Citizen Dame

We continue our Pride Month series with the 2005 lesbian spy rom-com, D.E.B.S. This gem of a movie, directed by Angela Robinson, is the story of a super hot super spy and a super hot super villain who meet and fall in love. Underrated in its time, but finding new popularity in recent years, D.E.B.S. is the kind of funny, silly girl movie we wish there were more of. How this didn't launch a whole subgenre is beyond us!

The Dames continue Pride Month with the seminal queercore punk-rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, directed by and starring John Cameron Mitchell. While Lauren tries to explain Judith Butler, Karen wonders why Hedwig is kind of a dick?

Next week: D.E.B.S. and lesbians committing espionage!

The Dames are celebrating Pride Month! And we're starting off with the 1994 road trip movie, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Terrence Stamp, Hugo Weaving, and Guy Pierce star as a trans woman and two drag queens who embark on a road trip across Australia, encountering good, bad, and dangerous challenges along the way.

We close out our Varda series with her penultimate film Faces Places (2017), co-directed by visual artist JR, with whom Varda travels across France, meeting people, taking photographs, and discussing art, image, and the passage of time.

We also decide that Godard is a jerk.

Next week, we're moving into Pride month viewing with some queer classics and even a brand-new film! First up is The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)!

This week, the Dames continue our Varda series with the surreal and unique Jane B par Agnès V. Is it a documentary? Is it an essay film? What is this movie? In another inventive film from Agnès Varda, she sets out to help her friend Jane Birkin experience the film roles she never got to play and her fears about turning 40.

Our Agnès Varda month continues with a discussion of Le Bonheur (Happiness), following the lives of a happy little nuclear family whose happiness gets challenged (or does it?) when the father begins an affair. Deeply feminist and gorgeously filmed, Le Bonheur fools you into thinking its one thing and then becomes another.

We do recommend watching the film before listening to the podcast!

Next week, we'll be chatting some of Varda's documentaries, starting with Jane B. par Agnès V.

This month we are (finally!) exploring some of the works of the great Agnès Varda, one of the pioneers of the French New Wave.

First up, we're starting with one of her most widely seen: Cléo from 5 to 7. Corinne Marchand stars as the titular Cléo, a young singer waiting for important medical results. Over the course of 90 minutes, Cléo tries to distract herself from the agonizing wait, first among friends, and then on a winding route through Paris.

The film screened at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival, currently ranks at 14 on Sight and Sound's list of greatest films of all time (only two spots behind The Godfather, just sayin'), and is part of the Criterion Collection.

We close out 1987 with a quirky one: Steve Martin's adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac: Roxanne, starring Daryl Hannah as the titular intellectual love interest of C.D. (Martin), a small-town fire chief with a brilliant mind and a prominent proboscis. This is a really fun way to end this series!

Next up we'll have an entire month of Agnes Varda, starting with her first feature Cleo from 5 to 7, so start watching!

This week, the Dames are talking about love, true love as we discuss the beloved 1987 fairy tale classic, The Princess Bride. William Goldman adapted the script from his own novel. Rob Reiner directs the film which stars Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn and so many more.

Be sure to come back next week when we finish out our 1987 romantic movie series with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah in Roxanne.

And we're back! This week, we're talking about Maurice (1987), the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster's startlingly progressive story of homosexual love in Edwardian England. The more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems.

Next week, we'll be discussing The Princess Bride, so Gen-Xers and Millennials should get real excited!