To make a good movie, you can take something expected (your standard romantic comedy, good vs. evil, etc.) and execute it at a high level, or you can take a familiar situation and keep tossing unexpected things at the audience to keep them on their toes.

With that second scenario, it’s still necessary — and arguably more difficult — to do it well, which is what Olivia Wilde seems to have pulled off with her third directorial effort, The Invite.

The nature of the project almost required Wilde and the cast (including herself) to tap into their crazier creative impulses. The setting is a single location. The centerpiece is a couples dinner party, which most grown-ups will tell you isn’t the place to go mining for high-quality entertainment. That all gets turned on its head pretty quickly, when the dinner-party invitation is reciprocated with a sex-party invitation.

As you’ll hear Dori and Kpolly discuss in this episode, the very adventurous offer is only the start of what makes The Invite such a good watch. The tension shifts throughout, as discomfort ventures into curiosity. The single-location setting demands inventive cinematography that bounces shots off mirrors and uses clever camera angles to capture the action.

And, yes, there is action — just not the shoot-em-up variety. The dialogue is sharp and paced in such a way that it manages to get your adrenaline pumping by building tension and then letting it release as the quartet of characters navigate a night that doesn’t go quite how anyone expected.

The four-person cast hit just right, too, even though the original stars (including Amy Adams, Paul Rudd and Tessa Thompson) wound up giving way as the project was stuck in a holding pattern for a couple years. The on-screen group of Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton fit together nicely, aided by touches like Rogen’s improv and the serious backstory Norton gave his character.

Maybe the most unexpected thing that Dori and Kpolly found was the heart interlaced throughout the film, which balanced what could’ve been an uncomfortable snark-fest. You can hear them talk about all of that in the full episode available via the player at the top of the page.

Last year, Milwaukee Film held its inaugural season of “Cinematic Sisterhood,” a series of films that brings well-deserved (and often overdue) attention to the work of women in the industry. Now in the midst of its second go-around, the series will bring Wildwood, NJ to the Oriental Theatre on July 11, which made this episode the perfect time to welcome the perfect guest to the podcast.

Tracey Thomas is the co-founder of online service provider Exec-PC and was in the midst of her retirement when she embarked on a project titled My First and Last Film. Released in 2019, the documentary notably featured an all-female crew as Thomas tangled with questions about aging, with Milwaukee Film playing what she called a “very instrumental” role in making the project a reality.

Thomas was in the audience for the first year of “Cinematic Sisterhood” and took it upon herself to get more involved this time around. In fact, she’s presenting the entire series, which started in June with a screening of Billie Jean King documentary Give Me the Ball!

This episode keeps its focus on the documentary yet to come, which has become a classic since its initial 1994 release. Wildwood, NJ has a dream-like quality, courtesy of its heavy use of Super-8 film as it tells the story of “the last great American carnival town.” Like Thomas’s project, this is another one created by an all-female team, led by co-director Ruth Leitman, who will be at the Oriental Theatre for a Q&A when the movie screens July 11.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Doors.

Our bold and adventurous podcast hosts will go to fairly reasonable lengths to see a good movie. To infinity? No. Beyond? Definitely not. 

Something they WILL do, though, is invite a new friend to join them for some general merriment with a few opinions thrown in for good measure. That’s what Dori and Kpolly did for this trip back to the playroom to review Toy Story 5 with special guest Heather Deaton — the winner of a “hotly contested” auction battle whose proceeds went to support Milwaukee Film.

And if you think Heather just came along for the ride, prepare yourself for a true three-person analysis of the beloved Pixar franchise, with our guest providing some valuable perspective as a parent and general appreciator of Toy Story. She even did some hard-nosed research in advance, watching the third and fourth installments of the franchise in order to make some insightful comparisons between the new film and its predecessors.

It's a great conversation about how far CGI has come since the original came out more than 30(!!!) years ago, how "inanimate" childhood companions leave an impression on us, and how we're all in the midst of a battle for imagination's very survival. OK, maybe not that last one, but it's a wonderful chat all the same.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Doors.

The last time Wisconsin-born writer/director Nathan Deming stopped by for a podcast visit, he was coming off a big win that went beyond any single project. Now he’s back to focus a little more intently on one of his own creations — and talk a bit about that previous victory.

Deming and his Action! Wisconsin cohorts had plenty to smile about when he joined us in November of 2025, a few months after Wisconsin legislators passed and Governor Tony Evers signed into law the creation of production incentives and a state film office. These days, Deming’s joy comes from promoting his gripping new movie, Winter Hymns, which takes an ambitiously creative approach to examining the world of palliative (or end-of-life) care.

Shot in a single room at a hospital on a snowy Wisconsin day, the film captures a series of conversation-based “episodes” between a doctor (played by the wonderful Colleen Madden of the American Players Theatre in Spring Green) and her patients. A few days before a special screening and Q&A at Milwaukee's Oriental Theatre, Deming talked with us about being inspired by his father’s career as a hospice director, the importance of casting local talent and how the production choices resulted in an emotionally weighty film that paints an authentic picture of a difficult topic.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Doors.

Get ready to lean into the darkness! 

For this episode, we invited a special guest to help us celebrate the most wonderful (and miserable) time of the year: Bleak Week.

Running from June 21-27 at the Oriental Theatre, Bleak Week is an international phenomenon featuring some of the greatest, saddest and most soul-crushing films from around the world. This year, the series delves into the theme of work, exploring how our jobs and labor can be a primary source of bleakness in our daily lives.

Milwaukee Film programming director Kerstin Larson is back in the studio as we dive into the Bleak Week lineup, starting with a special Father’s Day screening of Béla Tarr’s The Turin Horse. We also discuss the high-stakes tension of Sorcerer, the psychological paranoia of the anime classic Perfect Blue and the minimum-wage struggles depicted in American Job, which includes a live Q&A with local lead actor Randy Russell.

Whether it’s the gritty detective work of Se7en or the poignant social commentary of Black Girl, there's a flavor of misery for every cinephile to enjoy together in the beautiful, air-conditioned gloom of the theater. After all, misery loves company.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Doors.

All throughout June, Milwaukee Film is serving up three separate helpings of hand-picked movies for the organization’s Pride Month program. There’s the “Queerious” mini-series devoted to queer-coded selections, the “Summer Camp 2” mini-series featuring queer classics that lean into the outrageous, and a trio of bonus picks to round out the month.

To help us navigate the four weekends of movies, we brought back the perfect guest: Milwaukee Film GenreQueer and Shorts programmer Jack Feria!

Jack is a Cinebuds frequent flyer, having stepped into the studio with us several times to share all the cool stuff he does with Milwaukee Film. For this particular episode, he joins Dori and Kpolly to chat about the incredible range of LGBTQ+ fare coming to the Oriental and Downer Theatres — from Alfred Hitchcock’s subtext-laden Rope to gender-bending musical masterpiece Victor/Victoria.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Doors.

Fresh from the theater, we dive headfirst into Boots Riley’s latest, I Love Boosters.

This colorful, high-fashion heist film follows a crew of shoplifters who resell designer gear, as they target a cutthroat fashion icon played by Demi Moore. We break down the incredible cast, from the great Kiki Palmer leading the charge to a nearly unrecognizable Don Cheadle.

The film is a total feast for the senses, featuring a janky stop-motion aesthetic, a 17-degree tilted apartment set and a pulsing soundtrack by Tune-Yards. Beyond the fun, we discuss how Riley uses his signature stylized satire to take aim at the fashion industry and advocate for workers' rights.

Then we wrap things up by teasing tease Riley’s next project, an adaptation of Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, and share our latest obsessions, including the eerie comedy-drama Widow's Bay and the physical comedy of Chris Fleming.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Door Company.

A public service announcement from your friends at Cinebuds: “Animated movies” and “Anime” are NOT the same thing. It’s a good time to point this out because throughout this month, Milwaukee Film will turn its lens on the magic of both categories as part of its “Ani-May” movie series.

Yes, the more general moviegoing public will notice familiar titles like The Iron Giant, Ferngully and Smashmouth-adjacent delight-turned-sequel-factory Shrek (and Shrek 2). That does NOT mean families with young children should descend on the Oriental Theatre willy-nilly for any selection in the series.

A prime case in point is the film that earns our focus in this episode, the punctuation-laden Chainsaw Man: The Movie – Reze Arc. Leave the kiddies at home for this high-octane, high-violence tale that might just lure you in via a slow-burn 40 minutes that seem to be more about teenage dating than the title would suggest.

Then … it earns that title.

But while Dori and Kpolly spend time exploring the mythology of devils and hunters, compare Chainsaw Man to Blade and wonder whether they’re getting too old for this s***, there’s more than chainsaws in this episode! Our duo also touch on the full lineup for “Ani-May” — from Shrek’s swampy nostalgia to the Fantasia-indebted Allegro Non Troppo.

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Doors.

Step inside the Goblin King's maze with this special live episode of Cinebuds! 

Recorded at the historic Oriental Theatre during the 2026 Milwaukee Film Festival, this episode celebrates the 40th anniversary (and 4K restoration) of the fantasy classic, Labyrinth. 

For this very special occasion, Dori and Kpolly enlisted some help from Steve Horton, Eisner-winning author of the graphic novel Bowie: Stardust, Ray Guns, and Moonage Daydreams. He shares a few fascinating insider stories about Labyrinth from his research, including how Bowie would use a puppet off-camera to charm baby Toby into staying calm during filming. The trio also dive into:

And it wouldn't be a live event without getting the audience involved, including a few brave souls who offer their questions and "hot takes."

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Cinebuds is sponsored by Joe Wilde Garage Door Company.