Citizen Dame

This week we grapple with the problematics of Chinatown (1974), arguably one of the greatest neo-noirs, with a fraught and complicated history thanks to its director, Roman Polanski. Starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, Chinatown represents the bleakness of noir amid the sunniness of LA, with a hefty dose of political and sexual corruption. Oof. TW for discussions of sexual assault and incest...

We continue our look at Los Angeles-set neo-noir films, this time with the 1997 Academy Award-winning L.A. Confidential. Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and Kevin Spacey star as three very different LAPD detectives in a changing city where some cops embrace the corruption, some look the other way, and some are determined to root it out. An investigation into a series of murders in 1950s Los Angeles thr...

The Dames are back with Halloween hangovers and the start of Noirvember! This month, we're looking at neo-noirs set in 40s/50s LA. We begin with Devil in a Blue Dress, starring peak Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins, an out-of-work machinist who gets caught up in the search for a missing woman, leading him into the seedy underworld and racist high society of the City of Angels. Next week, we'll go...

It's Halloween week! And what better way to celebrate than with the ultimate spooky movie season movie: HALLOWEEN! John Carpenter and Debra Hill's 1978 slasher is a must for fans of the season. But we only recognize the original as the One True Halloween movie. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode, a 17-year-old babysitter whose night is ruined by 21-year-old mask-wearing, knife-wielding hospit...

Spooky Movie Month continues as the Dames discuss the 1986 horror film The Fly. Directed by David Cronenberg, this adaptation of the 1957 film stars Jeff Goldblum as Seth Grundle, an eccentric scientist whose teleportation experiment goes horribly wrong when he splices himself with a fly. The film also stars Geena Davis and John Getz. Clip from THE FLY courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

Spooky Movie Month continues as we look back at the zany 1980 Disney horror movie, The Watcher in the Woods. Adapted from Florence Engel Randall's 1976 novel, John Hough directed the film that was widely panned by critics, pulled from theaters, and given a new ending. The film stars Bette Davis, Carroll Baker, Lynn-Holly Johnson, Kyle Richards, David McCallum, Richard Pasco, and Ian Bannen.

Spooky Season starts in earnest, and we're kicking it off with a movie that scared the hell out of four-year-old Lauren: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Comedy team Abbott and Costello play baggage handlers who run into a bevy of Universal Monsters including Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and the Frankenstein Monster (Glenn Strange), in a creepy castle in...Flo...

This week, we're finishing up our first Cary Grant series AND welcoming Spooky Movie Season at the same time with the 1944 comedy, Arsenic and Old Lace. Adapted from the hit Broadway play, Frank Capra's classic was originally slated for release in 1942, but the stage production was such a big hit that the film was delayed two extra years. Grant stars as Mortimer Brewer, a playwright and confirmed...

Get ready to cry! This week, we're discussing An Affair to Remember, director Leo McCarey's 1957 remake of his own film Love Affair, this time featuring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Come for the mature love story, stay for the soap-operatic melodrama. It's the ultimate chick flick, but you will be sobbing by the end. We also chat a bit about the current state of media and what the Hollywood Blackl...

Cary Grant month continues as we discuss THE quintessential screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby. Howard Hawks directed the 1938 film which stars Cary Grant as engaged paleontologist David Huxley, who is trying to score a one million dollar grant for his museum when he crosses paths with Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn), a wonderfully chaotic disruption to his plans. From a missing intercostal clavic...

Happy September! It's Cary Grant month (because we say it is), so we're starting out with Suspicion, the first film that brought together Grant and Alfred Hitchcock. They would go on to work together on three more films, but Suspicion is probably the most contentious for casting Cary Grant as a maybe-murderer who falls under suspicion from his wife (Joan Fontaine, who won an Oscar for her portraya...

We conclude this Hitchcockian August with the 1967 film, Wait Until Dark. Audrey Hepburn was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Suzy, a woman blinded in an accident who finds herself the accidental target of dangerous drug traffickers, one of whom is a particularly deadly menace. Directed by Terrence Young and based on Frederick Knott's 1966 play, the film also stars Samantha Jones, Al...

Our Hitchcockian August continues with Michael Powell's 1960 film, Peeping Tom. Credited as one of the films that influenced the slasher genre, Powell's film tells the story of Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm), a lonely London photographer who murders women, capturing their fear on film in hopes of creating his own documentary. Creepy, macabre, and bold, Powell's film was not well received upon its rel...

This week, we talk about the meaning of "gaslighting" with the film that originated the term: George Cukor's 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman as a woman slowly driven to the brink of madness by her abusive husband (Charles Boyer). This film also featured the cinematic debut (and first Oscar nod!) for Angela Lansbury, who turned 18 during filming. TW for discussions of domestic abuse and...

For the first of our Hitchcockian films, we discuss the best "Hitchcock film not directed by Hitchcock": Stanley Donen's Charade (1963), a somewhat satirical, fantastically entertaining globe-trotting thriller with a stellar cast featuring Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Walter Matthau. Next week we'll be chatting about Gaslight (1944), which somehow Hitchcock also did not direct.

It's Alfred Hitchcock's birthday month and we're kicking off the celebration with one of his quintessential films: North by Northwest. Cary Grant stars alongside Eva Marie Saint and James Mason in this tale of mistaken identity, espionage, and intrigue. From an attempted assassination via crop duster to the face(s) of Mount Rushmore, one of Hitch's biggest and more iconic films is thrilling, roman...

We close out Pride Month this year with a brand-new film (that's technically a remake, but shhhh): The Wedding Banquet, from Fire Island director Andrew Ahn, and starring Bowen Yang, Han Gi-chan, Lily Gladstone, and Kelly Marie Tran as two gay couples who have to try to play it straight. The result is a beautiful (and hilarious) film about found family and queer identity. We'll be on a break for t...

We continue our Pride Month series with the 2005 lesbian spy rom-com, D.E.B.S. This gem of a movie, directed by Angela Robinson, is the story of a super hot super spy and a super hot super villain who meet and fall in love. Underrated in its time, but finding new popularity in recent years, D.E.B.S. is the kind of funny, silly girl movie we wish there were more of. How this didn't launch a whole s...

The Dames continue Pride Month with the seminal queercore punk-rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell. While Lauren tries to explain Judith Butler, Karen wonders why Hedwig is kind of a dick? Next week: D.E.B.S. and lesbians committing espionage!

The Dames are celebrating Pride Month! And we're starting off with the 1994 road trip movie, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Terrence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pierce star as a trans woman and two drag queens who embark on a road trip across Australia, encountering good, bad, and dangerous challenges along the way.

We close out our Varda series with her penultimate film Faces Places (2017), co-directed by visual artist JR, with whom Varda travels across France, meeting people, taking photographs, and discussing art, image, and the passage of time. We also decide that Godard is a jerk. Next week, we're moving into Pride month viewing with some queer classics and even a brand-new film! First up is The Adventur...

This week, the Dames continue our Varda series with the surreal and unique Jane B par Agnès V. Is it a documentary? Is it an essay film? What is this movie? In another inventive film from Agnès Varda, she sets out to help her friend Jane Birkin experience the film roles she never got to play and her fears about turning 40.

Our Agnès Varda month continues with a discussion of Le Bonheur (Happiness), following the lives of a happy little nuclear family whose happiness gets challenged (or does it?) when the father begins an affair. Deeply feminist and gorgeously filmed, Le Bonheur fools you into thinking its one thing and then becomes another. We do recommend watching the film before listening to the podcast! Next week...

This month we are (finally!) exploring some of the works of the great Agnès Varda, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave. First up, we're starting with one of her most widely seen: Cléo from 5 to 7. Corinne Marchand stars as the titular Cléo, a young singer waiting for important medical results. Over the course of 90 minutes, Cléo tries to distract herself from the agonizing wait, first among...

We close out 1987 with a quirky one: Steve Martin's adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac: Roxanne, starring Daryl Hannah as the titular intellectual love interest of C.D. (Martin), a small-town fire chief with a brilliant mind and a prominent proboscis. This is a really fun way to end this series! Next up we'll have an entire month of Agnes Varda, starting with her first feature Cleo from 5 to 7, so s...