Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our Nemona listener polls, talk about some online discourse, and preview poor things.
Hello and welcome back to this film is lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. It's another prequel episode, but it's a long one. We got a lot of feedback. We got some discourse to discuss. No, not that discourse, other discourse. And we've got to preview poor things. So we're going to get right into our patron shoutouts. I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why we have one new patron this week at the $15 Academy Award winner level. And they are, and I apologize ahead of time for this name, breens, beans and peen.
Thank you breens, beans and peen for supporting us at the $15 level and yep, thats a name.
Anyways, I believe they came over I say I believe im very confident they came over from good bad or bad bad based on that name, if I had to guess. But yes, appreciate you supporting us at that $15 level, joining the ranks of the rest of our Academy Award winners. And they are, I'll say it again, I guess breens, beans and peen Eric harpo rat Nathan Vic Vega Matild Steve from Arizona Paul Theresa Schwartz Ian from wine Country Winchesters forever Kelly Napier Grey Hightower Gretch just scratch Shelby wonders what could have been with Gaston copywriting that darn skag. V. Frank and Alina Starkov thank you all very much for continuing to support us. We appreciate it. You're all the best.
Katie. It's time to see what people had to say about Nimona.
Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Man on Patreon. We had three votes for the movie, one for the book, and two listeners who couldn't decide.
Nathan said, I gotta vote for the movie. I really liked the book, but as Katie said, this was definitely a story told as it was written. I think the end also felt very abrupt, as can happen with webcomics when the creator halts things due to lack of time or loss of interest. I'm glad Andy Stevenson got the opportunity to polish his story and make the completed version it deserves.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yep. Pretty.
Yeah. In line with what you said, obviously.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Eric, who said, I totally agree with katies summary. The book does show its origins and seems disjointed and inconsistent at times. The movie is definitely a more polished, cohesive piece, but I still chose the book. I like the slightly grittier Messier sprawl of the book over the sweeter, more conventional movie. Also, I will fight you on the most important of issues. I hate pineapple on pizza. I don't like warm fruit, and I don't like squishy or sweet things on pizza. Meat and cheese only is the proper way to repair a slice.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: Okay, so first things first, we'll go back, and I think that Eric, I just wanted to mention, I think Eric's one of the few people that voted.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: For the one of very few, and I think the only person who left a comment.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: So I just wanted to throw that out there. Cause I thought that was fun, that we had somebody go to bat for the book, for the grittier, messier sprawl of the book, which I could see liking now, getting to the more important point, I will fight you on the most important issue. I hate pineapple and pizza. Here's the thing.
If that was your only. If you left it at that, I would have, we can throw hands. But you went on to say, I don't like warm fruit, and I don't like squishy and sweet things on pizza. If you don't like an entire category.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Obviously you were never like, party.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Sure. Like, whatever. It's my issue isn't with somebody who's like, I don't like, I don't like vegetables on pizza. Like, I'd be like, okay, like, they're good. I like them on pizza. But, like, if you don't like vegetables on pizza, like, whatever. I'm not gonna try to convince you that green peppers belong on pizza. If you say you don't like vegetables on pizza, I think. But point being, my ire is reserved for people who think it's somehow, like, sacrilegious or something to put pineapple. I would agree, or carve some special spot out for pineapple as being somehow significantly worse on pizza or being bad on pizza compared to other things. Again, if you have a whole category of a type of food you just don't like for whatever reason, like, I don't, whatever.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: And I actually, and I agree with Eric more maybe than, than you would think. I do like pineapple on pizza, but I don't like squishy things in general.
We always cut our pineapple up small, which really helps with that.
[00:05:20] Speaker A: Oh, that is a big thing.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: You definitely, if it's in big chunks, I couldn't do that.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: You definitely too much. Yeah, you definitely want, like, tidbits at the biggest. You don't want, you don't want rings for sure. No, and you don't even want chunks. You honestly want tidbits or some other small like version like that. Usually I get tidbits, I think, and then even chop them up a little bit more slightly. But I've also, not that it matters, but pizza making is one of my hobbies and I've honestly don't even. I like pineapple on pizza a lot, but I honestly, at this point, don't even make pineapple pizzas that often because I honestly slightly prefer, like, honey for sweetness on pizza, depending on the type of pizza and maybe some other things. I still really like pineapple on a pizza, but it's. I don't.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't make it as big.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: I don't make it a ton.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
I also have a contentious relationship with warm fruit. That can really go either way for me.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, all of that is fair. I just. Well, I mean, I like warm fruit in most desserts, to be fair. Like an apple pie or anything like that, with like a crisp or whatever. I'm down for that apple or that, like warm fruit. But yeah, no, again, less to do with like broad categories of. And also, even then, even if you specifically don't like whatever, who cares? It doesn't matter. But I just think, though, I will argue against that person, I'm not going to argue against somebody who's like, I don't like this entire category of food. I'm like, okay, well, whatever. Like, I don't know. Sure, yeah.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Kelly Napier, who said, oh, I feel like such a cop out for voting that I couldn't decide, but I really couldn't. I thought the graphic novel was delightful. I enjoyed the mostly in media res feel of the story, where we didn't get bogged down with the need for a lot of exposition or backstory. The story just went along and you were made to intuit the information you needed. I also enjoyed the style of the drawings, and I'm so glad I read it on my phone so I could screenshot the panel of a shark with boobs to text to my husband, because that's the kind of randomly weird shit we enjoy in the graphic novel. I also enjoyed the minimal amount of characters we had to follow. I understand why they needed to introduce more people for the movie, but I loved only focusing on the main four people in the graphic novel and not worrying about anyone else. I also really enjoyed the movie. We watched it as a family and all of us were engaged and laughing the whole time. But I always bristle against the need some screenwriters feel to have all the storylines relate back to each other. Why did Nimona have to be childhood friends with glorith in the graphic novel? Those two characters were just fine standing on their own, and I didn't think they needed to be connected for the story to work. I was pleasantly surprised the movie was so open about the relationship between Ballester and Ambrosius, especially since at one point, Disney was attached to this and we all know they love to bury their gaze.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
I think the only part I would not even disagree with because I don't have it to compare to the book, obviously, but I thought, like, the connecting Glorith and Nemona's backstory worked perfectly fine in the movie. And I think without having the context of having read the book, you wouldn't. I don't think I would have realized that. It didn't feel forced, I guess, was my point. It didn't feel like. Like a strange choice. Like, I didn't feel like.
I didn't feel the artifice of the movie putting those characters together, that. That when that story got revealed, ultimately at the end, I was like, oh, yeah, no, that makes sense. Like, that works. And then finding out that that's not how it was in the book, I was like, okay. Like, I could see. I could see both working, but the. The version in the movie, to me, just as a movie alone viewer, didn't feel.
I don't know. Yeah, artificial or, like, forced or, like, it didn't. It didn't pull my attention as something that was potentially, like, kind of cobbled together, I guess, is my point. I thought it worked as it was.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I agree. And that was something that I had included as a change that I liked, and I'll stand by that. But I do think they could have done it without including that, and it probably would have still worked fine.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Shelby. Wonders what could have been with Gaston copywriting.
I liked the book, but I loved the movie. I think they did an excellent job building on the material, and some of the jokes really got me, such as Ambrosius line. When they're watching the security footage of Nemona as ballester plays the saxophone, something isn't right. He hates freestyle jazz.
I'm only sad this movie doesn't have the cultural impact it deserves.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that line got me, too. But, yeah, I was a little surprised, too, that. Cause, like, when I saw that it was nominated for an Oscar, I didn't even know what it was like. I was unaware of what this movie. Like, at the time, several months ago, when I was reading the different categories for what was nominated for awards, I was like, Nimona. Oh, don't know what that is.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't really recall seeing much advertising for it or anything, which I guess shouldn't come as a surprise. Um, because it's progressive.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: That. And I think more so just that it. Yeah, the, like, I remember.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember seeing people, like, talk about it here and there a little bit.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: But that's the other thing. I didn't see a ton of talk about it online either. Like, even disregarding, like, any actual, like, formal marketing push. I didn't see a bunch of, like, usually when something like the movie, like poor things, obviously there's discourse, but I also just saw people talking about poor things, whereas I didn't really see people talking about. Or for a more similar example, when the. The last. What is the puss in boots? The last wish came out like another animated kids movie. Saw tons of people talking about that movie, did not see tons of people talking about this movie, which I just thought was interesting. And maybe that's, you know, audience of who, whatever. But it is kind of surprising because I do run in, you know, my online circles are very progressive and tend to like animation. So the fact that it didn't really get a lot of play, it was interesting, but we're doing our part. We convinced our coworker, one of our co workers families, to watch it, and they loved it. So there you go.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Steve from Arizona, who said, I don't have Netflix, so I couldn't watch the movie, but I could only find four steves in this one. Oh, well. On to poor things.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: I mean, fair enough. Yeah, fair enough.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: And our last comment on Patreon was from Matilde, who said, haven't been able to get to the book, but I doubt I would have loved it as much as the movie. Anyway. It made me laugh and cry. That montage, man, it hits hard. And I think it's the best allegory for the trans gender fluid experience I've ever seen. The soundtrack is excellent, and it's also extremely quotable. Big pluses in my book. I quote the squire quite often, because. Let me go ahead and pass this problem on to someone else. And who'd protect Todd? Are both said with such relatable emotion I can't help myself.
Most of all, Nemona is ADHD personified. And yes, I can get why some might find it annoying, but it made me feel very seen psineapple on pizza is bomb.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Fuck the haters knew I liked Mathilde, but yeah, I obviously agree with all that. And the one thing I think I wanted to just touch on a little bit was the Nemono's ADHD personified. And yes, I get why some people might find it annoying.
I don't know, it's interesting.
I know quite a few ADHD people, I think, in my life, and it was not obviously a very diverse set of people and how that manifests, but it's.
I don't know, the nature of the humor in the first act or whatever, to me, felt less ADHD and more writer's room trying to do a million jokes. But that's just me, obviously. I don't. I don't know.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: I mean, I could see how you could get that from kind of like the pacing of it and the way she's like all over the place.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Especially in that first act.
I don't know if it was intentional, obviously.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it very well could have been. It very well could have been. And again, obviously to manifest differently for different people and all that sort of thing. And it's. And again, it wasn't like a huge annoyance. It was just a little. A little much at times. But. But I'm glad you felt seen.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Over.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: On or sorry you felt seen depending on. Sometimes you don't want to be seen in that regard.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Depending on it seems like a positive thing here. Seems like it.
Over on Facebook, we had five votes for the movie and zero for the book. Reyna said, I haven't read the book, but this movie gave me so much joy and good laughs. With both genuine involvement and intricate, lovely spectacle. This is a great example of lgbt representation in an expanding number of genres. Certainly made my week when I watched it. Thanks to you guys for your content.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: That's awesome. Thank you and we appreciate you commenting, but yeah, I agree. Great LGBT across multiple different kind of avenues from multiple angles, for sure.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Our other comment on Facebook was from Jason, who said, this film is mandatory viewing for my family and anyone who lays eyes on these words.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Sorry. It's like the ring. You have seven days to watch Nemona. Now, if you've read this comment, or Jason will track you down, crawl out of your tv and force you to watch Nemona.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Oh goodness.
Nemona tells a story of identity, be it gender, social, or even religion. That is summed up best when Nemona makes it clear that she isn't a girl or a shark or a kid, she's Nemona. And if you respect that, then you respect her. A powerful lesson that teaches young people to cast off the specter of fear of the unknown by showing there is no boogeyman outside the walls. And that absolute authority, even with cool technology, is still a fascist authority. The only shortcoming is the continuation of the institute, really. But the movie smashes religion, bigotry and fear in an exciting and delightful way.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Yep, completely agree. I think one point that you kind of alluded to there that we didn't really touch on specifically that I wanted to talk about a little bit, was that I did really, what this made me think of was that it is a really. What do you say? It's a story of identity, be it gender, social or even religion. Summed up best, when Nemona makes it clear she isn't a girl, a shark or a kid, she's Nemona. If you respect that, you respect her. I think an important part of that that this movie kind of gets to because Nemona never really lands on a specific identity. And I think this is really important for kids, but to everybody, but also specifically kids, is that it's okay to explore your identity and, like, that's fine. And you don't have to, like, pick one, pick a specific identity and, like, be that thing. You know what I mean? Like, she's very, you know, again, regardless of what that identity is, whether it is gender, whether it is whatever, you can explore those different identities, explore those different labels for yourself or beliefs for yourself, you know, if it's something like religion or whatever, and that you don't have to, like, just go with what either was ascribed to you or, you know, the first thing you land on, like, even if you like, oh, I, you know, this is what identity. I think I.
Maybe a year from now, that won't be the case, and that's fine, too. So.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Over on Twitter, we had two votes for the movie, zero for the book, and one listener who couldn't decide. We had a comment from WB Deadname out the 28 May.
I believe this person is a film director.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Ah, okay. Let's say that must be a movie or a book. WB. Deadname is that.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: I think WB is their initials, I think. And then I believe their first name is Warren. And then deadname is the movie.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Oh, okay. That would make sense.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: And they said, think. I missed the poll and didn't get a chance to see the movie, but based on your episode, I think the film is the winner. For me. It sounds like a really interesting movie and I'll definitely be checking it out. Wonderful episode, as always.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Yes. So the movie is dead name two words. Know nothing about it, obviously, but it is Warren is the I don't know if they want to say to share their whole name, but yes, Warren B. Is the director and writer of it looks like it's a feature. It's an hour and 24 minutes long. So a psychological thriller dead name follows Nia, a retired hit woman who is brought back into the game by her criminal family, for one last job, to take out her brother Ian to stop a war. As she searches for Ian, things get more complicated, leading her down a path of twisted nightmares and uncomfortable truths that will reshape her reality forever. So there you go. Sounds juicy, but thank you warren for your comment. Didn't get a chance to move in? Yeah, check it out. It's well worth your time.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Another comment on Twitter from Lass or Lassie? Not sure vote I think the movie and the comic pretty much complement each other extremely well. The book has the more extended lore and character development. The movie tells the whole thing in a simpler way, but keeps the essence of the story. The changes made sense so glad the film exists. Yeah, I totally agree. Glad the film exists too. We didn't have any comments on Instagram or threads, but we had on Instagram four votes for the movie, one for the book, and on threads one vote for the movie, and zero for the book. And then on Goodreads we had one vote for the movie, zero for the book, and we had a comment from Miko who who said, I felt the same first draft quality in the comic as in many long form web projects. It's understandable as the author cannot view or get feedback about the completed work before publishing. When doing things chapter by chapter, I found comparing the two versions difficult due to the different mediums. A webcomic can be personal, unlike any group project, it's just somebody passionate about their story. However, I thought the movie captured its core well, made good changes, and I enjoyed it greatly because the comic was so clearly done. As an exploration of Selph, I'd be interested in finding out how much Stevenson was part of the adaptation and if the changes were due to this changed views or just normal adaptation changes like how the raging monster part of Nemona has to be killed or has to be empathized with. Is this a change in perspective, or because there's a difference between a monster born out of rage versus anguish? Or is it just screenwriters thinking it would make a better scene? I will give this one to the movie with the asterisk that the comic is well worth a read.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Sweet. Yeah, no, I agree with all that. I would also be interested. I'm sure Indy Stevenson has probably done some interviews or something about, you know, he seems like a fairly online person, so I wouldn't surprise me if he's been on some podcasts or something talking about Nemona. So it wouldn't surprise me to be able to find that information that you seek.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Miko also said a couple of words about the statistics. It was great to hear you enjoying the data. Thank you for all your kind words. This is truly just a hobby project, though. I have a stem background.
[00:20:58] Speaker A: Okay, so not like your day job is not a data compilation or whatever. Data analysis.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: I used metacritic instead of rotten tomatoes because metascore can be found on IMDb. So I could easily get two ratings by checking only one page.
[00:21:14] Speaker A: I don't know if I mentioned it in the episode, but I realized that afterwards, I think while I was editing, I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, they obviously used I think. Cause I think I turned to you while I was editing and said, that's why Miko used Metacritic is because it's on the IMDb page and he's already scraping IMDb information. So that makes perfect sense.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Metacritic is also missing a good id system for movies, making scripting more annoying. Also, good eye catching. My mistake with Rambo. I hope to keep the data up to date since adding new entries only takes a minute.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I say it should be easy now to add additional movies. So cool. That's. Again, thank you. That's super awesome.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: And then on YouTube, we didn't get any votes per se, but we did have one comment from the leap 29 46, who I believe is Steve from Arizona.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: That's what I thought. Isn't that Steve from Arizona? Pretty sure that's Steve from Arizona who.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: Came back to say fun episode. And Nemona is my spirit warrior because pineapple does not belong on pizza.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Fair enough. I mean, not fair enough, you're wrong. But I don't know, maybe you have a reason beyond just a stupid one. But.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Let us know.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Let us know.
Anyways, how'd it break down?
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Our winner this week was the movie with 16 votes to the books, two, plus our three listeners who couldn't decide.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Cool.
That's it for all of our listener feedback. Thank you all very much for everything you had to say. Writing in it's. We love talking about what you guys think and discussing it, so keep doing that. If you want to join in on that discussion, just head over to any of our social media platforms. We're on everything. Yeah. And then you can interact. But now, Katie, it's time to learn a little bit about the poor things discourse.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: God help us.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
So before we get to our main episode on poor things, we want to talk a bit about why we pushed this movie up a bit in our schedule. And the reason for that is the discourse.
So I think primarily due to its prominence at the oscars, poor things went through a pretty raucous discourse cycle on the Internet not too long ago.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Mainly Twitter.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Mainly Twitter, which is the main.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: Which is where a lot of that kind of thing tends to.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: And it's honestly the main social media that I get this kind of stuff for. Like, I probably am on all of them fairly equally, but I don't really. I don't find anything new on Instagram. Instagram, I literally just follow people I, like know and like, see their photos and stuff. I don't, like, search out other stuff. Yeah, Facebook, same thing. I'm in, like, some groups for stuff I like, but other than that. But Twitter, I get to see everything. So that's kind of where I come across this stuff. Anyways, the seeing some of that play out made me specifically really want to be a part of it, or at least, you know, have a grounding in it, because I had already wanted to watch this movie pretty badly because I had heard it was very good. But then seeing the discourse made me even more desirous of consuming it so that I could at least figure out where I felt like I landed in the discourse. So what we're going to do for this segment, it's not really a true learning thing segment, but we want to give just a little bit of a primer on the discourse. Primer. I never know. I always say primer because it sounds cooler, but I don't know which one. It actually is a little bit of a primer on the discourse to set up for our discussion in the main episode. This is not going to be comprehensive in the slightest, and we're not really going to get into, like, the nitty gritty of it. This is just sort of like, what the discourse is. So that when you go into the film, like the listeners and us go into the film, we can kind of have this bouncing around and thinking about it a little bit as we watch.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: So we can revisit this in our main episode.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: In our main episode and really get into it.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And we won't really be giving, like, our thoughts, per se. No, that's what I mean on this discourse, because we have not watched the movie yet.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Exactly. This is literally just presenting some of the bits and pieces of the discourse to kind of prime for when we actually discuss it. Discuss it in the. In the main episode. So here's the question that I think this course essentially boils down to. It's pretty simple. Is poor things misogynistic? So I'm gonna. We're gonna get into some examples here from some different places, but I wanted to give a quick shout out to youtuber Celeste de la Cabra, who compiled some of these things. Now, I had already seen these other places, but I was trying to find.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah, going back and trying to find this kind of stuff can be challenging.
[00:25:52] Speaker A: I literally spent, like, ten minutes searching because I didn't know who the person that tweeted this one tweet was. But I remember seeing this tweet at the time, but I didn't know who it was or anything because it was some random person and I couldn't find it. And then I was. I was like, oh, I remember there was some YouTube video that discussed this. I remember seeing some YouTube video that discussed this topic. I didn't watch it, but I, like, saw it in my recommendations. And so I went and I remembered the channel. I went back and clicked on that. And in their sources, they had a whole bunch of, like, tweets and reviews, and I was like, perfect. So that's where I pulled all this from. So I just wanted to give a shout out to that youtuber.
[00:26:24] Speaker B: We love a bibliography.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yes, they do have a video about this very specific topic, topic where they try to also kind of figure out the discourse and what, you know, is it misogynistic or not, in their opinion? So you can watch that as well. But I would recommend doing that after watching the movie. So I wanted to read one of the main tweets that I saw that was critical of the film and kicked off, I think, a lot of the discourse that at least that I saw. And this tweet is from a barrister in the UK who is a person who helps domestic assault, sexual assault survivors, has written several books on feminism, is a feminist.
I don't know if influencer is the right word. I don't know. Prominent person.
[00:27:02] Speaker B: Scholar, maybe.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Maybe. Scholar might be. I don't know if they're technically a scholar. I don't know. I don't know the right term for them. But yes, and I don't know if I'm even gonna say their name here, but that just giving a little bit of background. This is not like a conservative. This is not, or whatever this is, you know.
And their initial tweet said, and it's a picture of poor things because they don't.
[00:27:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like a picture of the movie poster.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Picture of the movie poster. They don't mention the title, but this is the most misogynistic film I've ever seen. A perverse man kidnaps a suicidal woman, then transplants her brain without her consent with the brain of her fetus. She's emancipated by having sex with lots of men. Yawn. This film is not avant garde. It's glorified pedophilia.
And that tweet has 14 million impressions, 3000 likes, 3.5 thousand retweets. I assume a lot of those are quote retweets, probably, and 600 replies.
And I wanted to hit a couple just of the responses of just to kind of hit like what people? Some of the like quote retweets that were kind of dunking on this. One of them was, I loved when Willem Dafoe looked at the camera and said, everything my character has done is good. That one has 24,000 likes. So I'm saying this to get across that it's not like this person's opinion was, like, wildly popular, because it was not, but it was out there and at least somewhat prevalent.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: It kicked off a lot of ensuing.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Yes, it kicked off a lot of ensuing conversation. There was one, I wanted to read this tweet because it was somebody who actually agreed that the film was misogynistic. So they, quote, retweeted that and said, see, it's hard because I do really think this film ends up being really misogynistic overall. But then I question it when I have people like this on my side, quote, retweeting that, saying that. So they, they agree the film is misogynistic for reasons they don't go into them, or I couldn't find that person's reasons, they weren't in that tweet or a reply to that tweet. So I don't know. But in their opinion it is. They just didn't say why. Getting away from Twitter a little bit.
There was a review by Mick LaSalle, who was writing for a website called Datebook, which I never heard of.
And this one also appeared. This review is quoted on Wikipedia in the reception section. So it got prominent enough that it's cited on Wikipedia. And I'm just going to read an excerpt from it that just says, worst of all, it's dishonest. It purports to be a feminist document, but it defines a woman's autonomy as the ability to be exploited and not care. At one point, it places its heroine in a turn of the century Paris brothel and presents that as a smart financial move. There's another review that I'm going to read a little bit from, which is on vulture, and this was written by Angelica Jade Bastienne. I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce their last name, but they wrote for virle vulture, and I actually pulled this because the vulture article is paywalled. They have a letterboxed account. And I went to their letterboxed account, this critic, and was able to pull this quote from their letterboxed account. From their review quote, there's a corroded spirit to the story, like it's intermittently possessed by an edgelord who's unaware most women menstruate and an early wave white feminist who believes having sex is the most empowering thing a woman can do. For all the fucking, there is no menstrual blood.
In many ways, the film demonstrates the limits of the modern cis male auteurs vision for and about women, particularly their sexual selves. Watching it for any sort of feminist revelation is akin to craving the salty chill of the ocean and the spray of a wave upon your face and having to settle for resting your ear against a curling seashell, listening to only the echo of what you truly desire. So well written there, but interesting opinion, you know, and then the last thing I just wanted to kind of present here in this little discussion segment was Emma Stone herself was a producer on the film. I'll get into some of this in the, in the movie facts, but she has actually responded to some of the criticism. And I'll include a clip or two of that here in the actual episode. But essentially, she says that she, like, she's being interviewed by Olivia Colman. Olivia Colman. And he's like, you know, there's been some discussion, and I think this is around the time all this sort of discourse was kicking off. She basically said, like, you know, there's been some discussion about the film being misogynistic or this being, like, problematic in certain ways. And again, I'll include at least a clip of what Emma Stone says in response to that. But the general gist of it is she feels like that's slightly or pretty, I guess. What's the word?
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Well, she was a producer on the movie.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: She was a producer on the movie.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: She talks about how a lot of the discourse focused on how, oh, it's a male writer, it's a male director. The male gaze. And it's supposed to be feminist. And the male gaze. The male gaze. The male gaze. And she was like, I feel this is not a direct quote, but basically it summed up to her feeling like her input on it got completely erased.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Erased. And that. Yes, that.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Because she was a producer, and it sounds like she had quite a bit of creative.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: Not only a producer, a fairly involved producer, because producer can mean a lot of things, and a producer credit can mean many different things. But in this regard, it sounds like she was very instrumental in the actual. And again, I'll get into this a little bit more in the movie facts, into the actual production of the film. And wasn't just like signing a check or anything like that and then acting in it. She was, you know, a collaborator in the actual creative process of the film. And she felt, yeah, like some of that discussion erased her input in the film and the fact that, you know, she is a woman who had, you know, was involved in the creative architecture of this film. And that some of that discussion feels like it's like, ironically, it's centering the men in that discussion and not the women that were involved in the film, which, you know, there's layers to that. It's obviously fair to say, hey, it was a male. It was a dude who wrote it and directed it. You know, that's. You don't just completely ignore that when you're discussing something like this. But also, you know, Emma Stone had a lot of input on it and that kind of thing.
[00:33:20] Speaker C: So I think the thing that's been sort of challenging to me lately, there's been a lot of questions about, oh, this was a, you know, a male writer and a male director, the male gaze in this situation, you know, how does that feel? I think it takes away my agency here. Absolutely. You know, because you're completely. I mean, all of this. I am a producer. I went into all of this. This is the story that we wanted to tell and the way we wanted to tell it. And so it feels a little strange to me to sort of have myself taken out of it because I was acting in it as if I wasn't, you know, a major voice there, too. Exactly. Or I was being told what to do. And I know that that does happen, and it's a huge systemic problem in so much of film and television. But here, that was very much not the case. And it was, you know, I.
So, yeah, yeah, no, that's why I like the fact. I wanted to know the fact that you're. You are producer, totally aware of all of that, and you decide you choose you. You know, that's.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: That's.
[00:34:25] Speaker C: Yeah, brilliant.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: Point being, that's just a little like a high level kind of discussion of some of the discourse around this. There's a lot more out there about it. But basically just wanted to have that primer of, like, as we go into the film to watch it and especially for our audience, so that when we get to this discussion in the main episode, people are, like, a little more aware of where that's coming from. Because if we just launched into this discussion of whether or not we think it's misogynistic, some audiences or some listeners might be like, what? You know, maybe not, because I think that's inherent to the film that we were going to talk about that, but just know that it has been a discourse. It has been a discussion on the Internet. And so, yeah, we're gonna watch it through that lens and kind of see what we think about it. And also compared to the book, obviously. Cause that's.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: And the book was written by a man.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Yes, and a man. Like a long time ago. This movie was written not that long ago. Oh, was it not? I thought it was the eighties.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: This was published in 1992. Okay, well, so that's within our lifetime.
[00:35:28] Speaker A: Right? My point being that. So this film was written and produced, like in the last ten years.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Whereas the nineties. I'm just saying, like, there's a dude writing a story in 2020 is probably has a slightly different perspective on these topics than a dude writing the story in 1990, I guess, is my point.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: But I mean, the way you said a long time ago, it made it sound like you thought it was written in like the 18 hundreds.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: No, sorry. That's fair. Not a long time ago. That's accurate. But a while ago to the point where things have changed a little bit in terms of, you know, how we approach. The book was written pre me too. The movie was written post me to, I guess. Yes, not that again, that just as a random inflection. Not random inflection point, but an inflection point that at least has. Would affect the way that I think, you know, this film would be written at least to some extent anyways. So, yeah, that's. That's some of the discourse.
Go find more if you want to go read some hot takes, but we'll have our own hot takes when we get to the main episode. But before we do that, we gotta preview it. And we're gonna preview first the book. Poor things.
This is Bella.
Bella, this is Mister McCandless. Hello, Bella.
No, she's an experiment.
[00:36:56] Speaker C: Good evening.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Her brain and her body are not quite synchronized, but she is progressing at an accelerated pace.
Tell me, where did she come from?
I shall.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: Poor things. Colonial episodes from the early life of Archibald McCandless, MD, scottish public health officer, is a 1992 novel by scottish author Alastair Gray.
I looked a little bit on his Wikipedia page. I didn't offhand recognize any of the titles of his other works, but according to Wikipedia, his most well known novel is 1980 one's Lanark. Lanark. I'm not really sure, although this 1 may be his most well known now, I would imagine.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yes, I think. Well, that being said, nobody knew it was.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: That is true. We got multiple comments not knowing that this was a book.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: I also did not know it was a book until I looked. Was on the Wikipedia page during the discourse, looking at stuff and saw, oh, it's based on a book. We can do it.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: I knew it was a book because you sent me the first, like, teaser trailer for it, and I immediately looked up if it was a book.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Because that's all I do now.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Is check and see if there's every single movie.
[00:38:24] Speaker A: I may have learned it at the same time. Then you probably told me, oh, it's a book. But.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: But Grey's books are mainly set in Glasgow. I hope I'm saying that right.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: Glasgow.
[00:38:36] Speaker B: Glasgow.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: No, it's Glasgow. Oh, God, I don't know. Glasgow. Glasgow. Sorry, I've been there, but I don't remember.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Mainly set in that city and other parts of Scotland. He was a scottish nationalist.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Okay, I don't know the term.
I have to look up what a scottish nationalist means. This is somebody who wants Scotland to be independent, I think so.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: I'm not 100%.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: Nationalist is a sticky word.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Nationalist is a sticky word. And especially around here in America, it's.
You know, you're probably not a person we agree with.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: Like I said, I just wasn't sure.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Describe as a nationalist. But there are other places where, you know.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. I just. When I hear the word nationalist, it makes me go, hmm. Like, that's all. I just like. Yeah. Because I understand that in certain places, for certain, like, you know, it makes sense in certain ways, but, yeah, it's.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: So. Anyway, poor things is presented as the memoir of Doctor Archibald McCandless with Alastair Gray, the author claiming only to be its editor. Similar to how the Princess Bride is structured, it also utilizes a lot of epistolary elements.
The main part of the text is like a novel, quote unquote. But it does incorporate fictitious letters, newspaper articles and historical documents, as well as illustrations that the text claims were done by William Strang, who was a real life, turn of the century scottish artist. They were actually done by Alastair Grey.
[00:40:21] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: The novel was called a magnificently brisk, funny, dirty, brainy book by the London Review of Books, and it won the Whitbread award and the Guardian Fiction Prize both in 1992. And that's about all I have on it.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Fair enough. I don't know what the Whitbread award is. I assume the Guardian Fiction Prize is like the Guardian newspaper.
[00:40:46] Speaker B: I believe so, yes. I'm also not sure what the Whitbread award is.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: Interesting. All right, well, now it's time to learn a little bit more about poor things.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: The film, he says a little bit that's actually a lie, for it is a happy tale.
[00:41:05] Speaker C: I am Bella Baxter, and there is.
[00:41:07] Speaker A: A world to enjoy.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Circumnavigate.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: It is the goal of all to progress. Grow a woman plotting her course to freedom and delightful.
Oh, poor thing is a 2023 film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, known for the favorite, which is a movie I think we should watch. I don't know if it's based on a book, but I've heard very good things about it. The killing of a sacred deer and the lobster are the main films, but I think he's done a couple other smaller ones, but those are the big ones. And it was written by Tony McNamara, who wrote the favorite, the tv show the great and Cruella, which is interesting. So collaborated again with Emma Stone on this one.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Not based on a book.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Okay, the film stars Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Rami Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Susie Bemba, Gerard Carmichael, Katherine Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, and Margaret Margaret Qualley, among others. Pretty, pretty incredible. Cast has a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes and 88% on Metacritic and a 7.9 out of ten on IMDb.
It made 117.2 million against a budget of 35 million, and it was nominated for a ton of awards across the board, including at the Oscars. Best picture, best director, best original score, best actor in a supporting role for Mark Ruffalo, best adapted screenplay, best cinematography, best editing. Didn't win any of those, but it did win oscars for best makeup and hair, best production design, best costume design and best actress in a leading role for Emma Stone.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: I am very excited about the costumes.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah.
And according to IMDb, the film won 113 other awards and was, I think that includes the Oscars, 113 awards and was nominated for 405 other awards at festivals, Golden Globes, like all these different places. So development on the film started as early as 2009 when Lanthimos visited Scotland to talk to Alastair Gray about require acquiring the rights to the book. Lanthimos said of Alistair Alasdair, I don't know how to pronounce that of Gray. Quote, he was a very lovely man. Unfortunately, he died just a couple years before we actually made the film. But he was very special and energetic. He was 80 something when we met. And as soon as I got there, he had seen Dogtooth, which was, I believe Lanthimos is like first feature film potentially, and said, quote, I had had my friend put on the DVD because I don't know how to operate these things. But I think you're a very talented young man.
And then nothing really happened with the project for a while, it would seem. But then Lanthimos would revisit the project while he was filming the favorite, a film that Emma Stone is in. And he discussed the movie with Emma Stone at the time, and she discussed the process of making poor things and said that it was different from making the favorite because she was a producer, saying, quote, it was so interesting to be involved in how the film was being pieced together from cast to department heads to what have you. Ultimately, Yorgos was the one making those decision decisions. But I was involved in the entire, but I was very involved in the process which started during the pandemic. We were reaching out to people and casting and everything during that time because we couldn't go anywhere, end quote.
She also has stated several times that she really adored this project and jumped fully into preparing for the role, taking dance classes and actually dyeing her hair for the part, which apparently the character's hair is supposed to be lighter than it is, but it ended up getting dyed like a very deep black, like a blue black, like completely black. And that wasn't really what they initially were going for. But then when Lanthimos saw it and they discussed it, they were like, actually, we like this and think it works for the character. So she kept the like, what is the jet black? That's the word, like jet black hair. She had said that she liked the idea of portraying a woman free from societal pressures, saying, quote, its such a fairy tale and a metaphor. Clearly, this cant actually happen. But the idea that you could start anew as a woman, as this body thats already formed, and see everything for the first time, and try to understand the nature of sexuality or power or money or choice, the ability to make choices and live by your own rules and not societys, I thought that was a really fascinating world to go into. Even though Bella has obviously been through trauma in her life, it just isnt there for her now. She was the most joyous character in the world to play because she has no shame about anything. She's new. You know, I've never had to build a character before that didn't have things that had happened to them or had been put on them by society throughout their lives. It was an extremely freeing experience to be her. End quote.
Getting into some more production stuff. Willem Dafoe has makeup. His character is a very unique, if you've seen the trailer or watched the movie, very unique looking character. His makeup took 4 hours to apply in the morning and then another 2 hours to take off at the end of the day. So he spent 6 hours in the makeup chair. Every day that he filmed is the first feature, this is a fun, random fact. The first feature film to be partially shot on Kodak's 35 millimeter ektachrome color reversal motion picture film stock since it was revived in 2018.
That's a film stock that a lot of people might recognize from National Geographic because they used it over the years in a lot of their photography for color photographs when Kodachrome film was too slow. In this instance, slower film means it's less sensitive to light, takes longer to expose. So if you're in a low light setting, you need a faster film. And so they would use this electrichome because it's a faster. It exposes faster. Essentially, according to cinematographer Robbie Ryan, the film, Bram Stoker's Dracula from 1992, directed by Coppola, served as one of the main sources of inspiration for everybody making the film. And I think if you watch, if you've seen Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I actually have not, but I've seen enough of it aesthetically, I can definitely see that the inspiration that they pulled, getting into some IMDb trivia here that I thought was a lot of fun, in particular about Mark Ruffalo seems like an interesting guy. I don't know. Mark Ruffalo had a lot of doubts about his performance during the shoot.
Quote, I said to yorgos, I don't think I'm right for this. And he just laughed at me, and he's like, it's you which seems kind of like a.
[00:47:55] Speaker B: That feels like an insult based on.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: What I'm very little I know of his character seems a little bit like an insult. Ruffalo apparently would often joke that his friend Oscar Isaac, who was filming nearby on a soundstage, was gonna be called in to replace him because he was so, like, unsure that he was, like, right for this role. And apparently one day Willem Dafoe pranked Marco Ruffalo by taking him to a room where Oscar Isaac was waiting, who was in on this joke. And they both informed Ruffalo that he had been fired and was getting replaced by Oscar Isaac, which I could also see Oscar Isaac in this role feels like it would fit him very well from, again, just the trailer that I've watched more from Ruffalo on this role, which I thought was interesting.
Again, Ruffalo seems like an interesting guy. I'm 55 now, and you start to think, okay, I'm on the downside of this hill in a way. And there's a limitation to how long it's going to last and how long my body's going to hold up. And honestly, I'm getting a little bored of myself as Mark Ruffalo. I was trying to take the ship as close to the reef as I could possibly get without actually running aground. There's a daringness in this that I normally wouldn't have. I was just like, fuck it. If I go down in a flaming disastrous performance, I don't really give a shit. But I think that was the best time I've ever had on a movie. To play that character, to do all the physical comedy, the language, and to make the arc that he made. It was so crazy and so exciting. It's 1ft on a banana peel and the other in a grave. End quote.
Lanthimos wanted to really make the film feel like an older Hollywood film. And one of the things they did to do this was that they shot on. It's almost entirely shot on soundstages. And they used painted backgrounds and painted sets for a lot of it to make it feel like those older movies that had the painted background. We talked about Princess Bride. The dual scene on the top of the cliffs of insanity is on a soundstage. You could tell this sky is painted on a wall behind them. Basically, the composer for the film, Jerskin Fendrix, actually makes a little cameo in the movie. And he's the Lisbon restaurant musician who plays a bizarre instrument in the dance scene. So there's a guy playing some sort of instrument and that's actually the composer for the film, which I believe I mentioned was nominated. I think it was nominated for. It doesn't matter anyways, so getting to some reviews just to see what people had to say. Writing for times, Stephanie Zuckerik said, quote, poor things is Lanthimos's finest film so far, a strange, gorgeous looking picture that extends generosity both to its characters and the audience. She called Stone's performance wonderful, vital, exploratory, almost lunar in its perfect oddness. Peter Bradshaw for the Guardian said, quote, it's a virtuoso, virtuoso comic epic, and added that Stone gave a hilarious beyond next level performance.
David Rooney for the Hollywood Reporter said, quote, it's an insanely enjoyable fairy tale, adding that Stone, quote, gorges on it in a fearless performance that traces an expansive arc most actors could only dream about, end quote. Variety's guy Lodge wrote that the film, quote, rests on a single astonishing performance by Stone, end quote. So lots of, I mean, she won the oscars, a lot of people saying that she crushed this one. And then on the more critical side, we have a couple here. Manola Dargas was the chief critic at the, or is, I believe the chief critic at the New York Times was not as impressed, saying, quote, the story felt monotonal, flat and dull, or became more monotonal, flat and dull over time, saying, quote, the movie's design is rich, its ideas thin. It isn't long into poor things that you start to feel as if you're being bullied into admiring a film that's so deeply self satisfied there really isn't room for the two of you. End quote. But Dargus went on to applaud stones acting as well. And then getting back to actually, because this is the vulture. Review from Angelica Jade Bastienne. A different section here, as I mentioned, was very critical of the film. Bastienne said, quote, this isn't a sincere treatise on female sexuality. It's a dark comedy for people who carry around an NPR tote bag and criticized the film for failing to, quote, take a sincere interest in the interior conflicts of its protagonists. Bastian identified the decision to make Bella Baxter, mentally a child as, quote, the primary failure of poor things sex scenes, citing Bella's depiction as an example of the, quote, born sexy yesterday trope, saying, in many ways, the film demonstrates the limits of the modern cis male auteur's vision for and about women, particularly their sexual selves. And that's a quote from, from the other part that I had.
But they did praise Holly Waddington's costuming, which Bastian called, quote, the greatest triumph of the film. End quote. So there you go. It's interesting. Cause I feel like the point of the movie is that it's deconstructing the porn straight trope. But I could be wrong. We shall see.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Could be.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: But that is, that feels to me.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: The vibe that I've gotten and that's also the vibe that I'm getting from the book so far. And I, to be honest, do not have a ton of faith in media literacy these days.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Look, from what I've seen, Angelica J. Bestienne is like a very, a fairly renowned critic and seemingly wouldn't fairly media.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: Literate, not even really talking about them more. So just like the general reaction. Reaction. And especially like Twitter.
[00:53:26] Speaker A: And it's interesting. I said, I admit it's interesting because the people that are objecting to it aren't, you know, that have objected to it have done so in a way that, like, they're not. They're people that you would expect to be fairly media literate.
[00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:53:41] Speaker A: And probably are. I'm not, you know, like they're aware of the born sexy yesterday trope. So, like, they have media literacy. Like, it's not like there's somebody who just. Right, like, who's just a blank slate and goes and watches movies and then like, you know.
So it's interesting. I'm gonna be interested to see how. Because again, maybe we'll agree. I don't know. I'm very fascinated to find out. Very fast.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: And find out we shall.
[00:54:06] Speaker A: We shall. As always, before we wrap up, wanted to remind you, you can do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, goodreads threads, all those places mentioned that earlier. You can also write us a nice little review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify any of those places. Or if you want to support us, head over to patreon.com thisfilmislit and get access to bonus content and stuff like that. Katie, where can people watch poor things?
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Well, I believe it is out on physical copies, so you can check with your local library.
It's a fairly popular film. There's a good chance they'll have a.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: Copy of it, I would think.
[00:54:36] Speaker B: Probably. Or a local video rental store, if you still have one.
[00:54:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: Otherwise you can stream it with a subscription to Hulu, or you can rent it for around $6 from Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube, Fandango at home, or spectrum.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: There we go. Yeah, I saw it was on Hulu. Like, we have a Hulu subscription. So that's that's how we'll watch it. But hopefully you can find it somewhere and watch it so you can join the discourse next week when we are talking about poor things, very much looking forward into it and having that conversation. But until that time, guys, gals, not better pals and everybody else, keep reading books, keep watching movies, and keep being awesome.
