The Dudek Abides

Second Annual DVD Blowout, Friday and Saturday!!

Posted July 11, 2016 by Duane Dudek

The Dudek Abides will hold its second annual DVD blowout Friday and Saturday – July 15 and 16 – from 8 until 4 p.m.

It’s like a rummage sale for movies.

Categories include Hollywood, indie, documentaries, foreign language and Asian, family, TV, box sets, stand up comedy, concert films, and others that defy genre.

Many are priced as low as $1, most of them are unopened.

This year featuring a huge selection of movie books, some rare. Also, CDs, comics, vinyl and collectibles. Free items with purchase.

“B.F.G.,” “Swiss Army Man” And The Economy of Scale

Posted June 30, 2016 by Duane Dudek

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When Steven Spielberg releases a new film attendance is mandatory. It’s not always a great experience but it’s always an interesting demonstration of the strengths and flaws of one of the great directors of our time.

Sometimes his films are facile, sentimental and narratively broken in ways he cannot fix. But occasionally he creates something extraordinary like “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.”

He dabbles in textures and technologies but always with an eye to the marketplace. At 69 he might consider the Biblical advise to “put away childish things.” Because the awe of childhood has deserted him.

Offbeat “Maggie’s Plan” A Charming Indie-Frosted Thingy

Posted June 9, 2016 by Duane Dudek

If the movies of Woody Allen and Nancy Myers had a baby it would look like Rebecca Miller’s “Maggie’s Plan.”

Miller breast fed the newborn she just had with Daniel Day Lewis when I interviewed her for “Personal Velocity” in 2002. And motherhood is also the theme of “Maggie’s Plan.”

It’s about a young woman whose desire for a baby leads her to marry in haste and who then attempts to give her husband back to his ex-wife.

Greta Gerwig plays the young woman, a Quaker from Wisconsin in ribbed winter tights, calico blouses buttoned to the neck and sensible shoes.

Faith-Based Ghostbusters Do Gods Work In “Conjuring 2”

Posted June 9, 2016 by Duane Dudek

“The Conjuring 2” has two story arcs but is half as scary than the original.

One story involves faith based ghostbusters Ed and Larraine Warren, of “Amityville” fame who are being are haunted by a sense of foreboding.

The other concerns the “fact based” account of a single mother in London whose teenage daughter is possessed by a spirit who died in their dingy but expansive flat.

Both these painfully slow set ups come complete with a predictable jumble of slammed doors, creaky stairs and bumps in the night. The man-in-the-mirror-who-is-not-there-when-you-turn around gag always gives me a start.

Milwaukee Media Notes: May Sweeps Results

Posted May 26, 2016 by Duane Dudek

Some tech issues kept me from posting the local May sweeps ratings earlier today.

However they will not get in the way this afternoon, he said as the cursor flew across the screen.

Perhaps like Hillary I was hacked.

(Update: Genius Bar guy says my battery is “consumed” and I need a new track pad!)

So let’s keep this short and sweet.

– WITI-TV (Channel 6) won at 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. and WISN-TV (Channel 12) had the number one newscast at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. WITI viewers get up early and stay up late, I guess. And WISN viewers are perhaps lunch bucket types who like a little news with their evening meal. And never the twain shall meet.

Budget Crisis Cited In UWM Broadcast Prof Zoromski ‘s Jump To Marquette

Posted May 20, 2016 by Duane Dudek

Mark Zoromski, a broadcast journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee for 20-years, has accepted a position as director of student media at Marquette University it was announced Friday.

And the UW system budget crisis was cited as a factor in the move. Zoromski, a Milwaukee television news veteran was news director at WITI-TV (Channel 6) from 1983 to 1986.

In his new position he will be advisor to the student operated Marquette Tribune, Marquette University Radio, the school’s quarterly magazine and journals.

“Captain America: Civil War” Makes Avengers Great Again

Posted May 5, 2016 by Duane Dudek

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As the last battle was being fought in “Captain America: Civil War” I realized I couldn’t remember the first battle, the one that opened the film. Put it down to short-term memory loss or approaching senility.

But it is just as likely the sheer length of the film, 146 minutes, and apathy brought on by superhero fatigue.

Despite its title “Captain America: Civil War” is very much an Avengers film.

Instead of asking which Marvel superheroes are in it, easier to say that only Thor and Hulk do not assemble. Heroes battling heroes is the new template for comic book movie creators that have run out of fresh ideas.

Cheadle’s Imaginative “Miles” Biopic A Work Of Art

Posted April 22, 2016 by Duane Dudek

It’s tough to pull off a musical film biography.

For every “Ray,” in which Jamie Foxx captured something essential about Ray Charles, there is a lurching and episodic “I Saw the Light” in which country music legend Hank Williams is played by English actor Tom Hiddleston, who is six years older than Williams was when he died at 29.

The best musical biopics reveal an artist’s life through his or her artistic impulses, as in the Brian Wilson story “Love and Mercy.”

But musical biopics usually focus on personal tragedies since the artists portrayed often have turbulent lives, and because creativity is an interior process that is hard to dramatize.

An Absurd And Amusing “Elvis & Nixon”

Posted April 21, 2016 by Duane Dudek

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Or however many words it takes to fill the 100 minute running time of “Elvis & Nixon.”

It may be the only movie inspired by a single photograph, that of the titular personalities during what was likely an awkward encounter in 1970.

It occurred four years before President Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, two years after Elvis Presley’s ‘comeback special’ and seven years before Presley died from an overdose in his Graceland bathroom.

WTMJ-TV Expected To Name George Mallet Anchor

Posted April 18, 2016 by Duane Dudek

LinkedIn photo

The longest job search in Milwaukee media is now its worst kept secret.

After almost a year of deliberation, WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) is expected to name former WTMJ reporter George Mallet as anchor of its 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts later this week.

He will most likely start during the May sweeps period, a year after the retirement of veteran anchor Mike Jacobs last May.

Mallet left WTMJ in 2010 to anchor the news at WPTZ-TV in New York state.

Mallet, a native of Philadelphia, was previously afternoon co-anchor and reporter at WTMJ.

The Dudek Abides

Second Annual DVD Blowout, Friday and Saturday!!

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“B.F.G.,” “Swiss Army Man” And The Economy of Scale

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Offbeat “Maggie’s Plan” A Charming Indie-Frosted Thingy

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Faith-Based Ghostbusters Do Gods Work In “Conjuring 2”

Like this:

Milwaukee Media Notes: May Sweeps Results

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Budget Crisis Cited In UWM Broadcast Prof Zoromski ‘s Jump To Marquette

Like this:

“Captain America: Civil War” Makes Avengers Great Again

Like this:

Cheadle’s Imaginative “Miles” Biopic A Work Of Art

Like this:

An Absurd And Amusing “Elvis & Nixon”

Like this:

WTMJ-TV Expected To Name George Mallet Anchor

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