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November 5, 2025 12 mins
Ronald Young Jr. reviews Bugonia by himself…which was a mistake 

RYJ thinks that this movie is a little messed up.

RYJ - 2.99 of 5 stars

Follow me on IG, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, and Letterbxd - @ohitsbigron

Available in theaters

Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delvis, Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone
Written by Will Tracy
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

For more information about Bugonia, check out this link

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, listeners. So when I recorded this week's episode,
I was in the basement of a parking garage with
zero reception, which means I didn't have my phone to
look at my notes like I usually do, which means
I need to tell you the cast and the writer
and the director of the movie right up top. Also,
there's a few details about the movie that I wanted
to share, so I'm going to say all of that
right now. This week's movie is Bogonia. Bogonia, written by

(00:25):
Will Tracy, directed by your Ghost Lantemos, starring im A Stone,
Jesse Plemons, Aiden Delvis Stavros Halkius, and Alicia Silverstone. This
movie is an English language remake of the two thousand
and three South Korean film Save the Green Planet. It's
about two young men who kidnap a powerful CEO because

(00:47):
they suspect that she's secretly an alien who wants to
destroy Earth. All right, I'm Ronald Young Junior, and I'm
leaving the theater. Where have young girls thinking them? When

(01:32):
will they have? When will they am? Now? All right?

(01:56):
This is Ronald, and I am leaving the theater after
seeing Bogonia. So I'm in a basement with no service.
As I recapped at the top of the episode, let's
get into the film itself. I don't I there are

(02:16):
so many things about this film that were fine. It
made me lean in, it made me watch it. Jesse
Plemon's performance is great. I do not know the actor's
name who played Don. His performance is also great. And
Emma Stone's performance is great. Performances are great. The actors

(02:40):
all clocked in. I have no quibbles with the actors.
I don't even think I have any quibbles with Yrgos
Lanthemos and his directing style. He shot this on film,
it looked good. I believed the set pieces very believable,

(03:02):
like it made sense. I felt like I was in
that world. I have issues with the story. I have
issues with watching as much movie as I just watched,
only for it to end the way that it did.

(03:23):
And when it ended, I was in a press screening.
Every now and then you'll get some sort of titter
or some sort of clap or something from the audience
that will indicate how they felt about this movie. And
it was silence for me. It was stunned silence, as in,

(03:44):
I can't believe what I just watched. I might have
wasted my time here. The reason why that's important and
is that important, I don't know. I don't know if
it's important that I wasted time or not. I guess
what I'm saying is watching the movie, getting to the
end and feeling like it fell flat. Really, I don't

(04:08):
want to walk out of a movie wondering if I
liked it or not, because for me, that's a clear
indication that I don't like it. Because movies that I
like and movies that make me think, will often make
me think about the parts that I do want to
rewatch again, whereas this one, I don't want to watch

(04:33):
it again. It was frustrating. It's a captive movie, and
captive movies are always frustrating to me. I am always thinking,
just get out of there, just run right now, just
stab them now, just get on out of there. And

(04:53):
this movie it's not necessarily filled with that, but the approach,
the dialogue between Stone and Jesse Plemans felt sometimes excruciating,
but not again because of the way they performed it,
but because of the way it was written. And I

(05:16):
don't know exactly what the messaging is here. I just
feel like at twenty twenty five to have to watch
what I just watched. I would like some messaging. I
would like you to tell me something. I would like
you to peel back the curtain a little bit and
tell me what exactly were you thinking here, because what

(05:39):
I'm going to get from the actors is a press tour.
They're going to go around and say, oh, it's brilliant
and it means this and that, and it's a commentary
on this. But they're just trying to sell me the movie.
I've seen it now and I'm not going to buy
another ticket, and I don't want to see it again,

(06:00):
but I do want to kind of digest what I
just saw and maybe you'll get point zero one star back.
But other than that, I just yeah, this was hard, y'all.
This was hard, man. It was even for me painful

(06:20):
at times because and I think for me, when it
stopped being painful and I leaned all the way in,
I felt like it then kind of spat in my
face and then kind of rubbed my face in it
for a while in a way that felt extremely frustrating.

(06:43):
And there's really no way for me to tell you
what happened without spoiling the movie, so I almost want
to just and even if I tell you, I just
I don't think it's gonna be I think if you
want to see this, go see it, but just know

(07:04):
that it's possible you might leave pretty frustrated with it.
And yeah, I think it's a short review today, y'all.
Like I that's all I really have? Is that all
I have? Yeah? Wow that I'm sorry y'all like this one.

(07:25):
I don't have much more than that. I just i'd
I feel like one two three Cloverfield Lane. I think
it's called another frustrating movie for me because I really
liked Cloverfield and I feel like each entry in the
Cloverfield franchise is more frustrating than the last. But X

(07:46):
Machina X Bachina one two three Cloverfield Lane are two
mysterious kind of captor movies. If you will. X Machina
is pretty good. It does a pretty good job. One
two three Cloverfield Lane does an okay job. I wish
they gave me more. I wish you would get me

(08:08):
into the fight like I want to be. I just
want to be in the fight. When it comes to
the Cloverfield movies, they keep taking me away from the fight,
put me in the fight, coach, and then this get
a captive movie where I I just don't know why
I had to watch it. And the way that you
scoring to indicate fear in this film is sometimes jarring.

(08:31):
It's effective at times, but I don't love it. And
there's some acts of violence here that don't feel fun
to watch. And I know that's probably a weird sentence.

(08:52):
What do you mean by that? I mean you watch
some movies and they're like, oh, man, he beat that
dude up and threw them off a building, and you
don't have to like it, doesn't really hold it up
close to you, whereas this one is the type of
violence that feels visceral and bothersome. There's one point where
a person does self harm and I knew it was

(09:14):
coming so immediately covered my eyes from the way that
the character was talking. And I didn't like that and
did't make me feel good. This movie just it's a
feel bad movie. I don't feel good after watching this.
I have to go think about some stuff and maybe
I don't know, you to comfort food or so. I
don't know, Man, this is I have to cleanse my
body of this movie. I just y'all. Please. With all

(09:42):
that being said, I give it a two point nine
to nine of five stars. It's the story that's bad.
It's not really the construction of the film itself that's bad.
But I don't want to watch it again. I still
liked it better than The Long Walk, which I did

(10:04):
not like, So hopefully that gives you some indication there,
and with that, Leaving the Theater is a production of
Oh It's Big Ron Studios. I mixed this episode and
I'm sitting in a basement right now. It is Tuesday evening.
I have to cut and mix this episode tomorrow Wednesday

(10:26):
because I'm leaving town on Thursday, so that I can
set this and forget it and not have to worry
about this on Sunday when I usually edit. That is
the type of flexibility and planning that it takes to
make this show. It is a labor of love, but
it is labor. If that means something to you, you
should join the Patreon. By joining the Patreon, you have

(10:48):
access to On the Couch. Last week's episode was an
on the Couch episode only, which is a video podcast,
and that's not available for non Patreon members. So if
last week you were like, hey, there was no leaving
in the theater. If there was, it was on the
couch and it came out on Patreon. There's also I
Don't Like That, which I have fully constructed in my

(11:10):
mind and done three episodes of and I'm working on
the next one. Keep being your prayers and also you
get an ad free feed, so for those of you
that are hearing ads on the show, which we do
to continue to support and grow the show, you won't
hear those anymore by joining the Patreon Go to patreon

(11:31):
dot com, slash leave in the theater or go to
the link in our show notes if you want to
help us out. Remember this is a labor of love,
but it is labor show art from Heather Wilder. Theme
music by the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. For more information about Bogonia,
you can check out our show notes. You can follow
me on Instagram, threads, TikTok and letterboxed at owitz Biggron

(11:53):
That's at h it t s b I g r
o N. For more information about the show and other
o It's Big Rond's Studio shows, you can follow me
on Instagram at oh It's big Ron Studios leaving the theater.
Will be back soon. Thanks for listening.
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