Hey, what’s that under the tree? Did Santa come early? Why, it’s a gift! Unwrap that bad boy and click play — it’s the latest episode of Indie Beat. On this installment, I spoke to film critic, screenwriter, comedian, and fellow podcaster Jourdain Searles.
Jourdain began her life in Georgia but soon moved to New York City to pursue her interest in cinema, attending the Master’s program at NYU. Since then she has run her own media criticism website Fishnet Cinema, an outlet solely contributed to by female-identifying writers and focusing on how race, gender, sexuality, and class pervades the various iterations of media we consume. Some personal highlights of the site are Jourdain’s assessment of the Amy Schumer vehicle “Trainwreck,” contrasting Schumer’s unapologetic stand up with the rather tropey “good guy tames a bad woman” plot of the movie and her look at “Transparent” which details her wrestling with a show that many of her loved ones have personally critiqued and one that she has also seen take a large dovetail in quality in later seasons.
There’s also the piece that originally leads me to Jourdain’s work — her review of “Logan.” While my taste tends to lean towards international/art house/slow/what have you, I do have an appreciation for action movies and comic-book-hero yarns, especially after a long day and with some nudges from certain substances. I go in with fairly low expectations and expect nothing more than one or two fun action set pieces — and hey, sometimes I’m pleasantly surprised with what I see. “Logan,” despite the overall praise I had read, was not one that struck me well for many different reasons. In fact, the opening action piece is one that I found particularly unsettling given its connotations. I didn’t really see this mentioned elsewhere until I read Jourdain’s piece “The Thoughtless Diversity of Logan,” which hit on a lot of what I was thinking plus other things I hadn’t considered when watching it.
Jourdain’s most recent stint has been at Bitch Media as a Pop-Culture Criticism Fellow. One of my favorite pieces is her look at “Sorry To Bother You” which takes on the character of Detroit, played by Tessa Thompson, and how paper-thin her character is. The movie, she writes, is a generally strong film and one of the best of the year, but is still not without its glaring weaknesses.
In addition to all this writing, Jourdain also co-hosts a podcast with Bronwyn Isaac called “Bad Romance” which takes a look at romantic comedies, one movie once a week. The two humorously dissect each flick while also celebrating the nature and positives found within the genre.
What more could you want? Click that play button to hear Jourdain and I speak about her reviews, problematic faves from our past, 90s indie American movies, and more!
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