Falling In Love Montage

It's the holiday season and the 107th episode of this chick-flick podcast -- so really what choice did we have but to discuss 2000's High Fidelity with our friend and Beta-Band-stan Shane Kearney? It makes sense if you consider our continued use of John Cusack as a 2021 coping mechanism, or if you know that one of our hosts wouldn't even be here if it weren't for a meet-cute in a record store in Chicago. Anyway, it's one of our top-5 favorite male-led rom-coms, with one of our top-6 favorite guests of the year. Happy holidays.

Merriam-Webster defines "footloose" as "having no ties; free to roam about."  So yeah. It's our podcast and our Octobermonth episode, and we wanted to talk about Footloose with our friend, return guest Ollie Brady. So we did. It's almost spooky how much everybody cut, everybody cut, everybody, everybody cut footloose. Check out some of Ollie's guest turns on the Media-eval Podcast! The very talented Jon Biegen did our spooky intro music -- hit him up if you want him to make music for you! And if you want to hear us talk about an actually scary movie, don't forget we covered Sixteen Candles back in April.

Happy JAN(uary?)-September in October! For this Sept. episode we happen to be releasing in Oct., we brought in Helen's BFF Jan (Thrapp)!  After 20+ years of friendship and 5+ years of Falling in Love Montage, we wanted Jan's first visit to be really formidable, so we spent 2.5 hours (after cutting it down) talking about Onur Tukel's 2016 satirical black comedy about formidable women, Catfight.  Check out Catfight, currently streaming on US Netflix, and check your local county animal control for information about fostering animals.

It's still technically August, which we all know is Valerie's birth month, so for a special gift, we tackled Peter Bogdanovich's 1993 dram-rom-com The Thing Called Love, starring Samantha Mathis and River Phoenix (in Phoenix's last full role). If you've never seen it (and, statistically speaking, a lot of you will have never seen it) -- don't worry, we take plenty of silly, irrelevant tangents too. Note: Helen's audio is a little wonky at parts in this one, but it should still be listenable. And we know you're only here for Dermot Mulroney's hats anyway DID YOU KNOW DERMOT MULRONEY WAS IN THIS??

Enough of the '80s, let's visit "the '80s"! Gena Radcliffe of Kill by Kill joins us to rap about the 1998 Sandler-Barrymore rom-com The Wedding Singer. Check out the Kill by Kill podcast and Gena's writings for The Spool. 

"This is what an entire diaspora of edgelords is to going to base their personality on." -Bill, The Brain "When I smoke locker-weed, I just gotta dance, y'all."  -Helen, The Basketcase "Did you ever have Saturday school? ...If it's expunged, you don't have to tell us." -Valerie, The Criminal We came together on a non-school-day to discuss one more (the last?) '80s movie mentioned by Olive in Easy A. Its chick-flickness may be dubious, but we were still delighted to have our good friend Bill O'Donnell back on to talk about the John Hughes for-real classic The Breakfast Club. We learned a lot about ourselves -- and a whole lot about the effects of athletic tape on hairy buttcheeks. Helen's whiny and pee-filled dog Walter also makes a cameo toward the end. Check out Bill on our When Harry Met Sally episode! Check out Bill's cousin Lisa Genova's new book Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting! And download and/or stream our 100th episode -- 16 Candles -- to help us contribute to Stop AAP

We needed a little break from the problematic '80s, so just for the heck of it, we decided to visit the problematic '90s -- and 1999's beauty-queen black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. But we'll be back with more John Hughes next month! Unless Kirstie Alley stops us. 

OK, we dragged our feet a little getting to our 100th episode -- and getting to Sixteen Candles. We know John Hughes' directorial debut is considered a landmark teen comedy, one that is loved and celebrated. And even coming upon our own celebratory landmark, we couldn't find much to celebrate in this stale cardboard cake of a movie. That said, our discussion of the film's major problems isn't incredibly thorough or personal, and we maybe back off of some things for which we should hold the filmmakers more accountable.  The hosts of Falling in Love Montage are acquainted with sexual assault, and we recognize that --no matter the decade or your age -- we (womxn and men) sometimes lack the language to describe what's happened to us. Sometimes we're conditioned to believe nothing did. Sometimes we're shamed into not disclosing. Also, as white people growing up in the '80s and '90s, we were party to perpetuating stereotypes we learned through cultural osmosis and films like this one. It is our place to hold ourse

I don't have a lot to say about the 1987 teen rom-com Can't Buy Me Love that we haven't already said, so suffice it to say: check out this episode in which we have a lot to say about the 1987 teen rom-com Can't Buy Me Love.

Our hearts and Easy A told us to, so here we are, in February 2021, discussing Cameron Crowe's directorial debut Say Anything with January guest and still-amazing person Michael M. Rader on Galentine's Day and our fifth podcasting anniversary.  That was a run-on sentence, I know, but we've always been able to say anything to you.  Does Say Anything hold up after 32 years? Do we hold up after 5? Listen to find out.  (And again, listen to Michael on WHEEEEEEngs - A Sincere Wings Podcast & We'll Get It Right Next Year: An Adventure in Cinema)

Welcome to 2021! New year, new sweat pants, new episode!  Much anticipated guest and pretend shag of the podcast Michael M. Rader joins us in adorning our bodices with red As ... and it doesn't smell that weird.    Listen to Michael on WHEEEEEEngs - A Sincere Wings Podcast & We'll Get It Right Next Year: An Adventure in Cinema

Happy December 27! We've almost made it through this 2020 nonsense, and we are MAKING THE YULETIDE EXTREMELY GAY with Clea DuVall's Happiest Season. Will Bella from Twilight and Cameron from Halt and Catch Fire find comfort and joy this holiday season? We spoil and ponder this question for about two hours -- happy holidays, from our family to yours!

It's the time of Thanksgiving -- the time we all get together as family to celebrate life's blessings stay home in near-complete isolation and watch another Anna Kendrick movie to soothe our weary souls. This time, the Anna Kendrick movie is FiLM-favorite Paul Feig's sumptuous (Thanksgiving) feast, A Simple Favor. We tried to avoid spoilers when discussing this fun and twisty lady-thriller, so if you like to hear us talk about job interviews and Without a Trace and Jason Priestley, you'll love this one. And we are eternally grateful. You gotta have Faith, you know? #sisters #blessed A Simple Favor is currently streaming on Hulu and Prime Video in the US, so put on your designer bib and dig in.

It's Halloween time, and you know what that means! Probably. I mean, I guess it would mean something spooky or scary maybe? Maybe like some kind of terrifying monster, like a vampire or something? And we do chick flicks, so you know what that means, maybe! A vampire-or-something chick flick, I suppose!  And -- yep, I did a Google search and the only item returned when I look up "vampire-or-something chick flick" is Twilight, so it's your spooky day -- we are finally exploring the 2008 YA adaptation Twilight, and we got our pal and unashamed* sparkly-vampire expert, Elle Riccardi to lend us an ice-cold hand. *Ashamed. A little bit ashamed.

Have you missed our overlong episodes? I'm being waggish, I know you have not. Folks, as sorry as we are about asking you to listen to us go on and on and on and on about Mike Nichols' 1988 Working Girl, perfectly written by Kevin Wade, we'd be more sorry if we didn't talk, joke, and cry for hours about Mike Nichols' 1988 Working Girl, perfectly written by Kevin Wade.  But as we always say to Mick, if you want another podcast, ask another girl. 

John Hodge and Danny Boyle's 1997 Crime/Comedy/Fantasy/Absurdist Tale brings us a literal and figurative celestial cast and everything else about it, well, it's not logical, but we love it.  But is it a chick flick? One bark for yes. 

And now

Happy Pride! As every good brand can tell you right now, we are living in difficult times. So difficult, in fact, that we talked for two hours -- just like in the old difficult times! This month's movie is admittedly pretty white, pretty straight, plenty corporate, hella cisgendered, and doesn't wear a mask (mostly), but this month's movie does happen to be Josie and the Pussycats -- the best movie ever; join the army. This episode is a lot, and it is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Adam Schlesinger (October 31, 1967 – April 1, 2020).  Outtro music: Way Back into Love, written and performed by Adam Schlesinger Co-host Helen appears on episodes of Deep in Bear Country [Episode 247 - Play Ball!] & We'll Get it Right Next Year: An Adventure in Cinema [Mailbag Apocalypse w/ Helen] Check out Limited Cel, a generational Hanna-Barbera cartoon review show, with Mike and Nick Wood. EPISODE 36: JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS (1970)EPISODE 47: JOSIE AND THE PUSSY CATS IN OUTER SPACE  

Well, we kinda lucked into a quarantine McConauMay special event. We recorded one great episode on Magic Mike with our friend Jon Biegen of Stranger Still back in March. Then, when that episode was lost faster than Big-Dick Richie's tearaway pants, we recorded another, even greater episode on Magic Mike with our friend Jon Biegen of Stranger Still in April! And here we are in McConauMay 2020 with a new episode on a new (-to-the-podcast) McConaughey movie and a beloved past McConauMay guest. Everything worked out in the end, and Jon Biegen and Channing Tatum are national treasures. For different, but sometimes similar, reasons. Anyway, enjoy, and happy belated Mother's Day. The movie we're discussing has butts in it.

Nothing makes a woman feel more like a girl than a man who sings like a boy, and nothing makes a chick flick fan feel more like a real podcaster than a very special guest. We were delighted to have The Flop House Podcast's own Dan McCoy join us -- from a very safe distance -- to talk about the 2012 aca-hit Pitch Perfect. We find harmony with Anna Kendrick et al, but we also find plenty to criticize -- so listeners like you don't call the movie names behind its back.  You can hear more from Dan at flophousepodcast.com, follow him at @dankmccoy on Twitter, or catch some of his Emmy-award-winning writing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.