Episode 8: “Desperately Seeking Susan” with Marya E. Gates
A podcast about the great movies.
We’re back with our latest episode of Guide for the Film Fanatic! In each episode, Jason Bailey and Mike Hull invite a guest from the world of film (including filmmakers, authors, critics, actors, and more) to select one of the 1600+ “must-see movies” collected in Danny Peary’s seminal 1986 book, Guide for the Film Fanatic. Bailey, Hull, and their guests deep dive on each film, discussing its history, themes, style, performances, initial reception, and legacy, taking a fresh look at some of the most beloved titles in cinema history.
Marya E. Gates’s wonderful new book Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words includes interviews with 19 groundbreaking women directors — including Susan Seidelman, whose 1985 smash (masterpiece, even?) Desperately Seeking Susan is our subject for today. We discuss Seidelman’s genius, our favorite Madonna songs, and (favorite topic alert) how much David Denby sucks.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’re partnering up with One Heat Minute Productions on this show, so we’re migrating it over to their feed; subscribe now if you haven’t already.
We’re also putting our new episodes up on YouTube! Watch the show on our YouTube channel, @guideforthefilmfanatic, for visual accompaniment and bonus stuff and who knows what else:
Desperately Seeking Susan is streaming on Max, is available for digital rental or purchase, and is also available on Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics. You can also watch the trailer here. You can read Vincent Canby’s New York Times review here. If you’d like to read Marya’s Indiewire interview with Ms. Seidelman, you’ll find that here, and they also have an excerpt from Cinema Her Way. And you can hear Seidelman (and Bette Gordon and Lizzie Borden) on our “No Wave Women” episode of Fun City Cinema here, as well as part one and part two of the Death Wish episodes we mentioned during this show’s Headlines.
Cinema Her Way: Visionary Female Directors in Their Own Words is out now, and you can follow Marya on Blusky, Letterboxd, Instagram, and Xitter. If you’d like to check out the YouTube page for Mike’s other podcast, Black Diplomats, it’s here. And Jason’s new book Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend is OUT NOW, and you can order it from MZS Press, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you get your hardbacks, ebooks, and/or audiobooks.
Last but not least, if you’d like to make a little donation to support us and the show, you can do that at Ko-fi!