You're listening to Civic Media.
You can tune into any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.
Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.
Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.
We are finally on the air, ready to talk about all the things that will help us ease into a holiday weekend and make your transition that much easier.
Assuming you have the day off tomorrow, we do.
If you don't, tomorrow people won't automatically get the third off, do they?
I had to beg for it off.
but I'm not about begging.
Either way, great to have you with us here on this, our last live show until next Tuesday night.
I'll be back next Tuesday night.
Conrad will be back next Wednesday night.
He needed an extra day off to decompress from his leisurely weekend.
You got big plans?
Oh yeah, that's
The world famous concourse a fine establishment
Where are you gonna go?
Where on State Street do you like to go?
Have you been there recently?
God you could do that would be like a legendary bar crawl if you just left the concourse and walked to State Street made a quick right so with Paul's, Nick's like you could go all the way down to the Union.
Yeah
On the water.
Like, we see those here on the street in Greenvale, and they have them on State Street too.
Yeah.
Some brujas.
Some stuff to nurse.
Nothing can go wrong when you mix alcohol with the water.
Oh, really?
You can snorkel.
I don't just see much, but maybe not.
Well, that sounds like fun.
I'm going to chill out.
I've got a lot of family coming to town.
We're going to hang out.
It's going to be fun.
We're going to set up a little.
My sister is going to set up her outside ping pong table.
and we set up like tomorrow since family's coming to town, I said, just come over after one.
We'll have brats because we got to do one one brat day a summer.
So we figured it would be tomorrow, and we'll just keep brats going all day, you know potato chips, potato salad, all that kind of stuff.
You know potato salad.
Chips and guacamole.
Listen, I'm not a fan of it either, but whoever's making it, you can't say please don't make potato salad.
You just make it and you put it out there and you see what happens.
it.
Give it a dirty look.
You know what I, not as much as I do deviled eggs.
eggs.
I know you do.
We are, you know, I think we get along pretty well, but that's a sticking point between us, the deviled eggs.
I
do it.
You like eggs Benedict?
Oh my God, I do.
The Hollandaise sauce?
Oh, I love it.
Well, that's a topic for another show, I guess, but.
You don't like eggs Benedict?
Come on.
It's okay.
I like most eggs.
I need my eggs cooked well.
I don't like runny eggs.
I don't like-
like them
Scrambled?
No, I usually don't make scrambled eggs.
I usually have over easy.
You're talking about like the yolk.
I usually have over easy.
Okay.
So that I can have the yolk go on bread.
People dunk toast in the yolk.
Exactly.
That's so subversive.
You know what?
So, you know why I do that?
So I don't have to put butter on my toast.
Why?
What's the matter with that?
It's just not a health thing.
Yeah, just not.
But the yolk is not the good part of the egg, correct?
like the healthy part
probably i mean if you eat enough of it but i don't know all right that's a good uh
dip in the
I'm just saying, if I have to vomit, do you feel comfortable covering for a couple of minutes?
We got off on egg talk.
You know, eggs should be part of the question at some point on our question of the night, because there's so much fun we could have with eggs.
That came out wrong.
So fun show tonight, folks.
Glad you're here.
This is the Eve.
of the eve of the 4th of July.
It's a holiday.
Holiday is in the air everywhere.
Everywhere I go around our neighborhood, it's so funny.
Like I'm taking the day before the 4th off, but I still see other people rolling into town and it's like, they've already started and I'm like, oh man, that sucks.
But it's like, how many days can you take off really leading up to the holiday?
Take whatever I want to do.
But it's going to be, I hope everybody has great plans and it will party safely this weekend.
We'll be talking tonight about a lot of fun things that you can do over the next week or two, but it's specifically on the 4th of July.
There's a very big movie opening today.
It's the latest chapter in the Jurassic World franchise, Jurassic Park Rebirth or Jurassic World Rebirth, is it?
You know, that's a good question.
I literally just laid down the Hollywood beat for that.
I can't remember what it was.
It's Jurassic Park.
You're not going to pay for the wrong movie when you go in.
You're not going to end up like in the Spinal Tap re-release.
If you just say Jurassic, they'll know what you mean.
But that opens today.
Matt Miller will be here at 6.35 tonight.
Our pal, the Milwaukee Film Critic, who does such a great job, will be here and we'll talk about that big opening.
He's seen Formula One.
He's seen 28 years later.
Matt is always fun to talk to.
He will be here at 6.35.
And then in hour number two, this will be fun too.
My pal Wendy Schneider will be here.
She is a record producer.
I love saying that term.
I know we don't really have records anymore.
Oh, we kind of do.
They're still vinyl.
But Wendy is a great record producer and a great filmmaker too.
She's made a film about 10 years ago called The Smart Studio Story, which tells the story of Butch Vig and Steve Marker and how they started Smart Studios right out of Little Madison, Wisconsin.
in a what's been called by Butch Vig, what looks like a crack house at the corner of Baldwin in East Washington.
Wendy will be here.
She worked for Butch and Steve and she made a film about all their great records that they produced at that little studio on East Wash.
They produced, as I'm told, the Nevermind album for Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkin's records.
Butch and Steve are in the band Garbage.
So they...
They produced records there as well.
They don't anymore.
I think it changed hands about 10 years ago or maybe even a little more.
Anyway, Wendy did a great documentary called The Smart Studio Story.
It won a host of awards about 10 years ago.
The Atwood Music Hall in Madison is replaying the film.
July 9th, I believe, one week from tonight.
So we'll talk to Wendy about the film, take her down memory lane a little bit, get you familiarized with a great movie, a great music documentary.
Our pal Frank Anderson is all over that documentary.
He's played with Butch and Steve quite a bit.
And he's friends with Wendy too.
So that'll be another fun interview.
Two great guests tonight.
And we've got a good question.
What do you think?
Should we get to the question or is that just crazy?
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
The question of the night.
Let's talk about the question.
Okay, question.
Question.
Question.
Pregunta.
Question.
Question.
Okay, I have a question.
Questions.
This question.
Domanda.
Question.
Question.
What is your favorite patriotic movie or song?
Pretty straightforward.
I think we just posted movie on social media, but I widened it a little bit to song.
And I know a lot of people pick songs that aren't typically patriotic.
But they sound like they should be, like born in the USA.
Fortunate Son gets kind of a bad rap.
People think it's anti-America.
It's not really.
It's just like anti-filthy rich people that don't go to war.
But there are a lot of great patriotic movies.
There's Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, if you like The War Angle.
Born on the 4th of July with Tom Cruise is listed as a popular one.
I'd have to think of that, even Blowout.
I saw the movie Blowout listed in a lot of lists because they have a firework display.
That's a movie with John Travolta where he hears something.
He's a sound man on a film and he picks up a little bit of sound that leads to him being embroiled in this caper.
But there are a lot of great, and you know what?
You can do whatever you want, folks, with this question.
Jaws can be a patriotic film because it came out 50 years ago.
right before the 4th of July.
What's the one I just talked about with Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum?
Not enemy, I always want to say enemy of the state, Independence Day.
Yes.
That is considered a very patriotic movie.
So I really don't know what I'm going to say here.
I've been thinking about this kind of on and off all day and I forgot to finalize something right before the show.
But I will give, here's what, you know what, never mind.
I'm going to say this and I've gone to this movie before in the past.
Sandlot is my favorite patriotic movie because there's a scene in the movie with the 4th of July Where they play baseball under the fireworks and Ray Charles is singing America the beautiful So there you go Sandlot is my favorite patriotic movie.
It's one of my favorite movies and For song I'm still gonna say born in the USA because I love Springsteen and because the song is not It's not necessarily pro USA, but it is in a way
Because the song kind of says, let's not get into BS wars.
And that's a big thing right now, still to this day.
40 years later.
So I'll say born in the USA for my song.
But you can give one or the other.
And again, there are no right or wrong answers, folks.
You can let us know what you think at 855-752-4842-8555.
75 Civic, or you can text us on the app.
Or if you're watching on the stream on ex-Facebook or YouTube, let us know there as well.
You got one?
You know, it's kind of a pro USA song in a weird way.
phenomenal tune.
Clint
Fantastic.
That that's probably about when it came out.
Maybe something around there.
Yeah Okay So there you go folks that's tonight's question Let us know what you think and we will read your text on the radio like we do every night I had a pretty good day overall.
I did you ever do this though?
It was raining when I left Marinette like bad like the sky looked like black
Yeah, and I'm driving on highway 41 and I drove out of the rain and I bet my wipers were on for 20 minutes Completely dry windshield.
I've
spacing out.
Yeah, I'm just looking for deer or other drivers This is like a pleasant distraction the wipers going back and forth.
It didn't even bother me, but I do that more often
Probably should and a lot of traffic out there even today heading south.
Yeah, I don't where people are going from the UP maybe or Marinette area, but and also According to LinkedIn I'm on a roll.
Oh really?
Yeah, that's what it says.
I don't know what that means That means they want me to up my subscription to premium which I will not do
But I'm on a roll on LinkedIn, whatever that means.
And I saw this too.
We can talk about this after the break.
I sent this to you in chat.
Did you see it was the best, the goat from every sport?
So I thought that was interesting.
I had Jordan on there, of course, Brady.
But there's one I would maybe take issue with.
I don't know, like girls tennis, they had Serena Williams on there.
Someone said maybe Sharapova.
I just don't know enough about tennis.
Girl or a guy to weigh in on that.
I thought about that Because Babe Ruth I don't think he played in the league when it was totally integrated, but I have a friend who says Babe Ruth Should be the goat because he pitched to and he was a good pitcher like he did both But I still think if you didn't play when the league was integrated.
I don't know I'm on the fence
We're coming right back.
This is Nightlight with Peach Wabba.
I'm at Civic Media Radio
Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.
Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get
There is holiday cheer in the air.
And I'm, of course, talking not about Christmas, but the 4th of July, right around the corner, our nation's Independence Day.
Whatever you have planned, folks have fun and party safely.
We will be broadcasting on July 4th.
What do we have on July 4th?
We have the best of Madison music.
Yeah.
In Madison specifically, we've had some great guests there.
And what else?
What do you have tomorrow?
A few laughs, yeah.
it's been a good first half.
We'll try to keep the bar raised.
And then next Monday, I will be out too.
We have another quiz, our favorite quizzes we've given.
And we've given some pretty good ones.
People have so much fun with those.
It's great
Oh, yeah.
She did well, didn't she?
Listen, she's a trooper.
She took our friend's quiz and embarrassed herself.
It was brutal.
I'm kidding.
But she still came back and took another quiz.
It was great.
So we have... Oh, God.
This is funny.
I'm just reading these texts here.
So before we get to the text, I do want to say, I think Ali was the greatest boxer.
I do.
It's
Jake Paul?
It's not Jake Paul.
I think Jake Paul might be the best boxer in his family.
And I'm on the fence.
What do you guys think, Babe Ruth?
I don't know.
I mean, I think the league isn't integrated.
It's tough to put him as the best ever, but he did pitch too.
That's his, I think that's his claim to fame.
I love Hank Aaron.
You could probably argue maybe Ricky Henderson, I don't know.
But Brady's probably the goat, Jordan, although there's a lot of people underneath the Jordan said, Bron and Curry, they had Steph Curry over Jordan.
It's a generational thing.
I disagree, but- I
I mean, Scotty Pippen posted something recently and he said, hey congrats.
It was Oklahoma that won.
He said, hey congrats.
He's sitting there with his six rings.
He goes, congrats, Oklahoma, on a great game seven win.
As a guy who's never been to a game seven, I can imagine it must
have
been a lot of fun.
No one ever took Jordan to a game seven.
and he played against the greats of his era.
Gretzky, I think he's the great one, right?
Tiger Woods, again, I'm not a golfer.
Is
He's the
He's the goat, okay.
And then Women's Tennis, I looked up.
There's someone I've never even heard of.
Margaret Court.
her.
Holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles.
She might be really old.
Got a routine and never had a love.
Well, you guys can weigh in on that too.
Oh, I'm getting a phone call.
Excuse me, come back.
I'm gonna take this.
It's spam.
So, all right, we got to our question of the night is what is your favorite or what is the most patriotic movie, your favorite patriotic movie or song?
So let's get to the stream.
Let's start with the stream first.
Dave Akunish says, legends of the fall sticking with Brad Pitt.
Dave just said legends of the fall to a question last week.
What was that?
Brad Pitt movie.
Yeah.
Yeah, favorite Brad Pitt movie.
Okay, that's a nice old country movie for for patriotism.
And again, folks, there are no right or wrong answers.
Dave also says all quiet on the Western front.
John Boy crushed it.
He did.
It was a great movie.
Do for a rewatch.
I haven't seen that in ages.
Rose Bauman.
Hey, Rose.
She says, hi, hun.
I didn't know we were on on terms, but I guess I'll have to have Rose back in the show now.
How you doing, Rose?
Great to hear from you.
She says, Billy Jean King.
should have been in the women's tennis category.
And I was going to suggest her too, because she was so groundbreaking.
I just don't know enough about women's tennis or hockey or soccer to really say who the goat is, though.
But thank you for the suggestion, Rose.
Great text.
And going to the text line here, we've got Aaron Zomers.
This is funny.
Of course, he produces...
Wonderfully, the Todd Alba show here on Civic Media, he says, I'm with Conn on this one, big egg guy here.
Yes.
It's just funny to talk about eggs, because they also mean, you know, other stuff.
I had on my list here, on my show list for last night, I still had balls under boob and butt.
written on the sheet.
And I always used to love when I used to leave my stand-up notes around and my wife would see, she would see something like that and go, balls under boob and butt.
What is the matter?
I'm like, first of all, you're married to a comic.
You should just assume that it has something to do with that.
But it's funny when other people see this.
There
we go.
Catchy.
Gotta put deodorant everywhere.
And that's not just our favorite body parts, folks, that somebody wrote a song about.
It's deodorant.
They're trying to encourage people to put deodorant at every square inch of their body.
It's so crazy.
I wish you were on a first date.
Tyler from Wisconsin Rapids says, do you like green eggs and ham?
Sure, if they're scrambled and not runny.
Tyler gone little doctors who's there Tom from New Berlin says band of brothers great choice Tom excellent a play tone Production outstanding Todd or Billy?
From Billy says for movie I say mr. Smith goes to Washington That was on a lot of lists today too when I was looking this stuff up.
He says for song I say rocking in the free world by Neil Young That's what freedom is all about.
That's great great text from the 414 Todd or Billy if that is your real name
names.
Tom from New Berlin also says Midway was so cool with CGI that it really shows the technology for the time and it was a start in the Pacific campaign.
Well said Tom.
Excellent.
I love this one.
715 says movie stripes song American girl bike.
Stripes.
How did I forget stripes?
Keep the text coming folks.
What's your most
favorite patriotic movie or song.
We're coming right back with Milwaukee film critic Matt Miller at Speechwaba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio
Peach Swabba, great to have you with me on this Wednesday.
Short week here for us at Night Light as we go to best of episodes tomorrow and Friday and Monday as well.
Conrad is taking another, he's taking Tuesday off too, he hates Tuesdays, but I'll be back Tuesday with the Rock and Todd Michaels producing, that'll be fun.
Tonight, we have Wendy Schneider coming on in the second hour folks to talk about a screening of her film, The Smart Studio Story.
You have to see it if you haven't.
And we will find out from Wendy where you can see it in terms of streaming, but she's going to be showing it, screening it at the beautiful new Atwood Music Hall in Madison next week.
So we'll talk about this gem of a film she made and how you can find out more information.
Our question of the night is what is your favorite patriotic movie or song?
And we'll get back to your texts after we talk to our pal, our good friend, Milwaukee Film Critic, who joins us now on the stream, Mr. Matt Miller.
Hey, buddy.
Howdy,
Yeah, always fun.
Do you have a favorite patriotic movie, Matt?
It is.
It's kind of spine-tingling.
A lot of people talked about Mr. Smith goes to Washington, Yankee Doodle Dandy.
They were popping up all in these lists today.
I have not seen Yankee Doodle Dandy, and if I did, I was very young.
Absolutely.
I have to, I was gonna give a shout out to, and I guess I can do that with you here, Matt, too, because I don't know if you've been following Action Wisconsin's efforts, but we got, I heard from my friend, Nathan Deming today, who said that he was on the show a couple nights ago with Jeffrey Kurz, a fellow Milwaukeean, and apparently there was some good news today.
I can't find the text from Nathan, but he said that something passed or something today, or they got it added, I know it's added, or it's gonna be up for debate, but I'm trying to find the...
Yeah, I know the tax credits are what you're talking about the Wisconsin film and TV tax credits, which
You know, we'll see if this go-around goes better than the last time.
You know, I think, you know, it would help.
It would definitely be a boon to local filmmakers and to our film industries and the industries in the area.
We have incredible places to film.
There's no reason why people shouldn't want to film here.
So it's just a great way to bring business to Wisconsin and also to give us opportunities to point at the screen and go, hey, that place is great.
Absolutely.
It's an obvious choice pairing it with tourism because it's a great message and a great way to get our state out there.
The press release said Action Wisconsin has an official press release about the film incentives getting voted on today if this is worth commenting on at all.
He said, would you give us a shout out?
I said, sure.
I didn't hear anything about that, so I don't know.
But I know it was looking good to pass, so I think Wisconsin's in good shape for that, at least.
So, why not an action Wisconsin tax incentive?
that be like?
Same here.
All right.
So, man, let's jump in.
I'm very excited that you've seen a lot of the same films I have.
What should we start with in the theater?
Let's start with something that opened a couple of weeks ago.
I know you saw this.
I saw it 28 years later as well.
Yeah.
I really liked it.
I thought it was maybe my favorite of the three.
My wife loved it, and we're not really horror people, but it was just something to grab.
It's just great storytelling.
It's Danny Boyle and Alex Garland.
They don't tend to make traditional movies.
Even 28 days later is now a part of horror lexicon.
But people forget at the time, you know, the big third act of that movie that stops becoming a zombie movie was very confrontational for people.
And so 28 years later is a really
fascinating approach to this story where they're like, we're going to take some big swings.
We're going to make this a coming of age story.
We're going to like have this strange plot, like the story is going to be told almost in like two separate parts and boomerang back to this island.
It's going to be shot entirely with iPhones, which means it's going to look absolutely vivid and gorgeous, but also still have this kind of digital fuzz to it.
So it feels like a sibling movie to 28 days later in that.
way.
It's I think it's really great.
It's only marinated better the more I've sat and thought about it.
It's a very odd movie.
I'm not surprised that it kind of had a tough second week fall off a because the horror movie horror movies always have a hard second weekend fall off.
But also it is just if you're expecting a traditional classic zombie movie this is not that it is much more of a coming of age story and then you add the final two minutes to the movie which
are very odd and very tonally at odds.
And if you don't know that they're making two more movies, you're probably very thrown off with this kind of cliffhanger that the movie ends on.
And if you're not British, you super don't know what's going on.
But no, I think that's a pretty tremendous movie.
And like I said, it's one that's definitely stuck with me.
And I agree with you.
I like how it's kind of evolved.
It's not just about
What I think is cool about this film is it's kind of dystopian or apocalyptic or whatever.
At least that's how it started out.
But now this rage virus has kind of morphed into something else and there was a character that had the virus that had a baby.
in the film.
So it's like, wait a minute, they can reproduce.
And then there's this, this alpha running around naked with a big prosthetic on.
And it's like, that's the thing too.
I don't know what is happening.
But like,
seeing
Yes.
There's so much nudity period.
Right.
I'm kind of amazed it got through the MPAA.
And that's leaving out all the violence in the movie, which it is very much a traditional zombie movie.
Like it has got a lot of crazy zombie violence, plus all that nudity.
It's wild that they got this one through, but it's been a success.
And like you said, it's very unconventional how it goes at things in that this is a movie about...
dealing with death while surrounded by death.
You know, not many apocalyptic movies take a moment to think about like what death actually means to these people and how these things impact people.
I think these guys, Boyle and Garland are very good at world building.
They're very good at smartly assembling a world and a society without kind of holding your hand through it.
So you get this really fascinating 28 years later and the evolution of these zombies and the evolution of a
written that has been isolated and collapsed.
Make your own Brexit references here.
It is, it's a fascinating movie.
And I think Ray finds weirdly, I think this is one of his best performance shows up playing this like very unusual character that could totally
totally be a misstep for the movie if played wrong.
And instead, he just feels so, he feels like he was waiting forever to play this character, feels so lived in.
I really hope people still check it out, especially because like I said, we have a sequel coming next year.
And hopefully we have another one directed by Boyle and with Garland writing.
I know they're talking about getting the funding together for that.
And this
It's been enough of a hit that I think they'll make it happen.
But I would love to see them wrap up this new trilogy that they're making.
It's so crazy because this is the third installment.
This is the end of a trilogy in the beginning of a new one.
And I agree, like Ray finds like he's like this post-apocalyptic doctor who knows how to control these zombies.
And he's got like this great bedside manner.
Even though he's been living on this island by himself or the mainland, I guess technically.
Um, yeah, just a real fun watch.
I loved it.
It is simultaneously what you would want from a zombie movie and something completely different and something I mean, I I didn't cry in the movie, but I know people who really got emotional near the end of this movie and that's very fair.
And yeah, I'm very excited to see where they keep taking this story of this collapsed society.
It's kind of a new Mad Max in a way.
Yeah.
And I'm
kind of
excited by that they're taking that approach to this instead of, you know, when we heard they were making another
28 days later movie.
It's like, okay, is this just a cash in, you know, are these guys just is Danny Boyle just desperate to make another movie again that he's going to go back to the well and make another zombie movie.
And this is by no means just another zombie.
It's funny you say that like when you said people cried, I guess I had a moment I didn't cry, but I was like, when the kid decides to go to the mainland himself, the film opens with his dad taking him there to do his first kill of a zombie.
They make a
back, uh, barely.
That's a great scene too.
Um, and then the kid decides to take his mother back to the mainland to get her medical
Yeah.
And, and it's, it's that moment where I'm like, Oh, the dad made a mistake.
The kid's mad and he went back.
I felt for the dad as a dad.
I'm like, Oh dear, what a, what a horrible mistake this guy would probably think he made if something had happened to the kid.
But yeah, a lot of emotional stuff in the film.
Uh, yeah.
it's a really fascinating movie about kind of the cycles of a society and you know that they've rebooted society and they're kind of making the same mistakes again where they're all about kind of you know aggression and this masculine society that is resulting in you know it's really fascinating and
then he goes
Love and and much more kind of thoughtful world that it could be even in dark horrible times And again, I cannot also say this movie was mostly shot on iPhones and it looked obviously modified iPhones And it looks unlike any movie you will see this year It looks so crisp and so clean like the colors are so bright and there's shots angles where the mainland of England looks like
the largest landmass you've ever seen in your life and the greenest landmass you've ever seen in your life.
It's just a really fascinating movie and one I hope people keep checking out.
Matt Miller is my guest.
He is a film critic from Milwaukee.
You can follow his sub-stack at A Man About Film.
And Matt, I have to say Jody Comer is a great
before we move on.
I love her.
She is so good in everything I've seen her in.
She was outstanding in this.
And the other comment I want to make is I read that they shot this on iPhones a couple months ago and that never even entered my mind while I was watching.
I had completely forgotten that until you said that.
You also have this digital kind of fuzz to the movie.
It's not it's not as clean as you expect from like a digital movie you see nowadays.
And then also you get these insanely intimate shots because Danny Boyle did this on Slumdog Millionaire.
He basically took apart the camera.
while they were filming that movie.
So they could get that camera anywhere they wanted to.
They wanted to make it as as flexible and as as intimate as they could.
And with an iPhone, obviously, even easier.
So you get these really incredible close ups where you get really close to people and you get this really cool depth of frame and just different vantage points.
It doesn't look like many other movies out there, which is exactly what you would say about 28 days later, 20 years ago.
Right.
So yeah, impressive work.
cinematographer's name is Anthony Dodd Mantle.
And in a just world, I would love to see him get nominated for Best Cinematographer with the Oscars.
But this is a movie with this much zombie nudity and this much people getting their heads ripped off.
doesn't tend to be the kind of stuff the Oscars pay
attention to.
I might have to figure out a way to open up this can of worms on the show, but I have an issue with all these guys all of a sudden agreeing to be nude, but using prosthetics.
It seems very unfair to women over the course of history in movies with all the TNA films and that.
And now guys are doing it.
It's like, what are they so afraid of?
It's like this false sense of who men are or something.
It's so ridiculous.
All right.
Fair enough.
And the
feet tall too.
Uh, let's, uh, Matt Miller is here.
We're coming right back.
I'm going to ask Matt what he thought of with the new Brad Pitt film F one.
It's nightlight with peach.
Wow.
But great to have you with me on this Wednesday, folks on the civic media radio network.
listening to Civic Media.
Find the latest news, information and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website, civicmedia.us.
This is Nightlight with Peach Waba.
We're doing the Wednesday thing here as we head into a holiday weekend.
Hope everybody's having a great night.
Our question of the night is, what is your favorite patriotic film or song?
And on social media, Monica Hale says, my answer involves two films because they represent the war from both sides, flags of our fathers and letters from Iwo Jima.
Wow, great.
A lot of people going with the war stuff.
I guess I could see that.
It's the 4th of July.
Matt, I chose...
know what America does.
Right.
I chose the Sandlot.
I went with something a little more childlike in the Wonder of Innocence,
Anything baseball, right?
I guess.
Yeah.
there, yes.
Absolutely.
Matt Miller is my guest, folks.
He is a Milwaukee film critic.
Check out his work at A Man About Film on his sub-stack.
Matt, he joins us frequently here to talk movies and TV, and we always have a blast.
Matt, what did you think of F1?
It is very much every sports movie cliche.
You know, we talked about baseball.
It is not only every sports movie cliche, it is underlining every single sports cliche that is in the movie.
There's even like a journalist character whose entire job is just to be like, the last scene featured you in a depression meltdown.
Did you also know that you're divorced and you're low on your pavements and all this stuff?
Just like we get it.
on his luck.
I've never seen this plot line
before.
But the thing about these sports movie cliches and the reason why they become cliches is because they work.
You know, sometimes we take for granted that some of these, you know, overused tropes become overused because when you do them right, when you have them well acted, well written with a little snap to them, well filmed by a director who's bringing some energy to the stuff, these things
hit.
These things really get your
juice
And so I had a good time with F1, the movie, I think they do a good job of making you care about not only Brad Pitt and his protege, but the entire pit crew, they kind of give everyone kind of like a dime's worth of character, which is frankly more than a lot of movies give their supporting characters.
Car racing scenes are thrilling and really excitingly captured.
It's the director of Top Gun Maverick and he's using a lot of the same tricks he used with
that movie to really feel like, make you put like, put you in the seat of these cars.
I had a good time with it.
It is a classic summer sports movie, the way that we kind of don't really get as much anymore.
You know, now that you say all that, I'm kind of re, not rethinking, but you're absolutely, maybe I was expecting too much, but I felt like you're right.
The racing scene's amazing.
The music was good, but it was wall.
to wall.
I mean,
this
was a, to me, Matt, this was a video, not really a movie.
Like there's some character stuff.
And I like what you said, like when they go into the, some of the minor characters, you get a dose of it.
That's all you need.
And the kid was good.
Brad Pitt, I don't, I don't, I don't know.
I like Brad Pitt, but I just, something didn't work for me.
And you said Top Gun.
I felt like that story was better than the story here.
And maybe it was just because I have seen all of these kind of tropes before.
It was like Boulder meets, you know, Hoosier, not Hoosiers, that's a bad example, but it's like they took a little bit from
But, but it's fun.
I'm being overly critical.
It's a fun summer watch.
And for the racing stuff alone, it's pretty exciting.
Like it is very cliche.
It is very kind of trite in the story and the way it moves and stuff like that.
You're not going to be surprised by much in this movie, but there is something very satisfying about a movie that knows how to set up bowling pins in terms of the story and knows how to knock them down.
Well, it knows how to, you know, knows how to get a strike.
And that's kind of what this is.
It's not, it is very flashy, but when it comes to the story, it is profoundly not flashy.
But they save the flash for the kind of exciting parts
and then
you've got really good stuff and also I gotta say Carrie Condon just a Charmer and she's great She's the the female lead of the movie and she is so charming and I honestly think she helped their romance is kind of one of the weaker points of the movie just because it feels very much like Checked that off.
You don't need it.
Yeah, but she sells it because you're like, yeah, I get immediately falling in love with this person.
She's so charming and
It's so fun in this movie.
And I agree, this isn't a top five red pit performance by any means, but he's a movie star.
He is one of those people who when he's on screen, you're like, I want to see what you're up to.
And that is what this movie needs.
And for that, it delivers.
Again, if it gets nominated for best picture, we had a bad year at the movie.
But if you're looking at a good time at the summer box office,
I think F1 is a really nice good time.
It's a good dad
movie.
That's very well said.
And you know what I liked?
What I almost forgot was that it was a Javier Bardem up to the level of he was great.
And not in a way where you're like, okay, pump the brakes, buddy.
There's other people in this movie.
He just shows up with so much charisma.
He did the same thing in Dune Part 2.
Man, that movie, you get your money's worth per second he is on screen.
He's so good.
And again, a role that could be totally boring and generic.
Um, and he just brings so much life to it and that's kind of f1 in the nutshell could have been totally generic Especially as a brand movie, especially in a movie that is a two and a half hour long advertisement for f1 racing Um, I think they do a very good job of making it not feel generic not feel sanded down.
It feels it feels energetic.
It's got some juice.
Absolutely.
Um
All right, Matt Miller is here, folks.
We're going to keep Matt through the news because he is watching a TV show that you have to hear about.
I've watched the first episode and I trust Matt's opinion so much.
I'm going to go back to it.
It's not that I didn't like it, but it's not my typical show, but I am going to go back to it based on Matt's critiquing of the show.
We'll talk about that after the news and we'll get a little July preview of what's coming up at the box office as well with our pal Matt Miller.
This is Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.
The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.
Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.
With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.
Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.
