Citizen Dame

We continue our month of aliens attacking America! with another 1996 gem, Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!

Based on the Topps trading card series from 1962, this hilarious, satirical alien invasion movie follows separate groups of Americans who all have very different experiences when Martians arrive and start indiscriminately killing everyone with their death rays. The movie stars Jack Nicholson in two unrelated roles, plus Glenn Close,...

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 Meyers. They're supposedly fighting ove...

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 straight western from Nicholas Ray ...

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 adrenaline and increasingly intense (but...

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 faithful sidekick Ed (Thomas Middle...

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.

But is Jupiter Ascending really a te...

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 written and directed by Drew Pearce...

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 accent as Anna Valarious, Van Helsing i...

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 life, and their hopes for the futur...

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 than twenty years on.

TW for discussio...

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 with her when he meets an exotic Fren...

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 Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Emily...

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 discussions of violence.

Next up: Belle (201...

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 seen and heard. But we try to do j...

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 Williams, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Kyl...