Cinebuds

This episode sees our cinematic duo turning their attention to Kiyoshi Kurosawa's new Japanese thriller, Cloud . This film, a hit at the spring film festivals and an Academy Award nominee, explores themes of capitalism through a young man reselling goods online. While some might expect a horror film based on Kurosawa's past work, Cloud is decidedly a thriller that keeps you guessing who to root fo...

Earlier this year, we invited the filmmakers behind Cycle to the podcast for a deeper look at their document about police violence in America. In the months since, Cycle won Best Feature Documentary at the Brooklyn Film Festival and is now gearing up for more screenings and more film festivals around Wisconsin and beyond. So it seemed like a good time to revisit our conversation with directors Lau...

 Director Wes Anderson has done something just about every person in his trade dreams to do: establish an instantly recognizable and virtually inimitable visual style. He’s reached a point in his career at which a member of the moviegoing public could jump in halfway through a trailer with no prompts whatsoever and go, “Huh, Wes Anderson’s got a new film coming out.” On this episode of Cinebuds, w...

With all the enthusiasm and boundless energy of a certain super-canine, we jump all over the new Superman movie that director James Gunn controversially decided to call ... Superman . We try not to give away too much in these descriptions, but it's kind of hard to avoid the fact that our hosts do a lot of gushing in this particular episode. In that way, they took in this film the same way a lot of...

Are you ready for a deep dive into cinema history? That's certainly not the last acquatic pun you'll get from us as we hunt down one of cinema's most impactful movies:  Jaws ! The big-mouthed killing machine (literally ... the many breakdowns the "shark" experienced on set are legendary at this point) turns 50 this year and is as relevant as ever a half-century after essentially creating the conce...

Get ready for a local cinema deep dive as Dori chats with Michael Wendt from Woodland Pattern and Takahiro Suzuki from the aCinema series. Our guests demystify experimental film, explaining why its non-linear, poetic style isn't intimidating as you think and just might unlock new viewpoints you never would've seen otherwise. They share insights into the upcoming aCinema screening series , now in i...

Get ready for fireworks and film! On this special Fourth of July episode of Cinebuds , Dori and Kpolly are talking movies that scream independence. From iconic historical musicals like Hamilton and Yankee Doodle Dandy to all-American sports flicks like A League of Their Own and The Sandlot , they've got a fun list of blockbusters and hidden gems. Whether you're cheering for heroes in  Captain Amer...

In the 40+ years of box-office tracking, the numbers for North America are pretty easy to summarize: up. Almost without exception, the total gross and the number of releases that found their way into theaters rose steadily every year, hitting their peak in 2018 with 993 releases grossing nearly $11.9 billion. The next year saw a slight dip to 910 releases and nearly $11.4 billion — and we know wha...

For a podcast called Cinebuds , reviewing a film called Friendship sounds like a match made in celluloidic heaven. As you’ll hear, that depends on your vision of the afterlife. Just to get this out of the way, your beloved hosts Dori and Kpolly have a wonderful bond that would make a … let’s say questionably entertaining movie. Fortunately, the duo in Friendship — Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd — are...

Because everyone loves a double meaning, Milwaukee Film took one look at the month of June, contemplated it being the start of summer as well as Pride Month, and came up with a movie series titled “ Summer CAMP! ” that covers the latter with just a sprinkling of the former. The 10 films selected for the monthlong run primarily reflect the Merriam-Webster definition of camp as “something so outrage...

We’re switching things up for this episode of Cinebuds and talking about … the theater! OK, sure, Dori and Kpolly talk about theaters all the time in the context of movies. For this installment, they’re talking about live theater being brought to movie theaters to give audiences the chance to experience live theater while sitting in a movie theater. Milwaukee Film has done this in the past and rec...

Reunited, and it feels so good ... After taking a breather during the Milwaukee Film Festival (more on that in a moment), Dori and Kpolly got back behind the microphone to talk about the latest Marvel movie, Thunderbolts* . Due in part to the break in recording, this might be the first time in Cinebuds history that a film changed its title between its release and getting discussed on the podcast —...

On this episode, Dori welcomes some very special guests to talk about a very important film:  Cycle . More than five years in the making,  Cycle takes an unflinching look at the patterns behind police violence in America through the story of Ty’rese West, an 18-year-old from Racine who was shot and killed by Mount Pleasant police officer Eric Giese in 2019 after being stopped for riding a bicycle...

Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Co. The Milwaukee Film Festival doesn’t stop after week one, so neither do we! We’re into the second phase of the annual event, and in the extremely remote chance you thought Dori and Kpolly would run out of films to talk about, rest assured that the folks at Milwaukee Film have provided plenty to cover. Speaking of those folks, programming director Kerstin Larso...

OMilwaukee Film programming director Kerstin Larson joins Dori and Kpolly to talk about the return of the Milwaukee Film Festival, including some of their favorite selections from the two-week event: Sally , a documentary about Sally Ride, directed by Milwaukee native Christina Constantini, is the opening night film. Christina Costantini also directed Science Fair, which was an opening night film...

When you heard the news earlier this month that Val Kilmer died, your mind likely jumped to an image of him from one of his movies. Iceman from Top Gun was no doubt the one that most people conjured. Or was it Doc Holliday from Tombstone ? Or Jim Morrison from The Doors ? Or Madmartigan from Willow ? If you need evidence of Kilmer’s lasting impact on the film world, that should be enough. Even the...

We've got unicorns on the brain! 🦄 On this episode, Dori and Kpolly wrangle their thoughts around the mythically weird and wild recent release, Death of a Unicorn . Forget those glittery gallopers you might be used to. This one from A24 serves up some serious "don't mess with magical creatures" vibes. Our cinematic duo chat about whether this flick gives them the same excited feeling as those old...

We’re a scant two days into April, and Milwaukee Film has lined up a couple series that will keep your eyes glued to the big screen throughout the month — one of which gets all of our attention on this episode of Cinebuds . Because they’re naturally colorful characters, Dori and Kpolly of course wanted to talk about “ Animation April ,” which will cover nearly 40 years of the art form that brings...

On this episode, we dive into the new concert film  Lifers with two of the people who know it best because they lived it: Local H's Scott Lucas and cinematographer Wes Knot. They talk with Radio Milwaukee's Dori Zori about how the idea for  Lifers came about during Local H's COVID-delayed tour and how Lucas wanted to create something beyond a typical concert video, drawing inspiration from movies...

We don’t exactly keep rock-solid statistics for this sort of thing, but to the best of our recollection, this episode of Cinebuds sets a new land-speed record for sheer number of movies mentioned in a single episode. Given the topic, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. In addition to being a Cinebud, Dori Zori is 88Nine’s morning host and — this next one is an unofficial title — queen of the statio...

Cine Are you about to experience the most adorable episode of Cinebuds ever? It’s hard to say definitively, but considering the podcast has somehow never reviewed a film from the Paddington Cinematic Universe, the cute factor will be pretty high for this one. The latest entry in the series featuring the duffle-coat -wearing ursine, Paddington in Peru , puts the premise right there in the title. Pa...

When you subtitle your film The Burden of Black Genius , it’s clear you’re going to venture into heavy territory. That’s something Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson hasn’t shrunk from since adding the job title of director to his extensive resume, and it serves him well again in Sly Lives! To properly navigate the ins and outs of this complex look at a complex man, Dori and Kpolly call on the services of...

The Captain America wing (heh) of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has carved out a logical space over the course of its four movies. Sure, they have the whiz-bang action sequences and solid acting performances as the other MCU entries — most of them anyway — but they’re also palpably political thrillers.  The same is true of the latest entry in Cap’s corner, Captain America: Brave New World, which m...

Live from Milwaukee ... Too easy? Sure. But appropriate considering the subject of this episode, in which we find out hosts diving into Ladies & Gentlemen... 50 Years of SNL Music . While not a movie, per se, the documentary does have movie-ish qualities rolled up into its 3-hour runtime --- most prominently in the meticulous approach of its director, Questlove. The co-founder of The Roots has...

This year for Black History Month, Milwaukee Film tapped its new Black Lens programmer Ty Williams to curate selections that examine various aspects of the Black experience. We didn’t just want to share his picks (although we do that below), so we invited Williams to join this episode of Cinebuds to take us deeper into this month’s programming. As is usually the case when we talk with creatively m...