Transcript
Wisconsin Film Festival 2025 (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Thu Mar 27, 2025
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
great contest we're doing here at Civic Media, ladies and gentlemen.
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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.
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
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.
a share?
My dad was traumatized.
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,
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.
coming right back with Ben Reiser from the Wisconsin Film Festival.
It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio
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-
