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We continue our horror musical marathon with the 2004 adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, a film that tells the story of how a musical theater kid living in a sewer turns into a incel. Starring Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum, the film divided audiences when it came out, and still divides the Dames to this day! *Note that Lauren was incorrect: the 1925 silent film version of the story actually used two-strip Technicolor for its masquerade scene! Next up: Tim Burton invites us all for a pie with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street!

This week, we continue our journey through horror musicals with the 1986 film, Little Shop of Horrors. Adapted from the Broadway musical that was adapted from the 1960 Roger Corman movie, Frank Oz directs this funny movie about a man-eating alien plant named Audrey II and the sweet, unassuming amateur botanist who gets wrapped up in "Twooie's" deadly plot. Rick Moranis is Seymour in his first leading role opposite a who's who cast including Ellen Greene, Levi Stubbs, Steve Martin, Vincent Gardenia, John Candy, Bill Murray, Christopher Guest, James Belushi, Miriam Margolyes, Tisha Campbell, Tichina Arnold, and Michelle Weeks. *Clip from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS courtesy of Warner Bros.

This week we continue celebrating Tim Curry AND ushering in Spooky Movie Season at the same time with the 1975 cult classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the longest-running film of all time, a young couple's car breaks down near an old castle in the middle of Ohio. When they knock on the door to use the telephone, they have no idea that they will spend a wild night in the company of a transvestite scientist from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy of Transylvania. Joining Tim Curry is a fantastic cast that includes Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Meat Loaf, Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Nell Campbell, Peters Hinwood, Jonathan Adams, and Charles Gray. *Clip from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE courtesy of NBC Universal.

We continue our celebration of Tim Curry with the 1985 whodunnit homage/parody/board game adaptation Clue, directed by Jonathan Lynn, written by John Landis and Lynn, and starring a fantastic cast of comedic character actors as strangers who meet in an old dark house only to be swept up into a murder mystery. In a cast full of GOATs (including Madeline Kahn and Michael McKean), Tim Curry manages to make the film his own as Wadsworth, the butler who didn't do it (or did he?). Next week, we kick off spooky season with Tim Curry's most iconic role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

This week we switch gears and begin a memorial series dedicated to the icon, Tim Curry. And we're starting off with his 1996 musical comedy, Muppet Treasure Island. Directed by Brian Henson and starring all your favorite Muppets, this adaptation of the Robert Louis Stephenson novel casts Curry as the one and only Long John Silver. In this episode, we talk generally about Curry's career, his much-rumored affair with Miss Piggy, and how this show very obviously inspired the series Our Flag Means Death.

This episode, the Dames talk Dolly Parton, the 1980s, and...Turkish Oil Wrestling! In Steel Magnolias, based on Robert Harling's play of the same name, Dolly plays Truvy, the owner of a home-based beauty salon in a little Louisiana town that becomes the center of the friendships, love stories, and heartaches of a close-knit group of friends. Featuring a fantastic cast that includes Sally Field, Darryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, and Shirley Maclaine, this is one of the major films of the 1980s, and a beautiful way to end our mini celebration of Dolly's cinematic career. Next up, we pay tribute to Tim Curry, starting with Muppet Treasure Island!

While we were on a break, the world lost some legends. This month, we are remembering Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. First, we talk about Dolly's 1982 musical comedy, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Parton stars as Miss Mona, the proprietor of a brothel known as the Chicken Ranch, a beloved house in rural Texas that comes under attack when TV personality Melvin P. Thorpe (Dom DeLuise) launches a moral crusade. Burt Reynolds stars as Ed Earl, the town sheriff and Miss Mona's longtime paramour. Charles Durning was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Parton re-recorded her 1973 hit song, "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack. The film was directed by Colin Higgins, who had previously worked with Dolly Parton on 9 to 5. This was his final film and Higgins passed away in 1988. *Clip from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas courtesy of Universal Pictures.

We're back with a final alien invasion film and this one's a doozy: Steven Spielberg's post-9/11 adaptation of War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise as a Regular Guy who has to save his family when vicious aliens attack Earth. Of all the films we've done this month, this is both the most realistic and most frightening. We will be on break for the month of August, but shall return with an entire month dedicated to Mel Brooks (!) as well as a fun new bonus series. As always, thank you all so much for your support!

We continue our month of aliens attacking America! with another 1996 gem, Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! Based on the Topps trading card series from 1962, this hilarious, satirical alien invasion movie follows separate groups of Americans who all have very different experiences when Martians arrive and start indiscriminately killing everyone with their death rays. The movie stars Jack Nicholson in two unrelated roles, plus Glenn Close, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Pam Grier, Jim Brown, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Silvia Sidney, and Lisa Marie.

A trifle late, but happy Independence Day! This month we're talking alien invasion films, beginning with the ultimate July 4 movie, Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (1996). Will Smith was cool, Jeff Goldblum was hot, blockbusters were big, and we hoped for truly inspirational presidents! Next week, everyone who wasn't in ID4 appears in Mars Attacks!.

This week we're finishing up our month of supposedly straight movies that are very gay, by talking all about the 2002 film, Bend it Like Beckham. from director Gurinder Chadha. Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley star as two soccer players, one from a traditional Sikh family and the other with an overbearing, gender-enforcing mother, who connect through a women's team coached by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. They're supposedly fighting over him, but we can all see the truth.

Our month of "straight movies that are totally gay" continues with the 1954 western, Johnny Guitar. Joan Crawford stars as saloon owner Vienna in a small southwestern town. When a heist leaves a man dead, his sister Emma (Mercedes McCambridge) declares war on Vienna and local gang leader the Dancin' Kid (Scott Grady). But Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden) is there to...help? This definitely totally straight western from Nicholas Ray subverts the western genre with its swapping of traditionally masculine and feminine roles, its thinly-veiled critique of McCarthyism, and the brightest red lipstick in the west.

Welcome to our next Pride Month episode, Vera Cruz or: Westerns Are Totally Gay! This week we discuss the 1954 Western Vera Cruz, starring Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper as best frenemies who head off to fight in the Franco-Mexican War together, just can't stop betraying each other, and spend a lot of time comparing guns. Next up, the women get in on the queer-coded action in Johnny Guitar!

Happy Pride! This Pride Month, we're talking movies that involve the love that dare not speak its name...but come really, really close. First up in our homoerotic quartet is Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break (1991), starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze as two dudes from opposite sides (one an undercover FBI agent, the other a surfer and possible criminal) who come together over their love of adrenaline and increasingly intense (but largely unspoken) passion for each other. Way fewer people would've died if these dudes had just kissed. Next up: Westerns are totally gay, and Vera Cruz among the gayest.

We bring our first Bad Movies We Love series to a close with the best - and by that we mean worst - of the bunch, 2019's Replicas. Keanu Reeves stars as William Foster, a neuroscientist working on a project to transfer the minds of recently deceased soldiers into synthetic brains. Why? Who knows! It's all about science or something! But then tragedy strikes and William, along with his twitchy but faithful sidekick Ed (Thomas Middleditch) have to try to save his family. It will make sense when you watch it. And by that we mean, it makes no sense and it's all a convoluted mess of a movie. And that's what makes it great.