Well, well, casey O'Brien.

Here we sit by the hearth of the fire at the end of the year.

Warming our toes, drinking our mold wine.

Do you like mold wine?

I like mold wine.

I think it's good, oh cozy.

But yes, we're sitting here next to the crackle of the fire, just thinking about thinking back on twenty twenty five and what a year it was.

This is the first year of our podcast, by the way, dear what it really is, and it's crazy that we've gotten through our first year.

I think we could confidently say when we started it was a little bit bumpy for several reasons, by the way, not just because we were a new podcast.

We were coming from an older podcast that we had done together, but that we were in a new era politically uh huh, which was very much like an old era but just got worse.

Yeah, And I think we were all bracing ourselves for that, mm hmm.

And that has certainly happened, that it has certainly gotten worse.

But yes, we were all in these like I don't know, we were in these conditions to start a podcast brand new, and you know, we had to like settle in get our bearings.

But I feel like over the course of the past twelve months, we've done that and I feel like we're in a good spot.

What do you think.

I think so too.

I think we've definitely settled into our roles really well.

Yeah.

I mean when we launched the podcast, there was a lot going on in the world that was horrifying.

Personally, things were challenging for me.

I was about to film a movie, which I did at the very beginning of this podcast during the launch, and so I was under an immense amount of stress, just constant, just horrible diarrhea.

And I all that my stomach issues have definitely settled down as the podcast in the year has gone on, So that's a blessing.

Yeah, I think.

Yeah, I think for me too.

I started a new job this year, I finished grad school this year.

I bought my first home this year.

What a year for you, Millie.

I know, I've been a fucking mess, let's get serious.

Yeah, So, I you know, I'm just thankful though that we're here.

We are here, and this episode, you know, it's gonna be a best of twenty twenty five and maybe some worst of twenty twenty five, but it's through the lens of Casey and Millie.

You know, our movie journey and personal journey through this year a reflection, So you're gonna get it all this episode.

You certainly are.

We're gonna pick some of our favorite movies from this year, talk about some of our you know, first time watches, because by the way, there is a lot of movies that we watch separately that we had never seen before that are older, and you know, I like to throw in those.

I always think it's really interesting when people list their favorite first time watches every year, because I just think it, I don't know, just cool to see that on people's lists.

And then probably gonna, i don't know, talk a little bit about what twenty twenty six is going to bring both cinematically and personally.

Wow, so much to discuss.

We also have the wonderful cartoonist, artist, graphic novelist, writer Mimi pond On, and she's going to be talking about her area of expertise, which is British films that were made and set between World War One and World War Two.

So you know, we're going to hit some of those poem Presburger films, Hitch among others.

So it's a great conversation and she's so cool.

But we got SOM's going on in this episode.

We do, so please please please stay tuned.

You're listening to Dear Movies.

I Love you.

Dear, I love you, and I've got to know you love me to.

Check the box.

Hello, everybody, you are listening to Dear Movies, I Love You.

This is a podcast for those who are in a relationship with the cinema.

My name is Millie to Jericho, my.

Name is Casey O'Brien.

And yes, like we alluded to in the intro, we are doing our best of the year episode this episode, like.

We teased in the intro, it is kind of a fun it's also like a perfect you know, we launched at the beginning of the year, so it is sort of a perfect time for us to think about the first year of the podcast.

It's amazing, right, it all works very well together.

That's right.

I don't know if you feel this or not as somebody who works in the film business and has a film podcast.

Right, I'm a part of the Atlanta Film Critics Circle here in Atlanta, and so I get screeners now, which I didn't get for a very long time, even though I worked at TCP and for twenty years I was not on the screener train and my boss was, but none of us and the other programmers were.

But when I lived in LA I had friends who obviously worked for the guilds, you know, like writers, Skill, Director's guild SAG or whatever, and they were always get screeners.

And I was always like those fuckers and there's screeners.

It was like a thing, you know, to have them.

It's an elite.

It's a little bit of a like, I don't know what you'd call it.

You know, you know, you're a little bit higher regarded, a little bit higher when you can get on that screen or train.

Well, I mean, I will say this though, now that I'm in the upper echelon of people of human beings, that again, film screeners, it tends to happen.

They just dump them all onto you at once, because they're obviously doing it before the oscars, So it typically tends to start right about now.

So like if you you know, and a lot of movies come out around the holidays, obviously, but it is that big like oscars push, so all of a sudden, your inbox or your mailbox, depending on how you get them.

You're just inundated with films and you're just like, oh my fucking god, Like I don't have time to watch all these movies before February or whatever the oscars are.

I mean, it's crazy how many movies you get.

And so when I was thinking about my best of twenty five lists, I was like trying so hard to go back to certain things that I saw this year, or like watch things that had come out this year, and it was like impossib I'm just like, there are just simply too many movies.

Yeah, there are.

And when you think about trying to come up with like your best of list, you know, I don't know, you're always like, at least I am.

I'm always cognizant of just how many movies there are, like and all platforms, all countries, documentaries, short films, everything, it's just nutty.

I was thinking about that with this episode specifically that to be there are people I know that like see everything that is out, yes, you know, and then there are people who I would put us in this category.

I would say, are like film scholars.

We're trying to see all the quality movies across all of time kind of and I don't think I can do both at the same time.

I don't think I can be the kind of person who sees every new movie and also the kind of person who's, like, you know, trying to watch quality movies from the past as well.

I just don't have time to do that.

Maybe at some point in my life I had time to do that, but I cannot hold both of those together at the same time.

If you have a full time job that isn't reviewing movies, then you can't.

I'm just gonna throw that out there because I've tried it and it's not it's not it's not happening.

If you have a like I said, a full time job that is something that you could be in film like, but it's not solely dedicated to reviewing films, like if you aren't the if you aren't like Justin Chang or you know, Richard Brody or somebody you know, like if you're not Alonzo so Kate or somebody who's like a full time reviewer, like, then you really don't have time to see everything and everything because on top of like you said, on top of the thing about watching new movies is that sometimes you have to go back and watch older movies because they're being referenced or it's just a research that you're in, you know.

But now that I have a full time job, I just can't, you know, hit it as hard and I do.

I mean I and I don't have a family.

I have no excuse.

I have no family, no kids, no husband.

So I do have more time than you.

But I even in spite of that, I it's really hard to hit every single film.

Yeah.

I mean, would you say that movies are your Boyfriend?

Yeah?

I feel like yeah, I mean it is probably that, and it has an original possible title for this podcast, that is right.

Oh, that's a movies my boyfriend.

That's a good little fact.

Let's I'm gonna say it.

The original title we were trying to go for movies or my Boyfriend.

Yeah, And then I found out or somebody found out that one of my friends has already taken that name for their creative project.

And I didn't even realize that.

I was like, oh, like, a, we can't use that because one of my friends is using that first time?

Is there active?

Yeah?

Film projects?

Yeah?

But it was true.

I mean I feel like, I mean, you were down to call it movies or my boyfriend.

Yeah.

I loved it.

Yeah, and I felt it.

I felt that it was like I still do.

Actually, although I do, I'm not pushing out a possibility of having a human boyfriend ever.

Okay, I do cozy up.

To movies in between human boyfriends, because you.

Know what I'm saying.

Absolutely, Okay, Millie, I have a film, Grape.

Can I present this to you?

Is it me?

Am?

I?

Your film Grape?

Millie to Jericho is an annoying person?

No?

I never never, I would never.

You would never be my film Grape.

Maybe I don't know if you might not have any opinion about this, but I just want to throw it out there because it bothers me.

And it has to do with Letterboxed.

Oh so I'm a pretty I used Letterboxed a lot, and I log every film I watch, and I like to write a little review and I rate movies on there.

I do give it a star rating.

Now, some people on letterbox don't like to give star ratings, to which I say, do you That's fine?

That's okay, Yeah, that's fine.

Some people write no reviews whatsoever.

That's fine.

They just want to log the movies.

They're saying, I totally think that's a fair way to use letterboxed Okay, But I follow, or I should say I followed several accounts.

I would say close to five where every movie, or I would say most, if they are rating it, they give it five stars and nothing else.

It's almost like they give it five stars or zero stars.

I see, and this pisces me off and I had to unfollow some people.

Wow, you were that juice your anger for.

This because I use letterbox a lot to be like, like, for example, I saw gross point blank okay, and I'm like, oh, what did my friends or the people I follow, what did they think of this movie?

And I look and I see three and a half stars, four stars, five stars sometimes, but if these people are always giving five stars to everything, it kinda ruins that aspect of the app for me.

I don't know actually how he thought about or how it's all men I will say how he thought about this, and it just kind of like I just feel like it goes against what the app is.

It like is ruining the calibration of the app.

It's ruining the calibration the star system.

No, I agree, and it pisses me off, and I'm pissed.

Okay, I don't know if I've talked about this before, but my way of doing the stars is so deeply flawed and fucked up anyway, because I don't do it all the time, like you said, that's fine.

Part of that is because I don't want to go on record as to having an opinion on certain things.

And I think it's because I just I'm out here.

I'm outside, basically, is what I'm saying.

I'm outside.

And do I worry about that having a film podcast and being a filmmaker, Yeah, I do.

I'm concerned about the things I've done right, but well, and it's.

Like, I don't know.

Sometimes it's like you've got friends that are in movies that you don't like, and you're like, fuck, I ain't writing that, Like I don't want to piss these people off or whatever.

You just like don't care enough to want to rate it.

But then when I do rate something, I typically do a thing where I don't ever really use five stars unless it's for something completely incredible and obvious like Showgirls or Phantom Thread.

For the most part, if I really like a movie, I'm typically going about four or four and a half five stars is I feel like a very obvious play, Whereas I feel like, if you really want to know a movie that I actually liked liked, it's about four four and a half mm hmm.

That's how That's how I do.

My five stars is kind of an all timer.

Five stars is like, oh I love you know, the cutting edge, and everybody needs to know that mcgruber gets five stars, But you know, does the Treasure of the Sierra Madre No it's getting four and a half or whatever.

You know, It's like, that's the thing.

Is that?

But that's my own deeply fucked up way of doing things.

Yeah, So what you're saying is that basically people are only using the star system when they rate something five stars, which I feel is so dumb, and I'm with you.

I think it ruins the calibration of the star system.

But it's also just like, well, okay, so what's your real opinion about everything?

Then?

Not just that, but they're they're giving five stars if they liked it.

It's five stars if they liked it, and zero stars they hate it.

So there's odd to the opinion.

It's more like eighty percent five stars to twenty percent no stars.

Whatsoever.

And it's like it's it fucks up the calibration.

But wait a minute.

So if they're logging something that they don't like, it's.

And that's zero.

But like these people that I follow, it seems like they're you know, and I'm kind of this person too.

It's hard for me to dislike a movie.

I rarely give and this is a truthful review.

I rarely give less than three stars because I just like, I love movies, and even if they're I can see why they're not good.

I usually like them.

But these and so I think these people have the same sort of mindset.

But it's like if I were to give a movie three stars, and in their mind the equivalent of how they liked a movie was maybe a three star quality movie, they'll give it five stars instead.

It's crazy.

Also, don't even get me started on the hearts.

I don't be I don't know how to.

I don't know how to incorporate that.

Maybe either, and there are people that I know that don't rate anything and then the only heart things that they liked.

I'm kind of okay with that, but I don't.

I think it's too tricky.

It's like what it seems like isn't five stars the equivalent to a heart?

Oh?

I know.

It's like sometimes you sing saying five star rating, no heart, You're like, what does that mean?

Do's a heart?

What does a heart mean?

Listen?

I feel like there's probably a whole other podcast to be done just about the taxonomy and on the thing going on in the rituals of letterbox.

For sure.

Well, I know my friend Lucey, she doesn't like it when people do funny little reviews.

She wants people to do serious reviews.

I can't stand by that whatsoever.

Lusam.

I can't really either, but I understand what like Lusey's opinion, and I like that there are opinions about the proper way to use letterbox.

Yeah, I mean, for example, she would hate this, she would absolutely hate this.

But the the last review I left on Letterbox that has twenty likes as of today was for the movie Zodiac from two thousand and seven, which we watched for the podcast, and all I wrote was no punctuation.

By the way, I concur that an aqua velva looks insane but tastes delicious.

That's important, that's pertinent in the movie.

That's my review.

No, I don't put a period.

It's my observation.

Now that could be construed as being funny or like not serious.

But when I look back at that, I'm like, oh, I know exactly where I was in that movie.

I can pinpoint the vibe immediately, which is important.

Yeah, for a diary to be like, oh, here's my diary of shit that I watched this year.

Oh man, I remember that aquavel of a real, real good you know.

See, this is my most Can I read you my most liked review on letterbox?

Yes, yeah, say go ahead.

It's from twenty twenty one.

It's eyes wide shut.

Okay, movie I love.

Gave five stars, and oddly, which I never do, I also liked it, so I gave it a five stars and a like.

But this is my review.

I watched this movie for the first time before i'd had sex, and I thought it was okay.

But now I've had a bunch of sex and I'm married, and I have to say, this is a perfect film.

So and that got a lot of And that's a quippy, little funny review.

You know.

Do you want to know my why?

Yes?

I do.

Most popular.

It just it just took the place of my long time most popular review for the Way We Were.

My most popular review was for the movie A Complete Unknown from twenty twenty four, and again no punctuation.

My review is feeling absolutely robbed that the history books never told me Johnny Cash offered Bob Dylan some bugles outside of the Newport Folk Festival.

Does that happen in that?

Because it can't sane.

I was like, there's like a super.

Johnny Cash just hanging out outside of a fucking motel and he like pull you know, goes in.

It was convertible and pulls out a box of bugles corn chips and it's like.

Hey, you want some, and bow like that bugles were created before nineteen eighty seven.

Let me tell you.

I actually did an Instagram, uh some kind of like Instagram story about it because I was fucking shocked.

I was like, is why would you put that in a biopic?

Like, well, I don't say, like why that was that a fact that happened?

It was Johnny patch into bugles and we didn't notice.

Like big Bugle has its fingerprints all over this movie.

I was like, what a detail to put in a biopick?

So I wrote that that that review was my most popular, So I like, I, I can't not do these types of reviews.

Lucy.

Of course, that's that's that's your that's that's how you engage in a loving fashion with film.

I get it exactly.

I'm the same way.

So anyways, yeah, well we got to move on to our film film Gripe accepted.

Thank you, thank you for accepting, stamping it, approving it.

Yes, we got to move on to our film diary.

Let's open that sucker up.

God, this has been a stinky diary all year.

It's been a stinky diary.

It's been too It's funny.

Even though I had a film podcast this year, I feel like I was I didn't watch enough movies.

I could have done a better job.

I feel like I failed our listeners, I failed myself, I failed Martin Scorsese.

I just feel like I don't know.

You know, it was interesting about the film Diary that it gives me sort of a baseline tempo for your life, because it's like, oh, there are times where you're like, you absolutely have zero movies watch, and then you watched eight movies, like during Halloween.

I'm like, okay, yeah, that's what happens is that around October case he gets the itch and he starts I get the juice, losing his goddamn mind on movies, So you know it's good.

Mellly, What did you watch?

Okay?

I watch three films?

Wow?

No, pretty good?

Pretty good.

I don't know how I did that considering how crazy things have been at the New House.

So I just managed though.

Number one.

I saw twenty twenty five's The Smashing Machine.

Wow, and I mean spoiler alert.

Did that make your top three best movies of the year?

Absolutely not?

Uh, how'd you think I?

God helped me for some reason.

I'm a root for the rock and I don't know why I want him to succeed.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

No, it's it makes sense.

I mean, he's he's kind of irresistible.

Where is he from?

Like?

Where is he from?

He's kind of like my type southside Asian ee type.

Isn't he Is he from like the Philippines?

Or is he like.

He's Simoan Samoan?

That's right, Okay, that's close.

So for that reason, I'm kind of down, although I do think that, like, oh my god, I was thinking about this in terms of Okay, let me just back up and say this before I get into this.

Okay, this movie is interesting because it is like, is this like the first movie that the one of the sav Dy's directed posts Breakup or something.

Yeah, So we have The Smashing Machine that is directed by Benny Safty, and then we have Marty Supreme with Timothy Shallomey coming out soon, which is directed by the other Safty what's his name, Josh Josh, Yeah, Josh Safty.

So well, they're kind of pitted against each other a little bit.

Well, and like Benny did the Nathan Fielder Show with Emma Stoke or whatever.

Yes, but this was wasn't this?

The The Smashing Machine was the first feature length film that he did without his brother, I believe.

So I don't really know I to act like I was like, oh, I understand this fine nuances of when Benny Safty doesn't work with Josh Safty and I don't know, I can't even tell.

Maybe it would have been different if they did it together.

Who the fuck knows.

All I know was that I sort of felt like I knew what was going for, but I also felt like there was a couple of misses, like I, here's the thing about Dwayne the Rock Johnson.

I really wanted him to be able to pull this kind of character off, that kind of like sensitivo gentle giant type that has like a drug problem and has you know, confidence issues and you know self esteem issues, this kind of thing.

I just felt like he wasn't able to get there one hundred percent.

That's how I feelt.

And then I started thinking about is there another wrestler that I that could be in prosthetic makeup that could possibly have done it?

And I was thinking, well, I don't know what about like Dave Boti.

Or I was gonna say, I've been impressed with Dave Bautista.

I feel like he actually has developed into a great actor, and I've seen him in stuff that I'm like, he looks vulnerable and it makes me feel and he takes it very seriously as a craft and not that The Rock doesn't, but I just I think Dave Bautista maybe could have gone where The Rock could end.

Yes, I totally agree.

You know, my favorite movie of twenty twenty four The Last show Girl.

He was in that, and he was great in that He's got something else.

There's like an extra layer of nuance to his characters that I feel like would have served him really well in the Smashing Machine.

But anyway, The Rock, I just don't think The Rock has dialed in like it.

I like Dave Bautista, and it seems like he's getting a lot of work in interesting projects too, Like he he's good in Dune, he's freaky in Dune.

Yeah, and uh yeah, yeah, well.

It's an interesting film Smashing Machine because it was kind of like really understated, which I'm not like, I'm not turned off by that, but I do feel like I was missing that pull into that main character, you know, like when he started crying when he lost the match, I was like, is he upset?

I can't tell what's going on.

I know, yeah, but the prosthetics are insane.

He looks so huge.

Yeah, he looks I mean, he looks like like an actual smashing machine.

Yeah, all right, what else did you watch?

So?

I was turning on TCM to watch our friend Cad and Mark Gardner, friend of the podcast, and his co writer Willow maclay, of their amazing book about transfilm images.

It's called Corpses, Fools and Monsters.

They were on TCM and they both each hosted a night of films, and Willow did the first night, and she picked a great Robert Altman film that I'd seen before called Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean from nineteen eighty two, and yeah, it's a it's an interesting film.

I mean, it kind of feels like a play.

And it's I've never seen it.

Yeah, it's like it's When I first saw it, I had it took me a while to get used to it because it feels like it's being it feels like it's happening in one big room, which it kind of is.

The way that it's being shot, though, feels like it's kind of like television a little bit.

Uh.

There's kind of interesting angles happening, and it's kind of like an ensemble female cast, which is the best thing about it.

I mean, you've got like share Karen Black, Sandy Dennis, Kathy Bates, who's amazing in it.

You also have Mark Patton, who was most famously in the second Nightmare on Elm Street sequel.

He is in the film.

And it's just it's an interesting movie.

It's basically about a group of people who were obsessed with James Dean in the fifties and then they get together, you know, many years down the line and kind of reunite, and you know, it's just about their interpersonal relationships.

And I won't give it away, but obviously it was playing during a trans Images Film festival, so I'll just throw that out there.

But yeah, it's good to see that again.

I liked it a lot more.

I've seen it like a couple of times.

I liked it a lot more now than I did.

I think the first time I.

Saw it so okay.

And then because I was watching TCM the next night, I they're doing there a month on Rock Hudson, and so I had to sit down and watch All That Heaven Allows from nineteen fifty five.

Again.

I've seen it like five times easily.

You're a fan of this movie.

Have you seen this movie?

Oh?

Yeah, it's amazing.

It's incredible.

Listen, great fall movie.

Oh I was gonna say it was the perfect movie to watch when it's chilly, the leaves are turning, snow's falling.

I mean it's like you just want to snuggle up with Ron Kirby, Like.

I just want to go to New England.

Yeah, I want to peep some leaves.

I mean, this is extremely horny alert.

I'm just gonna throw this out there, but like Rock Hudson as Ron Kirby is has got to be the most attractive film character in film history.

Can I read you my letterbox review?

Very sure?

Yes?

Yes please?

Rock Hudson is interdimensionally hot in this movie.

His sexiness could bend time.

And that's how I felt.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

I mean, besides the fact that Rock Hudson is just a beefy Illinois boy and has dark hair and you know, it's just handsome.

His character is a fucking gardener who's like a bohemian who like basically decides to walk away from like capitalism and mainstream patriarchal white crust society to like live in the woods and restore an old mill.

And are you joking?

It's like a fucking dream.

That's that's my dream?

Any real?

He reads Henry David throw and he like has lobster parties with like his friends and his it's like just like really has that jua de vivra, and it's just like, that's got to be the hottest movie character that was ever written.

And he the hottest man plays him.

That's crazy.

It's so funny because it's like he's so attractive, he owns his own business, he has his own house.

But polite society is like, this man is a demon.

I would you know.

That's the thing is that in twenty twenty five he look at this and like, what a bunch of fucking dodos.

Like, by the way, all these people like are that now.

Like every rich white person that I know is got like an Etsy shop that's selling you know, hundred state plants or whatever.

The fuck.

They're all wanting to be bohemian bohos.

Yeah, and yet in this movie they're like, oh my god, he is a I'm a demon.

He's a demon.

I'm a demon?

And do you like the movie Far from Heaven?

I always I kind of think of these in conversation with one another.

Yeah, of course this isn't that what it's inspired Like Parvar Haavn was inspired for Douglas sir.

Yeah, I listen.

Can't you can't get me to not watch a melodrama any era, any situation.

So I love you Ron Kirby, My boyfriend love you Ron kirk I would dump movies to be with Ron Kirby.

Let's just say that.

Wow, here we go.

Okay, there we go.

All right, my turn mine?

Aren't that exciting?

I watched, Well, I guess this movie is exciting.

I watched The Last Seduction with Linda Fiorentino Unbelievable nineteen ninety four.

This comes up in a future episode you'll see what.

Okay, but I thought this was really great.

It's really funny and it is sexy.

But it's a noir, but it doesn't take itself very seriously.

It's almost like I would say, it's more of a black comedy, you know.

Yeah.

So enjoyed that one.

Yes.

And then you know who I really like who's in that movie?

JT Walsh.

You know the actor Jjis.

I love him.

Every time he pops up in something, I'm like, hell yeah, he's just like this kind of gross asshole.

I don't know, he's great.

I love him.

And then I watched you know, I've talked about watching the Decalogue, Man, I talk about this already, the second one.

Okay, I watched the first one.

I watched Decalogue two, two of ten, and this one is about a woman who whose husband is ill and in the hospital, but she starts an affair with another man and gets pregnant by this other man, and she's like, is my husband going to survive because it seems like he's about to die.

Because if he's going to survive, I can't keep this baby.

But if he's going to die, I'll keep the baby.

Wow.

And she asks her husband's doctor, you have to tell me is he going to die or not?

And the doctor has to kind of decide do I tell her the truth, which is I don't know, or do I make up something to save this child potential child?

You know?

So watch it to figure out what they do.

I feel like the decalogue is your quest, your side quest, cinematic side quest.

Right, it's so easy, though.

The movies are an hour.

So well.

Enjoying it though, But that's all I watched.

All right, Well, close it up, goodbye, goodbye, bye, good bye.

I'm a demon.

All right, everybody, we're to talk about the best of twenty twenty five.

Millie, how should we do this?

We both have our top three movies of the year.

I feel like we have some similarities, so I don't really know.

Maybe let's let's wait to do the top three and maybe we can do our best first time watch, favorite first time watch of the year.

Yeah, let's do that.

Okay, what's your what's your favorite first time watch of the year.

Well, I have three love it Okay, cool.

I've talked about these at some point on an episode, So please go back and listen to every single episode we've done so far or the podcast to hear more about them.

That's your homework assignment.

Press pause on this one.

Go back, listen to every single episode.

Come back to this point in time on this episode.

That's right, So okay, you're back.

Let's talk about my favorite first time watches for this year.

So this is again.

This is when you watch a film for the very first time, is an older film and you're watching it this year for the first time.

So I'm gonna go down my list.

I watched Bona Lino Broker's Bona from nineteen eighty had a great Blu ray release this year, and very much enjoyed that.

Speaking of melodrama, love the Lino broken movies.

I hope they put out more.

That's all I'm saying.

He did a lot, so keep him coming.

Then, of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention My favorite first time watched IF twenty twenty five was ephis from twenty twenty four, the.

Movie that Haunted Us Haunted the podcast.

You should get that filmmaker on the show.

We should We should get him as a guest.

We could be like we stalked you for an entire calendar year.

But yeah, we had so many mentions of this movie.

I finally watched it thought it was great.

So that was a great sa I watched and my last one, of course I have Like I was going through all my first time watches on my letterbox, going like, okay, which one is my favorite?

And I was like, no, this has got to be the most, the most pleasurable.

I think it was.

This might have been the most pleasurable movie in the theater experience I had this year, which is what I saw Night of the Juggler from nineteen eighty at the Plaza Theater in Atlanta, Georgia.

My god, what a fucking blast, What a blast.

I've been handing out my copy of the Blu Ray to all my friends being like, hey, you should watch this, but get back to me whenever.

That's great, So doing the Lord's work.

You know, this must be on some sort of tour because this is showing, and this showed in Minneapolis recently at the Trylon Theater.

I get to see it.

No, I couldn't go.

But what's your what's your problem?

Why didn't you go?

I'm sorry?

God, I mean, just you know, put your baby in the closet and then a little give it a couple of blankets and she'll be fine.

She can come, she can watch Oh my god, ish you.

Would take her to Night of the Juggler.

They'd be amazing.

No, I would come on.

I wouldn't want to.

It's a little different than the Teletubbies or Miss Rachel whatever.

But hey, if this was nineteen seventy nine, you'd be saying something totally different.

So I have been exposing patients to a little show called Peewee's Playhouse though.

Oh good, And she's been really loving that.

So that's good, expanding her mind already.

All right, Riturn.

Fabulous, my turn.

Okay, So, I mean all these I've talked about before, but and I talked about this when we were on My Favorite Murder.

But I recently I had at that time recently watched truly madly deeply from nineteen ninety.

I just think this is like such a beautiful, funny, spooky movie.

Yeah, I just highly recommend it.

If you're a romantic you should check it out.

And you like good movies, check out truly, madly, deeply.

Then I one of my movies.

These are movies that have just kind of been stuck in my head this year.

You know.

Another one is Thelma from twenty twenty four starring June's Squib.

This was so much fun and it was so it was so funny and just such a delightful movie, and I just loved everybody in it, June Squib, I loved Richard Rountree.

I love this actor Fred Heckinger, who is also in the first season of White Lotus.

I really enjoy him.

And yeah, Filma is just a treat.

Highly recommend it, so funny, just a heartwarming film.

And then my third one is I watched You Hurt My Feelings by Nicole Holliff Center.

I don't know, I just think about this movie all the time.

Maybe it's because I'm a creative person and I think about how people in my life perceive the stuff that I create.

And in You Hurt My Feelings, she overhears her husband saying he doesn't like her latest book.

And I think that be very painful as a creative person.

And I feel like, I don't know, I just sort of scratched something in my brain.

Would you get a divorce?

No, I wouldn't get a divorce really, but it would hurt my feelings.

And I would say you hurt my feelings.

Like what Aftricia was like, Casey, let's have a talk.

I know that you just worked your ass off on your first movie, and you know you really like put in a lot of work and creative juice.

But I gotta tell you it is not good.

And I mean that sincerely, like you should probably have not even tempted it.

If she said it like that, I probably would ask for a God, I'd be fucking got it.

If some wouldn't that be awful?

Yeah, somebody like came up to me and said, I'm trying to think of the most creative thing I've ever done.

I was probably like read a book or whatever.

Like somebody said like, oh, Millie, God, that TC Underground book you co wrote was so bad and cringe and awful, and it sounded like you didn't even know what the fuck you were talking about I wouldn't have even signed up to do it, to be honest.

Yeah, I mean that's a institution.

Dude, What can you imagine?

I mean, why would a person say it like that?

But it like, I think the painful thing is that if you overheard that, it's like unfiltered, you know, saying if you like, if you overheard them saying that to somebody, I feel like that would be so painful.

And I mean, you know, when you were reciting the problems that you had, that that you imagine someone saying about your book, those came very quickly.

They were quick on the tongue.

So I feel like you have sensitivities about the work you make, you know, in general, and you're worried that people are going to pinpoint on those things that you're sensitive about.

You know.

Well, it's like air Cobies.

Is that I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my shit it.

Yeah, I mean, you can't help it.

It's like it is like you're laid bareer and if if you like, oh god, if you over hear somebody saying it in this very bleak way, oh my god, I would I would divorce and I would I would, I would have to live in impatient hospital, like I just would be bereft.

Yeah, I would probably be like divorce, quit my job, uh, convert religions.

I mean honest, I don't know, like would be horrible.

So I love that movie though, I just thought it was so Nicole holl Center is so good, I know.

And also she's like justice for socks.

There's like a whole sock.

Can we talk about this the last time?

Your Yeah, I don't get this, not quirky socks.

I like socks as a.

There have been multiple scenes in movies with men at SoC stores in two of her movies, and there might be more.

I haven't even seen all of her movies.

Friends with Money, and now you've hurt my feelings.

Yeah, really, let's get to our top three of the year, shall we?

Okay?

Now, I feel like we'd we came up with these.

I didn't know what hers were before I came up with mine, and unfortunately they're very similar lists or maybe fortunately, I don't know.

Do you think that we should just state the two that we had in common and then we can each talk about the one we didn't have in common.

That sounds good, Okay, So I think do you do you are yours ranked or are they just the top three?

It's just the top three.

I mean they're sort of ranked, but honestly, my top two are pretty much her top two.

Okay, or you know, so you start with whichever one you want to start with.

Well, I will say one of my tops of the year twenty twenty five had to be Matt Wolfe's documentary Pee Wee as Himself HBO Max a Jobber not when it came out right, it was pretty pretty, pretty big.

Oh man, I think about this movie all the time, I feel like, and I do feel like that is sort of what I grade movies on, like how much it stays with me.

Because you'll watch a movie and you're like, man, that was good, and then you don't think about it, and I feel like that means it wasn't that powerful.

But this documentary I think about constantly.

I think about Paul Rubins constantly, and I think about how I want to be viewed as an artist.

You know, a lot of it I think is really interesting how he's like has this sort of difficult relationship with Pee Wee Herman, and how he wants to be seen Paul Rubin as an artist and a creative person, but Peewee gets the credit or other people like Tim Burton kind of get the credit.

And he wants to be seen a certain way, and he even has difficulty in his relationship with the director in the movie.

He wants to be seen a certain way.

And I feel like that's a very powerful thing and I relate to that a lot.

Yeah, I want to be seen a certain way and like how are people seeing me?

Yeah, you know, it's like a very basic human thing that I think is explored in this movie.

And well, and to that point, I think, you know, I talked about this a little bit.

I think we ended up cutting it though, because I went really long and I didn't feel like I was being as articulate as I wanted to be about the point.

But it also reminded me that, you know, we think about the modern context of fame or whatever, or just our identities, and I mean, I think that we're at this point now where we're like, we're definitely so celebrating sort of our authentic selves, right Like, well, however it is, it just reminded me about a time which it wasn't even that long ago, and it's actually there's still plenty of this happening now, where people in the past would sacrifice their kind of personal lives for success, for their creativity, or for their jobs essentially, and they know that what they need to hide would prevent them from becoming successful.

And I think that that was such a big thing for people of his generation, you know what I mean, he claused it himself.

I mean, he was out and then he went back into the closet because he was like, I'm never going to be able to be this person and also be a children's show host, right, And I think that became absolutely clear when he started getting in trouble for like all of these things, which to me are not even that big of a deal, you know, like the idea that he would go to an adult theater who gives a shit, The idea that he would own ephemera from like you know, men's pictorial magazines, which all my friends have those magazines, by the way, And I was just watching a fucking TikTok video of Lance Bass from in Sync who said the same thing.

He was like, Oh, there's no way I could have been gay and in Sync in the nineties.

There's just no fucking way, Like I hit who I was because I wanted to continue to be in this band and make music, so and that was not that long ago, right, And so I don't know, I think that was the message that I was really like focusing in on just to a degree, which is like, you're fucking lucky.

I think if you're able to be completely who you are and be successful and be appreciate ate it and loved, I mean, that's a very hard thing to do, you know.

I don't know, it's just I think that's what makes the documentary so good is that it's like it forces you to think about stuff like that, which is like when would you think about that at all unless you were watching a documentary like mass And by the way, mattis such a great filmmaker.

He's made so many other great documentaries that he made the one about Arthur Russell, which I really really love.

He's said a lot of I mean, I think is by his own words.

He's talked about making films about kind of outsiders, outside artists, you know, which I love so amazing.

Anyway, well, we love that one, and we also I would say this, I would say this is probably the movie I thought was movie of the year, one battle after another.

Yeah, that's definitely got.

To be in huh yeah.

And I mean we did a whole episode about that, so we don't need to go deep on that.

But I will say just I still think about that movie a lot, and it has a lot of weight to it, and it was really incredible.

It was a really incredible film going experience that was unmatched in twenty twenty five for me.

Yeah, I know, I almost felt kind of like bad that I was my number one because I was like, oh, really, the new Paul Talmer Sanderson movies your top film of the year.

What are you like a cidophile or something like that.

But it was I mean, it was triggering as shit.

That's why I think it was part of so effective for me is that I was just like, wow, this is I don't know, it just really hit hard for me considering everything that's happened this year.

Yeah.

Yeah, but uh I yeah, absolutely, it makes me emotional thinking about that movie.

Yeah too, it'll be cool.

I don't think you care about the oscars as much as I do.

Would you say that's true?

That's true?

Yeah, But I hope it wins.

I hope Leo wins another actor Oscar, because I thought it was weird that he won for the Revenant.

I don't know, I just feel like that's not representative of who he is as an actor.

And it'd be cool for a Pta to win a that's director Oscar.

And I think it would be cool for Regina Hall to win an Oscar And yeah, that's my thoughts.

I think it'd be cool.

Have you seen the most recent tiktoks about Leo doing the Mexican whistle in one battle?

That is so funny to me.

Yeah, I mean he got it.

They're like, he did it.

He might have done it the wrong time.

I think that was the only criticism was that he should have done it what he pulled up in the car.

Ah, But I like whatever.

So I also have seen a lot of like, oh, you want someone to vape on screen, you get the King Vapor and that's Leo.

And there's all these like photos of him vaping in real life, you know, And they have those shots of him like vaping in that high school and they're like they're like ten out of ten perfect vape.

He's like a pro.

He does he looks like he knows what he's doing, you know.

We talk about people who smoke cigarettes, like you can tell when they're not smokers.

You can tell when you can tell Leo he knows his way around a vape.

O.

He look at his face.

He he's got the pallor of a smoker.

Oh yeah, I mean he's just you got to appreciate Leo.

He really does bring that old school seventies actor to our modern day.

You know.

All right, So now we diverge slightly.

My other movie that I thought was great of twenty twenty five was twenty eight Years Later.

This is a really delightful I loved twenty eight day Days Later.

And you know, when you do these sequels, like twenty years later, you're like, oh God, what's this.

But it was so good and it was different and it was kind of weird and scary and interesting.

I loved it and I had such a blast singing in the theater.

So that's my other top movie of the year.

That's great.

I haven't seen it, but I think it's interesting that this franchise keeps going.

Yeah, and by all accounts, it's good, right, Yeah, I recommend it.

It's fun, it's like a good time.

I don't know.

I loved it, so, and what about you.

Well, my other top pick of the year, which, by the way, if you look this up, it'll tell you that it was released in twenty four, but it was only a tiff at Toronto International fill Fessel in twenty four.

The limited release and then the wide release happened in twenty five, so I think and I actually think are counting it for the Oscars.

That way, it's being considered as a twenty twenty five film.

Does that make sense?

Okay?

Yes, My other favorite movie of the year is Friendship.

Mm hmmm, Tam Robinson.

Yeah, I mean, talk about a fucking horror movie.

Damn this movie.

Like I was like shook by this film.

It really at tapped into this like secret world that I was so fascinated by, which is straight guys that need friends.

I'm one of those guys.

I gotta see this movie.

I'm kind of scared to see it for that reason.

I mean, this isn't your fault.

I feel like this is society's faults.

Ultimately, Yeah, that you it's other men's fault.

But do you all.

Operating under a system which is destroying you?

Right?

Like that's the thing about when men talk about the patriarchy as if it doesn't affect them, and I believe that that is absolutely untrue.

It affects you, and this movie is proof that it affects you, Yeah, which is that you guys are fucking broken people and you don't know how to make friends, and when you are in an orbit of some dude that you think is like one percent cooler than you, you completely lose your fucking shit and you don't know how to handle it.

I got I will watch this movie, especially because I've been watching The Chair Company obsessively, which is the director of Friendship also directed The Chair Company.

Yes, and it's Tim Robinson's new show, so you got to check that out.

Mill Oh, I definitely have to.

I definitely have to.

Yeah, this was my other favorite movie of the year.

I mean, if you haven't seen it, it's out there, and uh, I recommend it.

It's really really It's funny and dark as fuck is basically why I liked it.

So fabulous fabulous.

Where should we go now, Millie?

You want to do some like honorable mentions things that did that make your top three, but we're very close.

Yeah, Okay.

I also liked Weapons and I liked Black Bag by Steven Soderberg.

Ah, that's The Fastbender, a spy fastpend movie, right, Yes, I really liked that.

It was tight, it was funny and it was exciting.

Yeah.

Well, I didn't really have many honorable mentions, and that could change, actually because sometimes I watch, you know, sometimes like things I'm out at the very end of the year that don't make your list because they came out on Christmas or something, right, So that could change, but you know, I have I would be remiss if I didn't mention, at least mention K Pop Demon Hunters, because not because I thought it was this like fucking groundbreaking cinematic masterpiece necessarily, but just the idea that it was a fucking juggernaut.

It was probably the hugest movie that came out this.

Year, and I hear the songs everywhere.

Well, and I just was I will say the reason why I wanted to give it a mention is because some way it feels like I got legitimized for my interest in K pop this year, where now all these other motherfuckers are coming up to me being like, hey, here are you like K pop?

You know I like that k Pop Demon Hunters.

I'm like oh really, oh really, Now, all of you guys that were making fun of me for like in BTS, now all of a sudden you're like, huh, I might dabble in a little uh.

Little cap whatever, I mean, interesting whatever.

But the hens have come home to roost well and.

Sadly, as I'm always want to do.

I feel like I've followed off the K pop trade a little bit, shut up a little bit.

Really, whoa Millie?

Once it gets legitimized, she's out.

I mean, listen, I'm a trendsetter, and now when it gets popular, I sort of like, okay.

Like, isn't that interesting?

Well, isn't that wow?

She's a big announcement on this episode.

I mean, if you really want to know why, it's because BTS is kind of in this like fellow period right now where they're like working on a comeback which is going to happen next year, where they're going to tour the world and like put out a new album and shit.

On top of that, my personal favorite member of the band, Suga aka Yunki, is literally nowhere to be found.

I think he's gone oh total frank Ocean, Like, I think he is staying out of the spotlight because he had an unfortunate situation that happened to him earlier in the year where he was drunk and fell off of a scooter in front of his own house, which is not a crime in my mind, but maybe he was embarrassed by it, and it's like, fucking am I I don't want doing shit for these people.

I feel like K pop artists, they don't have those sort of flubs.

It feels like, you know.

Which is entirely that there.

It's like their country's fault basically, like I think in America you could be a fucking flop and still show your face on like Jimmy Kimmel and shit.

But it's like there is a whole other It's like a whole other world over there.

I think that you're supposed to be absolutely perfect and they don't even want you to, like tell people that you drink interesting.

So anyway, that's my boy, And I'd always got legitimate reasons for wanting to stay underground.

But you know, when you're a fan of something and you're like, oh, well, they're just not really like doing much right now, you just kind of like out of sight, out of minded a little bit.

So I think that's what's happening.

Besides, I went really hard and heavy on it.

Yeah, now I'm kind of like, Okay, I've I've seen what it can offer me.

Maybe it'll change, Like next year when they come back, I'll probably be a fucking loser again.

But right now I'm like looking at other things.

I'm up listening to other things.

So well, you know, we touched upon that.

You know, we talked about this off Mike, But twenty twenty five, what were some of your successes and failures?

Did you fall off a scooter drunk in front of your house?

I mean, whatever the equ of that is has probably happened for me personally.

I've definitely had embarrassing moments my success.

As I was saying, I mean, I finished my grad program this year, which was fucking looming over my head forever.

I mean I was in that program for like a decade.

Dude, It's huge, Millie, it's huge.

What an unbelievable burden to get off your back.

Yeah, you know, I think I think they felt bad for me.

I will say thank you to all the professors that helped me get the fuck out of there.

They were like, whatever, let her graduate.

Diploma.

Yeah, you go, but it's fine.

It's fine.

I also bought a house, which we talked about.

I that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.

It's painful, but I'm very proud of myself as a single woman to have bought my own house.

I do feel that.

And by way, not for nothing for everybody that used to listen to I saw what she did.

Danielle and I are on the phone like almost every week talking about like, I'm basically her.

Listen to her episodes where she complains about her fucking contractors and like the people that don't want to put the oven in the right place and shit in her house.

And now I'm her.

I'm that person.

So she's been helping me a lot, guiding me through the process.

So I love her very much.

I'm glad we're friends.

So those are some successes failures.

I mean it's like every day is a failure basically until something good happens.

I didn't get arrested this year, which is good.

I didn't.

That's a success.

Yeah.

I mean, I probably like ate too much candy.

I probably could have exercised a little bit more, but I was so busy with my new job and the podcast and the house and the grad school.

So yeah, I don't know what about you.

What are some of your success and lows, successes and failures.

Yeah.

So I filmed my movie this year in February.

And my movie, which is called it was previously called Fourteen Stories in a Bathroom and we are changing the title to Bathroom Humor And it's a an anthology film set entirely in bathrooms.

And this was a huge undertaking.

I produced it a lot by myself.

I did have a producer on the movie, but a lot of it was me running around putting this thing together, casting it, and it was a huge thing for me to do.

And we shot it over the course of two weeks, and I was stressed beyond compare.

I have never been so stressed in my life.

It was really miserable, but I did it.

Yeah, and I finished filming it and we're I'm still editing it.

But that just felt like such a huge success to like actually do that something I've wanted to do my entire life, you know.

Yeah, great for I mean, that's such an accomplishment, dude, serious.

Yeah, And like I still think about it all the time where I'm like, thank god I did that.

It was there were many times where I'm like, I don't know if I want to do this.

I'm like so miserable.

It was just so miserable.

The diarrhea again.

I And then around that time, we launched this podcast, which I would say was a big success for this year, getting this podcast on the ground, off the ground and into the world and continuing to do it every week.

And so that's another big success.

That's huge for me.

Huge.

I kind of learned started learning the piano, which has been fun for me and something I want to do for a long time.

And so that feels like a success.

And I, you know, raised, I've been raising a little baby patience, and that feels like a success.

It is a success.

You're little success, my little success, And that's what I say to her, I say, you're my little success.

Patients failures, you know.

I think I wish that my kind of you know, sitting, my usual state of being is misery, and I wish that feels like some sort of failure.

So I feel like I got pretty stressed out this year, and that's not a failure, you know.

But I hope to be more successful at not feeling that way next year.

And I'm with you.

You could have eaten better, could have exercised more, could have That's about it, though, I mean could have read more books.

How many books did I read this year?

I don't even want to know the answer.

I don't even want to know either.

Listen, I have When I moved, I literally picked up maybe thirty issues of The New Yorker that I thought I could have a subscription.

I could, Like, I go through this thing where I'm like, I can have a subscription again.

I have enough time.

I'm finished with grad school.

I have a lot of.

Time to read.

Yeah.

No, I like fucking have been collecting those thirty issues totally unread.

I was like, I'll just put these in a box.

I don't know what I'm going to do with them, but.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, totally.

I think the fact that, like, you know, I haven't created you know, some sort of I don't know, but like, uh, what do you call it, like a gooning room with multiple screens or something like that?

You know, like I consider that a success that I'm not in that place.

Gooner is what you're saying, That I'm not a gooner.

God did you read that article?

You bet?

You bet?

YOUA?

And I was fucking rocked, Like I was rocked in a way that I didn't think was possible.

Like I was like, certainly, I've I've read about and experienced so much depravity in my life that I cannot be shocked by anything.

Uh huh, right, Like you're.

Just like think about it.

I mean, I'm almost fifty, I've seen a lot of fucked up shit, and there's I cannot be swayed, Like this is like impossible.

No, I was.

It felt like I was reading like gonzo journalism from the eighties where it was like somebody discovered a subculture that is so fucked up.

Yeah that.

I mean, I was actually proud that there was a subculture.

Like I was like, oh, supculture doesn't even exist anymore, right, Like nobody does anything weird anymore.

Everybody's just ai No, no, No, there's still there's gooner.

There's still out there that if you don't know what we're talking about, there's this article called the goon Squad, Loneliness, Porn's Next Frontier and the Dream of Endless Masturbation by Daniel Collitz, published in Harper's magazine and it covers this whole gooning subculture, which, God help you, I mean, listen, that writer.

Needs to win a Pulitzer.

I'm not even joking.

Absolutely, I'm not even joking.

I was like, I have not read anything so interesting shocking.

I mean, it just felt like it came from another time.

I was like, oh, man, like that is so depraved.

I have not in this rock since, you know, reading about like Giugi Allen or something when I was a change.

I mean, here's a quote.

He says, gooning is a new kind of masturbation, more precisely, a new kind of masturbation at the heart of an Internet based, pornography obsessed gen Z dominated subculture, every bit as defined and vibrant as the hippies or punks in their prime.

What an incredible one thing to say?

What a thing to say?

Holy shit?

Uh so yeah, I don't have a goon cave.

So that's good.

It's something I truly don't like.

I can't understand.

And it's funny because the writer is like I tried, I really did try, man, and I don't.

I couldn't get that.

I mean honestly, like, he is like Hunter s Thompson like he's an absolute gonzo journalist that went into a fucking dark dark place and out, So good for him.

Okay, So maybe related to this to bring it back to movies or culture or whatever, give me one prediction for twenty twenty six.

What do you think is there gonna be like a film trend for next year?

Or do you what do you what do you see cinematically for twenty twenty six?

Great question.

I wonder if we're hitting our limit on elevated horror.

I mean that already happened this year, but that a twenty four style movie I think is really in decline, and I think it will continue to decline in twenty twenty six.

And that's my I guess that's my number one prediction.

I don't know if I have it.

What about you?

I feel like we're gonna say they're gonna, I swear to god, they're gonna like fucking pull some shit.

Hollywood is Hollywo's gonn They're gonna be like, let's do a biopic of like Timothy Larry and make Glenn Powell Timothy Larry Like they're gonna like they're gonna put him.

They're gonna make him into some kind of countercultural person like and we're all gonna be shocked.

It's gonna be like something like that, Like they're gonna take some really famous milky white actor and put them in a shocking role that's gonna piss everybody off.

I just don't know what that's gonna be yet.

Yeah.

Interesting, everybody was trying to like, you know, everybody was trying to say, like, oh my god, I can't believe Timothy Chalamee is gonna play Bob Dylan.

Actually that kind of came and went no no fanfare, like he actually was charming and people liked it.

But it's gonna be another thing like that.

There's always one where it's like Sidney Sweeney is gonna play Frida Kayla or so, I don't know.

Whatever, like some Freeda too and.

Freda to starring City Sweetye.

It's like Mug two.

Anyway.

Uh, that's that's my prediction.

Something something fucked up cinematically will happen, guaranteed.

I don't really know.

Beyond that.

Trends, I feel like we're really in the political stuff right now.

We're in the political ship.

I feel like that might continue the world.

I think that will continue.

I think that will continue.

I yeah, And I think people have a taste for it or like there's a thirst for that type of stuff.

Yeah, and that every single actor and actress will be fully on ozembic and will whittle away into nothing.

Oh my god, yes that is yeah.

I mean that's that's happening.

So there is sort of this thing, this kind of like the great smoothing I call it, where it's like AI and ozempic.

It's bringing everything to a sameness that is really uninteresting and there's like a smoothness to everything that is really boring.

And I'm hoping that I don't know, I'm hoping that we get away from this at some point, Like I just want some more DIY rough around the Edges movies to come out, you know.

Yeah, I want to say that.

I think that's true.

I think there's a lot of people that are actually like pulling away from what did I see the other day that was so so funny.

Feel like there's like kids that are into like manual telephone calls something and it's like I was like, oh, you mean like landlines or something like.

It was something like that where they were like, oh, I'm really into like analogue listening, which is like, oh, you mean like listening to the radio in your car or something like.

It was like some kind of like new fangled way of calling something that we used to do, a trend that's based on sort of people's rejection of like social media and the Internet and AI.

And I was like, this is so crazy.

We're all just going back to the way it used to be.

And I know it does sort of seem like in a way we've reached the end of the Internet, because I think there was this looming thought of AI really like oh, what's going to happen when that arrives and it's here?

Yeah, And once you see it, you're like, yeah, this this is kind of nothing to me.

And so people are like reversing course and like checking out, yeah, like analog radio and you know, listening to CDs now.

So well, I mean that's the thing is that, like TikTok, which I was obsessed with this year, started becoming less fun to me when the AI stuff started happening, When like people started posting AI videos, I was like, man, this fucking.

Sucks, Like yeah, And I think that's why TikTok is so great because it does there is like a rawness to it and it's still entertaining.

And I think if there's a way to kind of combine that raw TikTok energy into a film space, like if kids are spending, like I wish there was more of a pipeline from TikTok to like movies.

You know, like these kids that know how to visually do things?

Are you talking about theater?

Is that what you're is that you're making your analog comparison.

It's like, you know, I wish there was a space where people could like just be raw and themselves and not use computers and AI oh the theater.

But I mean I do think, yeah, there needs to be more of a return to theater to film.

Sure, Like I think I think that I that there is a that is true, but I think film needs more theater injected into it.

I guess, yeah, maybe we need to bring back I agree, what is that like Danish thing that Lauris von Treuer talk with.

Maybe we should bring back dog by ninety five, We should bring back dog Dog Theen ninety five absolutely put some rules on this ship.

Anyways, I don't know anything else about twenty twenty five.

We made it.

We made it.

We made it, and it was a fucking crazy year times very depressing and very hard.

But we're at the end.

We made it.

We have this great podcast.

We have great listeners, and yes, great listeners.

I have a great co host in Casey O'Brien wowl.

This year has been a treat getting to know you more, getting to work with you on this project.

You're a great creative collaborator.

It's been a real delight getting to make this podcast with you.

I'm very thankful for that.

That was a success.

That was a success.

Back at you, all right, So we're going to dive into this episode's a section called my Area of Expertise, which is essentially where we bring on a guest to talk about their area of film expertise or maybe their specific passion for something that's niche, whatever it is.

And this week we have somebody who I'm super excited to talk to.

I met her when I was living in Los Angeles many years ago, and I was kind of tending not to be a fangirl, because honestly, this woman has had her hands in pretty much every bit of pop culture that I grew up with.

I mean, ranging from you know, the comics that were in the back of magazines that I loved growing up, to working on The Simpsons, to working for The Times, the Village Voice.

She's done graphic novels about her work in the restaurant business, which was where I really, you know, began to really love her work because I also used to wait tables and it felt like I was reading the memoirs of someone that I had worked with or something in the past.

And just such a great artist, I mean, honestly, a cartoonist, comic book artist, illustrator, writer, humorists, worked on Peeby's Playhouse, worked on everything that you've ever loved, and she's here to talk about her area of expertise.

Please welcome everyone.

Mimi Pond, Hello.

Hi, glad to be here.

Hi, thanks for being here.

I'm I'm honored that you decided to take some time out to chat with me about your.

I wouldn't have missed it.

It's so good to see you again.

Yeah, it's good to see you too.

I Before we get into the nuts and bolts of your area of expertise, which by the way, is great and I can't and I can't wait to talk to you about it.

I really wanted to start off with talking about your newest graphic novel, because I feel like the last time I saw you, which was many years ago in la you mentioned that you were working on this book, or that you would you were at least talking about the subject of the book.

And I started thinking back, and I was like, that must have been at least five years ago, So it feels like you've been working on this new book for a long time.

And I was wondering, Yeah, let's talk about it.

So what's the name of it.

I'm holding it up but nobody can see it, all right.

It's called Do Admit The Mitford Sisters and Me, And it's a graphic biography of Britain's famous Mitford Sisters, who were born between nineteen oh four and nineteen twenty and through their words and actions, managed to influence just about everything in the twentieth century, from Hitler to the Black Panthers.

Wow, and like they there were how many of them, six sisters?

Six count of six?

And they had there was one brother, there was a brother.

There was a brother Tom.

He died in World War Two.

And there's a biography coming out about him.

I think it was already published in Britain, but it's not here yet.

But what we know about Tom is that he basically just agreed with whatever sister he was with.

It just made his life easier.

So when he was with when he was with Diana or you, he was a fascist.

When he was with Jessica, he was a communist.

You know, he just it was just too hard.

Yeah, Well, I wanted to ask, like, I mean, I think obviously there's something alluring about like a dynasty of sisters or you know, like when families are big and then they have like lots and lots of brothers and lots and lots of sisters, and how they have all these like they just have different personalities and interests, And I wanted to ask you, like, what was how did you come into learning about them?

And what was it about the mit for sisters that you really gravitated towards.

Well, initially I only knew about Jessica.

My parents just never stopped talking about Jessica because she had written their all time favorite book, The American Way of Death, which was an expose of the American funeral industry that was not only hilarious, but it also appealed to my parents because it had it sort of had the theme of that's.

How they get you.

Feral.

As a result of.

Reading that book, they joined a local funeral society and my mother saved ninety percent on the cost of her own cremation, which you know would have.

Wow, you know, to death.

Wow.

So wait, your parents joined a funeral society, Like was that, Well, it's.

It's like a co op for funerals instead of you know, going, oh, going with your hat in your hand and to the to the mortuary and like when you're at your most vulnerable and allowing them to just like siphon out your life savings to pay for a funeral, you join this group and they negotiate much cheaper rates.

So it was pretty much through Jessica that you kind of discovered who she was as part of this family.

And then then.

As an adult, I read her memoir Hans and Rebel, which was written in nineteen sixty, and that was really entertaining.

I think by then I was an adulton someone you know, was talking about it and someone turned to me and said, you know she had sisters, don't you?

And I was like, what.

So then there was Nancy, who was the eldest, who wrote The Pursuit of Love and Love and Cold Climate, two best selling comic novels that have never been out of print, and she wrote She also wrote biographies of Louis the fourteenth and Frederick the Great, among others, and was also extremely funny.

She was like the ringleaders.

As the oldest, she was setting the bar very high.

And then there was Pam, who was the quiet one, who nonetheless managed to make things interesting late by becoming a latent life lesbian.

And there was Diana, who married Brian Guinness, you know, one of the heirs to the Guinness beer fortune, at eighteen, just to get out of the house, and then three years later, three years and two children later, she left him for Oswald Mosley, who became the head of the British Union of Fascist and together they became eventually the most hated couple in Britain.

Unity Following along behind, Diana became obsessed with Hitler, went to Germany to Munich, successfully stalked Hitler and became his best friend, and then introduced Diana hit to him and her parents to him.

Her parents became brief accolytes of Hitler until her father until Britain declared war on Germany, and the father had already been in the Boer War and in World War One and he wasn't having it.

So then there was Jessica, who, in reaction to unity, decided she was going to be at age twelve she was going to become a Communist.

And then Deborah the youngest, who just said, no, screw it, I want to marry a duke, and she did just that.

She married the younger son of a duke, but his older brother died in World War Two and she and her husband became the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.

And then she was tasked with the monumental job of restoring Chatsworth House, which was this immense country house in the north of England.

Fascinating.

Well, I will encourage everybody to go out there and get do admit the Midford sisters and me by our guest Mimi Pond, because it is like, besides the fact that the art is credible as it always is, it's a huge book and it really is like well researched.

I mean, it is like a fantastic historical biography and I feel like you really learn a lot about the family and learn about the sisters, and it's funny and charming.

So I just love it.

So let's talk a little bit about your your reason for me here, your area of expertise.

I know that you're a big fan of film, because I think I met you through the TCM Film Festival when you're a guest there, and so I guess related to that, your area of expertise is British film, but from a kind of specific period of time, so it's like between World War One and World War Two and then a little and then like post World War two, which some of the best films ever made were created during this era and in this time.

So that is your area of expertise, right, you know, well you can say that loosely.

How much of an expert I am?

I just know what I like?

Of course.

Well that's enough to be an expert on this show exactly.

So let's let's talk like, what are your what are some of your favorite titles directors?

Like, what are some standouts for this little era?

Well, I think The Third Man would be among my very favorites, uh, for a number of reasons, because it's it's set in in just post World.

War two.

Berlin?

Is it Berlin or Vienna?

Now I'm going to see how much see how much of an expert hand?

Yeah, and everything is in ruins and it's it's fabulously noir, and it's it also, but it also is about how you become friends with someone in your youth that you think is this spectacular, wonderful person and then you you you know, part ways and you you come back together, uh are you You encounter them again and you realize this is a horrible person or things are not what they seemed when you know, when you were young and dewey eyed.

So that appeals to me.

It reminded me a little bit of my previous Ephic novels, which were over easy and the customer is Always wrong, which is about working in a restaurant in Oakland in the late seventies, where the main character is a guy who's about ten years older than the rest of us restaurant workers, and we all thought of him as our groovy beat nick dad and I you know, I did think of him that way for many years until it finally dawned on me that he wasn't perfect.

I mean, he was no Orson Wells in The Third Man, he wasn't selling diluted penicillin children, but you know, he had he had Clay.

You know, he was definitely not perfect, which actually made him a much more interesting subject and made it possible for me to to create those books.

So, you know, it's just that that thing that happens to as you go along in life, where you you have had, you know, a friendship with someone and then later you realize there was something wrong with that.

And also the noir.

Aspects of it are just spectacular, you know, and the you know, the cinematography and everything that this character is learning as he goes as he goes along in search of his old friend, is just a wonderful It's a great way to handle the story, you know, just hearing about him, this character from all these different points of view.

Yeah, it's so interesting too because I think that one of the first so you know, Carol Read the director of The Third Man, I think one of the first Carol Reid movies I ever saw was that movie The Fallen Idol from nineteen forty eight, which is also sort of about this theme of like idolizing someone and then realizing that they're not as great as you thought.

Like in that movie, it's all obviously that the kid idolizes the butler and then realizes that he's probably a murderer.

You know, So it's kind of that that, but I feel like it fits, it fits the you know what we're talking about, which is you know.

Sort of another yeah, another one like that, of course, is Shadow of a Doubt, which you know, Uncle Charlie comes to it and everyone thinks he's wonderful and and his young niece is not quite convinced.

And god, what a great movie.

Ah.

Teresa Wright is so good in Shadow of Doubt.

I love her so so interesting the way the way.

Hitchcock is fully capable of portraying strong female characters.

And and then later on he you know, he falls into that trap of like that you know that the the uh, the icy blonde and and you know, behaved badly to his his stars.

But like in the first the first version of the Man who Knew Too Much that the the mother in that in that version is has so much more of a of a of a completely controlling role in the in the narrative, you know, like through her actions, you know, at the end, you know, I don't want to give it away for anyone who hasn't seen it.

But she's she's not in the least bit passive.

She's very active, unlike in the fifties version where Doris Day just has to sit there, you know, trying to not lose her mind.

I mean, they're both good, but the first one is so it's so great.

But let's talk.

I think part of what really drew me to your area of expertise because I'm a huge fan of these directors, but Powell and Pressburger the Archers made some of the most incredible, beautiful films.

Oh yeah, all time.

Oh yeah, and so and I feel like this, you know, you brought this up when we were talking about your area of expertise as part of this sort of collection of films that you're really into, and so like, what what is it about Powell and Presburger for you that really grabs you?

Well?

I loved I know where I'm going so much, just so much, because you know, it's it's about a young British career woman.

The war's just over.

She's she thinks she's got it all in the bag.

She's she's you know, been working in London, and she's you know, she's like the she's kind of like an eighties career gal in you know, nineteen forty six or nineteen forty seven, and she's she's landed.

But the prime catch she's got this wealthy industrialist who's going to marry her.

All she has to do is get to Scotland and get to this island off the coast of Scotland where they're going to get married.

And that reminds me of the Midford sisters because their family bought an island, inch kenneths in the Hebrides, off the coast of Scotland.

Deborah said it later.

It took longer to get to inch Kenneth than it took to fly to Brazil.

You had to take a twelve hour train up to the coast in Scotland and then get on a ferry to one island, and then from that island you'd get someone to row you over to inch Kenneth.

So and I know where I'm going.

Our protagonist gets to, you know, this one little island and she's got to get someone to row her over to this other island where she's supposed to get married.

And that's where things start to go wrong, the weather won't cooperate, and she has to figure out where she you know, there's all these interesting people come along.

And change her point of view.

And I think my favorite detail from the movie is when she's trying to make a phone call from a telephone booth that's next door raging waterfall.

Oh my gosh, I do love I know where I'm going.

That was like one of the first Palla Presburger movies I ever saw.

But I, I mean, you really can't deny black narcissists.

I just think that God is it is so good but insane.

It's art, it is brought.

I became kind of obsessed with it for a long time because, you know, number one, it's like, you know, one of the original horny Nun movies, which I feel like, you know, we've cycled through many at this point, but I feel like the well, one of the originals you cannot beat.

But I also just the idea of you know, there being this sort of mythical place in the is it in the Himalayas, where it's just like everybody goes backs up there and it's just like this environment.

It's like a magical environment that people can't control themselves in.

And then the sexy dude walks in, yeah with short shorts.

It's freezing and he has short shorts in an open suret.

Yeah.

But I think that's the thing about the Powell and Pressburger world is that there is this sort of element of magic that kind of happens.

I mean, I think about a matter of life and death, which is I think my favorite Powell and Pressburger movie, just the you know that is obviously about kind of heaven and alternate realities.

But even in the Red Shoes there's this kind of element of.

I mean, the thing in The Red Shoes that I mean, it's just such a fabulous movie.

But today you look at it and you think, why can't she have a career and get married?

Right?

Yes, like this like it's almost like, you know, it.

Is like she has to be a nun for dance.

Yeah, oh that's true.

And the idea of there's these kind of themes that occur in their movies.

Uh, and you know, it's like magic choice, women's choices, you know, and obviously just sort of the visual component of all these films that look really great.

Anything, I mean, is there anything else that you think like another movie that you would consider part of this, of this passion of yours.

I mean you talked about National Velvet, which I haven't seen in a very long time.

I mean, the thing, the thing that that I zero in on on National Velvet is that.

And this gets I don't I don't know why this isn't more of a thing.

It's revealed late in the movie that her mother had had successfully swung the English Channel and was an you know, an athlete, and that she you know, she has this scene with her daughter where she like says, I want this for you.

I want you to have this triumph.

I want you to go for your dreams.

And you never you hardly ever see that in movies.

The only other movie I've ever seen it in is in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, where towards the end, the mother is in labor and they've sent the brother off to get the doctor and the mother is you know, in labor and is finally able to tell her daughter, I'm sorry I couldn't be there more for you, because you know, your father died and I've been busy trying to hold it together.

But you know, I want you to have all the things that you want to have and I want you to have your dreams and everything.

And it's just.

Brings me to tears every time.

Mimi, I wanted to ask you, you know, graphic novels are such a oftentimes cinematic art form.

How do you find yourself inspired by watching movies?

Hugely?

Hugely?

I mean in comics.

Yeah, I'm surprised that cartoonists don't talk more about it, or I mean, it's it's everything.

I mean, filmmaking is the ultimate visual storytelling, duh.

And like there's so much to learn from watching movies and telling a story visually.

Uh, that there's so much more economical than what a lot of people do.

Uh.

And with with do admit as a graphic biography.

I wanted to avoid the pitfalls of of graphic biographies, which wind up being a lot of talking heads.

So I was drawing on everything I possibly could, from film stills to movie posters to you know, I've got a whole Pinterest page called Strong Mitford Tea that you know, anyone can look at.

Now I've opened it up to the public, but I've got thousands and thousands of images that I used to just try to tell the story visually instead of just relying on you know, blahmah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah bla raw it.

I think more cartoonists should take note of of, you know, filmmaking and visual storytelling because it's just everything.

Can I talk about one more?

Like my favorite, my favorite uh expositional scene that that tells you everything you need to know without without hardly any dialogue, is in Billy Wilder's The Apartment.

I'm also just a giant Billy Wilder fan.

When Jack Lemons has been you know, loaning loaning out his apartment to to his evil boss, Fred McMurray, who's been having assignations there, and he finds a compact with a cracked mirror that obviously belonged to one of Fred's dates, and he hands it back to him, uh earlier on.

So now you know, now it's the new year, I mean the Christmas party at the office and Shirley maclain is the elevator girl that he's and friendly with, and and he's he's gotten his rays because he's he's been pimping out his apartment to Fred McMurray, and he wants to show Shirley McLain this new hat he's bought to celebrate having a raise, and he he puts on the hat and she says, here, take my my compact and he opens it and he realizes it's her compact.

She's the one who's been sleeping with Fred McMurray, and everything changes and it's just that simple.

It's just brilliant.

Yeah.

Man, the movie breaks my heart and I and it makes me hate Fred McMurray so much.

Oh I know, he's so he's so deliciously evil.

Oh yeah, like even worse than like double indemnity or something like.

He just was like, he's just such a gross gross double indemnity.

I'm Once I saw Dead Men Don't wear plaid, I realized it was so glaring that that Barbara Stanwick is wearing this this blonde wig through the whole thing, and I can't It's like, I can't not see that wig every time I watch that movie.

It's such a wig.

Oh, it's such a wig.

I know it's cracks me up, but yeah, I grew up watching my three sons, so it was like I always thought that Fred McMurray was like a good a good dad or whatever, and then I'm like, ah, but all these other films, they just like make them into such a such a bad dude.

Oh well I could.

I could literally sit here and talk to you about these movies all day long, Mamie, because I just am such a fan and we're such fans of yours too, I mean, honestly, like I like I said, I want to encourage everybody to go out there and get do Admit, which is Mimi's graphic novel about the Mitford Sisters, and they're a fascinating bunch.

I learned a lot about them and I think it's great.

But also your other graphic novels, The Customer is Always Wrong, which is the best name for anything over easy?

Is there anything else?

Are you working on anything?

Now?

I mean you just completed this huge task of the Midford Sisters.

What I mean, I'm still promoting it.

I'm thinking, you know, there's a the and me part of the Midford Sisters.

And me is I insert some autobiographical aspects of my own life into their story just to contrast, you know, like growing up in San Diego in the nineteen sixties with the Cotswolds in the nineteen twenties and people seem to have responded really well to that, so I think memoir might be the next thing on the horizon.

Oh cool, very exciting.

Well, thank you so much, Mimi.

It was such a pleasure, and please come back anytime.

You always happy to be back and talking about movies.

We can do a whole one just on wigs.

Oh, that would be great.

Well, and normally we would provide people with our staff picks for the week, but considering this is the best of twenty twenty five episode and all we did was recommend things to we're not going to do them.

Just watch what we told you to watch from earlier and that'll be our staff pick.

Right, that's it.

Yeah, we had a lot of picks.

Yeah, if you didn't see any of the movies we talked about today, go see him check them out.

I just want to My dog's taking another dump in front.

Of well, that usually signals the end of the podcast.

That's true.

What my dog takes a dump to ceremonially end this shit?

All right, Well, listen if you want film advice, or if you want to reach out to us for any reason.

Casey is always up in them guts by the way, he's either going to reply to you or we're going to read your letter or upload your voicemail to the episode, so you can't lose.

But we're at Deer Movies at exactly rightmedia dot com.

And like I said, if you've got the three wisg's, if you've got a film gripe, you got a film regret or a consensual film group, we'd love to hear them.

And like I said, if you have a voicemail and you want to leave us your beautiful voice, record it on your phone, make it under a minute, email it to us Dear Movies at exactly rightmedia dot com.

That's correct, and please follow us on our socials at Deer Movies I Love You on Instagram and Facebook.

Our letterbox handles are at Caseyle O'Brien and at m de Chercho.

You can follow us and see that we don't leave just five star reviews on movies drives me crazy.

Listen to Deer Movies I Love You on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and rate review our show.

Thank you Mimi Pond for being on this episode.

It was great talking to you.

Talk about next week bro next week, Jingle Jingle Bells.

It's the Christmas season and we have the Christmas Zaddie himself, Alonzo Dralda is going to be on the This is a little bit different.

He's gonna be on the entire episode.

That's great because we're both friends with him and I'm excited to have him on to talk all things Christmas.

I'm excited to have him too.

He's the king of Christmas movies, and I feel like he is the one, if anybody's the one, He's the one to give the definitive answer to these contentious film at Christmas time questions like is Zodiac a Christmas movie?

Should we be playing Diehard around the hearth, drinking bold wine?

This kind of stuff, like he's the authority.

And he's the authority.

Yes, So it'll be great to have him on.

Can't wait to see him all right, Oh, Millie, wow, what it's the end of the episode.

We're at the end of the year.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We'll see everybody next week perhaps.

Absolutely Bye bye.

This has been an exactly right production hosted by me Milli to Cherico and produced by my co host Casey O'Brien.

This episode was mixed by Tom Bryfogel.

Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, our guest booker is Patrick Cottner, and our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.

Our incredible theme music is by the best band in the entire world, The Softies.

Thank you to our executive producers Karen Kilgareff, Georgia hart Stark, Daniel Kramer and Millie.

To Jericho, we love you.

Goodbye Beer