Cinebuds

Milwaukee Film’s annual “Season’s Screenings” holiday movie series just got underway this week, and if you're listening to this episode on its release date, that means you’ve only missed one of the 22 selections that will run at the Oriental Theatre between now and Jan. 1 (if you really love The Holiday, you can always fork over $3.99 to stream it). With our resident Milwaukee Film-ite Kpolly, it seemed silly not to use this opportunity to dig into the topic of holiday movies.  It won’t surprise you to learn that both of our hosts find this part of the calendar cinematically delightful. It’s kind of hard to argue with them, considering how un-genre-specific these movies are. Traditionalist? You’ve got White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life. Romantic? Bridget Jones’ Diary and When Harry Met Sally. Holiday hater? Krampus and Christmas Evil. Prefer straight-ahead comedies? Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Scrooged. Speaking of the Bill Murray-starring take on A Christmas Carol, only one entry in this year’s “Season’s Screenings” has an interactive element, and it happens Dec. 11 with what we’re calling “Scrooged with Cinebuds Live”! Because we believe in delivering on things promised in titles, everyone in attendance at the Oriental Theatre will enjoy a screening of the movie and a live taping of Cinebuds immediately following. So if you’ve ever fancied the idea of hearing your voice on the podcast, this is your big chance. We’ll even sweeten the deal by knocking $3 off your ticket, since you’re clearly a devoted Cinebuds fan if you’ve gotten this far down the page. Just enter the code “SCROOGED” when you check out on the Milwaukee Film website, and you’ll see the discount applied. ##### Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Door Company.

It’s always preferable to have our usual dynamic duo piloting the podcast. But when that’s not the case, it usually means we’re making room for some special guests. For this episode, we’ve got two who know their way around movie making and are using that knowledge to make a positive impact on all of Wisconsin. Writer/director Nathan Deming, who hails from the northern reaches of the state, is smack dab in the middle of an ambition project to create 12 films set in Wisconsin, with each taking place in a different month (January and February are already a wrap). Jeffrey Kurz is a Racine native and former studio exec at Miramax Films. Both are involved with Action! Wisconsin, a statewide group pushing to make Wisconsin friendlier for film and television production. It’s not just movie types involved, either. In addition to the many people involved in film production — from directors to technicians — the coalition includes city governments, hotels, restaurants, small-business owners and educators. Their goal: to create jobs, lift local economies and promote tourism across the state. They scored a big win earlier this year, when Wisconsin legislators passed and Governor Tony Evers signed into law the creation of production incentives and a state film office. You’ll hear from Deming and Kurz about how that victory happened, how filming in Wisconsin can be a win for everyone and a few personal stories from their own movie-watching histories (including the ones that made them cry). ##### Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Co.

When is a concert film not a concert film? It's an existential question that's particularly fitting for this episode, as we focus on a movie that is literally about death. And also new-wave-slash-electronic-music legends Depeche Mode. The unfortunate intersection between those two subjects is the death of the band's keyboardist, Andy Fletcher, in 2022 and subsequent release of 2023 album Memento Mori. During that difficult time, remaining members Dave Gahan and Martin Gore went on tour to support the record and invited Mexican director to Fernando Frias capture their performances in Mexico City in September of 2023. Combining the footage with "interpretive interstitials and archival material," Frias delved into his culture's relationship with death and came away with Depeche Mode: M. On this episode, Kpolly leads our own delving with a specialized crew representing the two major sides of the movie: On the music front, we called in 88Nine program director, DJ-about-town and big Depeche Mode fan Kenny Perez. To reinforce our cinematic cred, we got 88Nine on-air personality and multidisciplinary artist (with an emphasis on film) Paula Lovo. You'll hear what all three of them had to say about the documentary, how well it connected to the culture and whether it'll hit with people not quite as familiar with the band (like Paula). Plus, there's a quick detour into favorite concert films, first movies and — perhaps in response to all the death talk — laugh-out-loud comedies. ##### Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Door Company.

In this episode, we take a very special trip … to the Bizarro World. Imagine a place that is the opposite of the Cinebuds universe. A place where the two main characters are awful to their very core. A pair of people who hate everything, including each other. A couple who are … gulp … married. The duo at the center of Roald Dahl’s novel-turned-Netflix-movie The Twits are truly the Bizarro version of Dori and Kpolly, who are notoriously nice and do not hate indiscriminately and are definitely NOT married. They do, however, manage to disagree about The Twits movie adaptation in their own agreeable way.  Maybe you’re more like Dori and will have trouble disconnecting the plot from certain real-world events or find the Twits “a little bit too much.” Maybe you’re more like Kpolly and will deeply dig the "really impressive" animation and creative plot additions to the source material. Find out for yourself by listening to the episode in full and checking out The Twits on Netflix. ##### Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Co.

The only thing more plentiful than Halloween candy is Halloween watchlists. Our favorite fall holiday (you heard us, Thanksgiving) was celebrated for the first time more than 2,000 years ago, possibly to recognize the first batch of Circus Peanuts ever manufactured. Fun fact: They haven’t needed to make any more, because no human being has ever actually eaten a Circus Peanut. We’ve just been passing around the same ones for two millenia. That’s also a lot of movie-making time, enough for the catch-all “horror” genre to split off so many subgenres. Slasher. Monster. Folk. Body. Even comedy. But that still wasn’t specific enough when Dori and Kpolly set off to give you their recommendations for this film-friendly time of year. So our scions of the cinema picked two pretty granular categories — "'70s Scares"  and "Mild Frights" — and sprinkled their picks throughout this episode. ##### Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Co.