Smug Film Podcast Episode #23 – Madeline Blue / Wet Hot American Summer (3/30/15)

Episode 23 44:44 | View on iTunes | Download Mp3

On this episode, Jenna Ipcar and I are joined by actress Madeline Blue, ‘Cure Girl’ from Wet Hot American Summer and the upcoming Wet Hot American Summer series on Netflix. As always, we close the show by answering questions from our mailbag—but not before a review of Kingsman: The Secret Service from Chloe Pelletier!

If you have a movie-related question you’d like answered on the show, send it to Podcast@SmugFilm.com!
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Smug Film Podcast Episode #6 – Good Movies, Bad Directors / Bad Movies, Good Directors

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1:17:43 | View on iTunes | Download Mp3

On this episode, I am joined by fellow Smug Film contributors John D’Amico and Jenna Ipcar. We discuss movies we like by directors we don’t typically like, as well as movies we dislike by directors we typically like. As always, we go on tangents along the way, take a quick break for a movie joke by comedian Anthony Kapfer, and then close the show with questions from our mailbag.

If you have a movie-related question you’d like answered on the show, leave it in the comments or email us at Podcast@SmugFilm.com.

If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to subscribe on iTunes, and leave a rating and a comment on there as well. Doing this helps us immensely as far as our ranking on there, which is what allows people to be able to discover us. Word of mouth is always best of all though, so spread the word!

Movie Stuff Referenced in this Episode:
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An Interview with Madeline Blue of ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ and ‘Justified’

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I met Madeline Blue in quite the serendipitous way. My friend / next door neighbor Jeanine asked me how my mom was doing, because she’s been quite ill this winter. I told her she was a bit better, but still very much on the mend, and that I’d been spending a lot of time with her watching TV—in particular, we’d been marathoning the brilliant FX series Justified. “My friend was on Justified!” My jaw dropped. “Yeah, and she’s been staying with me the past couple days!” My jaw dislodged entirely and fell to the floor and spent way longer than the five-second rule there.

Turns out her friend Madeline had played a prostitute by the name of Minerva in the third season. A quick IMDb-ing refreshed me as to which prostitute this was, and also enlightened me to the fact that this very same actress had also played the highly-memorable role of ‘Cure Girl’ in one of the greatest comedies of all time, Wet Hot American Summer—a favorite not only of mine, but of my mom’s as well.

I knew that a surprise visit from her would be the perfect thing to help perk my mom up. Jeanine agreed, and put me and Madeline together, who immediately got the synchronicity of it and was more than happy to do it. And it couldn’t have gone better.
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What Roger Ebert’s Death Means

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R.I.P. Roger Joseph Ebert. June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013

Today, John D’Amico was supposed to wax poetic about obscure zombie movies. That piece has been moved to next week. I don’t think anyone wants to read about zombie movies right now, or read about anything to do with movies, for that matter, unless it has to do with Roger Ebert. At least, I certainly don’t.

I expect that over the next few days, weeks, months, I will binge on everything Ebert. Episodes, books, interviews, etcetera. That’s the kind of death this is. A death where you are left speechless and searching, grasping for the artist’s soulful air as though it will wisp away into the ether if you don’t. But of course, it won’t. It will live on forever, and there is all the time in the world to experience and re-experience it. But the impulse is unavoidable.
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I Don’t Like Jokes, I Don’t Think They’re Funny

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Jokes, almost inherently, aren’t funny.  We all know scores of  ‘classic’ jokes from the aristocrats to dead babies to chickens crossing roads.  None of them are funny.  But, in the right context, we’ll laugh at them, because the joke isn’t what’s funny—the idea of the joke being told is.  It’s that extra layer, that prefix, that meta, that deeper meaning, which gives a joke life, and makes it funny, and makes you truly laugh.  (Laughing simply because you’re ‘supposed to’ is why sitcoms are popular, despite their unfunniness.)
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