Citizen Dame

This week we're finishing up our month of supposedly straight movies that are very gay, by talking all about the 2002 film, Bend it Like Beckham. from director Gurinder Chadha. Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley star as two soccer players, one from a traditional Sikh family and the other with an overbearing, gender-enforcing mother, who connect through a women's team coached by Jonathan Rhys Meye...

Our month of "straight movies that are totally gay" continues with the 1954 western, Johnny Guitar. Joan Crawford stars as saloon owner Vienna in a small southwestern town. When a heist leaves a man dead, his sister Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) declares war on Vienna and local gang leader the Dancin' Kid (Scott Grady). But Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) is there to...help? This definitely totally...

Welcome to our next Pride Month episode, Vera Cruz or: Westerns Are Totally Gay! This week we discuss the 1954 Western Vera Cruz, starring Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper as best frenemies who head off to fight in the Franco-Mexican War together, just can't stop betraying each other, and spend a lot of time comparing guns. Next up, the women get in on the queer-coded action in Johnny Guitar!

Happy Pride! This Pride Month, we're talking movies that involve the love that dare not speak its name...but come really, really close. First up in our homoerotic quartet is Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break (1991), starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze as two dudes from opposite sides (one an undercover FBI agent, the other a surfer and possible criminal) who come together over their love of adren...

We bring our first Bad Movies We Love series to a close with the best - and by that we mean worst - of the bunch, 2019's Replicas. Keanu Reeves stars as William Foster, a neuroscientist working on a project to transfer the minds of recently deceased soldiers into synthetic brains. Why? Who knows! It's all about science or something! But then tragedy strikes and William, along with his twitchy but...

Next up in our Terrible Movies We Love month is the Wachowskis' divisively weird Jupiter Ascending, starring Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones, a Russian immigrant who discovers she's the reincarnation of the matriarch of an intergalactic family who happens to own Earth, and she's being protected by sky-rollerblading space werewolf Caine Wise (Channing Tatum). And that's just the first twenty minutes. B...

This week, we continue our favorite "bad" action movies with a visit to the Hotel Artemis, a near-future dystopian flick with a convoluted plot, varying levels of quality in its action sequences, and cheesy dialogue. Plus a stacked cast that includes Sterling K. Brown, Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista, Brian Tyree Henry, Sofia Boutella, Charlie Day, Zachary Quinto, and Jeff Goldblum. Hotel Artemis was...

We return this week to kick off our "Terrible Movies We Love" month, which is exactly as it says on the tin. We begin with Van Helsing, Stephen Sommers' bizarre attempt to bring Universal monsters into the franchise era. Starring Hugh Jackman in the TITULAR ROLE as monster-hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, with Richard Roxburgh chewing the scenery as Count Dracula and Kate Beckinsale's inexplicable acce...

This week, the Dames are finishing up our Month of Meg with one of Meg Ryan's directorial achievements: What Happens Later. Ryan stars alongside David Duchovny as Willa Davis and Bill Davis, two long ago lovers who unexpectedly reunite while trapped in a regional airport during a snowstorm. Over the course of one very long night, they talk about their erstwhile relationship, where they are now in...

This week, we discuss a major change of genre and focus for Meg Ryan: Jane Campion's divisive erotic thriller In the Cut (2003), in which Ryan plays a repressed English teacher who gets involved with an NYPD officer (Mark Ruffalo) investigating a brutal murder that took place in her own back garden. The film marked a break from Ryan's quirky rom-com image, and its quality is still debated more tha...

We continue Meg Ryan month with the 1995 romantic comedy, French Kiss. For the first time, Ryan added a new job to her resume: producer. Directed by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill) and written by Adam Brooks (Practical Magic), Meg Ryan stars as Kate, an American teacher living in Canada when her fiancé Charlie (Timothy Hutton) heads off to Paris for a medical conference and winds up breaking up wi...

We kick off a month of films starring Meg Ryan with her first rom-com pairing with Tom Hanks: the existential romantic-comedy Joe vs. the Volcano, about a man who gains a new lease on life by planning to jump into a volcano. Ryan actually plays three very distinct roles in this one! Next week: the criminally underrated French Kiss!

This week we're concluding Women's History Month with the historical fiction, Belle. Amma Asante directed this 2013 film about Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsey, a young, biracial orphan in 18th century England who is raised by her uncle, Lord Mansfield, the Chief Judge who presided over an insurance fraud case that would eventually be one of the steps to ending England's slave trade. The film stars Gu...

We carry on our Women's History Month films with Kasi Lemmons' remarkable Harriet Tubman biopic Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo. While the film received mixed reviews on release, it is more than worth seeing it for yourself, as it explores the life and history of one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad and the psychological and generational trauma of slavery. TW for discussio...

This week we kick off a Women's History series with The Woman King, the 2022 film directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood. Viola Davis stars as Nanisca, an Agoije warrior in the Kingdom of Dahomey, a powerful African kingdom in the 19th century. The film also stars Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu, John Boyega, Sheila Atim, Jordan Bolger, and Hero Fiennes Tiffin. *Clip from The Woman King courtesy of Sony Pic...

We wrap up our Black History Month discussions with the most nominated film in Oscars history: Ryan Coogler's brilliant Sinners, starring Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers Smoke and Stack, who return to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi, to open a juke joint...only to have it invaded by vampires hungry for the blues. A searing, joyful, and blood-soaked film, Sinners really does have to be...

This week, we continue our journey through some recent horror films from Black directors, we discuss Nia DaCosta's 2021 sequel to the 1992 film, Candyman. Yahya Abdul Mateen II stars as Anthony McCoy, a Chicago artist who visits the gentrifying neighborhood of Cabrini-Green and learns about his connection to a decades-old urban legend. The film also stars Teyonah Parris, Colman Domingo, Vanessa Wi...

It's Black History Month and the Dames return for a series of horror films focusing on the Black experience. We start with Jordan Peele's fantastic Get Out, starring Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, who goes home to meet his girlfriend's parents and discovers a sinister conspiracy in her white liberal enclave. Next up: Nia DaCosta's Candyman!

We complete our tribute to Rob Reiner with a look at his 1986 film Stand by Me. Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and Reiner was nominated for the Golden Globe and DGA awards for this adaptation of Stephen King's 1982 novella, The Body. Wil Wheaton stars as 12-year-old Gordie Lachance, a boy in Castle Rock, Oregon in 1959. Along with...

We're carrying on our tribute to Rob Reiner this month with the one of the first (and certainly funniest) rockumentaries of all time: This is Spinal Tap, starring Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer as Britain's loudest and most punctual rock band. This is Spinal Tap was also Reiner's first feature film as a director. Next week, we'll be chatting Stephen King and Stand By Me!

It's a brand new year and we're starting off with a tribute to director Rob Reiner. And what better way to kick off both than with his enduring, perfect romantic comedy, When Harry Met Sally. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan star as two strangers who gradually become friends and then eventually fall in love. Written by Nora Ephron and co-starring Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby, this classic had a success...

For our last episode of 2025, we talk about one of the best movies released in 2025: Wake Up Dead Man, the third film in Rian Johnson's Knives Out series. Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is back to take on a locked-room mystery in the depths (literally and figuratively) of the Catholic Church. Come for the twisty plot, stay for the thematic grappling with faith and humanism, stay even longer for Josh...

This week, Lauren picks the movie and it's the 2011 New Zealand rom com Love Birds, starring Rhys Darby and Sally Hawkins. After Doug's girlfriend leaves him, an injured paradise shelduck named Pierre helps him heal and to find new love with Holly, a veterinarian single mom. Featuring a soundtrack entirely by Queen, Love Birds also stars Bryan Brown, Craig Hall, David Fane, and Emily Barclay.

We wind down the year with some grab-bag faves that we just really want to watch, beginning with a Thanksgiving holiday classic: John Hughes's Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987), in which Neal (Steve Martin) is trapped on a holiday road trip from hell with the friendly, lovable, and disaster-prone Del (John Candy). A forty-five-minute flight to Chicago can sometimes take three days, it seems....

This week we finish out our LA neo-noir series with the revolutionary Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Robert Zemeckis directed this adaptation of Gary K. Wolf's 1981 novel, Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, a hilariously smart satire that leads hard-boiled private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) on a journey to prove one of Toon Town's biggest stars, Roger Rabbit (voice of Charles Fleischer) is not guilt...