After Dark: Challengers
Added 2024-05-02 16:00:11 +0000 UTCDavid, Devindra and Jeff react to some recent Patron feedback. Then starting at around ~12:00 into the podcast, it's time for our review of Challengers.
PATRONS: You can get this audio in your podcast app by going to patreon.com/filmpodcast, going to the "My Membership" section, and copying and pasting the RSS link to your podcast app.
Comments
Jeff forgot to best sum up this movie in the form of a limerick
Wil Johnson
2024-09-27 00:21:30 +0000 UTCThis film made me actually angry & annoyed at how bad it was. Nothing worked for me. The characters are so shallow. It's neither a good sports movie nor a good drama. "Produced by Zendaya" - You don't say? LOL. My audience laughed (unironically) at a couple of scenes.
Pol
2024-05-06 22:20:53 +0000 UTCThe hosts were discussing how they couldn't think of any movies that were intentionally set before 9/11/2001 - for example, a movie set in August of 2001. There was actually a movie released in 2008 called August, staring Josh Hartnett, which is about a start-up trying to stay afloat a month before 9/11. The movie was huge flop though, so I forgive anyone who is not familiar with it.
Michael Pumo
2024-05-06 17:42:32 +0000 UTCThis was the first film I’d seen in a while that really felt like a movie people would talk about and revisit for years, maybe decades. This felt like The Graduate level impact. Time will tell, but goddamn this thing has layers and richness!
John Halski
2024-05-05 18:30:15 +0000 UTCOk. Just getting back from seeing it. I agree with all of you but Jeff in particular. The Tennis is Relationship runs through everything. Two quick things. 1. The C’mon! In both the end of her first match and at the end is an orgasmic release of joy, energy and satisfaction. We could run with that. But the bigger thing I’m surprised none of you touched on. 2. Lily the daughter. WHO IS THE FATHER. You all assumed it was her husband. But she had that thing in Atlanta 8 years earlier with the other one. It fits the whole mix of possibilities with this movie.
David Jones
2024-05-05 01:29:38 +0000 UTCWhen I think of COVID era art, I think of Bo Burnham’s brilliant INSIDE.
Omar Jacobs
2024-05-04 11:24:08 +0000 UTCHey man I’ll take any and all planet of the ape reviews I can get, if anything I hope they do a dawn and war rewatch. They’re masterpieces
Branden Cancino
2024-05-03 07:17:15 +0000 UTCThe score is SO GOOD!!!!
Kai Ellis
2024-05-02 23:41:33 +0000 UTCFor me the craziest thing about Challengers is thinking about the relationship between the guy who wrote it and his wife, because his wife wrote Past Lives, which she has said was semi autobiographical. That means this married couple experienced their own kind of thruple over about a 15 year period, where two of them were married and there was another guy vying for the wife's affection, creating a bit of a rivalry between the two men. What gets me is thinking about how these two screenwriters portrayed themselves and their spouse in these films. In Past Lives, the protagonist is seen as competent and independent and a bit torn between these two guys, but who ultimately puts her career above everything (saying she wouldn't leave her husband to move to Korea for the other guy because she'd never leave her work behind like that). She also portrays her husband as a bit like leftovers and like she's kinda settling for him, or like he's not that important to her. In Challengers, the screenwriter portrays himself as a bit intimidated by his wife, and highly manipulated by her, and where he struggles to just be his own person, instead always just being who she wants him to be. And he portrays his wife as a fairly twisted woman, who seems to enjoy playing him and this other man off each other, and who cheats on him with this other man. There is obviously much more to these films than just that, but I would love to be a fly on the wall for their marriage counseling sessions!
Stranger2Reality
2024-05-02 22:23:58 +0000 UTCNot getting a Limerick for this movie is a shame. That’s one thing I lament about after dark reviews.
Danny C
2024-05-02 21:07:54 +0000 UTCI either didn't know or forgot that Reznor/Ross did the score until after I bought my IMAX ticket. Judging by my involuntary permagrin as soon as their pulsating beats enveloped the room, that's an all-time theatrical happy accident.
Matt Rockman
2024-05-02 20:23:16 +0000 UTCAnother War for the Planet of the Apes review? Aren’t there like 6 PotA movies you guys have never discussed before?
Gareth
2024-05-02 20:00:58 +0000 UTCLoved that you all loved this movie. It’s my favourite film in some time. Shocked you didn’t mention that magic trick of it being the horniest movie in years without showing almost any nudity or sex. Every shot, walk, gesture, sound, glancing look and bead of sweat in this movie was soaked in sex.
Jason Gillespie
2024-05-02 19:43:41 +0000 UTCRe: watching this with parents I had some trepidation (not knowing much about this movie, assuming there would be nudity at least), but decided to take my mom to this after hearing she had seen Poor Things recently. Poor Things is not a movie I would want to watch with my mother, but I agree with Jeff that it worked out great for Challengers. It wasn't too uncomfortable to watch together, and we both greatly enjoyed it! YMMV depending on your relationship and your parents' demeanor.
Matthew Walker
2024-05-02 16:38:04 +0000 UTC
