Ben O’Shea – Bugonia: It Gets Very Weird Towards The End.

Ben O’ Shea joined Lisa and Russell to review Bugonia.

It is based on a 2003 Sci-fi Korean movie called Save The Green Planet and is about two cousins who are convinced the Earth is in the grips of an alien invasion. It stars Emma Stone, Jessie Plemons and Alicia Silverstone

Lisa asked Ben, how many “get Emma an immediate appointment at Advanced Hairs are you giving it?”

Bugonia is in cinemas now.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great the flick with Benoh good morning, Good morning guys. Now,
do you know there are some directors when a movie
comes out, you just look forward to it a little
bit more than others. You kind of have an expectation
of what you're going to get, whether it's a spielboyg
or a Scorsese or you know, or a Tarantino, great anticipation.

(00:22):
They kind of have this brand value, and Yogus Lanthemos
is one of those. Even though there might be something listening,
what did you say? Yes? So your goss Lanthamos the
Greek freak, an auteur in Greek cinema, like, he really
burst onto the scene with a movie called The Lobster,
starling Colin Farrell and Rachel Weiss. Oh we never forget Itte.

(00:45):
It didn't make much money at the cinema, but became
huge on streaming. Old weird movie. It is so weird.
And then he's made an other couple of movies that
have done pretty well. Then he did The Favorite with
Olivia Coleman which was a huge hit, and one Olivia
coleman Oscar. Then he did Poor Things, which was released
at the start of last year, won four Oscars, including
one for Emma Stone in the lead role. And then

(01:07):
you know, while he was waiting for Poor Things to
get through the editing process, he made another movie, Kinds
of Kindness, as you do. He was like, that is
the movie you can have between meals without leaving. Yeah,
and he and that also starred Emma Stone, and the
great Jesse himself amused he has. Emma Stone is your
Gooslanthemos's mus for sure, and who can blame him? She's amazing,

(01:29):
She's fantastic now and now least I know you love Jesse.
I love Jesse Planmans. He is so great character actor.
He's so good and so basically Bugonia, your boss's latest
film is based on a sci fi Korean movie from
two thousand and three called Save the Green Planet. No
one has seen it, don't worry about it. You don't
need to see it, which is why, which is why

(01:51):
you remake it, right like if you make it remaking Jaws,
good Luck to you, remakes some obscure Korean movie. It's
a victimless crime anyway. So and so the film, like
the original Korean movie, is about you know, these two cousins,
conspiracy theorists led by jesse Plemons's character Teddy, who are
convinced the Earth is in the grips of an alien invasion,

(02:14):
and he thinks he believes that the CEO of the
big farmer company that he works for is actually one
of the aliens, pretty high up in the hierarchy, which
is played by Emma Stone. So he decides to kidnap her,
put her in the basement of his house in the
middle of the suburbs, and then basically try and get
her to admit that she's an alien through various means,

(02:37):
generally pretty peaceful means. He does shave her hair because
he believes her hair can communicate with the alien mothership,
and so it kind of goes from there, and of course,
because it's a your Los Lanthemos film, it's things start
to unravel, Things get a bit darker, it gets very
weird towards the end. Emma Stone is incredible as always.

(02:58):
Jesse ple shaved her hand, she really shaved her head,
and she's so perfect at playing this CEO who feels
in control, in power, and then that gets peeled away
as she realizes the gravity of her situation being locked
in this basement and then but Jesse Plemons like he
must have lost twenty five thirty killers of the past

(03:19):
year or so, unrecognizable as this conspiracy theorist who's a
bee keeper as well. And Bugonia is a sort of
an ancient Greek reference to bees. Bees, And so it's complicated,
and like a lot of these types of art house films,
the films that kind of linger with you afterwards, you
walk out of the cinema and you go, oh, geez,
I wonder what that was about, and you maybe have

(03:40):
a bit of a chat to your mates see if
any of them understood it. I watched it in a
cinema full of people. I reckon there would have been
easily twenty five percent of people who walked down and said,
what the heck did we just watch it? Well? I
saw one review from the Slate magazine describes Bugonia as
unremittingly grim. Oh, it's pretty grim because it touches on
a real world stuff, conspiracy theories and the idea that

(04:03):
people can get radicalized online, which and the climate and
and that you know, our humans even good for the planet.
It's a bit of an existential examination of all that
sort of stuff. If we want to get a bit
intellectual about it. All Right, Well there we go start.
I need just anticipated the playoff music. How many get

(04:27):
Emma an immediate appointment in advanced hairs? Are you giving it? Oh?
This is a really great follow up to Poor Things.
I'm going to give this one four stuff. Wow, that's
high praise. Ge So it takes a bit of work,
but it's worth and it's worth the worth the work.
Lean into Lanthemos. Thank you, Ben,