Cinebuds

When Emily Brontë shared Wuthering Heights with the world back in 1847, the response to the book was … let’s just say mixed. Critics used words like “sickened” and “unsettling” and “a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors” to communicate how unnerved they were by such a scandalous work (something that only got worse when they discovered it was written by [gasp] a woman!!!). In that co...

When Catherine O’Hara died late last month, it was a sizable blow to the entertainment world. Whether it was on television or in movies, she brought a quality that was very particularly “her.” While that’s a tough thing to wrap up in just one episode, Dori and Kpolly give it a shot — with a little help from the Radio Milwaukee family. Fellow O’Hara appreciator Jon Adler joins our familiar cinema-l...

Brrr, it’s cold out there! ❄️  On this episode, Dori and Kpolly lean into the freezing Wisconsin temperatures by discussing their favorite harsh winter movies . Forget the cozy blankets; for the full experience, the hosts suggest cracking a window while you watch these "could be worse" cinematic picks. The duo dives into bone-chilling thrillers like A Simple Plan and the iconic horror of The Shini...

Last February, having just inherited the title of Black Lens programmer at Milwaukee Film, Ty Williams absolutely nailed his selections for a series showing off the range of Black stories that have come to the big screen over the years. Now, he’s putting that UW-Milwaukee film degree to good use once again. This time, however, he pulled in his picks around a particular theme. “ Afrofuturism: Fates...

Grab your tissues and your popcorn (but maybe chew quietly) because the Cinebuds are back to talk about some of the season's biggest buzz films. Dori and Kpolly start with a dive into the beautifully heartbreaking Hamnet from visionary director Chloe Zhao. They explore this historical-fiction tale of William Shakespeare’s family, featuring stunning performances by Jesse Buckley and Paul Mescal, pl...

The death of a public figure can hit pretty hard because we feel like we know those people. For many of us, the feeling runs deeper with the passing of an artist or creator whose work has embedded itself in our daily lives. Milwaukee Film’s currently running “In Memoriam” series stirs up those emotions by honoring people from the film world who we lost in 2025 — instantly recognizable figures, lik...

In the final days of 2025, the Milwaukee music community --- and the wider world --- lost a truly wonderful human being. Will Bush was half of Immortal Girlfriend, the music project he shared with his brother Kevin. Their collaborations were undeniable, and their love of pop culture in general extended well beyond the songs they created together. Back in August of 2024, we invited Will and Kevin B...

We ended 2025 on a high note (or a Hugh note?) with our review of Song Sung Blue , featuring a cameo from multitalented global superstar/song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman. So what better way to start 2026 than by pulling back the curtain on the Milwaukee connections that inspired the recently released biopic? For that, we called in a special guest: local filmmaker Jimmy Sammarco. He was instrumental...

There are so many “firsts” on this episode, we’re honestly not sure what to do with ourselves. Let’s start by telling you (in case you skipped the headline) that we’re reviewing Song Sung Blue , the based-on-a-true-story of real-life Milwaukee couple Mike and Claire Sardina, also known as Lightning & Thunder. Their Neil Diamond tribute act — with occasional departures into ABBA, Patsy Cline an...

Special episodes happen on the regular around here, but this one is something extra special: our live recording right after a screening of the 1988 holiday classic, Scrooged ! We gathered an amazing audience at the Oriental Theatre to watch the movie and have a chat about Bill Murray’s performance as Frank Cross, the youngest network president in television history who’s got a long night ahead of...

This week, our cinematic buddies tackle Guillermo del Toro's latest masterpiece: the new Frankenstein film currently streaming on Netflix. It's a movie he wanted to make since he was 8 years old, and we explore how this master of dark genre handled the classic Mary Shelley story. Dori and Kpolly discuss the film's unexpected body-horror elements and how it manages to balance the unsettling effects...

The divide between people who review things for a living and regular folk has existed since before Robert Green called Shakespeare “an upstart crow” back in 1592. The years since have brought us Mozart (“too many notes”), Psycho (“ falls quite flat ”) and Taylor Swift’s discography, post- folklore . It sounds like we can add Wicked: For Good to the list. The second half of the movie based on the B...

Milwaukee Film’s annual “Season’s Screenings” holiday movie series just got underway this week, and if you're listening to this episode on its release date, that means you’ve only missed one of the 22 selections that will run at the Oriental Theatre between now and Jan. 1 (if you really love The Holiday , you can always fork over $3.99 to stream it). With our resident Milwaukee Film-ite Kpolly, it...

It’s always preferable to have our usual dynamic duo piloting the podcast. But when that’s not the case, it usually means we’re making room for some special guests. For this episode, we’ve got two who know their way around movie making and are using that knowledge to make a positive impact on all of Wisconsin. Writer/director Nathan Deming, who hails from the northern reaches of the state, is smac...

When is a concert film not a concert film? It's an existential question that's particularly fitting for this episode, as we focus on a movie that is literally about death. And also new-wave-slash-electronic-music legends Depeche Mode. The unfortunate intersection between those two subjects is the death of the band's keyboardist, Andy Fletcher, in 2022 and subsequent release of 2023 album Memento M...

In this episode, we take a very special trip … to the Bizarro World. Imagine a place that is the opposite of the Cinebuds universe. A place where the two main characters are awful to their very core. A pair of people who hate everything, including each other. A couple who are … gulp … married. The duo at the center of Roald Dahl’s novel-turned-Netflix-movie The Twits are truly the Bizarro version...

The only thing more plentiful than Halloween candy is Halloween watchlists. Our favorite fall holiday (you heard us, Thanksgiving) was celebrated for the first time more than 2,000 years ago, possibly to recognize the first batch of Circus Peanuts ever manufactured. Fun fact: They haven’t needed to make any more, because no human being has ever actually eaten a Circus Peanut. We’ve just been passi...

Have you ever played a two-player game where the other person keeps getting in your way, inadvertently knocking you into the nearest lava pit or spiky enemy? Anyone who has ever played any of the Super Mario games knows the phenomenon. Well, this is the podcast version of that — except nobody rage quits. To clarify, our hosts didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on Tron: Ares , Disney’s latest attempt to...

It's another special guest episode! Getting the big welcome this time around is one of our wonderful return vistors: Julie Lookatch from the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, who drops by to drop some knowledge about the 28th annual Milwaukee Jewish Film Festival . She's got all the who, what, when, where and why for this year's event that runs from Oct. 26-30 at the Marcus N...

Being the hosts of a big-time podcast like this one gets you access to some pretty cool stuff. It also turns out that being a fan of a big-time podcast like this one can pay off from time to time — like getting the chance to see the most talked about movie in the country before anyone else! We like exaggerating now and then, but for One Battle After Another , our cinematic trio (yes, trio) got the...

We've gotten more than a few chances to talk with special guests about a particular film they're involved in, but this episode takes things to a wonderful new level. At the center of our discussion is the beautiful new documentary, It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley , which received overwhelmingly positive reviews after its Sundance premiere. Through never-before-seen footage of Jeff, as well as interv...

This week, we’re talking all about The Roses , the new film starring the delightful Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch. It's a modern remake of the '80s classic The War of the Roses , telling the story of a lovely couple whose marriage begins to unravel, leading to a hilariously escalating divorce. Join us as we compare this updated version to the original, discussing how its deeper character...

The only way to describe this episode is "super special" considering the person in the spotlight: Milwaukee-born director Michael Schultz!  Milwaukee Film introduced a new annual award named in his honor that recognizes luminary Black directors who have profoundly impacted culture and the film industry. Schultz himself will be the first recipient and, very deservedly, will get a full weekend of pr...

Dori is flying solo for this episode, but she made sure to keep the pod well-populated by inviting filmmakers Alex Lamb and Max Well to chat about their new documentary, The Donn of Tiki . This is a story that demanded to be told: A man living a life that makes it nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction while inadvertently creating the tiki subculture. The entire tale of Donn Beach is a wi...

When Milwaukee Film rolls out one of their carefully curated series, it gives Dori and Kpolly a chance to do two things: Highlight a bunch of great movies around a particular theme. Rest their voices by bringing in a guest host. For the organization's monthly " Cinematic Sisterhood " run of films, they decided to go straight to the top. That's right, Milwaukee Film Executive Director Susan Kerns s...