Citizen Dame

Welcome to our next Pride Month episode, Vera Cruz or: Westerns Are Totally Gay! This week we discuss the 1954 Western Vera Cruz, starring Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper as best frenemies who head off to fight in the Franco-Mexican War together, just can't stop betraying each other, and spend a lot of time comparing guns.

Next up, the women get in on the queer-coded action in Johnny Guitar!

Happy Pride! This Pride Month, we're talking movies that involve the love that dare not speak its name...but come really, really close. First up in our homoerotic quartet is Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break (1991), starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze as two dudes from opposite sides (one an undercover FBI agent, the other a surfer and possible criminal) who come together over their love of adrenaline and increasingly intense (but largely unspoken) passion for each other. Way fewer people would've died if these dudes had just kissed.

Next up: Westerns are totally gay, and Vera Cruz among the gayest.

We bring our first Bad Movies We Love series to a close with the best - and by that we mean worst - of the bunch, 2019's Replicas. Keanu Reeves stars as William Foster, a neuroscientist working on a project to transfer the minds of recently deceased soldiers into synthetic brains. Why? Who knows! It's all about science or something! But then tragedy strikes and William, along with his twitchy but faithful sidekick Ed (Thomas Middleditch) have to try to save his family. It will make sense when you watch it. And by that we mean, it makes no sense and it's all a convoluted mess of a movie. And that's what makes it great.

Next up in our Terrible Movies We Love month is the Wachowskis' divisively weird Jupiter Ascending, starring Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones, a Russian immigrant who discovers she's the reincarnation of the matriarch of an intergalactic family who happens to own Earth, and she's being protected by sky-rollerblading space werewolf Caine Wise (Channing Tatum). And that's just the first twenty minutes.

But is Jupiter Ascending really a terrible movie? Does it have merits as an original sci-fi epic? Does Sean Bean die?! Listen to know.

Next week, we conclude our month with Replicas, Karen's favorite film ever.

This week, we continue our favorite "bad" action movies with a visit to the Hotel Artemis, a near-future dystopian flick with a convoluted plot, varying levels of quality in its action sequences, and cheesy dialogue. Plus a stacked cast that includes Sterling K. Brown, Jodie Foster, Dave Bautista, Brian Tyree Henry, Sofia Boutella, Charlie Day, Zachary Quinto, and Jeff Goldblum.

Hotel Artemis was written and directed by Drew Pearce.

We return this week to kick off our "Terrible Movies We Love" month, which is exactly as it says on the tin. We begin with Van Helsing, Stephen Sommers' bizarre attempt to bring Universal monsters into the franchise era. Starring Hugh Jackman in the TITULAR ROLE as monster-hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, with Richard Roxburgh chewing the scenery as Count Dracula and Kate Beckinsale's inexplicable accent as Anna Valarious, Van Helsing is both one of the worst films of the 00s, and wonderfully entertaining.

Next week is Hotel Artemis, which I'm reliably informed has Jeff Goldblum in it.

This week, the Dames are finishing up our Month of Meg with one of Meg Ryan's directorial achievements: What Happens Later.

Ryan stars alongside David Duchovny as Willa Davis and Bill Davis, two long ago lovers who unexpectedly reunite while trapped in a regional airport during a snowstorm. Over the course of one very long night, they talk about their erstwhile relationship, where they are now in life, and their hopes for the future. It's a different kind of romantic comedy but Ryan is as charming as ever, thanks in part to a disembodied Airport Voice that may or may not belong to one Tom Hanks.

We're also wrapping up this month with a special bonus F-M-K, so don't miss it.

This week, we discuss a major change of genre and focus for Meg Ryan: Jane Campion's divisive erotic thriller In the Cut (2003), in which Ryan plays a repressed English teacher who gets involved with an NYPD officer (Mark Ruffalo) investigating a brutal murder that took place in her own back garden. The film marked a break from Ryan's quirky rom-com image, and its quality is still debated more than twenty years on.

TW for discussions of sexual violence.

Next week, we close out our Meg Ryan month with What Happens Later (2023)!

We continue Meg Ryan month with the 1995 romantic comedy, French Kiss. For the first time, Ryan added a new job to her resume: producer.

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill) and written by Adam Brooks (Practical Magic), Meg Ryan stars as Kate, an American teacher living in Canada when her fiancé Charlie (Timothy Hutton) heads off to Paris for a medical conference and winds up breaking up with her when he meets an exotic French "goddesse." Though she is not supposed to leave the country and is terrified of flying, Kate hops on a plane to reclaim her love. But then she meets Luc Teyssier (Kevin Kline), a French vigneron and criminal who agrees to help her for his own nefarious purposes.

We kick off a month of films starring Meg Ryan with her first rom-com pairing with Tom Hanks: the existential romantic-comedy Joe vs. the Volcano, about a man who gains a new lease on life by planning to jump into a volcano. Ryan actually plays three very distinct roles in this one!

Next week: the criminally underrated French Kiss!