Filmsuck

Asteroid City: Wes Anderson’s Alien Affect

Filmsuck co-hosts Eileen and Dolores fearlessly defy obsessive Wes Anderson fans in reviling his soul-deadening, seersucker suit sensibility!

Somebody Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Hangin’ in the Heartland

In this year's Filmsuck Pride Month episode, we’re talking about the fresh and funny HBO series Somebody Somewhere. It’s just wrapped up its second season and been renewed for a third, so if you haven’t been watching it, now is a good time to catch up with this offbeat show that fans have been raving about and wondering why it doesn’t get more attention. It’s about a forty-something ex-bartender named Sam Miller (played by audacious actor-singer-comedian Bridget Everett) who’s moved back to her small hometown of Manhattan, Kansas, to deal with a family emergency. She struggles to find a way to fit in again with her fractious family and the conservative locals, getting a lot of help from her new friend Joel (Jeff Hiller), a delightful churchgoing gay man who was actually a fellow Show Choir member with her back in high school. He’s wired into surprisingly vibrant LGBTQ scene in the Midwestern flatlands where Sam finds the misfit community that welcomes her in.

Retelling the Stars: Little Richard and Brooke Shields

Filmsuck co-hosts talk about two new documentaries that deal with two wildly different celebrities, each negotiating a lifetime of public performances beginning in childhood--Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields on Hulu, and Little Richard: I Am Everything, available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV+. Rejected by his father, a minister who also operated a bar and sold bootleg whiskey on the side, the blazingly talented and sexually fluid Little Richard left home early and soon combined the influences of gospel singers, raucous blues performers, and drag show sensations to become a rock 'n' roll pioneer of the 1950s. Adored and promoted by her possessive and increasingly alcoholic mother, Brooke Shields became a ubiquitous child model in the 1970s and the center of early scandals about the sexual exploitation of underage girls in photography and film. Her own acting goals were swamped by the overwhelming attention paid to her beauty as she became one of the representative celebrities of the 1980s. Both documentaries seek to retell the stories of these well-known figures in order to assert their lasting cultural significance beyond the limited time periods of their greatest fame, with Little Richard as, obviously, a hugely important and influential figure in the history of modern music, and Brooke Shields as the hardy survivor of a pre-"Me Too" era in the modeling and acting professions, which are still highly precarious and even dangerous to girls and women.

 

Dead Ringers: Dead-on or DOA?

Latest Filmsuck episode! Co-hosts Dolores and Eileen tackle the new Amazon Prime miniseries DEAD RINGERS, based on the 1988 David Cronenberg body-horror freakout classic, and featuring Rachel Weisz in the roles of disturbingly codependent twin gynecologists once played by Jeremy Irons. The miniseries oddly combines feminist topicality with the old good-vs.-evil-twin tropes of melodramas that used to star Bette Davis (A Stolen Life, Dead Ringers) and Olivia De Havilland (Dark Mirror). 

Poker Face: No Bullshit, It’s Good

Latest Filmsuck episode! A tribute to Poker Face, the hit Peacock series created by writer-director Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Glass Onion) with a starring role tailor-made for the marvelous Natasha Lyonne. She plays Charlie Cale, Las Vegas cocktail waitress turned amateur sleuth with a special gift for detecting when people are lying, which is a lot of the time. But it's the lies about murder that obsess Charlie, a character inspired by the classic "howdunnit" mystery-of-the-week show Columbo, anchored by Peter Falk's memorable performance. Both co-hosts love Poker Face, but their discussion focuses particularly on co-host Dolores' appreciation of the show's great fantasy--the eternal road trip across America, and returning to an analog world. 

Emily and the Blasphemed Brontes

Filmsuck co-hosts disagree over the new Emily Bronte biopic, Emily, currently playing in theaters. Dolores likes the way the film depicts the creative development of the author of the towering Gothic novel Wuthering Heights, and Eileen--a Bronte Sisters devotee--hates it so much she's willing to see the world burn if only this film could be destroyed. Well, tastes differ.

Joel Coen in Person: Definitely Meet Your Heroes

Since the recording of co-host Eileen's interview with Joel Coen and Frances McDormand about The Tragedy of Macbeth is not going to be widely released after all--a decision made by Coen himself in accordance with the curating team at the Pacific Film Archive where the screening and interview took place--here's a fulsome discussion of the event with co-host Dolores, who was in attendance that evening! Aspects of the entire "Joel Coen in Person" film series, which took place over two exhilarating weekends in late January, are thrashed through for your listening pleasure!

The Pale Blue Eye: Poe Lingers On

The new Netflix film The Pale Blue Eye, featuring Harry Melling as Edgar Allan Poe when he was an eccentric young West Point cadet, here aiding an alcoholic detective (Christian Bale) to solve the grisly murder of a fellow cadet at the military academy. The film's a train-wreck, and a good opportunity for co-hosts Eileen and Dolores to rant about the strange dearth of Poe biopics and adaptations of his work, considering he was a master of horror and the detective-centered mystery, both thriving genres right now. WTF, entertainment industry?

Holiday Movie Meldown

BONUS Filmsuck episode for holidays! Dolores and Eileen discuss the Christmas movies they can't or won't see because childhood trauma, and offer up some alternative holiday films for your viewing pleasure. Dolores suggests Goodfellas as heartwarming family fare, and Eileen recommends Curse of the Cat People a a lovely yuletide entertainment.

White Lotus: Playing in the Shallow End

Filmsuck co-hosts Eileen and Dolores grapple with their bewildering lack of love for White Lotus, the highly praised, much-Emmy-ed HBO Max series satirizing the vacationing ruling class. Sorry in advance to all those who revere it!