December 2, 2025 A life lived in fear is a life half lived. On this week's Deep Thoughts, Emily brings her analysis, nostalgia--and quite a bit of drool--to the 1992 Baz Luhrmann comedy Strictly Ballroom. Though this indie film, which was Luhrmann's directorial debut, may have gotten lost among the 80s and 90s movies that were bigger blockbusters, the comedy offers an incisive skewering of the insular world of amateur ballroom dancing in regional Australia. And yet, Luhrmann'

November 25, 2025 Well, that was absurd, let's eat dead bird! Just in time for Thanksgiving, Tracie brings her deep thoughts about the 1995 "romantic" comedy Home for the Holidays. Although the dysfunctional dynamics of the Larson family makes for realistic and funny storytelling, the romance between Holly Hunter's Claudia and Dylan McDermott's Leo seems to imply that women are just lacking a handsome man's tongue down their throat, no matter what they claim. (To be fair, Leo

November 18, 2025 The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. On today's episode, the Guy sisters welcome Emily's friend and co-author Joe Saul-Sehy , co-host of the wildly popular Stacking Benjamins podcast, to talk about the 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street. Even though it has had an enormous impact on the culture of finance (and Emily has written in the realm of finance for 15 years), neither of the Guy girls had seen the film, wh

November 11, 2025 You mean I'm gonna STAY this color? On this week's episode, Tracie shares her deep thoughts about the 1979 Steve Martin film The Jerk, a comedy that never failed to delight the Guy sisters' father, no matter how many times he watched it. And for good reason. Martin's broad physical comedy and cultural commentary rooted in racial stereotypes conceals multiple layers of storytelling and humor in the tale of dim-witted Navin R. Johnson. Not only does the film f

October 23, 2025 What kind of a host invites you to his house for the weekend and dies on you? Despite its status as a benchmark of late 80s pop culture, the film Weekend at Bernie's sounds like it should never have been greenlit. Two lowly young insurance employees find their boss dead of an apparent overdose at his beach house--and pretend he is still alive. The mafia boss who ordered Bernie's death sends the enforcer back to kill him again and again, and there's a love int

October 28, 2025 There are certain RULES that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. In December 1996, teenaged Emily learned to love horror movies when she saw Wes Craven's Scream in the theater. Twice. Unlike most pop culture specifically created for her demographic, Scream offered feminism, cultural commentary, badass women as protagonists and antagonists, a banger of a murder mystery, and plenty of comedy--all while simultaneously analyzing fil

October 21, 2025 You're the vulgarian, you fuck! Tracie expected to enjoy revisiting the classic comedy A Fish Called Wanda, but she forgot just how much of this film's humor was derived from cringe comedy (John Cleese speaking Russian in his underwear when a large family stumbles upon him) and punching down (the dubious "comedy" of making fun of Michael Palin's stutter), both of which made the film painful to rewatch. Wanda has some truly interesting cultural commentary abou

October 14, 2025 Pop quiz, hotshot! As Emily tells Tracie this week, the 1994 film Speed is, in a word, BONKERS. This pop culture icon of the early 1990s not only gave us the impossible bus jump that we've always wanted from the movies and catapulted Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves to mega-stardom, but it also offered a pretty darn good romance plot in among the explosions, high-speed chases, baby carriages full of cans, and shockingly high body count. But as Emily found on t

October 07, 2025 I'm not sure that it's business of yours, but I do like to waltz with a log driver. Tracie and Emily welcome six-time...

September 30, 2025 Okay, Joan Wilder, write us out of this one. On this week's episode, Tracie revisits the 1984 film Romancing the...

And if I don't see you: Good afternoon, good evening, and good night! Peter Weir's 1998 film The Truman Show, based on a screenplay by...

September 16, 2025 When I was a little kid and I got scared, the Rain Man would come and sing to me. Join us this week as Tracie shares...

"It's like we say in St. Olaf—Christmas without fruitcake is like St. Sigmund's Day without the headless boy." On this week's episode,...

September 2, 2025 You cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it. Ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love......

Hockety pockety wockety wack! Odds and ends and bric-a-brac! In revisiting this classic Disney animation from 1963, Tracie found that the...

August 19, 2025 "To die would be a grand adventure!" Emily is delighted to welcome her dear childhood friend--and lifelong Peter Pan...

August 12, 2025 Though it's now consistently named #1 on IMDB's top 250 list of classic movies, Frank Darabont's 1994 film The...

August 5, 2025 I have my eyes... I have my cunning... and I have my strength. This obscure sword-and-sorcery fantasy film from the early...

July 29, 2025 Draw me like one of your French girls... This week, Emily finally introduces Tracie to the pop culture juggernaut Titanic,...

July 22, 2025 It was a run-by fruiting! Revisiting the beloved 1993 Robin Williams film Mrs. Doubtfire this week was a reminder to Tracie...