Cozy Quilt Cinema

Love, Simon (2018): A Perfect Score, a Ferris Wheel, and the Courage to Be Seen

We finally watched Love, Simon (2018) and gave it our first-ever perfect score, 9 of 9 on the Stitch Count!
This week we're curling up with the story of a kid counting down the days to graduation with one big secret, a string of anonymous emails that turn into something like falling in love, and a Ferris wheel ending that had us both tearing up. We talk about what it means to live in a closet that's also a kind of protection, the jokes that teach you to hide before you even know you're hiding, and what it feels like when the people who love you finally just... see you.
It's a sweet movie, maybe even a little too sweet at times, but it earns its feelings honestly. And sometimes that's exactly what we need, a story that doesn't have to hurt to mean something.
Grab your blanket and join us for Love, Simon, a perfect 9 of 9 Stitch Count score, and a long talk about the courage it takes to walk forward after coming out.

Boy Meets Girl (2014): The Trans Rom-Com That Cracked My Egg

Some movies entertain you. Some movies find you at exactly the right moment and crack something open. Boy Meets Girl (2014) is both. This week Beth and Michelle curl up with Eric Schaeffer's tender, sex-positive trans romantic comedy set in small-town Kentucky, the story of Ricky Jones, a 21-year-old trans woman with big dreams, a best friend named Robby, and a chance encounter with a Southern debutante that changes everything for all of them. It's imperfect, it's organic, and it was absolutely perfectly timed for one trans woman. We talk trans representation in 2014 versus now, the difference between tolerance and acceptance, why this film doesn't need a villain, and what it means to finally be seen by the people you love most. Wrap yourself up and hit play. Happy Pride!

Pieces of April (2003): The First Pancake, a Broken Oven and I Feel Fine

Pieces of April (2003), written and directed by Peter Hedges on a shoestring budget and two digital camcorders, is a small film that quietly breaks you open and leaves you with the pieces. Katie Holmes plays April, the black sheep, the first pancake, preparing Thanksgiving dinner for an estranged family that has never really seen her, using an oven that doesn't work, in a building full of strangers. Meanwhile her mother Joy, played by Patricia Clarkson, is dying of cancer and riding in a station wagon toward a meal she's not sure she wants, cooked by a daughter she's not sure she knows how to love.
This one got personal. We talk about first pancakes and found family, about Bobby and his suit, about a squirrel funeral that was never really about a squirrel, and about what it means to mourn something before it's even gone.
Stitch Count: 8 out of 9.

Moonrise Kingdom (2012): Outcasts and Found Family with Pat Green & Allaina Humphreys

What does it cost to be truly seen by another person and what does the world do when it doesn't know what to do with you? This week, Beth and Michelle climb into the blanket fort with two extraordinary guests to unravel Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (2012): a story of two lonely twelve-year-olds who decide to stop waiting for the world to make sense and just run toward each other instead.
We talk found family and the uniforms we wear to prove we belong, compassionate authority versus institutional indifference, what first love looks like when you've never been shown you're worth staying for, and why the children in this film understand something the adults have spent decades forgetting. It gets emotional. It gets real. It gets a little bit into D&D metaphors and we are not apologizing for that.
Joining us today are two people who do the work of being seen and helping others reclaim that, every single day.
Pat Green is a columnist, author, documentarian, and freelance photojournalist with over 20 years of storytelling behind him. He's the editor-in-chief of GenX Watch, Executive Director of the Thrive Initiative Trauma-Informed Creative Arts Program, and the author of the Hearts of Glass series, a GenX coming-of-age saga about found family, resilience, and what it means to survive the decade that raised us. Find him at patgreenauthor.com.
Allaina Humphreys is a graphic designer, accessibility consultant, and civic leader based in Bolingbrook, Illinois. She's the Chair of Bolingbrook Pride, VP of DEIA for Illinois Now, and one of only 15 people selected nationally for the Emerge America electoral training cohort. She's a disability advocate, a mother of three, and a person whose entire body of work centers the full humanity of every person in the room. Find her @allainahumphreys on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn or, as she'd be the first to tell you, just Google it. She's the only one.
THRIVE AND SURVIVE: FIRST AID Sunday, May 31, 2026 | 1:00 PM – 4:30 PM Fountaindale Public Library, Meeting Room A 300 W Briarcliff Rd, Bolingbrook, IL 60440
Pat and Allaina are hosting an afternoon gathering for survivors, artists, writers, and truth-tellers centered on healing, creativity, and connection. The event marks the premiere of the very first issue of the Thrive & Survive Zine: First Aid, a survivor-created zine exploring the stories, art, poetry, and creative tools that help people keep moving forward. The afternoon includes live readings, interactive creative experiences, real conversations about survival, and fundraising for local organizations supporting survivors. All are welcome.
For questions: patgreenauthor@gmail.com
Also mentioned in this episode: Michelle spotted a shirt and we are legally obligated to share it: the "I'm White But Not That White" tee from God Ain't Petty

Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) Retrospective: More Than a Caricature

This week we're curling up with a film that, we believe, has been misread by its own trailers for twenty-five years. Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), directed by Sharon Maguire, written by Helen Fielding, Richard Curtis, and Andrew Davies, and starring Renée Zellweger, Colin Firth, and Hugh Grant is not, it turns out, a film about a clumsy woman falling into love. It's a film about a woman falling into herself.
We revisit Bridget's diary entries, her Chardonnay budget, and her genuinely iconic fireman's pole moment with fresh eyes and find something we didn't expect: a protagonist who owns her mistakes with more dignity than most films afford their leading men. Along the way, we look at the slow-burn case for Mark Darcy, the sexiest fight scene not involving a hammer, and why "I like you just as you are" hits harder at the end than it would have at the beginning.
We also run the film through the Stitch Count (the Castellini test, Gaze and Inclusivity, and the Tremors Gold Standard) and come out the other side with 5 out of 9 stitches holding it all together. Tighter than you'd think, but perhaps looser than it should be.
This one's dedicated to one of our listeners, Nicole. Happy birthday!
Music by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/pianocafe_kumi-35185506/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=370804">pianocafe_Kumi</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/music//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=music&utm_content=370804">Pixabay</a>
 

Sam Raimi's Send Help (2026): The Office Was Always the Horror

What happens when the woman who's been doing everyone else's job for seven years finally finds herself in her element? Sam Raimi's Send Help (2026) answers that question in the most gloriously unhinged way possible and Beth and Michelle are here for every morally complicated minute of it.
Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien survive a plane crash. Only one of them was prepared for it. This is survival horror, workplace comedy, and a master class in knowing things other people don't and Beth and Michelle dig into all of it: the toxic boys' club that built the monster, the moment Linda Little stops apologizing for being the smartest person in the room, and why you'll cheer for choices you absolutely cannot defend. Also: a very theatrical boar, Danny Elfman doing exactly what Danny Elfman does, and the eternal question of whether cooperation is possible when one party keeps being a scorpion about it.
The Stitch Count rolls in at 5 out of 9 — better than it sounds, messier than it looks.
This episode exists because of a recommendation from our friend DisMoviePod, and we are so glad she sent us here.
DisMoviePod runs a podcast dedicated to disability representation in film, with in-depth analysis on Bluesky and Letterboxd, and free monthly screenings you should absolutely be attending. Currently posting from bed and still doing more for film criticism than most..
Reviews: boxd.it/5d4uh
Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/dismoviepod.bsky.social 
Website: dismoviepod.com
Support her work: ko-fi.com/dismoviepod

Evolution (2001): Skyance, Cloaca Shampoo & Orlando Jones

It's 2001 and Y2K didn't end the world, so Ivan Reitman sent aliens to finish the job. One rapidly evolving cloaca at a time. Beth and Michelle cozy in with Evolution (2001), the Ghostbusters-adjacent sci-fi comedy starring David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Julianne Moore, and Dan Aykroyd doing the most Dan Aykroyd thing anyone has ever done on screen. They remembered this one being funnier. They were wrong. But Orlando Jones still deserves more work, the CGI creatures are genuinely adorable, and it turns out Head & Shoulders is load-bearing. They run the film through the Stitch Count and the results are about as promising as napalming a nitrogen-based life form.
It's not science, it's Skyance.

Bridesmaids (2011): A Comedy About Grief and Self-Worth

It’s a rainy weekend so why not curl up on the couch with us and watch Bridesmaids (2011) and you’ll see why this movie has been living rent-free in our hearts for over a decade.
Yes, there's a woman shitting in the street in a wedding gown. Yes, someone pukes on the back of someone's head. But here's the thing you won’t get until you are well into it, Bridesmaids is secretly a film about grief, self-worth, and what happens when change shows up before you're ready for it.
We dig into Paul Feig's direction, Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo's whip-smart screenplay, and why Melissa McCarthy's Megan might be the most emotionally intelligent character in the whole film. We talk about Annie's slow-motion breakdown, Helen's misguided love language (it's money, it's always money), and why a single cupcake says everything you need to know about where Annie is in her life.
We also run Bridesmaids through our Stitch Count,  the Castellini Test, our Inclusivity and Gaze lens, and the Tremors Gold Standard, of which this movie earns a 7 out of 9. Which, honestly? We were as surprised as you're going to be.
Featuring a very strong Wilson Phillips defense, an extended digression about Brazilian restaurants that we stand behind completely, and at least two deeply personal stories that we probably should have kept to ourselves but didn't.
Things might not always go your way, but as the song says, you just have to hold on for one more day.

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993): This Poem Sucks, But the Romance Doesn't

Beth and Michelle pull a worn, half-forgotten quilt from the top shelf and shake out the dust — because So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) has been sitting up there for thirty years, and it is absolutely still warm and cozy.
Mike Myers plays Charlie Mackenzie, a San Francisco beat poet with a talent for bad poetry, worse timing, and an ironclad gift for self-sabotage. When he falls hard for Harriet the butcher (Nancy Travis), the universe hands him exactly what he's always claimed to want and his brain immediately decides she might be a serial killer. To be fair, she might be.
This is a 90s romantic comedy that doesn't get nearly enough credit for how genuinely it understands the way fear and love tangle up into something you can't always tell apart. It's slapstick on the surface and something a lot more honest underneath.
Beth and Michelle dig into Mike Myers' dual role, the sharp supporting cast, the original title that should have stuck, and why "commitment phobia" hits differently when it's played for laughs but written from somewhere real. Then they run it through the Stitch Count to see where this cult classic gem holds together and where the seams show.
Climb into the blanket fort. This poem sucks. The romance absolutely does not.
We talked about Spaceballs: The New One, you can find that teaser here: Spaceballs: The New One

Bedazzled (2000) – Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley & the Fine Print

Beth and Michelle turned the air conditioning on for this hellish comedy. Harold Ramis' Bedazzled (2000) is the Y2K fever dream where Brendan Fraser sells his soul seven times over seeming more doomed but likeable with every wish.
They dig into Elliot Richards's spectacularly bad attempts to shortcut his way to love, the over-the-top basketball scene that deserves its own micro-trial, and Elizabeth Hurley's Devil, absolutely stealing every scene she's in. Because the real question isn't whether you should make a deal with the Devil, it's whether you read the fine print. Join them as they check the seams and tally the Stitch Count to see if this supernatural bargain actually wears well over time.