The Dude(Big Lebowski Tribute)

Welcome back. Great to have you with me on this Wednesday night, a snowy night, at least here in northeast Wisconsin and northern Wisconsin. But we'll get through it, folks. We'll talk about some show business, read some texts, let us know what you would give up for 40 days or what you wish you could give up for 40 days. Text me here at 855-752-4842. Let me know what you really wish you could give up.

I might change my answer, Conrad, to being nice to people, to giving up chips. How superficial is that? I mean, I think that's a good one. I could be nice to people, or I could have better abs. That is so this time in history. Joining me now, folks, is one of our favorites. He joins us quite a bit here on Nightlight, and we have a great fun talking about show business. He writes about entertainment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and his name...

You know him as Chris Foren. Chris, how are you? I'm doing okay. How are you doing very well? Thank you, sir. Great to have you. How are things in beautiful Milwaukee tonight? We dodged almost all of the snow. It's unbelievable. It's stuck to some of the grass and we had a lot of rain. It's now kind of windy, so we will take that. I lived long enough to remember big snow storms this time of year. I'm happy to not have one.

I know my son is there and said, no, we're not getting it. But you know what? I think the last couple of times you guys got hit and somehow up north, we missed it every once in a while. That happens. But yeah, it looks like the tide is turned. Yeah. The Milwaukee meteorologist referred to it as the Milwaukee donut where the snow goes around us, but doesn't get to us. So you guys will get your just desserts if I have anything to say about it. We are pro donuts that works out well. Milwaukee loves their donuts.

Well, great to have you on the show. Hey, I was going to, uh, you know, we talked about some of the things we talked about, but I saw this, uh, on IMDB Pro earlier, hundreds of beavers. The great little indie film shot in Wisconsin by guys who originally from Milwaukee, Mike Cheslik and Ryland, uh, Two's just passed a million bucks in theaters. How's, how do you like that?

I think it's great. I feel like it's a story that I have not spent enough time on with the paper, but it's a movie that's sort of ground up, and it's a great example of a movie that people find and embrace, and it is goofy, and it's intentionally goofy, and there's something to be said for that. Everybody made a big deal out of barbenheimer last year, but this is that same kind of thing. People find it, and they connect to it.

and they come back out to see it again. And that's honestly what probably the movies need more of. You know, it's interesting, I'm probably doing this strictly off a hunch or whatever, but I feel like people in the indie film world or in the entertainment, Wisconsin entertainment circles know about it. But I feel like the general public in Wisconsin will still find it, not that some of them haven't, but I feel like it could do even better, you know. Yeah, it would be interesting to see that. Well, if I don't actually work like.

See people show it like get free it out at like, you know those outdoor movie series that communities have and things like that. There's some way to get it into the general public. It's it's on it's on Amazon Prime or Prime Video, so it's not It's not like it's an unfindable. That's how I watched it. I had actually missed it then caught up with Lake Michigan monster and you know, so I'm slowly catching up. There's a we have a ton of people making movies in Milwaukee or in Wisconsin that are actually getting streaming through distribution. I we just Don't always know what they are

Yeah, I loved Lake Michigan Monster, too. I think that's the one. It starts off where he's in the water and then he stands up. You think he's scuba diving and he stands up and he's like in 12 inches of water or something like that, close to the shore. But it's just, again, the same type of, not a silent comedy. There is dialogue in that, but a really fun film, too, if you can catch up with both of them. So I read your column, I think it came out today, about what's coming out this weekend.

This is a big weekend for Bon Joon Ho has his new film, Mickey 17 coming out. Yeah. What are you here? It's getting great reviews, but I've read a couple that weren't so great. Have you heard anything? I've heard the same thing you've heard. I haven't seen it. We stopped reviewing movies at the paper a while back. So I rarely go see things in advance because it's like graphed for me.

I I would guess that the negative reviews cuz I'm trying not to read too many of them I'd read just enough so I can tell people what it's about and then I go see it my sense of it is that people expect it to be like parasite and That means that means they haven't seen the host or What's what? So even snowpiercer I mean snowpiercer people might know the TV show the movies a little different and the host is a monster movie that is

pretty funny, but has a very social edge to it. He's kind of a, yeah. Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, I will see. I mean, I, if they're not, it doesn't look like they're expecting it to be a huge box, obviously, which I think is smart. I think it's the kind of thing where people will respond to it or they won't. And, you know, we'll see. It's got Kenosha's own Mark Ruffalo in it, so it's already a bonus. That's kind of cool. Yeah, I've never seen Snowpiercer or the host.

But I would think if you saw Parasite and based on what I've seen from Mickey 17, at least on some of the reviewer sites, like they don't look at all similar. No. Well, I think Mickey 17 is a little bit structurally wackier. I mean, the parasite has humor in the front end that you forget when you see the second half of the movie because it's so raw. But the host is about

A monster that is generated from toxic waste that's dumped in this big river in Korea and people trying to get away from it It's like a sea monster movie, but it's there's lots of humor and Snowpiercer's about a post-apocalyptic civilization where as far as we know all of humanity is living on this bullet train that's traveling around the world and the poor people live in the back and there's people who live in the front and where people try to strike back Chris Evans is in it of all people and oh

the tv series had to be digs who's very good in the tv series but they're they're a little bit different movies and he's but he's done the gamut you know he's got a noir thriller memories of murder he's done different things i think he's a really smart guy he's it lots of social commentary in all of his movies so that that's the kind of the common thread but the host i think i'd check it but i think the host is streaming it's worth it's worth checking out i wouldn't have this is in in more in that wheelhouse

And Pattinson can be very funny. It's clear from the trailer that all the characters are pretty over the top. You never know how that's going. People can respond to that. That was that whole thing with poor things a couple of years ago. Some people responded to it, some people just did not. I thought it was great. I've seen him in...

Interviews too, like on talk shows. He Bong Joon-ho. He's a funny guy. He's got a good sense of humor. He's a very funny guy. Yeah, very talented. What about rule breakers? That looks really interesting, but I couldn't tell. At first I read it. It sounded like kind of read like a documentary, but then I saw it was in a wide release. So I looked at it. Well, it's it's it's another one of these inspired by a true story movies about it's about a group of young Afghan women who are recruited to join like a robotics team in Afghanistan at a time when

under the Taliban, that's probably now, when young women are not allowed to use computers, but they're not allowed to go to school. And it's based either, well, they say inspired by true story. It's distributed by the Angel Studios, which does a lot of these inspirational movies. Some of them are more overtly Christian than others. They did that.

Sound of freedom movie that was a couple years ago and they did the move about you know, Cabrini about the Italian nun who helps the poor again So I had no idea what to make I I've seen the trailer It looks like a lot of these kinds of moving a very inspirational sort of movie, but yeah The other big one opening this weekend in the lost lands at least opening wide David Batista and Mila Jovovich Not reviewing particularly well. Have you heard anything about that?

No, it will probably won't. I mean, it's the guy who made it Paul at W. S. Anderson is the guy made all the resident evil movies. Yeah, with Miller Jovich was in it. It's big. You know, it's one of those movies that sounds like it was kind of created on the front. I kind of haven't seen it, but sort of. Hey, we have a George R. Martin short story. Let's put this guy who makes a couple of post-apocalyptic movies on it and then throw, you know, Dave Bautista in there and see what happens. Right. I mean, I think, you know,

We're cat. We sometimes we feel like we're in a post apocalyptic landscape already. So, you know, we're all over the place. Even to Nero, uh, we talked about zero day, which I'll, I'll save for later, but, uh, everywhere is post apocalyptic stuff. Um, Hey, I want to ask you, I saw this is great. You wrote about this too, Chris, uh, an event coming up in Milwaukee. Um, the sport, uh, what was it called? I'm lost it here now. Oh yeah.

What's I can't find it. I'm sorry. It's a sporting event that has been going on for 84 years. This is the fairgrounds You're talking about the sport show the German sport show. Yeah, there it is Yeah, it's it's it's I mean it used to be a much bigger thing it would run for a couple of weeks and back when the in the golden age of that sort of thing and You know hunting fishing

They have a big trout pond there. They have lumberjack competitions where they're doing log rolling and stuff like that. A lot of fishing tutorials, lots of outdoor stuff. Usually, historically, it's advised with the auto show for the worst weekend weather-wise of the year, usually. But historically, people used to come out for it, and they used to have, and I've written stories about this, they used to have a lot more animals at it, but they got a little different. We have some pictures in our archives of a couple of, like,

Ten-year-old kids to a 10-year-old boys hanging out with a couple of bear cubs. It seems like a really bad idea But it is very much for people who go it's very much a tradition It's one of those things that has you know that Kind of seasonal marker for people in Milwaukee. Yeah, I was just surprised because I was reading this I had never heard of it I don't live in Milwaukee and I never have but 84 years. That's impressive. So this is back to the world war two Sonya

My guest is Chris Foran. He writes for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, covers entertainment. And we have him on the show quite a bit to talk about all things, not just entertainment, but all things fun. Chris, what is the Shamrock Shuffle? That was in your column recently too. As a local group called, an outfit called Swarm that does organize these, they're sort of like organized barcrawls. And you buy a ticket.

and you go into a certain neighborhood, a nightlife neighborhood, I think this year they're in Walker's Point and Water Street in Milwaukee, and then you get discounts on stuff, and there might be a deal here or there. When I wrote that, they hadn't sold out, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd sold out by now. They're usually very popular here. I think it's hilarious. I'm not saying they don't exist outside of Wisconsin, but I feel like a bar crawl is like a sport.

here in our state. It's a competitive sport. When I was in college, I worked with a guy who did a one-person bar crawl. He lived at UWM and he worked at Marquette and he had a drink at every bar between work and home. I don't know if he ever survived it. He might have a problem. I don't know if that would be... Well, I think he didn't probably perfect it. He just got really good at it.

So we have a kind of a fun thing, Chris. I want to do this with you and you're a good sport. You said that you would be willing to take an Oscars quiz. Just kind of a, we'll put a little button on the Oscars. We'll give Chris kind of a fun little quiz about some of the things that happened. It's not going to stump you or anything, but before we get to that, I would love to talk a little bit about TV. You said you're watching zero day. How are you liking zero day so far? I actually watched the whole thing.

I didn't love it. Okay, I am I am a big friend. I am a big 70s conspiracy movie fan Parallax view three days of the condor. I love one of my favorite of the Marvel movies is the Captain America the Winter Soldier because it feels exactly like that, you know These are the wait a minute. Somebody in charge is involved in this right and There's the twists are are okay. They're a little

I was surprised by the number of them that weren't cleaned, you know, tied up. I'm very old school about that kind of thing. Right. The performance is refined. I mean, Lissy Kaplan plays DeNiro's daughter. She's a congressman. He's he's a former president. And they never they don't agree on anything. And it's everybody has has so many secrets, you know, right?

It's kind of striking and you know, it's like, you know, one of the recurring themes in the movie is that they can't get anything done in government like they haven't passed the bill in 18 months. And it's like, I know why they can't pass the bill because they've all got all these secrets of trying to keep secret, you know, so. It's a big, it's just a whole big cover up. Well, now I'm not as excited to keep going, but I will keep going with it. Well, the best thing about, well, the best thing about, I will watch anything that's that six episodes. I can sit through that. Yeah.

Chris Foreign is here. We'll have more with Chris after a very short break here on Nightlight with Peshwaaba on the Civic Media Radio Network.