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Episodes
Thursday Aug 24, 2023
Better Than the Movie, Ep. 6: MISERY w/ Mark Rennie
Thursday Aug 24, 2023
Thursday Aug 24, 2023
She's his number one fan. The hilarious and well-read Mark Rennie (TWO OLD QUEENS podcast) joins a reduced BTTM crew to discuss MISERY, the Stephen King novel and the Oscar-winning film from screenwriter William Goldman and director Rob Reiner. (And cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld!!) With a new documentary about King adaptations out in theaters, KING ON SCREEN, the fellas also discuss some other King faves on page and screen.
Produced by Justin Remer and Mick Kowaleski.
Opening music: "Optimism (Instrumental)" by Duck the Piano Wire
Closing music: "Rule of 3s (Solemnity Child)" by Elastic No-No Band
Thursday May 18, 2023
Better Than the Movie, Ep.4: ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET
Thursday May 18, 2023
Thursday May 18, 2023
It's Three Men and a Little Lady! Allan, Justin, and Tyler tackle the long-delayed feature film adaptation of the iconic "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" by legendary children's author Judy Blume. The flick has got a great creative team, including director Kelly Fremon Craig ("The Edge of Seventeen") and Oscar-winning producer James L. Brooks ("Terms of Endearment"). The BTTM fellas talk coming-of-age stories, Rachel McAdams's Oscar chances, Benny Safdie's unexpected suavity, Kathy Bates's Jewish grandmother qualities, and much more. (BTW the movie Justin can't remember around the 10-minute mark is a French-Canadian film called "Slut in a Good Way." Check it out, it's fun!)
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Produced by Justin Remer and Mick Kowaleski
Opening music: "Optimism (Instrumental)" by Duck the Piano Wire
Closing music: "Rule of 3s (Solemnity Child)" by Elastic No-No Band
Friday May 25, 2018
CARINA CHOCANO DISCUSSES HER BOOK YOU PLAY THE GIRL WITH KRISTINA WONG
Friday May 25, 2018
Friday May 25, 2018
In this smart, funny, impassioned call to arms, a pop culture critic merges memoir and commentary to explore how our culture shapes ideas about who women are, what they are meant to be, and where they belong.
Who is “the girl?” Look to movies, TV shows, magazines, and ads and the message is both clear and not: she is a sexed up sidekick, a princess waiting to be saved, a morally infallible angel with no opinions of her own. She’s whatever the hero needs her to be in order to become himself. She’s an abstraction, an ideal, a standard, a mercurial phantom.
From the moment we’re born, we’re told stories about what girls are and they aren’t, what girls want and what they don’t, what girls can be and what they can’t. “The girl” looms over us like a toxic cloud, permeating everything and confusing our sense of reality. In You Play the Girl, Carina Chocano shows how we metabolize the subtle, fragmented messages embedded in our everyday experience and how our identity is shaped by them.
From Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, from Flashdance to Frozen, from the progressive ’70s through the backlash ’80s, the glib ’90s, and the pornified aughts—and at stops in between—Chocano blends formative personal stories with insightful and emotionally powerful analysis. She explains how growing up in the shadow of “the girl” taught her to think about herself and the world and what it means to raise a daughter in the face of these contorted reflections. In the tradition of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Chocano brilliantly shows that our identities are more fluid than we think, and certainly more complex than anything we see on any kind of screen.
Praise for You Play the Girl
“You Play the Girl by Carina Chocano blew my mind. Like a goldfish realizing that water existed, I instantly came alive to the air and the atmosphere of how my Otherness informed my girlhood. Each and every message of being asked to stand still so that I could be seen by the cultural product of male-made entertainment made me scream with recognition. In particular, the Flashdance chapter time-travelled me back to my youth, but holding hands with a clear-eyed, brilliant, hilarious friend. Re-looking at Stepford Wives, I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched and all of the other hypnotic suggestions about my supposed woman-hood made me feel alive and energized and ready to topple the patriarchy. The world is changing for women and girls and here is one of the first steps—going back to do archaeology about what the heck happened to us, how we got colonized. If information is power, You Play the Girl is amsuperpower.”—Jill Soloway, writer, director, creator of Transparent
“Carina Chocano is a brilliant thinker, a dazzling stylist and an intellectual in the truest sense of the word. An important critical work as well as an entertaining personal story, You Play the Girl looks at old archetypes in new and often astonishingly insightful ways and establishes Chocano as a unique talent and crucial voice in the cultural conversation.”—Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
“Carina Chocano unearths the little horrors of our culture’s pervasive, insidious sexism in essays so brilliant and witty you’ll wish her book would never end. Chocano is one of our sharpest, most original cultural observers, and You Play the Girl is as engrossing as it is unforgettable.”—Heather Havrilesky, author of How to Be a Person in the World
Carina Chocano is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine and Elle, and her writing has appeared in Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. A former staff film and TV critic at the Los Angeles Times, she has also worked as a TV and book critic at Entertainment Weekly and a staff writer at Salon. She lives in Los Angeles.
Kristina Wong is solo performer, writer, actor, educator, “culture jammer”, and filmmaker. Kristina’s background in education, art for social change, and community work informs the content of her performances and writing which are both entertaining and thought provoking.
She was awarded the Creative Capital Award in Theater and a Creation Fund from the National Performance Network to create her third full-length solo show Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest exploring the remarkably high incidence of suicide among Asian American women in a world that’s more nuts than we are. She is completing a novel started with the PEN USA Rosenthal Emerging Voices Fellowship.
Tuesday May 22, 2018
ALICIA MALONE DISCUSSES HER BOOK BACKWARDS AND IN HEELS WITH MAUDE GARRETT
Tuesday May 22, 2018
Tuesday May 22, 2018
"After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels..." - Ann Richards
Women have been instrumental in the success of American cinema since its very beginning. One of the first people to ever pick up a motion picture camera was a woman. As was the first screenwriter to win two Academy Awards, the inventor of the boom microphone and the first person to be credited with the title Film Editor. Throughout the entire history of Hollywood women have been revolutionizing, innovating, and shaping how we make movies. Yet their stories are rarely shared.
This is what film reporter Alicia Malone wants to change. "Backwards and in Heels" tells the history of women in film in a different way, with stories about incredible ladies who made their mark throughout each era of Hollywood. From the first women directors, to the iconic movie stars, and present day activists. Each of these stories are inspiring in the accomplishments of women, and they also highlight the specific obstacles women have had to face. "Backwards and in Heels" combines research and exclusive interviews with influential women and men working in Hollywood today, such as Geena Davis, J.J. Abrams, Ava DuVernay, Octavia Spencer, America Ferrera, Paul Feig, Todd Fisher and many more, as well as film professors, historians and experts.
Think of Backwards and in Heels as a guidebook, your entry into the complex world of women in film. Join Alicia Malone as she champions Hollywood women of the past and present, and looks to the future with the hopes of leveling out the playing field.
Alicia Malone is a film reporter, host, writer and self-confessed movie geek. She first gained notice hosting movie-centric shows and reviewing films in her native Australia, before making the leap to Los Angeles in 2011.
Since then, Alicia has appeared on CNN, the Today show, MSNBC, NPR and many more as a film expert. Currently, she is a host on FilmStruck, a cinephile subscription streaming service run by the Criterion Collection and Turner Classic Movies, and she is the creator and host of the weekly show, Indie Movie Guide on Fandango.
Alicia is passionate about classic films, independent movies and supporting women in film. In 2015, Alicia gave a TEDx talk about the lack of women working in film and why this is important to change. In 2017, she was invited to give a second TEDx talk, where she spoke about the hidden stories of the earliest women working in Hollywood. Alicia has also spoken at conferences around America, and because of this, was named of one the 100 Worthy Women of 2016.
Alicia has traveled the world to cover the BAFTAs, the Oscars, the Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival and SXSW. She is a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, and over the years has interviewed hundreds of movie stars and filmmakers.
She also wrote this bio, but knew it would sound way less egotistical if written in third person.
Maude Garrett has spent over a decade as a host on all forms of media including television, radio and digital on an array of shows, but she tries her hardest to keep creating content about her favorite topic: geekdom, founding Geek Bomb back in 2012. Maude's other claim to fame is being best friends with Alicia Malone…