Midwest Melodies & Movie Magic (Hour 2)

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.

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.

a guy who still likes to build a fort.

Pete Schwabba.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

2 Act 2 of Night Light this Monday edition as Night Light comes to you live from downtown Madison.

We are just above State Street at Civic Media headquarters.

It is so great to be here.

Another shout out to Aaron Zomers for helping us get set up.

Conrad Krieger back in Green Bay holding down the fort, working the board.

Conrad, everything okay?

Yeah, it's going great.

All right.

We've got Jim Healy coming up at 720.

He is one of the programmers at UW Cinematheque and also one of the big shots at the Wisconsin Film Festival.

We're going to talk about both of those things and Robert Redford, maybe some Peter Bogdanovich, all kinds of fun stuff with my film buff fan, pal, Jim Healy, who will be here shortly.

Right now we've got...

A few more minutes with our friend Eric Jell in the front man for the mascot theory who is here in the studio with me We just heard a couple songs off their new album cosmic hit and run I will get back to Eric in just a moment, but right now ladies and gentlemen This is exciting civic media has a new text-to-win contest.

It is our multi-state Go for the green and gold text-to-win contest Conrad

Back me up here.

Yeah our daily prize in this contest folks is 200 bucks in cash and gold jewelry So there's one winner every day.

You have to have the app to play But I assume most of you have the civic media app if you don't download it Get the app and text in the keyword on the app that is the way you qualify for our multi-state Go for the green and gold text to win contest and here is the grand prize.

So you win 200 bucks or gold and gold jewelry

That's an and Conrad, not an or 200 bucks and jewelry.

That's the daily prize just for texting in the keyword.

And then our grand prize to club level indoor seats to Green Bay versus Minnesota.

I'm talking football here folks.

It's a Green Bay home game November 23rd of this year at 12 p.m.

That's a Sunday.

We can say Sunday, right Conrad?

Yes.

Okay.

And you get a gas card to get you to the game.

So that doesn't do a guy like Conrad much good because he lives there and he doesn't qualify anyway because he works for us.

But it's like a $1,550 value.

And you can, winners are selected.

There's one per day and then one final grand prize winner.

And I am going to give you the...

Keyword folks right after our first break when we're done talking to our pal Eric Jellin here You will have tonight's keyword text it in right away Get yourself eligible because you could come out way ahead on this.

It's great stuff Our civic media go for the green and gold text-to-win contest a multi-state text-to-win contest by the way So that is all good stuff and we'll do the keyword shortly our question of the night is It's national diary day.

I realize most people don't really

keep diaries anymore.

But our National Diary Day question of the night is, what is the most embarrassing thing someone could read in your diary?

We'll read some texts coming up off the text line.

Dave on the stream says, the coolest thing I have in a diary is text messages.

It documents in real time when you may not remember.

Okay, that's good.

Is that embarrassing though, Eric?

It

depends on what it is, I guess, or who sent

it.

That is the best thing about texting is I can look back like,

My pal Jim is on the show tonight.

I'm like, when is the last time I had him on?

I just look at the text thread.

True.

So it is a nice way to chronicle certain things.

All right, Eric Jelland is here.

We've got a few more minutes with our pal Eric Jelland, the front man for the mascot theory.

So you got mineral point this month on the 24th.

Talk about that show.

What a great little town and it sounds like a fantastic venue.

Yeah, two days.

We'll be in mineral point on the

further it's on the orchard lawn which is a cool old used to be the Gundry house or maybe they still call it that I'm not sure but it's an old house and they have throughout throughout the summer they've got all these

Concerts on the porch they call them and so we're

I think

we're the last one now and we're I think we're gonna get lucky It's like 70s or something maybe tomorrow.

Hopefully by the time we play

it's supposed to be nice like for the next you should be fine I mean,

yeah, because you never know it's freezing cold a few weeks ago, so I'll take yeah, but yeah, it's my hometown So we're really excited to be there.

We're gonna do an acoustic shows.

Well the full band, but it'll be acoustic.

Oh,

so it's gonna be it's gonna be a blast

So, all right, Cosmic Hit and Run, your new album drops October 3rd, correct?

Okay.

Your last album, Every Sign of Life was produced by kind of a legend, Terry Manning, who produced Zeppelin Stuff and he passed away, but you guys totally self-produced this album.

Without nullifying or cheapening the contributions of a famous producer,

what's more fun for you?

I mean, there were both a blast.

Going down to Texas and working with Terry was like a just Cadillac experience.

We're just

like, this is going to be so amazing.

We put a lot of time and effort into rehearsals to make sure that we were as polished as possible when we got to work with Terry, somebody of his pedigree.

And we had a blast down there.

We're extremely excited about what we came out with with the Every Sign of Life album.

Um, but also part of us then for the next one now.

And that was, you know, we've been down.

That was three years, four years ago.

So it's been a while.

Um, and so now we were looking for this next one.

We're like, let's do just something the complete opposite.

Let's do our own thing.

Um, we'll get our pal Michael mood, um, who came out to our studio to, to help us work on it in, in our home studio.

Um, and we just thought, let's try it.

We've got tons of gear.

We know we can, we know what we were looking for.

We know we're going to be rehearsed.

We had the songs, we had the chops and we're, and what we want to do more with it too.

Cause as you listen,

listen to the album, every song is tied together.

There's found sounds that we just literally went out and picked up on our phones and just all kinds of things in this album that we never would have been able to do in a full big studio without paying tons and tons of money of time.

So being able to work on it on our own was kind of the only way to make this album.

So you've got two completed albums now.

Is there one you favor or do you notice the difference in it?

I mean, you're not going to make your album worse working with Terry Manning, but I mean, what is the difference?

Is there a difference in the finish line?

To me, there's not.

I mean,

that's the thing we wanted to make sure is if we did this on our own, it's got to sound as good as our last ones.

And we've done six, seven albums.

We've got a lot of albums out.

So we're like, it has to just kind of keep in that same vein of...

the quality that we're used to.

And with this one, once we got the recording done, once we got it to our pal Michael to do the mixing and then we actually had it mastered by a really amazing mystery room mastering.

We just knew it was something that was equal.

to the other in terms of quality.

And

it just means a ton.

You talk about Pink Floyd, your album covers, I realize.

Is there some Floyd influence there?

Yeah, yeah,

I love Pink Floyd albums.

I think that was Hypnosis, Storm Thurman, I believe his name was the guy who designed a lot of their album covers.

I love them.

I mean, I love

it.

And do you design yours?

Because your graphic are OK.

I do all the design stuff.

Eric Jelen is here.

He is my guest from the mascot theory.

They were just on Max Inc Radio the other night here on WMDX.

Go check out that interview too if you want to check out the podcast at civicmedia.us They play a mineral point the 24th two shows there.

They're coming up to Green Bay and Appleton soon You can check all of this out.

Do you want to give your web website

the mascot theory

comm all the dates are on there?

They got Madison at the Atwood music hall here October 5th and October 3rd the actual date the album drops

At the Gibson music hall in Appleton.

Do you have a favorite venue in the state or a couple of them?

Well, I mean mineral point opera house is always one of

my hometown So that's always a favorite

and we did that one last year, and I'm sure we'll be back in a year or two

but really you know Gibson music is such an amazing space up there and it's the folks that that created the Myla music festival

and that's just

such an amazing thing for the state and you know it's original music it's all original music and that's what we do so it's any kind of experience that that are any kind of folks that really put that out there that hey this is original stuff

And you're gonna like it

and

people they've just kind of cured it that way with that festival And so you feel like you're going into a hometown crowd when you're not even from there because they're already just Pumps to be here and some stuff.

They haven't heard before

all right.

We're gonna try to get one more song in here Tell us about this final song.

This is called final hour and this is kind of the main

linchpin for the entire album that I the first one that I wrote it was a night when my dad was going into surgery and was not expected to come out and so I was kind of dealing with that with with writing some lyrics down and ironically he actually did come out of it and it was another year before he finally passed away but it was a lot of those kind of moments and so this was kind of that one

all right con let's hear it

So you're taking an unplanned midnight stroll Wanderin' blind through the unknown Searching for answers Only ghosts could ever know Travelin' on paved gravel road What you will find there God only knows A thief in the darkness Or a light

guide you home.

Is this the final hour?

Is this the last goodbye?

Can I get some sleep tonight while these memories collide?

Is this the final hour?

Is this the last goodbye?

Can you make it back to me when shadows fill your eyes?

On the daily grind You didn't plan to be cast aside Surrounded by strangers While the symptoms multiplied I tried to decode In conceivable plots Unwinnable games Unreachable docs

mascot theory Eric Jellin is here in studio with me he is their vocalist and lyricist and this has been so much fun buddy I love when you come on the show

awesome thanks for having

me I wish you luck with the new album and all the shows you have coming up to promote it it's I love the material and thank you again for the for the album here you go folks right here Pink Floyd influenced and you kind of tell he does all this stuff thank you sir thank you when I come back Jim Healy will be here and I'm gonna give you the key word

to the our multi-state civic media go for the green and gold text to win contest that is coming up after the break get your apps ready you'll have the keyword and you can be part of the contest we're coming right back uh check out the mascot theory google them folks great stuff

You're listening to Civic Media.

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.^?

I'm Pete Schwab, and this is Nightlight, coming to you live from downtown Madison tonight.

Always fun to be doing a show in Madison.

Conrad, are you envious?

I am.

You know, I could be on the other side of the glass right now, but, you know, there's just nothing on the other side.

Aaron kept the chair warm for you, buddy, if you ever want to make the trip.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is time to give you all the keyword of our...

Civic media go for the green and gold text to win contest check this out the daily prize $200 cash and gold jewelry There's one winner every day and the grand prize to club level indoor seats to Green Bay versus Minnesota.

That's football.

We're talking about That is a Green Bay home game November 23rd At noon and you get a gas card to get you to the game.

It's like a fifteen hundred and fifty dollar Value you can't beat that and you get to see some football

And it's the green and gold versus the uh, what do you say purple and gold right

conrad purple people eaters

The purple people eaters.

There you go.

So this ours keyword ladies and gentlemen is night n i g h t Not night like night light the actual word night n i g h t So text that in right now on the app and you are eligible for our daily prize of 200 cash and gold jewelry and you are automatically entered into the

grand prize contest as well.

So good luck everybody.

It is my pleasure to welcome a friend of mine back to the show.

He's been on the show before.

I love talking movies with him.

He's a movie buff who does amazing work at the Wisconsin Film Festival as well as UW Cinematheque.

And he is, first of all, I want to talk about Cinematheque.

This is a great thing.

We'll start with that because it is this fantastic program.

But joining me here in the studio right now is my pal Jim Healy.

Hey Jim.

Hey,

Pete.

Great to have you back.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

These are new microphones.

So do whatever you need to do there.

Are you comfortable?

You hear me OK?

I can hear you just fine.

Conrad, can we hear Jim OK?

Yeah.

Perfect.

All right.

Jim Healy, ladies and gentlemen, I am I'm excited to have you here, Jim.

I always love having in studio guests, but especially when they know so much more about movies than I could ever imagine knowing.

So let's jump right in.

How are things at Cinematheque?

Better than ever.

We're really enjoying.

great crowds for the movies.

There's been a lot of kind of event feel to our screenings

later.

Like this is the one chance to see this and let's all go and we've had packed houses.

We showed Apocalypse Now and the original release version a couple of weeks ago and we gave out the original souvenir booklets that you got when you saw it in 1979.

And it was packed and there was a lot of students there.

Young people seeing the movie for the first time

I wanted to go the last time I was in town You guys were screening a David Lynch film and Mary Sweeney His partner and editor and producer producing partner was gonna be there for Q&A and I don't get out of here till eight and I texted

Ben

and he's like I'm I knew it was gonna be full, but I thought

Are there any no shows he goes text Jim and I was like, no, I'm not gonna do it I knew you had your hands full

at night.

Those screenings were really crazy.

We showed Mulholland Drive Mary produced and edited She spoke afterwards, but we had we had a full crowd for the full house that showed up almost an hour and a half before the movie and just made

a

coil line outside and

And they were all there, you know, they wanted to be there for that.

That's

incredible.

And mostly I would have just wanted to be there for the Q&A because I've seen Mulholland Drive.

I think I don't know if I talked to you about this, but I did rewatch it about probably eight or nine months ago.

I still have no idea what's going on at the end of the movie.

And I would have loved to have asked her.

I'm sure she gets that all the time.

But do you know?

I mean, have you heard her talk about the end of that film?

Well,

she won't talk about it as Norwood David Lynch.

ever talk about you know what it means or you know they'll talk directly about what you're actually seeing

like

yes those are the those are the same older people from the beginning of the film who are crawling off from under the door at this point you know but that's it you know it's just you know talk about what you're seeing.

Well, it's a great program.

And for people who haven't been to Cinematheque, I talked a little bit about this at the top of the show.

It's free to the public.

I mean, probably I would imagine with the amount of film buffs you have in Madison, they can fill up pretty quickly.

And maybe you have to turn people away sometimes.

Sometimes.

But it is definitely worth checking out.

It's this great theater.

I mean, it's not it's a little outdated, but the screen is state of the art.

All the equipment you guys have is state of the

art.

And

it's a beautiful place to watch.

Great sound system.

Yeah.

And, you know, and we.

Frequently show original 35 millimeter prints that look great.

That's how we showed mahal and drive last summer

You had a paper moon screening recently and you're showing another film of Peter Bogdanovich is called targets on October 4th I've seen some of Peter, but well, let's talk about targets.

Okay.

What's coming up?

Let's start with that I have not seen that film

so targets is Bogdanovich's first feature film, you know, he'd done

some work editing.

And I think Roger Corman gave him an old like Soviet sci-fi film that he dubbed and edited

himself.

So

you had projects that he worked on.

He worked on The Wild Angels and a number of other films.

But Roger Corman gave him the opportunity to direct.

Targets his first feature with in the idea that he could use Boris Karloff for a few days and those crazy one of his last movies And and he had to come up, you know come up with a script himself and it's a really kind of brilliant movie that Cross cuts between the story of an aging horror movie star Boris Karloff playing Byron Orlock so the comparison is there

And a terrifying secondary story about a sniper who is driving around Los Angeles and bringing himself to hidden locations and shooting people.

And it's a frightening pression film that only unfortunately has gotten more real as the decades have gone by.

But the two stories collide at the end at a drive-in.

really incredible, scary, intense sequence at the end of the film.

It's

a

great film.

Jim Healy is here.

When we come back, folks, after the news, I'm going to ask Jim, and I need this for myself as well, where you start with Peter Bogdanovich.

If people haven't seen a lot of his films, we'll get that from Jim.

I'll read some of your texts, and it's just a fun night here at Nightlight, and it's great to have you with me.

We are coming right back.

It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight, live from Madison on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Ladies and gentlemen.

So, Conn, this question apparently was not as much of a dud as I thought it was going to be.

I don't even know if I'm going to get through all these texts because I want to talk movies, but if I don't, folks, we will read them tomorrow as we always do.

There's just too many.

What am I supposed to do, Conn?

You know, I think we get a diary ourselves and write all of the diary entries in that diary.

That's a terrible suggestion.

Monica from Mount Hora, she's in the 608 says, having feelings for people who treated me like crap.

Yeah, you don't want people to read that.

Chris from the 773 says, I had a diary for about a month and a half when I was 12.

And unfortunately, there was nothing embarrassing in it.

But if I was writing one to date, I would hope no one read that you asked this question tonight in my diary.

Haha.

Yeah, that's fine.

Okay.

I can, you know, just ban Chris from future shows.

Tyler from the 608 says, same old, same old, the monotony of it all.

The highlights, I got a dog.

He is funny, gets the most ink.

Okay, Tyler, that's good.

All right, we'll do our best to get to these texts, folks.

Thank you for playing along on a question.

I did not expect to get this amount of mileage from, but we've got Jim Healy here from UW Cinema Tech and the Wisconsin Film Festival.

So, Jim, I wanted to ask you, Peter Bogdanovich, he's just one of those names that...

You know, probably in the past 20 years ago, I would nod my head like I knew who Peter was, but I knew who he was, but I don't know his work.

And I think a lot of people, he's made some great films, but he's not, you don't hear his name like you do Scorsese or Coppola or whatever.

He's kind of more of an offbeat name.

Where should people start with his?

films if they wanted to check out more of his work.

Well if you want to come to the cinema tech you can start at the beginning with his very first feature.

I served you a softball there tonight.

But you know what's interesting about him is he comes out of that same kind of school of filmmakers as Scorsese and

you know the movie Bratz of

the late

60s early 70s.

He

was a New York guy.

He moved out to LA.

You

know,

he wrote articles for Esquire, interviewed people.

He really got to know the movie business by just talking to and meeting filmmakers and watching a lot of movies.

And then he, you know, right off the bat was a very talented filmmaker and his first.

three or four movies.

Well, Targets wasn't exactly a box office sensation.

It was a little movie.

Paramount released it, but it showed that he could handle himself.

And his next movie was The Last Picture Show that came out two years

later,

1971.

And, you know, he got nominated for the Oscar and the movie won a bunch of Oscars for the actors.

And was it, you know, a huge box office hit and a black and white movie after.

Black and white movies had gone out of fashion in Hollywood and

that it

made money and had, you know, legs was really something Hollywood.

So he basically got, you know, the blank check to do whatever he wanted after that.

And

the last picture show for listeners is Jeff Bridges, Timothy

Bottoms and Shepard.

Yeah.

Great cast.

And

you can

see them all when they're young, too.

Really good.

Randy Quaid's first movie, too.

Oh, yeah.

It's anyway, it's.

His next film was an even bigger smash.

It was a comedy with Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neill called What's Up Doc.

Love that movie.

Huge hit.

And then he made Paper Moon, another comedy with Ryan O'Neill and Tatum O'Neill.

Big smash at the box office.

We showed that film a couple of weeks ago at the Cinnamon Tech.

But then he made a bunch of kinda high profile...

Flops, you know, they have the general idea about him is that he got a big head and thought he could do anything and he made a bunch of movies to with civil shepherd One film called Nickelodeon, which is about the silent movie days and they were very expensive and Not liked by the critics and nobody went to see them.

And so suddenly he was in movie director jail directly TV

No,

well, he

eventually did.

But he stayed in movies for a while.

In fact, I think the first film he made after those three flops was an art house movie called Saint Jack with Ben Gazzara based on Paul.

Oh,

yeah.

And it's it is a great movie.

It might be my favorite bug down.

Really?

OK.

Really great.

It's about a. Well, what's the word?

A procure of women in Singapore during the Vietnam War.

Oh, wow.

And it's just a great character study.

and a really, really terrific movie.

And then he made a bunch of other films.

He sunk some of his own money into them.

He had a hit movie with Mask on the 1985 film with Cher, but he fought with the studio upon its release because he wanted Bruce Springsteen's songs on the soundtrack.

They finally, if you see the movie now, you can see his director's cut with the songs and a couple of scenes that he wanted in the film.

But the studio wanted to take that stuff out.

because it was cheaper.

They replaced it with Bob Seager.

Bob Seager, yeah, which is

no slouch himself.

In fact, his music, what I remember, worked

really well in that.

I don't remember having that much of a problem with it.

I've only seen that version once.

I've seen the director's cut, but the kid, the real Rocky Dennis

that

Eric Stoltz plays in the movie, he listened to Bruce Springsteen.

So that was a big

go-in of

contention with Bogdanovich.

He threatened to, he tried to have the movie.

the release halted and universal pictures didn't like that.

And so even though the movie was a hit and it was very well directed film, very well regarded film, he was right back in movie jail again.

He kept directing.

He would do theatrical films, Jobs for Hire.

He did a lot of TV movies.

Later on, he's best known as Dr. Melphys Shrink on The Sopranos.

He also started acting quite a bit too.

Oh, yeah.

Elliot.

Lorraine Brocko.

Yeah, Lorraine Brocko.

We'll see him and talk about Tony Soprano to him.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Elliot Kupferberg.

Yeah, for Sopranos.

That's Peter Bogdanovich.

Oh, that's great.

OK, well, I would start with, I mean, for me, just based on what I've seen, I forgot he did What's Up Doc.

It was a funny,

70s screwball

comedy.

The guy with the golf clubs who keeps throwing them

up.

This

is too hard to take.

Oh, it's great.

It's a really fun movie.

That is great stuff.

Our keyword folks tonight for our civic media, go for the green and gold text to win contest.

You have to enter it on the app is night, N-I-G-H-T, N-I-G-H-T night.

So get that in and you are eligible to win $200 and gold jewelry and it also automatically makes you eligible for the grand prize.

Jim Healy is here from UW Cinematheque and the Wisconsin Film Festival.

I've had him on the show before.

Love talking movies with Jim.

So, all right, so Robert Redford passed away probably a week ago today or maybe tomorrow.

What is his like?

I mean, he's a Hollywood, he's a Titan, a giant, all those things you wanna say.

Where do you rank him as an actor?

Because I thought he was a really good actor.

I don't think I'd put him in the top of all time in terms of just acting.

Like he was fine, he was good.

Well, he was my

first idea of a movie star.

I think before I ever even saw one of his films, it must have been I saw the sting on TV like in the late 70s.

But even before that, I knew him as this.

He was the biggest movie star when you your image of a movie.

No question.

He was a huge movie star.

I mean, you know, and so when I started seeing his movies, you know, I understood it because.

He was a very good actor.

He's very relaxed.

I mean, that's really kind of the key thing.

You know, in terms of range, like you didn't exactly see him playing the kind of, you know, he rarely did the occasional villain or the heal.

And then the times he did it kind of backfired on him a little bit.

But, you know, he was a very, he was just somebody you really like to see.

And he didn't do a lot of comedy.

I think he had a kind of serious, but when he did.

do things in the comedic range.

I think he was at his best.

I mean, even like The Sting and Butch Cassidy are definitely, you know, pitched at that kind of level.

And then there's the one film I'm always stumping for, which is, I probably hold in the Redford Pantheon is The Hot Rock.

One of the one of the best films of the 70s, with a script by William Goldman,

adapting

a novel by Donald Westlake.

And Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy and

Great

Waldo Pepper and

a bunch of Redford films.

He wrote All the President's Men.

He wrote the script for that.

Anyway, it's a really, really funny heist comedy about some inept jewel thieves who are trying to steal the same diamond over and over again.

He keeps getting taken away from them and put into some other precarious situation.

But it's got George Segal and Ron Liebman and Zero Mostel is in it.

And it's just a great New York.

comedy but you know like last time I looked it wasn't on streaming anywhere like you couldn't rent it on Amazon you can find a Blu-ray out there that you know

You know, maybe a used copy for a hundred bucks or something, but it's he is Redford is really funny in it and he's timing as great as great double takes in it and and you know just so relaxed and so much fun to watch and you know and then and then the other the other movies I'd put in the pantheon would be you know all the president's men in three days of the condor I mean those are just love them great, but there's another like half dozen movies you know that great period between you know say like 69 and

79 there's

you

know, probably like a 12 13 movies and

you

know, there's another six that are just the sting and the way we were and Electric horsemen is a lot of fun and oh electric course was great Yeah, you know the other thing he didn't there were these two huge periods at where he was at his prime where he didn't work at all like there's like almost four years between all the president's men and

Electric horseman and the only movie he did in between was a kind of an extended cameo and a bridge too far And then he did brew Baker in 1980 and didn't

do

another movie for another four years He didn't tell the natural as an actor.

He was started directing films at that time But he didn't even I think ordinary people came out in 1980 and the natural came out like almost four years later It was a you know, these huge gaps.

Yeah, you know, he was doing a lot of

I don't want to say charity work, but he was doing environmental

work,

activism, and establishing the Sundance Institute, which is his other great legacy.

When

he asked

about his legacy, the creation of this not-for-profit film festival, that it's about championing artists working outside of the studio system, which he didn't do very often.

that he built this festival where all kinds of filmmakers could show their work from experimental avant-garde shorts to six-hour-long documentaries to independent features that focus on an area of a subject that has been widely underrepresented in

film.

I was talking about this last week.

I feel like there are probably easily 15 film festivals just in Wisconsin.

Do the fact that there are so many film festivals, is that due in part to Sundance and the popularity it gained?

I think

so.

I think it also has to do with kind of where the industry went, right?

There's much more of a focus now on the industry, the industry that is in charge of making big budget movies for wide release.

There's less movies being made, the budgets are going up, there's less choices to see, and I think

you know film festivals are kind of filling the the gap of you know and showing the independently made stuff that the studios aren't interested in because you know it doesn't it doesn't make a hundred million dollars on the opening weekend.

It's funny you talked about the sting that's probably my favorite Robert Redford movie it's probably in my top five of all

time one

of those films that everything works the script the sets I love that I typically always prefer a film that was on location but the fact I love the back lot stuff that they shot with the sting it's yeah

It's just a great world, and he was nominated.

That's his only

nomination for acting.

And that didn't help form my opinion.

I do really like Robert Redford as an actor, but that did surprise me.

Yeah, I think even his performance in the way we were, which is the same year, shows a lot more range.

But that's the thing he could do perfectly, this thing, that kind of relaxed, comic.

acting, playing off of Paul Newman so beautifully.

My deep dark secret that I put in my diary is I'm not a big Butch Cassidy fan.

I like him

a

lot in the film and I like Newman, but the movie just always seems kind of tonally uneven.

like, you know, and his ideas were borrowed from other Westerns from the time.

I would agree with that.

And I thought it was strange if we can pick up on this after the break that all of a sudden raindrops keep falling on my head out of nowhere.

I'm like, because I rewatched that like a year or two ago and I'm like, this is so strange.

Like Jim Healy is here, folks.

He's going to stick around and help me wrap things up here at Night Light.

We are coming right back after this very short break talking Robert Redford.

And I'm going to ask Jim what he can recommend, what he's seen lately, too.

That's all next on Night Light with Pete Schwabba.

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.

Welcome

back.

I'm Pete Schwabber.

This is Nightlight.

It's been a fun show.

Conrad, have you had fun tonight?

I definitely have.

That's all that I care about.

Our question of the night is what was something, if you kept a diary, what in your diary would you be embarrassed if people read?

John Murray from the 608 says, it would be packed with lies.

I can't confess every day.

And the rest is like 243 vacay pics on Facebook.

I silently reflect on the day to the ceiling in bed.

Good enough.

All right, John, thanks for not getting too personal.

Let's see if we can squeeze one more in here.

Steve from Florida says, speaking of Diaries, fun fact, one of Conrad's favorite novel series was Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

That is true.

Your dad just outed you on national radio.

It's okay.

It was a great series.

Yeah, it was.

It was good.

And then finally, we'll get the rest of your texts, folks.

I know we're behind tonight on text.

We'll read them tomorrow night as well.

Jack from Merrimack in the 414 says, if a single actor could carry a full length film, it was Redford.

See, all is lost.

If you haven't seen it, you need to put it on your list.

Jack from Merrimack.

Well, that's a great text for my guest, Jim Healy, who is here and knows a lot about movies in general, but certainly Robert Redford.

I have not seen

that.

All is lost is very good.

Maybe that's probably his most.

Important work as an actor after the 70s.

I think

okay, and then the hot rock.

I'm gonna Oh,

you gotta see the

hot rock.

I can't believe I haven't seen it Sometimes I say I haven't seen a film and then I put it in I'm like I have seen this when I was younger.

I just

didn't know what I was So what have you seen recently Jim at the theater?

I went to see I'm gonna see a bunch of things.

I'll I'll I'll speak well of two movies.

I really like the long walk

And I

loved weapons.

I thought it was

really

great.

Yeah.

Maybe maybe the best new movie, at least studio American movie I've seen this year.

It was good.

It was creepy.

Yeah, I really, I really loved it.

It's creepy and really compelling.

And he Zach Kragger is the writer director.

He really knows how to make a story interesting.

It's

not

it's not exactly linear.

He gives you little pieces.

Yeah, it's it's it's really well done.

I like those two a lot.

I also saw

I was at the Toronto Film Festival and I saw a new Brazilian movie coming out, directed by Claibor Mendoza Filho, which is called The Secret Agent.

It's set in Brazil during the 1970s, during their own kind of fascist era, kind of the same era as the film I'm Not Here was set in last year.

But this is a really exciting movie made by our...

really passionate cinephile director and it's about a fugitive who finds kind of community among other fugitives while also trying to save his hide from hit men that are after him and he spends a lot of his time hiding out.

in a movie theater where his father-in-law is the projectionist and they're

showing the Omen

in 1977.

Very

cool.

And Jaws figures into the film and it's a real kind of cinephiles delight, movie junkies delight.

That's great.

Did you see a barbarian, is that correct?

I love barbarians.

I did too.

Yeah, I liked it very much and I was excited about weapons and that was what I think that was what was so great about is that it delivered on the promise of barbarian.

That's interesting because I thought.

If I had to rate the two, I

know I'm

in the minority.

I think I like Barbarian better just because it was, it was more, it wasn't totally linear, but it was like, I had more of an ending, like the weapons was kinda, I was slightly, if I'm nitpicking.

But I loved that all the kids left the house in the middle of the night, that crazy

run.

It was so creepy.

I found the climax of the weapons really gratifying.

With the women and the kids.

Yeah, that was pretty good.

Very satisfying.

I just, you know, I just felt the movie had more kind of an impact.

It just felt more like a movie of the moment that was kind of speaking to, you know, the culture in general and, you know, what's going on in the world right now.

And, you know, Barbarian is wonderful.

I loved, you know, every second.

And I would say Barbarian, maybe the story surprised me more than weapons, but weapons just was.

was very sad.

I

don't even know what I don't even think I was doing this show when I saw Barbarian and I've watched more horror since

I've

been doing this show but Barbarian I was so the idea that there's this Airbnb and then this tunnel in a room they don't

know

about that goes down.

I mean, they're both really creepy, both really good movies.

The Long Walk is Stephen King's first novel?

I guess so, or maybe it's, I don't know how long it is, maybe it's like a novella, it's not too long.

But he, you know, he didn't, he wrote it at 19 and it didn't get published until after he was established, I guess.

My

son Joe, who you know, saw that film and he thought it was maybe the best film.

He liked it, maybe the better than anything he's seen.

It's very, it's very good.

very well acted and, you know, and, you know, spare and unsettling in a lot of ways.

I mean, it's really it's just, you know, it's just guys walking.

That's really the home walking and talking.

It's the whole movie, but it's very cinematic and and compelling.

There you go, folks.

That's two movie recommendations from the great Jim Healy, a guy who watches more movies than any of us put together.

What's your

what's your count at?

So far,

well, I'm about I'm on par.

I'm usually I will watch close to 700 features every year.

But, you know, the numbers have changed.

They used to be, you know, these are new movies that I was seeing right

now.

It's now it's almost half and half with, you know,

rewatching.

I'm doing because I got this,

you

know, Blu-ray collection that, you know, sat

unsealed on my shelves for years.

And during COVID, I started getting into it.

And now I really enjoy watching, you know, three days of the condor again or the hot rocks.

Yeah, absolutely.

Folks, check out the Wisconsin Film Festival.

It is such a blast.

They do a great job programming it.

They offer outstanding films.

It's not till April, but start marking your calendars.

That's just a movie lovers heaven.

And then check out UW Cinematheque too.

Jim Healy, always a blast, sir.

Thank you for coming in.

Thanks, Pete.

You got it.

Tomorrow night, on the show, we've got Dr. Kristen Lyrely.

You might know Dr. Kristen Lyrely's name from the Dr. Kristen Lyrely show, which she hosts here on the Civic Media Radio Network and more specifically, WGBW.

And then Logan Rogie will be here from Travel Wisconsin talking about fun fall events throughout our state.

That's tomorrow night.

I'll be back on the home court in Green Bay.

My thanks to Eric Jellon for being here.

Jim Healy, thank you to all your texts and calls tonight, folks.

We will finish up with the texts tomorrow and be back with more contest fun in the Civic Media Go For The Green and Gold Text-to-Win Contest, which is happening through October 3rd every night.

You have a chance to win.

We will be back tomorrow night on behalf of the lovable producer, Conrad.

I'm Pete Schwabba saying good night,

Wisconsin.^?

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.