.
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Robyn Erlich is joining me from the Milwaukee Film Festival, which is taking place beginning Monday.
Is it Monday?
Right?
April 16th is Monday, right?
I think it's the third day.
The third day.
What am I talking about here?
Hold on.
Does that tell you when you get old?
Everything starts getting fuzzy.
It's April 16th through the 30th, the 18th annual festival.
Who started the festival?
Well, it started in 2008, and it was started originally by...
It was a little bit in part due to some folks at the Shepard Express.
It was originally the Milwaukee International Film Festival.
And then it's it's morphed over the years and changed.
And now it's the Milwaukee Film Festival.
Yeah.
You know, it's and that's how things get there beginning now.
This became big now.
People all across the country know about the Milwaukee Film Festival, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, we do have folks talking about it from all over, flying in from all over.
Films from all across the globe near and far.
So we're really excited.
Okay.
Now, who picks out the movies?
We have an amazing team of programmers who work really hard for...
Honestly, like half the year at least.
Watching films from festivals, watching submissions, watching...
Like doing research on films that haven't come out yet.
They watch a lot of movies.
Roger Ebert was once asked.
He said somebody said to him, what a great job watching movies all day.
He said, you would think so.
But for every good movie I watch, I got to watch three bad ones.
And try sitting through a two hour bad movie three times a week.
And he's right.
I've sat through bad movies and it's like excruciating.
When is this thing going to be over?
But that's not going to happen with the film fest.
Okay.
Now, one of the films here I see is a documentary celebrating life of Bob Euker.
It's opening night of the festival, Euk.
Yes, we're super excited.
That's a world premiere.
So has never been seen before.
They screened 20 minutes of the film at the opening game of the brewer's season.
And just to get fans excited.
But yeah, we're really excited.
And it's only screening that one night.
So that's going to be a big one.
Yeah.
And you know what?
A lot of people say, well, I never heard of any of these movies.
But you know what?
I went to go see a movie once.
I mean, it was in theaters.
And it was in theaters like one day.
And I missed it.
But it won the Academy Award for best picture of the year.
And that was no madland.
Have you heard of it?
Oh, wow.
Yes.
And it went best.
And my wife said, well, this looks good.
Why did we see it in theaters?
I don't know.
They played here in Racine.
I never remember even seeing it.
Yeah, sometimes they don't get like a wide release.
This one, best picture of the eight we've seen it four times.
That's how good it is.
So not every movie is going to be the Super Mario Brothers Galaxy movie.
But you get some of these gems that you'll just never forget about.
Totally.
That's kind of the whole point of a film festival is making film accessible
that wouldn't otherwise be for folks here in Milwaukee in the surrounding areas.
It's really about bringing cinematic experiences to two folks who really want it.
But don't often get the opportunity to see these films on the big screen.
And some of them, you know, and now with, you know, DVDs and blue rays kind of, you know,
going getting smaller and smaller, you don't get a chance to rent them there.
I don't think there any video stores left.
There was one here in Racine.
I think they closed down just recently.
And so, I mean, you get it from the library if they get them.
But that's about it.
Otherwise, you have to stream them.
And sometimes you get to pay a price to stream them.
And, but this is a good way to see not a big screen.
And when you go to the Oriental or the Downer,
you're talking about historical movie theaters.
Whoa.
What was the Oriental over a hundred years old?
It's turning a hundred next year.
So get ready for our big birthday party.
By the way, this radio station turns 100 December 6th of this year.
Oh, my gosh.
So they have the almost birthday.
Yeah.
So when this radio station went on the air, they were planning to do a new all the construction
for the Oriental.
Wow.
That's great.
I love that.
Okay.
Give us some other titles to look forward to at the Milwaukee Film Festival.
Yeah.
So there's almost 250 different films, including short films at the festival.
So truly, there is so much to come through with the lineup.
Just to name a few.
There's a film called A Youthful Ghost.
It's a Thai kind of like dark comedy.
It's in our Cinema Hula Gandhi program that's kind of all the weird and wacky midnight films.
This is a film about a man who's mourning his wife who has recently passed away.
And she possesses his vacuum cleaner.
So her ghost is now in his vacuum cleaner and they interact that way.
You know, I did hear something funny when my wife is vacuuming the other day.
I heard a funny noise coming from it.
Could have been somebody I know.
Now I'm not going to watch that film.
Yeah, I got to watch it now.
I know what was going on there.
What else you got for us?
There's a film I'm really excited about.
It's a documentary called Beyond the Duplex Planet.
It's about this artist, David Greenberger, who started a zine in the 70s that explored kind of interviews that he was doing while he was working at nursing homes.
But he was asking really strange questions like, who do you think invented sitting down?
And stuff like that.
So he made a zines originally and then it became kind of this like live show that he would put on.
So that we're going to have the artist, David Greenberger, who's the subject of the documentary in person at at least one of the screenings.
And that one looks really interesting.
Do you do a Q&A with him or you just introduce the film?
Oh, well, there will be a Q&A for sure.
That's one of my favorite things about the film festival.
Lots of these films have visiting folks from the film team who made the films or like for a lot of documentaries, the subjects of the documentaries or the cast and crew from narrative films.
It's one of the like more special things about getting to see a film at a festival rather than just seeing it at a regular screening.
You know, I kind of feel bad when I watch the Academy Awards a few weeks ago.
And I feel bad when they do the short subject films and the short, you know, the only documentary films.
Because a lot of people never get a chance to see them.
Because sometimes the big theaters and I understand they can't have empty theaters.
They lose money and I understand that.
But they don't get a chance. People get a chance to see them.
But they put years of work into this thing.
Years of work. A lot of money.
A lot of people put time and effort into it.
You finally get it made and nobody sees it.
And that's why it's good.
The Milwaukee Film Festival giving people a chance to see these works.
And you never know which one's going to be your favorite movie when you get done watching it.
Yeah, I love short programs.
So we have a whole program of different short blocks at the festival.
The program is called shorter is better.
And basically you get to see a really carefully curated selection of like four to eight films depending on how long they are.
Sometimes there's less packaged together if they're all a little longer.
But they all kind of go together with a theme.
We have like a great program of animated short films.
And our programmer, Jack, who puts together all of the short programs.
He has been very adamant that the next year Academy Award winner for best animated short is in the Let's Get Animated Short.
Look at that.
We got some inside poop on this whole thing here.
Wow.
Yeah.
We're chatting this morning with Robin Erlich who's communications and public relations coordinator for Milwaukee Film.
They run the Milwaukee Film Festival downtown Milwaukee at the Oriental Theater and also the Downer Theater.
So what are you like changing alternating theaters or these films where they run the same time?
So you have to make a choice.
You have to make a choice.
I was trying to do that last night and circle all the ones that I'm going to go to and it's tough.
It's hard enough when I'm standing in a multiplex with 13 theaters saying, what should I see?
Oh, no, but I don't have to switch theaters.
I can stay in the same place.
Well, that's just great.
So give us some more titles that really are interesting to you that we should be on the lookout for.
Because you say there were 250 films.
So I got to get Robin's pick to click here.
Yeah, we we've got a lot to come through.
So there's this great music documentary called Newport and the Great Folk Dream.
And it is about the Newport Folk Festival that brought together the likes of Bob Dylan, John Bias, Johnny Cash, Pete Seager, and so many more.
He uses a lot of rare and previously unseen archival footage and just has a lot of great music in it.
You know, I saw the we turn a classic movies, which is if I have to die and you say,
you can only have one channel to take with you.
It's going to be TCM.
Yeah, that's the one.
They ran a movie called Festival, which took three years to film.
It's the Newport, Newport, Newport Festival.
And again, Bob Dylan and John Bias and all the stars were there.
And it was so great going back to the 1960s watching that.
And I just I loved it.
And that is the performance they showed where Bob Dylan brought out something that irritated everybody.
The Newport.
His electric guitar.
He just irritated everybody when he did that.
And they started yelling at him, put that because he that's it's folk festival.
And he started the playing in a rock and roll on the electric guitar.
But it's Bob Dylan.
You can do what he wants.
And the movie, I don't know if you saw it.
Did you see the movie?
Was it?
I'm complete unknown.
I'm complete unknown.
It's based on the book.
Dylan goes electric.
And yeah, so what's that?
My husband is a huge Bob Dylan fan.
So I've seen all of it.
I could talk like Bob Dylan.
Yeah, your husband is a great fan.
He loves my music.
My Bob Dylan.
Okay, so what's that pretty good?
It's called Power Ballad.
Yes, that's our closing night film.
Oh, I can't wait.
Only screening won't.
It's you'll folks will get the chance to see it.
A few months before it gets a wide release.
So the Milwaukee Film Festival is going to be an early chance to see this brand new film from director,
John Carney, who made the film Sing Street and once.
And it starts Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas.
Yeah, two big stars.
Two big stars.
Two big stars.
Yeah, right.
I said the movie song sung blue.
Did you see the movie song sung blue?
I did.
I was actually at the premiere with Hugh Jackman here.
That was a good movie.
That was a good movie.
That's the Oriental Theater.
I held the door open for him.
Look at you.
That's my claim to say him.
Yeah, tell me.
What's that great moment in history?
You held the door.
Yeah.
Well, that's great.
Yeah.
It was a great movie too.
I loved it.
Yes.
It was so moving.
And I wasn't familiar with the, like, the true story.
But actually this 414 day, I think Tuesday is 414 day for Milwaukee Day.
And for the 414 area code.
We're showing the documentary song sung blue.
I saw that.
I saw that.
Yeah.
And that's the real, that's the real one.
See, in the movie, they're supposed to be playing summer fest, but they couldn't recreate
summer fest.
And they filmed it in the theater on New Jersey, but they actually were on the stage at summer
fest.
The documentary shows that too.
It shows them on stage there with the crowds on the, on the amphitheater stage.
But in the movie, they couldn't do what they said.
They were just too expensive.
Let's talk about it.
Yeah.
I'm a big true crime fan.
You got something called my brother's killer, the unsolved murderer of Wisconsin
raised adult actor named Billy London.
That sounds good.
Yes.
Yeah.
That is part of our genre queer program and documentary festival favorite.
So we have a lot of great documentaries, but yes.
There's this is a true crime film that is a tribute to this adult film after Billy
And it evolves into this gripping investigation as community members continue to kind of uncover
what happened to him.
And the film team is going to be there and it's a really powerful documentary.
I won't give away, you know, what they uncover, but it's really interesting.
Yeah, you'll have to see the film.
I don't want to know.
I don't want to know.
Sometimes I want to want to watch a true crime show like 2020 or a date line.
I'll turn it on.
And the ending is there.
Quick turn it off.
I don't want to see the ending.
Don't tell me the ending.
I know.
Same thing with survivor.
I'm not sure it was true crime.
Yeah.
Don't tell me you got thrown off survivor yet.
I didn't see it.
Same thing.
All right.
So let's go over the facts here.
The Milwaukee Film Festival is at the Oriental and Downer theaters.
And the dates are, it's, I got it right in front of me.
Don't tell me.
It's April 16th through the 30th.
That's a long run.
That's what two weeks, two and a half, two weeks.
Yeah, 15 days.
Yeah.
Answer 18th annual festival.
Now, how do you get tickets to go?
Yeah.
So tickets are on film now for individual films.
You can go online at mkefilm.org or call the Oriental Theater later once we're open.
We, the box office will have been during regular show times.
Um, and, um, or, um, we also have all access passes still on sale.
So if you want to just get a pass and have access to every film and not worry about individual tickets, um, that's an option as well.
But you got to get it.
Get it for the sold out.
Once you're sold out of a particular movie, you can't go because.
Yeah.
And it's looking like you already is getting there.
Yeah.
So it's nowhere to put your butt when all the seats are sold.
So you gotta.
Yeah.
There's only so many seats.
Okay.
So, and, um, with the list of films is at mkefilm.org.
Correct?
Yes.
Yep.
It's all there.
So prove the, prove the many, many options.
This is exciting.
Whoa.
Big Film Festival right down the street here.
I love it.
So again, it's mkefilm.org.
Not to come, but that org mkefilm.org.
We're giving away tickets to go see a movie.
You can pick any movie you want.
That's not sold out.
We'll do them more.
We have a giveaway coming up in a few minutes.
And, uh, wow.
Robin.
Robin Early.
Thank you for coming on the air with us again this year.
I do appreciate it.
