Ep. 20: 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' Weaves Webs Between Books & Movies
Release Date: 10/16/2025
Show Notes
In this episode of Adaptation: the Book to Movie Podcast, Nate and Chris discuss 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' written by Manuel Puig, as well as its 1985 film adaptation directed by Hector Babenco and the 2025 screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, directed by Bill Condon and starring Jennifer Lopez.
Expect conversations about the intricate connection between literature and film, the potent power of storytelling and the stark lack of Lantino representation in mainstream media.
Check out Nate's full review of 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' (2025).
UP NEXT: 'Deliver Me from Nowhere' by Warren Zanes, with a film adaptation directed by Scott Cooper.
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Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
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Transcript
Welcome to Adaptation, the book-to-movie podcast. I'm Nate. And I'm Chris. And today we are discussing The Kiss of the Spider Woman, which I think will be a very sort of metatextual story to talk about, especially once we get to the movie side. There's a movie within a movie, and they have the same title, and it'll be a crazy one. But before we jump in, Chris, international traveler, how are you? Very good, very good. Went and saw a fun rugby game yesterday. Yeah, the Queens. Yeah, Denver's Big Brothers, the real Harlequins. That's fun, and they won, right? Yes, yes, and it was a bit of a nail-biter. It was the London Derby, because they're both technically London teams, the Harlequins and the Saracens. Super fun. Okay, and it was Quinn's Day, so very, at least here in Denver, Colorado, USA. Yes, I thought it lined up. I mean, I suppose, well, no, the game started here at 3, so it was, well, the boys were probably still at the bar after Quinn's Day. But yeah, I'm sure they were. Game was probably over. Yeah, I thought about that while we were there.
But what have you been up to? I've just been getting unpacked and making up for a lost time at the movie theater. You know, last time we recorded, I hadn't been to the theater in a while, but I saw a bunch of movies. But I also read a book, Chris. What? I did. I have to look up what it's called, because I didn't even write it. I do this so rarely, I didn't even write it down. Okay, it's called Cured, Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life by Jeff Rediger, and it's about people that experienced spontaneous healing from chronic illness, and it was recommended to me by a friend that also has a chronic illness and gave me some interesting ideas to sort of maybe try and manage mine just a little bit better.
So if you're out there struggling with any kind of chronic anything, and I mean, it was really interesting, because a lot of the people featured in his book like healed themselves from like cancer. Wow. And yeah, and the doctor, their doctors are like, I don't know what happened. And they're like, I just started like eating better and meditating. And of course, they are like rich people that could like quit their job, so they have no stress in their lives. Just not an option for me. But some real strong ideas there. So that was kind of an interesting read. That's very cool. That's very exciting. Yeah. If only you had put it on Goodreads, so I could have seen it and marked it for myself. Oh, I did rate it this. I just finished it this morning.
Oh, okay. Okay. So I just see the market. All right. Never mind. I will see all your jets. But I've been to the theater a lot to this place I moved into is right down the street from a movie theater, which is like a dream come true for me. Fantastic. Yeah. So I saw One Battle After Another, which is the movie of the year. It was so fucking good. And I just loved it. It's like part action road chase part stoner comedy, part political commentary, part espionage thriller. It's covering that in like six weeks. Yes, that one is loosely based on Vineland. Yes, that's right. Pinchon. Pinchon. Yeah. Yep. And we're gonna cover that. It's gonna win every Oscar under the sun, I'm sure. So we'll cover it when Oscar season comes around. Yeah.
Yeah. It's a pretty, pretty fantastic movie. Oh, that's exciting. I saw The Smashing Machine with Dwayne Johnson, which I loved. There's a post on our brand new blog, by the way, we launched a blog on our website, link in the bio of our social media and down below in the episode description. Smashing Machine was great. I thought kind of a weird movie, but still really good. And it turns out Dwayne Johnson's a great actor. Fantastic. Yeah, I saw Roofman, the real story of a guy that escaped jail and hid in a Toys R Us for a couple months. What? Yeah, it's pretty wacky. It's it's fun. It's like a rom com too, because he of course, meets a lovely local lady. What did no, no, no, that is entirely inappropriate, of course. No, no, an escaped convict who lives in a Toys R Us for a couple months does not obviously meet a lovely lady and develop a spontaneous romance.
Yeah, she works at Toys R Us. And you said this is a real story? Yeah, it's a true story. And she figured out who he was and gave him up to the cops. What? Well, yeah, I mean, he was, he was a wanted criminal. And she was a family, family lady, her mom. Wow, not the turn that I was expecting. Goodness gracious. And then a couple streaming movies, Steve, which is a Netflix drama about a reform school in England that loses its funding. Pretty decent. And The Lost Bus, which is on Apple. And that's another true story about a bus driver who drove through the California wildfires of 2018. I believe it was with a bus full of kids. Because those fires kind of started out of nowhere and became chaotic very quickly in a very populated area. So we had to rescue a bunch of kids. So lots of movies, all of them good. Oh, my God, happy cinephile. Yeah.
That's what about your menagerie? Yes, sorry. I was thinking about the connection between them. And there's not. No, not at all. It's award season. So it's like, really, you know, or award movie season, I should say. So everything's kind of really ramping up releases are ramping up. Okay. What about you? What have you been reading? Um, I actually also watched a movie on the on the plane ride from New York to Madrid. I marked it on Letterboxd. Shadow Force, maybe? Oh, I saw the mark that one. Yeah, it's the it's the guy from the like, essentially French Sherlock Holmes series. Omar says sigh or see? Yeah, absolutely incredible. And then his wife and the mother of his child is Olivia Pope from Scandal. Yes. Kerry Washington. Yeah.
Um, as as far as plot goes, pretty thin. Absolute blast of a movie. So much fun. Good. Could not care less. You get halfway through and you're like, plot who? I don't know her. I don't care. Yeah. You just got cool people shooting guns, action, romance, assassins, a bad guy with a private island, an adorable kid. Love it. Five out of five. Yeah, great. That's awesome. Reading. I actually got another rare five out of five today for my book club. We read Kafka on the Shore. Oh, okay. It's Haruki. Oh, gosh, I'm gonna I'm gonna butcher the name. I literally finished it on the bus back out here to the Airbnb. Haruki Murakami. Very, very well known. Huge book came out just under 25 years ago. People love it. Incredible reviews.
Incredible reviews. And it is a wild ride. It's been on my list forever. So I was glad my buddy Michael recommended it for the book club. And it was outstanding. Probably about 75% of the way in I already knew this was a five out of five. I will be coming back to it. Not soon. That's great. But at some point, almost as much because actually, it'll really tie into today's discussion. It's almost as much out of curiosity and knowing that I could take more away from the text. But unlike the book we're talking about for this episode, also just fascinating, hilarious. It's a type of writing, I think that I'm more drawn to. Sure. Okay, highly recommend it. Great.
Well, on that note, let's talk about Kiss of the Spider Woman. Yes. Tell me a little bit about Manuel Puig's novel. Okay, and I did look this up today. Puig. Oh, okay. Manuel Puig. Puig. Okay, that probably tracks. I looked it up because I felt so embarrassed listening back to Clockwork Orange and realizing I did not even pronounce the author's name the same way throughout the episode, much less you and I. You didn't? Oh. I think I pronounced it three different ways. I said like Burgess or Burgess or Burgois. I didn't say that, but. Well, at least you covered all your bases, right? Like you nailed it at some point. One of them was correct. But because of that, yes, I looked this one up. Manuel Puig. Yeah. Yeah. First, as I had mentioned it to you, but I think valuable information, or you suggested it was probably valuable information for our listeners. And I agree. Terribly difficult to get a hold of this text.
Yeah, the movie, the original movie is not easy to get a hold of. I mean, now it's streaming, but it's historically been tough to find before. And it's one of the only, I should say we chose this partly because we want to celebrate its Latino Heritage Month, at least as a recording. I think this will come out the day after it ends. But in all of my sort of exploration of cinema, I found that there are not very many classics about Latinos. The representation is just not there. So we really wanted to, or at least positive representation. So we wanted to really be sure and sort of shine a spotlight on that. But yeah, like I said, it's tough to find those. And this is one of the only ones I could find. Well, we I mean, we just got we nearly had to scrap this episode. I almost couldn't find a copy. Right? Yeah. A long, long journey first through the classic avenues. Libby is my go to. I mean, we were in we love Libby. We love Libby. We love Libby.
And even in Manhattan, looking for, you know, the millions of books available between the New York public library system, nothing, nothing online, nothing on the other channels where I find books, Spotify, audiobooks, audible. Sometimes you'll find PDFs or texts online. And there was one online library, but they had some pretty specific stipulations for why you as a reader needed that text compared to finding it elsewhere, which I did not meet. So I couldn't get that. Ended up going out of the country and seeking access through another country to find a copy and reading the entire thing page by page on my iPhone, which is unpleasant.
That's dedication. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's it's wild to now know. I mean, I'm curious about the movie because even in my exploration of Puig himself, which we'll discuss next. I can't tell how ubiquitous this text is. And even amongst people for whom this is a genre, an area that they live, you know, I would be curious to ask someone that lives in Argentina how familiar are you? Yeah, yeah, totally. But yeah, let's actually yeah, let's discuss that because that really gets into it quickly in terms of his life and the writing of this book. So Kiss of the Spider Woman, Manuel Puig, when you first sent it to me, I absolutely thought it would be part of the Spider-Man universe. Not the case. Oh, no, that's hysterical.
Puig was born in I'm almost certainly going to mispronounce this. I would guess General Villegas, a city outside Buenos Aires in 1932. But his family early on sent him into Buenos Aires because his town was so small they didn't have a secondary school. Okay, so pretty early on went in there also pretty early on knew he wanted to be a film director enjoyed. I guess what was this? mid 40s and 50s. I have no concept of where that falls on Hollywood's timeline, but he was enamored with the movies coming out from American age. Yeah. Okay. Golden Age movies and particularly musicals. Okay, which is curious because so he goes to school. He specified I know it was Marilyn Monroe and one other actress who he felt stayed true to what he loved about films and filmmaking.
Okay, and the rest of American actors and actresses by the time he was going to school and looking for work himself. He had really become disenchanted with. Okay, and I don't know. Yeah, it was interesting. This fact I also wanted to check with you because I'd never seen it anywhere. But I also see a few facts about film. He went to college first in Argentina and then eventually on a scholarship to Italy to pursue filmmaking as a career. Also, as like a sidetrack stopped off to learn German, French and Italian because they were considered quote, unquote, the new languages of cinema. This would be like 47 to 50. Have you ever heard anything along these lines? Not in such terms, but those are nations that have had sort of a major presence in the art of cinema for generations. So I hit that tracks, I guess. I mean, if he was that dedicated, I wouldn't do that. But okay, fair enough. I thought that was great. I mean, yeah, insane dedication. Right? Yeah.
We see this curious timeline here where it really goes off the tracks. And this is why I tied it into I'm curious for whom this would be, you know, core central to their canon, so to speak. Um, he wrote for a relatively short amount of time, at least in comparison to other writers we've discussed. So his first novel, La Tresión de Rita Hayworth, published in 68. And he died very young, 57 years old, I believe, in 1990. So altogether, only publishing for, you know, about 20 years there, not a lot in the last two years either, right? Sure. So a fairly short timeline. And additionally, so he goes to school to become a filmmaker.
In 53, goes back to Argentina to do his compulsory military service. And somewhere in here very quickly senses that it is not a nation that's going to be very friendly to his left-leaning views. Brief recap of these two decades in this South American nation. 66, they see their first military coup. Another one in 70. Perón comes back. He's elected as president for his third time in 73. Dies in 74. His wife takes over. More things, but culminating in the dirty war starting in 76, continuing for a long time. A period of very nasty business on the part of the administration and national government at large. Yeah.
So he left. Good choice on his part. Went to Mexico. Yeah. And spent the vast majority of his writing career in exile from Argentina. Okay. Which is, again, why I stopped myself. As I said, I'd be curious to ask in Argentina, what's your perspective of Puig? Because he didn't, once he started publishing, both his screenplays and novels didn't stay there for good reason. Ultimately, when he did pass in 1990, he was living in Mexico. And immediately the public assumed that he died of AIDS, even though no evidence has ever been brought forth suggesting that he had HIV. Oh. But this gives a very clear picture of what the public thought of him. Right. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially after this book in particular. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Right. But I mean, lunacy. Right. I would hope someone would look back now and say, oh, because the writer was gay, he passes away and you assume it was AIDS. That's nuts. Right. Right. Yeah. That's pretty wild. So the book, Kiss of the Spider Woman. Yeah. I've seen a little bit of back and forth, but the majority of sources that I looked at did agree that this was his most famous publication. Yeah. It's the only one. I've not heard of the other ones. I mean, me neither. But I also hadn't heard of this. So I don't know where the barometer is. Yeah. I'm curious, and I assume you'll at least touch on, like, for all of this fairly unawarded author, someone that I had not heard of.
Yeah. And how this ended up becoming, I believe they've adapted it twice, right? Yep. Yeah. So how did this become what it became? And we have seen this previously, authors that maybe would not have become as big due to the fact that they are screenwriters themselves, you know, kind of. Right. Yeah. Where if his interest had only been writing, you know, would we have ever heard of this? Would it ever have become a movie? Right. But yeah, let's talk about the book. This was a tough read, predominantly because of how Puig designed the narrative form. The overall story was predominantly dialogue, which is difficult to begin with. Predominantly dialogue between only two characters in one jail cell. Notoriously difficult to pull off in literature and still have a good story, which he did do.
Very, very clearly an astonishing author. It doesn't, there's no he said, she said within the text. It's just two people talking back and forth. And the only thing that distinguishes someone else's talking now is a little em dash at the beginning of the line. Oh, interesting. I wonder if that's, you know, Argentinian style or if he just kind of wrote it like a manuscript or like, I wonder what that why. He himself discussed the difficulty in getting across the tone that he wanted. The original was obviously written in Spanish and both the process of translating to English and French. He said it was very difficult to obtain the same tonal quality, especially for Molina.
The entire thing began as an exercise he gave himself of writing a romantic female lead. And that's where the character of Molina came from. Wait, wait, wait. Then say that again. He wrote Molina because he was trying to write a romantic woman. Yes. Okay. And and according to Molina and how he talks about himself, that's what we got. Hey, yeah, yeah. But from a narrative from from a reader's perspective, it took once I got into the rhythm, it totally made sense by the end of the book. I didn't notice anymore. But the first 50, 60 pages, it was very difficult to track who's speaking now, which character is which. Okay. And I yeah, I couldn't tell if this was I would have been fascinated, would still be fascinated to see a copy in the original Spanish and see if it's treated the exact same way.
Yeah. So like if this was a deliberate literary device that was carried over or if this was his way of making it because it does make some immediate tonal changes as the reader, this familiarity, the stream of consciousness dialogue. There's an aspect that it does, as opposed to inviting you into the conversation, sort of puts a firm hand on your shoulder and pushes you down into the chair in that cell and says, you got to focus. You got to pay attention. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Which is interesting. I mean, it's a it's a cool idea. It's I don't know. Yeah. I don't I don't know how I feel about it. And understandable later on. I still I still don't know where I fall, where my final verdict is on how effective it was.
Okay. That is not because this on its own would necessarily be super distracting. It is because there are sort of three separate unorthodox literary devices being used here. Okay. Okay. So we have the somewhat difficult to follow dialogue. Then we have over the course of the tale, we have just these two characters talking to each other. So that helps us a little bit. Right. Yep. They're both inmates in an Argentine prison. Right. Yep. In the meantime, throughout the story, narrative wise, there are these footnotes throughout that are very lengthy. They are nearly as long as the chapters themselves. Some of them. They only happen for about the first half of the book. Okay.
And each footnote is a kind of quote unquote scientific discussion of homosexuality in society. Okay. And now again, this was published 40, 60 years ago. And it seemed like a lot of information even from before his time. So it certainly would have become antiquated either way. But one chooses scientists whose findings are certainly in part accepted as shaky now because science continues. Right. Yeah. And two even went as far as making up scientists and studies to add in here. And. Man, well, come on, dude. Well, I couldn't tell. I mean, deliberately. So you're not intent. It's not it's not to deceive. But it's sort of this almost poking fun at, hey, this is my lifestyle.
Why are you putting it under a microscope like a like an animal to be studied? Okay. And bringing light to look how we as a subset of society are being viewed. Right. Sure. Got it. So he's creating a fictional world sort of the same way he creates these fictional movies. Exactly. To drive his point. Yes. Yeah. So Melina as a literary device, frankly, brilliant, combined with the rest of the story. A lot of clutter. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The third, again, would be not that surprising on its own device going on here. Subplot, perhaps, is they're in their cell. Melina is recalling movies, telling them to Valentine as a way to pass the time.
Right. Yeah. And throughout, wildly disparate in content. Wow. Wow. Considerable analysis online of the plots and what they mean, what we are to take away from each of the movies and the choice of each one. I have elected to skip past that because that's just. That's a whole different. Exactly. Exactly. Five. That's crazy because each movie we'll get to this, but each movie only focuses on one fictional movie. Wait, what do you mean? Each version, there's two versions of Kiss of the Spider Woman, and in each of them, there's only Melina only recounts one movie. Really? There's not five movies. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. It's like the majority of the book. Yeah. Okay. This is interesting. This is very curious. Okay. Okay.
Yeah. So, again, the mixture of these three things are really what make it kind of difficult to track. Sure. From a reader's perspective. Yeah. That's fascinating. But undeniably brilliant. Yeah. Okay. Finally, near the end, and we discussed this a little, I will deliberately be leaving off the ending so that anyone who wants to go enjoy this. I wouldn't call it the biggest twist that we've engaged with, but we don't need to reveal it to discuss in depth. Agreed. So, I'll let you guys go find the ending for yourselves, but a big part of it is that it's revealed Melina has been placed in this cell. So, Melina, this part I didn't understand if it was innuendo on the part of the state or if this genuinely happened, but Melina is ostensibly in prison for indecent sexual exposure with a minor.
Yeah. Right. And it's not, it felt like it was implied throughout the book that this was just the government's way of saying homosexuality is not accepted or if he actually committed an act with a minor. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I'm glad that's similar. And I don't know if that's my impression or if that was the intention. Yeah. In fact, the new movie changes it so that there's no mention of a minor whatsoever. I think he's caught having sex with a man in public, like in a bathroom. Oh, okay. And they don't even mention anything about a minor. So, I think it very much is just a reference to being jailed for being gay. Yes. Okay. That was my take as well. So, he is in jail for that, but it's revealed that he was placed intentionally in a cell with Valentin, who is a political prisoner.
Right. In order to try to get information about these dissidents. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Throughout these many days discussions, again, a lot of interesting plot bumps and twists that we won't get into. They develop a more romantic relationship. It's fairly complex in terms of what is implied versus stated explicitly. Okay. And what he leaves you to fill in for yourself. Oh, interesting. Because they don't... I don't know. It was very, very much implication, especially that it's purely dialogue driven. Right? Yeah. Yeah. People sitting in rooms talking. Yes. And there's a sex scene that's only including what people are saying during.
There were a lot of ellipses. Wow. Interesting. That would be kind of a crazy read. It is explicitly stated that they do eventually have sex. It is explicitly stated that Molina very romantically asks, nearly begging Valentin to kiss him once. Right. You don't know if they ever kiss more than once. Oh, yeah. That's not the case in the movies. Or at least one of the movies. And then upon leaving, Valentin is still super excited to go see this girlfriend that he's been pining after throughout. So that's why I say it's really a lot of implied versus stated explicitly. Yeah. As the audience, in my opinion, you are very drawn to Molina.
Okay. I don't know how others feel about Valentin. I don't know if this is from, you know, I've exclusively seen tons and tons of stories about political rebels being jailed, being tortured for information, whatever. I don't know. Or just that I'm not super familiar with the political climate of Argentina in the 1970s. You know, that would make you far more inherently involved in his part of the story. But I don't care about him. Okay. I don't know. He's a throwaway. Not a throwaway to me, obviously. He's practically half the book. But Molina is really the centerpiece. Yeah. He displays this deep complexity and you very much feel sympathetic for him. And it's, oh yes, this is where it came in about the translation. It is a literary marvel that Puig achieved this depth of character in a translation, which makes me even more curious what the original Spanish is.
It has to be a masterpiece. Sure, because you read an English version. Yes. Yeah. And you are, the word choice, not just of pivotal moments, but throughout has to be so specific and deliberate to achieve such a character. Yeah. It's so brilliant. It's so brilliant. The way that he writes Molina, the way that you feel about him throughout. I don't know. I like the metaphor that I presented you before. The writing is such that you are kind of forced down into a chair in this cell with these two and watching this. You can just picture it. You can picture in my head, I had sort of the Casablanca era filming going on.
The whole scene was in black and white. I'm in the corner watching these two in these shabby bunks. They had to get people to bring them food from outside because they were served this slop and had nothing to do but chat for hours on end. I don't know. I enjoyed that part tremendously. How was it received? At first, it was only allowed to be published in Spain. That's not even one of the countries we've been talking about. Nope. It was immediately banned in Argentina and remained banned there for a long, long time. I guess that tracks. Even after he translated and got some of these published elsewhere. The only example I saw for certain was the French version, but I have to imagine it happened in other languages. It was allowed to be released, but with some content removed like the sex scenes.
I would be very curious to know. I guess by the time the translations are coming out, we're probably talking mid-70s. Even at that point. I mean, I know very little about French literature, but if it was a heterosexual sex scene, would it have been censored? I would be very curious to know. Yeah. But yeah. I would too. Extraordinarily difficult. Once again, I do believe this has happened three times now, perhaps back to back, a book I'd never heard of, and you sent me the first one third or so, I was not into. And by the end, I was absolutely in love with it. See, you just gotta, you just gotta trust my instincts here. Yes.
Yes, I do. Yes, I do. But yeah, I hope that's, there's really a lot of depth here that I've deliberately skipped. One, because it'd be so far outside the scope of us discussing both parts. And two, I really, it is, well, I'll get into it in my review. I'll get into it in my recap at the end. Sure. Okay. Well, let's take a quick ad break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the multiple movies. Perfect. Welcome back to Adaptation, our discussion of Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig. Oh, man, he probably would have loved, Lin-Manuel would have loved to turn this into a musical. Somebody else did. And we'll get to that. Oh, it's a musical as well.
There are two versions of this movie. One is not a musical, one is a musical. It's actually got a very similar track to The Color Purple. It was written as a novel, separately developed into a stage production that, you know, went on to Broadway and starred very famous Broadway people. And then most recently, that was adapted to film, the Broadway musical. Okay. The first movie came out in 1985. This is the non-musical version. I wasn't really able to find information about how this book that has, at least at this point, become somewhat obscure, came across the desks of people in Hollywood. But there were several people from what I'm reading that were interested in developing it at some point. I think this story of political revolution probably just was very intriguing to these people and how it compares to art was probably just very appealing to filmmakers and storytellers, right?
So if Puig sort of had that desire to make movies and then wrote a book about how great movies are, how transcendent movies are, I can see how that would appeal to that crowd. I do. I do see impartial answer to your question that he published his own screenplay of the book in 83. In 83? Uh huh. Okay. So then it was rewritten, apparently, by Leonard Schrader, who was nominated for an Oscar for his adapted screenplay. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder what exactly publishing a screenplay gets you when there's not a movie attached to it. Yeah. Yep. I feel like you're kind of just opening yourself. I mean, it's very common for a movie to be rewritten a handful of times until they find the right version. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. So I didn't see that Puig was directly involved in the sort of evolution of this Oscar-nominated script, but like I said, sometimes it changes hands so many times that it's just not well recorded. Yeah. I mean, it makes me wonder if he wanted it to become a film, if he knew this was what it took, both in doing the screenplay. Yeah, to push it over the edge. Yeah, exactly. And then relinquishing rights and saying, you guys want to rewrite it? That's fine with me. You know? Yeah. I wonder. Yeah. And that's often part of the deal, too. sell the rights. Often it's an argument who gets more like narrative, creative control, the studio or the original author.
Okay. So interesting background, too. But yeah, Leonard Schrader was Oscar-nominated for his screenplay, and the director, Hector Babenko, was Oscar-nominated for his direction, and this movie ended up being nominated for Best Picture as well. So again, just really strange that it has sort of faded into obscurity. The movie starred William Hurt as Molina, who actually won an Oscar for his portrayal, despite being a white man. Goodness gracious. Yeah, super problematic. I read that Babenko courted white movie stars for this role because he needed somebody that was going to sell tickets. Like the movie was not going to get made if they didn't get a big name attached, and it was sort of something he had to sacrifice.
And I shoould note, too, that this is the first time a straight actor, or probably any actor, won for playing an openly gay character, which I think is part of what the sort of cultural appeal at the time was. I think it felt very progressive to give him that award. And that's probably why it's sort of drifted away from the public consciousness now, because it's a little bit of a blight to be like, yeah, we gave this straight white guy the biggest award you can give for playing a gay Latino man. Goodness gracious. What a strange intersection. I know. Yeah. Really weird history here. Raul Julia as Valentin and Sonia Braga as multiple characters. The movies, it sounds like, are a little bit more condensed than the book in that they follow Valentin and Molina, and Molina recounting one film starring this sort of silver screen diva that he really loves.
And in the 1985 version, that diva is played by Sonia Braga, who's a Brazilian actress. Now, what do you mean as the Spider Woman? So in my notes here that listeners can't see, I have written that Sonia Braga starred as the Spider Woman. One of the movies that Molina recounts, and actually, it's pretty weak in the 1985 version, it's much stronger in the 25 version, is the story of... It's this Casablanca style romance, and one of the characters is the Spider Woman, who is this like forest spirit who kills men by kissing them, like she's got a poisonous kiss. Yes. That's a fictional... This is what I meant when I said metatextual.
It's so hard to talk about a fictional movie in a real movie. And that's a character played by an actress in a movie that they're recounting, is the Spider Woman. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. No, no, that's in the book. It's just one of five. Okay. Continue. Continue. Yeah. So a little complex here. Technically, the pretty much only woman in the cast of the movie kind of plays multiple roles because she's playing an actress who's in several movies, right? And in some of the movies, plays dual roles. I don't even know how to talk... Am I making any sense? No. Well, I mean, it makes a lot of sense to me, but... In some of the movies, this fictional actress plays two roles. Yes. Yeah. This is what I mean. I'm doing my notes. I was like, I don't even know how to talk about this.
Yeah. So anyway, in the 1985 version, William Hurt took direction from an assistant director because Babenco didn't speak much English and Hurt didn't speak much Spanish, which I thought was just kind of interesting. Hurt does not have a good reputation. He's sort of known for being difficult to, or was, he's dead now, for being difficult to work with. And he was accused of abuse by his ex-wife. So really not a great guy. But I throw all that in just to say that it was sort of a troubled production because of these language barriers and attitude problems. But the movie comes out really great. It's nominated for Best Picture and is the first ever indie movie to be nominated for Best Picture. Oh, wow. Which again, is fascinating that it's not always easy to find. Nobody's heard of it. I mean, this movie is a really big deal in the history of Hollywood and the sort of ecosystem of movies.
And it's just not any more part of the public discourse. Yeah. And now this one, this is the one that is a musical also, are there musical numbers during this? Or this is just a film film? No, the 1985 one is just a film, a film. And they changed the setting to Brazil, rather than Argentina, because there was political turmoil in Brazil in the 80s. And so they thought it would, you know, resonate a little bit stronger. Interesting. Right. And the one movie that Molina recounts throughout their time in prison in this 1985 movie is a Nazi propaganda film. Yes. Which stars Sonia Braga as a fictional actress. And you know, propaganda films were known for like, lavish production.
So it's very much he was drawn to this sweeping romance, despite the fact that he was a trans Latino individual who liked Nazi movies, I guess. No, no, no, no, no. That is a gross misdemeanor. What you've just committed. Valentin makes that point. How can you like this rubbish? It's Nazi propaganda. And he's like, yes, but the love, the story, you can respect this thing for being beautiful. Even this underlying current is happening. That's obviously not great. Right. Right. Yeah, you're right. And it performed very well. The budget of the movie was only 1.5 million. Like I said, an indie film, and it earned 17 million at the box office. So it really exceeded expectations as well.
It was a big deal in 85. And then developed into a stage musical and that stage musical picks up traction when Bill Condon, who's sort of the master of, or one of the masters of movie musicals, writes a screenplay. And Bill Condon, just for context, he wrote Chicago and The Greatest Showman, the movie version of these shows. He directed Dreamgirls and the Beauty and the Beast live action remake. Oh, my goodness. So very well versed in musicals. He writes the screenplay. It's an adaptation of the stage musical written by Terrence McNally, with songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb. I don't know if you've played in the pit of any of their shows, but they are most famous for writing the music for Chicago as well.
And Cabaret. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this actually makes it make more sense. One part of my weird trail trying to find the book, the score for the musical was available everywhere. I could have gotten a hold of 40 copies of the musical score before I could find the book itself. That's fascinating, because one of the things, one of my complaints about this movie is that I don't love the music, but I was thinking several times throughout it that you would probably like to play it because it's very orchestral and high energy and it's beautiful. It's just not really in line with my, at least the songs themselves, the score is great. The songs, the musical numbers that we'll get to in a second are not aligned with my personal taste. Okay. Okay.
So it stars a young man named Tonatiuh as Molina. Diego Luna plays Valentin, which is a sort of interesting, you know, we've talked about casting as an art before, and he played Andor in the Star Wars franchise, which is a story about rebels. So when you said that you didn't care so much about his character, I was sort of wondering if that casting was influencing the fact that I do like Valentin, because Diego Luna was their first and only choice for this role, which tells me that they really wanted him portraying this revolutionary again, that they're really tapping into the fact that in the culture he's seen as a, you know, a sort of politically charged actor, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If he stars in a Che Guevara biopic in three years, we'll know he's just, this is the only thing he can do now.
Yeah, maybe. I mean, he's really damn good. So I hope he does. And then Jennifer Lopez stars as, the character's name is Ingrid Luna in this version, the fake actress. And this one, like I said, is a musical. And Molina, the movie he's recounting is a classic Golden Age of Hollywood era musical, which would have come from the 40s and 50s, which was sort of the period that Puig fell in love with. So the musical numbers all take place for the most part, there's one that that takes place kind of in real life in the prison. And even that one's a hallucination. The rest of them are numbers in the fictional movie. He's recounting a musical. Okay, okay. Okay. But one, throughout the entire movie, he's only recounting one movie.
Yes. Strange. Yeah. And there's, I think that there's one number where he's maybe remembering a different movie just because he hangs up several movie posters starring Ingrid Luna in his jail cell. And right before they cut to this number, there's a shot of this other poster. So I think there's maybe a reference to a second movie, but it's really not. We're really listening to Molina recount this fictional movie that's also called The Kiss of the Spider Woman. Okay, okay. Which is this sweeping Casablanca style romance. Yes. Where a woman has to choose between letting the spider woman kiss the man that she loves and kill the man that she loves or letting him live and letting this sort of curse of the spider woman remain on this town that she lives in.
Jennifer Lopez plays both the spider woman and the fictional woman. So she has a lot of songs. And she filmed them in one take, like over and over. It's not they're not one long take in the movie, but she would do them from top to bottom over and over again. And they're all very elaborate dance numbers. And they're shot like a classic musical, which means you're in the frame head to toe. So you're singing and dancing and everybody can see everything that's going on. So really impressive. That she pulled this off as well as she did. And she's very strong in the movie too. This sort of musical in their mind or within their story that they're recounting is a method that Condon used for Chicago. If you've ever seen the movie version of Chicago, every time a song starts, the sort of setting melts away and suddenly they're on a stage and in the bedazzled dress so that the musical sort of in their mind and it works really well for a lot of people.
Their complaint about musicals is that nobody bursts into song in real life. And that, you know, I guess is a valid enough point. But it's sort of a way around that complaint. So if musicals aren't your thing, maybe this one. Yeah, interesting. I thought it was very interesting that this version of the movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, which is mostly a festival for independent films and documentaries. And this this is technically an independent film. It's just got a much higher budget. It costs like $30 million, one and a half. But it's sort of only got lukewarm reviews. And I think part of that comes from the fact that Sundance is probably just not the place to put like a lavish. musical. Yeah, because you're like I said, you're watching mostly these small independent films. JLo has had a very heavy hand in developing this because she desperately wants an Oscar nomination.
And this is very much a play at that the woman that played this role on Broadway won a Tony for this. Unfortunately, the movie tanked and only made $1 million this weekend. It didn't even debut in the top 10 performing movies. Oh my god, the weekend. So that's shocking. It is. The marketing was very weak. They didn't do a ton of marketing. And of course, JLo's had a bad few years publicity wise, canceling a tour and divorcing Ben Affleck. And I think people are a little bit tired of her maybe so I don't think that Oscar nominations coming but she's good. She does sort of potentially deserve it for the I mean, I haven't seen it yet, as you know, but famously killer singer and dancer. Like I have to imagine she crushed those numbers. Yeah, especially the dance. I mean, she's not the strongest vocalist in the world. You know, of all the people that have been in Bill Condon musicals, I wouldn't. She probably wouldn't crack the top 10 even but you know, that list also includes Beyonce. So what, what can you do?
But yeah, the dancing is great. The title track, Kiss of the Spider Woman is a really, really strong song. And there's two or three others that are, like have made their way into my playlist for the for the year. And they're all JLo numbers. The guys sing a little bit, but their songs are just kind of not that exciting. But that's, that's pretty much it. I know I was a little bit all over the place. But it's tough to talk about movies about movies. Yes, especially ones that are so prominent. Half the movie is of both film versions, half the movie is a movie that doesn't really exist. And you're following characters that are fictional in this universe that's, you know, based in real life, but fictional characters. And it's tough. So I hope that that was clear enough. No, I absolutely understand. Based on the text, even though it's such a departure in some ways.
Yeah, very different. Meta doesn't begin to describe what, what point did I know? Like macro meta? Yeah, I don't know. But ultra. And especially when I realized that thefictional movie was also called Kiss of the Spider Woman. I was just like, fuck. You couldn't give me something else to use some other title to track here. Anyway, let's, let's dive into discussion questions. Why don't you hit me with one? So we, I, both of these as I there were immediate questions in my mind about how they'd be treated in the movie. And I knew it would be a mix of you were bound to discuss them in some capacity in your description of the movies, but I still thought they were worth asking explicitly. So the dialogue, I presented you with how, how you receive it in written form in the book, the way Puig wanted us to assume this, I guess, did any of that come through in the film? Or was it standard dialogue to dude sitting in a jail cell? It's actually really interesting. I was glad to hear you say that one of the biggest critiques people have had about this 2025 version is that the tonal shifts between the, again, I don't know how to say this, the actual movie and the fictional movie, the tonal shift between the jail scenes and the cinematic musical scenes, people said that it gave them a lot of sort of like tonal whiplash. I think that's totally the point of what's happening. Yeah, the musical scenes are like shot in Technicolor and on sound stages so that it looks like a 1950s musical. So when you said that it, the book sort of forced you into a chair to watch these scenes unfold. That's what sort of resonated for me. I think that's how they got that change across was by half the movie being in this drab gray prison with these abused men. And the other half being very lush and lavish. The dialogue was standard for a movie, if we're talking about specific dialogue. But as we talk about tonal changes, and how the movie really asks you to dial in on one narrative, and then the other, that's sort of where I see the similarities. Yeah, I think that's actually very true to form.
I totally forgot to mention that that was part of the brilliance of the writing to me, these fake little bits of movies that he included throughout the book, which again, were many more apparently, than in the movie movie. Yeah, were genuinely very interesting to read. Like you, you would forget what the original plot was, because you'd get real sucked into this movie Molina's described. Yeah. And then suddenly, that's your back into the jail cell. That's exactly what I when I got in the car, I was like, Can you just straighten it out for me? Like, what did you catch and that I didn't catch because it's so you get so sucked in, and you just want to kind of stay in that lane for both stories, you know, like anytime it would switch, I found myself being like, Well, wait, what? Yeah, what happens in the other one? Yeah, which I think is a testament to good interwoven storytelling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I could I could also very much see, you know, especially if you're unfamiliar with the text, it would feel very stilted, perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Huh? Well, I mean, okay, so they stuck with that. Yeah, I think it was intentional. Interesting. I wanted to ask about the fictional films, because like I said, it was I've seen the 1985 version. And then I went and saw the 2025 version. And it surprised me how different the fictional movies were.
Okay. Like I said, in 1985, Molina's recounting this Nazi propaganda, which is a sweeping romance. They both are these very romantic films. But in the 2025 version, it's sort of they lean into this Spider Woman myth a little bit more. So it's sort of a fantasy romance. So I was just hoping that you could share with me whether those were both in the book, it sounds like they were and what the other three fictional movies were. You've referenced that there were five. Goodness gracious. Okay, I've been saying it wrong the whole time. There were six of them. The Panther Woman, I remember quite clearly. And according to the internet, was actually based on a real movie that came out in 42 called Cat People. And I think that's what they turn into the Spider Woman. Okay, this is probably the biggest and craziest difference to me. The Kiss of the Spider Woman is such a brilliant title, because it's based exclusively in the book, on a comment that Valentine makes, it is not part of any of the movies, except that the very first one he tells way before they actually kiss or anything is about a woman who, if she kisses someone, she turns into a panther. Okay, very, it's Yes, similar. I can see. So along those lines, the Nazi propaganda film, there's one of a cottage and two people who this is such a, again, I said, I would not go into them in detail. This is a very sustained two people who are like, incredibly ugly to the rest of the world, and then meet each other and fall in love. And like the magic of the cottage is that now they're beautiful, but like only to each other. So really a lot going on that one. And then this zombie one, this horror film, where this woman goes to an island and there I mean, these, these were not short movies in the book, he really gave very lengthy descriptions. And it's crazy, again, now seeing that it wasn't even five, it was six of them, that they cut it down to two for the movie.
Right, which I suppose it would have been a seven hour movie if they actually gave this full description. But again, right. I've seen theories, because obviously, we can't prove any of this. But theories about which part of each of these six is supposed to be signifying what regarding the two main characters that we're actually seeing, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, I totally see the cabin one, making sense for their situation. Well, each of them really does throughout. Yeah. You definitely see the strong mirroring or parallels that Puig wanted you to, particularly to Molina as a character, I think. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, 100%. So there, yeah, there are six of them. So you said just the Nazi one, and then kind of an amalgamation into a Spider Woman one.
Yeah, like, the follow up to this would be, what of those six movies do you think resonated the most with Molina and Valentine's story? I, yeah, hearing the question in this way, I actually do feel I see why they chose those two, they encompass the most. And for an already jarring scenario, I think those two are the most palatable. Okay, like the zombie one. That's crazy. Audiences would have walked out of the theater, they would have been like, what, and why? And stop. That's insane to me. When you said zombie, I was like, what the hell? Yeah, it really gets out there. Which again, in the book continues to paint this picture of they're so bored in these miserable conditions in prison. This is how they entertain themselves.
You do not question it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you don't really question it here either. But I could also very much see them translating poorly to screen. Now that you ask it this way, I absolutely feel like I see why they chose just the two. Okay. Wow, yeah, fascinating question. This is another one, again, I do very much feel like you've answered now, but it was so confusing to me. When I first saw the ads for the movie, obviously a massive, massive name for this lead actress, Jennifer Lopez, right? Jennifer Lopez, yeah. And I think I even asked you and you kind of said, wait till we record. Yep. How this could be a focus of a book that was entirely to me, almost exclusively these two male characters. Again, there is Valentin keeps making reference to this girlfriend he misses. Melina's mother is like a loose plot device. But there's I mean, all you care about in the book is Melina and then kind of Valentin. So what was what was the I don't know, percentage of screen time amount that you as the audience cared about these individuals?
Oh, percentage wise, I was pretty split between everybody evenly. I mean, I thought everybody was so good. Everybody gave these really strong performances. So you're really drawn to everybody. Okay. That's kind of what I'm saying. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But to your point about how did this attract JLo, like I said earlier, it was an Oscar play. Okay. You know, is an Oscar play. She really wants an Oscar nomination. And she tends to be best when she leans into her strengths as like a dancer. This and Hustlers is probably the other time she got close to an Oscar nomination. And she was a dancer in that movie as well. No nomination for Made in Manhattan, huh? No, unfortunately, Top 10 films ever made. Okay. Yeah, that's a goodie. The woman that played this role on Broadway, like I said, won a Tony. Her name is Chita Rivera. And she actually just died not that long ago. I believe she passed last year. She was a big deal for for Latino representation. And I'm going to try and scroll through her work here because I think Jennifer Lopez has followed her career footsteps before. I think she's a big Chita Rivera fan.
Okay, okay. She was in the musical Nine, which I believe JLo has talked about part of her campaign has been talking about how this is the role she was born to play. And she auditioned for all of these other musicals throughout the years, including Nine and Evita, and ultimately lost the roles to other people. Oh, and Chicago as well. I think she's mentioned which Chita Rivera was in. I'm looking at her internet Broadway database page. She also was in Bye Bye Birdie, which at one point, Jennifer Lopez tried to do. Remember when they were doing like once a year, those live musicals on TV? Yeah, they did like Grease and The Wiz. She was supposed to do Bye Bye Birdie live at one point, but I think scheduling it just I don't really know why it fell through, but it never happened. So she's really clearly an admirer of the woman that originated this role and okay, big awards for it. So I think that's a huge part of what drew JLo to this. This also weirdly is JLo's first true blue musical. She's played a singer before like a career singer, but she's never done like a song musical, which is really kind of strange for a pop star, you know, even Lady Gaga's done one and she's been in three movies, you know, it's really strange that she hadn't done one yet. So I think that there was just kind of a lot in this box that really appealed to JLo. And unfortunately, it's just not panning out. I mean, the movie's good, which is ultimately what matters, but it's just not going to get her the attention that she is looking for box office or awards. Her and old Timmy can commiserate. Yeah. Yeah, although I'm pretty sure he's like gonna have an Oscar sooner rather than later. But yeah, they do both want one. Cool. Okay, so we sort of touched on this to my next question. Was the shift between the fake movie scenes and the jail scenes tougher or jarring at all? Like I said, I did find a little bit of whiplash, but kind of for different reasons. In each the 1985 and 2025. Yeah, so that I it's actually fascinating that you have this as a separate question. This is a stark contrast to all of the other questions. We did talk about it. But in the book, it actually had the opposite effect.
Oh, it was much smoother. Yeah, this was like the one part of the writing that did not feel jarring and made it feel more accessible. And like you were just watching two people have a conversation, because each time he described the movies, it would be Valentin going, Okay, I'm done reading for the day. I'm ready to, you know, get ready for bed. Do you want to tell me another movie? And they would interrupt each other and he'd get halfway through it and go, Valentin would go, Oh, I'm tired. I'm going to sleep. That's enough for tonight. Or Oh, I want to go read or something. And Molina would go, Okay, do you want to hear this one? Do you want to hear this one? I like it. Do you like it actually? The transitions from the movie you were watching to the movies Molina was describing really aided the otherwise kind of difficult to follow dialogue. Oh, that's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I hadn't thought about it that way at all. Because I can absolutely see why it would be confusing on screen. Yeah, I understand the criticism. But the more I think about it, particularly the 2025 version, the whiplash was just because I wanted to see both movies. I didn't want to divert the narrative at all. In the 1985 version, I a little bit like I don't really want to watch a Nazi propaganda movie. So I was sort of bored by those portions of the movie. So that one was a little bit different. But that's the discussion questions I had. Why don't you tell me who you would recommend this to?
Oh, yeah, I gave this a lot of thought even before I went to write this out. Because initially, again, I don't know the first, we'll call it 20% of the book, I was like, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I still, I still don't have a straight answer for you, which is not very satisfying. But I will take a page from your book. I'm not laughing Come on, come on. That's good And the the way I'll present this recommendation is Some books that I felt were similar and so if you dear listener liked these books I think you'll enjoy reading kiss of the spider-woman So first and foremost Belcanto by Ann Patchett another one guerrilla fighters taking a bunch of people captive Absolutely luscious heartwarming love story characters you really feel for and a very similar the literary acrobatics of Presenting an entire story in essentially one Scene one location for the whole book a chamber piece. Yes, and Yeah, both very much along the same vein And then the other comparison that kept popping to mind for me was the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez this sort of Magical realism so to two of his books. I adore our hundred years of solitude and the general in his labyrinth Again along the realm of you have to flip back pages. Sometimes you're not sure what's real and what's fake you're really immersing yourself in the tone of the piece and Not always certain where you are. And so I think if those are Attributes of a piece of literature you enjoy you would definitely get something out of kiss of the spider-woman cool But I think those parts are very different than the movies, right? Who would you recommend these movies?
Yeah, it's funny that you had a hard time because I've also had a hard time this it's just in a lot of ways It's not really like other movies that I've seen and that's partly because of the metatextual Nests of it all it's partly because it's a chamber piece with Latino and LGBT themes and it's partly because of like the narrative switching there's just so much kind of going on here that I was like, I don't even know what direction to point in to to make recommendations for this so Mm-hmm. It took me a while to come up with this list Particularly for the 2025 version which you can see in my notes is very long But the 1985 version is it's a bit darker and spookier I thought about one flew over the cuckoo's nest a little bit because it's kind of a chamber piece They're technically not in prison in that movie, but and obviously the narrative is very different there But it's still about these guys trying to get through right through being and I mean in place Undoubtedly a shared Overwhelming melancholy, right? Yes, exactly. It is. This 85 version is very melancholic. Mm-hmm Sunset Boulevard popped a month in my mind a little bit too Obviously that's sort of known as as sort of one of the films capital F films But it's sort of got that same spooky like vibe not that's not a horror movie But you're like what is there's some weird stuff going on here Cool Hand Luke is another prison film that kind of fits into that vein, too And then the 2025 version I I broke it out into sort of separate categories fans of musicals will like it Particularly Chicago and then of course Golden Age musicals like singing in the rain and the band bandwagon Mm-hmm. It's a really wide net that I just cast so I guess if you'd like musicals then go for it as far as the prison Drama goes it's impossible not to think of Shawshank Redemption when you think of prison dramas Mm-hmm. That movie is obviously a lot more uplifting and sort of it's kind of a comedy and it's time So if you feel way better at the end of Shawshank Redemption, then you do Yes, you do sing sing is another prison drama that's about the power of art and performance It's about a theater troupe in sing sing prison Hmm, and it's it's also very politically apt this movie is because it's about a nation struggling politics So if you're interested in politics at all You'd maybe like this and think of it as more of a political drama And then the the LGBT themes are very strong in the 2025 version much more So I think than the 85 version so I mentioned Brokeback Mountain Hedwig and the Angry Inch Moonlight and Carol if you like any of those I would go into one of these movies with with a grain of salt because like I said, I just couldn't really find a strong singular Equivalent. Yep. Yep. I understand completely and I think that we have we have offered some odd recommendations on this. Yeah. Yeah What did you write write the book on Goodreads? Yeah, it was Absolutely a three in my mind for a long time. It kind of felt like these things were quirks Okay, and it took getting to that maybe 60 70 percent mark and realizing no There's a there's a method to this madness. These are deliberate and are certainly a Cohesive set of tools in the end So firmly a four for me really enjoyed it once I really kind of sunk my teeth in But almost certainly will not reread in the future Sure. Yeah, I mean it sounds as great as it sounds it sounds exhausting. Also. It was a wrestling match It was a wrestling match not to mention a wrestling match to find it. Yes Yes, exactly after all of that work and then it was truly a labor to get into the rhythm of the dialogue I was like what is going on here? Yeah Interesting Okay. Well, I had two films to rate I gave the 1985 one a three three and a half stars I really liked the the sort of relationship between Valentin and Molina, but I felt that the connection between the fictional film and What was happening in the prison to be pretty weak?
Mm-hmm. Partially the politics was just too hard for me to grasp that this revolutionary and Gay, man, both of them are men of color would want to spend their time listening to a Nazi propaganda film While they're in prison for politics essentially and especially once they added in Valentin's girlfriend back home She gets sort of inserted into the narrative Yep more strongly in the 85 version than ever in the 25 it really sort of lost me and that's when I started to be like I just can't like care about all of these Wheels that are spinning in that 85 version plus, you know, there's some problematic Casting and mm-hmm Hard to get past I mean so much of that contextually, you know We're now 40 years on from this film We're right. We lived through both this political turmoil in his home country and World War two We've he I mean we don't forget we just didn't touch on it much. He lived through World War two Because I totally agree the Nazi propaganda film thing now in 2025 was like what?
Right, and we talked about that a lot a little bit a lot a little bit We've talked about it a handful of times on this podcast that like 2025 ism kind of makes it hard to read certain things assume certain stories and That very much is one of them Yeah, all of those things would have made so much more sense to an audience, right when this was published in 68, you know Yeah, the 2025 version I gave four stars and a heart on letterboxd to okay Ultimately, it's a musical about how great musicals are and so there was like no way I was not gonna Find a way to love this the the songs are really strong even if or the the numbers I just should say are really strong Because they're in this bright technicolor and JLo's like dancing her butt off even if the songs themselves kind of leave something to be desired, it's still kind of a Cinematic spectacle and then those three lead performances are really strong. Tonatiuh Diego Luna and JLo. Oh to a great job And I felt that this movie did a really good job of tying the fictional film To the prison narrative it made a lot more sense to me than the Nazi propaganda one did and then on top of it It's just a beautiful movie to look at obviously the costumes and hair and makeup are really strong because we're heavily referencing Golden Age movies throughout the cinematography several times. I was like that shot was insane and And shooting the musical numbers head-to-toe is really that's crazy. That's a lot of stuff That's that's really strong in this movie full full review is on the blog now, but that's that's pretty much it I did really enjoy this 2025 version. Yeah Yeah, and I'd be curious to know you should listen to one or two of the songs and I'd be curious to know what you Think of them as well Great discussion about kiss of the spider-woman. Thank you for joining us The next text we'll be covering is deliver me from nowhere written by Warren Zanes with a film adaptation directed by Scott Cooper That's the Bruce Springsteen movie that's coming out. We're excited Chris and I are big Springsteen heads So this is a very highly anticipated one for both of us, and we hope you join us. Thank you everybody