Speaker 1: We're Tame Lorenzo, and this is the Better Kitten Movie Club.
Hello Kittens, Welcome back to another edition of the bi
k MC, a supplemental edition of the Pop Style, Opinion
Pest podcast where we take a look at one film
per week and dissect it and come up with talking
points and just make observations. It's not a review, it's
it's meant to be an opening to a discussion.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What I love about it, I don't think I've
mentioned this to you, is that it forces it towards
things that probably I wouldn't watch. Well, that's nice, And
it's nice because I discover a lot of great things,
and you know, I hate other things. But it's nice
because you get exposed to stuff that probably I wouldn't
pick immediately.
Speaker 1: This makes a good segue because this week's film is
Blue Moon. Twenty twenty five's Blue Moon, from director Richard
link Later, starring Ethan Hawk and Andrew Scott and Margaret
Qualley and Bobby kind of Ollie and I, was critically
acclaimed film last year. It was nominated for Best Screenplay
and Ethan Hawk was nominated OSCAR nominated for Best Actor.
Critics loved it, of course, and I went into it
thinking I was also going to love it. I was
really really looking forward to this one, and I gotta
say I didn't like it at all. I really wrestled
with this. I thought, why, you know, and I'm going
to unpack a couple of reasons why I think I didn't.
It didn't appeal to me. But I'm gonna tost to you,
and I want your initial thoughts go ahead.
Speaker 2: My initial thoughts had no idea what I was expected,
what I was going to watch. Honestly, I knew a
little bit about him, not much the main character, but
and I had no idea that was going to be
the setup. I mean, at some point, I'm like, all right,
are we leaving this bar or what? Because it just
got annoying. I was like, all right, this is okay.
And then once you realize that, okay, we're not leaving
this bar, So let me just pay attention to what
he's saying, you know what I mean, because that's much
the core of this whole thing is what he say.
And once you understand that, I mean, I guess you
just watched the movie for what it is. I like,
certain parts got very annoyed and board with other parts
and impatient, sometimes very impatient, because every now and then
it got to you know, a point that was like,
you know when you listen to someone telling a whole
long story that you don't want to listen to it
at all, and you're like, oh my god, just get
to the end of it. I can't take this anymore.
It felt like that every now and then.
Speaker 1: I feel like that was link Later's intention. Yes, yes,
was that he wanted to get across that Lorenz Heart
was a lot. He was just a lot, a lot.
Speaker 2: Apparently I was.
Speaker 1: And I think I'm sorry, and I think that's why
he just lets some of those those monologues just go on.
And I agree with you, for I almost all of
them go on way too long.
Speaker 2: I read some people, friends of people who you know,
were part of his life saying that he was very insecure,
and that's what's that's how he acted most of the time.
It was like you would talk non stop and he
would make jokes. I mean, that was his way of
dealing with his own insecurity and the way he felt
about himself. So and he comes across because he can't
stop talking.
Speaker 1: And it, in fact, it felt a little bit uh
one of the reasons I struggled with this, and I
struggled with my reaction to Well, there there were a
lot of reasons why I struggled with my reaction to it,
but I'll start with this. I do not enjoy depictions
of gay men that render us.
Speaker 2: Pathetic, especially of a certain age.
Speaker 1: I agree. I agree middle aged pathetic. Game In is
a trope that I never want to see on screen again.
And I get it. I looked, I wasn't. I mean,
I know who Loren's heart was, I know what his
work was, and I knew the bare bones of his life,
but I did not know much. So I went and
I looked. After the movie, I went and looked, you know,
read some articles on him and everything. It's a very
good article in the Atlantic from like twelve years ago.
When I think the biography that this film is based on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah so, and everything that the film depicts
is true as far as I can tell, true to
his personality, true to his life.
Speaker 1: He he was a closeted man, a man who most
of his contemporaries and friends believed to have been a
closeted gayment. He's also been referred to as a voyeur,
and I think that kind of explains that whole scene
where she's telling him about her sex life and everything,
which I hated that scene so much. He was an alcoholic,
he spends time in sanitariums. It was serious. I mean,
he was killing himself and all of that is on screen.
And I would not argue that you shouldn't depict those things,
but it's like how you depict those things and what
you want to focus on in your biographical film. I
think that's worth unpacking. Okay, so here's what I want
to say. You can show all of this stuff. Obviously,
it would actually be inaccurate of you to not show
all of this stuff, to show how overwhelming his personality is,
how he was weird about sex and weird about women,
and you know, all of that, the alcoholism and everything,
the attention seeking. Apparently all of that is very very true.
But it wasn't until this morning, because we watched it
last night, that I really I thought of two other films,
one of which at the time we actually liked, which
was Renees Elwegger's Judy, and then the Ana Deormist Maryland
film Blonde. And in both of those instances, you can
look at those films and say, well, yeah, technically, what
is being depicted on screen here it's been attested to.
Some of the Maryland stuff got a little fanciful, but
the Judy stuff was, well, it's pretty much what it
was like. But and this was our problem with Blonde,
was it's about what you have decided to focus on
in telling your story. So in Judy they focused on like,
literally it was the same kind of movie. It was
like literally her at the end of her life, absolutely
a mess, dying and withering away. We actually enjoyed that
film at the time, and I think that's partially because
we were so shocked that Zelwicker could pull it off.
But in the year's sense, I watched it a couple
of times and I'm like, this is actually a brutal film. Similarly,
with Blonde, you can say that most of what was
depicted on there was probably true to Marilyn's life in
some way, But the fact that you chose to make
an entire film about how fucked up and how sexually
abused she was, it's not an untrue portrayal, but I
question why that'sh So that's where I am with this,
where it's like all right, it's Loren's heart, and I
think all of this is accurate. But I found it
a deeply unpleasant film to watch. I thought it was
mean spirited in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: I think, I think, yeah, I think I do. I
see a lot of biopics now doing that kind of stuff.
They picked one thing about the person and they focus
on it. Which if it's someone famous that you know
a lot about, then it's fine in a way. In
a way, and if you accept it. Most people like
the whole story from beginning to end, you know, for
a biopic, but you know it's not always the case.
But it's fine. You're allowed to do whatever you want
as a director, as a creator. In this case, not
a lot of people know about this guy at all, right,
And that was my issue, And so I was like,
all right. The whole time, I was like, I appreciate
his sense of humor.
Speaker 1: Here was some very witty lines.
Speaker 2: He's clearly brilliant.
Speaker 1: Brilliant does come across trouble.
Speaker 2: I get all that. But I get all that, and
I don't mind watching someone like that, because someone like
that it's interesting as a character. But the whole time
I was like, what is your point here, what's the
point of your movie? Why?
Speaker 1: What is this?
Speaker 2: What story are you telling me here? Because I felt like,
all right, I don't really see the purpose of this.
We don't know much about this guy. I you know,
slowly you find out who he is, and you know
the whole thing with Richard Roger, and there's a lot
of stuff missing that I had to go on and
look and all like, oh, now that I.
Speaker 1: Think it does presuppose that you know a lot of
this stuff.
Speaker 2: Most people don't.
Speaker 1: It's a well theater buffs do well. And I do
think this was a film made for theater.
Speaker 2: Buffs, right, But that's not enough for an audience well, and.
Speaker 1: That is part of the reason why I think I
didn't react well to it. I should note here that
director Richard link Later also directed Nouvelle Vague, which was
a BKMC choice in our first month. I think it
was like in April. Both of those movies came out
in the same year, and if you take a step back, stylistically,
they're very different, but they are doing the exact same thing.
Nouvelle Vague was a film that was a loving homage
to the people who created the New wave film movement
in France as such, it was shot like a new
wave film. Everybody talked like they were in a new
wave film. Everybody looked like they were. He essentially made
a new wave film about the new wave similarly, and
that you know, it was all famous in it. You know,
there were all these famous filmmakers and writers and critics
that were popping up in the story. Similarly, in some ways,
this is a love letter to the New York theater crowd.
It's a love letter to the musical theater in some ways.
And because of that, it stays like a play. It
looks like a play, it reads like a prep play.
And everybody's acting style is actually much more theat like
Bobby kind of Alli, much more theatrical in this than
he is in other roles, because he's essentially playing to
the backstage of a theater. And I I'm not a
theater person, not really. I'm a film person. One hundred
percent of film person went to film school, loved movies,
and nouvelle vogs just checked off a bunch of boxes.
For me. I just loved every minute of it because
I was getting the references and that sort of thing.
Making a movie exactly. I'm on the outside of this.
I mean, I'm not ignorant of the American theater, but
it's I'm not a buff. I got the references. I mean,
as soon as that kids showed up and you heard me,
I said, oh no, and I before you were like
what and I was like, that kid's gonna be Stephen Sondheim.
I just know it.
Speaker 2: And the credits. I mean, somebody said that they read
the credits and at the end of the movie and
they realized it.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: I didn't even need to read the credits because actually
the lines that they gave him were things that he
had actually said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see.
Speaker 1: About Lorenz's hearts come, but he said it years later
when he was an adult. Right, So this film is
a loving homage and it's very stagy, and it's meant
to sort of be the thing that it's talking about.
In other words, it's a play. It's a movie that
looks like a play about people in the theater.
Speaker 2: Everybody mentioned that it feels like a play. In fact,
I asked you, I was like, was this a play before?
Speaker 1: And I said it, I kind of wish it had
been and stayed a play, because it probably would have
worked better as a play than I feel it works
as a movie.
Speaker 2: I think it's an interesting look at how theater works
and how people work in theater, you know, the whole
thing about you know how, and the whole thing about
Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general, that you are.
I mean, this guy was extremely famous, He made a
ton of money. He was considered a genius in his time, right,
and then he dropped and then you know, started drinking
and having troubles and and all of a sudden he's
getting you know, Richard Rogers. He's replacing him with somebody else.
So and they go on forever, and this guy, you know,
ends up dead. So uh, it's a sad life. It's
an interesting take on how how how it is with
theater and cinema and all that. You know, you you
are famous, you are at the star and then you're
not anymore, and how that affects your life and all that,
and and being Jewish, being gay, you know all that
at the time very.
Speaker 1: And I I'll get to that in a bit, I think, yeah,
all right, So comparing this to Nuvelle Vague, the interesting
thing about nu Valvage and I actually I think I
voiced this at the time was that Link later seemed
unable or unwilling to do or say anything too critical
the people he was talking about. So it was extremely loving.
And I was struck by this film because it reveled
in all the worst parts of this man's life and personality,
and in fact, it barely gave us a glimpse of
anything good in his life. The opening shot of the
film is him dying in an alleyway. That is a
brutal way to open the biopic of an artist that
you are supposedly, I don't know, elevating in some way.
It's just such a brutally harsh way to open that film.
And yes, that is how he died. I get it,
and I get it as a filmmaking choice because it
is hanging over the entire film. You've already watched him
die in a gutter, so you're it just becomes all
about his his degradation in it, and that that again
is my problem with this film. Again, you're allowed to
do that. You are absolutely allowed to tell dark stories
about artists who are allowed to talk. And when you
take a step when I take a step back, I
realized that, Okay, Richard Roger. I mean Lorenz Heart showing
up at Sardi's on the opening night of Oklahoma. That's
a story. I understand why this is where you have
decided to focus it. I just and I did read
up on it, and apparently he was there, and he
was there with his mother and he said something very
nice and left, And that is the thing. I looked
all of this up after I left, after I watched
the film, and the film is completely fictionalized down to
that girl does not exist. No, actually she no, they
fucking lied about it.
Speaker 2: Well, it isn't she.
Speaker 1: They say at the end that this is based on
letters between him and Lorenz Heart and Elizabeth Wyland. The
only person who has ever seen these letters is the screenwriter,
who claims to have bought them in it at an auction.
No mention of her in any of Lorenz's Heart's other
writings stopped buy nothing. There is apparently a woman that
he exchanged one or two letters with. She was a
fan or something, and that was it. They don't even
know that they ever met in person. And that fucking
offends me because you created this creepy, bizarre obsession. Why
why did you create this that didn't exist. I mean,
and I did. I read up on his relationships with women,
and they were sort of like that where he became
very obsessed with some woman, right, but they didn't love
him in that way. And maybe I'll unpack a little
bit of this after the break, because some of the
bad reactions I was having to this was I was like,
is this because I see something of myself in this story?
And in fact, on that note, why don't we take
a quick break and then we'll come back. Right, we're back,
So picking up on the I'm sorry I've acted like
I'm surprised.
Speaker 2: Give you the MinC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're back, And I just want to pick up
on my last point because I did sit there thinking
and does this bother me so much? Because I'm recognizing
some part of my closeted self in this story, and
certainly when I was closet I'm giving away too much
of myself here, but when I was closeted, I was
very much and I think this is true of a
lot of queer men and possibly of queer women as well,
But I don't want to speak to their experiences when
you're in the closet or when you're trying to like
distract people from who you really are deep down. You
put on a performance. And this was very much me
socially in my teens and twenties, which I was just joking,
putting on and non stop talking.
Speaker 2: That's what he did.
Speaker 1: So I do recognize that part of myself in him,
and in my teens and early twenties at least, I did,
like a lot of closeted gay men, developed sort of
obsessions with women that I thought were going to save
me from my gayness. None of it ever went anywhere,
and certainly not to the extent of that weird thing
that we saw on screen. But you know, you get
these little weird gay boy crushes on girls that you
think are going to save you, high school girls, college girls. Again,
I get it. I can even identify with, for instance,
watching someone surpass you, you know, and I think everybody
can see, can you know understand that feeling? So there
were parts of me in him and in his performance
that I felt like I needed to unpack in order
to deal with why I hated it so much. And
then I realized, well, wait a minute, I was never
a middle aged man doing these things. I was like
a very very young man. So no, this doesn't feel
like me at all. It feels a little bit like
some of the stuff I went through when I was
in the closet. But my negative reaction is it doesn't
come down to, oh, I saw parts of myself in
the story and I was uncomfortable with it. Although I
did work on unpacking that to make sure that was
not the case. I really dislike how they traded him
in this story. All I could think was regardless, like, yes,
all of this is true, and on some level, if
you're doing a picture about him, you do need to
show these parts of him, otherwise you're not doing a
true story. But I'm reiterating my points now and I'll
drop this. But my problem with this was that's all
they showed. All they showed was how creepy he was
around like that young piano player. That I really got
mad at that scene in the bathroom. I'm like, oh, Okay,
we have a middle aged, creepy gay man in a
bathroom with a cute young guy. You didn't have to
have this scene, but the implication of that scene are
very fucking clear. Anyway, I will drop that. I will say,
let's let's introduce a new topic. Andrew Scott won an award.
I can't remember the acting award. I think it was
a British Acting Award for his part, and he was
the best part in the movie.
Speaker 2: He's very good. And the only thing that I don't
like is that they again because they need to explain things.
They need to tell the audience what happened. Uh, they
they switch on a dime, their their their conversation.
Speaker 1: Well that's the theatrical part of it, where it's like,
none of these conversations are natural. The people don't talk
like that.
Speaker 2: Like they go from like yes, remember when we did that?
To oh my god, you were drinking all the time, and.
Speaker 1: Then affectionate like ten seconds I was going to play right.
Speaker 2: The switch was so sharp that I was like, whoa
that that doesn't make sense in a conversation.
Speaker 1: That's you know, I'm glad you brought that up. I
actually forgot about that part of it again. And at
the act if they're up on a stage, right, those
sorts of character turns. You know, conversations in plays will
ramble and go all over the place and and people
will get angry and cry and lay it. But when
you do that on screen in these short lived, you know, vignettes,
it looks weird. It's like no one's having a normal
emotional reactions some of the stuff that he said. People
are just kind of like gently smiling, and I'm like, no,
he just said something really fucked up, Like why are
you all?
Speaker 2: I understand why. They're like, like, he's thinking, do you
want to do that that? You know? Do you want
to do that? You know Connecticut Yankee again? And then
we had more songs and he's like, sure, well let's
do and it's an interesting conversation, kind of mala conversation.
All of a sudden, it's like, yeah, but you're not
gonna drink, You're not gonna show up, and I'm gonna
have to call you a mother.
Speaker 1: The switch is so because they want to pack in
every bit.
Speaker 2: Of that, because they want to tell you what happened. Yeah,
and uh it feels like yeah, it doesn't feel sometimes.
Speaker 1: It feels like a Wikipedia entry. It doesn't feel But
my point of bringing up Andrew Scott is that I
think that was the movie, a movie with those two
men that night, interacting with each and I think you
could have had a ninety minute movie out of that
it's and that's basically the second act. Second act is
Richard Rodgers' first act is Lorenz Heart alone at the bar,
just rambling, and then the third act is him and
Margaret Quality in the cloakroom. And the first act starts off.
I mean, he is a force of nature, Ethan Hawk.
It is a performance of the agent. He's no denying that.
Speaker 2: That's a massive piece of character study.
Speaker 1: I agree, and he is fully committed and bringing everything
he has to it. I will not deny that that
is a hell of a performance. However, as we noted,
everything goes on too long. Yes, the interactions don't seem
very natural, and it's just intensely stagy to a point
where I just found it irritating. Then Rogers shows up
and suddenly the energy is completely different, and the two
actors bouncing off each other made for a much more
interesting movie. Right then that scenario ends and we're in
the cloakroom with Margaret Quality, and I got so pissed
from this point on because I was like, all right,
this is awful. It was sort of an escalating arc
where it was a rocky beginning and then the second
act was really really great, and then you crash, and
I'm like, why am I and that scene again? A
lot of these acts seem to go on a little
bit too long. Why did that scene go on so long?
What annoyed me is And I know you want to
say margaret quality is you don't think she's a good actress.
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't. I'm tired of seeing I know or
people are not good because they're not good. I just yeah,
she's okay, and she's okay, and I don't think she
was right for the port. Well.
Speaker 1: Here I'm sitting there. It's this interminable monologue she gives
about losing her virginity, and all I could think was,
no twenty year old girl in nineteen forty three talks
like this. She sounds like she was born in nineteen
ninety nine. She sounded really sexually, like she understood sex really,
really well. She was very sort of cynical about being ghosted.
And I'm like, I'm not suggesting that women back then
were complete idiots about sex or anything, but it's not
our all affect all of the words out of her mouth.
I'm like, I do not buy that this girl was
born in nineteen twenty three. Beautiful dress, Actually, what I
loved about that dress was that I think it looked
a little cheap on her, yea, yeah, And I think
that that was a choice. You know, it wasn't perfectly fitted.
She looked gorgeous in it. You could understand why she
is gorgeou Yeah, she looked gorgeous in it. But I
actually did like that her costume was a little cheap.
I think I love that. Yeah, that's thoughtful costume design. So, uh,
all right, what else? I love Bobby kind of Ollie.
He was good, he was Yeah, just I think he's
so much fun to watch. Actually, he just that's the
kind of role.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he was good and just gave enough.
Speaker 1: I don't think it asked much of him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like just enough to make you like him and
laugh with him. And yeah, I mean, I the whole
thing with Oklahoma was hysterical.
Speaker 1: I mean his comments about Oklahoma. Theres been more of that, right,
like him being a bitch to Richard Rogers about the
exclamation point on the end, Like that was fun And
it still got your point across that this was a
very bitter, self loathing man.
Speaker 2: And I don't think it was also very clear that
he was invited to work on that project, and he
decided not to decide.
Speaker 1: Don't I think the film sort of makes it sound
like he was fired from it, And in fact, my
understanding is he said, I just don't want to do that.
Speaker 2: He just didn't believe it could be a play, a
music or whatever, and so he dropped it. And then
he just, you know, Richard decided to go with Oscar. Yeah,
so that's the whole thing. But they started together actually,
and then you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah they started in like nineteen ninety or something
like that.
Speaker 2: So they forget, they don't mention that, and if you
don't know much about him, it's like, all right, what happened?
What really happened here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Uh, it felt like they just walked in the past
a long time ago. And yeah, anyway, I hated.
Speaker 1: I mean, I get it. It's Sardi's, so various literary
figures and New York figures are going to pass through.
But they had that thing with eb White, the author,
and that's fine, Like he shows up. I thought the
performance was fine. They gave him the performance was really good. Actually, yeah,
I had to go look the actor up because I
was like, the hell is that actor? And he's the
he plays Kiera Knightley's brother in Atonement. Oh wow, the
guy playing the piano on the raft and everything. Yeah,
it's the same actor. He's aged obviously, I thought he's
aged more than Kiera Knightley, as.
Speaker 2: I thought, well, anyway.
Speaker 1: Anyway, my point there is I was like, okay, ab White,
and then then I don't even if you're gonna get
the reference. Eb Wright White wrote Stuart Little, the book
about the little boy who was a mouse. Yes, and
what's his name? Lorenz Heart starts talking about the little
mouse in his apartment and he's named him Stuart, and
is it Stuart with a W? And and then suddenly
E B. White's taking out a notebook and I'm like,
I know I need to do this.
Speaker 2: I know, I know.
Speaker 1: Is there any evidence that Lorenz Heart? Even though E B.
White like, why are we doing? And then the same
thing with Stephen Sondheim, It's like, all right, you just
need to pack all of these figures into it and
have them say or do things, because it's like this
weird thing. Yet where it's like this like those animatronic
presidents and at Disney World, where everybody just says, I'm
going to say Stephen Sonheim thing. I'm gonna say, an
eb white thing. You know, it's I just didn't. I'm
shocked that the critics love this film as much as
they did.
Speaker 2: Well critics like to.
Speaker 1: I'm also shocked that no one ever made an issue
with the fact that I mean, granted, I don't have
a problem with straight men playing gay, but like I
noted earlier, Ethan Hawk is a six foot tall you know,
non Jewish straight man playing a five foot tall and
like they put him in, I found the makeup distracting.
You could see his real hairline under the comb over.
They didn't shave him well enough, so I found that
really distracting. The attempts to make him look short were
borderline insulting, Like they made him look crippled. They made
like he couldn't reach the top of the bar and everything.
It was like this, this is going way too far,
and some of these shots look goofy as hell, like
Lord of the Rings did this better almost thirty years ago,
and I could think, was, you know, you could have
found a short Jewish guy to play this part. But
link later and Hawk have made like seven films together,
And in fact, I was reading up on this link
Later they've been working on this film for like fifteen years,
and link Later said, you're too young to play the part.
They wouldn't wait for you to like what which is
funny because Ethan Hawk is about ten years older than
Loren's heart was when he died. I just yeah, I
wanted to like this film because and I really was
taken aback because the critics love it. It's like ninety
eight percent on Rotten Tomatoes or whatever. But no, I
I there's not much about this film that I can
point to and say, well, that part was good. One
or two performances and that's it. Like, I don't like
much and even like I can talk about Ethan Hawk's
performance like, oh my god, he's really committed. But at
the same token, it's gimmicky, it's twitchy, and it's relentless.
I did read a comment online saying that watching this
film was like a root canal, and I was like,
that's exactly what it felt like. It just was. And
it's not a long film. It's like an hour and
forty minutes long. It felt in termina well.
Speaker 2: Uh, personally, and you know that because you get annoyed
with me. I am very patient to listen to people.
You know, I'm very impatient when it comes to listening
to people. And so when someone talks like that, non
stop telling a story, I mean, I'm the same. I
get very impatient. I just could you want to talk?
Could you get to your point? And so? And I
think that has to do a lot with a format,
which is a movie. If I was sitting in a
movie theater, I mean in aater.
Speaker 1: Theater, I agree, Monologe, watching.
Speaker 2: You play, I'd be more disciplined and more ready to
take all that.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason most movies do not have
people turn to the camera and give long monologues the
way they do in the theater. It's because the experience
of watching something on screen is very different from watching
something live play out in front of you.
Speaker 2: I go back to what I said in the beginning,
Like I started watching the movie and I was like,
all right, he's going to a bar, and I'm like,
all right, we're not leaving this bar. And I was like,
all right, I guess we're not leaving this bar. So
then you kind of like get adjust yourself to that situation,
right that, Yeah, and you know, like all right, I'm
just gonna have to watch him talk NonStop, you know,
at a.
Speaker 1: Bar and be terrible to everyone around town.
Speaker 2: So once you accept that, then I was able to
enjoy it a little more. But yeah, I think it
would be perfect for a play, not a movie.
Speaker 1: I think had they done the entire second act as
the film itself right, got rid of Margaret Qualley, got
rid of the long monologues, and just had it being
you know, Rogers and Hart on the night Oklahoma opened,
that's a movie. But all the other stuff they shoved
into this, I mean, I don't know. They just seemed
so determined to degrade this man as much as possible
on screen, and that's what really bothered me about it.
Speaker 2: The other thing that I think it's kind of a
disservice here. I think the director you know, didn't do
well here is that he died after they did the Connecticut.
Speaker 1: He died the night it open. That's the night he.
Speaker 2: Died, denied it open, he felt bad, he fell ill,
and then later he was sticking to a husband and die.
But I think we missed at that part that he
actually accepted that offer, went on and did it.
Speaker 1: No, And that's fine that you missed this but there
was a title card at the end that says that
he did write.
Speaker 2: Okay, but I would like to see that as a movie,
to see what you're so add more to it, Yeah,
not just know about it.
Speaker 1: Again, this goes down to what they choose to show,
and they chose to show him as just degraded and
self loathing and off putting in a creepy There is
charm in this performance, but I think it they they
didn't sell the charm. Everything I've read about him talks
about how much fun he was and how charming he
was and how funny he was, and you get bits
of that in this performance, but for the most part,
it is, like I said, like a root canal. And
even the other actors are playing the scene like, okay,
you're going on a little too long. And that's the
part that bothers me.
Speaker 2: The same. He said, I'm very we are very familiar
as a queer man. We are very familiarly with the
type of character. You know, this man, this type of man, gay,
very intelligent, Yeah, funny.
Speaker 1: He actually reminded me of someone we know on Fire Island.
Actually bitter, Yeah, and funny.
Speaker 2: But you can only take it so much. Yeah, so
when you transport that to a movie, yeah, when you
make that a movie, it's a little too much.
Speaker 1: It is, and like I said, it just felt mean spirited.
I just could not shake that. I don't think that
was their goal. I think they thought they were doing
a loving homage, but they focused so much on the
worst parts of his character and his life that that
didn't give you much reason to He was an asshole
to everybody in the movie. He was creepy to everybody
in the movie. I just didn't get that charm that
they clearly thought they were getting across and he was.
I actually think if you had a short Jewish guy
playing that role, I think he would been able to
deliver that kind of charm. There's a line like I
didn't know going into it that Lorenz Heart was Jewish, and.
Speaker 2: The whole thing with the piano player.
Speaker 1: I mean, he gives that line to the piano player
where he's like, oh, no one could ever guess that
you're Jewish, which is funny, but I was like, well,
that's a little offensive. And then I find out later
after I was that he would. But you don't get
that because ethan Auk does not come across I'm sorry,
he doesn't. He just doesn't. Every once in a while
he would deliver a line and I was like, oh,
I guess he's Joeys. I like, but it just never
came out. And I feel like, if you were a
New York musical theater jew, i'd ever heard Lorenz Heart speak.
But I'm pretty sure all of that came out in
his speaking voice, because men of that generation and time,
they all spoke a certain way. So I can't recommend
this film. I just don't love it.
Speaker 2: I guess you'd have to to like a theater to
appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I agree with that.
Speaker 2: I did like. I liked it. It got very annoying
every now and then because the monologue would go forever.
It would go on forever, and I'm like, all right,
can we just wrap this up? That story that isn't
that interesting? But in general it was. Anyway, I thought
his performance was incredible. I have to say, maybe he
doesn't look Jewish, maybe he's too tall and all that,
but I thought his delivery was impressive. I mean, I
thought so. And he was funny sometimes he's so funny,
especially when he's talking about Oklahoma with derekle Anyway, can.
Speaker 1: You recommend it?
Speaker 2: If you like theater, if you like the history of
theater and musicals and all that. I think you'd appreciate.
Speaker 1: It a little alright, and then didn't like it. I
can't recommend it, so, but I'd love to hear people's
thoughts on it, right, So please let us know. We're
gonna have a post on our site along with this,
so love to hear your thoughts. We'll be back next So.
I don't even have the films picked for August yet.
I should be doing that today. Maybe we will have
something up to but I don't know what we're watching
next week. It'll be a surprise and we'll be back
next week with the PSO podcast with whatever crosses our
eyes across our desk. So until then, take care of yourself,
love you mean it. Bye bye bye