Ugh, As If! - contemporary art and culture podcast · Lisa Fevral

Anora and film industry's obsession with SW - 3x16

·1 hr 9 min·4 clips

The christening scene becomes a rant about Toros, Vanya, and broken priorities.

The hosts finally sit down with Onora after delaying it for weeks, maybe months. One of them admits she hates watching movies, even though she loves visual art and a good shot. That tension sets the tone as they joke about how easy it is to pretend you have seen something after watching TikTok clips and reading the plot. They keep circling the same point: a film is not the same as its online debris. Sean Baker’s Oscar speech and the state of independent theaters slip into the argument. From there the talk moves into the movie’s chaos, and the hosts laugh at the sheer dumbness of people who move through impossible situations with total confidence. They imagine what they would do if they were cornered by people with more power and less sense. The answer is not noble. It turns into a very practical, very unromantic discussion of money, property, names on papers, and the fantasy that a rich person can simply out-resource danger. That practical angle keeps the conversation grounded. It also makes their irritation sharper, because the movie’s absurdity gets treated as a logic problem as much as a drama. A dog downstairs keeps barking through the episode, and that becomes part of the loose, lived-in atmosphere. The pair then widen the frame to the online discourse around the film. There is plenty of mockery for the way people talk about it without really engaging with it. Later, the episode swerves toward celebrity nonsense, from Justin Bieber in his prime to an offhand note about Bieber with Kris Jenner. The hosts also bring up Lily-Rose Depp’s Nosferatu audition tape. They compare it, with exacting pettiness, to Drew Phillips doing a Zoom episode of Emergency Intercom. The ending turns unexpectedly tender as they try to frame the whole mess as a positive day in spite of all the nonsense. They close on friendship, love, and the conviction that almost everybody else is a dingus. The whole thing moves fast, doubles back, corrects itself, and lands on judgment with enough wit to keep the mess entertaining.

As heard by us

A sharp, messy Anora conversation that turns movie talk into a broader argument about taste and attention.

The piece treats Anora less as a single film than as a way into a wider gripe about movies being flattened into clips, recaps, and online chatter.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want a blunt, messy take on Onora and the discourse around watching movies, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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