Red Scare - Annora

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

The ladies recap the Oscars and review Anora.

🎵 All the things you said 🎵 We're so fucking back. We're back. A couple of lifeless lesbians back on the air. Hello out there. I fully nodded off before you got here. Yeah, and I just woke up. That's why she's low energy. And I'm observing Lent. Oh yeah it was Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday. Hello we're back. I'm just gonna do the whole

episode in this accent because I can do it too. in this accent yeah because I can do it too very the nanny I'm from here I'm East Coast yeah from New Jersey I like to go in the bodega and get a chopped cheese I've watched all the seasons of The Sopranos chop it up with the low Um, shit, I forgot what I was gonna say. We're back. We're back. We're back. And here it is. Here's the show.

By popular demand. We're gonna review an aura. Yeah, people, we were really resistant. A movie that I've been dreading, watching and reviewing. Why do you think that is? You had the same feeling. I just don't like when people around like, you have to, you have to.

And then, because I'm not like besties with Sean Baker, but you know, we're both indie, we're friendly. I don't feel like sometimes I don't wanna give like an honest appraisal of someone I know is like work because I want them to cast me. Yeah, not even just like because it doesn't feel like. Because it's indelicate. Yeah. And you're like, you don't feel like you can be, you know, yourself.

Well, you know, leave it to me. I'll be the bad cop. Eugene wanted us to talk about Spree. Yeah. And it's like, Eugene, you're my best friends. I can't. Yeah, I can't like gas your movie up on my show. Even though Spree is great. You should all go see it. Yeah. But do you believe that I haven't seen Spree? Yeah. Are you being honest? No, you should all go see it. Yeah, but do you believe that?

I haven't seen Spree. Yeah. Are you being honest? No, I am. Okay, cool. Yeah, Spree was really like the motifs of Eugene's career really like came together. But yeah, I had like some just resistance because I don't know.

I don't like being told what to do. Um, yes, that certainly, like when there's like hundreds of people being like you should talk about this movie on your podcast, I'm like, nah, dog. But also I had some weird Freudian resistance to the fact that it was like a movie about Russian people. Like it gave me the same like queasy, dreadful feeling as like thinking about Russian porn where the girl's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,

oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah, no, it's I know exactly what you mean. Because I was like, it's going to unlock some kind of entrenched Freudian memories and make me feel bad. Totally. About my failures and disappointment. And I feel obligated to like it also, because I'm loyal and Sean Baker, I was going to say Sean Price Williams is from New Jersey. He's Jersey strong just like me. But now it's swept at the Oscars, which I'm very happy for.

Should we get into the review first or should we talk about the other stuff that's happening? A lot of stuff happened that we're not even going to address. Like Casey Anthony reinvented herself as like a legal advocate. An LGBTQA TikTok substack. Yeah, because she's doing some like extended apology tour for killing her daughter, but it's also a narcissistic attention whore who can't stay out of the limelight. And yeah, speaking of people who can't stay out of the limelight,

there's the Luigi Manjoni porn allegations, which I feel vindicated about. Should those videos actually surface? Because it proves my theory for why he did it. What, that he's a narcissist? That he's an attention whore who wanted to be famous. That he's a Patrick Bateman style killer instead of a. Yeah, and that he cooked up like a nice plausible sounding

motive that would resonate with hundreds of thousands of understandably angry and frustrated people. Yeah. Trump and Zelensky, Matt. Yeah. But we caught that live on our appearance on Meg and Kelly. And then Trump gave the address. The all-stars. The terrorists.

Which people are upset about. But Trump says they're gonna make us strong. And I don't know. Yeah, he gave the congressional address, which I fell asleep during, but was enjoying. The Dems did like a pink blazer. Oh yeah, little pink pussy heading. I'm gonna say one critical thing about Trump, and he's never gonna talk to me again. He's gonna keep texting you.

Anna, you fucking bitch. What have you done? He, much like Anora, he delivers at the beginning and then kind of starts to drag. Yeah. I've seen Trump speak in person now three times and he gives these very long speeches and by the end of it you're like, we get it.

The stamina is hard to match. But you know, he's my president, love him to death, We'll support him forever. Yeah, they were speculating on CNN what kind of protest gestures the Dems would come up with. He pointed out how there's nothing he could do or say that would make the Democrats even smile. That was good. They had like flimsy little signs that said like, Musk is a liar or something or fact check or,

and some guy with a ponytail stood up and it was kind of inaudible and then they like escorted him out. Oh, the guy with the cane, Al Green. That's Al Green. The politician, not the singer. I don't know who that guy was. Yeah, you watched the Fuentes stream

and I watched the NPR stream, which was interesting because on NPR- Fair and balanced. Yes, we have a true bipartisan consensus here, but on NPR they were saying something to the tune of what Trump really likes is power, he doesn't care about small countries like Ukraine. He wants fealty.

Zelensky has shown him fealty time and time again, and he swatted him down repeatedly. That was just crazy because it's simply not true and totally outrageous. Like on so many levels. Zelensky campaigned for Kamala. Yeah. and it's like also just take Trump out of the equation It's not like Democrats care any more about small countries I know like then MAGA does like no country really cares about small countries most countries in general care about like Their own security and economic interests. Well, I guess they care to the extent that they can make them like a client state or extract resources from them

or leverage them into a proxy war against Russia. Yeah. Russia, Russia, Russia. Yeah, and of course there's also like this very obvious falsehood that like Zelensky has bowed down to Trump and kissed the ring, which he hasn't. We saw it happen with our own eyes, where that clip that was circulating during the meeting

with Zelensky and Trump in Vance, where he got out of pocket. He was being uppity. It's like if your junkie son waltzes into your living room and takes a dump on your coffee table And starts to make demands that you bail him out and it's like you're paying his rent or he's staying in the guest house Yeah Like what are you talking about?

You couldn't even put a suit on I know there's we put suits on to go I know. We put suits on to go to Connecticut. I know. I know. Let alone the oval. Yeah, and you can say that that's because Urvain and image conscious women and Zelensky is a brave military hero who doesn't have any time

or patience for trifles like his public image, but that's all bullshit. Like his little lululemon, vorari, whatever uniform. That's probably also, by the way, all that clothing is probably like Brunello Cuccinelli or something. It's probably super expensive. Like he's not wearing like Uniqlo. That would be a move. If he did the head to toe white boy Uniqlo fit. If he wore Sambas. Yeah, but it's like, it's like.

He should wear a tracksuit. M to M military drag. It's like cosplay. No, I know. It's so perverted. Yeah, I've mentioned how he's ruined the olive drab t-shirt Yeah, everyone What else did he might get up to at the address, oh, yeah

They were yeah speculating that people were gonna bring empty egg cart. And I was like, wow, he's just like us. They're gonna tell the Democrats they're gonna keep hitting the wall. You said you were gonna build the wall and yet you just hit the wall. It seems like it's really not his fault that the eggs are so expensive. Yeah. There's a bird flu. Unless that's fake news. I expensive. Yeah. If there's a bird flu. Unless that's fake news. I know, yeah. Cause I have been scandalized by the egg prices

and did look into it. I know, I know we talked about it. And yeah, there are still places around me where you can get normal cheap eggs, but yeah, like they didn't clap or stand. That was like the big objection from conservatives. Like ordinarily you like suspend your like partisan principles or whatever for the greater good of showing respect. Some decorum. Yeah.

Well, I guess they would say that, yeah, like Trump and Musk and co. are so messy and, you know, they're not exactly like deferential to civility. That's true. But I think, like, in those moments, they generally like get in line and like Elon Musk showing up with his chainsaw and you could also say that like they refuse to stand because even though what they were supposed to stand for people that were like model American citizens that that Trump was trotting out he was

using them as like a proxy for his own power games, but that's also bullshit. Like they didn't like cheer for that like 10 year old kid who looked like four and 40 at the same time and was like, like that little kid who got like an honorary secret service badge because he has terminal brain cancer. Like that kind of stuff.

Like they don't clap for the widow in the family of Corey Comparatore, which is funny because Trump like relentlessly refuses to learn how to pronounce that guy's name, right? But like mentions him at every turn. that guy's name right but like mentions him at every turn right like in Riley's family and then the girl who got hit in the face by X-Man volleyball player and has like brain damage come on I know a lot of X-Men who would love to do that to us yeah but jokes on them because we already have Bell's palsy.

My brain is already damaged. Like half our faces are already paralyzed. It's like the complimentary halves. Yeah, our faces are symmetrical. If they're, you'd use both of the asymmetrical parts of our faces. They were like openly booing and not keeping the order. My favorite line was about the African country, Lesotho.

Who's no one's I I've even heard of. And also sedentary migrants was good. What sedentary migrants? It was just something he said during the address where he was talking about how we're paying millions in tax dollars to like support sedentary migrants and people who are like between like 130 and 300 years old. Oh yeah when he was listing how old the people were that were

getting government assistance. Yeah and it's like film is back in a big way but comedy is over because there's no one funnier than Trump. No. Like he has like his own Netflix special every time he takes the stage to give a political address. He's great at what he does. Yeah. The Oscars. The Oscars. Too many slick updoos. Yeah. Way too many. Every single bitch up there. I know. I was kind of mad at... With the slicked back bun. Yeah, I was mad at Mickey Madison because she was doing the Audrey Hepburn like classy darling look because she played like a hooker in the movie. So she was trying to like. Breakfast at Tiffany's. Yes. Yeah. But she has such like beautiful flowing locks.

I would have let them hang. Many such cases. I mean, Ariana Grande has always been doing it. So that's a surprise, but I think Demi, Demi wore her hair down. Yes, she always does. She knows how to play to her strengths. But basically, yeah.

Well, Emma Stone has that pixie cut now. Hal Fanning did the same thing. Lily Rose Depp. She wore it down and then up for the like Vanity Fair Oscar party. I love the Lily Rose Dab red carpet look, hated the Vanity Fair Oscar party look. The Crab. Yeah. It says because she's a Chanel ambassador.

Yeah. They always put her in, it's like that's so Chanel. Yeah, because they love to show off her long torso. Yeah, and their garments are just all like ghetto trash. They're bad. I low key really liked the Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah lifeless Lesbians look where like Oprah was doing kind of Victor Victoria menswear aesthetic and Whoopi Goldberg was uncharacteristically Mm-hmm where like Oprah was doing kind of Victor Victoria

menswear aesthetic and whoopi Goldberg was Uncharacteristically feminine they kind of like swapped roles the black substance Isabella Rossellini Blue velvet, I think quali did an updo too. Yeah, they snubbed Elaine DeLon. No Elaine DeLon mentioned. Sad. The James Bond tribute, I thought was ass. I missed that. I kind of just like skipped around.

They did a whole like song and dance number for James Bond that was very, cause they just recently sold the rights to James Bond to Amazon and that was I was like, yep This is really giving like Amazon original series James Bond With like Lizzo in the starring role Doja Cat they did all these like song they sang the songs. It was just pathetic. I really, I thought it sucked ass. Yeah, the whole ceremony was kind of like down market this time around.

I mainly just tuned in randomly for like the Zoe Saldana and Adrienne Brody acceptance speeches, which were both equally insufferable. It's like Zoe Saldana being like as the first Latina woman but not the last. The woman from the Dominican Republic. Yeah, and she was like rolling her R's extra hard and like leaning into the Spanish pronunciation as the ambassador for Emilia Perez. I don't even know what Adrian Brody was on about. I don't know. He was doing some anti-hate woo woo

jubu thing. But Zoe Saldana, she reminds me of Meghan Markle and Tandy Newton in that she's like a mulatta but like presents just like culturally and even aesthetically as a white woman. Yeah, white features. Yeah and they're all kind of like emaciated in that rich lady way where they're like, you know, like take doing those like infusions, you know, and like not eating. Yeah. And that kind of grinds my gears because I know that we're like a pro-ana podcast, but like what's the point of being black and representing your heritage if you're going to part with your sensuality and be like another like copycat cookie cutter rich white lady? Yeah. Who's like neurotic about her weight. Who does like water fast.

Yeah. It's gay. It is gay. It's gay. I mean, in general, like the, all the distressingly thin, ozumpic celebs don't look so good. No, they look like the emperor's new clothes.

Like they're like gaunt and cadaverous, not that people in glass houses. But whatever, I'm not up there. So it's not it doesn't. Of course, yeah, like there's something to be said for there's something to be said for the aesthetic discipline of being underweight but I feel like if you take if you're suppressing your appetite with pharmaceuticals then you're a different kind of thin. Yeah you're cheating. You're kind of cheating. It's not fair. Which like whatever more power to them but um. And the appetite is you know that's your source of life. Yeah. And it's one thing to like a rigid discipline, but to just not have an appetite. Yeah, I feel like gives you that kind of bloodless look. Yeah, deaf. Well, you're like transhuman and like a cyborg in a way that like even

Donna Haraway couldn't have predicted. And yeah, when I was watching that Zoe saw Donna's speech, I was thinking like, man, I feel bad for her husband. Imagine living with her because you know that she's like, super like type A. Oh, of course. Well, many such cases. And like nagging and scolding and a perfectionist. I mean, with actors, like, of course. Every actress is crazy.

Yeah. And if she doesn't present outwardly as crazy, then I mean, she's even worse. There's something really wrong and the amount of like control that she's actually exerting is far more sinister. Have you seen Amelia Perez? I'm like kind of curious.

No, I only saw Conclave and Enora. Oh yeah. But I mean, I don't really like musicals. Yeah, I don't either. But I was thinking Spanish language film. But I'm kind of curious about it, because I feel like it could almost be like, intentionally or unintentionally, like an anti-woke film. Well, it's about, yeah, people took umbrage with it

because it's about like a cartel, kingpin transitioning. Yeah, but that's like amazing and funny. Yeah, it's kind of honestly, Betsy Brown's actors. Yeah, it's like the anti-Hamilton. So yeah, I'd be interested. The Brutalist, another film that I haven't watched and won't be watching.

I'm not watching a three-hour slog about the Holocaust. If I want to do that, I'll just watch Showa again. I don't like Brady Corbett. I think he's super pretentious. Who's that? He's the director. He did Vox Lux as well. Never heard of it.

The movie with Natalie Portman, where she was like a pop star and the plot's a little convoluted, but yeah, I mean, I thought we did the brutalist when it was called The Peoness. I know, I know. Who called Adrian Brody a two-time Holocaust survivor? He just keeps winning awards for surviving the Holocaust.

And it's like, we get it, like, he's like long and sinewy and looks like he was just like liberated from Dachau or Bergen-Belsen or whatever. He's got tragic kind of eyes. He's like seen untold horrors. Yeah. Meanwhile, he's like some LA wigger faggot. I was like, yeah, man, let's hit the ganja. He's Rastafarian.

Like listening to Beastie Boys. Yeah. I'm like raging against the machine probably. Miss me with that shit. Not interested. I know. First Latvian film to win an Oscar for animated feature. Oh, the cat one? Yeah. But not a lot of Baltic representation in Hollywood, so I'll take it.

Yeah. I'll take it. Yeah. I'll take what I can get. I thought Conan was a pretty good house. I mean, I just like him. Yeah. But I wish he would have done a little more boundary pushing material. He said some pretty edgy stuff.

Did he? Yeah, like there was that one point where he was talking about how depressed and demoralized everyone must be because it was like getting to the end of the ceremony, something like that, which is like something we would do. And I was like, okay.

Yeah. He's dependable. And honestly, like a good catch for Oscar hosts because it seems like they don't really have anybody anymore. It's like Ricky Gervais, Billy Crystal. They trotted him and Meg Ryan out. Rachel Ziegler, Gal Gadot. Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal is another one of those

like red scare moments where you like expect the brunette to be taller, but actually the blonde is. And I was like, oh, okay. And an adoption. Yeah. And the Nora really swept. Yeah, four out of the six categories that it was nominated for, right?

What did it win? It won five. Best picture. Best picture, best director, best editing, best screenplay, best actress. Yeah, wow. So that's like a clean sweep. I think that's like unheard of in the history

of the Oscars on one night. Yeah. For one film and one director to take it all. I think we're so back, baby. It's been a long time. And I think it bodes well. Yeah. So you sent me that New York Times op-ed from that guy Michael Edolf whose name instantly rang a bell because I remember him kind of vaguely from back in the day, like seven, 10 years ago. And he's one of these like,

he's a screenwriter, director, kind of low B filmmaker. And he used to write probably for like GQ and then like London Review of Books or something. But he's one of these guys like Keith Gesson or Yasha Levine who's like a cultured former Soviet nice Jewish boy in his mid to late 40s who's like kind of like left leaning politically. The his op-ed well it was about how heNora. I thought it was the best movie he's seen all year,

but didn't think it should win any Oscars because it was a mirror to the rampant Putinism of our times. Yeah, and he was such a coward. He couldn't even go full throttle with the propaganda and spin and couldn't say that it was Putinism. Yeah, he just drew all these. Yeah, because the two actors, I guess, were nominated or just the one Mark Edelstein and Yuri barista. And yeah, I told you I was like, I was reading this thing, skimming it and I was like, wait, so he's

mad that they didn't use their platform to denounce Putin? Why would they do that? That's so narcissistic and unwise, like, good for them for not giving a shit and enjoying their success. Fuck you. Right. But because in Russia, he says the film success is seen from Moscow as the country's return to the global stage, as Mr.'s return to the global stage. As Mr. Borisov said to Interview Magazine,

a lot of people in Russia are very happy and congratulated me in the shops, summit gas stations on the streets. He added, because it is like a win at the Olympic games. In Russia, all victories are national. And it's like, he's undermines his own argument even because it's really about, it's really a testament,

it's like America's cultural soft power that to win an American award is still a very big deal in Russia. That the Oscars are like kind of a global. All eyes are on America. Oscars are like kind of a global. All eyes are on America. And then he references how HBO dropped the Serbian Russian actor, Miloš Biković from White Lotus

after his probe for war views were made public. And Netflix buried a Russian adaptation of Anna Karenina after it was shot in which Mr. Voroslav played Levin. And that show I texted, it was called Anna Kay. And Netflix buried it. Yeah, they put the kibosh on it. Netflix said no, Anna Kay. They couldn't have a show about a racist,

ethnically ambiguous podcast. That wouldn't fly with critics or audiences. Yeah, it reminded me of that article that other Jewish guy wrote about how he used to walk his dog and listen to Red Scare and then decided to stop. It was the same kind. I was like, I almost thought it was the same guy. Yeah, because it was like, I liked this thing. But then it's these political repercussions. They're all interchangeable. Across eras, across borders. It's the same guy. But his his takeaway was like, yeah. He was basically like,

as much as I loved an aura, the approach you should take is to ignore a because it's spreading like pro-Russian sentiment and vague Putinism. And he doesn't believe in cultural boycotts or holding artists responsible for their nation's actions, but yes, dot, dot, dot. He does. And he concludes by saying, if one or more of the six nominations for a Nora

turn into a win come Oscar night, I hope that at least some of it is spent, some of its time in the spotlight is spent addressing a simple truth. There is at this dire moment, no such thing as a neutral actor or an apolitical film, even if they are both also excellent. You are so gay.

And I do, I like, Anora's win, which has spawned all this like discourse about sex work, which we'll get to, but then also like the scrutiny of Sean Baker for like following libs of TikTok. And liking pro-Kyle Rittenhouse tweets. But I think that the sweep really does signify the, not everything has to be political or that someone's politics don't have anything to do with their career as an artist.

Yeah, judging works of art by the political stances that the artists take was rejected at the ballot box. We will accept and permit good artists even if they have conservative values. Or haven't spoused the liberal party line. Which yeah or are apolitical which automatically means conservative in this day and age to like pink pussy hat libs if they're not yeah compliant enough JD Vance emotional blackmail. This is like the worst possible Logic that I can think of he's like the worst nastiest type of subversive because he's not saying like I demand

Sean Baker and like Mark Edelstein and Yuri Borisov to issue official statements on why they reject Putin and support Ukraine. He's saying like, I don't expect that from them because they're artists and I judge work of art on its merits, but I'm strongly nudging you behind the scenes to do the right thing. Asshole. It's so Jewish. Truly. Like forcing the issue in like backhanded passive aggressive ways.

So you like the movie. But yeah, so what is this? It's not film criticism. Like can't you just like sit back and relax and enjoy the ride? Like, it's Hollywood biggest night, babe. Yeah. It's not about you. Yeah.

It's not about Vladimir Putin. It's funny because like his view of the movie, which is that it's a great movie and you should love it and enjoy it privately, but like publicly ignore it or not pay it any credence because it is vaguely gesticulating to like Russian supremacy and pro-Putinism is like the exact opposite of what I felt, which is that like, I have a lot of issues and problems with this film.

Really? Yeah. I don't even know where to begin, Dasha. Oh my God. I don't even know what to think, but I think the fact that it was even made and that it then went on to sweep all the awards is just such a, you know, in the words of a friend of mine who's a screenwriter and director is like such a like unbelievable symbolic win for the fact that like movies are back. Yeah. And you can do whatever the fuck you want. And you don't have to like couch or hedge or like make movies for like gay woke virgins anymore.

That's over. I mean, I said to Sean Baker maybe a year ago that we need a new Hollywood for Indie losers. Yeah. But it turns out we don't. We don't, yeah. Turns out, I mean, I just love it. Like, you know, I'm team Indie all the way.

Yeah, and this was a pretty low budget film. It was like five mil. Yeah. OK, so that's that's low budget. Yes. And it's like who follows award season. Well, yeah, obviously the actors and directors and crew members, but also the financiers, the money men. So like they're very, I'm sure impressionable and cautious.

And so this is like a very positive development in my book. It's extremely hard to make a movie. And it felt like very much like a Soviet thought. So it was almost like perfect that this was a movie about Russian themes. I really enjoyed it. I had a lot of problems with it, but you can be the good cop and I'll be the bad cop. I won't nag too hard.

I had almost no, I don't know. too hard. I had almost no, I don't know. I mean, I had resisted kind of watching it for so long due to recent reasons we mentioned. Yeah. But I sort of knew I would enjoy it and I basically did. And I like, I mean, I do think Mikey Madison is fantastic. One of my issues is that when she does speak Russian

and I know she's not meant to be like a fluent Russian speaker, but her vocabulary, her level of vocabulary doesn't match how badly. Well, she understands. Well, and how badly she speaks. Yeah. Like the way that she is articulates things.

Yeah. In Russian, but that's just, that's very minor. But I think I really like that she looks pretty normal. Yeah. You know? I think I really like that she looks pretty normal. Yeah. You know? Say it Dasha, she's like a girl with an amazing body, but kind of a butter face. I wouldn't even say she has a butter face.

She's really hot, obviously, but like, I don't even think she's that hot. I think she's like has a very like expressive and cinematic face that she was well cast. Yeah, exactly. You don't see them so much these days. Well, I think that they nailed the casting. My resistance going into it was that even before I saw it, I kind of already knew ahead of time that it would be like uncut Gems for girls. And it would.

I thought it was better than Uncut Gems. I have a take on this that I will save for later. But you know, but when I went into it, I was like, well, that's not a good enough deterrent. You're gonna sit your white ass down and watch this movie and like go into it with like a clear head and an open heart. Because you know, if nothing else, you, it's, it's fun to, to be proven wrong. I haven't seen any of Sean Baker's other films, which I should watch, but I was kind of aware of his reputation as a guy who basically like minds like

fringe or exotics, um, subcultures for narrative value. I was kind of aware of the claim that I've seen bouncing around that this film could not have been made without the influence of our podcast. So that was like kind of what informed my resistance. Jack attributed the success of the film to the fact that people are really hungry for sex and nudity. And it had plenty of that.

And he was saying that if there's any positive effect or welcome trend that comes from this film, it's that like more American actresses will hopefully engage in gratuitous nudity. I love how it all comes down to like, like showing tits and cock. I didn't find the sex or nudity to be particularly exciting.

I would say it was a little clinical. That was a complaint I saw a lot of people have that it wasn't sexy enough, but I actually thought that that was a good part of the film because it kind of taps into the zeitgeist. A, because young people, even if they have experience, are kind of shy and clumsy when it comes to sex. And also because the whole idea of having sex in such a transactional manner and having to suspend disbelief is Alienating in and of itself. So I thought it did a good job like handling that. Mm-hmm

And also like all the aggressive Excessive sex was a lead-up to the ultimate disappointment right, I thought The film was a little montage heavy. Yeah. Especially in the first third. Yeah. To half. A lot of the montages were well done and like fun to watch.

Mm hmm. But it was a spring breakers like quality to them. It was a bit much. Yeah. And it didn't, and this was part of the point and all of the film, it was like there, you didn't feel that they had like, that there was a significant attachment kind of between the two characters, which there wasn't ultimately. Or like an interiority to either of the characters.

Like one of the questions that I've also seen circulating a lot is like, what's up with Enora? Is she a craven gold digging whore or is she a hooker with a heart of gold? It's very unclear. I actually don't have much of a problem with that because people contain multitudes and she's clearly both and part of her being kind of so materialistic

and transactional comes down to not only the nature of her work but to the fact that she's been hurt and burned already and she's like playing her cards close to her chest. So that part was like not at all confusing to me, but just to recap really quickly, like the basic plot, she's like a 23 year old, like first or second gen stripper on Brighton Beach. And she embarks like on this world one romance

with the 21 year old like nepo baby oligarch son. And then his parents find out and they dispatch their henchmen that they got married yeah to find out yeah to find them and like annul their marriage and they go on this wild bender to find the runaway husband and you know the whole time she's convinced that he's gonna stick stick up for her. And sure enough, he's like nowhere to be found. And then she's horribly disappointed. And as insult to injury, she's offered like some like paltry thumb to disappear and go back to her old life.

I read a really interesting essay by this girl, Rain Fisher Kwan, which I thought like leaned too heavy on this like hetero capitalist patriarchal exploitation reading because she's like very young and I'm assuming queer. But she makes this good point that Sean Baker is the guy who cares about creating romantic fairy tales and mythologies to dismantle them and like reveal how they like defy or deny reality. She called Anora a demolition project. It's a story about stories, about the vast cultural narratives

that enchant and dilute and control us. And about how love, especially heterosexual love, can be propelled by an attachment to an imagined good life, even more than it is to any specific person. Like Anora's romance is less with like this careless playboy Vanya or sensitive thug Igor and more with like the idea of love itself, like in part as a material payoff

for all the struggle and strife that she's endured. It's like the end point of her American dream sort of thing. Yeah, she says at one point when she's leaving the strip club that she wants to go on her honeymoon to Disney World and yeah, there's like a Cinderella suite and Yeah that that is sort of the the narrative the story that she's telling herself in order to live

Yeah, and she's like she's very normie in a way. She's like female like gender swap Luigi coated But there's like, yeah, and I think setting it in a Russian context was very smart, because it's foreign, but not too foreign. It's like the classic like Victor Shklovsky move of like estrangement making strange the mundane. Rain Fisher Kwan says like how as a hetero pessimist, she felt that she was watching a different movie from most hetero normative moviegoers Like she says like for them Annie's defeat is a jump-scare Annie's defeat for her It comes as no surprise because she saw it coming and they didn't okay You're so smart. I mean she she's really young and really talented.

And she's like putting it through the turd cutter of theory that she's like gotten secondhand. But I haven't read the essay. I just mean, I think a lot of hetero optimistic people to know how to watch a movie and understand what there's going to be. It's like a little pretentious. You have to give people a little more credit. But what she's saying is that like, the whole like breathless whirlwind first, third

is a setup for. Sort of, but it's not as if Vanya is portrayed as like some kind of, I don't know, I as a hetero optimist didn't, you know, I was like, oh, he's like just some stupid Russian wigger. Yeah. Like he's not gonna be the one to save her, obviously. And he's never really presented and there's no like,

well, yeah, that red herring where he's, it's not like it ends with us, that Blake Lively movie where you're like, wow, he's so suave and charming. And then there's a turn, you know, it's like, no, you're like, oh, he's it's not like it ends with us that Blake Lively movie where you're like wow he's so suave and charming and then there's a turn you know it's like no you're like oh he's just some kid well that was one of my favorite parts like he is really good mm-hmm he and the other Russian guy were like the the best master deeming parts of the movie for me like he's like kind of shy and innocent but also like spoiled and thoughtless and frankly corrupt. And he plays this Russian rich kid well.

And she's like, what do you do to afford all this? And he's like, I am a drug dealer. No, I am a gun dealer. I have some ideas for apps. And that's what a guy like that would say. He says, Google my dad. And when he when he says my wife and Borat voice and like you have this image of him where he's like, you know, just gaming and hitting the bong in his McMansion. And he's obviously like a loser, but it's unclear whether she can see that.

And she falls for it because it promises kind of like an escape from her life, which is less traumatic than it is like doll and monotonous. Yeah. I like the scenes where she's trying to like coax a normal reaction out of him when they're like flopping around on the couch or like smoking weed and he's like zoning out and she looks the other way.

Well yeah, so there was a lot of subsequent discourse about whether or not, um, Anora glamorized sex work. Obviously a lot of lip service was paid to the sex worker community at the award ceremony. And in the production of the film generally. But yeah, there was, I saw like, it's glamorizing sex worker. No, it's secretly a right wing movie that's showing you how depraved

and soulless sex work is. I think it's both. I think it actually is just a realistic depiction of sex work that's not necessarily the most bleak and traumatizing thing nor the most titillating and exuberant thing. It's like, I thought it did a really good job of hitting the true midpoint of what life is like for someone who engages in survivalist sex and sex adjacent work.

Well, yeah, I have a theory for the origins of an aura, which, you know, maybe farfetched, I'm just spitballing but humor me here. Like, yeah, as many people have pointed out, this movie could not have existed without this podcast, which sounds delusional and arrogant. I don't think that's true. I think it's downstream from the kind of

ambient diffuse influence of the pod. And like, I think that there is influence from the pod. I know Baker listens to the show. But that I think is, I think there could have been a version of the movie that didn't have, you know, like, maybe, but also just the idea of like Russian American millennials being

legible enough to translate to the big screen and like, well, Sean Baker said the film was inspired by someone he knew or someone he knew who knew someone who was kidnapped, who was a young Russian girl who was married and then kidnapped for collateral, who did become kind of entangled in some aspect of organized crime. Yeah, and the organized crime angle was interesting because it was actually like pretty innocent and softball like these these people weren't the brutal and ruthless gangsters that you would assume they would be. They were kind of fumbling and bumbling and incompetent But you know, there's like the they're referencing an off-screen character called Dasha at Tatiana The the Armenian gangsters and anora's Armenian nickname

Annie on II that's like a distinctly Armenian name the tattoo song playing Sure, and I bring this up for a reason. I don't care. I'm not like mad about it. I'm not trying to get credit. Like obviously as an artist, he's allowed to be kind of vaguely and ambiently inspired by all sorts of random different things. But the of our girl, Zoe Keston, AKA Weedslut. That's true. Like the story of Zoe falling in love with Hunter Biden is remarkably similar. And like, though the details have been changed. Right. Like a young stripper hustling and grinding gets called into a private room

because she shares some point of interest with a mysterious client, and then it snowballs into like a short-lived whirlwind romance. They kind of look alike. They're both like New York shorties with like kind of Asiatic eyes and cause our milkers. Well, don't you think that there is something archetypal there?

I don't know I think it's a little too specific like the idea that she's like yeah she's like a you know scrappy survivor with a warm heart who sort of like bites off more than she can chew. Here's another quote from Rain Fisher Kwan, some critics of Enora have called it unrealistic that a woman like her, a career stripper, a native New Yorker would fall for any of Vanya's promises. And I agree that the trope of the open hearted, earnest, gullible stripper showing a real self to her clients is both a male and a consumer fantasy. And it is unrealistic in theory until you meet Zoe. And it is unrealistic in theory until you meet Zoe.

Yeah, or from Mariah. Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was like some linkage there. And like, you know, like Anora's heritage is left like deliberately ethnically ambiguous. Like it's understood that she comes from like an ex-Soviet background. But it's unclear what exactly it is. Like they reveal that she had a Russian speaking grandmother who never learned English. Well I was writing a crime movie for a while about A Russo Armenian karaoke host named Nina.

Yeah. But in Los Angeles. Yeah. Who becomes entangled with like the Korean and Armenian mafia. It was kind of like a Glendale K-Town story. Yeah. But I couldn't really, I couldn't quite, you know.

So I have admiration just for anyone who's able to tell a story. Cause I, cause I couldn't quite, I had a lot of montages too. Well, it's easy. Yeah. I mean, I think like now I'm really getting to my ultimate issue with the film, but she's like triple estranged in a way. Like she's too Russian for Americans and she's not Russian enough for the Russians not just because she's American but also because she's like an ethnic and that sort of like lends her character context and mystique but it also is less work for the filmmakers because it's a movie for like Western anglophone audiences

who are like just not yeah they able to pick up on the trivia and minutiae. And they're fine with it as long as it's convincing enough and like yeah I was thinking about something I was thinking that like something about the girl name being named Enora and Nick named Annie like made gave me kind of like a queasy illities feeling because You know, it's kind of like a fake and nonsensical but plausible sounding name that they kind of like plucked out of thin air in a way that would understandably like go undetected by most people and Like is anora not a real name. I Don't think it's a real name. I've never heard it. Like the nickname Ani, like I said,

is specifically Armenian. Yeah, yeah. The name Anora. Armonoid Ani. Invented, but has like a distinctly Caucasian flavor. I think at some point Igor notes that it means pomegranate. She's maybe vaguely Uzbek. is she Caucasian or Central Asian because they did their research or because more likely they assume many Americans that all Slavs look like Stalin? I don't really care about unflattering or inaccurate depictions of Russians by Western filmmakers.

No, par for the course. Whatever. That's not my issue. Like, oh, you as an American filmmaker failed to nail the cultural coordinates and now I'm personally aggrieved because I could have done it better. My kid could do that.

I think they did a perfectly serviceable job, but there was a moment toward the end where they're like in a car headed to the annulment where Annie is telling Vanya look like you're an adult tell them that we're legally married and that we're not getting a divorce and what it stuck out to me that the word they used for adult was Bolshoi big versus roughly Grown up Which is like a very rookie mistake to make on a film set that presumably has a lot of native Russian speakers

but but like nor is not does it Russian, but does it really matter and Is it a deal-breaker like no no, not at all. Who cares? Well, to me, it's plausible that she would use that word because she Well, he uses it. No, he does. Yeah. He says like, yeah, but sure, whatever. I mean, I guess he's like, I recall her saying it and finding it kind of curious. But it was Yeah, it was like, oh like a weird legible to me but like was it yeah exactly like doesn't really speak russian so it's like but yeah like i think my issue with it is less like that they like fail to convey russians with 100 faithfulness because who could do that

right like that's what big diaspora. Yeah. It's like a dumb like hair splitting argument and more that it, it like uses this kind of like ethnic inside baseball to like insist on its own competence and mastery without actually making a case for itself. But do you think an Anglo viewer would feel that way? No, and that's part of why it's been so successful and part of why nobody notices. Well, that's why that guy in the New York Times op-eds

said we have to just, the whole Russian film industry. We can't have no Russians in any movie. But it wasn't even like the Russian thing. Like one of the things that really grinded my gears was that an aura had this very distinct regional New York City accent that's basically extinct. Except in certain parts of like Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey, and certainly for people her age. She's like doing the Fran Fine, the nanny or Marissa Tomei and my cousin, Vinny. And it doesn't really add up.

Like the only person that I know who sort of speaks like that is Ava Pearlman. And she's like the exception that proves the rule. Like your honor, my daughter. And like that was. Also, like a device that gave the film authenticity while getting around the hard work of like developing characters or having a convincing plot.

I thought the plot was. Plausible, yeah, it's it's just plausible enough I thought the plot was plausible. Yeah, it's just plausible enough that you don't start to examine it or scrap it for parts. Mickey Madison literally looks like Fran Drescher if she was bonked over the head, which is why men love her so much, because she's like hot and sexy in the same way, but like with a touch of Sydney Sweeney.

The other thing is the Armenian- She's got a tender look in her eye. Yeah, yeah. She's good at, I don't know. Like soulful, sensual. Yeah. The Armenian parts also fell flat for me. Yeah, go on.

Well, I'm sure that like Armenian gangsters and Armenian priests Exist on the East Coast like in Watertown, Massachusetts, but they're not the first people you think of when you think of The russophone ex-soviet diaspora. Well, he wasn't a priest Who the Armenian guy tore or tore? He was like, whatever. He was some kind of officiary of the church. He was at a He was wearing vestments because he was participating in a baptism. Yeah, but he's but what you know, and that was a real Armenian church I looked it up. No, I know and it was it was well done like the scene was well done and convincing

But like just the idea of like that type of Armenian like Well, I guess like it didn't it didn't add up to me like again Why insert Armenians into the storyline at all except to flex your chops? Well, because they're criminals Sure, but that's like such a shortcut, but it's the truth. Yeah, but it doesn't quite add up, it doesn't quite make sense in a East Coast context. Maybe, maybe you're right. The reason Armenians, I decided to write my Onora-esque script about Armenians was because they seemed, when I was a karaoke hostess I noticed that the Koreans kind of ran the bars and then the Armenians patronized them that there seemed to be some kind of like

symbiotic criminal relationship between the two. Yes definitely I'm sure but that's And I bet a lot of those Armenians were going to like baptisms during the day and then. No, of course, I've been to baptism like that. St. Barton's Church in Midtown, maybe 14, 15 years ago now for a friend of mine who. Beautiful church. What's a beautiful. It's a beautiful. It's gorgeous. It's so tasteful and well done in a way that you wouldn't

expect from Armenians. But yeah, like for a guy who was a friend of mine who's very reminiscent of the Vanya character, like he was like a Russian speaking New York City rich kid who was kind of like a junkie and a playboy. And they really nailed the Armenian accent when they were like, Well, what are we going to do with this dude, Dasha? They all have such an accent, I hate this accent, he's so ugly. Terrible.

Terrible, I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. And I read somewhere or somebody told me that the guy who plays Tauros is Sean Baker's long-term collaborator who had some kind of involvement in the script. So that's the most plausible explanation that like this guy who Sean Baker is friendly with and fond of

inserted his like ethno-narcissistic arc into the film, which is such an Armenian thing to do, like you would. Yeah. Yeah, like I would understand if they were like, you know, like Russian Jewish gangsters or Central Asian gangsters. It just does not. It's not adding up for you. It's not adding up for me.

I mean, yeah, like, right. Well, yeah, Uncut Gems had all like the Diamond District Jews. Yeah, which makes sense. But this, I don't know. I guess I just, yeah. I'm from the West Coast, so to me the Armenians are like a staple of your experience. Yeah, I mean, I think like I associate them with like crime. And punishment.

With, yeah, the post-Soviet diaspora. And in America, yeah, is like linked to kind of criminal activities. Yeah, I mean, DAF, but that is like largely, overwhelmingly a West Coast phenomenon. And I think like, yeah, my issue with it was that like all of these kind of finely honed, deliberately crafted details.

It's like a Rachel Kushner novel. It skirts around the issue that the film overall was a little bit over long and a little bit underwritten. was a little bit overlong and a little bit underwritten. Perhaps. I'll admit I'll permit. Hence the yeah, the reliance on montage. Yeah, and it's like one of those movies that like depends on a lot of like yelling and cussing and fighting and vomiting and

like needless confusion to like create an illusion of like action intention without actually doing the work. the stakes in part because there wasn't sort of convincing enough of like a love story. The stakes felt a little low. The pacing was good and the tension felt real, but ultimately real, but ultimately like you're like, it's, it's, it was smaller than it aimed to be. Yeah, though, like to be clear, I think the ambiguity surrounding the nature of the love story, which is divorced from any cultural context in his universal can be applied to any scenario was one of the best parts of the movie because yeah, it's totally unclear whether these people were sincere or loved each other, and they probably were sincere in the moment

and probably thought they loved each other, which is like the nature of romance. It's like the Andy Warhol, like romance is finding your fantasy in people who don't have it. That was the best, strongest, most redeemable part of the film. And for Vanya, the stakes for him are low to get married, to do anything he's spoiled. Yeah, he's used to living a consequence free life and getting bailed out by his rich parents who he resents for kind of brow beating him,

but always having his back ultimately. And they're trying to discipline him, get him to work at his dad's shadowy corporation. He doesn't give a fuck. How does like, and the Igor character, how does he come into the mix? He's like, he's like a hired thug. Okay. Who's sent along with the Armenians to like, um,

cause the Armenians are implied to be kind of the like caretakers of Vanya. Yeah. They're like, they all allude to having put up with his shit for his whole life. They've always been getting him out of trouble and whatnot. And that they've been tasked with being pseudo guardians. The family's functionaries in the United States because they have more roots here or whatever. I thought Ivy was very much in her element.

Ivy was great. Because it's her forte as a comedic actress to do yelling and cussing and self-deprecating humor. That was a bit I found actually the most more implausible than the Armenians was that they would have this friend group. Yes. Like worked at a, I mean, but that's just good clean, fun, like movie stuff.

Like you just have act that's like, that's indie filmmaking. You're like, we have a candy store. Like let's write into the script. Where there's something with like a blind and deaf guy who's not an actor. Yeah. That's just like, I appreciate that. Just. I mean, that reminded me of like the great part in your movie where the girls go into that

weird black magic and special elixir shop and there's that guy hanging out behind the register. And Mike Balandick as the shopkeeper too. When you are making a movie for so little money, you're kind of just working with what you have. But I was like, the click that Vanya associated with was like a mix of like rich Russian kids and then also kind of like Brighton Beach,

the candy store employees. That was one of them. So two things stuck out at me about that part of the movie. A, a guy like Vanya, why is he friends with random working class Brighton Beach kids who have normal service jobs? Like I was under the impression originally that those kids were similarly like sons of the oligarchy,

but they're not, which is bizarre and improbable. Also, why would they search for him mostly on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, which is a place that children of the Russian ultra-rich don't really frequent except for that one gated community. Like that's an area that's frequented by like Russian Jewish pensioners, millennial tourists and Muslim families.

He did live there. And that house was a real Russian oligarch's house. It's like, I know the area. It's like when you drive a little- It's like almost sheep's head. It's like on a tail. Yeah, yeah. And there are, I've walked past that houses like that randomly one night with liam xweeney

And we were like trying to figure out who lived there and how we could like get in we were trying to do like The anora and her friend going to the new year's party She's just like me for real when russian guys are like girl you speak russian and i'm like Well, I can't really understand, but I'm ashamed to speak, but you can say I understand everything. because it was what it was like that. It's like that. Yeah, look at the suburban home I grew up in. It's like, it's a movie that like spikes your cortisol and makes you less beautiful, which is something that Puerto Rican Veronica said,

paraphrasing Slavic Veronica. Like it is like very like fast-paced high octane whatever But you know as she also pointed out which I thought was a great insight. It's a movie that really strains the Usefulness of an artistic rule of thumb like show don't tell hmm because I think they do a little too much showing and not enough explaining. The movie doesn't really explain how you get from point A to point B to point C. Yeah.

But you know, it's, for me at least in the experience of watching it, as a filmmaker, as an indie filmmaker, because you do kind of spaz and trip out about, you're like, how are people going to know that they're... You have to find a middle ground between over explaining and giving your audience some credit to like yeah weave together information that they're meant to understand in this case with a little a little too much montage. Yeah, but I think the major fault of this movie is that it pretends to give the audience credit but really kind of condescends to them.

You think? Yeah, a little bit because it's just like implied that they know what they're talking about. They're the experts here. They've done their research. And you should use your instinct, your intuition to like fill in the blanks, connect the dots or whatever, but they don't really go through the trouble

of doing the work of explaining how all of this comes together. So like that's where like the minor, ordinarily negligible cultural inaccuracies come into play. But if you look at the film, like the film's emotional through line through the protagonist of Enora, yeah, you know, it's not so significant like

why the Armenians are in the syndicate. Yeah. Like how where the money is coming from. Well, yeah, but that's like, I guess that's my beef because I don't like superfluous detail in filmmaking and writing and art of any kind. Mm-hmm. That's my biggest I think well What did you think was superfluous? Like all the the kind of ethnic inside baseball Which was you know partly necessary because that's the context of the film I get it but I think they leaned too heavily into that versus the kind of

that versus the kind of actual material that they were grappling with, if that makes any sense. I wish the Armenians were Jews and there was more anti-Semitic. Yeah, exactly. And like, yeah, and it's instead of saying you feel like instead of saying you fucking Armenian, you Armenian fuck, you know, if they're saying you. And just like all the cursing. K-word. Supposed to like dial up the temperature. Sure. And they're like shifting between three,

Armenian is such an ugly language by the way. This movie actually did me a solid and really made me realize that because it literally just sounds like a tape being played backwards. Whereas Russian is such a like beautiful and profound and poetic language. Yeah, it really is.

And Armenian is like, shurum burum, harut barut. I mean, it's hard to, you know, I think that Sean Baker did his due diligence that the movie was adequately researched. that Sean Baker did his due diligence, that the movie was adequately researched. I mean, like given that he's like an American guy, he did an amazing job. It was very skillful and impressive.

He did not embarrass himself. Yeah, he's a, he swept. Yeah. He's a champ. But I mean, he didn't even embarrass himself, like making a movie about a culture that he's not part of and doesn't quite understand. He did a really solid job.

I mean, think of how if anyone else made, you know, in this climate, to make a movie about Russian Americans and native Russians. Yeah. There's like, I get so many, not so many, but like, you know, I'm on some list where I get, you know, the occasional audition for some Russian speaking part in some TV or film. And yeah, it's always some like a gold digger, speaking part in some TV or film.

And yeah, it's always some like a gold digger, a prostitute and the depictions of the Russians are always like, we're just far worse. Like the bar is so low. Svetlana from the Sopranos in the pre-opic before she loses her leg. And I would. That would actually be kind of cool. They should do a Sopranos spin-off

that's not whatever the many saints of Newark, snore, gay, and they should do one about like the specifically Russian gangsters and criminals that were orbiting the whole Italian American scene. That would be cool. That would be cool. Now there's a space for my fucking annoying like Jersey strong accent jumps out when I get a little drunk. Drunk. Drunk. Yeah, I mean, there was a period of time where it was like every audition I got was for like a woman in a shipping container.

A dad hooker number three. A troll farm operator. And so I, yeah, I just appreciate kind of the nuance, even if it's imperfect. Yeah, and even just like the idea of putting like Russians on the map in a politically neutral way. Yeah. But it really was uncut gems for girls for me, because it's similarly fast-paced and stressful, which is to its credit, that's intentional, but it's somehow in a way, I don't want to,

it's not less competent, but it's less tight. Because there's- I definitely found on Kitchum's more stressful, but less compelling. Yeah, I mean, it's also like a movie that's not really for us. It's a very like a heteropatriarchal film. It's for the boys, but there's like no-

They're very segregated by gender. But in Uncut Gems, right, it was like, you know, he owed money. He, he's, it was like the gambler, you know? It's like he has to like pay off his gambling debts and he's getting deeper and deeper into shit. It was like the gambler, you know, it's like he has to like pay off his gambling debts and he's getting deeper and deeper into it's very straightforward. It's very save the cat. It's very textbook. And like I said, like the stakes here are just more nebulous because you don't really necessarily know or believe that Anora has real significant meaningful feelings for Vanya or like what the stakes even really are.

You know that like, yeah, this marriage is a way for her to like escape her life. That part was probably the best part for me because it was so unclear and ambiguous and that's how human relations really are. It's unclear from the outside looking in whether someone really loves somebody else. But that diminishes like, or for me diminished, I guess, the tension of the second half of the searching for Vanya and the will they annul their marriage or not. It sort of, it didn't feel that significant or there was something kind of like inevitable. Yeah.

Whereas in Uncut Gems, he's like, maybe he's going to win this fucking bet or whatever. Whatever was going on. and then Uncut Gems, he's like, maybe he's gonna win this fucking bet or whatever. Whatever was going on. I've like historically been very critical of Uncut Gems, but the person who helped me reframe my narrative was an Armenian guy, friend of the pod, Alex Vartan, who was like, okay, this is a movie that's like metaphorically symbolically

about the stages of drug addiction. Or like addiction as such, because he's an addict. Yeah. He's not a literal drug addict in the movie, he's a gambling addict, but it's the nature of like being addicted to something. But the reason I draw the comparison is because a Nora in like Uncut Jumps doesn't have like a controlled mechanism for like the release

of stress or tension. And it's just like chaotic and confused ethnic yelling. Like all the way through the last two thirds of the film. And it's mainly meant to, again, make the filmmaker look good and he knows what he's doing, which is not untrue. They do be yelling. I watched with Ryland and he was like, this is like you and your parents. This is like we went into the bistro

in the strip mall with your parents and you guys started screaming at each other about Ukraine. Did you really? Yeah, I know. And I was like, We just like switched over to Russian and started screaming and really sitting there politely. Yeah, it's like you're like switching into English and you're like there politely. Yeah, it's like, you're like switching into English and you're like, And it made me think of like, the bit that we always do on the show that's like too

real about how like, our parents are like too like, indifferent and uninterested and never meeting our boyfriends. It's like so bleak and dark. I think like, yeah, one of the best parts for me was when they show the basic incompatibility and mistrust of Russian versus American culture in the scene when Anora finally meets Vanya's mother, Galina Stepanova, and she like attempts to like break the ice and speak to her in her like charmingly botched, like American accented Russian and Galina like cruelly rebukes her. And like the opening scene, like all cultural context aside was good because it, you know,

Anora is like working class she's a sex worker she's a person who lives a fringe lifestyle and it shows how girls who do that sort of thing for a living constantly have to face like awkward rejection but put on like a happy face, like have a perennially like upbeat and chipper demeanor. Like I think both of our stripper friends, Zoe and Mariah have talked about this, where she's going like, yeah, hi, my name is Anora.

What's your name? What do you do? Oh, are you waiting for somebody else? And she's getting- Are you a hard worker? Yeah. Yeah, and she's just getting like nagged and rejected and it's kind of okay because it's like in this kind of like pay pig context.

So it's not real. Well, you're really it's. Well, in the way you said that uncut gems was about addiction, I think it's also much like a noro really about addiction. I think it's also much like a noro really about like... Delusion. Well, filmmaking. How so? Which like the way that every movie is really about

making a movie, which is a lot like prostitution or being a drug addict. Well, it's a lot of like having to believe when every sign, every like data point says that you should give up and pack it in. Yeah. And like, yeah, you know, it made me think like, yeah, like she's a stripper and an escort.

She's no dummy. She's been around the block. But by virtue of being Americanized, she seems much more sort of like naive and optimistic compared to these like godless and nihilistic Russians. I thought it was obviously like a very smart move to go with this Russian context versus doing like crazy rich Asians or like

Bollywood Indians. Because like her I mean, say what you will about Sean Baker's filmography as like a poverty pornographer or whatever it's I think he is concerned with a kind of realism mm-hmm and The Russian setting of an aura I Guess you don't find it so plausible No, I do I do I find like the premise like or the conceit to be Like cool and original, I'm not against that because it provides you

with enough critical distance while maintaining some level of familiarity. These people are foreign, but they're not so foreign that you can't relate to them. Yeah, Russia's a perfect foil in many ways, and it gives you like this access to luxury culture that's very satisfying on the screen. You know, sure you can make a movie about like a handjob parlor worker who meets a who gives a hand job to a rich man or something but that's just a

total you know this was like a really good well it's like a refraction of american culture which is you know just as vulgar and nihilistic in a way but because americans are in it they in a way. But because Americans are in it, they can't necessarily see it for what it is. Yeah. And there's like, I don't know, I'm just, it's coming to me now, but the, something about a Nora's character being more Americanized and still having a kind of potentially romantic though she's cynical in her own ways about marriage right as like an American institution that's meaningful and then for like the nefarious Russians, it's just something that's like done to punish your parents who then.

Yeah, and I mean, I don't even think that, like I think that Vanya, when he proposes to her in the hotel suite in Vegas, like is fully sincere in that moment. Yeah. Like he's not leading her on, he's not lying to her in that moment, but he's a guy who lives in the moment because he has no past or future,

just like an endless sprawling present. And yeah, the marriage thing, it reminded me of like that land shark thread. That's like one of my favorite threads of all time. That was like, you know, the worst thing that you can do to a woman is lead her on and waste her time and over promise and under deliver. And yeah, like that's sort of what he does.

Like, she may be a stripper who does escort work on the side, and he may be a corrupt and dissolute, like nepo baby rich kid. But in that moment moment they shared something that was close to love and he you know like betrayed and stained it. And for both of them was a mechanism of escape right? Yeah. When he proposes to her it's sort of to ostensibly become American. And so that he can stick it to his parents and have to work for his dad's mysterious company. And she gets to not... The strip club she works at is in Manhattan, actually.

Yeah. That was one of the most annoying things where they spent like the second, like two thirds of the movie, like, it's like searching around Brighton Beach and then in a moment, she like the electric bulb went off, like the Edison bulb and she was like, oh yeah, he's in Manhattan at my strip club. But like, yeah, it's like no matter how like casual and shallow your relations are, and no matter how hard and shallow your relations are, and no matter how hard and cynical you've become,

every woman has experienced this moment where somebody, like a man says something kind of profound and meaningful to her, where he jokingly proposes marriage or proposes to knock her up. And it literally rewires your brain in that moment. Like I was thinking of like, when we did Megyn Kelly, and I was like, besmirching Ashley St. Clair by way of defending her. And I was like, yeah, like all of us girls, we talk about getting knocked up by the guy we're into at the moment in our group chats and like text messages. She's like, I've never done that.

What are you talking about? Yeah, we're like, you should baby trap him. Yeah, but it's like, of course, everybody like casually throws that around. And when you're like hot and heavy, you're like, yeah, like let's get married. Let's have a baby. It's like hot and horny.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm Catholic. You can't pull out. But it does like get your hopes up and her hopes are like hopelessly crushed by the end of it. Yeah. Rain Fisher Kwan was saying that like a kind of a spirit of crushing nihilism pervades the whole movie. And I was thinking about whether that was due to the fact that this is a movie about people who are generally crushingly nihilistic in spirit,

or because the kind of whole conceit, the message of the movie itself is crushingly nihilistic, which is like, wake up and smell the roses. Like back to reality, you dumb Foyd. which is like, wake up and smell the roses. Like back to reality, you dumb Foyd. Well, I saw, so, well, okay. So then Mikey Madison also caught some flack for some interview where she said that she didn't use an, there wasn't an intimacy coordinator, where she said that she wasn't an intimacy coordinator,

which some real midwits took issue with, but I couldn't be more pleased about it because intimacy coordinators are scum. They're the DEI. We need Doge to got the intimacy coordinator industry. I did a movie with an intimacy coordinator where I wasn't even doing a sex scene. I was just doing like kind of a emotionally charged scene. Yeah. And they brought an intimacy coordinator to set who was just some like millennial Canadian chick who like would check in with me and make sure I had like a self-care routine in place

or like, she was, I remember her asking me if I thought the work that I was doing was triggering. And I was like, I'm literally an actress. It's your job to be triggered. I'm trying my hardest to be triggered so that I can have like, so I can emote on screen. No, it's ridiculous. I like visited a film set recently

and they were like talking about how like, you have to come now because afterward it's gonna be a closed set and right now it's an open set and whatever. I didn't understand what these terms meant. So I kind of like naively asked like, what's that all about? And basically the long and short of it was like

when the intimacy coordinator is on set, weird random visitors can't be there. Well, a closed set can happen. Like, Well, yeah, if they're having like an intense or whatever, they explained all this. It's normal to close a set, you know, besides like people who really need to be there for something like,

Yeah. For something where the actor is especially exposed, but an intimacy coordinator doesn't need to be there period. But yeah, no, it's preposterous that the whole idea of intimacy coordinators even exists. It's crazy. It is literally just administrative bloat. Like those people have no place, no business intervening in the art of filmmaking. It's preposterous that people even have to hire them.

I hope what Inora does is put an end to intimacy coordinators because people refuse to work with them. I mean, I would love to. But yeah, it's something that's done. It's not even like, I mean, there might be some SAG provision or something for it, but mostly I think it's something that's done by directors and producers to sort of like pay lip surface to what they've done to, you know, it's just like liability coverage. I know, but that's what it all comes down to in all industries. It was, yeah, they're, they're as bad as liability. During COVID, there was like, it was literally someone's job to come up to me every five minutes and tell me to put a mask on.

Yeah. If it took too long to set up a shot. That person was getting paid to do that. So they really wanted to be there because it was a paycheck. It was a livelihood. Yeah. Which is grotesque. It's no way to live.

Yeah. It's a way to work. It's like leading a woman on. It's no way to no way to live. Yeah, it's a way to work. It's like leading a woman on. It's a way to make a movie. And yet in intimacy coordination is really farcical. Yeah. And I hope we can all get on the same page. Yeah, just like once you like zoom out and realize what it is you're like why is this even in place and why does anybody stand for it? Because part of me too perpetuated this narrative that actresses are uniquely disempowered and that there's all sorts of like exploitation going on.

But they become actresses because they want to be uniquely disempowered. Like what are you talking about? That was, this is a part of the movie that I am on the fence about because on one hand I liked it but on the other hand I found it suspect like the end of the film where there's this like vague conservative anti-me too dog whistling where she, the, um, and Egor are hanging out spending a final night in the Zahara of mansion before she has to go back to her old life. And she says that he has rape eyes and he's like, what? No, I'm not a rapist.

He's like genuinely freaked out by her allegation and she's like trying to provoke him into raping because, you know, like that's how it is. Whenever there's a man and a woman, they will fuck. And like, that's what ends up happening. But like, I w on one hand, it was a proud and powerful anti-MeToo, anti-LibTards dance, but on the other hand, it's like, we get it.

You're so based and you were caught liking pro-Kyle Rittenhouse tweets. I don't think it's that methodical. I don't, I mean, I think it comes from a kind of genuine instinct. Yeah. About gender dynamics and human nature. Yeah.

Like he gets it. Yeah. Like he gets how things really work in the real world. Exactly. In spite of all like the theorizing. And yeah, had this movie. And like intellectualizing and whatever. Not had the freedom that it did due to being an indie

that's exactly the kind of scene some like yeah uh conglomerate of producers would say actually he should rape her to show that you know yeah or like that's this kind of thing that typically doesn't go like unchecked yeah this, this was Eli's take on it, and he liked the movie overall, but he was saying that the last scene was unconvincing because in reality, a guy like Igor would have raped her, kind of callously and insensitively, but that's not what happens,

and she kind of jerks him off in the car and I thought the ending was really good. Like how there's no music and it just ends on the motor running. Like it was so kind of like sad and demoralizing. Yeah, I saw people have very disparate reads of the end of the film. Yeah.

I saw some like sex worker activist type people talking about how she's having sex with a guy she's not even attracted to because she's so disempowered from her line of work and I didn't really feel that way at all. That's not true. She's very clearly attracted to him and he's attracted to her. That's probably the most redeeming romance of the entire film. But I don't think a guy like him would have necessarily raped her and I think that is partly due to, or mostly due to the performance.

What do you mean? By Yuri. Oh yeah, he's really hot. He's super hot but he also also he has this kind of like, he was extra super well cast. And yeah, he didn't seem like the kind of guy that would rape her. He did seem he does have this like pale and clammy Russian thing going for him. Yeah, kind of like knowing kind of world weary sad of puppy dog eyes. He's too like sad to rape her, you know? He doesn't, he's not.

Yeah. He like has an aggression that obviously he can utilize, but he's, I, that scene I thought was very good and that he was very good at it. And I thought, what I liked about it also was that he's supposedly this hired thug who's like somehow associated with organized crime. But he's actually just like your average like Russian schmuck living on Brighton Beach in

his grandma's house driving his grandma's car. Yeah. Yeah, well, the final scene I thought was also good because they both, yeah, they're these like, lump and prole, you know, like underdogs that are both kind of... Like losers of society. Yeah, they live to kind of in service of others and it makes sense that they would have

be drawn to one another in the way that they are and under the painful circumstances that they're in. Yeah, and they're sort of tough, but sentimental. It reminded me, you know, like the big untranslatable word, Bochlist. Like I was thinking about like Zelensky and how he's such a Bochli chlwwek. He's like the definition of Bochlist.

Like he should, like his picture should be in the dictionary next to the word because he's so brutish and vulgar. the word because he's so brutish and vulgar and maudlin. Like he oscillates between like extreme, like threatening and extreme sentimentalism. Like I don't think this movie was quite Bushly, but it was like something close to that. It was like Bush list and translation, you know, like where they're like kind of getting at this core quality of like the

Russian soul. Nihilistic has never been the right word for it. Like demoralized, disaffected, cynical, but also super sensitive and sentimental. Yeah, the duality. Yeah, disaffected precisely because it's so sensitive. Which is something I think at core that all people can relate to just like Russians manifest it more. Yeah, and they have well. Russian women of a certain ilk. Yeah, I think, in that way, the Inora character is very realistic because I think they, like,

while they do have this kind of like pragmatic transactional framework, it's sort of a facade for a kind of like romantic tenderness. Yeah, because you're always trying to get ahead of being horribly hurt and disappointed and you already know what's going to happen in advance. disappointed and you already know what's gonna happen in advance. And when you're in survival mode, you know, you are able to like dissociate from or ignore certain red flags. Yeah.

Because deep down, like we've said, I don't think we came up with it, that you're like an optimist masquerading as a pessimist. Yeah, I mean, I think like Russians are unique in that they actually don't ignore or deny the red flags they notice and accept them, but they live life as if anyway. Rain Fisher-Kwan at the end of the essay makes a very kind of religious argument where she says like, you know, the moral of the story is like, you're gonna be exploited anyway, so why not believe in love?

It's like your life is gonna suck and be full of trials and tribulations, so why not have faith? Even though the concept of faith, as Nick Fuentes said recently on one of his streams, is a mystery. And people are always trying to get to the bottom of it and find data and evidence to support

their reason for having faith. But the whole concept of faith defies logic and reason. Yeah, that's the point. Yeah, that's like the whole point. Otherwise it's not faith. And you're just a crude materialist. You've done some calculations. Yeah, so like what choice do you have

other than being like a hard-boiled survivalist who secretly believes in the possibility of an island. I guess that's like how I would put it. Yeah. There was also a very touching part toward the end when they're like, it's like night and they're freezing on the boardwalk. That was actually like really accurate in a way

that kind of redeemed the whole film when they were like in one of the Brighton Beach clubs and the Armenian guy was like, Unas prapal bainoy debionek. And then later on, the bald asshole guy drapes the scarf that he had previously gagged Nora with over her and was like, you'll get cold if you don't cover your neck. Those were the most like truly accurately Russian lines

of the whole movie because Russians love to call everybody sick in the head, but also love to worry about getting actually sick. Right. Like if you like stand in the cold for too long or like sit on like a granite surface, you're gonna get really sick and you might be infertile, and you should use these beats to ruse your lips and cheeks.

Right. And I was really impressed with that because I was like, I don't like, it was so like skillful. Like where did you get that from? Was that improv? Who knows? I mean, the, I think it's an Hermes guy. Yeah, that was that belonged to the mother. Right. In scary, we recreate the up scene hanging with an orange bed sheet because the prison sheets,

and we did a whole Hermes thing. And there's a photo of me gagged with like an orange scarf. Yeah, I'm saying there are little breadcrumbs everywhere. I know, but I think that's okay. Should you choose to follow. But that's okay. It's okay. It's okay to be, to channel this like guys.

No, I know, but like, I think it just like my hunch, my instinct, like it's like people were getting down on us when we were like, oh, like White Lotus season one was inspired by the podcast, because we had like inside knowledge and they were like, you guys are like delusional and retarded, but sure enough, it turned out that. It just was.

Yeah. Are you watching the new season? Mm-mm. Are you? Yeah, you should. I'm like so backed up on everything. Well, it comes out once a week, which is nice. Oh, okay.

I'll get into, I haven't watched the second season, I hate to say. Oh. I love White Lotus and Mike White, but I'm just like drunk and demoralized. Sure. It's hard to. I watched all of Yellowstone and the spinoff, so I'm happy for any new programming and the new season is quite good. I believe that. I love the, what's the Arnold Schwarzenegger nepo baby?

Patrick? Yeah. And he was like, I'm I'm actually like a hard-working Authentic actor and my success has nothing to do with my father. Okay but like yeah, you know how I feel about nepo baby discourse, I think it's like fake and gay because like Okay, so your parents are rich and famous, but if you do something with yourself There's plenty of nepo babies who don't yeah There's far more people who have famous parents who are trying to be actors and not succeeding.

So I think, yeah, they have some advantages, but it's neither fair nor pertinent to really critique someone for taking advantage of. Yes, I would say as much as I get annoyed with this film, I think about the complexities and difficulties of putting it together. Oh my God.

Which is probably all post-production. Well, that's best editing. Yeah, and it's just like it won for screenplay editing. It's, you know, it's um, I'm pro a return to like, you know, tourism that any time a filmmaker is celebrated and has the control that Sean Baker did is a net positive. Well, yeah, and it's a net positive for the culture, but it's not necessarily a net positive for him. Why? Because, well, because now the pressure's on

and he has to deliver the next thing and it's actually much harder than it looks because. He's made so many movies. He's so pretty. No, I know, but like he's like a relatively young guy. He's like what, like 50, 52? Is he? Yeah, he's like, and he looks really young and sprightly.

Irish don't crack. Well, that's not true. I'm assuming he's Irish. No, it really does. Irish don't crack. Um, well, that's Irish. No, it really does. Like, that cracks are quick. Oh, yeah. Wow. He's 54. Okay.

So, okay. He's even older than I thought. But like, he's a young guy in the context in the grand scheme of being like an auteur. And now after sweeping the Oscars, he has to follow it up with something even bigger. I mean, he has to follow it up with something even bigger. I mean, he's made, this is his eighth film. It's hard to scale.

It's hard to get out of indie jail, as Ivy and I say. We're on death row in indie jail. It's like a like triumph for him, but it's not necessarily gonna be like an easier, smooth ride. Like he really has to get back to the drawing board now, which he probably has something. Yeah, I'm sure he has something up his sleeve.

Yeah, but yeah, hopefully he doesn't capitulate to some faking gay market value demands. Yeah, it'd become like Yorgos Solanthimos or Ruben, is that his name, Osland? Yeah. Wait, I'm gonna see if I have any more notes. I was, I mean, my litmus test for like a movie, ultimately, as much as like I was annoyed and irritated by this movie, would I watch it again? Probably. Yeah.

Whereas like, what was the last movie we reviewed? Nosferatu. Yeah, that I will never ever. I don't care. Who won best costume? I don't know. That's a good question. By the way.

Let me look. Yeah, I thought Elena Vile should have done the Nosferatu costume. Oh, wicked. Another movie I'm definitely not interested in. Not interested in, yeah. I'm not gonna fucking watch. Conclave was nominated for the Vatican movie for costumes. And I was like, those are just what they wear.

Those are what you didn't design those. That's like. You accurately translated original costumes to cinema. That's like, it's just what they wear. That's not fair. The costumes in Enora were pretty good. Yeah. Like the stupid like Y2K hoodie

that the little shit rat is wearing at the end. Oh yeah. Yeah, everyone was well styled, her like bandage dresses. He was, I mean, he was really so amazing. It's very unclear and I don't really care to get to the bottom of it, whether he's good because he really got into the role

or whether he's just playing himself. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But something people love to throw at me and say I'm just playing myself and it's like, first of all, you don't know me. Second of all, it's really hard to play yourself. It's harder to play yourself than to play a caricature of someone. But either way, like he did a good job. It doesn't matter. But he was like really such an insufferable little shit, that guy. I know. Yeah. And I

forgot what I was gonna say something about that guy. The Vanya character? Yeah. I thought he had a really good... I really thought you're Yuri Boris. What's his name? Borisov. Borisov? Yeah, I thought he was great. And I thought Mikey Madison was really good. Who? Mikey Madison. She was okay. She was very hit or miss.

I think she has a very special quality as an actress that is in very rare supply. And the last, I saw that she, the last actress to, who was born in the 90s to win an Oscar was Jennifer Lawrence. Oh yeah, when she was like 21 or 22. I, but I think it's funny that, like I'm happy for Enora that they won best screenplay and best actress, but the screenplay and the actress

are to me, like the weakest links of the movie. Because the screenplay is, yeah, just like a lot of ethnic yelling that anyone could write. Like you could chat GPT it. They're like, oh, yeah, no, you're up today. And then the actress, she's good at some points, but then you see the break in the fourth wall in certain moments when she's like, be a man,

tell me what you really think. And like her accent vacillates. It's very imperfect, but I guess it's like a good showing for like a young, untried actress. And as someone like Jennifer Lawrence, obviously really talented, has the career to back that up. Yeah, like not a fan of J-Law, but someone like Mikey Madison just has a much more like human and humane and she just registers on a

different level she doesn't have like veneers. Yeah but when people are like kind of like coming down on this film and they're like oh yeah like they won all the awards and it's like unwarranted and it sucked like you think about what the future of these young people will be and it's like unwarranted and it sucked. Like you think about what the future of these young people will be and it's gonna be them going out for new roles, like probably getting typecast. It's not gonna be like an easy thing necessarily.

I mean, Adrian Brody actually said it best in the course of his speech, which was like annoying and gay and leaned into some like vague, like the free press anti-Semitic hate angle. But he was talking about how like people think that like Hollywood and acting is so glamorous, but it's really not. You're constantly being like humiliated and rejected.

It's a lot like being a stripper. Yeah, sure is. And you have to like, but it's both. You have to like follow up your great success with something new, which is like not necessarily in the cards. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure she'll be fine.

Like she'll get cast in White Lotus season four or whatever. No, she's gonna, I mean, I'm sure she'll be fine. Like she'll get cast in white lotus season four or whatever. Oh, she's gonna I mean that would not She's gonna have a great career There's a bridge what we call a breakout role Mickey Madison in the Zoe Keston story And I don't think she'll be type I think she'll be smart enough to she's gonna play Michelle Tracton birth smart enough to make good choices. She's gonna play Michelle Tracht in Bergh. Oh.

She also does something interesting. Another like porcelain skinned Jewish girl with kazaar milkers. She did have a really tight body. Well, she did, she trained. And she did the pole dancing. Yeah, she prepared for this role. You know.

I was thinking about that when she was doing the thing where she was dangling from the pole upside down. And I was like, man, I would love to be a pole dancer. You can take a class. In my indie film. Just to narcissistically look smacks and gain some core strength. Totally. Just to narcissistically like look smacks and gain some core strength totally Margaret quality did that for the substance

Like a lot of like choreographed dancing. She just got really, you know, like toned. Yeah. Yeah, I draw my inspiration from zoomer actresses Get back to the gym. It's good motivation. Yeah. To get up on that pole. It is a good workout. It is, yeah, I'm sure. It takes tremendous core strength.

Yeah. Did her own stunts. That's not nothing. Yeah. We don't, we're at like the two hour mark. The witching hour. I guess that's it. Yeah, that's fine with me.

All right, well, here you asked for it. All right. Well, here you are. You asked for it. Yeah. And you got what you deserved. See you in hell. you