Transcript
Mike Starr & The Milwaukee Film Festival (Hour 2)
Nite Lite with Pete Schwaba and Greg Bach · Wed Apr 16, 2025
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Welcome back to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen, as we kick off our number two.
So great to have you with me on this Wednesday night here at Night Light Conrad Riding Shotgun.
If you were the lead actor or actress in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?
That is tonight's Night Light question of the night.
We've had some outstanding
answer so far.
Matt Miller coming up a little later here in hour two.
Right now, this is really fun for me.
I've got the legendary actor Mike Starr here.
He's been over in over 300 films, TV credits too.
He's done theater.
He's an absolute treasure.
And you've seen him in so many movies that you've probably forgotten about because he's in so many of them.
The Bodyguard, Miller's Crossing, Dumb and Dumber.
And Mike, I'll ask you about this one.
kill the Irish.
I
first apologized.
I know I did a lot of Chicago things.
I do love Milwaukee and Wisconsin had great experiences there, including being out for weddings and and so many so many great times and stayed stayed out in Milwaukee and made made special trips, not only with my wife, but also I with friends out there and was lucky to work and I even have these friends that have a
a film show on the radio in Kenosha.
And so I try to, I try to, I'm not competitors, it's all, we're all in this together.
And was lucky enough to go to Lambeau Field.
Oh yeah.
Like that and spend great times in Wisconsin.
Listen, it's a great, I mean, I've lived in Chicago, LA and Wisconsin.
I love them all, but Wisconsin, where I live now in northeast Wisconsin is the easiest place to live.
You will ever, it's like, Oh God, it's, it's, it's like heaven.
The people are nice.
It's just easy to get around.
There's enough culture.
It's, it's fantastic.
So, but thank
for the, the nice words.
I was about to ask you about Kill the Irishman, this movie that you were in that not a lot of people saw it.
I just watched it like three years ago.
Was that a good experience?
That was tremendous.
It was about Danny Green.
And
Cleveland
gangster, right?
Yeah, Irishman was a long shaman.
And originally from Ireland, it's a really interesting story.
The book was written by who's now a police.
I think in the suburbs of Ohio, at least he was at the time when he gave me the book and he had been a patrolman, I think, way back then.
There were, I think, 35 bombings in 1973 between these wars they were having.
And, you know, you look at the cares we had.
And of course, Ray Stevens, we lost, who was originally, I think, from Northern Ireland and England, he was a wonderful, wonderful actor.
And we lost him at a young age.
and he had played the lead and he was just spot-on perfect just great to be around and uh there's you know you see all the other characters and oh man Vince DeVonafrio and uh we had uh jeez we just oh it's
a great great cast yeah Chris
Walken and and you see yeah so it's jeez i'm just thinking of all the people that were on it and some who are not with us anymore Tony and
I
didn't know, yeah, Ray Stevens was great.
You are, like, let's talk about that, Mike.
You, and I want to get to Dumb and Dumber and Miller's Crossing and maybe even the Bodyguard.
We'll see how we do here.
But, like, you, you've been described, everybody I've talked to about you, or if I said Mike Starr is coming on the show, whatever I said, he is such a nice guy.
He is one of the nicest guys you will meet in the entertainment business.
For you, and you've worked with tons of people, who do you say that about?
Oh, Lord.
Now you're going to get me in trouble if I...
Just because time's an issue.
Give
me two people.
Okay, Gene Wilder.
I'll pick people that are alive.
I'm thinking of so many.
I mentioned how nice Robert DeNiro was to meet Dustin Hoffman with John Lithgow.
He got me work too.
That's all that always
helps.
I've
been periodically for the Sopranos.
Oh
yeah.
Got me work a few times and so many people.
I was lucky enough to work with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick on Broadway and a few other nice people.
Wow.
And geez, now I get nervous that I'm not going to say it's that cliche of who am I leaving out.
But Gene Wilder was
one of the most special people.
You can't imagine you couldn't wait to get to the set.
We did these A&E mysteries.
He wrote Agatha Christie's style, did a couple of those, and special TV movies.
He's
in Milwaukee.
He was born in
Milwaukee.
That's
it.
That's
it.
Oh, good.
I finally
said
something.
Great choice.
All the stories you would tell, I'd ask about young Frankenstein.
Hey, John Candy was a
Oh, yeah.
That's
right.
You were an Uncle Buck.
That's right.
Uncle
Buck, the drunken clown,
right?
What are your, like, you play a great tough guy, Mike.
I've seen you play cops.
Where does comedy rank?
Like, when you get to play comedy, is that like a nice added bonus to your career, or is it tops on your list?
Oh, geez.
I don't want to make a cliche, it's all the same to me, but it's funny, they all have their, it's just, you know, Peter Farrell told me, and I think Jim Carrey was involved in the decision-making too, but Peter had said something that they wanted, someone that had played these, you know, serious mob characters or whatever I was supposed to be, and it's funny,
you know, and you see so many wonderful actors who got their start in doing stand-up, but they didn't want like a stand-up comedian.
He says one of them says, I don't know, you know, and that, but you see so many fabulous people who started in comedy or that we knew from comedy, and then you find out how wonderful they can be.
But it's funny, some of, only once or twice, it would...
But you know, someone would say something like, but isn't he a comedian?
How are they going to take him seriously as this character or the mock guy?
Because if you did something that was popular, like dumb and dumb, not because of me, but it has such a following.
It's outrageous internationally.
I mean, people still talk of all ages.
And so, yeah, that was that's so much fun.
I mean,
I don't like, geez, I don't know what to say because I like, I love period pieces and I don't know how to say it.
I mean, there's some things that aren't comedies and you get to be kind of a funny guy.
Like in the natural, I was kind of, you know, I improvised a few funny lines here and there, you know, thanks to Barry Levinson.
And I don't know, I don't know how to answer that.
I mean,
it's so
great to make people laugh.
Let's put
it that way.
Yeah, I knew.
You know, you're rolling dumb and dumber.
I knew every line at one point, even when you come out of the restroom and you're like feeling better girls.
Just everything you say to those guys is so funny.
And it's such a scene.
It's written
by them.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, but it's performed well, too.
And I I feel like, you know, comedians should just act whether you're a comedian or whatever.
The script is there.
That's the material.
Just play it straight.
And if it's funny, it's funny.
But was that
whatever?
whatever way you get there, as people say to me, you work at it.
But yeah, it's a lot of the humor comes out of reality.
I mean, you think of little things like in Goodfellas when when Joe Pesci after this terrible killing, he says, make that coffee to go, you know, and the Godfather, you know, a lot of times that humor comes out of that.
And then there's different styles, of course, of comedy and being on
Dumb and Dumber was just the toughest part was to keep a straight face when I'm either supposed to be angry
dying or whatever.
And these surprises come from Jim and Jeff, you
Nefarally, brothers, tell me things about my guy Fred Stoller when I first met him with the phone booth.
Oh, he's great.
And he's just really hysterical and he's a wonderful writer.
He wrote, I believe he, I know that he was on Seinfeld, but it looks random, but he also wrote on Seinfeld too.
Oh, is
that right?
Yeah.
He did a lot of stuff.
Great comic.
And he's been in touch with me.
And a great part.
I mean, I forgot about the phone booth scene in Dumb and Dumber.
That's classic.
What was it like?
We talked about Miller's crossing a little bit in our text exchange the other day, and you sounded excited to talk about that.
What was it like working with the Coen brothers and Gabriel Byrne and Albert Finney in this great cast?
Oh, man.
Too long a story
on that
one.
I mean, Albert Finney.
The Danny boy scene probably listening and oh just but so many other than just the conversations again Offset well, I was drinking that
wait a
second,
I just Just the The stories and the things they share and these people that you looked up to and my partner in it Al Manchini Congress, so he was and and and and You know Albert
But Gabe, you know, there was so many like laughs and things.
Gabe was filming off the set and there was just so much.
And John Titori I've worked and known for years.
So we got to do that scene together and work together.
And there's a lot of things I could tell you.
And then having to all of a sudden come up with a song.
And then what happened was they changed it.
And another time I can tell you how I learned it.
going through customs.
But that really is you singing?
Yeah.
That's why it doesn't look like it.
I mean, people don't say, oh, you're not a singer, whatever.
But I'm no genius.
But what happened was that I did one that had this page that something I'd learned in Northern Italy.
And then they changed the song.
I had about five days to a week.
And I was going up doing this.
film about the Boston busing and Anna bound or something was and I was going up to Toronto and I had to learn it and even I asked neighbors and they said the dialect was so strange to them but
So you don't see it on my mouth much because you go from back to that, then the song in the film is, and it was about Pavarotti's town, is the song from pronouncing it right.
So it's very hard to match the mouth.
had to do sideways and things.
And they actually,
was it Joel Ethan they apologized to me said we should have put you in the credits because people thought it was someone else you know
I got to be pretty obnoxious about it over the years.
Mick Flanagan, great line producer said if you asked Mike about Miller's Cross that's one of my favorite favorite movies but he'll immediately go that was me singing you know.
Oh, Mike Starr is here, ladies and gentlemen.
He has been in such movies as The Bodyguard, Kill the Irishman, Miller's Crossing, Goodfellas will have a couple more minutes with Mike after a very short break.
And then Matt Miller comes up to talk about the Milwaukee Film Festival.
You got Nightlight with Pete Schwabba here on the Civic Media Radio Network.
You're listening to Civic Media.
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Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.
And Matt Miller comes up in just a few minutes.
We'll talk about the Milwaukee Film Festival.
We have a couple more minutes here with our guest, Mike Starr, an actor with so many credits, you know, his work from The Godfather, I'm sorry.
No, no, not Godfather.
The Bodyguard is what I meant to say.
Bodyguard, Goodfellas, Miller's Crossing, so many great credits.
Mike.
Can I just tell you that Miller's Crossing, that was an example of where there was some comic things we did.
not complete, but things like when he hits me in the face with the chair and how we set it up.
And the Combros are just so great to be around.
They're just like that.
And I did a lot of off-camera humor with them, too.
That's great.
I'm not surprised by that because you seem like a real jovial guy who likes to laugh.
It did surprise me a little bit, maybe just because of his character, but the Gabriel Byrne was someone who liked to crack up and be funny.
He had
a very dry sense of humor.
I mean, I even called him out, but he was great.
He's very funny.
He's really
something.
That's so cool.
Well, you'll have to come back because I'd love to do a deep dive on some of these things and talk to you more about your process and all that kind of stuff.
But before we let you go, can you give me, you know, you've got like almost 300 movie credits, TV credits.
If someone said, Mike, what three films of yours should I watch?
What would your answer be?
Oh, Lord.
I... I find it hard to...
You don't like to leave anybody out, I could tell.
Yeah, and also, I don't like to call them my films either.
I mean, there's different things where you, you know... I mean, I think Edward is a great experience.
Oh, yeah.
And I had done this comedy with girlfriends and...
The deli where I played a degenerate gambler live what is wrong, but I mean the obvious ones are good fellows bodyguard, you know dumb and dumb as so I mean it's hard to say I mean the natural was such a great experience, but I'd love to Jesus if you ever see path to paradise where I actually played an Egyptian blue-eyed redhead at one of the 93 World Trade Center
which was very controversial at the time and known in 9-11, but it was a fascinating study they did.
But there's things that, like I said, did with Gene Wilder, and there are things that might not have been as well known.
I mean, Black Dally was a great experience.
Sometimes all the scenes, certain things don't get in the film, whatever.
But of course...
And again, Goodfellas is just like one of the highlights, but you know, consider yourself by any means a lead in some of these films, you know what I mean?
So that's why 20 films, I guess if you put it that way, films that you've been in, but there's so many that had wonderful experiences.
I mean, I've been really lucky when you think about it.
I just recently did one some things, and there's television shows that were just
tremendous experiences, you know, whether they were Lauren Otis, Crime Story, you know, Ray Donovan, they got to be on Blacklist and James Bennett was just something to work with him and to work with Bill on Shameless, even though it's one scene, you know, it was William, Ray Donovan with John Boyd and the whole crew on that.
What I love, Mike, too, though, when I was looking at your IMDb page, you've got a ton of projects that aren't even out yet.
So you're still working hard.
I would
back soon.
And don't hit the gym too much, though, dude, because you look like a welterweight.
You look like a welterweight.
You're missing the intimidating.
You're trying to get the line back away.
There you go.
Mike, thank you so much for your time tonight.
It's great to meet you.
Thank you.
And I'd love to have you back on sometime, buddy.
I
really appreciate this.
My kids, my kids, all of them.
Keep up the great work.
Those great children.
Yeah, yeah, thank you very much.
Mike, have a great
night.
All right,
kids.
All right.
That's that's Mike Star, ladies and gentlemen, check out this.
Go to his IMDB page.
In fact, you know what?
Let's bring our next guest in because I'm sure Matt has seen his share of Mike's films, too.
Milwaukee film critic Matt Miller joins us now also on the stream.
Matt, you got to hear part of that interview with the great Mike Star.
Talk about an actor like we've got another actor in Wisconsin, Richard, really, with over 300 credits.
Mike has like.
He's got to be pushing 300 credits just with films.
And that's not even talking about the TV he did.
I mean, what a great career.
And I think the number is like 249 on IMDB, which is wild.
And I mean, to have a year in which you are in Goodfellas and Miller, Miller's crossing in this game here, that's a pretty good way to live.
Absolutely.
would be a Hall of Fame year.
And then, you know, there's the rest of his career to go with it.
So that's kind of the dream career, you know, just like being memorable in movies, great movies,
like
Absolutely.
And I think Miller's crossing to me is, you know, I do these classic movie picks.
And it's funny, I've got two Mike Starr.
movies.
Last week I did Miller's Crossing, Jim Carrey's name came up, so I did Dumb and Dumber this week, but Miller's Crossing is a very underrated, not underrated, because I think people think it's great, but that film executed brilliantly, writing, directing, acting, the look, the aesthetics, so great.
Best movies right in Miller's crossing by the Coen brothers, which I think is probably top three Coen brothers He's in good fellas, which I would say is like a top three Scorsese and he's in Ed Wood, which I think probably the top three Tim Burton like right invented like modern cinema of our times
Um, and he was, he was a part of all three of some of their best projects.
That's a, that's it.
Again, that's a good way to live.
Absolutely.
Um,
All right, so Matt Miller is here, folks.
Milwaukee Film Critic.
You can follow him at A Man About Film.
He has a sub-stack there.
It does great work.
We're going to get into some of the Milwaukee Film Festival.
Matt, I'm relying on you because I think I mentioned on the air a couple times I was in Madison a couple weeks ago hosting Q&As, doing all that kind of stuff.
I'm not as up on Milwaukee, which is a phenomenal film festival.
So I want to get into that with you and anything else you want to talk about.
We'll do movies and TV.
Thanks for sticking with us.
We had some technical issues earlier, but it's great.
great to have you here.
And we will be back after the news.
Matt Miller will keep you up to date, folks, on what you can expect at the Milwaukee Film Festival.
And I can't wait to talk to Matt about warfare, either.
We'll talk about that.
That's all coming up after the news with Matt Miller.
This is Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Shwaba, great to have you with me on this Wednesday night as we broadcast over our beautiful state of Wisconsin.
And we talk about the things in life that make us happy.
Movies, TV, music, comedy.
And Matt Miller.
Matt Miller makes me happy.
And he is here, the Milwaukee Film Critic.
Matt is great to talk to.
And he's going to tell us what we can see at the Milwaukee Film Festival, what we might want to see or circle out.
And then we'll get into some movie talk Matt.
It's great to have you here and good to see you buddy
now.
Yeah, so what like what is your you know Rather than start with movies we want to see give people a little background if you could it's just a thumbnail of the Milwaukee Film Festival I know they've tried to raise their profile in recent years.
They've got great venues They're real movie buffs there, but tell us what you know
Yeah, so if I recall, I'm trying to remember the timeline on this, but the Milwaukee Film Festival and its current form has been around for about 15, 20 years, I believe.
This year, they are kind of compacted down.
They normally used to be a part of the Avalon and the Times.
They used to be all across those theaters.
This year, they are very centered in the Milwaukee East Side area.
All their screenings are going to be taking place at the Oriental and Downer Theater, which are their two historic cinemas.
They're gorgeous spaces, really great places to take in movies.
Highly recommend.
and checking it out.
And yeah, they've got over 200 movies this year across all sorts of spectrums.
If you like indie dramas, if you like documentaries, if you like movies for kids, if you like insane late night horror movies, you know, they have pretty much, I always tell people about the Milwaukee Film Festival, if they don't have something that interests you, you just aren't interested in.
You're just not an interesting person.
So, I mean, you'll find something at the Milwaukee Film Festival for you to watch.
And I'm gonna try to,
you know, I'm sure we'll talk about a bunch of their selections during the segment, but I really highly recommend people checking out their website and going through the program book.
And like I said, I think you'll find at least something that piques your interest.
It's so great to watch movies with other movie buffs.
Like sometimes when you go to the theater or a mega plush, you don't know what to expect and you don't know who you're watching movies with.
Sometimes they talk or they crunch food the whole time.
Like
Like when you see film festival movies, especially at a festival like Milwaukee, you're there with people who engrossed themselves in the movie.
And that, like you feel part of something, you know, it's great.
And in a lot of cases, like you said, that they don't know much about, you know, you really obviously you can do a ton of research into these things, watch trailers, read reviews and all of that.
But it's kind of fun to go into a movie sometimes and be like, I know one sentence about this thing.
Those have always been kind of the most exciting Milwaukee Film Festival experiences is walking into something being like, oh, I don't I don't know.
Oh, this is my fourth movie of the day.
I don't know if I really want to.
And then you walk out and you're like, oh, that was the best thing I saw this entire festival.
That's always a really fun experience.
I did that at the Wisconsin Film Festival a couple of weeks ago.
I saw a new film called The Threesome.
And it's the best romantic comedy I've ever seen.
And it's Zoe Doich, who's kind of, you know, on the path to fame, or she's already there, I guess.
And Ruby Cruise, a great cast, great direction.
I cannot.
wait to see it again or see what happens with it.
It goes right to streaming or theaters.
But those are the kind of movies you can kind of be pleasantly surprised by.
What stands out at this year's Milwaukee Film Festival?
Are there any big films you think people are gonna flock to?
That is the new David Cronenberg movie.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, for those who don't know, David Cronenberg, The Fly, Scanners, Crimes of the Future.
He's a big body horror guy.
And this one is still kind of in that realm.
It's about a man who's mourning his wife and is trying to communicate with her via these kind of weird technological methods.
But also David Grunerber, I believe his partner passed in recent years, and this is kind of a very personal movie for him.
I remember it got a kind of lukewarm, lukewarm response when it premiered at some of the big overseas festivals, I think premiered at Cannes.
But honestly, that makes me more excited about it because when a movie like this premieres at a festival and people are kind of like, oh, I don't know, it didn't knock me on my butt, that tells me that, oh, it's maybe not like an Oscar movie.
You
This tells me that this is something interesting.
It's kind of like how whenever the Coen brothers released a new movie nowadays, the first reaction is always like, oh, I don't know.
It's light and it's frivolous.
It's not that good.
And then everyone sees it and they're like, oh, it's tremendous.
Like, you know, sometimes the film festival crowd is a little cynical and a little kind of, you know, where's the money about it?
And I just really want to see a really, really interesting David Cronenberg movie.
really cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's about 20 years ago about a bunch of friends built like a secret apartment inside of a mall.
And it's kind of about their kind of, you know, interesting dynamic and how like the mall world and how culture changed.
I'm really excited to check that one out.
If that sounds interesting as well.
There's also a documentary that goes to all over across the country and finds former Pizza Hut locations.
And if you're one of those
who remembers like the old 90s Pizza Hut places.
They were so architecturally particular.
You always can recognize when something used to be a Pizza Hut.
Like an IHOP too, yeah, exactly.
And it goes to these former Pizza Huts and finds what is in them now and kind of details what American life is like now via Pizza Huts, which is I think a really fun premise for a doctor.
And the person who did it also did a documentary at the film festival a few years ago called We Don't Deserve Dogs, which was a really good documentary that took a similar approach.
But it was how different cultures and different people across the globe, you know, how dogs fit into their lives and the meaning that dogs have.
And I thought that was a very powerful, really well done documentary.
So I'm excited to see what that director does with Pizza Hutts.
Yeah, I'm excited to see the mall one.
just to see how they did that and how they did it.
Did they get discovered or was it like a covert thing?
I would imagine it was.
out.
So that one's very exciting.
And then you have their centerpiece movies.
They've got two documentaries and a rom-com as they're kind of opening, closing, and centerpiece movies.
The opening movie is Sally, about Sally Ride, the astronaut, and kind of the truly, back when a woman going into space actually meant something and was actually historic and actually a feat
tells Sally Ride's story both on the shuttle and off the shuttle, because she also has a fascinating life beyond what she did with NASA.
The centerpiece movie is a documentary about librarians and about them fighting back against book banning and kind of freedom of speech and all these kind of moves we're seeing in our political scene right now.
So that's going to be a very good documentary as well, very obviously very prescient, very of the moment documentary.
And then the closing night movie is a rom-com called Jane Austen Wrecked My Life about a woman who's a big Jane Austen fan and she kind of finds herself in a Jane Austen-esque romantic love triangle situation.
I think that's a kind of very charming, light, fun way to kind of end 15 days of cinema, I think.
So again, you can see in those three movies right there, a very wide swath of really interesting stuff.
you know, if you're a midnight movie person, if you really enjoyed the substance, which I know we talked a lot about this past year, it was kind of the, the indie horror hit of 2024, you might want to check out the ugly step sister, which is in a similar vein, I would say, kind of the 18th century version of it, where it's a woman trying to, you know, win her way into high society and be respected by the world starts resorting to kind of body horror transformation.
very buzzy on the indie horror market.
So if you're looking for a late night, you know, excitement, I think the ugly stepsister could be really fun as well.
If you don't mind your movies being a little graphic and gory
and
There's a movie from a local filmmaker, All the Glitters.
I think he's a first-time director.
Noah, where did I have that?
I just had that up.
I was just wondering if you knew anything.
Noah Meister.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know that director or that film all that well, but obviously you do have a lot of Cream City Cinema selections as well during the film festival, which is always great.
A lot of really interesting options in that corticoria as well.
I know we talked about a dog documentary from a few film festivals ago, but there's one about cats this year.
called 25 Cats from Qatar.
I think I mispronounced that, my apologies.
But that one is also a Cream City Cinema documentary about the owner of Sip and Perk Cat Cafe trying to bring cats from Doha, the capital of that country where they're having kind of a feral cat crisis there.
And this owner is trying to bring these cats to America and find them owners and, you know, kind of
give these animals a place to live.
So lots of really fun stuff.
Again, from all over the place, from near, from far,
a
From new and old as well, they're going to be screening Nosferatu, the original Nosferatu.
Oh, nice.
They're going to have a live orchestra playing alongside that.
And that movie still holds up.
If you really liked the remake that came out this past Christmas, you'll definitely want to see the original version during the film festival as well.
So yeah, lots of really fun.
There's never a bad year.
Every year I get nervous that this is going to be the year where there's just not that much to see.
And every year I look at the lineup and I'm like, there's not enough hours in the day.
Do I need to eat meals?
Am I okay not seeing the sun for 15 days?
That's a good excuse not to do those things though, I think, but I hear you.
Matt Miller is my guest.
He is a Milwaukee based film critic and does great work at his follow him at his sub stack.
A Man About Film, right?
Atta Band About Film, I should say.
Yeah, A Man About Film.
Like A Man
but film.
And you can follow him on Blue Sky as well.
Okay, so we've covered some Milwaukee Film Festival stuff.
I'm gonna have several guests, I guess, over the next week or so from the directors from the films, which will be exciting.
But that is a great overview of the festival, Matt.
Can we pivot to a movie that's in theaters right now called Warfare?
I'd love to get your take on that film.
Matt is a very good cat owner, very patient cat owner.
And
it.
No, it was very funny because the tail just kind of came up and I'm like, what is that?
I'm like, oh yeah, Matt has a cat.
I forgot about that.
So
So what was your take?
I saw warfare last weekend.
Didn't know a whole lot about it going in.
And I love that.
And my son saw it and he said, dad, you got to see this.
It's phenomenal.
What a unique, is A24 just the coolest studio in the world now?
Are they making really cool stuff that's a little bit different sometimes?
They make the adult dramas and the interesting kind of, you know, experimental, unpredictable movies that the rest of Hollywood's major studios kind of gave up on.
which is, you know, disappointing.
And now, you know, they kind of made their bed and now they're asleep.
They have to sleep in it where, you know, only H24 kind of has the brand to get people to show up to cinemas like the, for movies like Warfare, which I really enjoyed.
I really thought Warfare was really well done.
It's a very intense experience.
I think it's extremely well done in terms of the approach.
in terms of really kind of like there's no characters, there's no story, there's no like mission objectives really.
It is just, you know, a depiction of these guys in the middle of a quagmire that they kind of create.
They're just reacting, yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's a really well done movie.
I know the concept of, you know, war as hell is not exactly a novel concept.
You know, no one at Warfare is getting credit for coming up with the idea that, you know, war is bad.
But I think this is a very really well done version of that.
It's it's it does what movies like Black Hawk Down and Lone Survivor kind of fail to do.
Which those movies kind of end up too entertaining they look they're
too
great point
This is
pick up there
had a really short break, Matt.
Let's pick up there when we come back.
This is Night Light with Pete Schwab.
hanging out with Matt Miller on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Welcome back to Nightlight.
This is Pete Schwabba.
The Milwaukee Film Festival takes place April 24th.
I believe that's Monday, I think, right?
Is that sound right, Conrad?
Is it Thursday?
Yeah.
Okay, so it's April 24th through May 8th.
Check out their film festival.
It's going to be a great time.
We just talked about some of the offerings this year with Matt Miller, who is our guest right now, Milwaukee Film Critic.
Matt, we were talking about warfare and I
I agree with you and that was a great way to put it fetishizes soldiers these guys in warfare and this is a reason it's maybe my favorite if you can have a favorite war film that sounds terrible but their reactions and a lot of these guys were concussed after this attack but it's this build-up
There's this great scene where their Steve Winwood song Valerie is playing and they're watching an exercise video.
And then the film just goes in a completely different direction.
It's the one fun moment in the film.
There's a long build up, which is probably what it's like and then how they cope with it.
And they're so human.
Despite all this Navy SEAL training and how talented these guys are at what they do, I loved how real it seemed.
where it's just them in this house that they have, you know camondeered for reasons We don't know why and for reasons that you know end up being meaningless, right?
Um just kind of waiting around but there is this tension of like any minute now things could go sideways
But it is just like them sitting around doing nothing, and then hell breaks loose.
And it's interesting, because hell doesn't break loose in this exciting, thrilling way.
It is a war movie in which there isn't really a cool firefight,
It is a movie where one IED goes off.
And it destroys two people and the entire crew, the entire squadron, and it has done almost like a horror movie.
It is not an action movie, really.
If you were going into this wanting, you know, guns-ablazing action, like, you know, when on a mission, it isn't that.
It is a movie about how...
War is terrible.
And it is terrible to the people in it.
It's the terrible for the people who were involved in Iraq.
I know a lot of people scoffed at, you know, another Iraq war apology a movie, you know, you know, we went and now we make movies about how we feel bad about it.
And it's just like, yeah, I think this movie does a really good job of being like, without being that handholdy thing of like, did you know the Iraq war was bad being like, we did all this dumb.
you know, all amped up, all thinking we were hot ass.
And, you know, all we did was leave behind a broken place and broken people and achieve nothing other than, you know, wounding a lot of our own people in a lot of cases.
It's a really well done.
There's the famous, the famous idiom with film criticism of there's no such thing as an anti-war movie.
War is inherently exciting and visceral and violent and exciting and loud.
And I think warfare does a pretty good job of being a genuine anti-war movie in terms of being like, this is terrible.
That's
how I came away with it.
I was like, you want to support the troops?
Don't send them there.
unless you absolutely have to.
Don't cheapen what these guys do and what they've learned and how we are lucky to have them.
It's just crazy.
Matt, we've got a couple minutes left.
We'll have to have you.
Hopefully, maybe we can get you back on next week and finish part of this conversation.
But in like two minutes or less, what did you think of the amateur?
Uh, you know, I don't think of the amateur
It's a very, it is to quote the kids today.
It's suit.
It's very mid.
Yeah.
I feel bad because, you know, it's, it's, it's a original.
I mean, it's based on a book, but it is a, you know, original movie for adults, you know, out in theaters.
And I just was watching it being like, where's, where's the interesting angle on this?
You know, where's where's the kind of part to this that seems different and for those who don't know this is the Romney Malick action thriller about a guy who's CIA guy Intelligence officer whose wife dies in the hostage situation.
So he becomes you know an avenging angel Which I think that would be interesting, but he ends up like it doesn't do much in an interesting way.
I found that right pretty
It is not the worst movie you'll see this year, but I cannot imagine people remembering that movie a week from
now.
He's one of the producers and I feel like he was missed.
I didn't buy him in the role.
He's got such a unique look.
I was just kind of like, man, I am really not buying him.
And then he would do something and it's like they didn't set it up or how he did it.
It's just like, oh, he made the door explode because he's smart.
You know, it's just kind of weird.
how capable he is supposed to be as, you know... Right, right.
Like, is this supposed to be a movie about a guy who's totally new and amateur at this and is bad at it?
Or is he secretly, you know, the coolest guy ever who's secretly really good at this?
They can't kind of, they can't kind of hedge their bets and they're like, well, he's got to be a little cool.
He's got to do a few cool things.
It's just... Right.
It's a nothing burger of a movie.
Agreed.
Matt, always fun, buddy.
I get so much more I wanted to get to with you.
Maybe we could set something up.
I'll reach out to you, but thank you so much for your time tonight.
Always fun.
And let that cat out.
cat out.
Come
All
That's Matt Miller.
Check him out at A Man About Film on a sub-stack.
Follow him on Blue Sky.
Always fun to talk to Matt.
Tomorrow night on the show, making the popcorn pick of the week.
Conrad, how excited for you?
You're a sports guy.
I am a sports guy.
Who's coming?
Who's going to be here?
Well, Civic Media's own Mike Clemens.
Damn right.
Mike Clemens will be here making the popcorn pick of the week.
It's going to be so much fun.
And then Amanda Nimmer joins us in the second hour.
And we'll talk to Amanda what's happened.
We're going to give Amanda a man to walk quiz.
We'll see how she does about that.
We'll have to put our heads together and come up with some cool stuff other than the big three things about Man at the Walk.
But we'll do that tomorrow.
As always, so much fun.
Thank you to Mike Starr, Matt Miller, and all your texts.
And being part of the Nightlight, it is always so much fun, folks, to talk to you every night from 6 to 8.
I'm Pete Chihuahua on behalf of the lovable producer, Conrad.
Good night,
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