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maryrouille · 2 months

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Poor Things (2023) dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Yesterday I watched this movie for the first time, and tonight it won Oscars for the best actress (Emma Stone), production design (Shona Heath, Zsuzsa Mihalek, James Price), makeup and hairstyling (Mark Coulier, Nadia Stacey, Josh Weston), and costume design (Holly Waddington). Such a premonition!

I'll leave an excerpt from a great review by Jakub Popielecki here:

Someone asked whether Lanthimos made a feminist or misogynist film. The sequence when Bella emancipates herself in a brothel, reading socialist leaflets between visits to subsequent clients, can be understood in two ways. It's either a manifesto of proudly taking control of one's sexuality - or a male prostitution fantasy, an excuse to undress Emma Stone in front of the camera. I would rather choose the first option. Let us remember: "Poor creatures" are Lanthimos's "Frankenstein".

#poor things #poor things movie #poor things 2023 #movies #films #emma stone #yorgos lanthimos #poor things film #bella baxter #oscars 2024 #oscar winner #emma stone poor things #poor things review

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emmellas · 2 months

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my belated tribute to emma stone and bella baxter, two beacons of true (intersectional) feminism for international women's day <3

for the first time in cinematic history, a woman's story was told in an entirely liberating manner, with no societal stigmas imposed upon her: in a manner that inherently gave all the power, then, to bella. i call it "the bella gaze."

moreover, bella herself, a neurodivergent-coded woman whose differences are neither mocked or tokenized but rather embraced, is supported wholeheartedly by the film to be a "flawed, experimenting" person who forms her own identity with no regard to those societal stigmas, of her own volition deciding to educate herself every chance that she gets such that she can ("i know this to be true in me -[having a goal to "improve, progress, grow"]- help make the world a more just place: "contribute to the betterment of society." not just for white women. not just for rich women. not even just for women, though the critique against patriarchy is etched into the very soul of the film alongside all other systems of oppression and unjust treatment.

none of this, of course, would be possible without the indelible contributions of bella's animator, if you will: emma stone, whose love and passion for bella resonates in an unprecedented performance (that i hope will bring her a well-earned oscar) and approach to production. emma, a producer on poor things, as much as many try to erase it, was principal in bella's character development- it was she who first drafted it to 10 stages, which ultimately were condensed to 5 per advisement by - and has fiercely advocated for bella amidst a slew of the very stigmas her film critiques, asserting that bella's differences do not make her any less competent, intelligent, or wise, that bella has every right to enjoy sex and speak about it freely, so on and so forth.

emma, though limited by her severe diagnosed anxiety (she has spoken to a deeply engrained trigger regarding speaking on social matters that she's made mistakes on, fearing that she'll again, while good intentioned, will have a harmful impact on the world. mistakes are inevitable and she obviously knows this but as we know, mental illness is irrational), is a living bella regarding her worldview, values, etc. and a summative quote i think back to a lot regarding this is the following:

also figured i'd show an excerpt from a panel emma did on de-stigmatizing anxiety, with remarks that none of us who suffer from GAD are our disorders nor are we defined by them, analogizing it to an entity that sits on our shoulders- entirely separate FROM us but still with us- to further explain a prior remark of mine.

yorgos said it himself: there would be no bella without emma. it is the latter's inherent values of justice and inimitable talent in front of and behind the camera that allowed for bella to be portrayed and celebrated as she was.

these two women are my utmost inspirations.

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agentnico · 4 months

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Poor Things (2023) review

Yorgos Lanthimos may be the new Quentin Tarantino when it comes to feet fetishes in cinema, as there are so many Emma Stone feet shots in this movie… so many. Also, her little toe is oddly square shaped, just saying.

Plot: An incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Under Baxter's protection, Bella is eager to learn. Hungry for the worldliness she is lacking, Bella runs off with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), a slick and debauched lawyer, on a whirlwind adventure across the continents. Free from the prejudices of her times, Bella grows steadfast in her purpose to stand for equality and liberation.

At first I was very much a fan of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ directing style, with him managing to take any event or piece of dialogue and turn it into deadpan awkwardness. As such, his indie films The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer both are great examples of entertaining postmodern cinema with each one featuring a dystopian visual style. That being said, his last film The Favourite, even though it was a hit with the critics and the award ceremonies, for me did not hit the same. It felt much more reserved compared to the director’s previous efforts, and his usual weird style just came off crude and the humour for me personally did not land. Nicholas Hoult was a hoot though, but when isn’t he! Anyway, going into Poor Things I was hoping for more of the original magic which I’ve seen from Lanthimos in his earlier works, and the trailers with their vibrant visuals really sparked my interest, so I went in with high hopes.

So in terms of the visuals, Poor Things may just feature some of the best and most imaginative sets of any movie of 2023. Starting off the first part in black-and-white, very reminiscent of the old Universal monster flicks, but then 30 minutes in transforming into a technicolour dream world with colours popping Wizard of Oz-style, with every shot reminiscent of a vivid painting, with the use of the fisheye lends to create a somewhat watercolour effect to the backgrounds. The movie looks and feels artificial, which connected well with the narrative of this Frankenstein’s monster type woman learning and discovering everything with a brain that’s both her’s and not. Oh, and she happens to also wear rainbow glasses, so I can only imagine how much more stranger the world must look through her eyes.

The film’s biggest asset is its acting. Emma Stone is phenomenal as she has to play a grown woman with the brain of a baby, and then show us that woman growing into her brain (or maybe show us the baby growing into the woman?) over the course of the film. She really does throw herself into the role and it’s the type of role that awards shows will delightfully seek their teeth into. Willem Dafoe as the maker of Bella felt like a character that walked straight off a David Lynch fantasy, from the prosthetic make-up to his performance as the mad scientist that falls for his creation. But the real stand out here is Mark Ruffalo who simply is on another level. Playing the slimy player who only sees women through the male gaze, and attempts to take advantage of Bella’s naive outlook life for his own physical pleasure, it’s the kind of character you are supposed to despise, but gosh did I love everything Ruffalo was doing in this film. He was truly hilarious with every piece of his line delivery successfully painting the pathetic nature of his foolish character. Most critics will be showering Emma Stone with praise and deservingly so, however I believe Mark Ruffalo should not be overlooked and may be the actual MVP of the whole movie.

Narrative wise this is a fun feminist spin on the Frankenstein formula, that is a loud and proud shout to female autonomy for those who may have found Barbie a bit too cheesy and perky, yet I do find the movie to be overly cynical against its own good. It's like Lanthimos approached the film in the same way the mad scientist played by Willem Dafoe in the movie approaches his medical experiments -- with a cool eye and a lot of curiosity, but very little heart. And for the bubbly and big eyed Bella that is full of life and excitement, the film she’s in is the polar opposite. Look, I admired the film for what it was, but the romantic within me wanted a bit more of the, as the French would say, ‘amour’. Also there was just too much sex for my viewing pleasure. Again, I don’t mind a lil’ hanky-panky in my films, but when I’m sat in a dark theatre surrounded by many perverts with 90% of what I’m watching being humans doing the thrusting and the throbbing, it is a tad uncomfortable. You can also imagine what my fiancée thought when I told her afterward about the movie’s heavily erotic side.

Poor Things is very much a film that screams the director’s unique and distinct style and I truly respect it for that, however I personally feel like its not my cup of tea as it was a bit too cold for my liking. There wasn’t really a character I could connect or sympathise with, and even though Mark Ruffalo is funny as hell, his character is a piece of scum and a half. Again, kudos to the whole production team and cast for a great niche slice of art house cinema, but it’s too creepy for my liking.

Overall score: 7/10

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noblerinthemind · 3 months

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So I watched poor things last night and I'm still digesting the movie but there's one thing I can't wrap my head around. I don't understand at all why bella put a goats brain in Alfie's body after shooting him. After a whole movie diving into the themes of bodily autonomy and freedom bella chooses to degrade that (awful, horrible, abusive) man by taking away his agency and autonomy, which I would understand if this point was framed as a bleak ending loosely tied to Harry's philosophy on humanity being fucked, but instead is played solely for laughs.

#poor things #am i missing something here?#i think it was a great choice to /not/ put godwins brain in his body but i do not get why they didn't just kill alfie off or some other end #idek #poor things review #films #movies #tina.exe

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heydrangeas · 1 month

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the (sometimes conflicting) poor things reviews I vibe with as someone who didn’t love or hate the movie

#poor things review #letterboxd #poor things #yorgos lanthimos #the last one that talks about sex is so spot on tbh

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kacic1 · 7 months

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A todos, boa noite! E hoje a noite é de gala!

O excepcional POBRES CRIATURAS, do diretor Yorgos Lanthimos, será exibido no Festival de Cinema do Rio de Janeiro no próximo dia 07 de outubro. Então, convido vocês a visitarem Os Filmes do Kacic, para conferir (ou reconferir) minha crítica publicada no dia 11 de setembro sobre esta explícita e inacreditável produção protagonizada por uma Emma Stone como você nunca viu. Simplesmente imperdível!

Crítica: POBRES CRIATURAS (POOR THINGS) | 2023

🎬🎞🎥📽📺

#movies #cinema #filmes #geek #popculture #nerd #osfilmesdokacic #review #critica #movie review #yorgos lanthimos #emma stone #mark ruffalo #willem dafoe #pobres criaturas #poor things #critica pobres criaturas #poor things review

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spotlight-report · 3 months

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'Poor Things' Movie Review

What do you call a film which combines Alasdair Gray’s hilarious novel, Yorgos Lanthimos’ unique absurdism & Emma Stone’s incredible range? Formidable, a word Bella Baxter discovers during her conquest of a brothel in Paris. Poor Things is adapted from the 1992 Alasdair Gray novel of the same name, a project which Yorgos Lanthimos had on his mind since 2009 & had met with Gray that year to…

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#Emma Stone #Mark Ruffalo #Poor Things #poor things review #Willem Dafoe #Yorgos Lanthimos

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ohyoubringmejoy · 5 months

Video

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Poor Things (2023): REVIEW | Danixinhahhh

#youtube #poor things review #danixinhahhh #poor things #review #emma stone

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lasshoe · 6 months

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POOR THINGS (2023) + Letterboxd Reviews

#poor things #yorgos lanthimos #emma stone #mark ruffalo #willem dafoe #margaret qualley #suzy bemba #poorthingsedit #filmedit #cinematv #letterboxd reviews #still thinking about this movie btw!!!!#me using the powers of repetitive subliminal messaging to make sure this movie is a box office hit...... 😇#animlorelaioriginal #movies #1k #5k

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saturdaynightspecialpresentation · 4 months

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Poor Things

First of all, Emma Stone’s performance is as good as everybody is saying. Stone takes a very difficult role that easily could have gone very, very wrong and makes it look like the most effortless thing in the world.

I have been looking at the reviews, good and bad, and I think that the minority of people who didn’t vibe with this movie had slightly skewed expectations.

Poor Things starts out at Tetsuo The Iron Man levels of fucked up, but by the end it has dropped to Edward Scissor hands levels of fucked up. This is probably plenty of weirdness for the average movie-goer, but true connoisseurs of mondo cinema should calibrate their expectations.

Second, apparently this is being talked up as a sort of feminist coming of age fable chronicling an everywoman’s sexual awakening and liberation, and it really isn’t that, and I think if you are hoping for that you’ll come away disappointed.

Better, I think, to look at it as an autistic coming of age fable and power fantasy, which I think it does a tremendous job at.

Very minor spoilers under the cut; really, this is more an essay about what I thought the film was about than a review, my review would be that it's somehow simultaneously a feel-good crowd-pleaser AND a movie where an adult woman with the brain of a toddler stabs the eyes out of a corpse with a scalpel and then plays with its penis (I wasn't kidding with the Tetsuo comparison)

Honestly now that I've actually written that out I have maybe underestimated how impressive it is that Yorgos Lanthimos made a movie where that happens on screen but somehow basically everybody loves the movie.

In terms of sex, we do watch Bella discover sex, but she very quickly comes to a conclusion about her relationship with it which never once changes throughout the rest of the movie:

She likes it, she likes it more with an attractive partner, she is utterly lacking in any kind of sexual jealousy, and she doesn't attach too much more to it than that.

This is an odd comparison, but Bella treats sex the way Joey did on Friends. A man acting this way is a sitcom cliche, but a woman acting the same way…

This is a film that is really, really not interested in the real-world consequences of this kind of sex; in fact, given that a pregnancy is the inciting incident of the film, it came off a little weird to me that the possibility of a pregnancy or STD was never really addressed (unless there was a line or two that I missed while I was in the bathroom).

For the most part, though, I was able to get past it by just thinking of it as a heightened world. The sets and settings are extremely artificial, and ultimately I figured, “Hey, if I can buy this kind of thing as harmless and fun in a sitcom, I can buy it in this other kind of heightened reality.

I will say, I don't think Bella is meant to be an every-woman, and that there's textual support for this in the film itself.

All of the women Bella deals with in some way question her approach to sex, making it clear, sometimes through explicit dialog, other times more reading between the lines, that her approach to sex is not for them.

If there’s any particularly feminist message in the film, it’s that when confronted with Bella’s bizarre approach to the world, none of the women get angry at her, and most of the men she meets do.

But Bella’s relationships with other women aren’t really the meat of the film, that’s more about her relationship with men, and particularly the way that they feel, deep in their bones, that they should have control over any woman that they have sex with.

Duncan Wedderburn, when he first discovers Bella and convinces her to go away with him, thinks he is tricking and seducing a beautiful naif who he can use and then discard when he tires of her. Their relationship disintegrates as it becomes clear that Bella hasn’t been tricked at all; she wanted exactly what he was able to give, a chance to sow her wild oats by having some no strings attached sex with an attractive, likable person in an exciting foreign city.

This makes Wedderburn increasingly unhappy and unhinged (He says at one point that he has become what he hates, a “grasping succubus”) much to Bella’s growing consternation. She has no idea why he can’t simply be happy having sex with her and otherwise letting her do what she wants, and he is so committed to a certain vision of gender roles that he can’t even begin to explain it, he can only lash out in frustration.

And that I think is the meatier part of the film; Bella doesn’t so much flout social expectations as she is simply totally unaware that they exist.

Honestly I think the character isn’t so much coded as autistic as she just is autistic. Bella is a woman who is basically totally unaware of social expectations and constantly taken aback to discover that they exist.

More than that, she has to figure out a way to work around the fact that many of the people who become most enraged by her are also so totally lacking in self-reflection, and view their social situation as so normal, so self-evidently obvious that they cannot explain to her why it is she has made them angry. They suddenly fly into rages that clearly perplex Bella and which they themselves don’t even bother to explain, because they regard their own ideas as self-evident.

Bella is an idealized autistic hero; personally as outlandish as she is I don’t really think the film expects us to take the side of anybody else, and I think there are some fairly subtle and accurate bits of autistic behavior on her part.

She responds to life as a kind of social experiment, attempting to parse out a set of logical rules and, especially in the latter parts of the movie, she often justifies her actions with a perfectly sensible internal logic that the emotional men in her life can’t parse out. Late in the film, when she and Wedderburn are destitute, she prostitutes herself for 30 francs, and with implacable logic, explains the two reasons that Wedderburn ought to be quite happy she has done so: First, her john was much worse at sex than Wedderburn, which ought to satisfy his ego, and second, they now have 30 francs and the potential to earn more.

Wedderburn does not appreciate her logical approach.

Another thing that strikes me as very true is that Bella has a very odd theory of mind for other people. There’s a scene where, traumatized by the unspeakable poverty and suffering she sees in Alexandria, she puts all of Wedderburn’s money in a box and rushes out to give it to the poor. Unfortunately the ship is leaving, but two port attendants tell her that they will be staying on the island, and would be happy to deliver a package. She tells them that she has a big box filled with money and they should give it to the island’s poor, and they agree to do so. Now, the film never tells us one way or another whether they keep their word; but Bella herself retains an iron certainty that they did exactly what she asked them to. Now, we know Bella understands what lying and deceit are, because we’ve seen her trick people before, like when she chloroforms McCandles to run away with Wedderburn. But it never once occurs to her that these sailors might do something similar. Call it paradoxical, but that kind of thinking is common in autistic people.

There’s also the scene where the self-professed cynic Harry Astley shows her the suffering in Alexandria; he admits, when he sees how terribly it has affected her, that he didn’t tell her simply because he thought it was the truth of the world, but that her attitude made him angry, and he wanted to hurt her. A very common part of the autistic coming of age is the slow realization that not everything people tell you is part of a dispassionate, scientific search for the truth.

There’s also a scene in a whorehouse in which Bella argues that it would make more sense to have the women decide who is to sleep with the johns, so that then the john could be more confident that the girl was attracted to him, which he must doubt if he chooses. You can tell I’m autistic because I immediately had the thought, “Well, but the johns would probably be worried that nobody would choose them.”

One of Bella’s fellow working girls instead tells her, “Some of them like the fact that we don’t have a choice”.

#poor things #movie review #autism #cw violence #I'm actually not sure what kind of content warning I should put for the corpse stabbing

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baby-girl-aaron-dessner · 3 months

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POOR THINGS

Some people have disagreed with me about my Poor Things review. However, my questions about the film have largely gone unanswered and the points I’ve raised haven’t really been addressed.

Yes, there were gowns beautiful gowns but is anyone going to talk about the fact that she was a child? Or that women face the risk of pregnancies when they have unprotected sex? Or menstruation being a thing? Or how the financially coercive nature of sex work prevents women from giving genuine consent to sex?

Should a man even be directing this movie?

When the upper classes create films about sex and sex work it always seems limited and disingenuous. They really made a movie about a child in a woman’s body having sex in situations where men are constantly taking advantage of her, called it “feminist” and patted themselves on the back for it.

Angelica Bastien put it best when she wrote: “But there’s a corroded spirit to the story, like it’s intermittently possessed by an edgelord who’s unaware most women menstruate, and an early-wave white feminist who believes having sex is the most empowering thing a woman can do. (For all the fucking, there is no menstrual blood!)”

The most problematic - but unexamined - aspect of contemporary discussions around sexual ethics, is the concept of consent. The powerful men (and women) who made this movie clearly live in a sexually privileged world and can afford to think of this movie as "feminist".

I wonder if they even know what intersectionality is.

#please feel free to interact #poor things #emma stone #oscars #oscars 2024 #yorgos lanthimos #tony mcnamara #white feminism #liberal feminism #feminism #film #intersectionality #consent #anyway this was also my letterboxd review

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emmellas · 2 months

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a few points ...

1. 'poor things' is only "a porno" if your own patriarchal gaze inhibits and degrades her down to a sex object. bella views all experiences in her life as holding equal weight in that they are informative to her, whether good or bad, and she has an insatiable desire for knowledge. "if i know the world, i can improve it."

2. bella would fiercely resist her story being depicted in a way that censors anything as to her and any person who has the capacity to see her AS a person, sex is a part of her life, she has no shame about it, and would want it all shown honestly. you see, this film isn't told how you want it told, which is likely unfairly biased by social onuses. it's told how bella would want it told as telling a story about a woman in a way that ensnares her in the very confines she spends the entire time resisting wouldn't be very liberating, now would it?

3. the pearl clutching with the nudity is inherently sexist because you are blaming a woman- fictional and her real life counterpart, whose role and agency as a producer you insidiously deny- for a man's putrid views. you really think men (or anyone who harbors patriarchal views) viewing women as objects is going to change if they have clothing on or not? it's victim blaming.

i always am disheartened when i hear emma and yorgos, in poor things promotional content, talk about how society is a nasty place but they're hopeful the world is ready to see bella's story. unfortunately, it seems many weren't, but it was never about you, anyway. it was about removing the unjust societal conditioning that holds us- not just as women but as people- prisoner and allowing a woman to experience life on her own terms. i'd suggest asking yourself why this bothers you so much, if applicable. it would seem a little introspection could do you good.

it should be the goal of all to improve, progress, grow. perhaps the film can serve as impetus to those who desperately need to with regard to their own biases.

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kacic1 · 8 months

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A todos, boa noite! E hoje a noite é de gala!

Convido vocês a visitarem Os Filmes do Kacic, para conferir minha nova crítica sobre esta explícita e inacreditável nova produção do diretor grego Yorgos Lanthimos, protagonizada por uma Emma Stone como você nunca viu. Simplesmente imperdível!

Crítica: POBRES CRIATURAS (POOR THINGS) | 2023

🎬🎞🎥📽📺

#movies #cinema #filmes #geek #popculture #nerd #osfilmesdokacic #review #critica #movie review #yorgos lanthimos #emma stone #mark ruffalo #willem dafoe #poor things #pobres criaturas #critica pobres criaturas #poor things review #poor things movie review

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yeahiwasintheshit · 17 days

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i watched poor things, and it was good. i cant say i loved it or hated it. it was very showy and kinda "look at me", in terms of direction and use of camera work and different lenses... and there were color scenes and black and white scenes, it was… alot. but it also kinda worked... mostly. the production design was also wild and fun to watch. visually interesting. tho the cgi, esp of the ship was like 1990s level of bad. like dont give me that it was supposed to look like that cause of the style or whatever... it look like absolute dogshit. emma stone was really good, her performance really made the picture. mark ruffalo and willem dafoe were also great. i wont spoil any plot points, but in the beginning it was looking like her performance might be like a rosie odonnell or jodie foster or leonardo dicaprio level of yikes, but in keeping with the plot, it... progressed beyond that. it was sort of this twisting plotline that felt kinda new but also familiar, and was way more sexual than i was expecting. the movie had a sort of emmanuelle or barbarella kinda feel about sexual discovery or exploration, which was kinda fun and a little campy. overall i liked it. i dont see me watching it again, but maybe. it is over 2 hours, and man does that seem like such a long time to commit to something.

#poor things #yiwits reviews

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waateeystein · 3 months

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Doing a "Poor Things" and "Lisa Frankenstein" double feature today. Will report back with findings but I'm so fucking excited!

#frankenstein #frankenstein or the modern prometheus #mary shelley #poor things #lisa Frankenstein #waateeystein speaks #waateeystein reviews

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masterfuldoodler · 2 months

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If half alive has 1000 fans I am one of them. If half alive has 1 fan, I am that fan

#text #august rambles #this is brought to you by seeing someone's review for them. and saying they didn't like the ep because it was standard #and that now not yet was better but had a bunch of poor songs. some of them bad #they even said still feel wasn't good because it was appealing too much to 'teen angst'#anyway i couldn't read the rest i had to leave #it was too painful i like the music too much we viewed it from different standpoints ack #i see a lot of people saying half alive is knock off twenty one pilots and like i see what they're saying. they are similar but #why does that mean its a knock off. what if they are just similar. half alive is clearly doing they're own thing. they're not copying them #maybe. that is just what that band is good at doing! the same as twenty one pilots. just cuz twenty one pilots came first doesn't mean #they own the scene. (you can argue they're better at they're music but if you're gonna do that make sure you're comparing the early stuff)#anyway rant about this because. i really like half alive and just dsbkncjnvb you don't need to be a fan #you don't need to think they're awesome. you can have an opinion outside of mine #but please be nice. and remember. it's Your opinion it's not Truth. if you don't like the song. you don't like it #if you think the repetition is boring. its not for you. if the 'angst' is stupid. its not for you. if the song doesn't hold weight.#it's not for you. the artist wrote this. and worked with other people to publish it #clearly they cared and other people saw worth in it. and like!! the fact that they're not big name also means they Can't get away with like #stupid filler stuff. they don't have enough of a name they gotta impress #idk i care too much. i see things like this and im just. ugh. it feels pretentious #half alive

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