Friendly conversation / Dictatorial silence

Today: Carrie Frye, writer and book editor at Black Cardigan Edit; and Brian Hioe, Taipei-based editor, translator, activist, DJ, and co-founder of New Bloom.

Issue No. 219

Women Talking
Carrie Frye

The Iron House
Brian Hioe

As December draws to a close, Flaming Hydra contributors will be sharing things from the year that fortified or comforted or delighted us—the things we most want to hang onto. Here’s Carrie Frye with our inaugural entry.

Women Talking

by Carrie Frye

I Saw What You Did Podcast

I can pinpoint when I cathected on I Saw What You Did, the weekly film podcast hosted by Millie De Chirico and Danielle Henderson. It was January 2021, and the movie under discussion was Graveyard Shift (1990), which is based on a Stephen King short story and set in a creepy mill in Maine.

The two hosts wanted listeners to understand that the mill is heavily infested with rats. Way more infested than any ordinary “We’ve got a rat problem” situation. More like, “You come into your job expecting to see a line of rats on whatever machinery, and it doesn’t even faze you.” The conversation then zeroes in on the uncanny character work of the movie’s “rat actors.”

Millie: I swear to god they should all have been nominated for some kind of Screen Actors Guild award. That part at the beginning where they’re lined up on the top of that wall, I was like, Damn, these are good acting-ass rats, man.  …  How does that work out? They’re fucking professionals.

Danielle: I want to know, Who trained ya? Who trained ya? Was it Pizza Rat? Is there a lineage? What’s going on here?  …

Millie: They’re like the Barrymores. The Hustons. It’s this lineage of rat actors.

It’s the most casual of riffs. You bob an observation to a friend, that friend is bobbing it back, putting a little spin on it, and then next thing, Alakazam!, there in front of you is the Lionel Barrymore of rat actors. Silly, but behind the silliness is the gameness to follow one another’s leads.

It’s the stuff of real friendship, and it’s what alchemizes the movie talk in I Saw What You Did. Millie and Danielle are both wildly insightful on the movies they discuss, but they don’t monologue their observations. They converse, and their wild and sprawling conversations are such a blast to listen to. One of the steadiest bright spots in my mental review of 2024 was the Tuesday-morning drive to the gym, listening to a new episode of I Saw What You Did. (Millie + Danielle + deadlifting = joy.)

The pair’s final episode, alas, was released Nov. 26—but if you’re new to it, that still leaves you with four years of archives to check out.There’s a themed double feature of movies to discuss in each episode, with each host making a pick. So the theme for Graveyard Shift was horror movies with underground settings, and the two paired it with C.H.U.D. (1984). Another week the movies might be In Bruges (2011) and Swingers (1988), and the theme exploring the dynamics of actors who work together across a many-year trajectory. For comedies where aliens come to earth, they chose Attack the Block (2011) and Earth Girls are Easy (1995).

Their “All The Way Up” episodes were a recurring favorite. For these Millie and Danielle would pick an actor who can be relied on to go ALL IN on a performance. Your DiCaprios. Your Jason Stathams. They did beautiful programming around Black History Month each year, too. It wasn’t the only time they’d highlight Black filmmakers and actors, but in those weeks they found so many  new and interesting ways to aim the spotlight: A double feature of Aailiyah movies, or of Cicely Tyson’s; a one-two of Black horror films, like Us (2019) and Tales From The Hood (1995); or a nice hit of “Sanaa Lathan In Love” with Love and Basketball (2000) and Brown Sugar (2002). Then in summer, they’d dig into big dumb fun movies, perfect for watching while flattened under a ceiling fan in August.