Monstrous Adventures and Movie Magic (Hour 2)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

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

Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

Happy Thursday, everybody.

It is the Christmas Eve of weekdays, and we are all here together to celebrate such a beautiful night where we talk about outstanding things in life that bring beauty to our world.

Movies, TV, comedy, music, you name it.

We've got some, well, sports talk is tomorrow, Conrad.

I almost said sports, but we'll probably touch on the Cubs and Brewers a little bit.

It starts after the show.

It's all right.

We can give our little predictions, I think.

Big surprise there.

We're covering it all tonight, folks, and it's great to have you here wherever you're joining us from over this beautiful state of Wisconsin on this gorgeous fall night.

Welcome to Nightlight.

Fun show tonight.

We've got it's Thursday, so that means we're doing the popcorn pick of the week.

If for some reason you've never heard of the popcorn pick of the week or heard that segment, we give you a movie pick that you can check out by way of our guests.

And tonight.

the guest during our popcorn pick of the week is Matt Miller.

He will make a and this is cool too because Matt is a film critic from Milwaukee and he will give us a movie that we can check out possibly one we haven't seen or possibly one we want to revisit if we've already seen it.

But I'm excited to have Matt do this.

I've been trying to schedule him in so he could give us a pick because he's always fun to talk movies about with anyway.

He's also going to talk about some of the things you can see right now in the cinema as I like to call it.

We'll discuss.

movie I saw recently I'm anxious to get Matt's thoughts on One Battle After Another which this film is like I was reading Variety yesterday.

They think One Battle After Another might draw 14 Oscar nominations and that would tie a record with La La Land all about Eve and Titanic maybe.

That would tie a record and they think maybe there will be six actors from the film.

Nominated in the four acting categories.

That's never happened before so very good film anxious to get Matt's thoughts on it and he's seen some stuff I haven't as always so we'll talk to Matt about that and what's coming up at the theater in the near future and then Rob Momarts

Yeah,

that's his name Rob Momarts Momarts.

I said it right.

Yeah

Momarts Momarts

It's Rob Momarts.

He is a brilliant illustrator.

He will be here at 720 tonight.

So excited to have Rob in the studio and talk to him about his process and some of the great things he's done.

He draws all kinds of stuff, but his illustrations for children's books are just gorgeous.

And we'll share some of those with you when he's here.

But Rob will be here at 720 tonight in studio.

I see a nightlight window fun picture happening with Rob at some point.

Yeah.

Maybe we'll give him a book to read that's not a children's book.

What book?

He can read it through the window.

I don't know, do we have like a... He's a child, we gotta keep it clean anyway.

I mean, he's a children's book.

We can't do, I can't let my mind go somewhere.

Anyway, two great guests tonight.

We got a fun question tonight in honor of someone's birthday.

A lot of cool things have dropped today.

We Will Rock You came out on this day, I think in 1977.

So you might hear a little bit of Queen at some point during the show.

It's John Mellencamp's birthday.

He's a good one.

John Mellencamp is like the forgotten Americana roots rock guy.

And I don't mean he hasn't gotten his props in his career, but you always hear about Springsteen to a lesser degree, Bob Seeger, Tom Petty.

And John Mellencamp was huge for like...

two or three decades But you just haven't heard a lot about him in the last I would say 15 years or so But he turns like 74 today.

He's up there with Springsteen in age and John Mellencamp going back to when he was John Cougar Just has an outstanding music catalog so you'll probably hear a little a little cougar tonight or Mellencamp throughout the show.

So we've got lots to talk about

and it is Thursday.

I forgot to shower today, Conrad.

And you feel about that?

That's why you smell?

No.

I smell like Sidney Sweeney's bathwater buddy, and you know it.

No, here's what happened.

I got up today.

I woke up at like five.

I couldn't get back to sleep until like seven, and then I slept until like 10, 20, and I had to be a guest on my...

friend, Mike Lucas, who was on this show last week.

He has a podcast.

He asked me to be on the podcast.

I said, of course.

So I was on his podcast today at noon while I'm scrambling to get ready for the show.

I thought, I'm not going to shower.

I'll just throw some water in my hair.

There's not, they don't have smell of vision over stream yard.

So I figured I was fine.

Right.

So as the day went on, I just realized, like I felt showered.

And then I'm like, Oh my God, I didn't shower.

So don't tell Rob when he's here in studio.

What if he's listening right now?

No, just keep it on the QT.

Rob seems like a stand-up guy.

Like, I'm sure.

I'm sure he showered.

I would imagine Rob seems like a pretty clean cut guy.

I wouldn't make those judgments.

I'll let you know when I meet him.

But we'll discuss his cleanliness and the sense he's giving off while he is in the studio.

And he can draw his way out of it.

He's that good.

And it's a weird feeling.

Do you ever go days where you don't shower when you have to work?

I mean, sometimes you have to, but if I, if I don't shower during the day, I'm showering before I go to bed.

Yeah.

I think if you shower before you go to bed, you're better off because you're clean longer.

You don't really sweat when you sleep.

So your skin

is

kind of cleansed for a long period of time.

When you shower in the morning, I start sweating within like 30 minutes.

Yeah.

You know, so.

I just took a casual walk along the river here, and my back is soaking wet, so.

Oh.

Let's see if we can draw a prettier picture.

You know, I shower pretty much every day after I work out, because,

well,

I don't want anyone to smell me after I work out.

I saw this thing on the Daily Show recently.

There's an Asian host who fills in.

I don't know his name, but he's very funny.

You know that guy?

Uh-uh.

And he talked about...

You know the showering process and how Asian people wash their feet like they lift their foot up scrub it with soap Insinuated that Americans don't do that that we just let the water run over our feet.

We consider that washed I Do you do that?

No, I wash my I wash in between my toes like that's a that's an odor area That's a main odor area.

Yeah, I do that too because I mean just My feet are not the greatest smelling when I

go throughout the day.

Right.

Make sure they're you

know, make sure they're washed.

Well, I thought it was funny because he didn't even like, I do remember friends of mine, like when I was in college saying no, they don't wash your feet, they do that.

So that took me back to that time.

But I think it's funny that he knows this about white Americans like how does he know that he must have friends that say no, I don't.

Oh, yeah, he went to the focus group.

I guess.

But it is weird.

I do feel like

It was too late to shower when I realized I hadn't showered when I was on my way to Green Bay.

So I, I could, I'm like, well, I could either pull over to truck stop and take a shower.

There you go.

I'm going to do that though.

You ever showered at a truck stop?

No.

No, it's

like, I'm sure it's kind of like the locker room a little bit.

You think they have their own stalls?

Like, you know, sometimes I don't like locker room because it just has a small curtain and you can like

easily see through it and it's kind of weird.

But there's one there's a why actually in in town that has like full doors.

Oh, okay.

And

that's the best thing ever.

That's like a little apartment.

Exactly.

And you can like stretch out, take your time.

You don't feel like you're being watched.

That's how I feel because like when I and we've talked about this before, when I was in high school, it was just a big open.

It was like the Wild West of showering.

And there's like, insanity going on.

So I would think at a truck stop.

You know those guys are in their trucks all the time They would want a little a nice a nice place to shower I think

yeah, you know when you're in high school, and you had those showers did you have to shower?

What did

affect your grade if you didn't

oh?

You know what I?

I vaguely kind of remember that, but I don't know that we were forced to shower I don't think so

there was one grade where that did happen to me

like really yeah

How are they grading your shower?

Are they expecting you or

they're like if you don't if you don't come out of the the locker room looking a little wet They're gonna dock you for the day

That's kind

of I think that was like 7th or 8th grade.

I can't remember but after that I've never showered in one of those locker rooms again because like like you mine was like that as well.

Yeah, big one.

Yeah

I don't, here's a weird thing, I had a friend in Chicago when I lived there years and years ago who went to one of the Catholic high schools.

They not only had to shower, they had to line up naked by the pool.

This is what he told me, I can't confirm or deny, but he's not the kind of guy that would make that up.

And it was sort of

like a cleanliness

hygiene thing.

Isn't it?

That's absurd.

And I'm like, what did your parents think?

It's like, oh, they just do what people tell you.

That's what their parents are like.

And that's kind of what my parents are like.

But I think they would have raised an eyebrow at that one.

Yeah, that's a different time.

It's weird.

It is weird.

It's crazy weird.

It's a lot of fun.

No, it was terrible.

So all right, I think it's time without further ado, we get to our nightlight 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.

Oh, in honor of Matt Damon's birthday this week, what is your favorite Matt Damon movie?

And I'm just looking through this because he has made a ton of movies.

He hasn't even been around.

I think Goodwill hunting came out in like 97 That put him on the map so 20 28 years he's got like a hundred movies Maybe not a hundred What is your favorite Matt Damon movie 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic

That is the question of the night, folks.

Let us know.

You can text us on the app or on the stream.

If you're watching the radio on Facebook, YouTube, or ex, ex Twitter, let us know.

We love it when you are part of the show and we'll read your text on the radio.

You know, it's funny, Dave on the stream said, field of dreams, goodwill hunting, saving private Ryan.

He, I think he, I think he was in field of dreams.

He was like a kid or something if I'm not mistaken.

And I don't,

I don't know.

I'm still thinking about this, to be honest with you.

Did you answer the question?

I did.

What was your answer?

Well, first, I really liked the movie Air.

Oh,

yeah.

About Nike, you know, getting Michael Jordan to sign

with him.

Yes.

Which, fantastic movie.

Love that

movie.

And then the other one was Downsizing.

I don't know if you've ever seen that.

I feel like I have, but how old is that movie?

I think it's early 2000s, maybe.

Okay.

But it's about, like...

You can make a change to yourself where you're like Like super small Like the size of like a toy and then you live in this huge like this kind of like Weird paradise where you're

that

small and everything's cheaper.

So they do that He's gonna do it with his wife And his his wife backs out last second

He gets shrunk and he's in this paradise kind of just by himself.

But it takes a crazy turn and it's it's a really good movie, actually.

Say the title again.

Downsizing.

Interesting.

You know, the obvious choice is the born movies, but I'm not going to go there.

I'm going to reserve the right to chew.

I'm going to say and I'll pick between one of these rounders air.

I just lost my rounders, air, and maybe Ford versus Ferrari.

That was a great movie.

We'll discuss, but let us know what you think, folks.

What is your favorite Matt Damon movie?

We're talking movies.

It's the popcorn pick of the week with our pal Matt Miller coming up at 635 and then Rob Momarts at 720.

Brilliant illustrator.

It's Pete Schwabba in Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Welcome back.

I'm Pete Schwabba.

This is Nightlight.

That is John Mellencamp with I Need a Lover.

He turns 74 today, I think.

I thought I'd look this up, but apparently not.

And again, like John Mellencamp, one of the greats, you just don't hear his name that much.

I know he had some health problems, but he, great songs.

Pink Houses, Small Town, Minutes to Memories.

He's got some amazing tunes.

Do we have a phone call counter?

Yes, we do.

Terry from Madison.

Terry, how are you?

I am great.

How are you

doing very well?

It's nice to hear from you.

Thank you.

Sure.

What's on your mind?

Well, it's also Jackson Brown's birthday today.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah, I think he's 77.

Wow.

Yeah,

not

young, but you know.

He's had a good

run.

He's

awesome.

I love Jackson.

What is your favorite Jackson Brown song?

Well, it's kind of obscure.

Yeah, it's called Ready or Not.

I think I know that song.

Yeah, it's about him basically getting his girlfriend pregnant.

Oh, wow.

Well, it's interesting.

Do you remember?

The song, I think it was Somebody's Baby that was in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Jennifer Jason Lee's character got pregnant.

And but that was a great use of his music.

My favorite Jackson Brown tune is running on empty, I think.

I love that

song.

Yeah, actually, I think that song is on that album.

So.

Oh,

OK.

Yeah.

And of course, take it easy.

But, you know, that just that doesn't count because it's a great.

Yeah, no, that's a great call.

Thank you for the nudge.

That slipped by me yesterday when I was preparing the show.

So thanks for the

heads up.

Thanks to Facebook on that one, but anyhow.

And I think that John Mellencamp has been also taking care of his daughter, who might be very ill.

Oh no, I didn't know that.

Yeah, when you said that, um, he was sick.

It's like, Oh, I think it's his daughter,

but

I could be wrong.

I thought I read that though.

So anyhow,

well, that could be,

of course, good friends with Bruce.

So

yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And I know you're a Bruce fan.

Do I say that too much?

I am a huge Bruce fan.

I think the

world.

Yeah.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for the call, Terry.

Have a great night.

Thanks, you guys,

too.

Love the show.

And you're very welcome.

Thank you.

I didn't know that about his daughter, but even with his health problems, I feel like it's been even longer.

I don't know.

Maybe he just voluntarily dropped out of the spotlight, too.

Who knows?

Thank you for the call, Terry.

Khan, do you have a realistic prediction for tonight's game?

Brewer's, I'm going to say, I'm going to say like six to two.

If I were to bet, I would never bet against my own team.

I'm that idiot in fantasy that drafts players from my own team, so I never have to root against them.

I do feel like the Brewers don't want game five at home.

That's pressure.

Not to say they can't do it, but I do feel like they're gonna come out tonight just balls out, so to speak, you know.

Yeah, I

think they're

gonna, they're gonna come out and be ready to play this time.

Last night was a little different.

I think this time's gonna be

Yeah, we'll see hotter bats.

I Although the Cubs probably got a big jolt out of that win to win the way they did If they did come back and win that you'd look back at that and go that was a momentum shift But I do feel like the Brewers are just I think they don't want a game five I'm just gonna have to monitor the game because I'm not gonna go watch it with my dad if the Cubs are losing when I get back to town

Anyway, well, that'll be interesting to see Dave on the stream says Conrad, we don't want to hear your dreams.

Speak for yourself, Dave.

That's good radio.

What was Dave insinuating there?

I said his wife didn't know his wife and wanted to do it or something like

that.

And I was talking about the movie.

You dream of Matt Damon and his wife.

That's weird dreams out there.

I

just look up to him.

I think I think I'm going to go my favorite Matt Damon movie.

And the departed is in there too and he was really good in that and he held his own with really good actors But I'm gonna say rounders So I'll go with rounders good movie good movie about poker.

I love poker.

I love John Malkovich Ed Norton's in it.

He does a great job

So there you go other social media posts just to let you know folks We do post our question of the day on Facebook every day so you can weigh in there if you can't listen to the show We'll still read it on the air Janet on social media says goodwill hunting.

I assumed we'd get a few goodwill hunting votes tonight.

So and that was a great movie Did you like goodwill honey?

Did you see that?

I've actually never

seen

it.

Okay.

I bet you'd really dig it.

It's a I mean, it's you know, it's what put he and Ben Affleck on the map and

I didn't love it when I came out, but I do like it.

I think it's a nice movie.

There were all kinds of rumors that they didn't really write it, that they brought in... What's the script doctor's name?

William Goldman, I think, to write a lot of the script, but Affleck and Damon still got credit.

I don't know that for a fact.

But it wouldn't surprise me because there were two young guys...

And I think the studio saw an opportunity there to promote these two guys, because they were good actors, they had great presence on camera, and they had a nice story.

So whether or not it was tweaked by a script doctor, I don't know, but it's a good movie.

I like it.

I think it holds up.

Laurie from, is this for us, Khan?

I don't think Laurie's text is for us, is it?

No.

No, okay.

Edward says he's in the 414 he says the talented mr. Ripley.

Yeah, that was good one with Jude Law plays a real psycho douchebag We could say douchebag right that's just good clean American verbiage Anna from Madison says hi Pete and Conrad my favorite Matt Damon movie was saving private Ryan And then you got that movie too.

He's got a ton of credits

That's incredible.

All right, we'll read more of your texts as the show goes on.

What is your favorite Matt Damon movie?

It's Matt's birthday this week.

And that's a good question.

He's done enough movies where we can even the casual fan probably knows a couple.

When we come back, folks, we're making the popcorn pick of the week with our pal Milwaukee film critic Matt Miller and all kinds of fun here.

Be part of the show.

Phone lines are open.

Let's do this.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

It's time for the nightlight popcorn pick of the week where we recommend a movie that you'll either enjoy or won't.

Here's your host, Pete Schwabba.

All right, welcome back to nightlight, folks.

It is the Christmas Eve of weeknights.

It is Thursday, folks.

You are in the home stretch to the weekend.

And what better way to do that than with the popcorn pick of the week?

We do have, can we take a quick call?

Conrad, who do we have?

Yeah, Richard from Walker Show.

All right, let's take a quick phone call here before we get to our guest, Matt Miller.

Richard, hello.

Hi, how are you doing doing great?

How are you?

I'm pretty good.

I come across the interesting movie.

I'd like to put out I don't know if you ever heard of it or her or saw it called music within about maybe 26 No 2006 maybe okay It's on a true story of a Vietnam vet and what's really great about it is You can laugh and cry through this movie.

He gets disabled

And during the Dukakis senior Bush election, he gets out to the media that whoever decides to start something to help the veterans get jobs will win the election.

And guess who takes them up on it?

Dukakis?

No.

Bush?

George Bush.

He got the votes

nice.

I do kind of remember this movie.

It's Ron Livingston in the lead But I've never seen it, but you recommend

yeah, okay Yeah, you can tell it's it's it the fact it's a true story.

It's full of laughs and tears But it's you know, I don't think they had a high budget, but it's done pretty well It's got all of the 70s best music playing through it.

Okay.

Oh, I love that

and and there's a lot of funny

So

that's that's Richard's popcorn pick of the week and if you're interested folks you could check that out on to be it says it's free on to well everything's free on to be but That's a great choice.

Thank you, buddy.

I appreciate the the recommendation Have a good one.

Yeah, you too Richard.

Thank you very much

All right, look at that Conrad.

You get two popcorn picks this week.

One from one of our regular listeners, Love Richard.

And now we are going to bring in one of our frequent flyers here at Nightlight.

He is a film critic based in Milwaukee and lots of fun to talk to here on Nightlight from time to time.

And he's here to make the popcorn pick of the week, Mr. Matt Miller.

Hey, buddy.

I'm honored.

Thanks for having me.

Likewise.

I'm trying to set this up for a while.

When I realized you hadn't done this yet.

It's always nice to get a critic's perspective, or a recommendation for that matter.

So I'm thrilled you're here.

Do you have a favorite Matt Damon movie, Matt?

A favorite Matt Damon movie.

We're celebrating

his birthday a little bit tonight.

So that's

our question

tonight.

I do really enjoy the born movies, or at least the original three, the latter ones are not very good.

I always enjoy an Ocean's Eleven.

That's just great watching right there.

The Martian is very enjoyable.

I don't know if his highs are very high.

You know, I think he's a good actor, but I don't often think about like great Matt Damon performances off the top of my head.

He's always just steady two hands on the wheel and there is value in that.

There is value in just a well made cheeseburger, you

know.

Absolutely.

And I that's that's a great cop because he was in.

You know, I would say my favorite was maybe Rounders.

Obviously the Bourne movies are great, but I liked Rounders.

I liked Air.

I liked Ford versus Ferrari.

But in the departed, he held his own with some pretty good actors.

So I had trouble choosing, actually, because I don't I agree with you.

I don't think he's in the upper echelon, but he's on the upper end of serviceable, if you will.

100% he's a good movie star.

And I think, you know, he's very good in Oppenheimer.

I'm going through his list of credits now.

And

he's very good under, I mean, everyone's really good in Oppenheimer, but

he's

rather good.

He's also, I think he's an actor who's really well weaponized.

And what I mean by that is like, he's really good in interstellar, because you look at Matt Damon, and he's supposed to be all American hero guy.

And then the movie weaponizes that and it's just like, no, this is a broken guy who thought he was going to be the hero and wasn't and is now willing to like end the human race to prove that he's a good guy.

And

it

is interesting how movies utilize them.

I think Christopher Nolan really knows how to use Matt Damon really well.

I think

those are the kind of performances that are best when a director really is like, I know how to utilize you in a way that takes your movie star persona and weaponizes it in a way for the audience.

That's a great answer.

Yeah, and he's made some good films.

There's no question about it.

So but let's let's turn our attention to I'm very anxious to talk to you about your approach Matt regarding the popcorn pick How do you like to watch movies like as a critic?

Do you prefer a theater that's filled with people or do you like to watch in the comfort of your own home and block everything out?

What's your

process?

Theater 100% all day every day.

I will take a theater 100% of the time.

I will take a theater empty.

I will

I will take a theater filled with people on their cell phones.

I will take a movie in a theater with a bunch of movie talkers.

I will take all of that over streaming something at home, all alone on my couch, being easily distracted and just not being immersed in the movie.

I think the theatrical experience is the best way to watch a movie.

I, you know, are there issues with it?

Absolutely.

But I just think there's no better way to submit yourself to a story, to submit yourself to an experience like a movie theater.

I agree.

Let's talk about that, though.

You're at the movie.

You're trying to watch it.

You're going to write a review.

Maybe you're just there for fun.

And there's a bunch of kids talking or some couple or some older people that won't.

And the older people, God bless them.

You know, they talk loud, they lean over,

they try to whisper.

All right, so

what do you do?

100% because A, older people talk loudly.

Yes.

And B, young people don't like being called out and like will be quiet if you shush them.

Older audiences are offended.

that you like that you made issue with them talking loudly.

I've done that too.

And I they feel like they give you a look like they're in your you're in their living room or something.

It's like, no, we're all we paid money to see this movie, you know, and it's,

I don't know why you paid money to talk through a movie.

But again, better experience than at home.

Okay, very good.

And what what kind of movies what are your favorite movies to watch?

Matt, like, do you have a genre you prefer when you're not reviewing something?

My Smarmy answer is good movies.

I don't really have a favorite genre.

I will watch a musical.

I will watch a weird indie movie.

I will watch a horror movie.

I'll watch an animated kids movie.

If a movie is good, I want to see it.

I want to experience it.

I'll watch an old movie.

I'll watch a silent movie.

I'll watch a weird.

The only one I won't watch is an AI movie.

Get that crap out of my

face.

I almost asked you about that because there was an article last week, you know, Tilly Norwood, this whole thing with, you know, her creators saying she might sign with an agent.

She's got her own Instagram account.

I don't know if you're familiar with the Tilly Norwood stuff, but

she doesn't have her own Instagram account.

That's like saying Wendy's has an Instagram.

Correct.

Wendy's is not a person.

Wendy's is a brand.

Right.

Norwood is not a person.

She has a computer program.

Why can't they, why can't they categorized AI as animation?

That's basically what it is, right?

I mean, it's like

Pixar.

I mean, it's animation without even the art of animation.

I mean, I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, but that's an insult to animators.

Animators work hard.

This is a

computer plagiarizing a bunch of stuff and creating a fake person.

And it stinks.

And I think you can tell that this is not.

This is not something like they keep saying like, oh, audience, I think this is here to stay.

No, it's not.

You said the same thing about, uh, the stupid monkey images three years ago.

And now we don't even, I don't even know what they're called anymore.

Um, these aren't things being decided by audiences.

Audiences don't want to see AI.

When you hear about AI, we call it out of the room.

You know, stuff planted by the industry, planted by, you know, these up and coming AI groups.

That's why you're reading about the stuff in.

you know, variety, you're not reading about it from fans of Tilly Norwood on your computer.

You're not reading tweets and Facebook posts being like Tilly Norwood's really impressive.

No, it's just all industry people trying to be like, no, this is the next big thing.

You 100% want to be on this.

It's 3D TVs, but worse.

You know, as I'm talking to you, and my guest is Matt Miller, he is a Milwaukee based film critic.

He's here to make the popcorn pick of the week tonight.

Then we're going to tell you about what you can see in the theaters and what's coming.

up.

I don't think you can replace actors with AI.

You know, another profession I don't think they can replace Matt are movie reviewers with AI.

Honestly, how could they could give very broad strokes, but no nuts and bolts or nuance, right?

I mean, they've certainly tried.

There's not many paid.

film critics around the around the country much anymore.

And even the places that there are critics, they're not around.

But people, what's the first thing you do when you get out of movie generally?

You talk to somebody about it.

You

text a buddy who's seen the movie, or you talk with the person you went to go see it with.

You don't just sit with the movie and then, you know, digest it and never think about it again.

And if you do, must not have been a great movie.

You know,

you want people to talk with you about

the thing that you saw.

And that's what movie critics do.

They are, they are having the conversation.

They're not ending the conversation.

If anything, hopefully, they're starting a conversation.

They're participating in the conversation.

They're, I think there's this idea of that critics think of themselves as high and mighty.

And for sure, there are some out there that do feel them that way about themselves.

But most critics are just people who want to talk to you about the movie they saw.

Yeah, exactly.

No, that's a great answer.

When did you become fascinated with movies or think that I want to do this for a living?

I want to watch movies.

When did they captivate you?

Yeah, so it's hard to pinpoint it.

Honestly, when I was a young kid, I hated movies.

Really?

My parents had to like take me out of the theaters because I was so easily scared.

I was... Oh, wow.

Jumanji gave me nightmares.

The THX sound at the beginning of Empire Strikes Back gave me nightmares.

The Disney animated short film Runaway Brain gave me nightmares.

Wow.

Everything gave me nightmares as a kid.

And then I think around when I was like first or second grade, honestly,

I started, you know, reading my dad's entertainment weekly and I started reading my parents weekend Q section and I just got really interested in movies and I saw stuff like the Truman show really opened things up for me.

Really great movie, tremendous movie, the weird Jim Carrey movie.

And I just, you know, I kept reading these reviews and kept and I watched some Ebert and Roper and Siskel and Ebert and I was like, I'm fascinated by these people talking about these movies and thinking about how they're made.

and I literally would bring the weekend cue from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel into my like third grade classroom every Friday and would like, they'd let me like do a little presentation of like the movies that came out.

I was a very cool kid.

What's your favorite movie snack mat in the theater and then at home?

Let's break it down there.

If I'm watching a movie at home, I'm generally not eating.

I might be having like a bowl of ice cream or something at home, but I don't really have a go to, and honestly, I don't really have a go to at the movie theater either.

I kind of go through ebbs and flows.

I'm getting back into popcorn after working at a movie theater for 10 years in my high school and college days.

You really sensory, it gets into your DNA and into your bloodstream.

And now finally, probably about 20 years later,

I'm finally getting used to eating popcorn again and enjoying that, but I'll do a bunch of crunch.

I'll do a chill.

If I'm feeling frisky, um, you know, an occasional gummy snack is always good.

A jolly rancher gummies.

Uh, yeah, honestly, I just like candy and I just like movies.

So that's, that's all I need.

That's great.

Uh, do you have a, uh, a movie cocktail that you like at home or have you ever snuck booze into the theater?

I have never snuck booze into a theater, mainly because I'm not savvy enough how to do it.

I'm not good at sneaking into movies or anything.

I was never good at sneaking into movies.

Wasn't good at sneaking candy into movies.

Certainly wasn't going to be good at sneaking alcohol in the

movies.

You're a good citizen.

I'm mainly out of ineptitude.

I'm probably having a beer.

All right.

Yeah, I'm probably enjoying a refreshing beer while watching.

We're going to do a very quick break.

And then when we come back, our guest, Matt Miller, Milwaukee Film Critic, is going to give us his popcorn pick of the week.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio

Network.

I'm Pete Schwab, and this is Nightlight.

Andy on the stream says, enjoyed Dead of Winter with Emma Thompson.

Is that a Matt Damon movie?

It is not.

But maybe it is.

Matt Damon has a habit of just showing up in movies whenever

he wants.

One of our streamtextors Dave said he was in Field of Dreams.

I forgot about that.

He was like an extra or something like that.

Like, I

mean, even nowadays, like he'll pop up in a Thor movie, he'll pop up in a Soderbergh movie, just like randomly unbuilt.

Like, if you remember the movie, Unsane with Claire Foy from like 10 years ago, he like randomly shows up and that one just is like a tech guy.

And David will just do a movie.

Yeah, he's like one of the he's like Woody Harrelson.

I think people just like him.

You know, he seems like a decent guy.

easy to have around good sense of humor.

There must be something to that.

All right, Matt, last question for you before we get your pick up.

I think I know what you're going to say about this.

How do you feel about previews?

I like previews.

I knew it.

I like trailers.

I feel like they set the mood for me seeing a movie.

I like seeing a preview that gets me excited.

I am a little bummed out.

I miss the days of the

debut trailer in theaters when

like

you'd be watching a trailer and you're

like, oh, I

haven't seen this before.

What is this?

Like, I wish I missed that mystery, you know, but I love previews.

I don't love the commercials that

are me

either.

Honestly.

I think that's what people dislike.

They dislike the five AMC, you know, the Nicole Kidman and the Dancing People and the Coca-Cola ad.

And like, you know, that's the stuff people don't like.

I think most people are totally fine with trailers.

They like trailers.

They like little mini movies.

I remember, I was at a different radio station and I interviewed you and I remember saying how much I like streaming because you could just click when the second the episode was over, you could click something and it takes you right.

to the next episode.

I don't know if you remember this, you said, I like the credits, I like the opening, like you like the whole experience.

And I think that's just a testament to, you know, how thorough you are as a critic, and you like the whole experience.

So

I do think there is some that one of the worst things streaming has done is they've gotten rid of the end credits in a lot of ways.

I mean, as

soon as you watch a movie, the credits get shunted to the left hand corner of the screen, and they

want to

shove another movie in your face.

And it's like, no, a, you know,

know, those credits serve a purpose.

It's to, you know, show credit to where credit is due in the movie.

But also that is

I like to process the movie.

I like to sit there and think about what I've just seen.

You know, I'm not saying you have to sit all the way through to the, you know, final company logos, but there is something about just like sitting there and letting a movie marinate and letting it letting yourself think about it instead of just being like next content, please.

That's great.

All right.

I think it is time, Conrad, if you please to get Mr. Miller's popcorn pick of the week.

Matt Miller, what is your popular pick of the week?

It is called Good Boy.

It is called Good Boy.

It is in theaters right now.

It is an indie horror movie.

This time of year, it's really hard to find horror movies to recommend to dog lovers because if there's one thing he's famous for, it's killing off dogs in the name of heightening the tension of a movie.

There's so many times I've seen a really great horror movie and I can't recommend it to like my sister or other people because it's like they're dog lovers.

Good Boy is the perfect movie for the dog lover in your life because it is a horror movie told from the perspective of a dog.

a haunted house movie about a man and his loyal dog, played by a real dog, incredibly.

It is

an

incredible one of the five best performances I've maybe seen this year by this dog.

And they go out to this cabin in the woods because he's dealing with some issues.

And the cabin has some weird stuff going on in it.

And the dog is the person whose perspective you're seeing the movie through.

you are seeing everything through this dog kind of investigating this house and worried about its owner.

And it's such a clever gimmick.

And the thing, it goes beyond being a gimmick.

By the end, it really becomes emotional, becomes a movie about dogs' loyalty and their love for the people in their lives.

And it becomes really touching in a way while also being genuinely...

really freaky.

It's a low budget movie.

It was made for probably, you know, less than the catering on Oppenheimer.

But it is, it is a really well done horror movie.

It hit me in the feels and in the frights.

I really recommend people checking that out if they're looking for a dog friendly scare this Halloween season.

Good boy.

That's great.

And I remember reading about this.

And when I do my thing about what's opening, I forgot I had even included this it really good reviews rated PG 13 and not

It's like a little over an hour.

In one of the best things about it.

It is a tight 75 minutes It knows how to get in and get out which is yeah a lot of horror movie a lot of movies just in general these days don't know how to do and I there's been a lot of these kind of buzzy gimmick based horror movies in recent there was the late night with the devil last year there was in a violent nature and they've all kind of been underwhelming because they don't stick with the gimmick or the gimmick kind of they run out of steam with it or it kind of

under over promises and under delivers.

And I think Good Boy is one where they really think about the gimmick, think about using it in interesting ways and think about using it into telling an emotional, genuine story.

It's not just a clever new take on a horror movie.

It ties in with the story it's trying to tell.

I had a really good time with it.

I think it's very much worth your while.

So yeah, that's a good perfect pick for the Halloween season.

Good Boy in theaters now.

That's an outstanding pick.

I'm just added it to my list.

I think this weekend I'm gonna try to see like three movies I know I want to see a roof man, and I want to see good boy, and then there's the long walk my son loved When we come back Matt has agreed to stick around through the news and join us for a few minutes anyway into act 2 Rob Momarts will be here at 720, but I want to ask Matt about One battle after another very excited to talk about that movie with you Matt, and then I want to ask you about the smashing machine too because

things are all over with that it didn't do well at the box office it was kind of a critics darling it can it seemed like and the rock got a big standing ovation we'll talk to Matt about that we'll talk to him about one battle after another and he's going to tell us what else is coming up like only Matt can do it's great to have you here buddy and we are coming right back after intermission it's peach wabba and nightlight on the civic media radio network

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 guy who travels so he can pretend he's on the lam, Peach Wabba.

Welcome back to Night Light, folks.

Our Thursday night edition.

It is great to have you here.

as we start off act two here.

We did, it's a Thursday night, which means we just did the popcorn pick of the week.

My guest is Matt Miller.

He is a Milwaukee film critic.

We will be back to Matt in just a minute.

But his pick was a great one.

It was Good Boy.

And you can see it in theaters right now.

It's remarkably well reviewed.

It's rated PG-13.

And it's not a long watch.

And Matt said it was very tight and just a really, really good movie.

So I'm probably going to check it out this weekend too.

That's a great popcorn pick.

Coming up in just a few minutes.

Children's book and comic book illustrator Rob Momarts will be here in the studio.

We'll talk to Rob about some of his work and his process.

If you missed hour one, our question of the night is, what is your favorite Matt Damon movie?

It was Matt Damon's birthday this week.

I think it was yesterday.

He's 55, Conrad.

Really?

55

and about.

I thought he'd be younger.

Really?

Yeah, I don't

know.

He's

got one

of those faces.

We also talked about Conrad's dreams.

He dreams about Matt Damon and his wife.

So

according to Dave

anyway in the stream.

And then we also talked about how I didn't shower today.

I wet my hair for a podcast and it just felt like I had showered by the time I realized I hadn't showered.

It was too late and I had to come to Green Bay.

So we will, your job Conrad when Rob is here will be to monitor the aroma I'm giving off.

Hopefully I don't have.

It's already pretty bad.

Yeah, okay.

All right, let's get back our guest is Matt Miller.

We've got a few more minutes with Matt and I'm anxious to talk about a couple of films with him Matt All right, let's start with one battle after another.

This is like what I was reading yesterday, you know

possibly six actors nominated for they might tie all about even Titanic for 14 nominations.

Like there's a lot of buzz whether

or not maybe a little ambitious of some of these Oscar prognosticators.

I think so too, because I mean, just the first thing that comes to mind is Benicio del Toro like kind of always good, but kind of not wasted.

But he didn't have a huge part.

I can't see that drawing a best supporting actor nomination.

I mean he is I think I think he is a supporting actor nomination the problem is we've kind of contorted the definition of supporting actor in over the last recent decades to basically like co-leads getting supporting I mean people forget that supporting actor used to truly mean people you know who were supporting characters in movies right um so I do agree that his role is probably too small and not flashy enough

to win over the current, you know, kind of body of voters and stuff like that.

I just think it's not going to get that many nominations because we are in October and there's still three to four more months of movies to come out.

Interesting.

And, you know, part of the problem is also one battle after another is a Warner Brothers release.

So with Sinners, the other front runner for Best Picture right now.

And, you know, it's really hard for a studio to maintain two really good

campaigns that are going to be fighting against one another.

I mean, they're going to be putting up Michael B Jordan against Leonardo DiCaprio.

They're going to be putting both those movies up for best picture.

They're going to be putting Ryan Coogler and PTA, Paul Thomas Anderson up against each other.

Like, they're going to be a lot of

competitive races going on within the studio, much less than when you add in every other category that's to come.

So it's a long Oscar race.

It's a it's an interesting movie.

It's a I think it's a very good movie.

But yeah, the idea that it's going to like just sweep all the categories, we got a lot of ballgame

left.

Great point.

And my one of my other favorite films this year was centers and I you could argue Michael B Jordan had more to do we played two roles.

But Leo DiCaprio is really good.

I love it.

Like when I heard, I always get scared when I hear comedy thriller, comedy action, because I feel like it never delivers on either front.

This, the comedy is all out of the character and the situation.

It's the comedy I love.

And it really worked in one battle after another, in my opinion.

Overall thoughts, you said you liked it, but is this up there with Paul Thomas Anderson, one of your favorite films of his?

That's tough.

I really love Paul Thomas Anderson.

I don't know if he's one of my guys who it's like if I'm picking the best filmmaker currently alive.

I don't know if I choose him, but he's in the running.

Sure.

So it's hard because you know, how do you compare a movie that I've only seen once and has only been out in theaters for a few weeks to of there will be blood or to a bookie nights.

I do think this is

you know it's you you brought up the tone thing and I think that's what's so impressive about one battle after another is that it is very funny very thrilling all at the same time never kind of detracting from one another it's tense it's exciting it's goofy it's all these things in one package and it's a three hour movie basically it's I think two hours 45 minutes it feels half that long

the great thing flies by and you reach the end of the movie and you're like, roll it again.

Let's do let's do that one more time.

It's just so propulsive, but without sacrificing, you know, the character and sacrificing tone and sacrificing the ideas it's going for.

I think I had a great time watching it.

I'm looking for I'm hoping to see it again this weekend.

Hopefully the Brewers wrap things up tonight.

Take someone to go see that movie.

But

I think Sean Penn's terrific in it.

I think Chase infinity is terrific in it.

Uh, it's just, I think Leonardo DiCaprio, I think manic comedic doofus Leonardo DiCaprio is my favorite type of Leonardo DiCaprio.

I think he's at his best when he's being loose and not trying to impress you.

Um, so I, I liked Leo and I mean, Benicio is kind of already iconic with, you know, just a few small beers.

So I, I, I think it's a real hoot in the holler of a movie and not to bring things back to the Oscars because, you know, it's art.

It's not all about awards,

but

I do think it's going to be very interesting that you're going to have this and sinners right now are kind of the big competitors because they're both

really auteur, vision-directed movies in the studio.

There are movies that are going after big ideas, complicated, complex themes smuggled into very entertaining studio projects that wear their politics and their visions on their sleeves.

And it's going to be hard for voters, I think, to kind of choose between those two, because I think there's a lot of people who truly love what Sinners did, being an original movie, you know, making the money it did, and having the things to say that it does.

And now you have one battle after another, also PTA being like, I can make a Hollywood blockbuster, and it rules.

That's so well said.

And like Sinners, I would almost give Sinners the nod in how ambitious it was.

odd with the vampires and the twins and like there's so much going on in the sets and the costumes and everything but having said that pardon me I just love one battle after another I think it's you can't I don't think you could go wrong with either one of those movies but I want to ask you to Sean Penn's performance like at first

He was kind of doing this weird mannerism.

And I'm like, oh, that's an interesting choice.

Is it weird?

Is it over the top?

And by the end of the movie, he was just that guy.

He's so good.

And the choices he makes are kind of like that could be construed as a risky choice with what he did with his mouth.

And he was kind of a little neurotic.

But man, did it work.

He's so good.

If he didn't totally go fully into that character, the way he did in terms of like the inner stuff, like I think

That performance could have been so irritating.

Yeah, exactly.

It could have been all show.

It could have been all, you know, Eddie Redmayne style.

I've learned all these mannerisms.

Look at my acting.

But the thing about Sean Penn's performance is that it really goes under the surface that all those ticks are designed to be like this is a man who's just like exploding from the.

Yes.

in all of his rage and complex complications like he's an evil bad gross dude but like he has these weird piccadillos that he just

cannot deal with and cannot emotionally process.

So he just is imploding as a human being.

Yeah.

And all that stuff is fascinating to me.

It really is.

And again, it wouldn't work if he didn't invest that character with an actual character.

If it was just ticks, it would be horrible.

And we've seen Sean Penn deliver those kind of performances, you know, we've seen him do shallow, ticky, borderline offensive performances in the past.

This is something where it's like, you know, you got into the character and the ticks serve the character.

Great, very well said.

I could talk for another 10 minutes on that movie, but I want to ask you before we let you go about the smashing machine.

Like I said before the break, Dwayne John, he's got to drop the rock, first of all.

Are you a wrestler or are you an actor?

Just if you want to be taken seriously.

But, you know, he dropped all this weight and the critics liked his performance.

He got a standing ovation.

at Cannes.

What did you think of it?

Is it a good movie?

It didn't do great at the box office, but that doesn't really mean it's not a good movie.

Yeah, I liked it.

I think it's a good movie.

I understand why people would kind of be thrown off by it because it is a mellow movie.

And it's a tender movie, which you don't expect to say about a biopic about a UFC fighter starring The Rock.

Right.

But it is a movie about the kind of men.

at the cusp at the start of this massive multi-billion dollar industry now and kind of you know these men who can only who only get one another and only get this weird compulsion they have towards this sport um and it's like a softer spoke in the fighter

And it's a very weirdly withholding movie in terms of it doesn't give you the big cathartic moments.

It doesn't give you the big obvious plot beats that you're kind of expecting.

And I think obviously that's the kind of stuff that's going to frustrate people.

But it is a movie.

It's one of those annoying movies where it's like the stuff that will frustrate general audiences is the stuff that I as a critic who watches

who's seen too many of these sports biophics and has watched all these, that's the stuff where I'm like, oh, that's what makes it interesting is that it's not doing the stuff you're expecting it to do.

But if you're a regular audience member and you want to see a classic biopic, it's not going to give you that.

So I really liked it.

I liked its tenderness.

I think the rock is really good in it as well.

We'll see if it has the stability to get him the nomination that obviously he really wants.

We'll see.

Like I said, a lot of ballgame to go.

It is a small performance in a way.

And the Oscars don't tend to like small performances in underperforming poorly, middlingly received movies.

So in a year with Leo DiCaprio and Michael B. Jordan and Timothy Chalamet and Marty Supreme, who's supposed to be terrific, is there going to be room for a good rock performance in a.

divisive movie, we'll find out.

But I think it's good stuff.

I think if you know what you're getting into, if you know that it's more of a soft spoken kind of, you know, a harmony and chaos kind of tone picture rather than a classic biopic, I think you might enjoy it.

But you just kind of know it is not going to give you the big fist pump.

Man, what a great movie that the sports movie is defined by.

Matt.

Great stuff.

I wish we had more time, but we'll save the rest of this for next time.

It's always great to talk to you about movies and great popcorn pick of the week.

Thank you so much, buddy, and let's do it again soon.

Absolutely.

Thank you for having me and go Brewers.

That's Matt Miller, ladies and gentlemen.

Great stuff.

Wow.

Sir Conrad, when are you going to run and see that movie?

Smashing

Machine?

Yeah.

Honestly, I'm probably going to wait.

Till it comes out.

Streaming.

Still streaming, yeah.

You know what I did see the other day?

Nobody,

too.

Oh.

Let's talk about that when we have more time to

get

there.

It was, yeah.

Okay.

Or is that all that needs to be said?

It