Posters, Lynch, and Summer Blockbusters(Hour 1)

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Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with Peach Wabba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a man barely six feet tall, but a mountain of muscle, Pete Schwabba.

Welcome to Nightlight, everybody.

Great to have you with me.

It's Tuesday night, folks.

Right smack dab in the middle of summer, a gorgeous night throughout the state of Wisconsin.

Hope you're having a great day.

Whatever your day was like, I hope it has led you here and that we can, if you need some picking up, I hope we can pick you up.

And if you just need a nice transition into the evening, I hope we can do that too.

Wherever you're listening in our beautiful state, welcome, welcome to Nightlight.

Conrad Krieger is in Green Bay running the board.

I am in Madison.

Again, I will be here all week.

Always fun to do the show from Civic Media headquarters as it is from our amazing station in Green Bay.

Conrad, how are you tonight?

I am fantastic.

And

as you can see... What is that hat?

I can't see that through the stream.

I was just

about to say it's a Milwaukee Brewer's hat.

Because I'm celebrating 11 straight and now the first place in all of baseball.

You think they can keep that up?

Oh, yeah.

They're

hot.

11 in a row.

You think they can keep that up?

12 in a row tonight, 13 a row tomorrow.

I'm thinking about just sweeps all around the board, you know?

Wow.

Well, it's good to aim high.

You're certainly doing your part wearing the hat and cheering your team on.

I applaud you for that.

Well done.

Hey, this is a fun show tonight, folks.

As I mentioned, I'm in Madison tonight.

That means Aaron Zomers, as he is always such a champ, helping me out, get set up here.

Aaron, how you doing, buddy?

Doing well.

It's always good to be here.

It's always great to have you, and you move the mic and the picture.

Conrad, does it look different tonight?

It does.

I don't think I have a best side, but I like turning this way better.

So Aaron is on it.

I asked him, he came through and we're partying tonight, right Aaron?

I don't know.

I guess you could say that.

Conrad, you know, it's probably a two hour drive.

If you got in the car right now, well, that really wouldn't work, would it?

But I don't think so.

Dude, you can make it.

Do you think if Conrad got in the car at eight o'clock and went to wherever we're hanging out, he could make it there and we'd still be there?

Don't know I don't think we're gonna go super crazy.

I mean Todd's got the the civic media conclave tomorrow So he's gonna be busy all day.

He wants to get some good sleep for that.

He should not have started drinking an hour ago

then

That's

all

I'm not

okay.

Have kidding.

I'm totally kidding.

I don't even know does Todd even drink I have no idea not like heavily, but yeah Is it not cool to talk about someone's drinking habits on the air when they're not here, it's probably okay.

No

That's awesome.

It's going to be fun.

We'll hang out tonight.

I hear there might be a pack crite low sighting.

Is that true?

That is what I've been informed.

All everybody descending on Madison for the civic media conclave, as you guys call it.

That's fantastic.

So we'll do that a little later.

Thank you again, Aaron, though.

You're always awesome about helping out when we're here, getting us set up and all that kind of stuff.

We have a great show tonight.

We had to do a little, as I call it, a switcheroo.

We had two awesome guests from the Lion's Mouth Bookstore in Green Bay.

Lion's Mouth, right?

Am I saying that right?

Yes, it's Roar.

Okay.

The Lion's Mouth Bookstore.

My first question for them was gonna be, what does that mean?

The Lion's, like Roar something?

I don't know.

We'll have to wait, though, because they had to reschedule.

They had a conflict.

So my pal, Ben Reiser, is going to join me here tonight to talk about what they have coming up at Cinematheque.

And this is kind of cool, because tomorrow night, folks, at Cinematheque, if you're in the Madison area, they're showing Mulholland Drive, David Lynch film.

And one of the, or the editor and one of the producers of the film, Mary Sweeney, is going to be there, I believe, doing a Q&A right over at Vilas Hall at Cinematheque.

And we just talked about Mary yesterday with my guest, John Roach, who wrote the straight story with Mary that David Lynch directed.

So she is a mega talented editor, producer, writer.

She will be there tomorrow night.

And it's such a great program.

It's free.

And we'll talk about that with Ben.

And Ben is always up on all the movies.

I love his takes on what's in the theaters and what he's watching.

So we'll do all of that.

It'll be really fun at 635.

And then at 720, we'll have a few laughs with our friend, Green Bay comedian, Kristen Leidy.

She's coming on the show to talk about GB UFO.

Conrad, do you know what that means?

You're in Green Bay.

It's a UFO convention, right?

Alien convention?

Not really.

Oh, it's it's a little deceptive because and we'll ask Kristen this but it's a bookstore in a museum and it's a musical event But remember last year when we were doing the show there were people walking by the window dressed like aliens.

Yes.

Yes.

I was a little freaked out So we'll talk to Kristen about that She's got a lot to do with that and she just opened for a great comedian We're gonna talk to her about that too and you'll find out what comedian she just opened for a comedy legend and Kristen is always fun to have on the show

and hilariously funny.

So two great guests tonight, coming to you live from Madison, we've got a great question we'll get to in just a minute.

I have to tell you, I saw this, well, first I want to start out, a friend of mine texted me, he's trying to get an apartment, okay?

He's moving and he's trying to talk the landlord down and he shared this text with me today.

He said, have you given any thought to coming down a little bit in the rent?

I'm on a bit of a time crunch.

might have to resign with my current place if I don't hear back.

And then he followed up again today, just curious if you've heard anything.

And the woman overseeing this whole issue says, sorry, not yet, I've been running poop.

Interesting.

That's for text back.

Obviously it's a typo,

but what

do you think she was trying to say?

Sorry, not yet.

I've been running poop.

Point?

Yeah, but I feel like it should be an excuse for why she hasn't gotten back to him.

Yeah, point makes sense, but sorry, not yet.

I've been running.

No word goes with that.

Yeah, the only word I could think of is running point.

That's it.

Unless she means what she says.

I don't know.

But that cracked me up, and it got me looking at all those great.

There's so many of these on the internet when people are texting back and forth and they get the wrong word, especially when parents do it to their kids.

It's so funny.

I also saw this on Twitter today or X, whatever you want to call it.

This is what is the site called Conrad?

You said you follow it Midwest against everyone.

Yeah, it's a fantastic X page, Twitter page.

Do they post stuff like this every day?

Yeah, every day they post some really funny stuff.

And yeah, I follow them.

This is great.

Yeah, I found this today.

It was a map of the Midwest, and it says states that can be identified, Midwest states that are identified by one word.

And I'll let you go first, Conrad, Wisconsin.

What word comes to mind if you hadn't seen this list?

Well, you know,

cheese.

Cheese or Packers.

I think the Packers almost are more synonymous with Wisconsin.

Like, I think people, well, it's probably a toss-up.

You know, a lot of, I would say...

People would say farms as well or like cows

dairy.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that's fair Yeah, Wisconsin could have gone I believe like three different ways But some of these other states are hilarious the states with really big cities like Illinois and Michigan are just known for you know, Chicago That's what you think of when you think of Illinois.

You're like, oh Decatur isn't Decatur there, you know or Detroit Grand Rapids, whatever it's Chicago when people think of Illinois they think of Chicago

People think of Michigan, they think of Detroit.

Uh, Ohio was weird.

I didn't know this.

Spaghetti with chili.

I, I, that's, I believe that's skyline chili that, yeah.

And skyline chili offers

those long noodles with chili.

That's right.

They had a place called Chili Johns in Green Bay years ago that also served chili that way.

And I didn't, is that what you think?

Like, I know skyline chili is there, but in all of Ohio, that's what.

I don't get that.

That's kind of a novelty.

That's something that should identify a state.

You know, honestly, I would have thought like LeBron would have been the number one.

Or a Buckeye or Cleveland's River Catching Fire or something.

Indiana is race cars.

That makes sense.

It does.

Iowa is Caitlyn Clark.

Okay, that's good.

It's kind of new.

Minnesota, cold.

That's a good one.

I would have said lakes probably yeah lakes

beautiful state South Dakota Mount Rushmore spot on and then what's below?

Is it Nebraska?

What's below?

I don't even know what's below South Dakota?

Well, yeah, yeah, that's that's Nebraska.

Yep.

It has to be Nebraska corn and then what's below Nebraska?

Isn't that a

home?

Yeah.

No, it's not Oklahoma.

It's um

Missouri?

No.

This

is terrible.

Whatever's below Nebraska on this map, it just says nothing.

And Missouri underneath Iowa says nothing.

And North Dakota, and I agree with this one, nothing.

I have done stand-up in North Dakota years ago.

I used to go up there once or twice a year.

Lovely people, really a fun place, but man, it is like driving through.

It's like driving through the wasteland in Mad Max, but it's cold.

So you don't even get the warm air.

I kind of agree with that.

South Dakota is not much better, but it's a little better, a little greener.

I don't know if you please find out what is below Nebraska.

It's Kansas.

Kansas, yes.

So nothing for Kansas.

I really like, this is funny.

If you just scroll through some of the comments, they do get some more, like, you know, some people posted what they thought.

And

for

yeah for Kansas they put barbecue in Missouri arch

Okay And a couple things in Missouri that surprised me that that was a nothing state

and still North Dakota this this guy put

I still got

nothing

So there you go at least we got off easy cheese is pretty good.

Yeah, I'd say so Dairy, okay

We're contributing to the overall greater good with our food.

But I'm surprised Packers too, because they're kind of a worldwide brand, you know.

But either way, that's a fun list.

I'm gonna have to follow them.

That's great.

All right, let's time, I think we gotta, do we have time to get to the question of the night?

Or we spend too much time on the nothing states?

All right, here's our question of the night, folks.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

What

poster was on your bedroom wall when you were growing up?

What poster was on your bedroom wall when you were growing up?

8-5-5-7-5-2-4-8-4-2-8-5-5-7-5 Civic?

Let us know.

We all had them.

You can also text us on the app.

If you don't have the civic media app, I highly recommend you getting it.

You could take all your civic media hosts with you wherever you go.

And if you're watching on the stream, you can leave a stream comment.

If you're watching on X Facebook or YouTube and give us a like or a follow.

If you're there folks, always nice to be appreciated and we certainly appreciate you listening.

So what poster was on your bedroom wall when you were growing up?

I have two and

This is kind of weird because when I was in, I think I still lived in Chicago.

I had a ferro faucet poster and it was like a groundbreaking edgy poster at the time.

And all the older kids in the neighborhood had one.

So I asked my parents if they could have one, if I could have one.

And I don't think they were real crazy about it.

I hadn't even been through beauty yet.

And I'm asking for a ferro faucet poster.

And she was in this gorgeous red swimming suit, beautiful smile.

When I got older,

I had a Walter Payton poster and I had a Daisy Duke.

I had the actual Daisy Duke, Catherine Bach on my wall.

So there you go.

What about you, Con?

So when I was growing up, I had kind of like a sports room.

And

I had a Prince Fielder fat head on one wall.

So I had like a baseball wall.

The

other wall

was basketball.

I had a bunch of Kevin Durant stuff.

And then the other wall was Packers.

Weren't really into the girls back then,

huh?

Just a bunch of sports Honestly,

I still have a lot of

I still have a lot of sports posters.

Do you really?

Yeah, do you have a framed at least now?

I do have some frames the sports illustrated ones that I've kept.

Okay, that's acceptable

All right, let us know, folks.

What poster was on your bedroom wall when you were growing up?

Ben Reiser coming up at 6.35.

Kristen Lighty at 7.20.

Great to have you with me.

I'm reading your texts next, folks.

It's Peach Wabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

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 started.

Nightlight with Peach Wava on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I am Peach Wava, broadcasting live from Madison tonight.

Great to have you with me.

Hope you're having a great day and an even better night.

Our question of the day, what celebrity poster was on your bedroom wall growing up?

855-752-4842, 855-75 Civic.

So you had sports posters.

I had one sports poster.

I had Walter Payton and then I had...

Catherine Bach, who was Daisy Duke, and Farrah Fawcett.

Before I even really knew, I knew she was visually appealing, but I think I was even too young to really know why I had this poster on my wall.

But let us know, share some of yours, folks.

We've got some great responses here.

What do we do first, Khan?

Go to the social media, do you think?

Yeah.

Hey, how about Ozzy Osbourne Dian?

Yeah, that sucks.

He passed away today.

I gotta tell you, whatever.

Whatever celebrity dies that I wasn't really a huge fan of.

It's not like I was not a fan, but I just don't know.

I knew we started Black Sabbath.

I think he's the first person to die from Black Sabbath of all those guys.

He was 76 years old, but I don't, I know Crazy Train.

I know a few of his songs.

I know he had a reality show, but I never was a big Ozzy Osbourne fan.

And whenever celebrity dies like that, that I didn't know a lot about and I see all the tributes, I kind of feel left out.

It's a weird feeling.

I kind of want to be part of the team But I just don't relate So I'm doing my best, but if you're an Ozzy Osbourne fan Sorry for your loss.

He was certainly an icon and You got to have crazy tranq you up at some point.

I assume con.

Oh,

yeah.

Okay

Let's go to the social media responses for our question of the night.

What poster was on your bedroom wall when you were growing up?

Monica Hale says, the gap band.

Oh, that's a great one.

You could have stopped right there, Monica.

I love the gap band.

Sylvester Stallone and Robert Hedges.

I think it's pronounced haze.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

He was Epstein from Welcome Back Cotter.

She says, had a crush on him.

Wow gap band Sylvester Stallone and Robert.

I was not expecting those responses tonight.

That's fantastic Monica.

Thank you Heather Alba Heather Alba probably a relation right Conn.

I think so.

We'll have to go.

We'll have to ask the team in She says Michael J. Fox and Brian bloom.

Who's Brian bloom?

Orlando blooms dad

Sure, we all had a poster of the bloom parents

On our

wall.

I'm just kidding.

I have no idea.

No, I know you're kidding.

Conrad says, oh, there you go.

There's your Prince Fielder Fadhead.

Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Where did you get that picture?

I just typed

it.

Did you

have that picture?

No, I just typed in Prince Fielder Fadhead.

Oh, that was from your actual bedroom.

There's not many of them, so, you

know.

Hey, you're a huge sports fan.

For all I know, you kept that.

You got a catalog of all the pictures of your bedroom walls.

I really wish I

could have kept it, but, you know, once it's, it's stuck on the wall for a lot.

Years and then

it came with the house Wonderfully Wisconsin our buddy Paul Vandenplatz this Conrad Krieger had the same one in my man cave Okay, it's Paul that much older than you.

I Don't know but everyone looks

young to have a man cave.

Yeah Daniel Wheeler Dan Haggerty aka Grizzly Adams.

That's an interesting poster to have in your wall

Wow, I'm the only one that has like the pin-up girls, I think.

Oh, Rob Smitka, my old buddy from DePaul University.

Christy Brinkley, 1983.

Now you're talking my language.

That's Rob Bobby Utah Smitka.

I don't know, he added the nicknames between college and now.

I don't understand that, but I'm gonna go with it.

Rob's a great guy.

Thank you, buddy.

Luke Mathers, fallout boy, all the way.

Now, do you think Luke means when millhouse got the part of fallout boy on the Simpsons?

Radioactive man's sidekick for sure.

Definitely that

yeah, I hope so Either way Luke you can't go wrong.

Thank you, buddy Mike desitell on the social media says it was all Joe Namath until Farrah Fawcett came out with her swimsuit poster.

Yeah That was kind of a game changer.

I'm with you there Mike See Mike was a lot older than me.

I think he had that poster.

I didn't even understand why I had it up

But I had one because I wanted to be cool.

Robert Bro, Bob Bro, Mike Destin told my brother John had this one in our room along with other stuff that our black light would glow.

That's a total 70s bedroom.

And then Rob responds, Robert, I still have mine.

Lisa M. Hale says, Sean Cassidy, that's a big one.

The girls loved Sean Cassidy.

Conrad, do you think you could find a Sean Cassidy for some of our listeners, a Sean Cassidy song?

Yeah, I'll try to find it.

I'm gonna message you on, I think we can get one before the end of the show.

There's some great ones.

So that's our question of the night, folks.

What poster was on your bedroom wall when you were growing up?

On the stream, Dave says Larry Zanka.

Wow.

A lot of sports posters.

Maybe I should have been more into sports.

I could have been a great athlete if I tried just a little bit harder.

Our buddy Aaron Zommer says, my question of the night answer, I didn't really have celebrity posters up, but I did have these wall clings from Toy Story everywhere.

I suppose in a way, I had Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

That's a great one, Aaron.

Thank you.

Rob from Green Bay says, Alyssa Milano in a hockey jersey.

Wow.

There you go, Conrad.

You're combining the best of both worlds.

A gorgeous...

Person in a sports jersey.

That's something you probably could have rolled with.

You know, I could have done Kate Upton with Justin Verlander

Yes, you could but you have to be careful because they made some not so

yes, yeah

Not so family friendly

They got

hacked right Yeah, that was that had to have happened.

She's not the type that would just put that out, right?

No, definitely got hacked.

I think they got nobody puts that out like hey everybody look at me and my crazy orgasm face

Anna from Madison says, hi, Pete Conrad and Aaron.

The poster that was in my bedroom was The Beatles.

Well, that's a good one too.

You can't go wrong with The Beatles.

See if we can get one more here.

Everett from Sun Prairie says, Led Zeppelin, houses of the Holy Album cover Blacklight poster, mid-90s, still up in my basement.

Oh, man.

The couch potatoes are bringing it tonight.

Yes, they are.

Some great text.

Keep in coming, folks.

We'll read them throughout the course of the show.

When we come back after the news, Ben Reiser will be here to tell us about a really cool screening tomorrow night at UW Cinematheque here in Madison.

And we're going to talk movies, summer movies.

It doesn't get any better than that.

This is Pete Schwabba in Nightlight.

I'm a civic media radio network.

Good night with Pete Schwabba.

I am Pete Schwabba, Conrad Krieger working the board back in Green Bay.

I'm in Madison.

I just wrote an intro.

I was over at PBS today doing, introducing independent lens movies.

And there's a movie called Porcelain War coming out that'll air over the next couple of months.

The director was in LA.

And one of the directors was in LA, they had co-directors.

And the other director was in Ukraine.

He was a special forces soldier.

And he stayed in Ukraine during the Russian occupation and painted porcelain figures because he thought art was more important even than picking up a gun in a time of war.

They directed this film 6,000 miles apart and met for the first time at Sundance where they won the grand jury prize.

And it's Oscar nominated.

I mean, what a cool story.

I'm talking to you.

I haven't even introduced you yet, Ben.

That's all right.

I'm not even on

camera.

I'm

like, where are you bad?

I'm the hedging one

camera.

So what do we do?

Conrad?

How do we get that on camera here?

I'm supposed to move.

Yeah.

Scooch a little bit.

There we go.

That's been riser, folks.

If you're watching on the stream,

the extremely photogenic Ben riser.

Yeah, you're photogenic, buddy.

I mean,

I have no, I have no slack on the mic.

All kinds of

heck break and lose here.

There we go.

Is that better?

Well, yeah.

Sorry.

You can see half me.

I'm going to be like better.

Conrad's not looking.

He's not even listening.

He's not like

left the building.

He's got a sports program to deal with.

Conrad's at Hagermeister Park right now.

He's

hanging posters on his wall.

All right.

That's a little better, Ben.

I'm glad we could see you.

Sorry.

I'll wave from time to time.

Yeah.

That's the voice of Ben Reiser, folks.

He's the programmer at UW Cinema Tech here in Madison, a fantastic program.

And I'm saying that even though I'm probably, I was going to go tomorrow night, but it sounds like I'm going to get shut out because you guys are, it's such a popular.

A, the program is amazing, but tomorrow night you have a great guest and what's happening if people do want to get there early enough and tailgate or something.

I would say like get there 6 p.m.

to 4070 Vilas Hall.

If you want to get in, we're showing David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which it was recently like a New York Times list of the best hundred films of the 21st century.

So that's 2000 and newer.

Is that right?

Yeah.

Is that right Conrad?

Early 90s.

Green Bay?

He's got the Google.

Um, and, and Bon Holland Drive was number two on that list of top 100 films of this century.

This, again, this century meaning.

2000 to 2025.

Second best film.

Second best film out of those 25 years.

How do you feel about that?

Why wasn't it number one?

And what is number one?

I don't even know.

I've heard Jim Healy repeat this in the last couple of intros that I've seen him do.

So you call me the programmer of UW Cinema Tech.

Every time I'm on the air here, I say things that I leave and I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to get fired tomorrow.

I am a programmer.

Jim Healy is really the main programmer for Cinema Tech.

I'm like a glorified assistant.

I get a couple of pics a semester.

And mostly I'm there to just sort of do my sort of stand-up shtick every once in a while in front of before a movie, but I just sort of bask in Jim Healy's shadow.

Well, I wish I had known that before I invited you on the show, Ben.

Well, you invited Jim too, but he, of course, is too busy for this nonsense.

He's got too much going on.

Yeah.

All right.

So while we're on the subject of that, and I love David Lynch.

Yeah.

Second best movie.

And I have to say I.

His stuff is beautiful.

I didn't know what the heck was going on and like you I've read about it afterwards.

I don't know and I don't want to insult anybody But how can that be the second best movie when so many people left shaking their heads?

What's the deal there?

Maybe that's the point of art is to make people shake their heads.

I don't know But let me just say it's a 35 millimeter print in case in case you're not already excited enough to see It seems like every time we show a David Lynch film even before he died

We had packed houses, but since his death, you know, we showed Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me at this year's film festival, and that sold out almost immediately.

And yeah, we showed a program of some of his short films a few weeks ago, and our special guest that night was his partner in film, his editor for a long time, and his one-time wife, Mary Sweeney.

was our guest, and she's coming back again tomorrow night to talk about Mulholland Drive, which she edited.

So the question is, what happens in the last 30 minutes of the film?

You could really say, what happens in any minute of any David Lynch film?

What are these movies about?

And as Mary said a couple of weeks ago, David made films, and the point of these films was for the audience to supply its own interpretation.

for it to mean whatever it means to the audience.

And so anytime anybody would ever come up to David Lynch and say, here's what I think Mulholland Drive is about.

Tell me if I'm right.

Whatever they would say, Lynch would be, yep, that's it.

And I don't think he was being a jerk about it.

I think that was his point.

He, I think that he, you know, these things came from his dreams, from his subconscious, and he put them out there without thinking too much about them.

I think they, I think they all have meaning for him.

I think he knows what they mean for him.

But I think his whole credo is it's more important about what it means to everybody who watches this film more than what I, what it means for me.

Who cares what it means for me as a filmmaker?

It's what it means for you.

That's like so

gutsy though to do that, to say that, I mean, he was David Lynch already by the time he made Mulholland Drive, but so he can get away with that.

But like, I can't even imagine giving an answer like that, like in a room with studio executives or producers or whatever.

Um, and I, you know, I remember the first film of his I saw was blue velvet.

I was probably 17.

I don't even know if I was supposed to be watching it.

No,

it was weird, but I followed it.

You know what I mean?

Where did

you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But what's

it about?

Really?

What's really going on in blue velvet?

I mean, I haven't seen it in about 30 years, but you got Frank Booth.

Right.

Whimsical guy.

Yeah.

Uh, I mean, there's abuse and people working through stuff and I'd have to go back and watch it again.

But as my point is like as a late teen, I was like,

This is really out there, but and some of it's twisted, but I am following it.

Whereas Mulholland Drive, I was completely lost.

But if you'd seen Mulholland Drive when you were 17, you might have had a clear idea.

I think when we're younger, where we're, you don't think we're dumber?

No, I think we're more open to like figuring things out and having a wider spectrum.

Now, what was I going to say?

Well, anyway, David

Lynch, brilliant.

Absolutely.

And how exciting to have Mary Sweeney there too, because I just had her writing partner on The Straight Story on the show last night, John Roach.

And I think it's fascinating to me that Mary Sweeney was an editor and became a writer-producer.

And I'm not saying that's never happened before, but you don't see a lot of editor-producers.

And director.

She made

a film called

Baraboo, which is pretty good.

And I've never...

Understood that because editors are amazing storytellers.

They have to be yeah, but it seems like very few cross over Into that whereas writers do more so

that's true.

That's interesting That's true.

There are a few directors scattered throughout history that started out as editors but but most of them weren't like established editors the way Mary was before they took a leap and became directors

My guest is Ben riser.

He is one of the he is an underling programmer.

Is that fair?

Yes, Underling Programmer.

But you're a serious contributor to Cinematheque and the Wisconsin Film Festival and I love talking movies with Ben.

He's here in the studio tonight.

Now, let me just say one

thing

about Straight Story.

Uh, Mary, because Mary talked about that the other night as well.

That's

exactly where I was going next.

So

well done.

Yes, absolutely.

Uh, and she said that that it was, you know, because it's a film that's not like any other David Lynch film.

Yeah, it was rated G. That was put out

by

Disney.

Um, and yet, uh, she said,

time and again that it seemed like for David, it was maybe his most personal film and the film that touched him that he had made the most deeply.

That's amazing.

And when John was here last night, he said David Lynch being the director was probably enough to not have it be a G rated film, which I thought was a great line.

But I just rewatched it this weekend.

It's going to be my classic movie pick of the week for Newisco weekend.

It is an absolutely marvelous movie.

you know, it breathes, it takes its time.

There is nothing not to like about that movie, including Richard Farnsworth, who just gives an incredible performance.

So you guys showed that at,

showed it a couple of years ago, maybe last summer or the summer before, again, with Mary Sweeney in attendance.

It was a beautiful screening.

Yeah.

Farnsworth is amazing.

He didn't make that many films.

He was a stunt man

for most of his career.

So I

guess he made a lot of films, but not that you would know who he was, which guy riding a horse he was.

But he made some wonderful films in the last couple of decades of his life.

I would seek them all at the Grey Fox.

It's a terrific sort of almost a Western.

He plays like a bandit who's like on the run in I think the Pacific Northwest or maybe in Canada.

It's a Canadian film, but terrific film.

So if you are planning on going to see

Mahal and Drive tomorrow at Cinematheque, where it's free, even on a night like when you have Mary Sweeney there.

What time should people get there at 6 o'clock?

Yeah, the movie starts at 7.

We open doors around 6.25, 6.30.

We might open them a little bit early.

I only say this because a couple weeks ago when we showed the short films of David Lynch, the theater was full, basically, by 6.15, 6.20.

I think we opened it up a little early and people just poured in and we had to turn away quite a few people.

Quite a few, quite a few people.

What's the biggest event you ever had there in terms of people showing up?

I would say, you know, I have seen us turn away 20, 30 people in the past.

This other night, it seemed like we turned away 50, 75, maybe a hundred people.

We showed one of these Werner Herzog documentaries, Cave of Forgotten Dreams and 3D.

I remember that one being one where we had to turn a lot of people away.

You know, and there's some sometimes I wish we could show films more than once, but we have a pretty tight schedule.

over at 4070 Viles Hall.

There's classes during the day and there's other things happening other nights of the week.

So we really don't have the bandwidth to be able to show films more than once.

I was just trying to remember

when you said Warner, he was in a movie I just saw where he was the bad.

Yeah, it was

a Jack Reacher movie.

Yeah,

it was a Jack Reacher movie.

It's so good.

That's ridiculous.

He's like the only good part of that

Jack

Reacher

movie.

Yeah, I liked both.

It's weird.

I

like

the

second one.

Really?

People don't like.

Is that the one where it starts where he's in the counter and says

the phone is going to ring?

Yeah, yeah.

I liked them both and I like the show without, like they're so different, but I like them all.

I just think their, the stories are just compelling.

Yeah, I read all the books.

The books are great.

Did you?

Yeah.

Oh God, I wish I could read a book.

But that guy, I know, I can't

anymore.

Again, when I was 17, I read a book.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was a big reader.

By the way, Sylvester Stallone, the Rocky poster was my.

bedroom.

Oh, I was going to ask you that.

You

had Rocky.

That was a great poster.

I'm an old guy.

Is it the one where he's like this in the tank top and he's holding the chin up?

No, it's more like a full like a close up of his face like beating.

You know, he's got the black eye and I think it's like a black and white almost.

Yeah, great poster.

What else do you have coming up at Cinema Tech this

summer?

And we had the greatest screening last week.

We should we were showing two martial arts films to kung fu movies for lack of a better job And last week we showed one called the mystery of chess boxing which apparently is a big part of the Wu Tang clan's lore that that hip-hop group They wrote songs about that movie one of the people in the group is named himself ghostface killer Which is the name of the villain in this mystery of chess boxing movie that we showed but apparently there's only one

35 millimeter print in existence of this movie at this

point

and and RZA another guy from the Wu Tang clan Who actually scored kill bill for Quentin Tarantino?

Are we hearing are you kicking me off again?

No, no, no, I know but anyway, we we showed this film was so great We had the best time it was a packed house people were laughing and cheering from this first frame to the last It's one of those rare screenings that I'm like this is like a once in a lifetime

opportunity to be with this group of people enjoying the same, we're all on the same wavelength here.

We couldn't be loving this movie anymore.

It was really, it reminded me why it's fun to go to the movies sometimes.

It's a great program.

If you haven't checked out UW Cinema Tech, it might be too crowded tomorrow, but definitely do it in the future.

Put it on your agenda, folks.

We'll be back after this very short break with more with Ben Reiser.

We're going to talk about the, did you see Superman?

Oh yeah.

All right, we'll talk about Superman next.

This is Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Find the latest news, information, and archives of all your favorite shows on the Civic Media website,

civicmedia.us.

I am looking at my IMDb picture, Ben.

How do you like that?

I got a mustache.

That's COVID.

I've never had a mustache.

Just a mustache without like, you know, the goatee

or a

beard.

You could

you could have gotten a role in like a B movie.

Yeah.

Who's the actor

that hit John?

Hitman.

Not Oates.

What's his name?

John Oates from Hall of Notes.

He's

got a stash.

He's got a stash.

No, who's the guy?

He's in a lot of like he plays like.

He's always the guy like with the cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve in a movie, John.

Oh,

wait, the guy from Deadwood and a million other things.

Joe knows this guy.

He's bound and down.

He's the brother-in-law.

Or the brother.

I'll find this out.

Conrad, Google John.

See what you come up with.

John Hawks?

Hawks!

Yeah, that's it.

Love that guy.

Yeah, I'm rattling off his biggest rolls and you're like,

huh?

That's a ring of bell, Ben.

But yeah, he's in that movie.

He's in that movie with Jennifer Lawrence, like where she's like a mountain.

Yeah.

Girl growing up in those clothes arcs or

whatever.

I just rewatched something he was in.

I just love that guy.

I like looking at that guy.

He's just got a great look, you know?

Yeah, you got a great look in that picture.

I look like a-

So you never got a part?

You didn't get a part with that look?

No, and everybody, my kids, like chat.

Dad, what are you doing?

What's with the

mustache?

I'm like, I'm horsing around.

I couldn't even work

anyway.

I don't like the longer hair that's getting greased down.

You look like, yeah, you look a little strung out.

I should have a pack of cigarettes.

Oh, there we go.

Yeah, there's John.

Look at that.

OK, can you put my Facebook picture up there next to him?

You'll just send me that again.

I'll send it to you, buddy.

I can make that happen.

Ben's like, can you put up that Farrah Foster poster?

I drove downtown for this.

Hey, let's talk about Ben.

I want to ask you a couple more things about.

You want to talk about narrow margin

narrow margin happen you guys are showing that when is that and how can people that's it's got to be in a couple of weeks We're almost we're winding down our last screening is August 1st.

So it's got to be sometime between now and then I think it's not I think it's next Friday Okay, it's a week from Friday

now.

How will that if somebody wanted to go to that are they fighting crowds?

No,

okay,

come

on

Because

there's

no weathers fine just come right on

6

30.

There's no

there's no Q&A

no

I'll answer questions after the movie if somebody wants.

I'm hosting that night.

I've seen the movie a couple of times recently because I had to write it up for our calendar.

It's directed by Peter Himes, who I think is, for a long time, I was like, yeah, Peter Himes, but he's underrated, I think.

He made one of my favorite 70s conspiracy thrillers, Capricorn One.

You know what that is?

Where the astronauts are supposed to go to Mars, but there's something wrong and they

They pretend to go to Mars, but they don't want anyone to know that they didn't really go to Mars.

So they plan on killing all the astronauts and saying that there was a crash in space.

Scott, it starts.

James Berlin is one of the astronauts.

Elliot Gould is a reporter who is uncovering this conspiracy and also OJ Simpson is one of the astronauts.

Oh my gosh.

It's a great, great thriller.

It's a Simpson vehicle.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

As is naked gun.

All right, so let's let's pivot here because I'm curious.

I'm kind of in the minority about a few films this summer.

OK, I'm taking the riser stance.

All right.

I did not love Superman.

The parts I liked about it, I really liked.

But I don't think it's a great movie.

Yeah, I don't know that it's a great movie either, but it's a good movie or good enough.

I was, first of all, I went to see it in they're showing it once a day in IMAX 3D.

I was like, well, OK, that's cool.

If it's available, I'll do it.

I mean, not for most movies, but like Superman.

Sure, I'll do three and I'm asked for sure because the screen is brighter and bigger.

So I get there and so and so the Monday afternoon was like 15 people in the theater.

I got a seat in the center, but all the way towards the back.

I get there and there's a guy sitting not right next to me, but one seat over.

He looks like he's at least as old as me, maybe 60, maybe older.

He's in a full Superman costume with the cape and everything.