Citizen Dame
Episodes
Wednesday Jun 25, 2025
Episode 327: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Wednesday Jun 25, 2025
Wednesday Jun 25, 2025
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!
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
Episode 326: The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert (1994)
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
Wednesday Jun 18, 2025
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.
Wednesday Jun 11, 2025
Episode 325: Faces Places (2017)
Wednesday Jun 11, 2025
Wednesday Jun 11, 2025
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)!
Wednesday May 21, 2025
Episode 323: Le Bonheur (1965)
Wednesday May 21, 2025
Wednesday May 21, 2025
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.
Wednesday May 07, 2025
Episode 321: Roxanne (1987)
Wednesday May 07, 2025
Wednesday May 07, 2025
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!
Tuesday Apr 22, 2025
Episode 319: Maurice (1987)
Tuesday Apr 22, 2025
Tuesday Apr 22, 2025
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!
Wednesday Apr 02, 2025
Episode 317: Wayne's World (1992)
Wednesday Apr 02, 2025
Wednesday Apr 02, 2025
We close out our Women's History Month discussion of Penelope Spheeris with THE movie of the 1990s: Wayne's World, starring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey! Hear about the film that introduced a generation to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and maybe sort of formed Lauren's entire psyche.
Next week, we'll be chatting about Moonstruck, so defo prep for that!
Party on!
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Episode 315: The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
We're celebrating Women's History Month by discussing some of the best films of the severely underrated Penelope Spheeris, whose filmography is quite something. First up: Spheeris's first feature, The Decline of Western Civilization, an intense, enjoyable, wholly strange documentary about the LA hardcore punk scene in 1979/1980. Even if you're not a punk fan, this is a must-see.
We'll be on a brief break next week, but will return the week after to discuss Spheeris's Suburbia (1983), a fictionalized take on the punk lifestyle.
Wednesday Feb 26, 2025
Episode 313 - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992)
Wednesday Feb 26, 2025
Wednesday Feb 26, 2025
This week we continue our David Lynch series with Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the prequel film to the remarkable series.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual abuse/incest.
Wednesday Feb 12, 2025
Episode 311: Blue Velvet (1986)
Wednesday Feb 12, 2025
Wednesday Feb 12, 2025
We're back and better than ever! After a brief hiatus while Karen was at Sundance, the Dames return to discuss some of the must-sees of the festival, followed by a deep dive into David Lynch's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet, starring Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, and Laura Dern.
Wednesday Jan 08, 2025
308: Catching Up With the Dames
Wednesday Jan 08, 2025
Wednesday Jan 08, 2025
Welcome to 2025! As we gear up for a new year of exciting episodes and so many movies to talk about, we take a little look back at some of the films we have been watching lately, from Lauren's Hitchcock Year to Will & Harper and Wallace & Gromit, this wide-ranging conversation covers a lot of recent and upcoming releases as well as some of our favorite rewatches.
End clip: Demi Moore wins the Best Female Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy award for The Substance at the 82nd Annual Golden Globes. Courtesy of the Golden Globes.
Check out Karen's interview with Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl directors Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham.
Tuesday Dec 31, 2024
Episode 307: The Apartment (1960)
Tuesday Dec 31, 2024
Tuesday Dec 31, 2024
Happy New Year from Citizen Dame! For our final episode of 2024, we talk about the hilarious and melancholic The Apartment, directed and written by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon as an office worker who lets executives use his apartment for extramarital affairs, and Shirley Maclaine as the elevator girl he develops feelings for (without knowing she's having an affair of her own). Come for the Billy Wilder dialogue, stay for Fred MacMurray being The Worst.
(Available to stream for free on Prime and Tubi. TW for discussion/depiction of attempted suicide.)
We hope you have a wonderful New Year and we'll talk to y'all in 2025!
Wednesday Dec 11, 2024
Episode 305: The Bishop's Wife (1947)/The Preacher's Wife (1996)
Wednesday Dec 11, 2024
Wednesday Dec 11, 2024
The Dames do a double-feature this week with The Bishop's Wife and The Preacher's Wife, in which we try to determine whether Cary or Denzel is the hottest angel committed to film.
Jury's still out.
Wednesday Nov 27, 2024
Episode 303: The Naked Kiss (1964)
Wednesday Nov 27, 2024
Wednesday Nov 27, 2024
The Dames close out Noirvember in pulpy style with Samuel Fuller's still shocking The Naked Kiss, starring Constance Towers as a prostitute who moves to a small town and upends its social and sexual hierarchy by actually being a kind, ethical person.
(TW for discussions of sexual abuse.)
Wednesday Nov 06, 2024
Episode 301: The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Wednesday Nov 06, 2024
Wednesday Nov 06, 2024
We kick off Noirvember 2024 in style with Charles Laughton's exceptional directorial effort: The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum as a fire and brimstone "preacher" who preys on widows in Depression-era West Virginia, but meets his match in two small children hiding an expensive secret. The Night of the Hunter was Laughton's only film as a director, in which he employed a blend of silent film and stage techniques that make it one of the most unique and effective noirs in cinematic history.
Wednesday Oct 23, 2024
299: Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Wednesday Oct 23, 2024
Wednesday Oct 23, 2024
The Dames interrogate one of the more controversial of the great horror films: 1968's Rosemary's Baby, starring Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes, and directed by Roman Polanski.
A complicated, multi-faceted film that's not always easy to talk about, both for its content and the feelings surrounding its director, there's no doubt that we have a lot to say about this one...including whether it might, maybe, be feminist (or not).
We'll be back next week with Episode 300, talking The Babadook with a special guest!
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
Episode 295: The Shape of Water
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
Wednesday Sep 25, 2024
The Dames go deep (hehe) on Guillermo del Toro's glorious magical realist fable (and Best Picture winner) The Shape of Water, and its deceptively simple narrative that combines fairy tale, biblical allegory, and transcendental love into something that is truly unique. Is this just the "fish-fucking movie" or is it so much more?
Next week, we'll be discussing Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit, so get ready for that!
Wednesday Sep 11, 2024
Episode 293: Brokeback Mountain
Wednesday Sep 11, 2024
Wednesday Sep 11, 2024
We kick off fall festival season with a lineup of major films that had their premieres at festivals past. This week we begin with Ang Lee's seminal queer western Brokeback Mountain (2005). How far we've come (and how far we still have to go).
Next week will be David Fincher's Gone Girl!
Wednesday Sep 04, 2024
292 — Rope (1948)
Wednesday Sep 04, 2024
Wednesday Sep 04, 2024
This week, the Dames discuss another Hitchcock masterpiece, the 1948 thriller Rope. Starring Farley Granger and John Dall, this single-location technical experiment also marks the first time Alfred Hitchcock worked with star James Stewart.
Wednesday Aug 28, 2024
Episode 291: Vertigo
Wednesday Aug 28, 2024
Wednesday Aug 28, 2024
We continue with our Hitchcock month with one of the more controversial movies in his oeuvre: Vertigo, widely considered to be Hitchcock's masterpiece. But is there really a reason for that? What makes this film stand out? Why does everyone love Vertigo so much—and the most important question...do we?