October 2024

Staying with the Female Experience of Violence and the Power Imbalance – From Looking for Mr. Goodbar to Woman of the Hour – Episode 179

In this episode, Dara considers violence against women and the recent clear-eyed responses to it by Hollywood regulars Anna Kendrick and Saoirse Ronan, as seen in Kendrick’s impressive directorial debut ‘Woman of the Hour’, and as heard in Ronan’s bulletproof interjection on the Graham Norton show. After reviewing Kendrick’s chilling movie and contextualising Ronan’s comments, he recalls a key moment of Rachel McAdams’ character in the second season of True Detective which laid out with absolute clarity the power differential between men and women.

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I Felt That, or Emotional Travelling with Fictional Characters – Episode 178

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In this episode, Dara talks about the characters we respond to in the art we consume. Having been very stirred by ‘Joker: Folie a Deux’, he stays in the world of movies and finds himself thinking about Jungian archetypes and the shadow self we can see reflected at us from the big screen. Speaking about that film, which has heavily promoted Lady Gaga as the joint draw of the story along with Joaquin Phoenix’s compelling title character, he argues that it is what transpires between the Joker and Brendan Gleeson’s prison officer that really unlocks the film and its grim depiction of human damage.

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What the Hell Is That! The Audacious Grotesquerie of ‘The Substance’ – Episode 177

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In this episode, Dara is still reeling after watching Coralie Fargeat’s astonishing film ‘The Substance’, a scarifyingly vicious body-horror satire on the pressure that results from the extreme demands of celebrity and the beauty expectations inflicted on women. The film is centred around a TV fitness personality whose middle-age renders her undesirable in the eyes of the network. In a ferocious performance by Demi Moore we bear witness to the lengths a woman will go to to preserve her looks and corresponding status.

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You Have It So Easy! Resentment, Ease, and Reaching for the Good – Episode 176

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In this episode, Dara considers the elements that contribute to our resentment buckets and shoulder chips. He believes time and the ease of others are two key ingredients in the mix. He confesses to giving voice to some very uncharitable resentfulness around the time he became a father. He also speaks carefully around a significant source of resentment in his marriage.

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Too Old for This S**t, or Try Harder, You Silver Foxes! – Episode 175

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In this episode, Dara shares his gripes about the utterly mediocre buddy movie Wolfs, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt as two fixers reluctantly obliged to work together through a night of yuk-filled capers (SPOILER: THERE ARE NO YUKS!). The film is an ode to laziness, self-satisfaction, complacency and vanity, and has the gall to pay tribute in its final shot to a truly great buddy movie of yesteryear, the inference clearly being that Clooney and Pitt are a contemporary equivalent of two past greats. No such luck.

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Staying with the Female Experience of Violence and the Power Imbalance – From Looking for Mr. Goodbar to Woman of the Hour – Episode 179

I Felt That, or Emotional Travelling with Fictional Characters – Episode 178

What the Hell Is That! The Audacious Grotesquerie of ‘The Substance’ – Episode 177

You Have It So Easy! Resentment, Ease, and Reaching for the Good – Episode 176

Too Old for This S**t, or Try Harder, You Silver Foxes! – Episode 175

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