S3E20.5: The Wonder

The intro was very WTYP

What if you just slowed the jazz music to 0.5 speed to buy more time? Might sound like a horror movie but still

If you like Chilean films you should check out La Casa Loba it is fantastic

I’m a bit late here to ask this but if anyone is still checking this thread does anyone know was it Gloria or Gloria Bell that was the other movie November recommended? please and thank you

Flannery O'Connor "If I can't eat god then what's the point?!"

I would love an Ireland miniseries. Or if you do “Banshees of Inisherin”, Irish movies with houses burning down.

It speaks for how good the movie is, that we didn't get a "9/11 or Transgender" moment. But I do think this movie is trans as fuck. We have a girl/woman having to suffer in a Christian family because of her brother's sins and him no longer being there. She is wearing some of his old clothes. Her family considers her brother's downfall and death her fault. Her body (weight and later bones) are more important to the public than her life and wellbeing. And she escapes by taking on a new name and being freed to live life as she wants, free from the shadow her brother left on her.

I finally decided to listen to this despite the reservations I noted above (being both Irish and somewhat religious, albeit not Catholic, I was wary about both film and review.) I have to say with perhaps one quibble I was impressed by how sensitively and thoughtfully everyone handled this. It's also a rare occasion where I probably align more with November than Abi (though even believer like me laughed at the channeling the spirit of Christopher Hitchens line.) I suppose the one element that surprised me was that Emma Donoghue went entirely unmentioned. I do understand that this is a film studies podcast and I'm normally the first behind Death of the Author but I think some of the context of the story and characters do step from Donoghue being Irish herself (and specifically an Irish emigre to Canada which ties into a whole context of Irish emigrant reflection.) I do want to stress I thought the analysis was very good and well handled not to mention very funny (never go full Cromwell indeed!) but it stood out to me as a curious omission.

began watching this film because you inspired me to & she does look SHOCKINGLY like jenny

When they were talking about how women don't shit I couldn't get the thought out of my head of "Do you shit like an AGP?"

happy wrath month!

If you wanna keep the 1860’s science theme going, you should watch “The Sister Brothers”. It’s very KJB coded

The use of devils advocate is a neat detail because that used to be a real thing that the Vatican used when testing the authenticity of a saint's sainthood, and is where the modern term comes from

If Nova likes dresses that get more fucked up over time in a comedy context may I suggest Stillman’s LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP in which said character only having one dress becomes a visual gag as she tries to social climb in regency England

The content warning has basically everything that will have me rocking back and forth in a corner. So I'll be skipping this one, and seeing you all next week!

I both can’t wait to see this, and CANNOT wait for the Birdcage discussion (including just what a gigantic piece of shit the son is for putting his family through the events of the movie because he’s too much of a pussy to stand up to his future father-in-law).

Interesting note on the "death photos" mentioned near the beginning of the plot synopsis, but this is still a somewhat common practice. Many labor and delivery wards (at least in the US) maintain connections with photographers who will do posed photography sessions with parents and family of deceased newborns/stillborn children. I found this creepy initially when I learned about it, but speaking with my mother and sisters (all nurses on l&d wards) I have come to find a bit more empathy with the practice.

Well this one made me cry

The whole appeal to reason... Ive been... pondering on religion & theology; & something ive been circling round is this sense that before the gods, before faith, before anything else must be one's ethics (or perhaps framed as the christian virtues' before faith must come hope). & this review & thus movie dont like make anything clearer, but the direction feels less alone?

Dev's Munchausen bit took me out.

The principal of my first school was a Dominican nun called sister Michael. So hearing the characters name is jarring lol

yeah this is a rough one

As a teacher (and philosopher, but that’s less relevant) by training and someone currently doing a great deal of reading of the research on learning transfer and generalization, there’s no way that Brecht could have been successful in any reliable way without saying explicitly, “ I have labeled this piece of cardboard ‘table’ and it will be treated as a table by the play in order for you to consider the artificiality and construction of this story. I hope that you will keep this at front of mind as you watch, and I especially hope that you will consider the artificiality of other stories when you encounter them going forward.” And it would be even better to then give examples, saying “For example, Macbeth or the ring cycle.”

This episode and the nun character in particular reminded me of Father Paneloux from Camus’ The Plague, which was adapted into a film at least once (but I can’t speak to its quality since I haven’t seen it). The main themes are similar, but I imagine Camus would have taken a dimmer view of that character than November did. “For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment's human suffering?” https://pressbooks.howardcc.edu/humanities101/chapter/albert-camus-the-plague/

After hearing the discussion of Irish culture during and post-famine, I have a kind of morbid curiosity about how this group would react to "Far and Away", a Ron Howard movie that impressively encompasses explicit racism about the Irish and implicit racism about indigenous Americans, all through the lens of Tom Cruise doing the worst Irish accent I've ever heard.

Although the movie is about an english nurse in the 1800s it also shows what it feels like being a (swedish) nurse in 2024. That the employer does not want you to give the best care you can but rather do as youre told.

Bit of a tangent here, but Diarmuid Ó Giolláin has a fascinating book about how the received image of the rural poor in 19th-century Ireland (i.e. passive, uneducated, Romantic and (NB) safely apolitical), especially in the post-Famine years, gained cultural currency because it served the purposes of the social classes who would later come to power in the Free State. It's called 'Locating Irish Folklore: Tradition, Modernity, Identity' is anyone's interested.

"Stay Queer and Don't Go Cromwell" - new true-crime podcast slogan dropped

"Going Cromwell Mode" sounds like it came from the parallel universe where Abi voluntarily took the surname Trevelyan and started a chain of events which resulted in her becoming a major figure in alt-right YouTube...

struck by how the processes of motivated reasoning and rationalization are the same regardless of worldview - secular authority deploys similar tactics to religious authority in order to justify atrocity...the acting out/reproduction of personal trauma on a microcosmic level in the context of a larger social trauma reminds me of the phenomenon of sin eaters and similar rituals to purify a community in the wake of a traumatic event - you could also make the comparison of scientific discovery to sanctification in the role it plays - an elevation of importance even as it degrades and mortifies the subject i disagree a bit about the meaning of the nun using religious language to justify her silence - i don't think that means it is a neutral meaning making tool and it's how we deploy it - because she has to subvert the superstructure in the first place and the power differential of a nun versus the committee and the church, community and family as a whole, and the use of this language allows the superstructure to continue - it is apologia - yes it allows this individual child to get away but it preserves the system

I'm going to shill once again for 2 movies that I think you'd enjoy at least talking about for different reasons. First one is C.R.A.Z.Y. directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, a Québécois film about growing up gay and "sensitive" in a catholic household surrounded by archetypal male role models. The other one is Knock-Off, directed by Tsui Hark and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. I dom't want to give a whole analysis away, but it's a very conscious, satirical rip-off of hong-kong kungfu films. I think Devon would love it.

Saving children will burn you. But it’s worth it.

My gamer pilled mind went "oh, so it's Pathalogic in Ireland' during the early description of what the movie is trying to be

The content warning on this… Oh wait, there isn’t one! THIS IS NOT OK. [edit] Thank you for adding one.

Oof... being Irish I'm afraid this one cuts too close to the bone for me to listen too. I've read too much 19th century literature to enjoy a tale about a heroic hyperrational atheist Victorian Englishwoman coming to save us backwards duplicitous papist paddies - and yes I know Emma Donoghue is from Dublin.)

Hell yeah

Wondah