. I'm excited.

Speaker 1 This is going to be so fun. I know.
We hope you enjoyed it. Yeah.
I mean, we have so many ideas about what we want to do for this show.

Speaker 1 this is going to be changing all the time you know new segments are coming in it's going to be a very vibrant show we're very excited about it we have so many ideas for it but uh one of the ideas i have in the future is we want to give out film advice at the end of our shows so please write in your questions for us you know if you're in need of specific movie recommendations for specific situations like you're on a date or something and you need a movie to watch or if you need help navigating a certain director's filmography we can help or if you need a film gripe resolved we're going to have film gripes that's going to be a big part of the show moving forward huge part please write in at dear movies at exactly right media.com we want to you know give out advice to the people as movie experts we want to help you we want to help people but you know you can write in or even better you can leave us a voicemail you can record a voicemail on your phone keep it under 60 seconds please And email that voicemail to dearmovies at exactlyrightmedia.com.

Speaker 1 So we'd love to hear from you, people. Please write in.
Yeah. We love hearing your voices.
Like the accents are fantastic. That's like my favorite part.
We'll play it on the show. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love hearing these accents. Also, we have social media.
We are at Dear Movies. I love you on Instagram and Facebook.
Just a little FYI.

Speaker 1 Casey and I are going to be doing a couple Instagram lives once in a while. We're going to be posting some video.
So Instagram is going to be hot, people. It's going to have its own vibe to it.

Speaker 1 It's almost like a second show's going on. That's right.
On Instagram. That's right.
And because Casey's a filmmaker, it's going to be in 4K, digital restorations.

Speaker 1 Yeah, lots of tricky camera moves, dolly shots, Dutch angles, all sorts of stuff. We built the rig from the first Evil Dead movie.
We're going to be running through the woods with it.

Speaker 1 So it's going to be exciting. But just wanted us to shout that out as a way to like, you know, engage with the pod a little bit more.

Speaker 1 And also, if you are on Letterbox, if you are a Letterbox user and you haven't followed us already, our Letterbox handles are at Casey LeeO'Brien and at M

Speaker 1 DeCherico. And that's where we are.
That's where we're hanging out, putting down movies. That's right.
Well, Millie, thank you for a wonderful first episode. Hopefully many more to come after this.

Speaker 1 Oh, I agree. I had such a blast.
So much fun. So much fun.
All right. Well, bye, everybody.
See you next time.

Speaker 1 This has been an exactly right production, hosted by me, Millie DeCherico, and produced by my co-host, Casey O'Brien. This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.

Speaker 1 Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. Our guest booker is Patrick Kottner.
And our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 1 Our incredible theme music is by the best band in the entire world, The Softies. Thank you to our executive producers, Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark, Daniel Kramer, and Millie DeCherico.

Speaker 1 We love you. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Be kindly wise.