Speaker 1: We're Tom Lorenzo and this is the Bitter Kitten Movie Club.
Speaker 1: Hallo Kittens, Welcome back to another edition of the b
Speaker 1: k MC is supplemental edition of the PSO podcast where
Speaker 1: we take a look at one film and unpack it
Speaker 1: and I want to say terror to shreds, but although
Speaker 1: we might actually tear this one dish, this week's film
Speaker 1: is Mac Is the Bride, directed by Maggie and written
Speaker 1: by Maggie chillenhol starring Jesse Buckley, Christian Bill, Annette Benning,
Speaker 1: Uh Peter Sars, Guard Cruz Jake, all of Maggie's friends.
Speaker 2: Family, family she hired.
Speaker 1: I was really looking forward to this entry because we
Speaker 1: hadn't seen it, and because it's modern, it's from the
Speaker 1: last year, and you know, a lot of the films
Speaker 1: we've been doing lately have been films we you know,
Speaker 1: really really well, or films that are like thirty or
Speaker 1: forty years old. So it's nice to return to the
Speaker 1: modern era and also to unpack a film that, honestly,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of information going into it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see this film when the trailer first
Speaker 1: dropped like eighteen months ago, and it looked amazing to me.
Speaker 1: And I know I read a few reviews when it
Speaker 1: came out, but I genuinely did not know what the
Speaker 1: film was. I knew it was a Bonnie and Clyde
Speaker 1: take on the Barida Frankens s liign, but I really
Speaker 1: went into this one cold.
Speaker 2: I was surprised that he kind of disappeared.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was there was a well it didn't
Speaker 1: get good reviews, right, you know, and well, I do
Speaker 1: want to say, let's start with this Magigillen. Hall's directorial
Speaker 1: debut was twenty twenty One's feature debut was twenty twenty
Speaker 1: ones The Lost Daughter, which we talked about on our
Speaker 1: podcast at the time, which is a very good and
Speaker 1: it's a very good film. However, I came away from
Speaker 1: this film with the idea that, Okay, she's not fully
Speaker 1: baked as a director yet. She really she's got skills,
Speaker 1: she's got a perspective, she's got a great visual sense.
Speaker 1: But I don't feel that. I look at the Bride
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is the this is the work
Speaker 1: of someone who's just not there yet. And I do
Speaker 1: want to say that part of this was colored by
Speaker 1: her appearance. A couple of weeks ago, Magagillen Hall she
Speaker 1: appeared on Turner Classic Movies to introduce some films in
Speaker 1: one of the one of their programs they bring on
Speaker 1: yes and they and.
Speaker 2: They usually a director or an actor, y, yeah.
Speaker 1: And they and one of the and one of the
Speaker 1: films that she introduced was Bebbet's Feast, which we had
Speaker 1: just done a b KMC about. So we were watching
Speaker 1: it and I was alarmed. Actually, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: she doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. Like
Speaker 1: Ben Mangawitz, the host actually had to push back again
Speaker 1: she got a couple of things wrong, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's fine if you don't if you get a few
Speaker 1: things factually wrong in the discussion of a film, but
Speaker 1: it was more like her perspective on that film was
Speaker 1: just not correct. It was you know, she at one
Speaker 1: point she said all of the elderly actors were not actors,
Speaker 1: and he was like, actually, no, they are like legend
Speaker 1: legends in Danish filmmaking. And then at another point she
Speaker 1: said the director was only interested in Babet and he
Speaker 1: made everybody else look terrible, So that Babbitt and it
Speaker 1: was like, no, that's not what's going on in this story.
Speaker 1: So I did come away from that thinking she's interesting,
Speaker 1: but I don't think she's quite there yet as a director.
Speaker 1: She doesn't seem to get certain nuances. And I understand
Speaker 1: I'm laying all this groundwork because I know that people
Speaker 1: are going to think that sounds condescending or dismissive of
Speaker 1: a female director. I can't really help that. Like I said,
Speaker 1: her debut film I thought was amazing, amazing. I think
Speaker 1: she's very talented. But between that interview and this film,
Speaker 1: I came away thinking, Okay, she's just not there yet.
Speaker 1: I want to see more from her. It's sort of
Speaker 1: like Olivia Wilde when she did Don't Worry Darling. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't a fully baked film. And my understanding is
Speaker 1: that her new film, The Invite, is supposed to be amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm not diminishing a female director. I'm pointing out that
Speaker 1: a lot of times when actors move into directing, they
Speaker 1: don't always get it right right, and some of them
Speaker 1: need time to figure it out. And that was my
Speaker 1: take on The Bride, was that great ideas, really great ideas,
Speaker 1: great visuals. She pulled out some amazing performances, although really Frankly,
Speaker 1: the only truly amazing performance was Jesse Buckley, and I
Speaker 1: think probably you just need to point a camera at
Speaker 1: Jesse Buckley, But I don't want to diminish her as
Speaker 1: a director and as a writer. It's an accomplishment this film,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot about it that I actually really
Speaker 1: really loved, and very little about it that I hate.
Speaker 1: In fact, I can't say that I hate any part
Speaker 1: of it. I just kept getting frustrated with it because
Speaker 1: it just didn't feel like she was following through on
Speaker 1: some of her concepts. That's my intro.
Speaker 2: What do you want to say? True? Is that Windy
Speaker 2: announced The Bride the movie. I was very excited about it.
Speaker 2: I was like, that's interesting. It's a different take. We're
Speaker 2: going to focus on the bride and not on freakancy.
Speaker 2: And then when I read that she was going to
Speaker 2: be directed in the movie, I was like, of course,
Speaker 2: she's a feminist. She's a wonderful person. She's actually very
Speaker 2: interesting as a person.
Speaker 1: And as an artist.
Speaker 2: As an artist, she has very interesting things to say
Speaker 2: about the industry, about women in general and all that.
Speaker 2: So I was like, she's perfect for that. So I
Speaker 2: was very looking forward to and then when it was
Speaker 2: also announced that Jesse Buckley was going to be the Brider,
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, perfect match. So I was
Speaker 2: curious about it. I watched the trailer and I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, great, let's see. And then I kind of
Speaker 2: forgot about it because people stopped talking about it and
Speaker 2: it didn't get very good reviews, as you said, and
Speaker 2: then I just was like, well, i'll watch it later.
Speaker 2: So I watch it. We watched it separately, we didn't
Speaker 2: watch it together. My first reaction, I'm.
Speaker 1: Not because I was watching The Pillies game less.
Speaker 2: Yes, while I was watching The Bride. Yeah, my first
Speaker 2: reaction was like, what the hell am I watching here? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You were annoyed.
Speaker 2: I was like, what is going on here? It's just
Speaker 2: felt like too much. Then I read a ton of
Speaker 2: interviews with her and the pretty much. She admits that
Speaker 2: it was too much for her, that she was a
Speaker 2: little scared, and that she felt like overwhelmed most of
Speaker 2: the time. And then every interview.
Speaker 1: She's sorry to say that comes across, and every interview.
Speaker 2: She gave, she talks about how today most of the
Speaker 2: movies are don't really are defined by a gender, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: a genre and she feels like, and then she mentions
Speaker 2: like one bet or after another or whatever she talks
Speaker 2: about that, well, look at that movie, for example, you
Speaker 2: know what is that? So she every interview she kept
Speaker 2: repeating the same thing that movies today are not really
Speaker 2: defined by one genre, and she felt like she wanted
Speaker 2: to do something like that. And I feel that's why
Speaker 2: the movie feels a little all over the place. Sometimes.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's a musical, it's a horror movie,
Speaker 2: it's a love story, it's all that, which is fine,
Speaker 2: But at first I don't. I don't think. I think
Speaker 2: for a movie to succeed, that's just my opinion, you
Speaker 2: really have to have a core. You have to have
Speaker 2: a basic understanding, right of what message you get?
Speaker 1: What are you trying to say here? What is the
Speaker 1: point of making this movie?
Speaker 2: What is the message here? I agree, what is the
Speaker 2: takeaway here? Otherwise the audience is lost, you know, the
Speaker 2: viewer is lost. That's how I feel about it. So
Speaker 2: in the beginning, I was like, what am I watching here?
Speaker 2: I had no idea, and so that was it. I
Speaker 2: appreciate many things about it. Anyway, we'll talk about all
Speaker 2: the details.
Speaker 1: But let me that was my first thing, so generally
Speaker 1: on the same page, and I don't think there's gonna
Speaker 1: be much disagreement about where we where this film fails
Speaker 1: for us. So before we turned on the mics, I
Speaker 1: brought this up and we both said, all right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about that on the mic, which was I really
Speaker 1: didn't get the whole Mary Shelley thing. I just didn't
Speaker 1: get it. It felt very confused to me. It had
Speaker 1: me running off. I mean, I knew the broad particulars
Speaker 1: of Mary Shelley life and everything, but the idea to
Speaker 1: portray her as this sort of I mean, she came
Speaker 1: off fairly crazy, right, she came off like unstable. She
Speaker 1: came off I don't know. It's not for me to
Speaker 1: unpack who Mary Shelley was. If that's the version of
Speaker 1: her that you wanted for this film, that's fine. I
Speaker 1: just I what are you doing here? Like, what's the point?
Speaker 1: You know, Mary Shelley is the author of the Frankenstein story,
Speaker 1: but you actually placed her in this story and then
Speaker 1: you had your lead character possessed by her. What is
Speaker 1: the point? First off, it confuses the viewer because is
Speaker 1: this meta or not? Or are we I mean, at
Speaker 1: a certain point. I guess we were supposed to believe
Speaker 1: that Mary Shelley from the Grave is telling another version
Speaker 1: of this story, and but that's not how the film
Speaker 1: plays out, or the film gets very confused about how
Speaker 1: that sort of thing plays out. Another example of this
Speaker 1: is and yeah, you can be you can interpret these
Speaker 1: things anyway you like. But I feel like if you
Speaker 1: don't as a director, if you don't have a point
Speaker 1: for showing me this, then you're just confusing me. At
Speaker 1: the very end of the film, when they're in the
Speaker 1: drive in theater and he's talking to her and then
Speaker 1: they both appear on the screen. Now they had that
Speaker 1: happen earlier in the film, and yeah, that's a subjective
Speaker 1: thing there in the movies, and they see themselves up
Speaker 1: on screen. But the way that scene was shot, Penelope
Speaker 1: Cruz also saw them up on screen. She kept reacting
Speaker 1: to them on screen, And I'm like, you can do this,
Speaker 1: you can do this sort of fantasy based thing, the
Speaker 1: interpretive sort of thing, but you have to have a
Speaker 1: reason for it. And I don't understand what's the reason
Speaker 1: for that, right.
Speaker 2: I think there's too many elements tried to be injected. Yeah,
Speaker 2: at the same time, My understanding is she gave interviews,
Speaker 2: She gave me interviews, and she talks about how well
Speaker 2: the writer Mary Shelley, Well, apparently I don't know much.
Speaker 2: I don't know all the details. But apparently it was
Speaker 2: kind of a dare when she wrote the book, you know,
Speaker 2: because she was a woman and she wanted to prove
Speaker 2: that she could write a book as a woman to
Speaker 2: her friends and all that, and she told that story.
Speaker 2: So I think in the idea here was to what
Speaker 2: if she had a different story in her head, or
Speaker 2: if she framing does not support that, what if she
Speaker 2: had a different character, or what if she wanted to
Speaker 2: develop the Bride more, you know, as a full on,
Speaker 2: you know character, because the apparently this movie is based
Speaker 2: on the nineteen thirty five version of Frankenstein correct the
Speaker 2: Bride of Frankenstein. And apparently in the movie, the nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty five version, the Bride only appears for like two
Speaker 2: minutes or whatever, like she's not right. And so the
Speaker 2: whole idea was to write a movie and direct a
Speaker 2: movie about focusing on the bride. And so what if
Speaker 2: Mary Shelley had all these ideas that she never used
Speaker 2: for the Bride? But and I got that, all right.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at Mary Shelley here in the beginning of
Speaker 2: the movie, but why is Jesse Buckley playing her?
Speaker 1: So that was very confused, Bob of me as much
Speaker 1: as what are you trying to everything that you were
Speaker 1: saying that's lovely? That does not come across in the film, right,
Speaker 1: But that's I think I I think it's very clear
Speaker 1: that she wanted to look at this from a feminist perspective, right,
Speaker 1: I mean in a way that's almost like, well, why
Speaker 1: would you not? I mean, you're a female director making
Speaker 1: this movie in twenty twenty five, how could you not?
Speaker 2: And focusing on the bride obviously.
Speaker 1: So, so she cast a woman as the mad scientist,
Speaker 1: and she cast a woman as sort of the lead
Speaker 1: constable who's trying to track down these monsters.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So all of the basic characters of Frankenstein were gender switched.
Speaker 1: But then she did nothing with that. There's a little
Speaker 1: bit of time where Annette Benning unpacks her own history
Speaker 1: as a mad scientist and her own history with these
Speaker 1: kinds of experiments, and apparently she had a husband that
Speaker 1: she res but she doesn't go anywhere with it, and
Speaker 1: a net Benning just drops out of the film for
Speaker 1: like an hour. Similarly with Penelope Cruz, I get what
Speaker 1: you're trying to do. I do, but at the same token,
Speaker 1: if you're not doing it in a way that's strong
Speaker 1: and makes sense, that I am stuck asking a bunch
Speaker 1: of questions like why is a Spanish woman working as
Speaker 1: a detective in Chicago in the nineteen thirties? Like of
Speaker 1: course I'm taken out by that, And yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess you could just throw you know, history and
Speaker 1: just let her be a female detective in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: as if that was something that existed, Like sure, just
Speaker 1: you don't have to explain. But then they had a
Speaker 1: male cop, go who are you? And why am I
Speaker 1: taking orders from you? Like you can have it both ways.
Speaker 1: You can gender switch these stories in a way that
Speaker 1: is historically inaccurate, much in the same way you would
Speaker 1: have all these for instance, black aristocrats in Bridgeton. You're
Speaker 1: deliberately switching it up. But then you can't have characters
Speaker 1: act like you know, you can't have characters comment on it, essentially,
Speaker 1: because then it pulls you right out of the story
Speaker 1: and we'll get into the performances because I know you
Speaker 1: have things you want to say about Penelope Cruise's performance.
Speaker 1: We'll do that after the break, but right now I'm
Speaker 1: just focused on conceptually. This film did not work for me.
Speaker 1: You pointed out that it is a musical or horror film,
Speaker 1: a love story, or it tries to be all three
Speaker 1: of those things, And as soon as she said that,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, that actually sounds like an interesting movie,
Speaker 1: Like it's not impossible to do a musical horror love story.
Speaker 1: The thing is that I never got the sense that
Speaker 1: that was what she was doing. In fact, it wasn't
Speaker 1: until the final shot of the two monsters grasping hands
Speaker 1: as they that was when I was like, oh, she's
Speaker 1: really doing this as a love story, because it was
Speaker 1: pretty confused up until that point. And this is what
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to. Fine, you want to do
Speaker 1: this as a love story, well you can't spend the
Speaker 1: entire film having Frankenstein lie to her about what he did,
Speaker 1: about what her name is, about who right, and then
Speaker 1: have her what just forgive that. They never get to
Speaker 1: that point. They never really explain why she makes that
Speaker 1: shift at the end of the film, like she was
Speaker 1: really angry when she found out that he had lied
Speaker 1: to him and then okay, no, it's a love story. Similarly, Listen,
Speaker 1: I did laugh when they started doing putting on the Ritz.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you got the reference, but it
Speaker 1: is a reference to young Frankenstein. It's an iconic reference
Speaker 1: to young Frankenstein. But again, there needs to be some
Speaker 1: consistency when you apply that sort of thing. Similarly, at
Speaker 1: the end of the film, when the credits were rolling,
Speaker 1: they played the monster match, and again it's like, if
Speaker 1: you wanted a campy take on the iconography of Frankenstein
Speaker 1: and you wanted to make all these references, I would
Speaker 1: be on board with that, But you can't drop in
Speaker 1: one every hour and then not follow up. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually thought the musical number was fun. It was
Speaker 1: fun to watch. They were all screaming their heads off,
Speaker 1: and the choreography was really great. Didn't really wasn't really
Speaker 1: well explained about what was going on in that scene.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, you can't just have one musical
Speaker 1: number dropped in the middle of a movie. You got
Speaker 1: to follow up on that. There has to be an aesthetic,
Speaker 1: there has to be a consistency to that world. So
Speaker 1: quite frankly, there should have been more than one musical number, right.
Speaker 2: She explains a lot about the process of making the
Speaker 2: movie and why she did certain things. She talks about
Speaker 2: the you know, very much inspired by nineteen thirties musicals
Speaker 2: and how fake there were, the Hollywood fantasy of the
Speaker 2: nine thirties and that's why they.
Speaker 1: Had which is not a very sophisticated take on that
Speaker 1: at all. It's just like, I'm sorry, it's not I.
Speaker 2: Feel that, like things are not very consistent, and they
Speaker 2: I don't know, they feel like separate elements in the movie.
Speaker 2: It doesn't feel like.
Speaker 1: One now, there's no cohesion to it.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's not one big thing. But anyway, I, like
Speaker 2: I said, at first, I was like, I have no
Speaker 2: idea what I'm watching, but I'm gonna watch it and
Speaker 2: you know, go with it, and again everyone is great.
Speaker 2: I also, I actually thought that that Benny did a
Speaker 2: very good job with whatever she had. I mean, she
Speaker 2: came across as this intelligence and I liked that that approach,
Speaker 2: that she was an intelligent woman, didn't wasn't surprised by anything,
Speaker 2: like you know, she you know, just yeah, all.
Speaker 1: Right, why don't we take a short break and then
Speaker 1: we'll get into some of the performances, and also some
Speaker 1: of the things like you just did that we actually
Speaker 1: like about this because I have to. I don't hate
Speaker 1: this movie. I just think it's a deeply flawed one. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, we'll be right back. We're back chatting about
Speaker 1: The Bride. And I did want to get into some
Speaker 1: of the performances. I mean, the performances are fun across
Speaker 1: the board. I don't there's not a single one that
Speaker 1: I didn't like. Jesse Buckley fucking amazing, I mean seriously,
Speaker 1: and especially when she had to do the rapid fire
Speaker 1: shifts between she was playing Ida, she was playing the Bride,
Speaker 1: she was playing Mary Shelley, and she would sometimes have
Speaker 1: to do all three in the same sentence. Fun to watch,
Speaker 1: great to watch. And when she does that primal scream
Speaker 1: thing like just you just feel it coming up from her.
Speaker 2: She's wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is completely wild.
Speaker 2: I did not understand the split personel and in the
Speaker 2: beginning before she actually died, So I don't get that.
Speaker 1: I don't get any of that stuff. The Mary Shelley's
Speaker 1: I don't get it when she's not well utilized, when.
Speaker 2: She's at the restroom with everybody else or the club
Speaker 2: or whatever, and then she started like, well, speaking in
Speaker 2: tongues or whatever. It just made no sense to me.
Speaker 2: I was like, why is she doing that?
Speaker 1: I said, we were going to talk about the performances
Speaker 1: and what we liked. But that is one of the
Speaker 1: main flaws of how the story is told is that
Speaker 1: we are never told who Ida is. And I mean
Speaker 1: there is a certain as you pointed out, in the
Speaker 1: original BRIDI Frankenstein Elsa Lanchester is only in it for
Speaker 1: like two minutes and all she does is scream. She
Speaker 1: gets no lines, she gets no name. So this film
Speaker 1: is a response to that. So it's it's we're going
Speaker 1: to have her speak her truth throughout the entire film
Speaker 1: over and over and over again, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have her seek out her name, right, you know. But
Speaker 1: that quest to find out her name, to find out
Speaker 1: her identity has no weight to it because we the
Speaker 1: audience don't know who that person was. And I get it,
Speaker 1: there's like this twist at the end because she was
Speaker 1: working with the cops and blah blah blah. But I
Speaker 1: think the tragedy of Ida would have been a little
Speaker 1: bit more, a little easier for the audience to grasp
Speaker 1: if we had actually seen Ida as a fully realized person, right,
Speaker 1: We never got to see that. She started acting crazy
Speaker 1: in her first scene and then she was dead two
Speaker 1: minutes later.
Speaker 2: I think the scene's in the car when they actually
Speaker 2: having a conversation about when she questions him and then
Speaker 2: he finally tells the truth and she goes like, well,
Speaker 2: who was I? I don't know who I am. I
Speaker 2: don't know who I was.
Speaker 1: More of that, more of that exactly you had. She
Speaker 1: also had that idea about Ida or the bride inspiring
Speaker 1: women all over to go foul in, and it was
Speaker 1: just dropped in with no follow up. And I know
Speaker 1: that there was a post credit scene or whatever with those,
Speaker 1: but that was actually a good concept. You had an
Speaker 1: idea there, and you just didn't go with it because
Speaker 1: you kept throwing everything at the screen and.
Speaker 2: The Bonnie and Clyde thing, and then they're in the
Speaker 2: paper and that's why every women in the country was
Speaker 2: trying to write it's just be her.
Speaker 1: It was trying to do too much, all right. More
Speaker 1: about the performances, I thought Christian Bale gave a great profile.
Speaker 1: I thought he was also he actually found humor in
Speaker 1: that character. And you know it's you kind of inevitably
Speaker 1: are going to compare it to Jacob e Loordi. Both
Speaker 1: of these films came out in the same year Gamma
Speaker 1: Del Torros Frankenstein and this. And I had my issues
Speaker 1: with Del Torros Frankenstein, mostly because I don't think Frankenstein
Speaker 1: is a is a sexual slash romantic figure. I don't
Speaker 1: think he works that well. That's more of a vampire
Speaker 1: thing than a Frankenstein thing. So and then Jacob Elordi
Speaker 1: was this highly romanticized version of the character, borderline beautiful.
Speaker 1: I mean, they did make him look like but he
Speaker 1: was borderline beautiful. And I didn't agree with that, and
Speaker 1: I didn't like it. And Christian bale I was like
Speaker 1: that that's closer to what if you want to do
Speaker 1: a romantic frank and sign, that's what you do. You
Speaker 1: do this pathetic, somewhat grotesque figure, and they did. They
Speaker 1: made the point of showing like he's not some beautiful
Speaker 1: His body was grotesque, right, And he's like an inceel,
Speaker 1: like he doesn't understand women at all, he doesn't understand
Speaker 1: roman at all. He wants it, and that wanting is
Speaker 1: you know, it's your heartbreaks for him, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, you're like, no, this person should never ever
Speaker 1: ever enter you know, no. And I think he managed
Speaker 1: to straddle that line where you feel the romantic side
Speaker 1: of this character, but you also know there is no
Speaker 1: way that this character is literally a monster.
Speaker 2: No. Again, he's conversation with the doctor the scientists. It
Speaker 2: was very interesting when he's talking about like, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to feel somebody, I want to you know,
Speaker 2: I want to feel love and all that have have apartments.
Speaker 1: Really well done, and and.
Speaker 2: You know the scientists like, yeah, well, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: I had that it's not a big deal. But you know,
Speaker 2: she she doesn't understand that, you know it. He never
Speaker 2: experienced anything. So I just thought it was moments like that.
Speaker 2: I thought it were interesting and deep in a way,
Speaker 2: but then it sort of like evaporates and then then
Speaker 2: we're back to them dancing or running with a gun. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean it's beautiful. It looked beautiful. The costumes were gorgeous.
Speaker 2: The everything about it looked beautiful. It looked expensive.
Speaker 1: The production design is amazing, the costumes, especially obviously hers.
Speaker 2: Yes again, uh.
Speaker 1: Sandy Powell, the legendary costume designer, did the costumes for
Speaker 1: this and again I don't mean to sound condescending, but
Speaker 1: cogentle on Hale gave an interview and I was like, oh, girl,
Speaker 1: you you really don't have the instinct shit where she
Speaker 1: fought with Powell about the orange dress and she's like,
Speaker 1: it's too bright. I wanted a brown dress, and Sandy
Speaker 1: Powell apparently said to her, I don't do brown. And
Speaker 1: they fought over this, and you know she she admitted
Speaker 1: Maggie gentle on Hale, she said, when I saw it
Speaker 1: on set at night, I realized that Sandy Powell is
Speaker 1: a genius. And I was like, Weney, it took you
Speaker 1: too long to come to that realization. I mean, the
Speaker 1: best thing about the one of the best things about
Speaker 1: the films is the visualization of her is how not
Speaker 1: just the orange dress, but the hair, the hair, the
Speaker 1: stain on her face and everything. At one point she
Speaker 1: picks up a piece of black tool and puts it
Speaker 1: in her hair like a veil. Just clever shit like that.
Speaker 1: And then if you look the like her, her tights
Speaker 1: are like turquoise and her boots are red. And none
Speaker 1: of this, none of this is accurate to the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: Like those boots that she was wearing were straight out
Speaker 1: of the Victorian era. The whole thing had sort of
Speaker 1: a steampunk vibe to it. But it looked amazing to
Speaker 1: be a film, and Doctor Euphronis's laboratory also looked amazing on films,
Speaker 1: just had that universal pictures kind of nineteen thirties. One
Speaker 1: final thing about that all of these references. You have
Speaker 1: references to Young Frankenstein and the Monster mash and but
Speaker 1: you don't really have it. You set this film in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, which is when the original Frankenstein films
Speaker 1: came out, and you even refer like I said that
Speaker 1: her laboratory had a certain Universal Pictures feel to it.
Speaker 1: I thought that would be more of an homage to
Speaker 1: Elsa Lanchester somewhere in that film, and I didn't see it.
Speaker 1: You're making all these other references, but you're not going
Speaker 1: to reference the original iconic bride of Frankenstein. That seems
Speaker 1: strange to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I again, I think she had too many ideas.
Speaker 2: I think she wanted a modern take. Maybe that's why
Speaker 2: she avoided the original movie. And you know, there's a
Speaker 2: ton of elements and they're interesting, but when you put
Speaker 2: them all together, it feels like too much and there's
Speaker 2: not a I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was a good idea for a movie, but yeah,
Speaker 1: she just didn't follow through on it. And I am
Speaker 1: looking forward to what she does next because I do
Speaker 1: think she's interesting and creative, but everything about this film
Speaker 1: felt underbaked and confused.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and I think everybody gate. I mean,
Speaker 2: for the most part, everyone gave a phenomenal performance. I
Speaker 2: do think Penelopecrusis is an amazing actress. Yeah, she is
Speaker 2: absolutely fantastic. If you haven't watched any any one of
Speaker 2: her Almodover movies, I mean, she's incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1: But she struggled with this.
Speaker 2: But she she's not good in English. That's the bottom
Speaker 2: line here.
Speaker 1: She's not She's not good in English. She can be good, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think she can. But anyway, I think it's it
Speaker 2: And because the character is not very well developed, you know,
Speaker 2: there's not much there as a character, you combine both
Speaker 2: and it was just like what are you doing there?
Speaker 2: I mean that's how I felt the whole time. I mean, like,
Speaker 2: what's the point of this character? And it's you know,
Speaker 2: she's not doing a very good job.
Speaker 1: I think the film. I'm sorry, go ahead, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think she had this concept, like I said, with the
Speaker 1: female constable, female and scientist, but then she muddled it
Speaker 1: up because she wanted her husband in there and she
Speaker 1: wanted her brother in there. So there were like storylines
Speaker 1: with these two male characters that are just muddying up
Speaker 1: this story. If you had focused on the female detective,
Speaker 1: as odd as that character was, and the female scientist
Speaker 1: and the female monster, you could have had something there, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, it took me a while to understand, what's
Speaker 2: your fascination with this? With this you know actor? Right,
Speaker 2: and even that was not well and then like and
Speaker 2: then and then she when she gave interviews, she talks
Speaker 2: about like, well, he was he's fascinated with movies and
Speaker 2: musicals and blah blah blah, and then with with and
Speaker 2: then his attraction to the bride is because she's she's
Speaker 2: sort of like an actress.
Speaker 1: It was it just so it was not well fought out.
Speaker 1: And that's basically, uh huh, the take on this film.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything else you want to add?
Speaker 2: No? I mean I I I have to say that
Speaker 2: when I watched it last night and then when I
Speaker 2: finished it, I went to bed and I was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what did I just watch? But then
Speaker 2: I woke up this morning and I thought more about it,
Speaker 2: and I things begin to make more sense.
Speaker 1: It's definitely an interesting idea for a film.
Speaker 2: Right, And I was like, all right, now I get
Speaker 2: certain things. And then I watched a couple of interviews.
Speaker 2: I was like, all right, but again, we talk about
Speaker 2: this all the time. You wouldn't have You shouldn't have
Speaker 2: to do all this homework now to appreciate some form
Speaker 2: of art.
Speaker 1: I agree. So an interesting take, but way too confused
Speaker 1: and muddled. That's it for us this week. I have
Speaker 1: to put together a list of films for July's BKMC,
Speaker 1: which I have not done yet, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's going up until Monday, so I don't have a
Speaker 1: list for you just as of yet, and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know how many. I think there are five
Speaker 1: Fridays July, in which case we might take next Friday
Speaker 1: off because it's July third, and who the hell's listening
Speaker 1: to a podcast on that weekend? So we'll be back soon.
Speaker 1: I just don't know when it'll either be next week.
Speaker 1: Or the week after with the next BKMC. Please check
Speaker 1: out Tom and Lorenzo dot com for the list of
Speaker 1: films to watch, and once again thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye