On this week’s episode of Someone Else’s Movie, I’m joined by Toronto actor and writer Katherine Cullen — who’s remounting her 2017 stage show Stupidhead! with co-creator Britta Johnson this month in two clever, pandemic-friendly incarnations — to discuss Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket, a movie that turned out to be both a road map to Anderson’s future work and a demonstration of the sort of movie he didn’t want to make.
One thing you’d never call the modern Anderson movie is “shaggy” — no, not even Isle of Dogs — but that’s exactly what his first one was. We talk about that, and a lot of other things. You should listen! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play and Stitcher to get the episode instantly if you’re a person of the world like Anthony, or download it directly from the web if you’re more of a DIY type like Dignan. I don’t know what Robert Mapplethorpe would do, he’d probably have someone sync his iPhone for him. That guy’s too soft.
And then, you can enjoy two shiny new episodes of NOW What: Today, Richard and I celebrate Bay Street Video as one of Toronto’s cultural retail pillars along with clerk and critic Mark Hanson, and on Friday’s episode Kelsey and I had a nice long talk about the city’s patios, and what we plan to do with them this summer.
Other stuff? Why, sure! Here’s last week’s edition of NOW’s What to Watch digest, and here are my stand-alone web reviews of The Forever Purge, which is no fun at all and The Tomorrow War, which is a great deal of fun, what with the alien chomp monsters and everything. And just because it went up while I was typing this, here’s my review of Marvel’s long-delayed stand-alone Black Widow, which will be available on Disney+ this Friday.
And speaking of superhero movies, pour one out for Richard Donner, who died yesterday at the age of 91. His Superman showed everyone how to do it, and gave us Christopher Reeve’s wonderfully human performance besides. Also he offered me some invaluable advice about hounds when he heard Dexter barking like an idiot in the background of a call that one time. I told Alyson Richards about it in last month’s our Goonies SEMcast, though I’m not sure it made the final cut. Lovely guy.