Transcript
Popcorn Pick of the Week w/ Frank Hermans (Hour 1)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Thu Mar 27, 2025
Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.
This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now, a guy who once tore his ACL playing chess, Pete Chwaba.
Welcome to Night Light.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Hey, hey, Wisconsin.
How we doing tonight?
Great to have you with me on this Thursday night, the Christmas Eve of weeknights, here on another edition of Nightlight, where we have great guests, good conversation, a few laughs, and a fun question every night.
And also, we like to take your texts and calls and find out what your thoughts are on what we're discussing.
It's always fun, and we look forward to more of that tonight.
So welcome to Nightlight.
I am Pete Schwabba, riding shotgun as always.
is the lovable producer Conrad, who is messing with the phones once again.
That is his day job, or that's
his side
hustle, is messing with our phones.
So, everything okay there, buddy?
You know, I just have to give it a quick toolbox hit with, you know, the wrench, you just hit it with it?
Do old school TV where you just
bang the top
of it and hope
that that works, which it never did, but you never know.
Are we good?
Phone's good.
Phone line's open.
I just reset it,
so it should be good in about two minutes.
Fantastic.
All right.
Well, we hope to hear from all of you listening.
No matter where you're listening from, it's great to have you here tonight on Nightlight.
My buddy Frank Hermans is here.
He has become a Nightlight favorite.
He actually was from the start.
Frank's just a fun guest and a great guy.
He'll be here at 6.35.
And guess what, ladies and gentlemen?
Frank is gonna make the popcorn pick of the week, and I know he's got a doozy for us.
And Frank is so much fun, I don't even care if he picks one of his own shows.
If he says, come to the Meyer Theater and see our show, that's my popcorn pick of the week.
I'll think he's kinda mailing it in, but I would accept it, because I like Frank.
He's gonna perform, he's gonna give the popcorn pick of the week, and he's gonna talk about his new show, King of Krakow, so that should be fun.
And then in the second hour, Ben Reiser will be here from the Wisconsin Film Festival, which is right around the corner.
It opens a week from tonight, April 3rd.
Such a fun time, great film festival.
And if you're a movie buff, this is the festival to attend.
Not that they're not all great, they are, but over 150 films, I wanna say...
maybe 170 this year, closer to 170 films.
A lot of them by Wisconsin filmmakers.
A lot of them restored classics.
They have great guests for Q&As.
Last year they had Alexander Payne, who wrote Sideways.
And what was the movie with Paul Giamatti?
Last year they got...
Oh yeah, The Holdovers.
Holdovers, yeah.
I just watched it actually like two weeks ago.
Oh really?
I loved that movie.
Great movie.
It was so good.
Kind of had kind of a dead poet society.
vibe
to it,
worry.
Yeah, really, he's an amazing filmmaker.
So anyway, he's not there this year, he was there last week, or last year, and I was sorry, I missed it.
Ben will be here to tell us everything going on that we might wanna check out at this year's Wisconsin Film Festival.
So Ben will be here at 720, Frank at 635.
We have lots to discuss tonight.
I saw this, I thought this was...
Oh, I should probably do this before we get started.
This is really exciting, folks.
Civic media giveaways have been so much fun and very successful.
We've done, I think since I've been doing this show, there have been two or three of them.
Well, this time it's our break into spring text to win statewide contest.
Your daily chance to win a Chula Vista getaway, Milwaukee Brewers, club level tickets, and or, not and, or.
$100 cash.
Plus, every single entry puts you into our grand prize drawing for a new Queen mattress set from Verlo that includes a mattress, sheet set, mattress protector, and pillows.
It's time for text to win!
the times are 7 a.m.
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and 4 p.m.
So tune in and text us the daily word and you are entered.
You do have to download the app to play.
I assume most of you probably already have the Civic Media app.
It's very easy to use and you can take every show with you wherever you go, but it's very easy to use.
You just click the little text icon and fire away and you are entered in the contest for the daily and the grand prize.
Good luck everybody.
So, Conn, I thought this was funny.
Um, I saw the phrase raw dogging yesterday on the internet, the interwebs.
Yes.
And I thought I knew what it meant.
I didn't know if it was something I could talk about on the air, but it has a whole different meaning.
It's a travel trend.
And I guess it's like you said, it's almost a year old where people get on an airplane and they just do nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it became like, I saw it on TikTok.
Yeah.
And it was just like,
Raw dogging this 14-hour flight Well, I don't think they actually did it.
I know it's just you know for it for views They they posted like a couple seconds of them just looking straightforward just looking at the rod I could
do
was looking at the map Just watching the plane diagram go from place to place.
How is that raw dogging?
Where is the phrase?
How does that phrase apply to that action?
I don't know.
It's kind of weird
But it did make me laugh and it remind and now yesterday what I read was that Patrick Orburton who played putty on Seinfeld is taking credit for the practice because in season nine of Seinfeld he and Elaine were on the plane and They had just gotten back together They have a very tempestuous relationship, but they just got back together and it drove her crazy that he just stared at the seat in front of him He had no electronics.
He didn't want to read a book.
He didn't have headphones.
He didn't want to sleep
And it drove her bananas.
So she broke up with them.
But that's apparently a trend now.
It's called raw dogging.
And I don't, that would make sense if it was a TikTok thing.
I don't believe people would really do that.
Our attention span is nothing.
And you're going to tell me someone's going to do a six hour flight and just stare straight ahead.
I don't believe you.
I could handle doing a nine second TikTok video of it.
So I thought that was kind of funny and it led me to an old phrase that I've always kind of thought was pretty cool and kind of true by Blaise Pascal, a famous quote that says, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room and do nothing.
Pascal was a French philosopher and mathematician and a Christian writer.
That's not Pedro's father.
You know what?
He's actually a better actor.
He's do theater back in the 1500s But it's a great quote all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room and do Nothing and it leads us ladies and gentlemen to our question of the night.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay question question question question question question question this question
How long can you sit quietly in a room and do nothing?
How long can you raw dog it?
Sometimes I think of that philosopher Pascal thinking of how his phrase was subverted to the term raw doggy.
That's tonight's question though.
How long can you sit quietly in a room and do nothing?
I think if I had to,
I can maybe do 30 minutes.
I mean, I do some yoga sometimes.
Sometimes I meditate.
But that would be rough.
I would maybe say 30 minutes.
How long do you think you could go, Conrad?
You know, if it's actually nothing, I don't think I've tried in a while.
But I think if I have some music on, maybe?
No.
No music?
Sit quietly in a room and do nothing.
No music.
No book, no headphones, no one to talk to, and you can't sleep.
You have to sit there and do nothing.
I suppose you could look out the window.
I
think I could go like five
minutes,
maybe.
Five minutes.
See, I think I could do 30.
I think I would revert to my old pre-cell phone self, but maybe not.
I don't know.
But it's a good exercise, and I think it's something we could all benefit from.
because we're also glued to our phones and our computers and TV, and there's times I have the TV on and I'm on the phone.
Like my brain is probably so scrambled.
It would be interesting.
It's an interesting experiment.
And if you guys want to do this at home, oh, don't do it, because you have to turn off the radio.
But that's tonight's question.
How long can you sit quietly in a room and raw dog it, aka do nothing?
Let us know.
855-752-484-2855-755-CIVIC.
I am curious to try it.
I wanted to try it last night when I first saw this, but I was watching a really good TV show.
So I didn't do it.
But that's our question.
Stream us, text us, just yell.
If you're down the street, if you're over at the Haberdashery, getting a suit fitted, yell down.
Your answer, we'll take it.
And we will read your text or your call on the radio.
I was watching last night, Adolescents.
Have you heard of that?
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I don't think it's my show I would watch, but it looks kind of crazy.
I panicked.
I turned it on and I liked it so much in the first 20 minutes.
I thought, I can't watch this right now.
I know I'm going to like this.
So I turned it off and I'm going to go at it where I can watch two solid episodes.
Because I can't do one episode I might not have a great attention span, but I do when it comes to watching color television So I'll probably watch two episodes of it tonight the acting is great.
It's all one shot the camera now the camera moves But they don't cut it's really interesting And I haven't seen a good true crime in a while either so I want to ask Ben riser about that tonight I want to know if he's watching that what he thinks about it.
Did you read the article that I sent you today?
Oh, I did not no
So it was a it was a puberty article and you know how they announced the Avengers Doom day past puberty article
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Marvel has been releasing statements like, you know, Pedro Pascal will return as, you know, Mr. Fantastic, the Empire State Building tweeted, the Empire State Building will return as the Empire State Building in Avengers Doom Day.
And then they had Hugh Laurie will return as House in Avengers Doom
Day.
Let me ask you something that's, you're a Marvel guy.
Does it even matter who's in the cast?
I mean, I know you want
decent actors.
Well, OK, so I like some of them.
But what really threw me away was that there's no Tom Holland in that.
And he's Spider-Man.
And I'm confused why he wouldn't be in Adventures Doom Day.
OK.
So far, I mean, I like the actors that are.
I still don't understand why Robert Downey Jr.
is a villain in it when he was he was Iron Man.
Right.
So it just doesn't make sense
to me.
But they're everybody's going to see the heroes.
They don't.
I know Robert Downey Jr.
does a good job in Tom Holland, but there are other people that could do that and people would still go, right?
Yeah, I mean, it's an Avengers movie.
People are going to go.
People are going to see it.
I'm going to see it.
But I want to see Tom Holland it because Spider-Man is my favorite Marvel character, so.
OK.
Hey, we need an update on you, Conrad, from the tournament tonight.
Let's see what's going
on.
Oh, yeah, we can do it.
Did the game start yet?
It might have.
Don't don't I think you are you and I'll don't turn
over there though folks.
We'll keep you posted Yeah, we're coming right back and we're gonna read some texts and talk about Quentin Tarantino It's Pete Schwabba and nightlight on the civic media radio
network
I almost tried to say that along with the music, but it would have sounded really awkward.
You did.
You did it the other night.
Did I really remember?
Welcome back to night shift.
But I didn't sing it like that.
I almost tried to like would have been embarrassing for all involved.
Monica from Mount Horrib says, I couldn't beat you in a stair down, but I could easily do it for that flight.
I daydream a lot.
She says, okay, boy, I'm envious.
For the whole flight, Monica, that's impressive.
I don't think I could do that.
And we've got, oh, we've got phone calls, but these are not nightlight related.
Conrad, would you agree with that?
Can I stop looking at the text thread?
Well, so there's a problem on Hayward right now.
I believe some of our stations that there's a, there's a just ongoing beep right now and our engineers are looking
at.
Oh, gotcha.
Okay.
But our phones, if people want to call, are working, correct?
Yes.
All
right.
Very good.
So we've got Quentin Tarantino's birthday is today.
Yes, it
is.
And I feel like, look, he's kind of a strange guy.
I love Quentin Tarantino, my favorite film of his for the longest time.
And I like, I like parts of all of them.
I don't love all of, they're all great films.
My favorites, I loved Pulp Fiction until I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood five, six years ago.
And I didn't know much about it.
I know he kind of takes liberties and changes, rewrites history to the way he wishes it was.
And he did that with Hitler and then Gloria's Bastards.
And he did that in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
And I was not ready for it.
I left the theater shaking my head and going, what the heck did I just see?
And I went back the next day with my son and watched it.
And we both left and we just agreed we loved it.
I knew nothing about it when I went into it.
And I love seeing movies like that.
When I don't know too much of what it's about and Leonardo DiCaprio Great in it Brad Pitt.
I think Brad Pitt won a best supporting actor in it, which That's kind of weird because he didn't have much to do.
He was great.
He was good But man sometimes people win Oscars for stuff that wasn't their best work.
It was still very good work But he was great DiCaprio is great and I got to find out the name of the girl
She was in, oh, she's in a show, my daughter watches too.
I'll find that out.
But anyway, she was amazing.
Was that Margot Robbie?
No, Margot Robbie was great too, as Sharon Tate.
Dakota Fanning?
No.
What's Margot Quali?
Margot Quali was good.
Mikey Madison.
No way was that Mikey Madison.
Sadie is?
Sadie, yeah.
That's Mikey Madison.
I'm looking on the IMDB.
Is that true?
That was in that was in an aura get out of here Why didn't I put that together?
She's fantastic in it and she's like I Don't know.
She's like 14, but she plays a younger girl even who's challenging Leo de Caprio I Just have to double-check that this is that this is her because it's a show my daughter watches That's kind of a bad show.
We kind of laugh about it, but um
Anyway, yeah, that's my favorite.
That became my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie from 2019.
And I've seen it three times since.
It's a very long movie.
Have you seen it?
I haven't seen it all the way through, actually.
Okay.
It's outstanding.
I don't think that's the girl that I'm thinking of.
No, it's not Mikey Madison.
Mikey Madison's like what, 25?
I think she's up there.
All right.
So that would have...
So that couldn't have been her.
No, this is a young girl who played like a 10 year old and she played an actress doing a scene with Leo DiCaprio and they have this great talk during the movie and Leo DiCaprio's borderline washed up and he hates himself for drinking too much.
This is like a side plot in the movie of the Manson family going after Sharon Tate.
It's so good.
We have a clip though from Paul Fiction, right?
Uh, yeah, yep.
What's this clip again?
It is when they're like in the diner, I think.
Love it.
All right.
Is it beeped?
I believe so.
Let's take one more look before.
We've played it before.
We have.
Let's roll the dice.
I think we could do this.
This is Quentin Tarantino.
It's his birthday.
Here's a clip from Pulp Fiction.
Honey, buddy.
All right, now tell us it's going to be all right.
It's going to be all right.
Promise us.
I promise.
Tell her to chill.
Just chill out, honey, buddy.
All right, now tell me your name.
Yolanda.
All right, now Yolanda.
We're not going to do anything stupid, are we?
Don't you hurt him.
Nobody's going to hurt anybody.
We're all going to be like three little Fonzies here.
And what's Fonzie like?
Come on, Yolanda.
What's Fonzie like?
Cool.
What?
Cool.
Correctamundo.
And that's what we're going to be.
We're going to be cool.
Yolanda, I thought you were going to be cool.
Now, when you yell at me, it makes me nervous.
And when I get nervous, I get scared.
And when motherfuckers get scared, that's when motherfuckers accidentally get shot.
Just know, you hurt him.
You die.
Well, that seems to be the situation.
But I don't want that.
And you don't want that.
And Ringo here definitely doesn't want that.
So let's see what we can do now.
Here's the situation Normally both your would be dead as fried chicken, but you happen to pull it while I'm in a transitional period and I don't want to kill you I want to help you But I can't give you this case Because it don't belong to me Besides I've been through too much over this case this morning to just hand it over to
your thumb's got to work out when you were a beep in that club
Julia Butters is the name of the actress who played the girl in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, who has this great scene with Leota Cabrera.
I thought Mikey Madison was a little too old, but they kind of look alike, so I thought maybe it might have been her.
What
show was she in?
She was in a show called American Housewife.
That sounds terrible.
It's pretty bad.
And you know who's in it?
It's the guy who played the neighbor.
I can never think of his name.
Played the neighbor in office space.
He lived next to Ron.
Livingston who's always knocking on the wall going, hey, Peter, man,
check out this chick.
He plays the husband.
It's not a great show.
But this actress, Julia Butters, is really good.
And she's very good in What's Upon a Time in Hollywood.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, Ben Reiser is here at 720.
We're talking movies at the Wisconsin Film Festival this year.
It starts a week from tonight.
And when we come back after the news, I'll read some texts.
And we will welcome our pal Frank Hermans, who will be here.
He's got his guitar.
He's got his voice.
That's all you need to know.
He's gonna talk about his new show and he's gonna make the popcorn pick of the week.
That's coming up next on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.
It's time for the Nightlight Popcorn Pick of the Week, where we recommend a movie that you'll either enjoy or won't.
Here's your host, Pete Schwabba.
Welcome back to Nightlight, this is Pete Schwabba.
As announced by the lovely and talented Todd Michaels, no relation to the lovable producer Conrad though.
But you guys are friends.
Yeah, I'd say, I mean, he's more of my boss.
I'm just kidding, Todd.
He doesn't like you, Todd.
We have some texts we'll get to in just a little while.
We've got to go through them.
Our phones are working, correct?
Yes.
All right.
So if you want a call, I'm about to announce a great guest.
Do the popcorn pick of the week.
And if you have a question for him about his shows coming up or whatever, you're welcome to call or text in.
It is my pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, to welcome one of my best pals here at Nightlight.
He stops by every once in a while and wows us.
Offbeat drumroll with his frankness.
It's Frank Hermanns.
How are you
buddy?
I
don't
mean to be frank with you, but I am Can you give me just a little bit of the voice you did in the Christmas show?
It goes get the games.
Oh, that's right.
I was
I was that that guy I was kind of a radio announcer, but a stern authoritarian
father a father figure it's like headbaxter with totally
what it totally was Ted Baxter a little bit mmm Just a little bit more authoritative.
I loved it.
Thanks.
Welcome buddy.
I'm so happy you're doing this We'll talk about movies you got I want to talk to you about new shows you got coming up You always have so much fun stuff to talk about but let's start with the popcorn pick.
Let's do it.
So
What's your favorite movie snack Frank
my favorite movie snack and I'll be honest I do buy these at quicktrip before
I go to a
movie
peanut
caramel clusters.
They're two for four dollars Peanut caramel clusters.
There's like it.
It's they call them turtles.
Okay.
Oh,
yeah Yeah, but I really like them.
I do I order popcorn all the time popcorn and then my kids will whatever soda they want I just drink whatever they get and
Yeah, popcorn.
And the caramel, so that's what we do.
It's funny, most people go to the store, like the dollar store, or somewhere to get cheaper candy.
Correct.
But what you're describing is two pieces for four bucks.
That's like more than you'd pay at the movie theater.
Well,
actually it's two packages,
I should
say.
There's probably seven of them in each package.
Oh,
okay.
Sneak them in.
Sneak them in.
Yeah.
That's
better than like sneaking in.
There's
nothing to see in this pocket.
What do you got in your pocket, huh?
What are you packing?
Are those caramel turtles
in your pocket, or are you just happy
to be here?
Because I got to tell you, I mean, I was a junior mint guy for years, junior
mints for
my way to go, but really, they're not that hot anymore.
And my kids, they want these sour patch crap
all the
time.
Come on, who's gonna pay nine bucks for
sour patch crap?
And then they don't eat half of them.
I know.
Those are hard to eat.
I will say, once in a while, I have a taste.
This is embarrassing.
Do it.
For nerds.
It's like a taste explosion in your mouth.
And I don't really eat candy anymore, but once in a while, like if it's Halloween and they're sitting there, I'll just wolf them down.
You know, I gotta tell you, we do enjoy going to Chilton Cinema a lot.
My buddy, Mike Radu, owns this place and it's pizza.
And his
pizza
is amazing.
So I've already ordered his pizza, movie time pizza, not even going to the movie.
So, you know, I got kids that are...
9, 11, and 13.
So we're still going to see these movies that you probably don't go to.
And I still enjoy them.
I don't sleep through most of them anymore.
But yeah, having a pizza, watching a movie, nothing like
it.
Fantastic.
Do you prefer to watch movies in the theater, Frank?
I do.
Totally.
I'd rather see a...
a new release in a movie theater.
I do have, you know, we have Prime and we'll do, we'll rent the blockbusters when they come
out.
But
I would rather see, I like the Dolby, the big sound.
Same.
You know, when it comes on and then I can hear, you know, the, the, the, the stereo stuff, the little things happening in the background.
And one of my things, I could see a movie, I normally don't see a movie twice, but I miss some things sometimes.
So I'll watch it on Prime.
Something after
yeah, so what what kind of you said you have three kids all still at that awesome movie.
Yeah, they are What do you typically go see movies that they want to see or do you ever go with Amy and see like?
We do but
we usually have a date night.
We went and saw Mickey 17
My wife and I. Amazing movie, by the way.
Black comedy.
Robert Patterson is amazing.
Brad Pitt produced that movie.
But what a story.
I mean, it was written back in 2021, a novel, and then put the guy die 17 times.
I just think it's so cool.
He's called Meat.
He signs up to be expendable.
And he wonders why he gets on the spaceship right away because he's an expendable.
They're going to kill him.
Because they're going to test all
these viruses.
It's very funny.
Yeah.
It's very funny and well acted.
And I was surprised how good it was.
Was it a sci-fi movie?
Gosh, crazy.
Did his voice
drive you crazy?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, my god.
He was
always saying a high voice like that.
Yeah.
And he
talked it the whole time.
And it was different.
Because I liked that filmmaker a lot.
And I liked the movie.
I didn't love it.
My wife did not like it.
So it was one of those things like where
we kind of left going.
OK.
We loved.
My wife and I absolutely loved it.
That's so cool.
All right.
So I mean, so many representations, too, with the with the commander guy guy with his false teeth.
You know,
I thought the last hour of it was cool with those creatures.
Yes, the creatures and the message was nice.
You know, it's you know, it's all about fear and ignorance.
So what genre, typically, Frank, do you like to watch?
Let's say it's just you.
The wife's doing something else.
The kids aren't around.
What is Frank
watching?
I like thrillers.
I like thrillers.
I like the beekeeper.
I like the equalizer.
Those are my movies, and that's my older sons.
type of genre.
So we, my son, I mean, we're going to see The Matrix.
We're going to see these movies all the time.
My older son and my 13 year old, now he can go to these R rated movies to get away with it.
This
is Harrison.
Harrison.
So he's coming with us.
So we're going to see those movies.
That's what I really like.
And that's the kind of when I watch a TV series like a land man or something like that.
I'm looking for intrigue.
I'm looking for thriller.
I'm not in it for, I like comedy.
Don't get me wrong.
Sure.
You know, comedies are fun, but I like a story.
I do too.
I'm with you.
I don't I don't know why I don't like comedy more than I do, but I always want I want a mystery and cop thing or like the equalizers.
I think are the all three of those are
so great.
So well put together storyline and the new one.
Uh, who's
gonna be
Italy?
Yeah, no, there's another one that's coming out I heard and
it's
gonna be someone some big brother big name is gonna be involved Am I lying to myself that I just made this up?
No, I didn't
hear about it,
but yeah, I love all those.
I
mean, yeah, yeah
I like them all about the same, too.
Dan Zell's 70, man, and he's still working it.
Still kicking ass on screen.
Jason Statham's my favorite, one of my favorites, too.
I loved, and here's where I'm at with
The
Beekeeper.
When that came out, I crack up now because all these guys that have mundane jobs, they're really train killers.
You can go get a warm press with the movie theater.
Don't make a mess.
No, no, that guy's an assassin yet.
Like, he's The Beekeeper, now he's got a new film coming out where he's a construction worker.
I gotta go see it, you have.
I mean, he's making money, so
why
not do it?
No, listen, and Beekeeper I thought was cool because Felicia Rashad played his landlord.
Yes.
And he avenged her and it's all these scammer telemarkers.
It was like, it struck a nerve with me.
I'm like,
yeah, kill them all.
And to go
through and find them like he did,
it was
pretty cool.
Very cool.
And yeah, to go through each one.
I actually
love that
movie.
I love that movie too.
All right, so what about at home, Frank?
If you have to watch a movie at home, do you go for a different kind of snack or do you still like popcorn?
Snack?
I'm a grazer.
I fast every day.
I fast for 17 hours.
I don't have breakfast.
And usually about two o'clock, the stomach starts rumbling.
So
I
have a snack or something.
So we'll have dinner.
And then I'll graze all the way till 10 o'clock till we go to bed.
So I try to do healthy stuff.
I like a pistachios and carrots.
But you know, it's what the kids are eating, you know?
So whatever's there.
We do a lot of popcorn.
A lot of popcorn.
I gotta tell you, I'm...
I fast as well, and I've done 36 hour, I've done 18, 16, I try to just speak for the health reasons, you know, it brings your levels down and all that kind of stuff.
Mydicondria, baby,
it
produces new cells.
Yeah.
But if you could do, you did 36 already?
I've done, I do 36 semi-regularly.
Okay,
because I'm gonna do 36 next week, and that's
what really
has been, if you could do four days, they say.
Yes.
It's like you are a new human being.
everything in your body reset flushed.
I don't know that I could do that.
All the stem cells get going.
My buddy, I kid you not, my buddy did a 96 hour fast.
Yeah, Brad Bordini, if he's listening out there, he's a guitar player singer.
Yeah.
Well, I think he had cancer and started doing all those things.
I think he beat it.
He was doing all that stuff.
If I could, Frank, I'd give up beating all together.
I don't see that happening.
But what did you call it?
Because it refreshes your cells, too.
I thought it was called
autophagy.
It is autophagy, but it
rebuilds the mitochondria, which is the cell building.
That rebuilds cells.
And what it does, your body, it's fighting.
It's like, OK, we've got to fire a cell.
Let's kick that thing out of
here.
You gotta sell it to the mitochondria's bad.
Let's kick that thing out of here.
So what it does is it's cleansing your body.
It's the caveman effect.
That's why cavemen only ate every five days or six
days.
Right.
Because they couldn't fight.
Why they only lived to be 24.
But they were fit.
They were fit.
They were tight.
No,
I love that.
And if I could do a four there, that whatever it is, I do find that interesting.
I don't know that I... You did 36 hours.
That's very impressive.
I do.
It's not my regular... And it's fun that you wake up and you're like, I don't have to think about you today.
You're not hungry.
It's great.
And you're not hungry.
When
you make it to a certain point, you're not hungry
anymore.
Right.
And your brain is so sharp, like you have none of that gluten clouding.
Yeah, I know.
So we're supposed to be pushing popcorn and snacks here Frank Herman's is here ladies and gentlemen.
He's about to make the popcorn pick of the week He has so many some cool stuff opening up soon.
We'll talk about that too.
So So all right, I think are we ready Conrad?
I got a
controversial pixel.
Let's
do it.
I love it Conrad if you would please Frank Herman's what is your popcorn
pick of the week?
It's no white
How about that?
I went and saw it with my kids two days ago.
I went with it with an open mind.
Yeah, absolutely loved it from start to finish.
It is it's Hollywood.
It's it's Disney.
It's glamour.
They make that castle look so real the the cottage that.
attention to detail with the background.
Plus, they sang all the original songs, and then they wrote some new songs.
I thought it was great.
You know, everybody's talking about, you know, the dwarves, you know, maybe being weird, but I thought that was cool.
They look like the dwarves with skin.
You know, they look dopey, look like dopey.
Yeah.
And Gail Godot, great cast as the queen.
Oh
my
God,
she can sing
too.
She is amazing.
She's a great actor.
I love her.
She's perfection.
Yeah.
And Rachel, I know there was controversy around the movie, some political, but some from the lead actress who said some stuff.
And it's like, sometimes things just take a while to get going.
But I love hearing that you really liked it because now I probably will check it out.
Just check it out.
If only the story is the same, they
do
change a little bit with the handsome.
you know guy and that guy grew on me the prince he's not that he's not a prince he's a he's a leader of a rebellion kind of thing okay
and
i like the backstory how they set up the backstory with the father marrying gale you know after after the mother had passed away so there's all these setups um and he grew on me because he wasn't you know
The guy's supposed to be really handsome, right?
Don't you think that?
He wasn't.
He wasn't to me.
Not that I'm looking for that, but I was thinking, man, this guy's going to be a stud.
He's not.
But eventually he becomes one.
That's awesome, man.
All right.
So Conrad, has that changed your mind about the film?
I didn't have.
Well, you'll see it.
Well.
I didn't see it, he didn't see it.
We saw reviews on IMDB and it was so low, it's a joke.
When I saw those, I'm like, there's some kind of campaign here, everybody went in.
There's some good reviews,
there's
some reviews that gave it, gave, who's girl that plays Snow White?
Rachel, Rachel's
performance was outstanding.
That Gail's performance was outstanding.
Story was a little convoluted, I've heard.
And then the dwarf thing.
Review even with all the controversy the reviews are still decent.
You know, it's not like it's about the whole family
I brought all my
kids.
Oh, I absolutely loved it.
I loved it, too.
Yeah, so while you
work
Is that what show that's from?
Yeah.
Oh funny.
Yeah, I haven't seen some white and so long.
All right.
All right, so we've got man.
We got a lot to get to so Let's uh, let's talk about we've got a we've got about a minute before we have to break but start us off tell us what's coming up next in
for Let Me Be
Friend.
Yeah, we open up next Thursday already.
Isn't that crazy?
Our brand new show called The King of Krakow.
Now Krakow is a town west of Pulaski, okay?
Back in the...
Probably the 30s to the 80s, it was quite the town.
Now it's a ghost town.
There was a bowling alley, which is no longer there.
Is it really a ghost
town?
Well, there's people that still live there, but all the businesses, hardware stores still there.
So sad.
It's closed down.
The IGA, Brzezinski's IGA, all that's left is the walls.
You can drive through this town.
It's so cool.
Now there's a hairstylist there, and there's also a bar yet there, but there used to be a lot more going on.
The reason why I thought of King of Crackle was kind of a spoof on the King of Queens.
But then we
started, I started thinking, King of Crackle, like, let's do like a good fellas thing, you know?
And we'll talk about that, eh?
Yeah.
We'll talk about that after a very short break.
I love the hairstyle.
the salon in the bar.
Do you go to the salon first and then the bar to look good?
Or do you go to the bar and get the guts to go get the ridges or whatever you
do?
All right, Frank Hermans is here.
Folks, he gave us his popcorn pick of the week.
It's Snow White.
Awesome pick.
Go see it.
Yeah, and we'll come back and talk about the King of Krakow and he's got another show.
We're going to tease right there.
Frank's going to tell us everything he's doing.
He's even going to perform.
So you're hearing a great night.
It's Peach Wobbitt Nightlight, Civic Media Radio Network.
This is just text.
Welcome back to Nightlight.
This is Pete Schwabba, your ever-loving host.
Great to have you with me tonight.
From the 855, this is Kate from Hayward says, Ollie says, thanks Conrad.
To that was like fingernails on a chalkboard.
What's that?
Well, that was the beep from the burrs after the burrs game on Hayward.
Oh, the phone issue.
So it is completely fixed.
Okay, you can listen to nightly with peach wabba
mark in the 608 says the long kiss.
Good night 1996 is pretty good Gina Davis and Sam Jackson I think giving us his popcorn pick of the week, which is just fine mark Thank you.
I do like you've ever seen that movie Frank.
Oh, it's good kind
of
like a born a born movie Okay, but she's a housewife and all sudden stuff comes back.
It's really it's really a fun movie and Samuel Jackson's Larry's best Frank Herman's is here folks He gave the popcorn pick of the week.
It's snow white the new snow white and now we're gonna talk about some of the cool stuff Frank
has going on right down the street at the Meyer
yeah our brand new show it opens up next
Thursday it's a benefit show of course ten dollars of every ticket goes to the Children's Museum and we're do some do something cool on that opening night this of course showtime 730 We're doing a red carpet.
You
can
picture taken dressed like you're in the 80s or dressed just dress up and We'll we'll take pictures that I got my I got my photographer there.
That's gonna take pictures We got a backdrop and ten dollars of every ticket goes to the Children's Museum Heather Hiles a great
friend of mine
and
You know, we even talked about it, because she goes, Frank, you've never done a benefit show for me.
I go, I haven't.
Let's do it.
And she's jumping behind this 100%.
In fact, if you go on my Facebook page, you'll see an interview.
We auditioned Heather Pat and I like a spoof.
It is funny.
She doesn't make the cut.
She doesn't make
the
cut.
Did she really want to be in the show?
No, no.
She's just
a joke.
Good
man.
She goes, can
I audition?
I go, yeah, you can.
It was a funny thing.
Oh, that's funny.
She comes in singing, it's not unusual well to have
fun with.
anyone
it's
just
a she's kind of like one of those people that's got everything going on when she comes in here I'm amazed at her knowledge of everything happening it wouldn't have surprised me if you said she had a great voice
she does she's a talented young lady you know she's a media mongrel man she does radio TV and then she's got this great job at you know the the children's museum and I do a lot of stuff for her and this is something we can give back to the community
so I love it
Well, another reason to go see the show, which I'm sure is great on its own, but a good cause too.
So tell us again, all right, this is the King of Crack-O, and it's West of Palazzo Music.
West of Palazzo, and
Highway 32 in Chano County.
Let me set the scene for you, OK?
First of all, it's like two gangs.
We've got the Brzezinski gang.
The Brzezinski gang owns the IGA store, OK?
And you've got Don Brzezinski.
I play the enforcer named Lodface, and then we got TicToc, who-tic-toc-tic-toc-tic-toc comes in, and then we bring in a ringer called Pauly Pencilneck, okay?
Pauly Pencilneck talks like this.
It's very funny.
Very funny.
He's a joke-patchy guy.
And then the other casting characters are the Angels of Angelica.
Angelica is a town in Shano County.
They have a game called the Shana Nano.
Oh,
I love
it.
So my wife plays Amy Angelica, and then Sarah plays Sarah the Italian because she looks Polish.
And then you got Lisa Wackjob.
She likes to kill people.
Well, she slaps them.
So it's kind of a spoof on good fellas and all of those things where they're trying to get more.
They want to move in on each other's territory.
And how they're going to do that?
Well, they're going to do that by a new sewage company, Pump and Dump.
They're going to come and pull everybody sewage.
And so it all ends up at Krakow Lanes.
They have a battle of the sexist bowling tournament.
And the winner, of course, gets the contract.
Okay,
so but
there's all different stuff happening in between You know the ringer comes in he's the best bowler in the area.
He's from the south side south chase If you're
familiar
with chano county, there's north chase the south chase So it's just a funny funny story with great music from the 80s and it's not like the hair band music It's pop music from the 80s.
What kind of songs?
Breakfast club.
Yes, we got some Cindy Loper in the show.
We got
Oh, a little Bruce Springsteen, we were just talking
about
it.
Glory Days, of course, Glory
Days.
Awesome.
Yeah, a lot.
Oh
my gosh.
20 songs from the 80s, and you'll love everything about it, and it's so funny.
I gotta tell you, Pat's character, TikTok, he's so frickin' funny.
We played Don Brozinski's Little Mollin'
Brando.
That's your
guy?
No, I'm... Oh, I'm Blodface.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm named after my donkey-lod-ass.
Blodface.
So... And I'm an enforcer.
What is your favorite... Con, let's do an 80s tune going to break.
Maybe New Order or Shiny Happy or something.
Ooh, yeah.
But what is your favorite music?
Like, you've pulled from all... Yeah.
Eras, when you write a show, what gets you the most excited?
I gotta tell you, we've done almost every song in the 60s and 70s now.
I swear to God.
I am sick of 60s and 70s right now.
And I love that music.
I used to delve into it.
I mean, 25 years I've been doing shows.
Right now, I'm starting to get into more of the 80s that I used to hate because I grew up in the 80s.
So that music sucked to me.
I was a huge George Michael fan.
Huge George Michael fan.
I can't even stand his songs anymore, but...
Now that I haven't heard them in a while, going back to
the 80s,
and I'm writing another show this summer called I Found My Thrill on Scraze Hill.
It's all 50s and 60s.
So I'm listening to the songs I haven't heard in a long time,
you know,
doo-wop stuff.
So it's all good.
I just love music.
It's great.
When I, like the 80s stuff I liked, but there were some songs that drive me nuts.
But now when I hear them, it takes me back and it's like an old friend.
Even if I
didn't like it then.
See the older I get and the more I understand music Music is music.
It's
one four five or it's you know, there's always a Pattern to it, you know, and as we as we get older and dumber we start to track everything You know, we come up we steal everybody's riffs and then we put them in our songs Hence, you know every rap song right now, which is not which is fine,
but you're
stealing everybody's music
Right.
Sampling.
Right.
Sampling.
Frank Hermanns is here.
He's going to perform for us when we come back, and we'll find out.
I'll tell you where you can get tickets to King of Krakow.
You probably already know, but we'll go over it anyway.
Just to be thorough, because Frank's a pal.
We're coming right back after the news.
It's Pete Schwabba at Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.
This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.
Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.
And now a guy who prefers to travel by catapult, Pete Chwaba.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it is true.
Welcome back to Night Light.
We are having a lot of fun here tonight.
Frank Hermans is here.
I got to talk about this real quick.
This
is a
great contest we're doing here at Civic Media, ladies and gentlemen.
It's break into spring.
The text to win statewide contest.
Your daily chance to win a Chula Vista getaway Milwaukee Brewers club level tickets at a game, Frank.
They're not just giving you the seats to
say that
you actually get to watch a game while you're there.
And $100 cash, plus every entry puts you into our grand prize drawing of a brand new Queen mattress set from Verlo that includes a mattress, sheet set, mattress protector, and pillows.
The times for text to win are 7 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m.
You have to download the app to play.
I'm sure you already have it, but in case you don't, it's easy to use and you just click the little text icon and you are off to the races.
Good luck, everybody.
Frank Hermans is here.
Ben Reiser is coming up in a few minutes to talk Wisconsin Film Festival, but we have a few more minutes with Frank.
How can people get tickets?
Very simple.
There's a lot of different ways.
Well, first of all, you can go to Myertheater.org, because we're at the Myer Theater.
We're the main tenant.
We do 80 shows a year there.
Such a great theater.
Great theater.
Love it.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
Or you can go to ticketstaronline.com, or you can go to my website, lemabefranks.com.
They all have, you know, you can just click right through for tickets.
Right.
Or if you're, you know, some folks, believe it or not, they still...
Don't do the old click through the through the through the internet.
They want to call they want a direct ticket You can call ticket star
and
it is open only from 10 a.m.. To 2 p.m.. Monday through Friday at 9 2 o 4 9 4 3 4 1 there are a lot of ways to get tickets a lot of excuses excuse I'll say this I
I Got tickets for my parents for Christmas to your show
in there, and
it's a great if you're looking for a great
And I'm not just saying this, this is, it's a great present for people to send them to a show.
Cause sometimes they might not, my folks would have gone anyway probably, but a lot of times people won't go see something like this.
So if you're looking for a good gift to get someone.
Would they take
a share?
My dad was traumatized.
He loved
it.
He absolutely loved it.
That's a fun,
I wish, I think I had a charity thing that
night
or I would have been there because you were right in my backyard.
We'll be back, we'll
be back
up there next year.
We're
doing, we're working
on some dates.
I
hope so, man.
It's such, you guys have so much fun.
So tell us about your other show coming up.
Brent, The Musical.
The reason why we brought this back, because of course we started as,
Look, who's here out there?
Good to see you, Christine.
It's our neighbors bringing down the rent, bringing down the property values.
Do we just get flashed?
No, we did.
We did.
Yeah, head
flashes.
So Brent, the musical, I wrote this story, controversial Brett Favre leaving us going to the Jets and then being pursued by the Minnesota Vikings, Viking.
So I wrote a show called Brent, the musical.
The story is he's got two buddies, Frankie Beg along, John's, and Chewy instead of Chunky.
Or Chunky instead of Chewy.
And he plays softball.
He's the best softball pitcher in Green Bay.
And he plays for the bar.
But he's thinking about retiring.
And there's a new upcomer coming up.
Well, we'll get into that a little later.
Behind him was almost as good as him.
Then the stadium view.
Lisa purple will call her okay, okay like the Minnesota fight comes calling and offering him You know more free pitchers of beer to come play for that bar play softball.
Oh, I love this So the controversy is about two women because there's a lot of stuff going on about women and bread far back in the day Yeah, we talk about the texting we talk about all the cool stuff back in the day and Eventually he does move on to the green and gold, but the new person comes on We call him what is his name in the show Darren Darren Rogers?
Darren Rodgers comes as a new pitcher for the bar and most of the songs in the show I wrote So it was kind of a fun thing for me to write Music for a show.
We do have other like hollow notes is in the show some other songs about sports Okay, but this show when we did it 15 years ago.
We did it all over the state We premiered it at the Weidner in their small theater.
We went down to lacrosse did in wasa did in Milwaukee.
So this show was pretty
prominent because of what was going on in the news.
Well, we thought we'd bring it back because the draft, right?
Everybody's up here.
So I know people will be gone, but it's May 7th through the 10th.
It's a couple of weeks after the draft.
It's still in people's mind, football.
You can see the story, how we write about Brett Farr.
It's called Brent the Musical, so I don't get a cease and desist, OK?
And it tells a story about, yeah, not making up your mind.
That's the whole thing.
Have you ever made up your mind?
That's the theme song in the show, and it's about someone who can't make up his mind.
Which apparently when you put on the green and gold, and you play quarterback, people have a tough time
with it.
And there's more similarities to Aaron Rodgers and Brett Farve than you would think.
How about that?
It's just crazy.
Both go to the Jets, both, you know, they struggle.
I mean, but you know what?
I don't think Aaron's going to be going to them.
But before it got crazier, before they turned into these sort of spacey or couldn't make up their mind, they gave you some pretty good years.
Oh, they give some
great years.
They're still my heroes.
Yeah.
You know, I got to tell you, I love Brent.
Brent
or Darren, who do you like
better?
Well, I play Brent in this show because I got gray hair.
I got the cut off shirt with the number four upside down.
It's so funny.
So we're talking like we're playing football, but we're really on a softball team and I'm a great slow pitcher.
That's what I'm good at.
Do
you have actual
inappropriate pictures on your phone that you do.
No, but we use the phone and one of them.
It's so funny.
Lisa Green, who is my girlfriend at the time, I send a text to Lisa Purple and she sees it and she turns around with a full bottle of beer in her mouth and spits right in my face.
It's one of the coolest scenes because every night I'm not expecting it.
Oh, that's
so funny.
Oh God, it is a fun show.
And what's cool about this, we're going back to our roots.
It's dinner theater.
It's at the Meyer Theater, but it's at the backstage.
150 seats a night.
That's it.
dinner at a show.
It's an Italian buffet.
We started as a dinner theater back in the days, back in the sports corner days.
And at the SC Grand, it was dinner at a show.
So, and it's a pretty cost effective for everybody to come on out and tickets around sale right now.
And there's only limited number, 150 a night.
We got lots of seats available right now.
A week runs?
Yeah, a week run.
That's it.
We're gonna do a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, two shows on that Saturday, matinee and an evening show.
A rumor on the street is that you're gonna play something
for us.
Yeah, I wrote a song.
from the show, right?
This song.
Love the 12 string,
dude.
I had to bring the 12 string for this, man.
Love it.
And this song, my wife is singing to me.
So I'm going to sing it like a guy, though, but she's singing it to me.
But this is from Brent?
This is from Brent the musical.
And the whole thing that she is saying to me is to continue to do what you do.
Love what you do.
Continue to play.
Continue to play and that's what this song is about and it's about it's called play.
I love it Frank Herman's
Hey, I gotta put my cheaters on I can't see I was cheaters your cheater.
Sorry.
Here we go
Say you'll change say you'll stay
Be the man I know you are and plain Don't give up, ankles heel
That
was a great song, dude.
You wrote that.
I did.
I wrote that for my wife.
Now, it's in a different key when she sings.
It's in D, so it's higher.
I can only play it in G.
Do you ever get, like, you do these shows.
I'm sure you get very attached to them.
Like, King of Crack, I was, what, a two-week run?
That's a three-week run.
A three-week run.
Yeah.
Do you ever want to extend it, because you like the
show so much, but
you got
another
show coming that you also wrote that you
have to do?
You know, it's funny you say that, because there's some shows where like, God, I can't believe this.
Like Christmas, you know, five weeks, you know, my God,
I gotta
sing Rudolph again.
But yeah, these shows that are three weeks, we used to do four week runs.
I've kind of consolidated a little bit.
We still do the same number of shows, but we do them in three weeks instead of four weeks because we're all getting older.
We all have children.
We all have things to do.
So I'm making it, you know, everybody has a full time job, you know, working for me is full time.
So.
You don't want to give them a break.
We still do five shows a year, 80 dates.
Wow.
So we're at the Meyer Theater, yeah.
That's a good gig.
Do you ever, Frank, like, all right, you're kind of an institution.
You
employ these people, you put up shows, you're prolific, you're always putting up new stuff.
Do you ever want to do something else that you don't write?
Like, as an actor, do you ever go, I might be fun to step out of my comfort zone.
You know, I've been asked to do some stuff, like a musical or something.
I don't know.
It's tough when you're the boss when you're doing it yourself shots.
Yeah, all the shots.
I don't really like being told what to do Yeah, you have a company.
I mean you know I'm all about it You know if anybody else in my troop wants to do other things and they do
Cause they're so talented.
I mean, all my girls, some of them are in other bands, you know, Project Pink, which is a, my wife is in there and Lisa Borley, you know, they have other side, side hustles.
Pat has some side hustles.
I do Elvis on the side.
We got our tribute shows that we do all over the place.
So I'm too busy to do anything else, but you know, I'll still do speaking stuff or, you know, I'll do, I'll do a commercial here and there.
So I got all these little, I got like games I can play all the time,
you know, it's pretty cool.
It gives me the shivers.
It's
such a
great sound,
dude.
Sounds so good, doesn't it?
Buddy, good luck with King of Crack Out and with Brent the Musical.
I'm gonna try to see Brent.
I would
love to come down.
Maybe we'll
bring my wife down for
good.
I know a guy who has tickets.
There's no shortage of where you can get tickets,
certainly.
You've got all these great outlets.
Frank Herman's, ladies and gentlemen.
A Green Bay Institution, thank you,
sir.
Thanks,
brother.
See you next time.
All right, we're
coming right back with Ben Reiser from the Wisconsin Film Festival.
It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio
Network.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am Pete Schwabba.
You're a dedicated host.
Catching up on some texts here, Sherry says, good evening, Pete and Conrad.
Good evening, Sherry.
And then Sherry says, I have to have an MRI on my brain in a week.
You have to hold still in a tube for 20 minutes.
I don't know if we can consider that raw dogging.
Sherry, but I do wish you luck, and I hope everything turns out okay, as always.
Mark, we read Mark's text, where is Anna from Madison says, Pete, I agree, once upon a time in America was a good movie.
I think Leonardo DiCaprio should have won an Oscar instead of Brad Pitt.
I wasn't expecting that ending.
Me either, Anna, and like I said, I didn't know anything about the movie when I went into it, kind of on purpose.
And kind of it was the spur of the moment thing, and I just, I love it.
It became my favorite Tarantino movie.
So keep those texts coming, folks.
Our question of the night is, how long do you think you could sit quietly in a room and do nothing, thanks to the philosopher Blaise Pascal for that question, and putty, raw-dogging it on Seinfeld?
Kind of the same thing.
I said maybe I could do 30 minutes, Conrad said 30 seconds, or would you say like two minutes?
Five minutes.
Five minutes, okay.
That's not bad.
Let's ask our next guest what he thinks.
Ben Reiser works for the Wisconsin Film Festival.
He is a movie buff and a podcast host, and he knows more about movies than most of us have forgotten, and he's always fun to talk to here on Nightlight.
Ben, how are you?
Good, Pete.
How are you?
Doing well.
How are you holding together, my friend?
You've got a film festival opening in one week, and what still has to be done?
What stages are you in?
I can't even imagine the chaos.
I'm at the stage where I would love to just sit quietly in a room and do nothing for the next five days.
That's a great answer.
You can a rod doggie for that long.
I am I am still working on the festival trailer that gets shown before every single one.
Oh
yeah.
I'm particularly late this year in delivering that piece of film.
You did one last year, and this is a little video Ben makes for every screening at the Wisconsin Film Festival, just to kind of tell people to, what would you say?
It's like a welcoming video, turn the lights down low.
It's
what we need to do sort of contractually for all of our sponsors.
We throw them up on the screen, their logos.
But I try to make it more than that.
And so about 11 years ago, we decided we should write a festival theme song.
Which we did we kind of made it like this sort of folksy campfire song But my version of a campfire song when I was a kid in the 70s I used to go to summer camp up in Maine freedom Maine as a matter of fact camp hidden Valley and at the end of our Season up there the last night of camp we would all sit around this campfire and the teenage and
20 year old counselors Usually had acoustic guitars and would sing songs and the kids would sort of sing along but they weren't Real folk songs.
They were more like 70s like am gold like we would sing like leaving on a jet plane that kind
of stuff
That's my idea of a campfire song.
So we wrote this Wisconsin film festival song that we hoped sounded kind of like am 70s John Denver ish carpenters kind of stuff and people really liked it and so we've been
most years doing some kind of variation of that song, either using some of the same lyrics or some of the same melody, and then doing all kinds of different visuals.
So we've done everything from like up.
Look at 1940s like song and dance like Hollywood musical to Last year we did I'm sorry.
I actually interrupted your story about last year's trailer.
No,
which was a bunch of We went to some karaoke bars around Madison and had people do karaoke versions of our festival theme song and then we Mashed a bunch of those together and it I think it worked out really
some of those singers were great You had one guy who did like a lame is thing
And I ended up taking out my phone and recording that.
And I'm not sure I'm supposed to, I'm allowed to do that, but it was great.
And then one year you did a more jazzy film noir type thing where you had dancers from UW come out and sing a more upbeat.
Every year I look forward to it.
It's just a lot of fun.
So you're still putting that together for this year.
Yeah.
Okay.
As a matter of fact, I really just started today.
That's in
between my civic media radio blitz.
You know, I started off this morning on your fine network.
You
were
on John and Gordy.
John and Gordon, John Gordy actually was in the studio for the first time on Civic Media.
Look at that.
Something you've never
had me do, yeah.
You know, I don't like awkward banter on the way out of the studio, Ben.
That's why I prefer to keep it on the stream.
No, you know, I'll have you on
something.
Well, when we do your PBS show, there's like a whole army of assistants that sort of usher you out.
Don't look at, don't make eye contact with Pete in the hallway.
That is on March 31st.
That will air.
It's the PBS.
Director's Cut Wisconsin Film Festival Edition, which is really fun, folks.
Check it out.
That's another preview at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
I'm the host.
Ben is one of the guests.
Did a great job.
That's Monday night, March 31st on PBS.
So check that out, too.
But lots of information out there about the Film Festival, Ben.
Other than that, what still needs to be done?
You've obviously got the film's book, the venues.
Is it just about accommodations for everybody coming to town?
Yeah, there's a lot of like communicating with all, I think we have close to a hundred guests of the festival coming this year.
Filmmakers and other industry professionals.
And there's a lot of communication that we have to have with them because a lot of these people are sort of on a festival circuit and they can't remember what city they're in.
How does this festival work compared?
How do I get my tickets from my own film for this festival compared to this festival?
Wait, did you send me a hotel reservation confirmation?
So there's a lot of anxious filmmakers writing to us saying, explain to me again what's going to happen and when it's going to happen.
And so there's a lot of back-and-forth communication.
There's a lot of venue setup.
A lot of the theaters that we use are not movie theaters the rest of the year.
And so we need to get in there with the crew and make sure the projectors are working and the sound system is working and the seats are not broken and the floors are clean.
All this crazy stuff, like setup.
Screens and and masking for the edges of the screens This year at the Barrymore we have this great project where we're going to be hanging these heavy curtains against the back wall of the Barrymore which is going to significantly improve the sound at the somewhat cavernous
Barrymore,
but that still hasn't happened yet.
And so at this stage, it's like I'm really trying to fit 15 days worth of work into the next five days and it's not that fun
I think part of the charm is like when you guys go gorilla and you've got
Venues the show movies and cool old theaters and then you've got these makeshift things that can take a charm on all by themselves Ben riser is here We're gonna do the news and we'll come back and tell you about some of the films you can see at this great film festival We're talking about and who will be there and all kinds of fun stuff great to have you with me on this Thursday night It's peach wabba and nightlight Ben riser is here on the civic media radio
network
Welcome back.
Great to have you with me, folks, on this Thursday night.
This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.
I am Pete Schwabba, riding shotgun, as always, is the lovable producer, Conrad.
Coming up tomorrow night on Nightlight.
The singing duo extraordinaire, Amelie and John, also known as 7000 Apart, will be here in the studio.
And it's also a Bar Band Friday night.
And our friend Terry Bar will join us with new music that you can also hear on Max Inc Radio Saturday nights on Civic Media.
So on all things music night tomorrow and some good live entertainment right here in the studio, Amelie and John are fantastic.
They're not just bi-coastal.
They are bi-continental.
So they will be here tomorrow because they're in Green Bay.
and their second home.
Right now, Ben Reiser is here from the Wisconsin Film Festival.
Ben joins us from time to time to talk movies and TV, and he is talking about everything going on starting in one week at the Wisconsin Film Festival.
Ben, what, you know, I had John Roach on earlier this week.
I watched his film.
He sent me a link.
Wow, is that powerful?
Yeah.
That is like, like just, you know, I'm watching it at half the time.
I'm so
Enamored with UW and Madison and then it's heartbreaking.
It's just such a great doc
Yeah, and that's that's showing at the Barrymore I thought it would be fun to just talk about everything that's at the Barrymore over the week sure because Tickets have been selling like hotcakes for this year's festival I mean we are so far ahead of where we were this time last year or the year before oh
wow
and so a lot of screenings have
Literally sold out of advanced tickets and there might be some tickets available at the door if people don't show up We always do these rush lines where people can line up and we'll sell empty seats to people waiting in line if it's five minutes before the screening and they people with tickets have not shown up Because a lot of times people buy 20 30 tickets to movies in advance of the festival and then maybe halfway through the festival They're like, I think I've seen enough movies just kind of give up but um
But yeah a road at night that John Roach film is playing Sunday night the Barrymore.
I was just I made a connection in my brain Conrad I think Conrad picks the tunes coming in and out of breaks or do you tell him what to do?
I tell him what to download, but then he is mr. DJ and
he well he just played R. E. M. Yeah, and Michael Shannon the actor Chicago guy yeah, terrific Paul.
Yep
But do you know what Michael's been doing for the last couple months?
He's been out on the road with a band doing REM covers like he's touring basically as like an REM cover band And I think they're there the tour that they have been on recently They've been covering all of the murmur album or fables of the reconstruction one of the early REM albums, huh?
I only bring them up because there's a connection to the festival.
We're showing a Michael Shannon film this year.
We're showing the film
premium rush, which is about a New York City bike messenger played by Joseph Gordon Levitt.
And his, his nemesis, the villain of the piece is Michael Shannon.
And the film is written by David Kepp, who's a UW Madison alum, one of the most famous and big name screenwriters in the world.
Recently has been writing all of Steven Soderbergh's movies, like he wrote that presence film.
He wrote the film that's out in theaters now, Black Bag.
But of course, he also wrote Jurassic Park.
I mean, if you start talking about a list of movies that David Kepp has written and then sometimes directed, your mind will be blown.
But anyway, David Kepp is coming to the festival.
We're showing premier and restarring Michael Shannon, who's currently basically
the substitute for Michael Stipe in REM.
Wow.
And so there we go.
Bringing it all back to you in
daylight.
Why is he doing that?
Like Michael Shannon is a great actor, but why would he?
I mean, he's just love music and he's got money and doesn't care or what?
Yes, but but.
Yes, all that's true, but he does a great job and people love this thing.
People have gone wild for this Michael Shannon R.E.M.
thing, including R.E.M.
themselves who haven't performed as a band live in, I think, over a decade.
He played his show in Atlanta a few weeks ago and they all showed up and they all joined him on stage at one point.
So it was really the first R.E.M.
reunion in a long time.
So it's got official endorsement from the band itself.
That's really cool.
Will he be in Madison?
We thought about asking, but he's busy.
He's busy with this R.E.M.
thing.
He doesn't have time for film festivals anymore, although he just directed a film that I think is coming out fairly soon.
He's an incredibly talented guy.
All right.
So we talked about John Roach's film, great film, highly recommended, a Road at Night.
We also had Ethan Ogilby on the other night who wrote the film, The Threesome.
And I will say, Ben, he was on here and he kept saying.
And as much as I want to tell you what makes people gasp 20 minutes into the film, he goes, I just can't but I'm telling you and he really teased it.
So I hope some of the listeners in the Madison area are buying tickets to that because his film sounds really good.
Yeah, that's another one that's playing at the Barrymore.
So anyway, I wanted to talk about Barrymore films because other than opening night at the Barrymore, which is the new Paul Rudd comedy friendship, which sold out in an hour.
after tickets went on sale, which has never happened for us at our large venues.
Like the Barrymore is an 800 seat theater.
We've never sold a show at the Barrymore.
We never sold it out in less than like three weeks.
This thing was crazy.
So but other than that, everything else at the Barrymore, although we've sold a ton of tickets, we still have plenty of tickets and none of the other films showing there over the weekend, I think are in any real danger of selling out.
But we put them at the Barrymore because everything we're showing there, we thought, well, this will attract a lot of people.
And I guess we were right.
We've got this sports, another sports documentary.
It's interesting.
We have at least three sports related films at this year's festival.
A Road at Night, as we just talked about.
But we also have this great Green Bay Packers related film called No Packers, No Life.
And it's about Japanese hardcore fans of the Green Bay Packers.
These are people who live in Tokyo.
But go to their favorite sports bar every week and watch the Packers.
They actually have prerecorded videos of older Packers games that they really liked.
And they show those from time to time and act like they're seeing it for the first time.
And this is about they at one point make a decision that they want to all as a group fly to the US, come to Lambeau and get to see the Packers play in person.
And so this documentary sort of follows them on that journey.
It's so much fun.
That
looked really
fun.
Craig is the director, right?
Craig Benzine.
He was on Directors Cut.
You can see
that
interview, too, if you tune into PBS Monday night.
That sounds fun.
When is that at the Barrymore?
Because you've got that erode at night.
Meet the parents.
That's right before erode at night.
So no Packers, no life at 4.30.
And then erode at night at 7 PM, both on Sunday, April 6.
And the other thing about the Barrymore, it's a beautiful old theater.
If you haven't been to it, it has had previous lives as a movie theater, even an adult movie theater at some point in the 70s, I believe.
I think in the 70s, they would show adult movies.
Uh, most of the time, but on the weekends, they would show like children's films.
And so you had to be careful that you weren't, but I think both, both consets of constituents had to be carefully literally fun for the whole
family.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, uh, there's another sports film about the Milwaukee brewers called just a bit outside.
Oh yeah.
You can recently passed away, but this is, uh,
This is about their their great run that they had and I can remember it was 1982.
Now that's
sold out, right?
Because Sean was on the show a couple
of
weeks ago or last week, maybe.
And that's not surprising that that one went fast.
Right.
But again, if you really want to see it, come come get in line.
And we usually find a way to get people into the movies they want to see whether they've got tickets or not.
That's so great.
I mean, they can, I know, I'll break out a folding chair and here
you go.
The Barrymore 2 is so great because it's like one of those old, they have the stars on the ceiling.
It's got a balcony.
It's just it's an institution.
And it's
in a great funky neighborhood with lots of cool restaurants and the parking is really not that bad.
Better than on campus, I would say.
And then we've also got a bunch of music films, including two at the Barrymore that I'm super excited about.
One of them, I don't think we can say on Civic Media.
It's this Rolling Stones documentary from the early 70s that was never really released.
This famous documentary filmmaker, Robert Frank, made it.
Its title is Not Safe for Work or Young Children.
But but if you look in our online film guide at wifilmfest.org, you can read the title and all of its glory.
But it sort of follows the stones on one of their early 70s tours.
A lot of backstage stuff, a lot of stuff that maybe doesn't paint the stones in the greatest light as far as drug use or abuse of roadie or groupies.
But it's there and it's a very, very hard to see film.
They only let it get shown once in a great while.
And Mike King, our artistic
director has been after this one for years and he finally got it and we're showing it at the Barrymore and then we've also got a great new documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono and their time in New York in the in the in the 70s called One to One John and Yoko which I think is going to be opening wide fairly soon around the country but we're showing that at the Barrymore so yeah great some great music and some great sports and of course lots of great
films about all kinds of things.
My guest is Ben Reiser.
Ben works for the Wisconsin Film Festival.
He handles all the operations, helps pick films.
You book cinema tech too, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
You
need to kind of do it all.
But he's here talking about the Wisconsin Film Festival, which opens a week from tonight.
And again, if you want more information, you can even tune into PBS on Monday night for Directors Cut, where I host.
And Ben is one of my guests, and we talk about the Wisconsin Film Festival.
That's a fun one to do every year.
Ben, let's not forget, on Saturday...
Greg Leanna, Jim Vincent coming in to have, all right.
So Greg, as he's been on this show several times, Greg's one of my writing partners.
We wrote a lot when we both first moved to LA and we were kind of a writing team and he had just, I met Greg right after he finished the original Meet the Parents.
It came out,
played at
the Music Box in Chicago and it got such
great
reviews.
It's a very...
It's Meet the Parents.
It's still the same story, but it's a little darker and a little smaller, a little more believable, frankly, than the studio film.
Greg is showing his version, which was financed by the comedian Emo Phillips.
I don't know if Emo's going to be there, but it's a great movie.
That's showing it to Barrymore at one o'clock on Saturday.
And I know that because I believe I'm introducing it and doing the Q&A.
Yeah.
And I don't want to spoil anything, but do you know the story about why?
Well, my understanding is that like the studio or Ben Stiller's production company or somebody just like said, Greg, we love the movie.
We want to buy it from you so we can never show it again.
And we're going to just remake it with Ben Stiller and Robert Jr.
Is that the story?
Well, probably some derivation, but he did.
He and Mary Ruth Clark, his writing partner at the time, did a version for the studio, maybe two drafts.
It sat on the shelf.
And then Steven Soderbergh saw it and wanted to make it, loved it.
He passed along at some point and then Jay Roach found it and took it off the shelves and made it in to meet the parents.
But the writer they hired took Greg's name off the script, very...
Bush League move.
And I'm being generous by saying that.
But so there's a book out now about that that I'm sure Greg will talk about.
But overall, it was still a positive experience for him.
And it put some money in his pocket.
But he created this franchise.
And I feel like he's kind of undervalued in the whole process, you know.
Yeah, it's kind of like this other guy, Derek, somebody, you should get him on the show.
This guy who created the whole John Wick thing.
He wrote the original John Wick.
Wow.
He wrote the first sequel and then got sort of taken off the franchise.
But he's a Madison guy.
Really?
He's a Wisconsin guy.
Yeah, Derek Derek Cole Stan.
I think is his name.
Is
he
in the credits?
I've been wanting to get.
Yeah, he's the writer of John Wick.
Oh, John.
Oh, OK.
Well, I'm sure he's got residual checks coming in constantly.
Yeah, I think he writes for Disney now.
I think he wrote some of those like Star Wars TV shows for them.
That's awesome.
All right, so who do you have in terms of you guys do such great work when you bring in these restored films?
Do you have any big restored films coming in this year?
Those are fun to watch on the big screen.
Yeah, and we have special guests that come along with them.
We're showing the Matt Dillon film.
That's an adaptation of one of those SE Hinton novels.
You know, they were making those movies like one a month back in the 80s and 90s.
This is called Tex.
um and it was directed by tim hunter who's a fabulous writer and director and also an amazing cinephile who collects 35 millimeter prints we had tim hunter at the festival six or seven years ago only because he owns an original technicolor print of alford hitchcock's vertigo and he brought it to the festival so that we could show it and he introduced it
But we are showing his film, Tex.
He also has a new short film that we're going to show along with Tex.
But he directed that film, River's Edge, like the first game Keanu Reeves from a great film.
Keanu Reeves and I Only Sky, yeah.
Ioni Sky, Crispin Glover, and Dennis Hopper.
Hey,
Ben, let's stop
right there.
I'll just talk all night.
No,
that's OK.
We'll pick it up on the other side of the break.
We'll have a few more minutes with Ben, and we'll read a couple of texts that just came in, and then we'll wrap this thing up.
We're talking at Wisconsin Film Festival with Ben Reiser, it's Peach Wabba, and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Hi, this is Danny Slate, and you are listening to Night Light with Geet Swabba.
Welcome
back.
I'm Pete Swabba.
This is Night Light.
On the stream, PJ says, saw a meme earlier about nerds candy.
It said, when you're craving a mouthful of fish tank gravel,
Have some nerds.
I take
issue
with that, PJ.
We were talking about that earlier, because once in a while I crave nerds, and I've also eaten fish tank gravel in a drunken stupor once, and it's not nearly as tasty as nerds.
Steady Eddie weighs in on the text line from the 608.
He says, I tried to text you yesterday with an answer to the question of the day about who listeners were rooting for now that Wisconsin and Marquette have been eliminated from the basketball tournament.
I'm not sure what happened.
I may have accidentally sent my text to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic magazine.
Pete, if you are-
If you've ever texted any information marked top secret, please disregard.
Anywho, I'm now rooting for Michigan only because I'm inspired and enchanted by the name of their new head coach, Dusty May.
I came up with this poem.
A dry April means a Dusty May, who marches the Michigan Wolverines to a basketball championship in the NCAA.
Steady Eddie always brings it.
That is awesome, pal.
Thank you.
Bridget from the 818 says, I could sit quietly in a room and do nothing for hours.
I'm a kindergarten teacher.
I love the peace and quiet.
I can relate to that, Bridget.
And then finally, Tony the trucker says, Pete, I think your guest is thinking of the majestic theater as the porn slash kids movie venue.
Does that sound familiar,
Ben?
Well, I think the Majestic might have done that too, but I have it on good authority Barry Moore, which I think was known as the Eastwood at a certain point was also Dabbled in adult entertainment.
I think it's I think at some point all the theaters in Madison dabbled in adult Hey, there's a there's a nightlight beer called Hay Hay's done radio Ben at the Flicks brew house this year I don't know if you knew that made in honor I went and I poured the hops in and it's gonna be there all through the film festivals So
that's a good venue.
Yeah
What I love about Flix is their...
My favorite movie theater, commercial multiplex movie theater in in Madison or the Madison area, maybe because they're the newest and their projectors are the newest.
And there's all their theaters look great and sound great.
But what's funny is that, you know, they don't really consider themselves a movie theater.
They consider themselves a brewery and a restaurant that just sort of happens to show movies, you know, like they're much more interested, which I guess all movie theaters are now with concessions and selling you food.
But
You know, Flix has full meals for you.
A really robust menu.
And then of course all this in-house brewed beer.
But it's fun.
Yeah, it's great.
And so especially if you're spending the day at Flix seeing four or five movies at the festival, you can have all your meals there too.
You don't need to go anywhere.
You can never need to see the light of day.
Eat some food, drink some nightlight beer, and be on your way.
Hey, so let's do this, Ben.
If people were coming to the festival and you had to tell them to see three films.
What would you say?
Assuming they're all great, but at the top of your head, what what what comes to mind?
There's a another film we're showing at the Barrymore is a stop-motion animated film called savages Made by this director who whose film my life as a zucchini we showed five or six years ago that was
I think it was originally in French, but they did an English dubbed version.
with Nick Offerman doing one of the voices in that film.
And we, I don't know if you remember this, we had a whole Nick Offerman day one year at the festival where Nick came and we showed like four films that he was involved with in some way from, you know, being on screen or doing a voice as they did for my life, his zucchini, or I think he produced one of the films that we showed.
But anyway, Savages, which is about...
a rainforest and the indigenous people that live there and sort of they're at war with this corporation that's of course trying to deforest the whole joint for their own nefarious purposes.
But it's a beautiful film to look at.
It's really entertaining, exciting, great for the whole family.
It's the one big screens little folks film, which is the program that we have the festival for, you know.
Films that are appropriate for children and their families and their friends.
It's the one of those films that we're showing at the Barrymore and It's really gonna be great on the big screen there.
So that's one of them
I personally am a huge fan of the director David Cronenberg.
He's got a new movie called The Shrouds starring Vincent Cassell or as somebody explained to me recently, no, no, no, he's French and it's Vincent Cassell.
So that's called The Shrouds.
That's playing at the Barrymore at 11 a.m.
on Sunday.
So I'm excited to see that one.
And we've got this other comedy.
We already talked about Meet the Parents at the Barrymore.
We talked about Friendship on opening night being sold out at the Barrymore.
But we have another one, and we also talked about Threesome, which is another comedy that's showing at the Barrymore.
But we have one on Friday night.
Called for worse and has written and starring Amy Landecker who's a terrific actress.
Oh, yeah Currently married to Bradley Whitford who produced this film but people might know Amy from that show Transparent on Amazon.
She's one of the siblings.
I want to say the older sister on that terrific show She's great.
I hear great things about this movie.
We've sold a ton of tickets for it, but there's still some left
So did I name three just now?
That's three, buddy.
And we've got about 30 seconds left.
Have you watched Adolescence?
No, I haven't yet.
But tonight might be the night.
I'm just about out of everything else.
I wrapped up all the shows I was in the middle of.
Hey, did we ever talk about the diplomat?
Is that the name of the show?
Yeah, I watched the first season.
I liked it.
And you didn't
watch
the second season?
No, I don't.
We'll do that next time.
Cause yeah, I would love to have a discussion about that.
And sometimes they didn't like it, but adolescence, I started 20 minutes into what I go, I'm going to love this.
I have to stop this and prepare.
I got to stretch out next time I watch it and all one camera, it's just, I think it, it has a lot of potential.
So we'll circle back on that as well.
Thanks
so much, buddy.
I'll
see you in
a week.
I can't wait
and
break a leg this year as you always do.
Thanks, you too.
All right, that's Ben Reiser from the Wisconsin Film Festival.
Get your tickets today.
Lots of great films happening.
My thanks to Frank Hermanns for being here in the studio and knocking our socks off.
And thank you for all your texts and all your calls.
It's great when you guys are part of the show.
Another Night Light in the books on behalf of the lovable producer, Conrad Mpichwaba, saying good night,
Wisconsin.
Oh, take me to yo-
