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"I know how you feel. You don't know if you want to hit me or kiss me. I get a lot of that."

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts, Tracie revisits the 1990 film Dick Tracy, the big budget Oscar winner that pop culture forgot. Director and star Warren Beatty wanted to recreate the comic strip detective as a live action hero, complete with all the weird villains that populate the funny papers, as well as the romance Tracy enjoyed with both his loving girlfriend Tess Trueheart and the villainous femme fatale, Breathless Mahoney. In some ways, Beatty succeeded: the visuals of the film are arresting (pun very much intended). But although contemporaneous movie reviews were glowing, Dick Tracy has gone unremembered, even as a cult classic--in part because the story has very little heart and Beatty's turn as Tracy is kinda meh.

That doesn't mean this movie isn't fun (if a little infuriating) to watch. The "romance" plot that puts Tracy in a love triangle with Mahoney (played by Madonna), and the long-suffering Tess (Glenne Headly) doesn't give the viewer much to go on as to why these women want the rule-breaking detective. But if you can overlook the outdated romance, Dick Tracy can take you back to the nostalgia of watching a square-jawed detective fight the bad guys in the Sunday comics.

We promise not to put you in the cement bath. Just take a listen!

Tags: deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, romance, pop culture, film, movie reviews, cult classic, women, 80s and 90s movies, nostalgia, feminism, cultural commentary, storytelling, warren beatty, comic strip, gen x childhood, analyzing film tropes, madonna, dick tracy

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visi

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?

On today's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily delves into Tim Burton's 1989 film Batman. This pop culture phenomenon was controversial prior to its release, as comic book purists objected to the casting of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman. They assumed his acting would make the film a comedy rather than gritty storytelling. While Emily agrees that Keaton brings a level of gravitas and pathos to his depiction of Wayne, she finds something unsettling about how pop culture gives us a billionaire who spends his time and money beating up purse snatchers rather than fixing the infrastructure of Gotham City. That said, Batman--or at least this iteration of the Dark Knight--is ultimately a mafia movie, which is not at all interesting to Emily, until you add a psychopathic clown to the mix. And of course, casting Jack Nicholson as the Clown Prince of Crime (with serious mental health issues) was inspired.

Keaton's Batman may not be the pop culture hero we deserve to overthink right now, but he's the one we need to spend too much time overanalyzing. Throw on your headphones and overthink the caped crusader along with us!

Mentioned in this episode:

Review: Learning to Love Tim Burton's BATMAN (1989)

Why Fans Didn't Want Michael Keaton As Batman

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, pop culture, film, psychology, mental health, batman, comedy, movie reviews, storytelling, comic book, analyzing film tropes, classic movies, tim burton, cultural commentary, film analysis, gen x childhood, nostalgia, 80s and 90s movies, kim basinger, michael keaton

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tr

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

The truth is, I thought it mattered. I thought that music mattered. But does it bollocks. Not compared to how people matter.

Tracie goes back in time to her semester in London in 1997 by revisiting the British film Brassed Off. This “emphatically empathetic” piece of 1990s pop culture crystallized the importance of collective bargaining, worker solidarity and mutual aid for a not-quite 21-year-old Tracie. With today’s eyes, both the film and the politics of 1980s-1990s Great Britain it depicts are more complicated than the pop culture made it seem 30 years ago. Nevertheless, there are some beautiful storytelling–and musical–beats in this real-life story of a coal mine and the brass band associated with it. North American audiences may never have realized this, if they only went by the marketing copy that inaccurately described the film as a “delightfully entertaining comedy treat.”

Remember, band’s on Tuesdays. Tonight’s origami class, so throw on your headphones and take a listen.

Mentioned in this episode:

Den of Geek: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/brassed-off-a-90s-uk-film-that-demands-not-to-be-forgotten/

Tags: deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, pop culture, film, movies, storytelling, movie reviews, comedy, comedy podcast, romance, women, fiction, cultural commentary

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Yes, I did go to my high school reunion. It was just as if everyone had swelled.

On this week's episode, Emily revisits the ultimate high school reunion film, Grosse Pointe Blank. Rewatching John Cusack's charming and hilarious performance of professional killer Martin Blank made it clear to her that this is one of the movies that you can either enjoy as a dark comedy with a second chance romance and a happy ending, or you can dig into the moral, ethical, and mental health implications of Martin's "moral flexibility," but it's a little difficult to do both. But even while questioning the cultural commentary (or lack thereof?) of a comedy film about a hardened killer, the Guy sisters find a lot to love in the movie's humor, banging soundtrack, examination of masculinity, and exploration of the importance of connecting with your past. Also, apparently even paid assassins want to unionize.

If you're ready to give this comedy a shot (but don't shoot anything!), put on your headphones and take a listen!

Tags: deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, comedy, movies, pop culture, comedy podcast, romance, cultural commentary, mental health, psychology, john cusack, film, movie reviews, classic movies, fiction, society, storytelling, women, feminism, soundtrack

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

...And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.

Today, Tracie returns to another one of the movies that traumatized her and Emily in early childhood: the 1984 film Gremlins. Written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante, the film was advertised as a fun family fantasy, with the adorable mogwai Gizmo (described by Roger Ebert as a cross between a Pekingese, Yoda, the Ewoks, and a kitten) as too cute for little kids to pass up. What the 1980s movie going audience didn't know was that this film was playing with storytelling and fiction tropes and really tap-dancing on the fine line that separates comedy from horror. Columbus and Dante created a film about their love of movies, using Gremlins as an opportunity to recreate some of their favorite scenes, characters, and moments from classic movies. And then, like one of the eponymous rampaging gremlins, they stuck it all in a blender and hit frappe.

The result is a fun, weird, scary, bizarre, and sometimes offensive mashup of movies and messages and lessons and metaphors that don't entirely make sense all together, because making sense was beside the point.

Put on your headphones and take a listen. Just don't turn your back on any nearby Christmas trees.

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.cracked.com/article_38101_sexual-anxiety-racism-the-vietnam-war-no-one-knows-what-gremlins-is-a-metaphor-for.html

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi:

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.

This week, Emily brings her deep thoughts about the first of two Christmas movies the Guy Girls will be covering for the 2025 holiday season: Richard Curtis's 2003 romcom Love, Actually.

While both sisters thoroughly enjoyed the 10 interlocking stories of romance, parental love, heartbreak, dubious comedy, and even dubiouser feminism when the film debuted, Curtis's storytelling style hasn't exactly aged well. Not only does Love, Actually lean into the ubiquitous early 2000s culture of fat shaming despite Curtis trying write pointed cultural commentary about how ridiculous that was through the story of Martine McCutcheon's character Natalie, but the women in the movie are consistently treated as objects and prizes to be won, rather than fully formed people. But as Tracie argues, if Curtis believes in True Love, which can happen At First Sight (with the capitalization of those romantic ideals implied), then of course he paints himself into the corner of love based on physical attraction, which means young, slender, beautiful women--and it something we see repeatedly in his movies.

There are still plenty of laughs and poignant moments in this film, so no shade on anyone who puts this in their rotation of Christmas movies to revisit each year. But it definitely works as a time capsule for where we were in 2003.

If Christmas is all around you, put in your earbuds to get it out of your head for once!

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-am-here-to-ruin-it-for-al-1485136388

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely.

This week, Tracie brings her deep thoughts about the 1988 Don Bluth animated film The Land Before Time. Although both Guy girls were a little too old to appreciate this staple of Millennial nostalgia when it originally came out, Tracie loved the hand-drawn animation, the way Bluth's storytelling offered a kid-friendly meditation on grief, and the pop culture trope of found family when she watched the film repeatedly while regularly babysitting dino-obsessed kiddos. There's still a lot to love in this gorgeous animation, even if you discount the technical skill of the artists. The story offers kids a framework for understanding loss and death and the long-term mental health challenges that can remain after experiencing grief. Considering how often children's movies don't allow their protagonists to feel sad for more than a scene, this is truly remarkable.

But as much as the animation doesn't talk down to its audience in regards to Littlefoot's grief over his mother, it also underestimates kids' ability to understand what's happening on the screen and their ability to handle anything other than a MegaHappy ending.

(Also: those dinosaurs lived millions of years apart. Tracie and Emily feel kind of hypocritical that they don't care.)

Throw on your headphones and join us for a scientifically inaccurate but artistically beautiful prehistoric adventure!

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

On this week's Deep Thoughts, Emily brings her analysis, nostalgia--and quite a bit of drool--to the 1992 Baz Luhrmann comedy Strictly Ballroom. Though this indie film, which was Luhrmann's directorial debut, may have gotten lost among the 80s and 90s movies that were bigger blockbusters, the comedy offers an incisive skewering of the insular world of amateur ballroom dancing in regional Australia.

And yet, Luhrmann's direction, the beautiful choreography and dancing by the leads, and the pure joy of Paul Mercurio's Scott Hastings refusing to adhere to arbitrary rules about strict ballroom steps and his willingness to learn from Tara Morice's Fran about the traditional Spanish dance steps brings the viewer along on the journey. As we watch, the film goes from a comedy that exposes the entire ballroom culture as a ridiculous tempest in a teapot to the place where Scott and Fran must make a stand for creativity, art, bravery, romance, and costumes that don't look like someone bedazzled your head.

Unlike many 80s and 90s movies, this one holds up beautifully in 2025 and is delightful from start to finish. If you haven't watched it, please do check it out, possibly before listening to this episode's spoilers. For once, Tracie and Emily's nostalgia was not misplaced!

There's no need to master the bogo pogo before listening in. Just throw on your headphones and let the rhythm move you.

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!