Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy Monday, everybody.
Thank God the weekend is over, so we can get back at it and talk about the things we love to talk about in our lives.
Movies, TV, comedy, theater, sports, all, all things entertainment here at Nightlight.
Finally, we are back on the air after a long, arduous weekend.
And it's beautiful today.
It's like 50 degrees.
Conrad, why aren't you wearing shorts?
That's a good question.
Yeah, come on,
yet.
Colder at night.
Just yet.
Because when I was here last week, there was like three feet of snow right next to the cars out here.
It's gone after one day.
That's so amazing.
anyway.
That's how I was.
I had a friend come over.
Um,
on Saturday.
Nathan Deming, who came over, we had a screening on Saturday of his film, February, which he talked about here last week.
So I kind of had to shovel the stairs, which was frustrating because we were gone a lot, and so I just didn't even bother, and it was gonna warm up.
But Nathan's coming over.
I wanted to fall and break his cockyx right before his big screening, so I had to shovel a little bit, but.
That's all right.
Yeah, it's beautiful today.
And guess how I spent the day knowing it was so beautiful outside.
Inside.
Inside doing absolutely nothing.
Except prepping the show.
That's how worn out I was from the weekend.
We had, it was a fun weekend.
We had our Christmas party for Civic Media here in Northeast Wisconsin.
And Sage and Aaron came up from Madison.
That was fun in Jacqueline.
And we had the whole Northeast Wisconsin crew here down at the Heights.
Boy, what a cool place that is,
I think I had a burger there once but the spread they put out was like oh,
it's really really good and you know pretty healthy which No argument there, but really fun to see everybody a great time that started my weekend and then on Saturday I introduced Nathan's film at the Mariner theater in up in Marinette We probably had about 30 people show up, which isn't too bad had a nice Q&A the film went over really well And then I got in the car and drove to Steven's point to see my daughter
Pardon me.
Which was phenomenal.
They had a show in the theater.
It was great.
We got to hang out.
And here's, okay, this is true sickness at its best.
The next day we went out to eat.
My wife, my daughter and I. We're about to head back to Marinette.
I decide I need a chocolate shake in the world's worst way.
Okay.
Just to kind of nurse on the way home.
It's two hour drive, you know.
So we go to Cold Stone and
There was one person working and there were about 12 people in line in front of us.
That did not stop me.
We were there for 30 minutes, I'm not kidding.
Wow.
It was true, like, just addiction at its best.
I needed a chocolate milkshake.
No way.
some kind of designer milkshake.
I'm not going to McDonald's when I have a milkshake a year, right?
But my wife and my daughter are both just standing there rolling their eyes waiting for me.
But when you're doing the driving, I can call those kind of shots.
I
milkshake.
And then of course they both ended up getting something too.
But oh my God, it was a little ridiculous.
I don't wait in line for anything.
I don't wait in line to get into nightclubs, restaurants.
I don't care how good the food is.
I've never had food that was good enough for me to take 45 minutes waiting for a table.
I just wouldn't do it.
I waited 30 minutes for the milkshake.
not in a hurry.
Yeah.
If she had said it's gonna be 30 minutes, I would have turned around and left.
I didn't know that though.
I got the family of five, five kids in front of us, probably all under five years old, and the kids are taking their time making up what their mind, what they want.
I'm like, oh dear God, please, let's go.
You're the mom, just say vanilla ice cream, five vanilla ice creams, and be done with it.
You don't let a kid choose at three years old,
there.
Right.
Hey, welcome to Nightlight, folks.
It's great to have you with us wherever you're joining me from across this great state, this beautiful tropical warm state today.
It's good to have you, folks.
And you can catch us on, hey, how can people watch the radio?
Conrad, we should really square that away.
Yeah, phone lines are open Let us know what you're thinking folks 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 You're welcome to chime in on anything.
We're talking about It's just good to have you or text us 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 same number and text us on the app if you have the app It's so easy to use so I have I have to say we got a great show tonight Mariah Gates will be here.
She is a published author She has a new book that is out tomorrow It's called
Cinema Herway, visionary female directors in their own words.
Mariah is a film critic for RogerEbert.com.
She has a great sub-stack.
She's going to join us at 635.
Talk about our new book.
We'll talk a little Oscars, which are now officially less than one week away.
But I'm excited to have Mariah on the show.
She's always a good convo.
And then at 735, a guy from my hometown named Chad Francker will be here.
Chad has a new business.
He's about to launch.
And it's great.
And I'm gonna just say it is, Chad is hoping to help cure loneliness.
So we will do that.
I think it's called, he sent us the information and now I've lost it.
It was in front of me.
Meals with a friend.
sorry, Chad.
But Chad will be here at 735 talking about this really cool new idea he has.
He's about to launch it.
And it's just a way that Chad wants to give back and help people who are lonely by connecting them, doing something that's good for the community, helping people make meaningful connections and combating loneliness.
And what's wrong with that?
I ask you, nothing.
So Chad will be here in the studio.
Oh, it's called Meal with a Friend.
That's it.
Chad will be here at 735 in studio.
He's making the drive down from Marinette like I do every day.
And it will be great to have him here talking about his new, very cool business.
Boy, I had a, somehow, don't ask me how I did it.
With all my traveling and introducing a movie and going to the Civic Media Party, I still managed to watch.
Green and Gold, a little film you might have heard of by our
Andrews Linwall, went to see it last night with my mom and my wife.
Very sweet story.
Very, very sentimental.
Have you seen it yet?
I have not.
Yeah, I'd be interested to know what you think.
I enjoyed it.
It is very heartwarming.
I will say that.
And I kind of knew it wasn't going to be controversial or edgy because I knew that Culver's helped finance it.
So I thought it would be sort of more of a heartwarming thing.
And it certainly was.
Craig T. Nelson is great.
Brandon Sklenar is great.
He is not in it as much as I thought, though.
I will say that.
Actor who stole the show, in my opinion, was the female lead, Madison Lawler.
She was great.
And I don't know where they found her, but I was watching the film and I felt like I had seen her in something.
But she was really good.
And she plays a girl living on a farm, or grandpa's farm, who has a dream.
She wants to get out there and sing.
And that was a huge component in the movie, really more than the Packers.
So I understand why they...
build it as kind of a packer movie because there was certainly that element.
There was a lot more going on in this film too, but we watched that.
Love to know what you hear, what you thought of Green and Gold folks.
If you saw it in the theaters, I think that's the only place you could have seen it so far.
I do believe it is out on streaming very soon though.
We've had Anders Linwall on the show.
He was a great guest, very hardworking guy, and I applaud him for getting this film made because it's quite an achievement.
filmed in beautiful Door County.
And great performances, Craig T. Nelson, Brandon Sklenar, Madison Lawler.
It was Emmett Walsh's last film.
That's kind of cool.
But let me know what you thought of Green and Gold.
I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
I also saw a film last night called The Gorge.
And I'll talk about that after the break, because right now, young man, we need to get to our question of the night.
It's National Tortilla Chip Day, folks.
Everywhere in this great country of ours, amid political turmoil, we celebrate the tortilla chip, which leads me to our question of the night, which is, what is your favorite chip?
I'll be honest.
I wish I could go the rest of my life without eating a chip.
I don't need them.
They're not good for you.
They're salty.
Most of them have tons of ingredients.
Having said that, what are you going to have with the sandwich?
Just a pickle?
I doubt it.
Some fruit?
Wow.
Who wants that?
What is your favorite chip?
That's our question of the night.
Let us know.
Conrad, you said you liked...
twist.
Something from the Fritos family.
I've had that.
That's a dynamite chip.
Yeah.
You know?
Okay.
See, I'm sort of... I've got three different...
It's a three-way race.
Organic Doritos with no red dye 40.
White cheddar.
Really good.
It's a good chip.
And you know what?
In some strange way, I get sick of those quicker than regular Doritos, so I have like 10 of them, I'm fine.
Because most chips, I go to town and I can't stop eating them.
I polished off several Pringles last night.
I do like a good Pringle.
true.
It's like the Ben and Jerry's of chips.
Yes.
So I would have to say probably, and you know potato chips are relatively healthy.
Typically the least, the fewer ingredients in a chip, the healthier they are.
And most potato chips have like potatoes and salt.
Same with Fritos.
I think it's just like corn and oil and salt.
And I like Fritos.
I'm gonna have to noodle this for a couple minutes, maybe through the break.
Oh, really?
How'd that go?
Yeah, oh yeah, okay.
A low carb chip.
Really?
Like how?
Like soggy or just tasted bad?
Did you eat them
All right, I'll give mine after the break.
I'll give my favorite chip.
We'll talk about, there's so much to talk about.
Cocaine Bear came out on this day two years ago.
The SAG Awards happened last night.
Reacher, there's a new Reacher season out.
And I did kind of like this movie, The Gorge, but we've got Mariah Gates coming up at 635.
We'll talk about her new book.
Send him her way.
I can't wait to read it.
So we'll do all that.
We got a lot to get to.
Great to have you with me on this Monday night edition of Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Hey, Pete and Conrad, my favorite chip is ranch Doritos.
If I had to wage your money on the number one answer tonight, I think I would probably guess people would say ranch Doritos.
You know, they're good.
Yeah, there's no question.
I think if I had to go with the Dorito that wasn't the organic, you know, I'd forget the organic.
This is favorite chip.
I'm going to go nuts here.
I'm going to say Pringles.
regular?
The
school, you know the og
Yeah,
that I've had those those get overwhelming after a while though It's almost like too much of a taste.
Do you know
like with the regular Pringles you can suck those things down and all of a sudden you're like is that
everything in the canister I just ate, like what happened there?
Do you put your whole arm down it to make sure?
I do, it's hard to get out, you know, luckily.
Anna says her favorite chip is ranch Doritos, and I do think that would be number one, but I'm gonna go taco Doritos.
If I had to pick a taco, I think that was the first flavor, even before nacho cheese.
Yeah, exactly.
And you feel like you're...
The bag looks like a Mexican restaurant.
It has a cool colors and like Monica from Mount Horrib.
She's also in the 608 says, Ms.
Vicki's jalapeno potato chips.
I've seen those and they look too fancy for me, Monica.
lie.
The bag is like a designer bag.
It's overwhelming.
Those,
It
really good.
Okay.
As long as we get a voucher.
That's a great one.
And those actually, those are chips I do mean to try, because I like a good jalapeno chip.
But I haven't tried those yet, Monica, but keep those texts coming.
What is your favorite chip?
It's International Tortilla Chip Day, folks.
We could not let this question fall by the wayside.
So yeah, I saw this movie last night called The Gorge, and it's Miles Teller and Anna Joy Taylor.
Is it Anna Taylor Joy or Anna Joy Taylor?
Let's go to the IMDB.
Taylor Joy.
Okay, Anna Taylor Joy.
They're both charged with manning a watch tower, one on the east side of a gorge, the other on the west side of a gorge.
You can barely see the tower.
And the contract is for one year.
They each replace someone who kind of fills them in.
and says you're basically, there's bad things in the gorge, there's like this mysterious fog over the gorge, and one guy tells Miles Teller, you're guarding the gates of hell.
You're not trying to stop people from going into the gorge, you're trying to stop or kill anything that comes out of there.
And basically what happens was it was a nuclear meltdown in the 40s.
And you have DNA from plants, animals, and humans all kind of meshing together in these crazy weird creatures.
Anyway, the two people in the watchtowers are not even supposed to communicate.
But they do, obviously, they fall in love.
That part of it kind of drags.
But it's a good film.
It's a great Netflix movie.
Like one of those things you could just watch at home, you don't have to go to the theater.
And I feel like, I hate to say this, but when I find a great Netflix movie, I don't expect it to be perfect.
Yeah, I just expect it to be passable and not buffer.
So I really enjoyed it and I can kind of recommend it because it's a great concept.
It looks cool.
Miles Teller is great.
Anna Taylor-Joy is great.
And they figure out a way to get over and see each other so they have contact.
They break the rules.
Sigourney Weaver plays the head of the whole project.
It's like this like mercenary group.
Kind of a cool film, but far from perfect.
yeah i like what they did like that what the gorge is and what's down there and there's water there's an old like chem lab a missile silo it's just crazy you saw that in the theaters no i saw that last night on netflix
yeah i was gonna watch nickle boys if i want to see the last three oscar films that are on then i'm i've seen all 10 and i will but it's probably gonna cost me 60 bucks
And that really ticks me off you 20 bucks a pop to rent nickel boys and I Can't remember if it was the brutalist or I'm still here one
them
That's pretty good.
Unfortunately
I live an hour from the closest Marcus theater.
don't have that luxury, but you could have a really late night
could come down early, which is what I'll probably do.
I almost came down early to see I'm still here today.
That would be a lot cheaper than sitting on my butt and renting it at home.
Um, and I have one episode left in white lotus season two.
comes to a head.
And I'm kind of excited.
I'm gonna watch that tonight.
You know what it's been a couple years I don't even remember I remember season one and the characters and I love the guy who was on his honeymoon Who couldn't let it go that he didn't have the honeymoon the main honeymoon sweet guy at the front desk is messing with him I left hysterically I thought I know it's gonna sound
Because I used to date her but city sweetie was
good.
She played that really snotty brat Steve Zahn was great.
You know, what did you like better?
All right now you got me excited All right, so I'll watch that later.
We'll discuss that tomorrow white load of season two Let us know if you see what did you think a white load of season two folks chime in if you like?
Uh, and I would give, I'll give green and gold a thumbs up.
It was a nice movie for the area.
It was heartwarming.
It was beautifully shot.
Great cast.
Um, I will say Craig Nelson was not particularly likable, but it worked within the story because it made his granddaughter even more likable, but you'll have to see that.
And he is.
Yeah.
That's exactly what he is.
And the only thing I would say, it would be better if, like, because the Packers are such a prominent subplot, embedding the farm and the Packers going all the way, it would be nice if they could get more NFL films footage.
Because they kind of they faked it really well.
They
app.
We're gonna check out one of our friends, Mariah Gates, is joining me next to talk about her new book, Cinema Her Way.
visionary female directors in their own words, and then we'll talk some Oscars too with our friend Mariah Gates.
That's coming up next.
Text us.
What's your favorite chip, folks?
It's International Chip Day.
It's the least she could do.
8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2.
We'll come in right back after Civic Media's award-winning news team keeps you informed.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media radio network.
The 920 Paula says I love salt and vinegar chips does not matter what brand That's a serious chip connoisseur right there.
No, it's a little overwhelming You got to be in the right mindset.
Yeah That is an assault on your taste buds the salt and vinegar you have to be as serious as that's like smoking non-filtered cigarettes Love them both
Hey, this is exciting.
I'm very happy to welcome my next guest.
She's been on the show before a few times and I just love talking to her about movies.
She is a film critic and writes for RogerEbert.com as well as her own sub-stack, which I encourage you to follow.
But recently, I think she's publishing, I think this is her second book.
It hits.
Shelves tomorrow?
Do we still have books?
I don't know.
But you can get her work.
It's available tomorrow.
Cinema Her Way, visionary female directors in their own words.
She's here to talk about it with us right now on Night Light, Mariah Gates.
Hi, Mariah.
Hi.
How are you?
I'm good.
I also love salt and vinegar potato chips.
And it was very dangerous during road trips as a child because I would open the bag and my whole family would be like, no, roll down the windows.
So.
Some people can handle that.
Some people can't.
It's like the ghost pepper of chips, I think.
It is pretty intense, but I appreciate you sharing that.
Are you like me?
Like, I wish I didn't even... If I could scratch a food that I never craved again, it would probably be chips, because there's like zero nutritional value.
No, there's nothing good about eating chips, but I do love them.
Yeah, it's probably the most dangerous especially corn chips like you know chips and salsa at a restaurant I Always like eat that and then I can't eat my meal
your meal comes you're already like 4,000 calories in yeah tons of sodium It's ridiculous.
Do you have as a writer?
You know something when I
Used to drink I would have a glass of whiskey when I sat down to write a script Some people smoke cigars or cigarettes Do you have something you do when you write like whether it's eat chips or smoke or drink or what do you do?
I usually drink water Sometimes it is the afternoon.
I'll drink tea.
I love drinking tea I actually have spilled tea on a lot of books But the main thing I do when I really want to get plugged in
to write something as I have to find the right playlist, like whatever the vibe I'm
sometimes it takes a bit to, like today I was working on a piece and the playlist I had chosen was wrong.
And I was like, this is wrong.
And I had to like take, take, got to me out of it.
I had to restart, find a new playlist.
But once you hit the right, I don't know if I necessarily write to the rhythm of the music, but I definitely like get into sort of a fugue state.
the rhythm of the music is aligned with whatever my brain is feeling that makes sense.
It absolutely makes sense.
That makes total sense.
Yeah I will say I used to write Same deal I'd have a playlist and then I found that I got excited about the songs and I'm like I'll never be able to forward these in the script So I kind of and I would get caught up in the music instead of my story So I switched to jazz
Which
is great because it's kind of hard to follow and it
was
I found it was just a great
mood enhancer for whatever I was writing, but it took me like 15 years to find that.
Hey, it's great to have you here.
Thank you for your time tonight.
How have you been?
Cold.
This winter has been brutal.
Absolutely.
Do you have, all right, so this is exciting.
You've written other books, correct?
I've contributed to other books.
This is my first completely me.
Everything is my work.
It's interviews though, so half of what you're reading is the words of the women I interviewed and half of it is either my contextualization or questions.
But it's the first book that is wholly like, I don't know, come out of my head like Athena.
It's been really difficult.
Well, congratulations.
That's so
exciting.
The book is called Cinema Her Way, Visionary Female Directors in their own words.
Tell us how you concepted this.
You write about film all the time.
You're a great
writer
when it comes to movies.
This seems like a natural book to write, but to hone in on women directors and to track them down, it seems like an overwhelming amount of work.
Yeah, well my specialty really is female directors and it stems from several years worth of, well it started in 2013 when I saw two documentaries that just really made me rethink the entire film canon and all of the women that I didn't even know about.
The films were not about female directors, they were about women in history and women in the arts and
how they're excluded from Cannons and that made me start thinking about film Cannons and then the next year there were this all these lists of like the best films ever and there would be like one film directed by a woman and I'm like well I know there's more than one out of every hundred films that are like this is wrong and then I started seeing like there was a little bit of a movement of like here's 10 women you should know and it was always the same 10 women and I'm like well I know there are more than 10 female directors this is none of this is working out and so all of that kind of
started me writing every week.
I wrote about a different woman director.
That was 2014.
And then in 2015, as sort of a bit of a social experiment slash protest, I only watched films directed by women for the entire year, whether it was in theaters, a rewatch, older films, partly to discover the women that I hadn't seen, partly to support the women who are currently making films and partly to show that you could do that.
And I did not run out of films.
I didn't even come close to running out of films and at the time I lived in LA So there were some weeks where I could have gone to a different theater every night and seen a film Directed by a woman whether it was a rep theater or a new film and so after the end of that year I had been hoping to take you know, my knowledge and put it into Book form and I spent years sort of dabbling on different ideas And mostly not being able to have the time because I was working at first I was working at Turner classic movies and then I was working at Netflix and I was just doing too much
work for other people, you know?
With an emphasis on filmstract by women, I got a lot of films by women on filmstract.
I marketed a lot of filmstract by women when I was at Netflix.
But then I quit.
I quit the corporate wheel and just sort of became a full-time writer.
And around that same time, an agent reached out to me and said, do you have a book idea?
And I was like, I have a half finished
Proposal, what do you think and and originally the idea was to to do small profiles of 365 different women So like you could flip through it like a page a day calendar kind of thing, but in book form Nobody thought that was sellable, which is probably fair, but Rosoli was interested in
putting out a book about women directors.
And they found out that I had this interview column that I do for rogerieber.com, where I interview women every month.
And they were like, why don't we combine those two and do interviews?
And then that way, it's the thing that you're already kind of known for and a strength of yours, and you're still highlighting a variety of women.
And so that's really the genesis of the book.
But in the back of the book,
There is an appendix with another 360, I think, eight names.
It's supposed to be 365, but I kept adding more women than I wanted to highlight.
So if you did want to do the experiment of a film a day by a different female director, I have given you some names.
That's fantastic.
Yeah.
So, all right, so you're obviously, this is what you do.
You're a film historian and a critic, and you know a lot more about films than most of us.
What did you learn?
that you didn't already know.
I imagine.
I love that question.
Yeah.
I mean, partly I learned a lot about each individual filmmaker's process, which was really the goal.
I wanted to allow them a space to talk about process because I have found in the past that women directors are often not.
asked about their process they're mostly asked what's it like to be a woman and like you know that's boring you're talking to an artist talk to them about their art you know so that was part of it but the other thing that I found really fascinating and a little sad was I spoke to women who've been working over five decades and I talked to someone who started out in the 70s and they talked about how hard it was to be listened to and to get their projects off the ground and to be taken seriously and then I talked to someone who started making films 10 years ago and
They told me almost the same story.
And these women didn't know they were talking about the same things.
And I didn't ask them to tell me this.
This is what they shared.
This was their story working in the industry.
And it was a bit depressing to hear someone 50 years apart and women are still having kind of some of the same hurdles.
But then there were also several women who started working later.
that I talked to you know like women who start making films in the 90s and 2000s who were inspired by some of the women that I spoke to who were making films in the 70s and 80s and so it was nice to see also the way these like earlier pioneers really did influence these other women and so there's this big conversation.
In fact the cover of the book is a Karin Kusama film and the back of the book is a Martha Coolidge film and part of the reason those are the two images is Karin Kusama saw
Martha Coolidge's Valley Girl in theaters as a teenager and that's how she knew she wanted to become a filmmaker and she knew she could become a filmmaker and so what I really loved was seeing not just the sort of sad commonalities but the the happy commonalities and the influence that these women had on each other whether they knew it or not.
Do you?
My guest is Mariah Gates.
She writes for RogerEver.com.
She writes for herself.
Check out her sub-stack.
And she has a new book available tomorrow called Cinema Her Way, Visionary Female Directors, in their own words.
Mariah, just keeping the subject about women for the time being, what...
As opposed to female directors, do you find there are a lot of women writing about cinema or more than there used to be 20 years ago maybe or 40
years ago?
Yeah, I definitely think there is.
I think there's a lot more outlets for women to write and obviously a lot more self-publishing that's available.
I think Rotten Tomatoes in particular has found a way to amplify more women who write about film or who use
TikTok or YouTube or what have you.
I actually used to do the social media at Ron Tomatoes.
And long before they were called out by Meryl Streep for not having enough women on the tomato meter, I actually audited their critics database and I was like, I think you have a problem.
And then like a year later, yeah.
And then like a year later, Meryl Streep was like, you guys have a problem and that was a public problem.
But sometimes that's what it takes, you know, to get, and it went, I don't want to
say that it was not my boss's fault.
I want to make that very clear.
It was the people who owned Rotten Tomatoes at the time who did not want to address the issue.
Actually, my boss at the time was the person who first hired me to interview women because he had taken over a different outlet and was like, I want to continue helping you amplify these voices.
So he's an amazing person.
But I think the main thing really is there are a lot of gatekeepers and there are a lot of
specific hurdles.
And most of the time it's not on like, I don't think the people know they're doing it.
They're just not noticing that it's a lot of internal bias that's, you know, the problem with most.
Yeah, systemic subconscious.
Yeah.
So you do the social media for rotten tomatoes currently?
Or are
you?
No, I did in 2015 when I did it with women.
That's when I worked there.
Do you think
This is off topic, but I have noticed, I feel like films get better reviews now than they used to.
I don't know if it's
critics are scared
to- No, I think a lot of that has to do with people being afraid to lose access.
Yeah.
And which is another systemic issue.
I think there is retaliation done by some of the studios where if you trash their previous film, they won't invite you.
to the next screening, things like that.
So people tend to do like milder criticism or like mixed positive a lot more than they used to, which is unfortunate.
Yeah, that's interesting.
So all right, so you are a very well, like people read you, you've got a lot of eyes in your work to begin with.
Now you
have this book.
What do you enjoy writing more?
Like how rewarding was writing this book compared to the writing you do on a
daily basis?
Oh, it was so rewarding because my favorite thing to do is interviews.
I really do love finding out how, why people do what they do.
I love sort of going deeper.
And you can do that if you're a think piece writer or doing analysis, but I, you know, I love...
Hearing what the filmmaker intended whether that's what came across or not who knows but I love to hear what a filmmaker intended I love to hear the like Maybe gritty like I went to film production school So I know how hard it is to make like a two-minute short let alone, you know, three-hour epic or whatever So I love to hear the those stories of how they got it together or in the book There's a few different casting stories that are fascinating where you know like what I one thing is what they wanted but then
they got someone else, and then it turned out that was the right person.
And some of that magic, I think, is really interesting.
That's so cool.
All right, when we come back, I'm going to ask Mariah if she thinks more women are finding directing opportunities now.
I know the numbers.
I'm sure she knows the numbers, but you might be surprised at the numbers.
We'll have more in just a couple minutes with Ryder and author of the new book, Cinema Her Way, visionary female directors in their own words, Mariah Gates.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio
Hey, this is John Legend, and you're listening to Nightlight with T. Schwabba.
From the 608 Kenneth, he's in Stoughton says, green and gold was okay.
With a farm background, it was inconsistent, using horses but trying to sell a modern tractor.
did portray a stubborn Wisconsin farmer quite well.
Well said, Kenna.
Thank you for the text.
And then Laura Enright, a recent guest on the show, who's also a Chicago-based author, says this is interesting.
My discussion here with Mariah Gates about her new book, Cinema Her Way, visionary female directors in their own words.
Mariah, so the book is available tomorrow.
People can get it, I assume, on Amazon.
Where
else?
Is
there a mom-and-pop place you prefer
people
go?
I love bookshop.org.
If you're going to order online, they help support.
You can type in your local bookstore and they'll work with them.
It should be in most local bookstores, hopefully.
I definitely would encourage getting it at a bookstore if you can.
There will be signed copies eventually in MZS Press, which is Matt Zoller-Zeitz's online bookstore, the writer.
those that are not in stock yet, but they will be.
So if you'd like a signed copy, refresh his online bookstore and they'll be there soon.
That's so exciting.
Well, I wish you luck with the book.
Let's talk about this for a second.
I think people assume that Hollywood, they think it's this progressive, liberal place where everybody has a voice.
But I was surprised a few months ago when I read what the percentage of women who
direct big Hollywood films are.
I think last year out of the 250 films made at the studio level or the top 250 women directed something like 14 or 15 percent.
And that was up, I think, from the year before.
So I was like, oh, it's getting better.
But the year before was down from the previous year.
So what
is going
on?
Do you see that getting
better?
Yeah.
The issue there, it's sort of multiple prongs.
The data comes from, I'm sure you got this data from the cellulite ceiling, and it's this amazing survey that has been done out of the San Diego State, this research for, I think, 27 years.
And it is for the top 250 grossing films, which to put that in context, I think the 250 usually makes about $500,000.
Actually, not a huge amount.
There's you know, you know, your phone doesn't actually have to make that much to make the top 250 What it shows is a handful of things one the study doesn't actually take an account streaming And a lot more streamers hire women.
So the data is a little bit flawed The studios are not hiring like they should and you know, if you were alive in the 80s or 90s, you might you might think there were a lot then and
you would be not wrong.
There were a lot more in the 80s and 90s because of a group of women known as the original six who sued the entertainment industry.
Their suit was thrown out because it was supposed to be a class action lawsuit and some judge decided that Hollywood was not a class.
However, there was so much pressure that the big studios Warner Brothers, Sony, what have you, started hiring a lot more women.
And so you saw Penny Marshall made a bunch of studio films, Nora Efron.
Penelope Speris, a bunch of women.
Then basically it fell out of the news and so in the 2000s you saw a dip again.
What we're seeing now is that dip has remained but a lot of women are being hired by streamers.
A lot of women are being hired by television.
They'll make their small independent film and then instead of going to the studios like a lot of men get that offer they make the jump.
The women tend to make a jump into working in television and in fact
streaming television, so It's not great, but it's not as dire as the study shows partly because they don't take an account streaming And I think they don't take an account streaming because the data is really based on box office and the streamers as you know or probably know don't Say how many people stream they sometimes don't release data sometimes they won't same with the television So it's hard to get an accurate picture because the streamers withhold data
in terms of streaming.
So you don't know who are doing the highest grossing.
The highest grossing is kind of a hard metric now.
But on my newsletter, I write about two to three usually new releases directed by women every week.
So the fact is, minimum, there are two to three films directed by women being released in theaters, online.
VOD what have you every week and I think the problem with the study is it tends to scare people and make people think there aren't the aren't women and the whole kind of point in my book is that there are so many women like even whittling the back appendix to 368 women is limiting there I could put thousands in there who are currently making films I think the main takeaway is we can't force
Warner Brothers to hire women, we can't force Marvel to hire women, but what we can do is support the women who are making films and make those numbers go higher because the higher the box office is, even if it's just a couple hundred thousand, that's better than, you know, not making any money at the box office.
Critics can review more films by women.
They tend to struggle to get some films directed by women, struggle to even get five.
You have to have five to get a raw tomatoes rating.
I reviewed a film a couple of weeks ago where I was the 40th review.
So it is now going to be certified fresh, but an independent film needs 40 reviews.
And so I think it's important to have that data and to say, to see that the studios are not doing a good job.
But it's also, I think more important for probably the people listening here to just support the women who are making films to find out how they can put their money towards the projects that are being made.
Because I think it's more important to focus on what is happening than things we can't we can't change.
I mean that that's that I've spent the last I think 10 years doing is is supporting all of these women and there's I think a lot more women who get to make their first film than ever before and the struggle is always that second that third that fourth film and I think the more we support that first film it doesn't matter if you haven't heard of them before are they is it playing at a festival is it
on 2B.
It doesn't matter.
Watch it.
And the more views, the more you log it on Letterbox, the chances are that filmmaker will have some metric to show the next producer, and they'll get to make their second film.
And I think that's really what I- That's great.
Mariah, we
have to do a quick news thing.
Can I keep you for a few minutes and do a little Oscar talk?
Maybe some Catherine
McAulay talk?
Absolutely.
All right, fantastic.
Mariah Gates is going to stick around.
We'll talk more with her.
Chad Frank is here in the second hour, too.
Don't go away.
It's Peach Wabba Nightlight on the Civic Media radio network.
