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