Falling in Love Montage

We gave you exactly one month's notice that we were going to cover the underrated 2002 cutie vehicle Two Weeks Notice for May ("Sandy summer," we called it, very cleverly). So if this surprised you, I don't know what to say. 

It's been 25 years since the globally beloved Miss Congeniality came out, and it's been 9 years since this only-just-slightly-less-globally-beloved podcast first started. And I don't really remember where I was going with that, but that's the timeline. Anyway, we're finally bringing you what you really want -- a frank, 2-hour discussion of the Sandra Bullock beauty pageant classic, and eventually, somehow, world peace.

It is March, and we are sisters, and that technically makes us March sisters. So this time the "March sisters" pulled in an extra honorary sister to finally fall into the warm embrace of Greta Gerwig's Little Women (2019). Joining us is Shannon Campe of Little Women: A Modern Audio Drama, whose expertise and contagious fanaticism have helped us realize we were no longer little girls.   Check out Shannon's own fabulous Little Women adaptation at www.littlewomenpodcast.com.

When we covered Bridget Jones's Diary for our first-ever episode on Galentine's Day in 2016, we couldn't have known the world would give us the incredible gift of a fourth Bridget Jones movie on our very anniversary nine years later. But that's where fate finds us today, watching Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy -- happy, heartbroken, and humbled that we have gotten to do this for going on ten years now.

It's a new year and, ugh, a new world, and to celebrate and distract from that, we've brought you the absolutely bonkers bouquet that is Tom Hooper's infamous 2019 masterwork Cats.  While taking on this movie was no small feat, it was an incredibly easy choice* -- this episode is dedicated to the memory of James Petrosky, a magnificent person, friend to the show, and the greatest advocate for Cats (2019) this side of the Russell Hotel. *And yes, a Jellicle one as well   If so moved, you can donate to the wonderful hospice where James spent his last months and days, or to a hospice local to you.  Check out James's blog, including just some of his thoughts about Cats.

As a holiday gift, Netflix brought Lindsay Lohan back -- for, like, a real movie this time. So what choice did we have but to dive back in to the Lohan-iverse, bringing along our fetch-as-heck friend and Lindsay Lohan correspondent Sarah K. Norton for Christmas company? We ate this 2024 Atlanta-set rom-com up like so many chocolate cookies (or some other direct reference you'll only fully get if you watch Our Little Secret and/or listen to this episode). Check out Sarah and her husband's podcast Never Grow Up!

We finally discover the secret reason Helen made Valerie wait nine years to cover the very-2006, adapted-from-Shakespeare (?!?) teen revenge comedy John Tucker Must Die -- she has a condition* that makes her call basketball "football," and it's very painful and embarrassing.  *being dumb   And as promised, here the show note where we ask you to email us at fallinginlovemontage@gmail.com. We looked up our email address, and we're pretty sure this is it!

This very special Halloween episode delves into the story of two close-but-disparate sisters and how they found themselves shunned by their community because of their unusual background -- they were bitches who had either never before seen Practical Magic, or they thought it was silly, or both. Join us as we come to terms with every wild thing the beloved 1998 rom-com-fantasy-crime-drama-cult-classic-Margo-Martindale-vehicle Practical Magic stands for and find ourselves maybe grabbing our proverbial brooms to join the coven. Do we make ourselves as silly as the film we're discussing? At least. Are we able to keep down these midnight margaritas? Mostly. Will our listeners burn us at the stake for transgressing against the Owens women? Well, that's up to you.

You asked for it (we think? It would have been a long time ago; we could be wrong. Someone definitely asked for it, we're pretty sure), and after a mere half-dozen years, we did it -- Michel Gondry's beloved sci-fi dram-rom-com Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And for the discussion, we brought someone unforgettable -- poet, host of the Ku-Popup Open Art Showcase, and romantic lead to cohost Helen -- Angel Kofsky!   Check out the Ku-Popup Open Mic and Art Showcase, Thursdays at 8pm ET on Angel's Twitch channel and/or in their Discord. 

For Valerie's  ~b i r t h  m o n t h~ we are covering the maybe universally beloved but also possibly largely unknown (?? we don't know!) romantic drama classic (???) Untamed Heart. We have a great time talking about this '90s gem that's a little bit urban Nicholas Sparks, a little bit Moulin Rouge/Tarzan/Splash, and all schmaltzy Christian Slater Nature Boy, all the time.

Dog mom, (cool) Disney adult, and generally fabulous person* Sarah K. Norton joins us as we travel, with Netflix's help, to Ireland for summer vacation. Will Lindsay Lohan's Maddie end up with the European faux Property Brother, or will she end up with Jimmy from Downton Abbey? Will she ever write the great Irish-American novel? Will she fall off the Cliffs of Moher, hit her head, and end up in Falling for Christmas again? *and presumptive new Lindsay Lohan correspondent! Check out Sarah and her husband's podcast Never Grow Up! Donate or learn more about Equality Florida here.

Two musical-loving, straight-passing white women extend their lives by wading deep into drag culture in this Pride episode in which Helen and Valerie cover the 2004 romp Connie and Carla, the largely forgotten Nia Vardalos rom-com in which two musical-loving, straight-passing white women extend their lives by wading deep into drag culture. Donate to Fanaticure's June 2024 Pride charity drive for Equality Florida here. Since June is almost up, we at FiLM will also be donating $1 to Equality Florida for each July 2024 download of this episode. Thank you for your support!  Fanaticure can also be found on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, and on her podcast Two Lacquered Ladies.   

Welcome to Debbie Country, where Cameron Crowe is the next Martin Scorceez and the podcast hosts are admittedly pretty biased in their fervent -- albeit grungy and nostalgic -- love of the 1992 romantic comedy Singles.  Reach out in the Falling in Love Montage Podcast group on Facebook if you want to be an early investor in our musical adaptation (don't tell Cameron

Cohost Helen has gotten her own groove mostly back after having to skip March, and we are finally here with 1998's How Stella Got Her Groove Back. We haven't covered an adaptation of a work by the iconic and complicated Terry McMillan since we talked Waiting to Exhale in episode six, so if you yourself were waiting until now to exhale, we hope you've been resting peacefully these last eight years. We had a lot of thoughts and feelings about this one, but we still managed to keep this conversation under 90 minutes -- you hear that, everyone involved in bringing How Stella Got Her Groove Back to the screen??

It's March y'all, officially Spring, so in honor of that, we're going to spring a surprise on you and switch up our regularly scheduled programing. We're looking forward to discussing the 1998 McMillan classic How Stella Got Her Groove Back, but in the interim, please enjoy a throwback from August 2019 when we were on our beloved podcast network, Flying Machine.

Leap year only comes around every four years, and this year -- our 8th anniversary -- marks the second leap year we've experienced as a podcast. We couldn't think of a better time to finally bring you an enthusiastic discussion of the oft-mentioned 2010 rom-com Leap Year -- but we didn't do that. Instead, we're here with an enraged dialog about the best-forgotten 2010 rom-bomb Valentine's Day. The movie about the holiday Valentine's Day. The one that happens every year. Enjoy. ❤️

It's the 20th anniversary of the beloved film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's The Notebook, and that means we and our podcast are really old, and that means it's time to finally cover this movie.  Join us as we ascend the figurative ferris wheel that is this 2004 romance. Do our pants get pulled down? Do we fall in love? Has this metaphor already worn itself out? 

For a podcast that has never covered a Hallmark movie in its 7+ years of existence, our fans sure love to throw Hallmark holiday movie memes and articles our way. Now it's our turn -- see how much you like it* when we throw Hallmark holiday movie content at you, haha!  Yes, for this holidaymonth, we are talking about the holly-jolly, gay-appareled, made-for-TV stone-cold Hallmark masterpiece, The Christmas House. Is it destined to be a holiday classic, or is it merely a 90-minute makeover montage? Unwrap this gift and find out! *we hope a lot

Aristotle and Holland Taylor once said, "The law is reason, free from passion." Valerie and Helen once said, "Oh man, we really should cover Legally Blonde at some point."  And six or so years later, here we are -- covering 2001's beloved Legally Blonde with long-overdue repeat guest, beloved Vanessa Riley from The Square Roots Podcast.  Habeas corpus! 

To round out our whirlwind 2023 sampling of various Bennet and Darcy types (a Darcuterie, if you will), we've brought back our bestie and official Austen correspondent Tracy Tanoff for the third time/adaptation this year. Spooky month brings us to our likely last Pride and Prejudice for the foreseeable future -- the 2016 action-comedy-horror-chick-flick Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  Will Charlotte become a zombie? Will love conquer all? Is Helen a dirty Wickham apologist?? Find out on this month's exciting episode! Find Tracy on Bluesky at @haveloved.bsky.social, and hear more Tracy on this year's episodes on Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Fire Island, or our other classic Austen episodes, Emma (1996) and Sense and Sensibility. Our spooky theme song was put together by the very talented Jon Biegen -- you can find him at @jonbiegen on all socials. 

We waited a long time to see our oldest friend grace the silver screen and make it pink, but Barbie is here now, and we are glad to be able to bring our OK-maybe-not-as-objective-as-they-could-be thoughts to you in this, the year of our Lord*, 2023. *Greta Gerwig

It is the dog days of summer and we have dog mom and Atlanta comedian Gloria White joining the pod to discuss the 2006 ultra chick flick, Something New. Bonus: Listeners who imbibe can take advantage of the opportunity to drink every time we crack a title pun.  ✨ Check out Gloria on Instagram  Find her on all the socials, look for the handle "glow07" ❤️ Listen to Gloria on a recent episode of One Fry Short  

We had such a gay old time covering Pride & Prejudice earlier this year that for Pride month, we wanted to have an even gayer, new time -- so we grabbed our beloved Austen correspondent Tracy Tanoff to talk about the 2022 loose P&P adaptation Fire Island. Does Elizabeth find her Darcy? I don't know who those people are, but I can tell you I've got my eye on Noah and Will. (Hahaha, this is a ruse, as I have watched the movie and actually know what happens! Spoiler alert: lots of beautiful super-queer shit).  Check out Gay Austen, per Tracy's recommendation, and then watch Fire Island on Hulu -- twice in a row, if you're cool.

It's been 23 years since Bring It On brought its cheer to the world, and it's been something like 6 years since we had our beloved friend and cheerleader-lover* Owen Choules on to talk about a chick flick with us.  So do we do a high kick and delight in this classic, or do we give it the spirit finger? Does Owen still tolerate us? What is team captain Torrance's connection to the dad from The Shining? Listen to find out! Rah!     *Yeah, he won't object to that descriptor at all, probably

For better or worse, 1998's Can't Hardly Wait is a quintessential exhibit of 90s High School cinema. A movie with almost as much cringe as it has stars. Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont weave a magical story wherein Kenny Fisher gets the girl, Jenna Elfman gets the cab, and Amanda Beckett gets to stand up for herself, for like, at least a minute. And who knows, there's always a possibility of a sequel with less Smashmouth and F slurs.   

You are all cordially invited to the wedding of us and Maya Erskine (pending her consent) - and surprise - you're the toast master too. We're here to talk about Plus One, which is fresher than diner fish* . *Fish you order at a diner, but why would you do that?!  

It is a truth universally acknowledged that two women in possession of a chick flick podcast must eventually cover 2005's Pride & Prejudice. Fan favorite and Jane Austen correspondent Tracy Tanoff joins us for truly the most exemplary podcast she's guested on in in many years.  For more Austen fun, check out Tracy's Fine Curated Links! On the autism spectrum and Pride & Prejudice The Lizzie Bennet Diaries The Jane Austen Universe Black Girl Loves Jane Gay Austen Sasha Sienna's Jane Austen Book Club

To start 2023 off on the right route, we wanted to talk about best friends with a best friend. So we brought FiLM fave Malcolm Nygard on to fan-girl out with us over the ultimate road trip movie, Thelma & Louise. Check out Malcolm's thoughtful Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/theoscargrouch/ and see if you can spy a chick flick or two in his top ten. Thelma & Louise is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, and geez, Louise, do we ever recommend you watch it.

It's what you were all hoping for, I'll keep telling myself -- for the holiday season, and to close out 2022, we covered a new Christmas classic, Falling for Christmas, starring Lindsay Lohan. We not only talked about it, but we also watched it! And if you don't listen and enjoy, magic Santa will push you down a mountain.  We'll be back next year with not this movie. Happy New Year, FiLM buffs! And for no particular reason, here's Ben @palmertrolls on Candace Cameron Bure. 

It's November for a few more hours, and we are thankful to be here with you, talking about another problematic (!) fave (?), 1999's Never Been Kissed. We shouldn't say this because we're your teacher hosts, but it's totally rufus.  Sorry in advance for Helen's questionable audio -- she was recording on an iPhone from a frilly pink bedroom in South Georgia. Happy N[e]vember Been Kissed! Nailed it.

Years ago, a pair of sisters came together on Halloween to talk about Hocus Pocus. We thought the story ended there. We were wrong. Those lovable sisters are back, making magic, once again, because Disney dug up the past with Hocus Pocus 2, and like a bajilliondy people watched it, and we figured, One Way or Another, we could get some easy spooky-month downloads. Itchita kupita melaka mystika.  Hocus Pocus 2 is currently streaming on Disney+. Check out our friend Jon Biegen at jinglejon.com, for all your podcast-jingle needs.

This time Valerie's just getting over COVID, and she still managed to watch, talk about, and edit an entire podcast episode on the Definitely Underrated Fun Film, 2015's The DUFF.

Whether we say it directly or not, both of us are still a little bit waiting to see if and when Mary Poppins will fly down to us and reveal we are secretly princesses.  What we are in the meantime is chick-flick podcasters, so this month we decided to podcast about the 2001 chick flick The Princess Diaries. It's also our third Disney film this year, and our third Sandra Oh film this year, so. Yeah. Happy August, commoners listeners. 

If you've been spontaneously crying as of late, and want more of that, this is the podcast episode for you. It's the last day of Pride month, and while we have failed to deliver a focused conversation about a piece of queer cinema, we are delivering on our mother's dying (to be determined) wish to discuss a personal favorite of her's - thus, a house-hold favorite of ours and a staple of our childhood — 1995's Sense and Sensibility.  We are joined by our best friend/Jane Austin correspondent, Tracy Tanoff, for a (some may say) overlong celebration of Emma Thompson's adaptation. Catch Tracy streaming here: https://youtube.com/channel/UCTW4vTLi-wK5QEe14SI9keQ, and catch us crying eternally, everywhere. 

We put this month's movie up to a vote, and if the votes told us anything, it's that 1 thing you hated about us is that we hadn't covered the classic '99 teen rom-com 10 Things I Hate About You yet.  Well, now we have. Helen's bestie Jan Thrapp joins us again to talk about Shakespeare, our motives behind the various colors of underwear we possess, and Andrew Keegan's California cult. And we maybe introduce a new FiLM award. 10 Things I Hate About You is currently streaming on Disney+. Check your local animal shelters for information about fostering animals.

It was Helen's birthday this month, so this time, we covered a movie she wanted to cover! ...Just like we pretty much always do, whoops.  Anyway, the movie Helen wanted to cover this time was the 2007 Disney spectacular Enchanted. Did we find it enchanting? It's a safe bet to say we did, but obviously these notes are meant to promote the episode, so officially you'll have to listen to the episode to find out!!  Oh, also, it's finally getting a sequel later this year, so let's pretend we knew that and planned it, going in.

What do you get when you cross an embarrassment of pandas with embarassing podcasters?  This. This is what you get.  We had a box full of kittens-like good time discussing Domme Shi's 2022, unapologetically titled Pixar hit, Turning Red. 

Here we are again, for the first time, talking about the Harold Ramis 1993 classic Groundhog Day. Does spring come early for the podcast? Listen and let us know if you hear a shadow. Here we are again, for the first time, talking about the Harold Ramis 1993 classic Groundhog Day. Does spring come early for the podcast? Listen and let us know if you hear a shadow. Here we are again, for the first time, talking about the Harold Ramis 1993 classic Groundhog Day. Does spring come early for the podcast? Listen and let us know if you hear a shadow. Here we are again, for the first time, talking about the Harold Ramis 1993 classic Groundhog Day. Does spring come early for the podcast? Listen and let us know if you hear a shadow. 

If you want more Jack Black than you can shake a stick at, there's no better choice than the Kung Fu Panda trilogy. But we're talking about Nancy Meyers's warm and fuzzy The Holiday this time, which Jack Black is also in (as well as Jude Law, Eli Wallach, and a couple of chick-flick all-stars). With this episode, we become the leading ladies of our own lives, by deciding that we can release a Holiday episode at the end of January in a pandemic. 

It's the holiday season and the 107th episode of this chick-flick podcast -- so really what choice did we have but to discuss 2000's High Fidelity with our friend and Beta-Band-stan Shane Kearney? It makes sense if you consider our continued use of John Cusack as a 2021 coping mechanism, or if you know that one of our hosts wouldn't even be here if it weren't for a meet-cute in a record store in Chicago. Anyway, it's one of our top-5 favorite male-led rom-coms, with one of our top-6 favorite guests of the year. Happy holidays.

Merriam-Webster defines "footloose" as "having no ties; free to roam about."  So yeah. It's our podcast and our Octobermonth episode, and we wanted to talk about Footloose with our friend, return guest Ollie Brady. So we did. It's almost spooky how much everybody cut, everybody cut, everybody, everybody cut footloose. Check out some of Ollie's guest turns on the Media-eval Podcast! The very talented Jon Biegen did our spooky intro music -- hit him up if you want him to make music for you! And if you want to hear us talk about an actually scary movie, don't forget we covered Sixteen Candles back in April.

Happy JAN(uary?)-September in October! For this Sept. episode we happen to be releasing in Oct., we brought in Helen's BFF Jan (Thrapp)!  After 20+ years of friendship and 5+ years of Falling in Love Montage, we wanted Jan's first visit to be really formidable, so we spent 2.5 hours (after cutting it down) talking about Onur Tukel's very 2016 satirical black comedy about formidable women, Catfight.  Check out Catfight, currently streaming on US Netflix, and check your local county animal control for information about fostering animals.

It's still technically August, which we all know is Valerie's birth month, so for a special gift, we tackled Peter Bogdanovich's 1993 dram-rom-com The Thing Called Love, starring Samantha Mathis and River Phoenix (in Phoenix's last full role). If you've never seen it (and, statistically speaking, a lot of you will have never seen it) -- don't worry, we take plenty of silly, irrelevant tangents too. Note: Helen's audio is a little wonky at parts in this one, but it should still be listenable. And we know you're only here for Dermot Mulroney's hats anyway DID YOU KNOW DERMOT MULRONEY WAS IN THIS??

Enough of the '80s, let's visit "the '80s"! Gena Radcliffe of Kill by Kill joins us to rap about the 1998 Sandler-Barrymore rom-com The Wedding Singer. Check out the Kill by Kill podcast and Gena's writings for The Spool. 

"This is what an entire diaspora of edgelords is to going to base their personality on." -Bill, The Brain "When I smoke locker-weed, I just gotta dance, y'all."  -Helen, The Basketcase "Did you ever have Saturday school? ...If it's expunged, you don't have to tell us." -Valerie, The Criminal We came together on a non-school-day to discuss one more (the last?) '80s movie mentioned by Olive in Easy A. Its chick-flickness may be dubious, but we were still delighted to have our good friend Bill O'Donnell back on to talk about the John Hughes for-real classic The Breakfast Club. We learned a lot about ourselves -- and a whole lot about the effects of athletic tape on hairy buttcheeks. Helen's whiny and pee-filled dog Walter also makes a cameo toward the end. Check out Bill on our When Harry Met Sally episode! Check out Bill's cousin Lisa Genova's new book Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting! And download and/or stream our 100th episode -- 16 Candles -- to help us contribute to Stop AAPI Hate and RAINN!

We needed a little break from the problematic '80s, so just for the heck of it, we decided to visit the problematic '90s -- and 1999's beauty-queen black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. But we'll be back with more John Hughes next month! Unless Kirstie Alley stops us. 

OK, we dragged our feet a little getting to our 100th episode -- and getting to Sixteen Candles. We know John Hughes' directorial debut is considered a landmark teen comedy, one that is loved and celebrated. And even coming upon our own celebratory landmark, we couldn't find much to celebrate in this stale cardboard cake of a movie. That said, our discussion of the film's major problems isn't incredibly thorough or personal, and we maybe back off of some things for which we should hold the filmmakers more accountable.  The hosts of Falling in Love Montage are acquainted with sexual assault, and we recognize that --no matter the decade or your age -- we (womxn and men) sometimes lack the language to describe what's happened to us. Sometimes we're conditioned to believe nothing did. Sometimes we're shamed into not disclosing. Also, as white people growing up in the '80s and '90s, we were party to perpetuating stereotypes we learned through cultural osmosis and films like this one. It is our place to hold ourselves accountable, and in this and many cases, that means accepting a larger responsibility for our complicity -- and recognizing it, listening, and doing better. We can't pretend that our discussion of a panty-centric coming-of-age movie or these show-notes about that discussion makes any real difference. But we can promise you that we will donate $1 to https://stopaapihate.org/ and https://www.rainn.org/ for every download of this episode up to 500 downloads. Thank you for being with us, whether this is your 100th episode or your first.  Note: Valerie mentions a Vox article in this episode. She actually means this excellent New Yorker article. 

I don't have a lot to say about the 1987 teen rom-com Can't Buy Me Love that we haven't already said, so suffice it to say: check out this episode in which we have a lot to say about the 1987 teen rom-com Can't Buy Me Love.

Our hearts and Easy A told us to, so here we are, in February 2021, discussing Cameron Crowe's directorial debut Say Anything with January guest and still-amazing person Michael M. Rader on Galentine's Day and our fifth podcasting anniversary.  That was a run-on sentence, I know, but we've always been able to say anything to you.  Does Say Anything hold up after 32 years? Do we hold up after 5? Listen to find out.  (And again, listen to Michael on WHEEEEEEngs - A Sincere Wings Podcast & We'll Get It Right Next Year: An Adventure in Cinema)

Welcome to 2021! New year, new sweat pants, new episode!  Much anticipated guest and pretend shag of the podcast Michael M. Rader joins us in adorning our bodices with red As ... and it doesn't smell that weird.    Listen to Michael on WHEEEEEEngs - A Sincere Wings Podcast & We'll Get It Right Next Year: An Adventure in Cinema

Happy December 27! We've almost made it through this 2020 nonsense, and we are MAKING THE YULETIDE EXTREMELY GAY with Clea DuVall's Happiest Season. Will Bella from Twilight and Cameron from Halt and Catch Fire find comfort and joy this holiday season? We spoil and ponder this question for about two hours -- happy holidays, from our family to yours!