Screen Cares

In our second installment of Screen Scares, host Sarah describes how the brilliantly detailed writer and director of The Witch (2015), Robert Eggers, created a world that was terrifying for its inhabitants and audience because it presented a reality as it was without Hollywood embellishments. Co-host Jennie lends her on-brand astute insight and perspective to the unique way that The Witch (2015) also allows the audience to move beyond just feelings of fear and entertainment, but embrace a deeper empathy for the characters and the real-life history that they represented.

For those who are Deaf or hard of hearing, please visit this link for the transcript of this episode of Screen Cares: Episode Transcript

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Buddy Screen
• Partner Screen

Screen Sparks:

1. Do you like to rewatch movies that really scared you? What do you think the benefit is of rewatching a movie that made you feel uncomfortable, scared, nervous?
2. The VVitch, like many movies about witchcraft, focus on a period of time in history. If we know how the story ends, why do we like seeing this play out time and time again in movies?
3. The VVitch is an obvious example of fine filmmaking, and of a cautionary tale. What do you think the message/moral of the story is?

After the Credits Roll-Links Referenced during the show: 

Written and Directed by Robert Eggers

• More details on how Robert Eggers used historical documentation to create The VVitch:

https://www.indiewire.com/2016/02/how-robert-eggers-used-real-historical-accounts-to-create-his-horror-sensation-the-witch-67882/

• Fascinating interview with costume designer Linda Muir:

https://brightlightsfilm.com/dressing-witch-interview-costume-designer-linda-muir/#.Yy9sCS2B35k

• Linda Muir’s website:

http://www.lindamuircostumedesign.com/865004006353

• A bit of history about the Salem Witch Trials:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/

• Because Sarah and Jennie can’t talk about New England without referencing Plimoth…:

https://plimoth.org

…except for when they reference Salem, MA:

https://www.salem.org

• Jennie brought up a great point about how historical horror movies are an especially effective and scary genre. Here are some other historical horror movie options (check out #2 on the list):

https://filmschoolrejects.com/historical-horror-movies/2/

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

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Jennie and Sarah take listeners away into a discussion of magic, innocence and what makes witches scary. In the first of four special Screen Scares episodes made for October, Screen Cares co-hosts explore why the 1993 Halloween film favorite Hocus Pocus reveals deeper truths about how innocence and evil intersect in insidious ways. Listeners are invited to reminisce about their special movie viewing traditions, ask themselves if immortality is a blessing or a curse, and reflect on what scares them and what that says about us as a person and a culture. 

Episode Transcript

 Screen Shares Rating: 

• Buddy Screen- Hocus Pocus is a delightful movie to watch with adults friends while snickering at silly references to yabbos and virginity, but may be a smidge awkward to watch with kids despite the PG rating

 Screen Sparks:

1. What if we cherished innocence and welcomed aging?
2. Is love and morality the only reason immortality is a curse? (I’m looking at you vampires)?
3. Why are witches scary?
4. The witches need the book, but the kids think it is devoid of power after their death. To what extent do evil things hold the power of their owner? Can you think of other literary examples of this phenomenon?
5. Is immortality a blessing or a curse?

Bonus Material-Links Referenced during the show:

• 5 Reasons we like being scared- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thoughts-thinking/201810/5-reasons-we-enjoy-being-scared?amp
• Jennie and Sarah discuss the upcoming 2022 sequel  Hocus Pocus 2 being released on Disney+ September 30th. View the Trailer Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idc0EOmKr30
• History of Trick-Or-Treating: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-history-of-trick-or-treating-is-weirder-than-you-thought-79408373/
• Did you know? Although it is unknown precisely where and when the phrase “trick or treat” was coined, the custom had been firmly established in American popular culture by 1951, when trick-or-treating was depicted in the Peanuts comic strip. In 1952, Disney produced a cartoon called “Trick or Treat” featuring Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. https://www.history.com/news/halloween-trick-or-treating-origins
• Not surprising that David Kirschner would write this oddly mocking to innocence movie. He did a shockingly broad assortment of projects including:  Hocus Pocus, Childs Play, all Curious George movies, and American Tale. See his full CV here: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0456946/?ref_=tt_ov_wr

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

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Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Episode Transcript

Sarah sparks the conversation with Jennie for this week’s Screen Cares episode, and it’s her most personal one yet. She shares how Pixar’s Up (2009) inspired her terminally ill mother’s deepest hope that her beloved husband and family would choose new adventures, even after she was gone.

 This episode is dedicated to Debbie and Art Woolverton, and to all who have experienced deep loss.

 *Sarah and Jennie want to give listeners a heads up about this episode. We will explore some heavy topics like infertility, pregnancy loss, death, and loss. This conversation is thoughtful, sincere, and intended to honor the gravity of loss while looking towards the promise of new adventures and healing. We would like to give our listeners advanced notice so they can choose how to listen in a way that best meets their emotional needs.*

• This episode of Screen Cares discusses the impact of cancer:
  • Ovarian cancer awareness is key: September is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. It is the insidious disease that took Sarah’s mother’s life, and according to American Cancer Research Association, is estimated to take 12,810 lives in 2022. Source: https://www.aacr.org/patients-caregivers/awareness-months/ovarian-cancer-awareness-month/
  • Visit Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance to learn more about the sneaky symptoms and signs, or about how you can make a difference in the life of someone coping with this deadly cancer. https://ocrahope.org

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Family Screen 
  • Up (2009) is a beautiful movie to share with your chosen family members; people with whom you feel safest, feel most comfortable to share the difficult themes of our mortality, losing a partner, and life after loss.  

Screen Sparks:

1. Thinking about someone you’ve loved and who is no longer in your daily life can be painful. What are some of the memories that are most prevalent? Are they bold and elaborate? Simple and “boring” as Russell shared? Something else entirely?
2. What are your beliefs about older people? If you find that they skew a bit negative, what are some ways you can work to change your perception of older members of our community? 
3. Do you think that children’s movies that feature heavy topics like infertility/miscarriage, death, etc. are appropriate? Why or why not?
4. What dreams do you have with a partner? With a friend? With a family member? Or a solo dream?

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Screen Cares presents a new way to watch and be scared better together during the year's darkest months with a special month of Screen SCARES episodes. Each week of October, co-hosts Sarah and Jennie bring listeners a different thoughtful conversations about scary movies and the ways they bring us together and frighten us. You don't want to be left in the dark this time of year, so be sure to join Screen Scares!

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Episode Transcript

Screen Cares host Jennie describes how seeing the record-making blockbuster Titanic (1997) 5+ times in theaters with her mom, when she was younger, shaped her appreciation of film, material culture, and the importance of embracing our role in Humanity. Co-host Sarah asks illuminating questions that help the Screen Cares team reveal the film's significance as more than a heartthrob romance. Exploring the legacy of Titanic the ship and the juggernaut of a film casts a light on what it means to be a responsible human, the power of artifacts and ruin, and our power to choose what items and practices best serve us and help us decide what we need to let go. 

• This episode of Screen Cares discusses social responsibility and the tragedy of Classism aboard the RMS Titanic in 1912, but class, poverty, and indifference still cause immeasurable harm in our modern world. 
  • Learn more about classism-and what can be done to end it- by checking out this List of Organizations Working to End Classism so we can all "share the ship of humanity" better-together. 

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Buddy Screen
  • Great to watch with a friend who appreciates humanity, but will also eye roll and cry in equal measure throughout the film's many timeless and sometimes cheesy moments. Be sure it’s a friend with whom you feel comfortable watching nude scenes and steamy models-t fords. 
• Family Screen 
  • Works if you can get over the hinky bits. I recommend a mandatory snack break when the drawing pencils come out. Can spark good convo about responsibility to others.

Screen Sparks:

1. What role would you have played on the ship?
   1. Would we keep playing as the musicians
   2. Would we read our children a bedtime story
   3. Would we fight for a newfound love?
   4. Would we push people away from our own lifeboat or help them in like unsinkable molly brown?
2. Is never letting go always a good thing? 
3. Can you think of any modern movies that so effectively marry cinematic spectacle and humanistic narrative? 
4. Class and artifice are not real, but the outcomes are. Social injustices resulted in very real atrocities. Those people did not need to die. Reminds me of a song I like by Lead Belly a folk blues singer born in 1888 “We’re in the Same Boat Brother”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxPdl4f7RYE So the question is…are we doing any better sharing the boat as humanity today?

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Episode Transcript  

As a culture, we admire those who come from modest means and through a rare recipe of natural talent and dedicated training, become the best in their fields. We love success. We want success. We want our children to achieve success. Yet, what is success? Over the last few years, more and more research has offered cautionary tales about the dangers of living in a culture that values high achievement, of pushing our children to reach the top. Screen Cares co-host, Sarah discusses how she’s experienced a competitive atmosphere in the world of music and how seeing and discussing the film, Whiplash (2014), has created a lasting impact as she and her husband work to raise their children.

A special HUGE thank you to Brooks Milgate! He is an incredibly talented professional musician who composed and created our Screen Cares theme music. He plays shows all over the country and is a consummate professional and stand-up guy. For bookings or for more information, message him on Instagram @brakesmilgate   

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Little Screen*

*Please note, while Screen Cares encourages you to share this movie as a reference point to start important conversations with older adolescents, teens or the young adults in your life, it was rated “R” by the MPAA. This movie has strong language, offensive homophobic and other slurs, verbal abuse from a teacher, and intense moments, including a serious car accident. Screen Cares does not condone the use of hate speech in any form, for any reason. We believe that words matter, and no one, ever deserves to have any aspect of their personhood denigrated or belittled. 

We feel that there is value in having in-depth conversations about the content of the movie and that the presence of strong language and verbal slurs offer an opportunity for parents/guardians/trusted adults to discuss the importance of word choice. Screen Cares also believes that talking about the theme of high-achievement culture-especially with those who may struggle with perfectionism or who are interested in a creative field-is valuable. 

Screen Sparks:

1. Is trauma and sacrifice required for greatness?
2. Do you think that being “good” is sufficient, or do we need to be the best?
3. If you have a creative yearning, what is stopping you from pursuing your art/craft?

 Bonus Material-Links and Info Referenced during the show:

• Official Whiplash website:

https://www.sonyclassics.com/whiplash/

• The oft-referenced “rushing or dragging scene” can be viewed here:

https://youtu.be/VnuImW1dWAk

• What is the musical method that Sarah referenced?  Visit the Suzuki Association of America’s article to learn more about this wonderful method:

https://suzukiassociation.org/a

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Episode Transcript

Screen Cares host Jennie takes listeners and co-host Sarah somewhere over the rainbow through a conversation about the power of movies to help viewers escape while simultaneously connecting them more deeply with what it means to be truly home. The Wizard of Oz (1939) was a formative film in Jennie’s early life because it was one of the only films her grandparents had on cassette for her to watch when she would stay over at their home sick from school while her parents worked. Sarah asks Jennie illuminating questions to explore how the magic created by the marriage of black and white meets technicolor brilliance, Judy Garland’s heartfelt performance, Toto’s steady companionship (Jennie and Sarah are nothing if not dog-lovers), and the timeless tale of escaping only to long for home, left an indelible mark on the Screen Cares host.

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Solo-Screen 
• Little-Screen 
• Family Screen

Screen Sparks:

1. Do you need to leave home to appreciate it? 
2. How would Dorothy’s life have been different had the tornado never happened?
3. What movies help you escape and what movies feel like home to you?
4. What movies feel like “home” to you?
5. How does lack of confidence lead people to follow blindly and doubt their gifts?

After the Credits Roll-Links Referenced during the show:

• Jennie describes also being  influenced by the source text on which the movie was based: The 1900 children’s book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L Frank Baum 1900 in Chicago after the death of his niece Dorothy and an unrelated but devastating Kansas tornado in 1893. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43936/43936-h/43936-h.htm
• Screen Cares discusses the further influence of the NBC made for tv docudrama The Dreamer of Oz Staring John Ritter in the 1990s https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099464/
• First movie version of the Wizard of Oz was actually in1910 silent film by Selig Polyscope Company in 1910 coming in at slightly over 13 minutes.  https://youtu.be/BWQ5-UBU22M 
• 16 Hidden Symbolic Messages in the Wizard of Oz https://historycollection.com/16-hidden-symbolic-messages-in-the-wizard-of-oz-you-may-have-missed/
• The Allegory of the Wizard of Ozhttps://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-schaller-0805-20150804-column.html

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

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Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

It's time for what Screen Cares co-host, Sarah calls "a thinking movie", and to that end, discusses how Captain Fantastic  (2016) offers a lens through which to consider less conventional modes of education to her children, and encouraged her to parent with agility to meet her kids where they are. Lastly, this fantastic film dig into the theme of living authentically and the many ways the characters depicted in the film challenge viewers to evaluate their own level of authenticity.

Screen Shares Rating:  Buddy Screen, Love Screen 

Click HERE for a transcript of today's episode. 

Screen Sparks:

1. What unconventional choices have you made in your life to try to be the “master of your fate” or “captain of your soul”?
2. Do you believe that the merits of society outweigh the issues?
3. Do you feel that parenting should consider training for the real world, or training children to reshape the world?
4. Do you have to choose all or nothing, or should extremes be avoided?
5. Do you have friends who would question your choices in such a way that leads you to do more thinking?

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Episode Transcript

Screen Cares episode co-host Jennie walks listeners and co-host Sarah through her own headquarters in a discussion of the Pixar classic Inside Out. Screen Cares hosts share the impact of the film in their roles as mothers, partners, and people and explore how the Inside Out can be used as a tool to broaden the social and emotional vocabulary of the entire family, open doors to sometimes difficult conversations about complicated feelings, and provides room for individuals to accepts the important role of sadness in their emotional lives. Jennie has also created two activities to extend the Inside Out caring into the lives of listeners-more information below.

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Little-Screen 
• Family Screen

Screen Sparks:

1. What was the obstacle Riley needed to overcome? 
2. Does this movie make you cry? Why/why not? 
3. Are some babies born without Joy to lead the way? How does this shape their personality?
4. At the end Joy says “Riley’s 12 now. What could happen?”- What indeed? How do you think the emotional life of the character and yourself changes over time?
5. Which feeling leads your emotions? Are they gendered? (Sadness leads Moms, Riley was Joum and Anger led dads)
6. Can memories change? How fluid are they and what can cause them to shift? 

After the Credits Roll-Links Referenced during the show:

• Amazing extras in the credits (in case you missed them): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DZVnX8bEAs
• Inside Out Website by Pixar: https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/inside-out
• Personality Island Mapping Activity by Screen Cares
• What’s in YOUR HEAD-quarters? Activity by Screen Cares

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.

Episode Transcript

Screen Cares co-hosts lead our listeners through a special co-hosted episode recorded on fresh after a live-screening of the film at the Music Box Theater in Chicago! Together Screen Cares hosts introduce listeners to the dynamic if sometimes questionable characters in the film and discuss how the Worst Person in the World (2016)can help inform and affirm their own life choices while providing insights into the lives of others. Sarah leads listeners through a discussion about identity and viewing ourselves through the relationships we have. Jennie explores the importance of choices in defining one's life and the privileges and responsibilities related to making choices that affect oneself and others. AND they even made sure to get some deep dish pizza after their late light recording session!

Screen Shares Rating: 

• Solo Screen
•  Love Screen 
• Buddy Screen 

Screen Sparks:

1. How do our choices affect others and what responsibility do we have to the emotional well-being of others?
2. Can you define your identity without a relationship that defines it? (So, who are you without explaining that you are a student, or a sister, or brother, or parent, or x, y, z employee.)
3. What does it mean to be “the worst person”? Is this designation fixed or does it vary depending on person and place?

 At a REAL MOVIE THEATER! 

• Check out the beautiful Music Box Theater that welcomed Jennie and Sarah back into the world of live screenings of movies!  https://musicboxtheatre.com/

Visit www.ScreenCares.com for all of the resources mentioned in the episode and for additional Screen Cares content.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @screencarespod and Facebook!

Subscribe to Screen Cares wherever you enjoy podcasts to make sure you never miss an opportunity to watch better, together.