Best of 2025! Plus, Cartoonist Mimi Pond!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, well, casey O'Brien. Here we sit by the hearth
of the fire at the end of the year.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Warming our toes, drinking our mold wine. Do you like
mold wine? I like mold wine. I think it's good,
oh cozy. But yes, we're sitting here next to the
crackle of the fire, just thinking about thinking back on
twenty twenty five and what a year it was.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
This is the first year of our podcast, by the way,
dear what it really is, and it's crazy that we've
gotten through our first year. I think we could confidently
say when we started it was a little bit bumpy
for several reasons, by the way, not just because we
were a new podcast. We were coming from an older

(00:55):
podcast that we had done together, but that we were
in a new era politically uh huh, which was very
much like an old era but just got worse. Yeah,
And I think we were all bracing ourselves for that,
mm hmm. And that has certainly happened, that it has
certainly gotten worse. But yes, we were all in these

(01:17):
like I don't know, we were in these conditions to
start a podcast brand new, and you know, we had
to like settle in get our bearings. But I feel
like over the course of the past twelve months, we've
done that and I feel like we're in a good spot.
What do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
I think so too. I think we've definitely settled into
our roles really well. Yeah. I mean when we launched
the podcast, there was a lot going on in the
world that was horrifying. Personally, things were challenging for me.
I was about to film a movie, which I did
at the very beginning of this podcast during the launch,

(01:58):
and so I was under an immense amount of stress,
just constant, just horrible diarrhea. And I all that my
stomach issues have definitely settled down as the podcast in
the year has gone on, So that's a blessing. Yeah,
I think.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, I think for me too. I started a new
job this year, I finished grad school this year. I
bought my first home this year.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
What a year for you, Millie.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
I know, I've been a fucking mess, let's get serious. Yeah, So,
I you know, I'm just thankful though that we're here.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
We are here, and this episode, you know, it's gonna
be a best of twenty twenty five and maybe some
worst of twenty twenty five, but it's through the lens
of Casey and Millie. You know, our movie journey and
personal journey through this year a reflection, So you're gonna
get it all this episode.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
You certainly are. We're gonna pick some of our favorite
movies from this year, talk about some of our you know,
first time watches, because by the way, there is a
lot of movies that we watch separately that we had
never seen before that are older, and you know, I
like to throw in those. I always think it's really
interesting when people list their favorite first time watches every year,

(03:18):
because I just think it, I don't know, just cool
to see that on people's lists. And then probably gonna,
i don't know, talk a little bit about what twenty
twenty six is going to bring both cinematically and personally.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Wow, so much to discuss. We also have the wonderful cartoonist, artist,
graphic novelist, writer Mimi pond On, and she's going to
be talking about her area of expertise, which is British
films that were made and set between World War One
and World War Two. So you know, we're going to

(03:54):
hit some of those poem Presburger films, Hitch among others.
So it's a great conversation and she's so cool. But
we got SOM's going on in this episode.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
We do, so please please please stay tuned. You're listening
to Dear Movies. I Love you.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Dear, I love you, and I've got to know you
love me to.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Check the box. Hello, everybody, you are listening to Dear Movies,
I Love You. This is a podcast for those who
are in a relationship with the cinema. My name is
Millie to Jericho, my.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Name is Casey O'Brien.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
And yes, like we alluded to in the intro, we
are doing our best of the year episode this episode, like.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
We teased in the intro, it is kind of a
fun it's also like a perfect you know, we launched
at the beginning of the year, so it is sort
of a perfect time for us to think about the
first year of the podcast. It's amazing, right, it all
works very well together.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
That's right. I don't know if you feel this or
not as somebody who works in the film business and
has a film podcast. Right, I'm a part of the
Atlanta Film Critics Circle here in Atlanta, and so I
get screeners now, which I didn't get for a very
long time, even though I worked at TCP and for
twenty years I was not on the screener train and

(05:29):
my boss was, but none of us and the other
programmers were. But when I lived in LA I had
friends who obviously worked for the guilds, you know, like writers, Skill,
Director's guild SAG or whatever, and they were always get screeners.
And I was always like those fuckers and there's screeners.
It was like a thing, you know, to have them.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
It's an elite. It's a little bit of a like,
I don't know what you'd call it. You know, you know,
you're a little bit higher regarded, a little bit higher
when you can get on that screen or train.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Well, I mean, I will say this though, now that
I'm in the upper echelon of people of human beings,
that again, film screeners, it tends to happen. They just
dump them all onto you at once, because they're obviously
doing it before the oscars, So it typically tends to
start right about now. So like if you you know,

(06:23):
and a lot of movies come out around the holidays, obviously,
but it is that big like oscars push, so all
of a sudden, your inbox or your mailbox, depending on
how you get them. You're just inundated with films and
you're just like, oh my fucking god, Like I don't
have time to watch all these movies before February or
whatever the oscars are. I mean, it's crazy how many

(06:44):
movies you get. And so when I was thinking about
my best of twenty five lists, I was like trying
so hard to go back to certain things that I
saw this year, or like watch things that had come
out this year, and it was like impossib I'm just like,
there are just simply too many movies.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, there are.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
And when you think about trying to come up with
like your best of list, you know, I don't know,
you're always like, at least I am. I'm always cognizant
of just how many movies there are, like and all platforms,
all countries, documentaries, short films, everything, it's just nutty.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I was thinking about that with this episode specifically that
to be there are people I know that like see
everything that is out, yes, you know, and then there
are people who I would put us in this category.
I would say, are like film scholars. We're trying to
see all the quality movies across all of time kind

(07:48):
of and I don't think I can do both at
the same time. I don't think I can be the
kind of person who sees every new movie and also
the kind of person who's, like, you know, trying to
watch quality movies from the past as well. I just
don't have time to do that. Maybe at some point
in my life I had time to do that, but
I cannot hold both of those together at the same time.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
If you have a full time job that isn't reviewing movies,
then you can't. I'm just gonna throw that out there
because I've tried it and it's not it's not it's
not happening. If you have a like I said, a
full time job that is something that you could be
in film like, but it's not solely dedicated to reviewing films,

(08:33):
like if you aren't the if you aren't like Justin
Chang or you know, Richard Brody or somebody you know,
like if you're not Alonzo so Kate or somebody who's
like a full time reviewer, like, then you really don't
have time to see everything and everything because on top
of like you said, on top of the thing about
watching new movies is that sometimes you have to go

(08:55):
back and watch older movies because they're being referenced or
it's just a research that you're in, you know. But
now that I have a full time job, I just can't,
you know, hit it as hard and I do. I
mean I and I don't have a family. I have
no excuse. I have no family, no kids, no husband.
So I do have more time than you. But I

(09:17):
even in spite of that, I it's really hard to
hit every single film.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah. I mean, would you say that movies are your Boyfriend?

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah? I feel like yeah, I mean it is probably that,
and it has an original possible title for this podcast,
that is right.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
Oh, that's a movies my boyfriend.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
That's a good little fact. Let's I'm gonna say it.
The original title we were trying to go for movies
or my Boyfriend. Yeah, And then I found out or
somebody found out that one of my friends has already
taken that name for their creative project. And I didn't
even realize that. I was like, oh, like, a, we

(10:00):
can't use that because one of my friends is using
that first time?

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Is there active?

Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Film projects?

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah? But it was true. I mean I feel like,
I mean, you were down to call it movies or
my boyfriend.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah. I loved it.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
Yeah, and I felt it. I felt that it was
like I still do. Actually, although I do, I'm not
pushing out a possibility of having a human boyfriend ever.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Okay, I do cozy up.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
To movies in between human boyfriends, because you.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Know what I'm saying. Absolutely, Okay, Millie, I have a film, Grape.
Can I present this to you?

Speaker 1 (10:45):
Is it me? Am? I? Your film Grape?

Speaker 2 (10:48):
Millie to Jericho is an annoying person? No? I never never,
I would never. You would never be my film Grape.
Maybe I don't know if you might not have any
opinion about this, but I just want to throw it
out there because it bothers me. And it has to
do with Letterboxed. Oh so I'm a pretty I used

(11:12):
Letterboxed a lot, and I log every film I watch,
and I like to write a little review and I
rate movies on there. I do give it a star rating. Now,
some people on letterbox don't like to give star ratings,
to which I say, do you That's fine? That's okay, Yeah,
that's fine. Some people write no reviews whatsoever. That's fine.

(11:36):
They just want to log the movies. They're saying, I
totally think that's a fair way to use letterboxed Okay,
But I follow, or I should say I followed several accounts.
I would say close to five where every movie, or

(11:57):
I would say most, if they are rating it, they
give it five stars and nothing else. It's almost like
they give it five stars or zero stars. I see,
and this pisces me off and I had to unfollow
some people.

Speaker 1 (12:12):
Wow, you were that juice your anger for.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
This because I use letterbox a lot to be like, like,
for example, I saw gross point blank okay, and I'm like, oh,
what did my friends or the people I follow, what
did they think of this movie? And I look and
I see three and a half stars, four stars, five

(12:38):
stars sometimes, but if these people are always giving five
stars to everything, it kinda ruins that aspect of the
app for me. I don't know actually how he thought
about or how it's all men I will say how
he thought about this, and it just kind of like
I just feel like it goes against what the app is.

(13:02):
It like is ruining the calibration of the app.

Speaker 1 (13:05):
It's ruining the calibration the star system. No, I agree,
and it pisses me off, and I'm pissed. Okay, I
don't know if I've talked about this before, but my
way of doing the stars is so deeply flawed and

(13:26):
fucked up anyway, because I don't do it all the time,
like you said, that's fine. Part of that is because
I don't want to go on record as to having
an opinion on certain things. And I think it's because
I just I'm out here. I'm outside, basically, is what
I'm saying. I'm outside.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
And do I worry about that having a film podcast
and being a filmmaker, Yeah, I do. I'm concerned about
the things I've done right, but well, and it's.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Like, I don't know. Sometimes it's like you've got friends
that are in movies that you don't like, and you're like, fuck,
I ain't writing that, Like I don't want to piss
these people off or whatever. You just like don't care
enough to want to rate it. But then when I
do rate something, I typically do a thing where I
don't ever really use five stars unless it's for something

(14:15):
completely incredible and obvious like Showgirls or Phantom Thread. For
the most part, if I really like a movie, I'm
typically going about four or four and a half five
stars is I feel like a very obvious play, Whereas
I feel like, if you really want to know a
movie that I actually liked liked, it's about four four

(14:36):
and a half mm hmm. That's how That's how I do.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
My five stars is kind of an all timer.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Five stars is like, oh I love you know, the
cutting edge, and everybody needs to know that mcgruber gets
five stars, But you know, does the Treasure of the
Sierra Madre No it's getting four and a half or whatever.
You know, It's like, that's the thing. Is that? But
that's my own deeply fucked up way of doing things. Yeah,

(15:04):
So what you're saying is that basically people are only
using the star system when they rate something five stars,
which I feel is so dumb, and I'm with you.
I think it ruins the calibration of the star system.
But it's also just like, well, okay, so what's your
real opinion about everything? Then?

Speaker 2 (15:22):
Not just that, but they're they're giving five stars if
they liked it. It's five stars if they liked it,
and zero stars they hate it.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
So there's odd to the opinion.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
It's more like eighty percent five stars to twenty percent
no stars. Whatsoever. And it's like it's it fucks up
the calibration.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
But wait a minute. So if they're logging something that
they don't like, it's.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
And that's zero. But like these people that I follow,
it seems like they're you know, and I'm kind of
this person too. It's hard for me to dislike a movie.
I rarely give and this is a truthful review. I
rarely give less than three stars because I just like,
I love movies, and even if they're I can see

(16:06):
why they're not good. I usually like them. But these
and so I think these people have the same sort
of mindset. But it's like if I were to give
a movie three stars, and in their mind the equivalent
of how they liked a movie was maybe a three
star quality movie, they'll give it five stars instead.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
It's crazy. Also, don't even get me started on the hearts.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
I don't be I don't know how to. I don't
know how to incorporate that.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Maybe either, and there are people that I know that
don't rate anything and then the only heart things that
they liked.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
I'm kind of okay with that, but I don't. I
think it's too tricky. It's like what it seems like
isn't five stars the equivalent to a heart? Oh?

Speaker 3 (16:44):
I know.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
It's like sometimes you sing saying five star rating, no heart,
You're like, what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Do's a heart?

Speaker 1 (16:50):
What does a heart mean? Listen? I feel like there's
probably a whole other podcast to be done just about
the taxonomy and on the thing going on in the
rituals of letterbox. For sure.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Well, I know my friend Lucey, she doesn't like it
when people do funny little reviews. She wants people to
do serious reviews.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
I can't stand by that whatsoever. Lusam.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
I can't really either, but I understand what like Lusey's opinion,
and I like that there are opinions about the proper
way to use letterbox.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Yeah, I mean, for example, she would hate this, she
would absolutely hate this. But the the last review I
left on Letterbox that has twenty likes as of today
was for the movie Zodiac from two thousand and seven,
which we watched for the podcast, and all I wrote
was no punctuation. By the way, I concur that an

(17:50):
aqua velva looks insane but tastes delicious. That's important, that's
pertinent in the movie. That's my review. No, I don't
put a period. It's my observation. Now that could be
construed as being funny or like not serious. But when
I look back at that, I'm like, oh, I know
exactly where I was in that movie. I can pinpoint

(18:13):
the vibe immediately, which is important. Yeah, for a diary
to be like, oh, here's my diary of shit that
I watched this year. Oh man, I remember that aquavel
of a real, real good you know.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
See, this is my most Can I read you my
most liked review on letterbox?

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yes, yeah, say go ahead.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
It's from twenty twenty one. It's eyes wide shut. Okay,
movie I love. Gave five stars, and oddly, which I
never do, I also liked it, so I gave it
a five stars and a like. But this is my review.
I watched this movie for the first time before i'd
had sex, and I thought it was okay. But now
I've had a bunch of sex and I'm married, and

(18:51):
I have to say, this is a perfect film. So
and that got a lot of And that's a quippy,
little funny review. You know.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
Do you want to know my why?

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yes? I do.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Most popular. It just it just took the place of
my long time most popular review for the Way We Were.
My most popular review was for the movie A Complete
Unknown from twenty twenty four, and again no punctuation. My
review is feeling absolutely robbed that the history books never

(19:27):
told me Johnny Cash offered Bob Dylan some bugles outside
of the Newport Folk Festival.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Does that happen in that? Because it can't sane. I
was like, there's like a super.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
Johnny Cash just hanging out outside of a fucking motel
and he like pull you know, goes in. It was
convertible and pulls out a box of bugles corn chips
and it's like.

Speaker 2 (19:54):
Hey, you want some, and bow like that bugles were
created before nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Let me tell you. I actually did an Instagram, uh
some kind of like Instagram story about it because I
was fucking shocked. I was like, is why would you
put that in a biopic? Like, well, I don't say,
like why that was that a fact that happened? It
was Johnny patch into bugles and we didn't notice.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Like big Bugle has its fingerprints all over this movie.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
I was like, what a detail to put in a biopick?
So I wrote that that that review was my most popular,
So I like, I, I can't not do these types
of reviews. Lucy.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Of course, that's that's that's your that's that's how you
engage in a loving fashion with film. I get it exactly.
I'm the same way. So anyways, yeah, well we got
to move on to our film film Gripe accepted. Thank you,
thank you for accepting, stamping it, approving it. Yes, we
got to move on to our film diary. Let's open

(21:03):
that sucker up.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
God, this has been a stinky diary all year.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
It's been a stinky diary. It's been too It's funny.
Even though I had a film podcast this year, I
feel like I was I didn't watch enough movies. I
could have done a better job. I feel like I
failed our listeners, I failed myself, I failed Martin Scorsese.

(21:29):
I just feel like I don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
You know, it was interesting about the film Diary that
it gives me sort of a baseline tempo for your life,
because it's like, oh, there are times where you're like,
you absolutely have zero movies watch, and then you watched
eight movies, like during Halloween. I'm like, okay, yeah, that's
what happens is that around October case he gets the

(21:52):
itch and he starts I get the juice, losing his
goddamn mind on movies, So you know it's good.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Mellly, What did you watch?

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Okay? I watch three films?

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Wow? No, pretty good?

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Pretty good. I don't know how I did that considering
how crazy things have been at the New House. So
I just managed though. Number one. I saw twenty twenty
five's The Smashing Machine.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Wow, and I mean spoiler alert. Did that make your
top three best movies of the year?

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Absolutely not?

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Uh, how'd you think I? God helped me for some reason.
I'm a root for the rock and I don't know
why I want him to succeed. I don't know what's
wrong with me.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
No, it's it makes sense. I mean, he's he's kind
of irresistible. Where is he from?

Speaker 3 (22:48):
Like?

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Where is he from? He's kind of like my type
southside Asian ee type. Isn't he Is he from like
the Philippines? Or is he like.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
He's Simoan Samoan?

Speaker 1 (22:56):
That's right, Okay, that's close. So for that reason, I'm
kind of down, although I do think that, like, oh
my god, I was thinking about this in terms of Okay,
let me just back up and say this before I
get into this. Okay, this movie is interesting because it
is like, is this like the first movie that the

(23:17):
one of the sav Dy's directed posts Breakup or something.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Yeah, So we have The Smashing Machine that is directed
by Benny Safty, and then we have Marty Supreme with
Timothy Shallomey coming out soon, which is directed by the
other Safty what's his name, Josh Josh, Yeah, Josh Safty.
So well, they're kind of pitted against each other a

(23:42):
little bit.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Well, and like Benny did the Nathan Fielder Show with
Emma Stoke or whatever. Yes, but this was wasn't this?
The The Smashing Machine was the first feature length film
that he did without his brother, I believe. So I
don't really know I to act like I was like, oh,
I understand this fine nuances of when Benny Safty doesn't

(24:07):
work with Josh Safty and I don't know, I can't
even tell. Maybe it would have been different if they
did it together. Who the fuck knows. All I know
was that I sort of felt like I knew what
was going for, but I also felt like there was
a couple of misses, like I, here's the thing about
Dwayne the Rock Johnson. I really wanted him to be

(24:27):
able to pull this kind of character off, that kind
of like sensitivo gentle giant type that has like a
drug problem and has you know, confidence issues and you
know self esteem issues, this kind of thing. I just
felt like he wasn't able to get there one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
That's how I feelt.

Speaker 1 (24:47):
And then I started thinking about is there another wrestler
that I that could be in prosthetic makeup that could
possibly have done it? And I was thinking, well, I
don't know what about like Dave Boti.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Or I was gonna say, I've been impressed with Dave Bautista.
I feel like he actually has developed into a great actor,
and I've seen him in stuff that I'm like, he
looks vulnerable and it makes me feel and he takes
it very seriously as a craft and not that The
Rock doesn't, but I just I think Dave Bautista maybe

(25:22):
could have gone where The Rock could end.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yes, I totally agree. You know, my favorite movie of
twenty twenty four The Last show Girl. He was in that,
and he was great in that He's got something else.
There's like an extra layer of nuance to his characters
that I feel like would have served him really well

(25:46):
in the Smashing Machine. But anyway, The Rock, I just
don't think The Rock has dialed in like it.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
I like Dave Bautista, and it seems like he's getting
a lot of work in interesting projects too, Like he
he's good in Dune, he's freaky in Dune. Yeah, and
uh yeah, yeah, well.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
It's an interesting film Smashing Machine because it was kind
of like really understated, which I'm not like, I'm not
turned off by that, but I do feel like I
was missing that pull into that main character, you know,
like when he started crying when he lost the match,
I was like, is he upset? I can't tell what's

(26:30):
going on. I know, yeah, but the prosthetics are insane.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
He looks so huge.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yeah, he looks I mean, he looks like like an
actual smashing machine.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, all right, what else did you watch?

Speaker 1 (26:46):
So? I was turning on TCM to watch our friend
Cad and Mark Gardner, friend of the podcast, and his
co writer Willow maclay, of their amazing book about transfilm images.
It's called Corpses, Fools and Monsters. They were on TCM

(27:10):
and they both each hosted a night of films, and
Willow did the first night, and she picked a great
Robert Altman film that I'd seen before called Come Back
to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean from
nineteen eighty two, and yeah, it's a it's an interesting film.
I mean, it kind of feels like a play.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
And it's I've never seen it.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, it's like it's When I first saw it, I
had it took me a while to get used to
it because it feels like it's being it feels like
it's happening in one big room, which it kind of is.
The way that it's being shot, though, feels like it's
kind of like television a little bit. Uh. There's kind
of interesting angles happening, and it's kind of like an

(27:54):
ensemble female cast, which is the best thing about it.
I mean, you've got like share Karen Black, Sandy Dennis,
Kathy Bates, who's amazing in it. You also have Mark Patton,
who was most famously in the second Nightmare on Elm
Street sequel. He is in the film. And it's just

(28:17):
it's an interesting movie. It's basically about a group of
people who were obsessed with James Dean in the fifties
and then they get together, you know, many years down
the line and kind of reunite, and you know, it's
just about their interpersonal relationships. And I won't give it away,
but obviously it was playing during a trans Images Film festival,

(28:40):
so I'll just throw that out there. But yeah, it's
good to see that again. I liked it a lot more.
I've seen it like a couple of times. I liked
it a lot more now than I did. I think
the first time I.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Saw it so okay.

Speaker 1 (28:53):
And then because I was watching TCM the next night,
I they're doing there a month on Rock Hudson, and
so I had to sit down and watch All That
Heaven Allows from nineteen fifty five.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Again.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
I've seen it like five times easily. You're a fan
of this movie. Have you seen this movie?

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Oh? Yeah, it's amazing. It's incredible. Listen, great fall movie.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Oh I was gonna say it was the perfect movie
to watch when it's chilly, the leaves are turning, snow's falling.
I mean it's like you just want to snuggle up
with Ron Kirby, Like.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
I just want to go to New England. Yeah, I
want to peep some leaves.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
I mean, this is extremely horny alert. I'm just gonna
throw this out there, but like Rock Hudson as Ron
Kirby is has got to be the most attractive film
character in film history.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Can I read you my letterbox review? Very sure? Yes?

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Yes please?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Rock Hudson is interdimensionally hot in this movie. His sexiness
could bend time. And that's how I felt.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, besides the fact
that Rock Hudson is just a beefy Illinois boy and
has dark hair and you know, it's just handsome. His
character is a fucking gardener who's like a bohemian who
like basically decides to walk away from like capitalism and

(30:37):
mainstream patriarchal white crust society to like live in the
woods and restore an old mill. And are you joking?
It's like a fucking dream. That's that's my dream?

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Any real?

Speaker 1 (30:53):
He reads Henry David throw and he like has lobster
parties with like his friends and his it's like just
like really has that jua de vivra, and it's just like,
that's got to be the hottest movie character that was
ever written. And he the hottest man plays him. That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
It's so funny because it's like he's so attractive, he
owns his own business, he has his own house. But
polite society is like, this man is a demon.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
I would you know. That's the thing is that in
twenty twenty five he look at this and like, what
a bunch of fucking dodos.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
Like, by the way, all these people like are that now.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Like every rich white person that I know is got
like an Etsy shop that's selling you know, hundred state
plants or whatever. The fuck. They're all wanting to be
bohemian bohos. Yeah, and yet in this movie they're like,
oh my god, he is a I'm a demon. He's
a demon.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
I'm a demon? And do you like the movie Far
from Heaven? I always I kind of think of these
in conversation with one another.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, of course this isn't that what it's inspired Like
Parvar Haavn was inspired for Douglas sir. Yeah, I listen.
Can't you can't get me to not watch a melodrama
any era, any situation. So I love you Ron Kirby,
My boyfriend love you Ron kirk I would dump movies

(32:22):
to be with Ron Kirby. Let's just say that.

Speaker 2 (32:24):
Wow, here we go. Okay, there we go. All right,
my turn mine? Aren't that exciting? I watched, Well, I
guess this movie is exciting. I watched The Last Seduction
with Linda Fiorentino Unbelievable nineteen ninety four. This comes up
in a future episode you'll see what. Okay, but I
thought this was really great. It's really funny and it

(32:48):
is sexy. But it's a noir, but it doesn't take
itself very seriously. It's almost like I would say, it's
more of a black comedy, you know.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
So enjoyed that one. Yes. And then you know who
I really like who's in that movie? JT Walsh. You
know the actor Jjis. I love him. Every time he
pops up in something, I'm like, hell yeah, he's just
like this kind of gross asshole. I don't know, he's great.

(33:18):
I love him. And then I watched you know, I've
talked about watching the Decalogue, Man, I talk about this already,
the second one. Okay, I watched the first one. I
watched Decalogue two, two of ten, and this one is
about a woman who whose husband is ill and in

(33:40):
the hospital, but she starts an affair with another man
and gets pregnant by this other man, and she's like,
is my husband going to survive because it seems like
he's about to die. Because if he's going to survive,
I can't keep this baby. But if he's going to die,
I'll keep the baby. Wow. And she asks her husband's doctor,

(34:05):
you have to tell me is he going to die
or not? And the doctor has to kind of decide
do I tell her the truth, which is I don't know,
or do I make up something to save this child
potential child? You know? So watch it to figure out
what they do.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
I feel like the decalogue is your quest, your side quest,
cinematic side quest.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Right, it's so easy, though. The movies are an hour.
So well. Enjoying it though, But that's all I watched.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
All right, Well, close it up, goodbye, goodbye, bye, good bye.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
I'm a demon. All right, everybody, we're to talk about
the best of twenty twenty five. Millie, how should we

(35:05):
do this? We both have our top three movies of
the year.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
I feel like we have some similarities, so I don't
really know.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Maybe let's let's wait to do the top three and
maybe we can do our best first time watch, favorite
first time watch of the year.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, let's do that.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Okay, what's your what's your favorite first time watch of
the year.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Well, I have three love it Okay, cool. I've talked
about these at some point on an episode, So please
go back and listen to every single episode we've done
so far or the podcast to hear more about them.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
That's your homework assignment. Press pause on this one. Go back,
listen to every single episode. Come back to this point
in time on this episode.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
That's right, So okay, you're back. Let's talk about my
favorite first time watches for this year. So this is again.
This is when you watch a film for the very
first time, is an older film and you're watching it
this year for the first time. So I'm gonna go

(36:09):
down my list. I watched Bona Lino Broker's Bona from
nineteen eighty had a great Blu ray release this year,
and very much enjoyed that. Speaking of melodrama, love the
Lino broken movies. I hope they put out more. That's
all I'm saying. He did a lot, so keep him coming. Then,

(36:30):
of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention My
favorite first time watched IF twenty twenty five was ephis
from twenty twenty four, the.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Movie that Haunted Us Haunted the podcast. You should get
that filmmaker on the show. We should We should get
him as a guest.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
We could be like we stalked you for an entire
calendar year. But yeah, we had so many mentions of
this movie. I finally watched it thought it was great.
So that was a great sa I watched and my
last one, of course I have Like I was going
through all my first time watches on my letterbox, going like, okay,
which one is my favorite? And I was like, no,
this has got to be the most, the most pleasurable.

Speaker 2 (37:08):
I think it was.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
This might have been the most pleasurable movie in the
theater experience I had this year, which is what I
saw Night of the Juggler from nineteen eighty at the
Plaza Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. My god, what a fucking blast,
What a blast. I've been handing out my copy of
the Blu Ray to all my friends being like, hey,
you should watch this, but get back to me whenever.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's great, So doing the Lord's work. You know, this
must be on some sort of tour because this is showing,
and this showed in Minneapolis recently at the Trylon Theater.
I get to see it. No, I couldn't go.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
But what's your what's your problem? Why didn't you go?

Speaker 2 (37:43):
I'm sorry?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
God, I mean, just you know, put your baby in
the closet and then a little give it a couple
of blankets and she'll be fine.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
She can come, she can watch Oh my god, ish you.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Would take her to Night of the Juggler. They'd be amazing.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
No, I would come on. I wouldn't want to. It's
a little different than the Teletubbies or Miss Rachel whatever.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
But hey, if this was nineteen seventy nine, you'd be
saying something totally different.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
So I have been exposing patients to a little show
called Peewee's Playhouse though. Oh good, And she's been really
loving that. So that's good, expanding her mind already.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
All right, Riturn.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Fabulous, my turn. Okay, So, I mean all these I've
talked about before, but and I talked about this when
we were on My Favorite Murder. But I recently I
had at that time recently watched truly madly deeply from
nineteen ninety. I just think this is like such a beautiful, funny,
spooky movie. Yeah, I just highly recommend it. If you're

(38:47):
a romantic you should check it out. And you like
good movies, check out truly, madly, deeply. Then I one
of my movies. These are movies that have just kind
of been stuck in my head this year. You know.
Another one is Thelma from twenty twenty four starring June's Squib.
This was so much fun and it was so it

(39:08):
was so funny and just such a delightful movie, and
I just loved everybody in it, June Squib, I loved
Richard Rountree. I love this actor Fred Heckinger, who is
also in the first season of White Lotus. I really
enjoy him. And yeah, Filma is just a treat. Highly

(39:31):
recommend it, so funny, just a heartwarming film. And then
my third one is I watched You Hurt My Feelings
by Nicole Holliff Center. I don't know, I just think
about this movie all the time. Maybe it's because I'm
a creative person and I think about how people in
my life perceive the stuff that I create. And in

(39:52):
You Hurt My Feelings, she overhears her husband saying he
doesn't like her latest book. And I think that be
very painful as a creative person. And I feel like,
I don't know, I just sort of scratched something in
my brain.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Would you get a divorce?

Speaker 2 (40:09):
No, I wouldn't get a divorce really, but it would
hurt my feelings. And I would say you hurt my feelings.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
Like what Aftricia was like, Casey, let's have a talk.
I know that you just worked your ass off on
your first movie, and you know you really like put
in a lot of work and creative juice. But I
gotta tell you it is not good. And I mean

(40:37):
that sincerely, like you should probably have not even tempted it.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
If she said it like that, I probably would ask
for a God, I'd be fucking got it. If some
wouldn't that be awful?

Speaker 1 (40:55):
Yeah, somebody like came up to me and said, I'm
trying to think of the most creative thing I've ever done.
I was probably like read a book or whatever. Like
somebody said like, oh, Millie, God, that TC Underground book
you co wrote was so bad and cringe and awful,
and it sounded like you didn't even know what the
fuck you were talking about I wouldn't have even signed
up to do it, to be honest.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah, I mean that's a institution. Dude, What can you imagine?
I mean, why would a person say it like that?
But it like, I think the painful thing is that
if you overheard that, it's like unfiltered, you know, saying
if you like, if you overheard them saying that to somebody,
I feel like that would be so painful. And I mean,
you know, when you were reciting the problems that you had,

(41:39):
that that you imagine someone saying about your book, those
came very quickly. They were quick on the tongue. So
I feel like you have sensitivities about the work you make,
you know, in general, and you're worried that people are
going to pinpoint on those things that you're sensitive about.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Well, it's like air Cobies. Is that I'm an artist
and I'm sensitive about my shit it. Yeah, I mean,
you can't help it. It's like it is like you're
laid bareer and if if you like, oh god, if
you over hear somebody saying it in this very bleak way,
oh my god, I would I would divorce and I
would I would, I would have to live in impatient hospital,

(42:21):
like I just would be bereft.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, I would probably be like divorce, quit my job, uh,
convert religions. I mean honest, I don't know, like would
be horrible. So I love that movie though, I just
thought it was so Nicole holl Center is so good,

(42:45):
I know.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
And also she's like justice for socks. There's like a
whole sock. Can we talk about this the last time?
Your Yeah, I don't get this, not quirky socks. I
like socks as a.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
There have been multiple scenes in movies with men at
SoC stores in two of her movies, and there might
be more. I haven't even seen all of her movies.
Friends with Money, and now you've hurt my feelings. Yeah, really,
let's get to our top three of the year, shall we?

Speaker 1 (43:17):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Now, I feel like we'd we came up with these.
I didn't know what hers were before I came up
with mine, and unfortunately they're very similar lists or maybe fortunately,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Do you think that we should just state the two
that we had in common and then we can each
talk about the one we didn't have in common.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
That sounds good, Okay, So I think do you do
you are yours ranked or are they just the top three?

Speaker 1 (43:48):
It's just the top three. I mean they're sort of ranked,
but honestly, my top two are pretty much her top two.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
Okay, or you know, so you start with whichever one
you want to start with.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Well, I will say one of my tops of the
year twenty twenty five had to be Matt Wolfe's documentary
Pee Wee as Himself HBO Max a Jobber not when
it came out right, it was pretty pretty, pretty big.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Oh man, I think about this movie all the time,
I feel like, and I do feel like that is
sort of what I grade movies on, like how much
it stays with me. Because you'll watch a movie and
you're like, man, that was good, and then you don't
think about it, and I feel like that means it
wasn't that powerful. But this documentary I think about constantly.

(44:41):
I think about Paul Rubins constantly, and I think about
how I want to be viewed as an artist. You know,
a lot of it I think is really interesting how
he's like has this sort of difficult relationship with Pee
Wee Herman, and how he wants to be seen Paul
Rubin as an artist and a creative person, but Peewee

(45:03):
gets the credit or other people like Tim Burton kind
of get the credit. And he wants to be seen
a certain way, and he even has difficulty in his
relationship with the director in the movie. He wants to
be seen a certain way. And I feel like that's
a very powerful thing and I relate to that a lot. Yeah,
I want to be seen a certain way and like
how are people seeing me? Yeah, you know, it's like

(45:24):
a very basic human thing that I think is explored
in this movie.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
And well, and to that point, I think, you know,
I talked about this a little bit. I think we
ended up cutting it though, because I went really long
and I didn't feel like I was being as articulate
as I wanted to be about the point. But it
also reminded me that, you know, we think about the
modern context of fame or whatever, or just our identities,

(45:52):
and I mean, I think that we're at this point
now where we're like, we're definitely so celebrating sort of
our authentic selves, right Like, well, however it is, it
just reminded me about a time which it wasn't even
that long ago, and it's actually there's still plenty of
this happening now, where people in the past would sacrifice

(46:18):
their kind of personal lives for success, for their creativity,
or for their jobs essentially, and they know that what
they need to hide would prevent them from becoming successful.
And I think that that was such a big thing

(46:40):
for people of his generation, you know what I mean,
he claused it himself. I mean, he was out and
then he went back into the closet because he was like,
I'm never going to be able to be this person
and also be a children's show host, right, And I
think that became absolutely clear when he started getting in

(47:01):
trouble for like all of these things, which to me
are not even that big of a deal, you know,
like the idea that he would go to an adult
theater who gives a shit, The idea that he would
own ephemera from like you know, men's pictorial magazines, which
all my friends have those magazines, by the way, And
I was just watching a fucking TikTok video of Lance

(47:23):
Bass from in Sync who said the same thing. He
was like, Oh, there's no way I could have been
gay and in Sync in the nineties. There's just no
fucking way, Like I hit who I was because I
wanted to continue to be in this band and make music,
so and that was not that long ago, right, And

(47:43):
so I don't know, I think that was the message
that I was really like focusing in on just to
a degree, which is like, you're fucking lucky. I think
if you're able to be completely who you are and
be successful and be appreciate ate it and loved, I mean,
that's a very hard thing to do, you know. I

(48:04):
don't know, it's just I think that's what makes the
documentary so good is that it's like it forces you
to think about stuff like that, which is like when
would you think about that at all unless you were
watching a documentary like mass And by the way, mattis
such a great filmmaker. He's made so many other great
documentaries that he made the one about Arthur Russell, which
I really really love. He's said a lot of I mean,

(48:27):
I think is by his own words. He's talked about
making films about kind of outsiders, outside artists, you know,
which I love so amazing.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Anyway, well, we love that one, and we also I
would say this, I would say this is probably the
movie I thought was movie of the year, one battle
after another.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Yeah, that's definitely got.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
To be in huh yeah. And I mean we did
a whole episode about that, so we don't need to
go deep on that. But I will say just I
still think about that movie a lot, and it has
a lot of weight to it, and it was really incredible.
It was a really incredible film going experience that was

(49:12):
unmatched in twenty twenty five for me.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Yeah, I know, I almost felt kind of like bad
that I was my number one because I was like, oh, really,
the new Paul Talmer Sanderson movies your top film of
the year. What are you like a cidophile or something
like that. But it was I mean, it was triggering
as shit. That's why I think it was part of
so effective for me is that I was just like, wow,
this is I don't know, it just really hit hard

(49:38):
for me considering everything that's happened this year.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
Yeah. Yeah, but uh I yeah, absolutely, it makes me
emotional thinking about that movie. Yeah too, it'll be cool.
I don't think you care about the oscars as much
as I do. Would you say that's true?

Speaker 1 (49:56):
That's true?

Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yeah, But I hope it wins. I hope Leo wins
another actor Oscar, because I thought it was weird that
he won for the Revenant. I don't know, I just
feel like that's not representative of who he is as
an actor. And it'd be cool for a Pta to
win a that's director Oscar. And I think it would

(50:18):
be cool for Regina Hall to win an Oscar And yeah,
that's my thoughts. I think it'd be cool.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Have you seen the most recent tiktoks about Leo doing
the Mexican whistle in one battle? That is so funny
to me.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Yeah, I mean he got it. They're like, he did it.
He might have done it the wrong time.

Speaker 1 (50:43):
I think that was the only criticism was that he
should have done it what he pulled up in the car.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Ah, But I like whatever. So I also have seen
a lot of like, oh, you want someone to vape
on screen, you get the King Vapor and that's Leo.
And there's all these like photos of him vaping in
real life, you know, And they have those shots of

(51:12):
him like vaping in that high school and they're like
they're like ten out of ten perfect vape. He's like
a pro. He does he looks like he knows what
he's doing, you know. We talk about people who smoke cigarettes,
like you can tell when they're not smokers. You can
tell when you can tell Leo he knows his way
around a vape. O.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
He look at his face. He he's got the pallor
of a smoker.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Oh yeah, I mean he's just you got to appreciate Leo.
He really does bring that old school seventies actor to
our modern day. You know. All right, So now we
diverge slightly. My other movie that I thought was great
of twenty twenty five was twenty eight Years Later. This

(51:57):
is a really delightful I loved twenty eight day Days Later.
And you know, when you do these sequels, like twenty
years later, you're like, oh God, what's this. But it
was so good and it was different and it was
kind of weird and scary and interesting. I loved it
and I had such a blast singing in the theater.
So that's my other top movie of the year.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
That's great. I haven't seen it, but I think it's
interesting that this franchise keeps going.

Speaker 2 (52:26):
Yeah, and by all accounts, it's good, right, Yeah, I
recommend it. It's fun, it's like a good time. I
don't know. I loved it, so, and what about you.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Well, my other top pick of the year, which, by
the way, if you look this up, it'll tell you
that it was released in twenty four, but it was
only a tiff at Toronto International fill Fessel in twenty four.
The limited release and then the wide release happened in

(52:57):
twenty five, so I think and I actually think are
counting it for the Oscars. That way, it's being considered
as a twenty twenty five film. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yes, My other favorite movie of the year is Friendship.
Mm hmmm, Tam Robinson. Yeah, I mean, talk about a
fucking horror movie. Damn this movie. Like I was like
shook by this film. It really at tapped into this
like secret world that I was so fascinated by, which

(53:35):
is straight guys that need friends.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
I'm one of those guys. I gotta see this movie.
I'm kind of scared to see it for that reason.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
I mean, this isn't your fault. I feel like this
is society's faults.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Ultimately, Yeah, that you it's other men's fault. But do
you all.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Operating under a system which is destroying you?

Speaker 3 (54:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Like that's the thing about when men talk about the
patriarchy as if it doesn't affect them, and I believe
that that is absolutely untrue. It affects you, and this
movie is proof that it affects you, Yeah, which is
that you guys are fucking broken people and you don't

(54:28):
know how to make friends, and when you are in
an orbit of some dude that you think is like
one percent cooler than you, you completely lose your fucking
shit and you don't know how to handle it.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
I got I will watch this movie, especially because I've
been watching The Chair Company obsessively, which is the director
of Friendship also directed The Chair Company. Yes, and it's
Tim Robinson's new show, so you got to check that out.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Mill Oh, I definitely have to. I definitely have to. Yeah,
this was my other favorite movie of the year. I mean,
if you haven't seen it, it's out there, and uh,
I recommend it. It's really really It's funny and dark
as fuck is basically why I liked it.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
So fabulous fabulous. Where should we go now, Millie?

Speaker 1 (55:20):
You want to do some like honorable mentions things that
did that make your top three, but we're very close.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
Yeah, Okay. I also liked Weapons and I liked Black
Bag by Steven Soderberg.

Speaker 1 (55:34):
Ah, that's The Fastbender, a spy fastpend movie, right, Yes,
I really liked that.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
It was tight, it was funny and it was exciting.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Yeah. Well, I didn't really have many honorable mentions, and
that could change, actually because sometimes I watch, you know,
sometimes like things I'm out at the very end of
the year that don't make your list because they came
out on Christmas or something, right, So that could change,

(56:09):
but you know, I have I would be remiss if
I didn't mention, at least mention K Pop Demon Hunters,
because not because I thought it was this like fucking
groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece necessarily, but just the idea that it
was a fucking juggernaut. It was probably the hugest movie
that came out this.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Year, and I hear the songs everywhere.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Well, and I just was I will say the reason
why I wanted to give it a mention is because
some way it feels like I got legitimized for my
interest in K pop this year, where now all these
other motherfuckers are coming up to me being like, hey,
here are you like K pop? You know I like
that k Pop Demon Hunters. I'm like oh really, oh really, Now,
all of you guys that were making fun of me

(56:54):
for like in BTS, now all of a sudden you're like, huh,
I might dabble in a little uh.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Little cap whatever, I mean, interesting whatever. But the hens
have come home to roost well and.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Sadly, as I'm always want to do. I feel like
I've followed off the K pop trade a little bit,
shut up a little bit.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
Really, whoa Millie? Once it gets legitimized, she's out.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
I mean, listen, I'm a trendsetter, and now when it
gets popular, I sort of like, okay.

Speaker 2 (57:29):
Like, isn't that interesting? Well, isn't that wow? She's a
big announcement on this episode.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
I mean, if you really want to know why, it's
because BTS is kind of in this like fellow period
right now where they're like working on a comeback which
is going to happen next year, where they're going to
tour the world and like put out a new album
and shit. On top of that, my personal favorite member

(57:55):
of the band, Suga aka Yunki, is literally nowhere to
be found. I think he's gone oh total frank Ocean, Like,
I think he is staying out of the spotlight because
he had an unfortunate situation that happened to him earlier

(58:16):
in the year where he was drunk and fell off
of a scooter in front of his own house, which
is not a crime in my mind, but maybe he
was embarrassed by it, and it's like, fucking am I
I don't want doing shit for these people.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I feel like K pop artists, they don't have those
sort of flubs. It feels like, you know.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Which is entirely that there. It's like their country's fault basically,
like I think in America you could be a fucking
flop and still show your face on like Jimmy Kimmel
and shit. But it's like there is a whole other
It's like a whole other world over there. I think

(58:57):
that you're supposed to be absolutely perfect and they don't
even want you to, like tell people that you drink interesting.
So anyway, that's my boy, And I'd always got legitimate
reasons for wanting to stay underground. But you know, when
you're a fan of something and you're like, oh, well,

(59:17):
they're just not really like doing much right now, you
just kind of like out of sight, out of minded
a little bit. So I think that's what's happening. Besides,
I went really hard and heavy on it. Yeah, now
I'm kind of like, Okay, I've I've seen what it
can offer me. Maybe it'll change, Like next year when
they come back, I'll probably be a fucking loser again.

(59:38):
But right now I'm like looking at other things. I'm
up listening to other things.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
So well, you know, we touched upon that. You know,
we talked about this off Mike, But twenty twenty five,
what were some of your successes and failures? Did you
fall off a scooter drunk in front of your house?

Speaker 1 (59:58):
I mean, whatever the equ of that is has probably
happened for me personally. I've definitely had embarrassing moments my success.
As I was saying, I mean, I finished my grad
program this year, which was fucking looming over my head forever.
I mean I was in that program for like a decade.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Dude, It's huge, Millie, it's huge. What an unbelievable burden
to get off your back.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Yeah, you know, I think I think they felt bad
for me. I will say thank you to all the
professors that helped me get the fuck out of there.
They were like, whatever, let her graduate.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Diploma.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
Yeah, you go, but it's fine. It's fine. I also
bought a house, which we talked about. I that was
one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
It's painful, but I'm very proud of myself as a
single woman to have bought my own house. I do
feel that. And by way, not for nothing for everybody

(01:01:02):
that used to listen to I saw what she did.
Danielle and I are on the phone like almost every
week talking about like, I'm basically her. Listen to her
episodes where she complains about her fucking contractors and like
the people that don't want to put the oven in
the right place and shit in her house. And now
I'm her. I'm that person. So she's been helping me

(01:01:22):
a lot, guiding me through the process. So I love
her very much. I'm glad we're friends. So those are
some successes failures. I mean it's like every day is
a failure basically until something good happens. I didn't get
arrested this year, which is good. I didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
That's a success.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Yeah. I mean, I probably like ate too much candy.
I probably could have exercised a little bit more, but
I was so busy with my new job and the
podcast and the house and the grad school. So yeah,
I don't know what about you. What are some of
your success and lows, successes and failures.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Yeah. So I filmed my movie this year in February.
And my movie, which is called it was previously called
Fourteen Stories in a Bathroom and we are changing the
title to Bathroom Humor And it's a an anthology film

(01:02:26):
set entirely in bathrooms. And this was a huge undertaking.
I produced it a lot by myself. I did have
a producer on the movie, but a lot of it
was me running around putting this thing together, casting it,
and it was a huge thing for me to do.

(01:02:49):
And we shot it over the course of two weeks,
and I was stressed beyond compare. I have never been
so stressed in my life. It was really miserable, but
I did it. Yeah, and I finished filming it and
we're I'm still editing it. But that just felt like
such a huge success to like actually do that something

(01:03:11):
I've wanted to do my entire life, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Yeah, great for I mean, that's such an accomplishment, dude, serious.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Yeah, And like I still think about it all the
time where I'm like, thank god I did that. It
was there were many times where I'm like, I don't
know if I want to do this. I'm like so miserable.
It was just so miserable. The diarrhea again. I And
then around that time, we launched this podcast, which I
would say was a big success for this year, getting

(01:03:41):
this podcast on the ground, off the ground and into
the world and continuing to do it every week. And
so that's another big success. That's huge for me. Huge.
I kind of learned started learning the piano, which has
been fun for me and something I want to do

(01:04:01):
for a long time. And so that feels like a success.
And I, you know, raised, I've been raising a little
baby patience, and that feels like a success. It is
a success. You're little success, my little success, And that's
what I say to her, I say, you're my little success.
Patients failures, you know. I think I wish that my

(01:04:29):
kind of you know, sitting, my usual state of being
is misery, and I wish that feels like some sort
of failure. So I feel like I got pretty stressed
out this year, and that's not a failure, you know.
But I hope to be more successful at not feeling

(01:04:55):
that way next year. And I'm with you. You could
have eaten better, could have exercised more, could have That's
about it, though, I mean could have read more books.
How many books did I read this year? I don't
even want to know the answer.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
I don't even want to know either. Listen, I have
When I moved, I literally picked up maybe thirty issues
of The New Yorker that I thought I could have
a subscription. I could, Like, I go through this thing
where I'm like, I can have a subscription again. I

(01:05:32):
have enough time. I'm finished with grad school.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
I have a lot of.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Time to read.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
No, I like fucking have been collecting those thirty issues
totally unread. I was like, I'll just put these in
a box. I don't know what I'm going to do
with them, but.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, totally. I think the fact that, like,
you know, I haven't created you know, some sort of
I don't know, but like, uh, what do you call it,
like a gooning room with multiple screens or something like that?
You know, like I consider that a success that I'm
not in that place. Gooner is what you're saying, That

(01:06:11):
I'm not a gooner. God did you read that article?
You bet? You bet? YOUA?

Speaker 1 (01:06:17):
And I was fucking rocked, Like I was rocked in
a way that I didn't think was possible. Like I
was like, certainly, I've I've read about and experienced so
much depravity in my life that I cannot be shocked
by anything.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
Uh huh, right, Like you're.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Just like think about it. I mean, I'm almost fifty,
I've seen a lot of fucked up shit, and there's
I cannot be swayed, Like this is like impossible.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
No, I was.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
It felt like I was reading like gonzo journalism from
the eighties where it was like somebody discovered a subculture
that is so fucked up.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Yeah that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
I mean, I was actually proud that there was a subculture.
Like I was like, oh, supculture doesn't even exist anymore, right,
Like nobody does anything weird anymore. Everybody's just ai No, no, No,
there's still there's gooner.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
There's still out there that if you don't know what
we're talking about, there's this article called the goon Squad, Loneliness,
Porn's Next Frontier and the Dream of Endless Masturbation by
Daniel Collitz, published in Harper's magazine and it covers this
whole gooning subculture, which, God help you, I mean, listen,

(01:07:41):
that writer.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
Needs to win a Pulitzer.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
I'm not even joking.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Absolutely, I'm not even joking. I was like, I have
not read anything so interesting shocking. I mean, it just
felt like it came from another time. I was like, oh, man,
like that is so depraved. I have not in this
rock since, you know, reading about like Giugi Allen or

(01:08:04):
something when I was a change.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
I mean, here's a quote. He says, gooning is a
new kind of masturbation, more precisely, a new kind of
masturbation at the heart of an Internet based, pornography obsessed
gen Z dominated subculture, every bit as defined and vibrant
as the hippies or punks in their prime. What an

(01:08:29):
incredible one thing to say? What a thing to say?

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
Holy shit?

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Uh so yeah, I don't have a goon cave. So
that's good. It's something I truly don't like. I can't understand.
And it's funny because the writer is like I tried,
I really did try, man, and I don't. I couldn't
get that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
I mean honestly, like, he is like Hunter s Thompson
like he's an absolute gonzo journalist that went into a
fucking dark dark place and out, So good for him. Okay,
So maybe related to this to bring it back to
movies or culture or whatever, give me one prediction for

(01:09:12):
twenty twenty six. What do you think is there gonna
be like a film trend for next year? Or do
you what do you what do you see cinematically for
twenty twenty six?

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Great question. I wonder if we're hitting our limit on
elevated horror. I mean that already happened this year, but
that a twenty four style movie I think is really
in decline, and I think it will continue to decline
in twenty twenty six. And that's my I guess that's

(01:09:46):
my number one prediction. I don't know if I have it.
What about you?

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
I feel like we're gonna say they're gonna, I swear
to god, they're gonna like fucking pull some shit. Hollywood
is Hollywo's gonn They're gonna be like, let's do a
biopic of like Timothy Larry and make Glenn Powell Timothy

(01:10:11):
Larry Like they're gonna like they're gonna put him. They're
gonna make him into some kind of countercultural person like
and we're all gonna be shocked. It's gonna be like
something like that, Like they're gonna take some really famous
milky white actor and put them in a shocking role

(01:10:35):
that's gonna piss everybody off. I just don't know what
that's gonna be yet.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:41):
Interesting, everybody was trying to like, you know, everybody was
trying to say, like, oh my god, I can't believe
Timothy Chalamee is gonna play Bob Dylan. Actually that kind
of came and went no no fanfare, like he actually
was charming and people liked it. But it's gonna be
another thing like that. There's always one where it's like
Sidney Sweeney is gonna play Frida Kayla or so, I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
Whatever, like some Freeda too and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
Freda to starring City Sweetye. It's like Mug two. Anyway. Uh,
that's that's my prediction. Something something fucked up cinematically will happen, guaranteed.
I don't really know. Beyond that. Trends, I feel like
we're really in the political stuff right now. We're in

(01:11:36):
the political ship. I feel like that might continue the world.
I think that will continue. I think that will continue.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
I yeah, And I think people have a taste for
it or like there's a thirst for that type of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Yeah, and that every single actor and actress will be
fully on ozembic and will whittle away into nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
Oh my god, yes that is yeah. I mean that's
that's happening. So there is sort of this thing, this
kind of like the great smoothing I call it, where
it's like AI and ozempic. It's bringing everything to a

(01:12:21):
sameness that is really uninteresting and there's like a smoothness
to everything that is really boring. And I'm hoping that
I don't know, I'm hoping that we get away from
this at some point, Like I just want some more

(01:12:43):
DIY rough around the Edges movies to come out, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Yeah, I want to say that. I think that's true.
I think there's a lot of people that are actually
like pulling away from what did I see the other
day that was so so funny. Feel like there's like
kids that are into like manual telephone calls something and
it's like I was like, oh, you mean like landlines

(01:13:11):
or something like. It was something like that where they
were like, oh, I'm really into like analogue listening, which
is like, oh, you mean like listening to the radio
in your car or something like. It was like some
kind of like new fangled way of calling something that
we used to do, a trend that's based on sort

(01:13:31):
of people's rejection of like social media and the Internet
and AI. And I was like, this is so crazy.
We're all just going back to the way it used
to be.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
And I know it does sort of seem like in
a way we've reached the end of the Internet, because
I think there was this looming thought of AI really
like oh, what's going to happen when that arrives and
it's here? Yeah, And once you see it, you're like, yeah,
this this is kind of nothing to me. And so

(01:14:00):
people are like reversing course and like checking out, yeah,
like analog radio and you know, listening to CDs now.

Speaker 1 (01:14:11):
So well, I mean that's the thing is that, like TikTok,
which I was obsessed with this year, started becoming less
fun to me when the AI stuff started happening, When
like people started posting AI videos, I was like, man,
this fucking.

Speaker 2 (01:14:22):
Sucks, Like yeah, And I think that's why TikTok is
so great because it does there is like a rawness
to it and it's still entertaining. And I think if
there's a way to kind of combine that raw TikTok
energy into a film space, like if kids are spending,
like I wish there was more of a pipeline from

(01:14:44):
TikTok to like movies. You know, like these kids that
know how to visually do things?

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
Are you talking about theater? Is that what you're is
that you're making your analog comparison. It's like, you know,
I wish there was a space where people could like
just be raw and themselves and not use computers and
AI oh the theater.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
But I mean I do think, yeah, there needs to
be more of a return to theater to film. Sure,
Like I think I think that I that there is
a that is true, but I think film needs more
theater injected into it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
I guess, yeah, maybe we need to bring back I agree,
what is that like Danish thing that Lauris von Treuer
talk with. Maybe we should bring back dog by ninety five,
We should bring back dog Dog Theen ninety five absolutely
put some rules on this ship.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Anyways, I don't know anything else about twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
We made it. We made it. We made it, and
it was a fucking crazy year times very depressing and
very hard. But we're at the end.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
We made it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
We have this great podcast. We have great listeners, and yes,
great listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
I have a great co host in Casey O'Brien wowl.
This year has been a treat getting to know you more,
getting to work with you on this project. You're a
great creative collaborator. It's been a real delight getting to
make this podcast with you. I'm very thankful for that.
That was a success.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
That was a success. Back at you, all right, So
we're going to dive into this episode's a section called

(01:16:35):
my Area of Expertise, which is essentially where we bring
on a guest to talk about their area of film
expertise or maybe their specific passion for something that's niche,
whatever it is. And this week we have somebody who
I'm super excited to talk to. I met her when
I was living in Los Angeles many years ago, and

(01:16:58):
I was kind of tending not to be a fangirl,
because honestly, this woman has had her hands in pretty
much every bit of pop culture that I grew up with.
I mean, ranging from you know, the comics that were
in the back of magazines that I loved growing up,
to working on The Simpsons, to working for The Times,

(01:17:19):
the Village Voice. She's done graphic novels about her work
in the restaurant business, which was where I really, you know,
began to really love her work because I also used
to wait tables and it felt like I was reading
the memoirs of someone that I had worked with or

(01:17:40):
something in the past. And just such a great artist,
I mean, honestly, a cartoonist, comic book artist, illustrator, writer, humorists,
worked on Peeby's Playhouse, worked on everything that you've ever loved,
and she's here to talk about her area of expertise.
Please welcome everyone. Mimi Pond, Hello.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
Hi, glad to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Hi, thanks for being here. I'm I'm honored that you
decided to take some time out to chat with me
about your.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
I wouldn't have missed it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
It's so good to see you again.

Speaker 1 (01:18:14):
Yeah, it's good to see you too. I Before we
get into the nuts and bolts of your area of expertise,
which by the way, is great and I can't and
I can't wait to talk to you about it. I
really wanted to start off with talking about your newest
graphic novel, because I feel like the last time I
saw you, which was many years ago in la you

(01:18:38):
mentioned that you were working on this book, or that
you would you were at least talking about the subject
of the book. And I started thinking back, and I
was like, that must have been at least five years ago,
So it feels like you've been working on this new
book for a long time. And I was wondering, Yeah,
let's talk about it. So what's the name of it.
I'm holding it up but nobody can see it, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
It's called Do Admit The Mitford Sisters and Me, And
it's a graphic biography of Britain's famous Mitford Sisters, who
were born between nineteen oh four and nineteen twenty and
through their words and actions, managed to influence just about
everything in the twentieth century, from Hitler to the Black Panthers.

Speaker 1 (01:19:23):
Wow, and like they there were how many of them,
six sisters? Six count of six? And they had there
was one brother, there was a brother.

Speaker 3 (01:19:34):
There was a brother Tom. He died in World War Two.
And there's a biography coming out about him. I think
it was already published in Britain, but it's not here yet.
But what we know about Tom is that he basically
just agreed with whatever sister he was with. It just
made his life easier. So when he was with when

(01:19:57):
he was with Diana or you, he was a fascist.
When he was with Jessica, he was a communist. You know,
he just it was just too hard.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
Yeah, Well, I wanted to ask, like, I mean, I
think obviously there's something alluring about like a dynasty of
sisters or you know, like when families are big and
then they have like lots and lots of brothers and
lots and lots of sisters, and how they have all
these like they just have different personalities and interests, And

(01:20:32):
I wanted to ask you, like, what was how did
you come into learning about them? And what was it
about the mit for sisters that you really gravitated towards.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
Well, initially I only knew about Jessica. My parents just
never stopped talking about Jessica because she had written their
all time favorite book, The American Way of Death, which
was an expose of the American funeral industry that was
not only hilarious, but it also appealed to my parents
because it had it sort of had the theme of that's.

Speaker 2 (01:21:01):
How they get you.

Speaker 3 (01:21:03):
Feral.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
As a result of.

Speaker 3 (01:21:07):
Reading that book, they joined a local funeral society and
my mother saved ninety percent on the cost of her
own cremation, which you know would have.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Wow, you know, to death.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
Wow. So wait, your parents joined a funeral society, Like
was that, Well, it's.

Speaker 3 (01:21:24):
It's like a co op for funerals instead of you know, going, oh,
going with your hat in your hand and to the
to the mortuary and like when you're at your most
vulnerable and allowing them to just like siphon out your
life savings to pay for a funeral, you join this

(01:21:45):
group and they negotiate much cheaper rates.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
So it was pretty much through Jessica that you kind
of discovered who she was as part of this family.
And then then.

Speaker 3 (01:21:56):
As an adult, I read her memoir Hans and Rebel,
which was written in nineteen sixty, and that was really entertaining.
I think by then I was an adulton someone you know,
was talking about it and someone turned to me and said,
you know she had sisters, don't you?

Speaker 1 (01:22:12):
And I was like, what.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
So then there was Nancy, who was the eldest, who
wrote The Pursuit of Love and Love and Cold Climate,
two best selling comic novels that have never been out
of print, and she wrote She also wrote biographies of
Louis the fourteenth and Frederick the Great, among others, and

(01:22:35):
was also extremely funny. She was like the ringleaders. As
the oldest, she was setting the bar very high. And
then there was Pam, who was the quiet one, who
nonetheless managed to make things interesting late by becoming a
latent life lesbian. And there was Diana, who married Brian Guinness,

(01:22:57):
you know, one of the heirs to the Guinness beer fortune,
at eighteen, just to get out of the house, and
then three years later, three years and two children later,
she left him for Oswald Mosley, who became the head
of the British Union of Fascist and together they became
eventually the most hated couple in Britain. Unity Following along behind,

(01:23:18):
Diana became obsessed with Hitler, went to Germany to Munich,
successfully stalked Hitler and became his best friend, and then
introduced Diana hit to him and her parents to him.
Her parents became brief accolytes of Hitler until her father

(01:23:39):
until Britain declared war on Germany, and the father had
already been in the Boer War and in World War
One and he wasn't having it. So then there was Jessica, who,
in reaction to unity, decided she was going to be
at age twelve she was going to become a Communist.
And then Deborah the youngest, who just said, no, screw it,

(01:24:01):
I want to marry a duke, and she did just that.
She married the younger son of a duke, but his
older brother died in World War Two and she and
her husband became the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. And
then she was tasked with the monumental job of restoring
Chatsworth House, which was this immense country house in the
north of England.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
Fascinating. Well, I will encourage everybody to go out there
and get do admit the Midford sisters and me by
our guest Mimi Pond, because it is like, besides the
fact that the art is credible as it always is,
it's a huge book and it really is like well researched.
I mean, it is like a fantastic historical biography and

(01:24:41):
I feel like you really learn a lot about the
family and learn about the sisters, and it's funny and charming.
So I just love it. So let's talk a little
bit about your your reason for me here, your area
of expertise. I know that you're a big fan of film,
because I think I met you through the TCM Film
Festival when you're a guest there, and so I guess

(01:25:07):
related to that, your area of expertise is British film,
but from a kind of specific period of time, so
it's like between World War One and World War Two
and then a little and then like post World War two,
which some of the best films ever made were created

(01:25:27):
during this era and in this time. So that is
your area of expertise, right, you know, well you can
say that loosely. How much of an expert I am?
I just know what I like?

Speaker 2 (01:25:41):
Of course. Well that's enough to be an expert on
this show exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:25:46):
So let's let's talk like, what are your what are
some of your favorite titles directors? Like, what are some
standouts for this little era?

Speaker 3 (01:25:55):
Well, I think The Third Man would be among my
very favorites, uh, for a number of reasons, because it's
it's set in in just post World.

Speaker 1 (01:26:08):
War two.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
Berlin?

Speaker 3 (01:26:11):
Is it Berlin or Vienna? Now I'm going to see
how much see how much of an expert hand? Yeah,
and everything is in ruins and it's it's fabulously noir,
and it's it also, but it also is about how
you become friends with someone in your youth that you

(01:26:33):
think is this spectacular, wonderful person and then you you
you know, part ways and you you come back together,
uh are you You encounter them again and you realize
this is a horrible person or things are not what
they seemed when you know, when you were young and

(01:26:53):
dewey eyed. So that appeals to me. It reminded me
a little bit of my previous Ephic novels, which were
over easy and the customer is Always wrong, which is
about working in a restaurant in Oakland in the late seventies,
where the main character is a guy who's about ten
years older than the rest of us restaurant workers, and

(01:27:15):
we all thought of him as our groovy beat nick
dad and I you know, I did think of him
that way for many years until it finally dawned on
me that he wasn't perfect. I mean, he was no
Orson Wells in The Third Man, he wasn't selling diluted
penicillin children, but you know, he had he had Clay.

(01:27:36):
You know, he was definitely not perfect, which actually made
him a much more interesting subject and made it possible
for me to to create those books. So, you know,
it's just that that thing that happens to as you
go along in life, where you you have had, you know,

(01:27:58):
a friendship with someone and then later you realize there
was something wrong with that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
And also the noir.

Speaker 3 (01:28:04):
Aspects of it are just spectacular, you know, and the
you know, the cinematography and everything that this character is
learning as he goes as he goes along in search
of his old friend, is just a wonderful It's a
great way to handle the story, you know, just hearing

(01:28:28):
about him, this character from all these different points of view.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
Yeah, it's so interesting too because I think that one
of the first so you know, Carol Read the director
of The Third Man, I think one of the first
Carol Reid movies I ever saw was that movie The
Fallen Idol from nineteen forty eight, which is also sort
of about this theme of like idolizing someone and then

(01:28:54):
realizing that they're not as great as you thought. Like
in that movie, it's all obviously that the kid idolizes
the butler and then realizes that he's probably a murderer.
You know, So it's kind of that that, but I
feel like it fits, it fits the you know what
we're talking about, which is you know.

Speaker 3 (01:29:15):
Sort of another yeah, another one like that, of course,
is Shadow of a Doubt, which you know, Uncle Charlie
comes to it and everyone thinks he's wonderful and and
his young niece is not quite convinced. And god, what
a great movie.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
Teresa Wright is so good in Shadow of Doubt. I
love her so so interesting the way the way.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
Hitchcock is fully capable of portraying strong female characters. And
and then later on he you know, he falls into
that trap of like that you know that the the uh,
the icy blonde and and you know, behaved badly to
his his stars. But like in the first the first

(01:30:03):
version of the Man who Knew Too Much that the
the mother in that in that version is has so
much more of a of a of a completely controlling
role in the in the narrative, you know, like through
her actions, you know, at the end, you know, I
don't want to give it away for anyone who hasn't

(01:30:25):
seen it. But she's she's not in the least bit passive.
She's very active, unlike in the fifties version where Doris
Day just has to sit there, you know, trying to
not lose her mind. I mean, they're both good, but
the first one is so it's so great.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
But let's talk. I think part of what really drew
me to your area of expertise because I'm a huge
fan of these directors, but Powell and Pressburger the Archers
made some of the most incredible, beautiful films. Oh yeah,
all time. Oh yeah, and so and I feel like this,

(01:31:04):
you know, you brought this up when we were talking
about your area of expertise as part of this sort
of collection of films that you're really into, and so like,
what what is it about Powell and Presburger for you
that really grabs you?

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):
Well?

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
I loved I know where I'm going so much, just
so much, because you know, it's it's about a young
British career woman. The war's just over. She's she thinks
she's got it all in the bag. She's she's you know,
been working in London, and she's you know, she's like

(01:31:40):
the she's kind of like an eighties career gal in
you know, nineteen forty six or nineteen forty seven, and
she's she's landed. But the prime catch she's got this
wealthy industrialist who's going to marry her. All she has
to do is get to Scotland and get to this
island off the coast of Scotland where they're going to
get married. And that reminds me of the Midford sisters

(01:32:01):
because their family bought an island, inch kenneths in the Hebrides,
off the coast of Scotland. Deborah said it later. It
took longer to get to inch Kenneth than it took
to fly to Brazil. You had to take a twelve
hour train up to the coast in Scotland and then

(01:32:21):
get on a ferry to one island, and then from
that island you'd get someone to row you over to
inch Kenneth. So and I know where I'm going. Our
protagonist gets to, you know, this one little island and
she's got to get someone to row her over to
this other island where she's supposed to get married. And
that's where things start to go wrong, the weather won't cooperate,

(01:32:43):
and she has to figure out where she you know,
there's all these interesting people come along.

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
And change her point of view.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
And I think my favorite detail from the movie is
when she's trying to make a phone call from a
telephone booth that's next door raging waterfall.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
Oh my gosh, I do love I know where I'm going.
That was like one of the first Palla Presburger movies
I ever saw. But I, I mean, you really can't
deny black narcissists. I just think that God is it
is so good but insane. It's art, it is brought.

(01:33:27):
I became kind of obsessed with it for a long
time because, you know, number one, it's like, you know,
one of the original horny Nun movies, which I feel like,
you know, we've cycled through many at this point, but
I feel like the well, one of the originals you
cannot beat. But I also just the idea of you know,

(01:33:52):
there being this sort of mythical place in the is
it in the Himalayas, where it's just like everybody goes
backs up there and it's just like this environment. It's
like a magical environment that people can't control themselves in.

Speaker 3 (01:34:07):
And then the sexy dude walks in, yeah with short shorts.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
It's freezing and he has short shorts in an open suret. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
But I think that's the thing about the Powell and
Pressburger world is that there is this sort of element
of magic that kind of happens. I mean, I think
about a matter of life and death, which is I
think my favorite Powell and Pressburger movie, just the you
know that is obviously about kind of heaven and alternate realities.
But even in the Red Shoes there's this kind of

(01:34:39):
element of.

Speaker 3 (01:34:40):
I mean, the thing in The Red Shoes that I mean,
it's just such a fabulous movie. But today you look
at it and you think, why can't she have a
career and get married? Right?

Speaker 2 (01:34:52):
Yes, like this like it's almost like, you know, it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
Is like she has to be a nun for dance. Yeah,
oh that's true. And the idea of there's these kind
of themes that occur in their movies. Uh, and you know,
it's like magic choice, women's choices, you know, and obviously
just sort of the visual component of all these films

(01:35:17):
that look really great. Anything, I mean, is there anything
else that you think like another movie that you would
consider part of this, of this passion of yours. I
mean you talked about National Velvet, which I haven't seen
in a very long time.

Speaker 3 (01:35:35):
I mean, the thing, the thing that that I zero
in on on National Velvet is that. And this gets
I don't I don't know why this isn't more of
a thing. It's revealed late in the movie that her
mother had had successfully swung the English Channel and was
an you know, an athlete, and that she you know,

(01:35:56):
she has this scene with her daughter where she like says,
I want this for you. I want you to have
this triumph. I want you to go for your dreams.
And you never you hardly ever see that in movies.
The only other movie I've ever seen it in is
in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where towards the end,
the mother is in labor and they've sent the brother

(01:36:19):
off to get the doctor and the mother is you know,
in labor and is finally able to tell her daughter,
I'm sorry I couldn't be there more for you, because
you know, your father died and I've been busy trying
to hold it together. But you know, I want you
to have all the things that you want to have
and I want you to have your dreams and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:36:40):
And it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Brings me to tears every time. Mimi, I wanted to
ask you, you know, graphic novels are such a oftentimes
cinematic art form. How do you find yourself inspired by
watching movies? Hugely? Hugely? I mean in comics.

Speaker 3 (01:36:55):
Yeah, I'm surprised that cartoonists don't talk more about it,
or I mean, it's it's everything. I mean, filmmaking is
the ultimate visual storytelling, duh. And like there's so much
to learn from watching movies and telling a story visually. Uh,
that there's so much more economical than what a lot

(01:37:16):
of people do.

Speaker 2 (01:37:18):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:37:18):
And with with do admit as a graphic biography. I
wanted to avoid the pitfalls of of graphic biographies, which
wind up being a lot of talking heads. So I
was drawing on everything I possibly could, from film stills
to movie posters to you know, I've got a whole

(01:37:42):
Pinterest page called Strong Mitford Tea that you know, anyone
can look at. Now I've opened it up to the public,
but I've got thousands and thousands of images that I
used to just try to tell the story visually instead
of just relying on you know, blahmah blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah bla raw it. I think more

(01:38:03):
cartoonists should take note of of, you know, filmmaking and
visual storytelling because it's just everything. Can I talk about
one more? Like my favorite, my favorite uh expositional scene
that that tells you everything you need to know without
without hardly any dialogue, is in Billy Wilder's The Apartment.

(01:38:28):
I'm also just a giant Billy Wilder fan. When Jack
Lemons has been you know, loaning loaning out his apartment
to to his evil boss, Fred McMurray, who's been having
assignations there, and he finds a compact with a cracked
mirror that obviously belonged to one of Fred's dates, and

(01:38:48):
he hands it back to him, uh earlier on. So
now you know, now it's the new year, I mean
the Christmas party at the office and Shirley maclain is
the elevator girl that he's and friendly with, and and
he's he's gotten his rays because he's he's been pimping
out his apartment to Fred McMurray, and he wants to

(01:39:10):
show Shirley McLain this new hat he's bought to celebrate
having a raise, and he he puts on the hat
and she says, here, take my my compact and he
opens it and he realizes it's her compact. She's the
one who's been sleeping with Fred McMurray, and everything changes
and it's just that simple.

Speaker 1 (01:39:28):
It's just brilliant. Yeah. Man, the movie breaks my heart
and I and it makes me hate Fred McMurray so much.

Speaker 3 (01:39:37):
Oh I know, he's so he's so deliciously evil.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
Oh yeah, like even worse than like double indemnity or
something like. He just was like, he's just such a
gross gross double indemnity.

Speaker 3 (01:39:51):
I'm Once I saw Dead Men Don't wear plaid, I
realized it was so glaring that that Barbara Stanwick is
wearing this this blonde wig through the whole thing, and
I can't It's like, I can't not see that wig
every time I watch that movie.

Speaker 1 (01:40:07):
It's such a wig. Oh, it's such a wig. I
know it's cracks me up, but yeah, I grew up
watching my three sons, so it was like I always
thought that Fred McMurray was like a good a good
dad or whatever, and then I'm like, ah, but all
these other films, they just like make them into such
a such a bad dude. Oh well I could. I
could literally sit here and talk to you about these

(01:40:28):
movies all day long, Mamie, because I just am such
a fan and we're such fans of yours too, I mean, honestly,
like I like I said, I want to encourage everybody
to go out there and get do Admit, which is
Mimi's graphic novel about the Mitford Sisters, and they're a
fascinating bunch. I learned a lot about them and I

(01:40:48):
think it's great. But also your other graphic novels, The
Customer is Always Wrong, which is the best name for
anything over easy? Is there anything else? Are you working
on anything? Now? I mean you just completed this huge
task of the Midford Sisters. What I mean, I'm still
promoting it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:08):
I'm thinking, you know, there's a the and me part
of the Midford Sisters. And me is I insert some
autobiographical aspects of my own life into their story just
to contrast, you know, like growing up in San Diego
in the nineteen sixties with the Cotswolds in the nineteen

(01:41:28):
twenties and people seem to have responded really well to that,
so I think memoir might be the next thing on
the horizon.

Speaker 1 (01:41:38):
Oh cool, very exciting. Well, thank you so much, Mimi.
It was such a pleasure, and please come back anytime.

Speaker 3 (01:41:48):
You always happy to be back and talking about movies.
We can do a whole one just on wigs.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
Oh, that would be great.

Speaker 1 (01:42:07):
Well, and normally we would provide people with our staff
picks for the week, but considering this is the best
of twenty twenty five episode and all we did was
recommend things to we're not going to do them. Just
watch what we told you to watch from earlier and
that'll be our staff pick.

Speaker 2 (01:42:25):
Right, that's it. Yeah, we had a lot of picks. Yeah,
if you didn't see any of the movies we talked
about today, go see him check them out.

Speaker 1 (01:42:33):
I just want to My dog's taking another dump in front.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
Of well, that usually signals the end of the podcast.
That's true.

Speaker 1 (01:42:39):
What my dog takes a dump to ceremonially end this shit?
All right, Well, listen if you want film advice, or
if you want to reach out to us for any reason.
Casey is always up in them guts by the way,
he's either going to reply to you or we're going
to read your letter or upload your voicemail to the episode,
so you can't lose. But we're at Deer Movies at

(01:43:02):
exactly rightmedia dot com. And like I said, if you've
got the three wisg's, if you've got a film gripe,
you got a film regret or a consensual film group,
we'd love to hear them. And like I said, if
you have a voicemail and you want to leave us
your beautiful voice, record it on your phone, make it
under a minute, email it to us Dear Movies at

(01:43:24):
exactly rightmedia dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:43:26):
That's correct, and please follow us on our socials at
Deer Movies I Love You on Instagram and Facebook. Our
letterbox handles are at Caseyle O'Brien and at m de Chercho.
You can follow us and see that we don't leave
just five star reviews on movies drives me crazy. Listen
to Deer Movies I Love You on the iHeartRadio app,

(01:43:46):
Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and rate
review our show. Thank you Mimi Pond for being on
this episode. It was great talking to you. Talk about
next week bro next week, Jingle Jingle Bells. It's the
Christmas season and we have the Christmas Zaddie himself, Alonzo

(01:44:11):
Dralda is going to be on the This is a
little bit different. He's gonna be on the entire episode.
That's great because we're both friends with him and I'm
excited to have him on to talk all things Christmas.

Speaker 1 (01:44:25):
I'm excited to have him too. He's the king of
Christmas movies, and I feel like he is the one,
if anybody's the one, He's the one to give the
definitive answer to these contentious film at Christmas time questions
like is Zodiac a Christmas movie? Should we be playing

(01:44:47):
Diehard around the hearth, drinking bold wine? This kind of stuff,
like he's the authority.

Speaker 2 (01:44:54):
And he's the authority. Yes, So it'll be great to
have him on. Can't wait to see him all right, Oh, Millie, wow,
what it's the end of the episode. We're at the
end of the year. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:45:11):
We'll see everybody next week perhaps.

Speaker 2 (01:45:15):
Absolutely Bye bye.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
This has been an exactly right production hosted by me
Milli to Cherico and produced by my co host Casey O'Brien.

Speaker 2 (01:45:26):
This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel. Our associate producer
is Christina Chamberlain, our guest booker is Patrick Cottner, and
our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Speaker 1 (01:45:35):
Our incredible theme music is by the best band in
the entire world, The Softies.

Speaker 2 (01:45:40):
Thank you to our executive producers Karen Kilgareff, Georgia hart Stark,
Daniel Kramer and Millie. To Jericho, we love you. Goodbye
Beer

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