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Show Me Your Titles's Interests
General
Cinema, movies, films, videos, film-makers, filmmakers, scrappers, news hounds, filmmakers, lady filmmakers, feminist art, etc. + how the hell this was done with clay:
Music
Cathy has been listening to Doctor Bird, The Clash, and Tracy + the Plastics .
Erin loves Kanye West.
Movies
Cathy's favorites: Agnes Varda, Jean Luc-Godard, Maya Deren, John Ford, Lynne Ramsay, Hal Hartley, Sadie Benning. 2008 has not been so hot for movies YET, but I look forward to seeing MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY.
Erin's: Samuel Fuller, Martin Scorsese, Jessica Yu, Francois Ozon, Lenka Clayton, Doris Wishman, Mike Nichols, scrappy documentary film-makers.
Television
Cathy is pretty bored with TV right now and mostly watches ANIMAL PLANET.
Erin is a Chris Matthews fangirl.
Books
Shooting to Kill by Christine Vachon, A Killer Life by Christine Vachon, The Filmmakers Handbook, Femme Flick fanzine by Tina Spangler, anything by Annette Kuhn, feminist film theory, literature that lady filmmakers turn into gold.
About me: “Killer new podcast featuring weekly film reviews from a feminist perspective.”
—First Weekenders Club, www.moviesbywomen.com
“Wow! Phew! At last! A cutting edge female perspective on film that's punk, funny, wide in its purr-view, and just cool in the way that there really is nothing cooler than a smart female, don't you think? SMYT is for everyone - everyone who wants to know.”
—Eileen Myles, writer
For those who love film, film criticism is almost as important as the film itself. Often, moviegoers rely on critics to decide whether or not they see a film in the first place and then there are those won’t touch a review until they have seen the film themselves. Show Me Your Titles brings the voices of two 20-something women to the airwaves to ask the question: what might women and feminists think of this film? Show Me Your Titles aims to put women’s voices back into mainstream film criticism.
A podcast is a web-based audio file broadcast via an RSS feed, accessed by subscription over the internet. This new technology not only allows Cathy and Erin to co-host a weekly show while living 500 miles apart, it also enables them to spend more time discussing films than print or broadcast mediums are typically able to. For Cathy and Erin, both active in the zine-making community of the late 1990s riot grrrl scene, podcasting felt like a natural extension of that type of DIY communication. “We were already talking on the phone several times a week, mostly about film anyway, so we figured why not get it down on tape and see what happens,” says Erin. Podcasts can also be distributed much more widely and cheaply than zines but still provides an intimate experience for the listener.
It was the lack of female voices in contemporary film reviewing that convinced Cathy and Erin to create Show Me Your Titles. With academic backgrounds in film studies, feminist theory and political economy as well as a shared belief in Cornell West's concept of "dance-able education", the two have a natural inclination to bring the topics of race, class and gender representations into their reviews. Making the Show Me Your Titles podcast equal parts entertaining, provocative and informative.
A typical episode of Show Me Your Titles uses a comparative studies approach to examine three films that might not otherwise have been thought of together to highlight similar themes. A recent episode titled, “I Was Born Here And Now I’m a Tourist” examines three films directed by women about women who have left home for political or professional reasons and must sort out the complexities of going back to the home they left. The podcast looked at Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis, Mira Nair’s The Namesake and Julie Delpy’s 2 Days in Paris. Coincidentally, these films were three of Cathy and Erin’s favorites of 2007 yet were largely absent from many critics' “Best of” lists.
Listener feedback to Show Me Your Titles has been overwhelmingly positive with viewers having screening parties to watch and then discuss the films talked about on the podcast and listeners sending in lengthy responses to films reviewed on-air. “I really think what we enjoy about the podcast is what listeners enjoy as well. We have a DIY approach in many ways to discussing film that makes us seem accessible enough to talk to. Having a discussion with our listeners through comments on our website and emails is really important to us,” says Cathy.
Donors to help us pay for bandwidth!
We want to support female and feminist filmmakers as much as possible, so get in touch if you would like us to review your films or do an interview.
eeeeee, i loved the namesake! i watched it over holiday break after drinking a bottle of wine and ended up curled up on the couch sobbing till i fell asleep. it was fantastic. Erin, sometimes i think we are almost the same person though one of us is more short. and drunk.
Thank you so much for joining us on Fem Mag last night!!! As you can tell we loved you..we could have made a whole show featuring you two wonderful film critics..our board op loved you two as well..she is going to listen to your podcast! Much Respect!
