From the dungeons of Morningstar, my name is
Clint. And I'm Stretch, and this is Prevailing
Strange. Welcome back guys to our Week in Review,
a segment of Prevailing Strange where we get
to talk about some of the content that we've
checked out this week. What have we checked out
this weekend? Alright, so... This week, I chose
Begonia, so we're going to talk about Begonia
today. So, it's a new sci -fi flick from 2025,
quite satirical, quite dark, directed by Yorgos
Lanthimos, a man who usually directs uncomfortable,
unsettling, hard tension, awkward dialogue and
making you laugh at things you really shouldn't
be laughing at. So, what is Begonia? It's basically
weird for being weird's sake, if you want my
two bobs on it. It was directed by, like I said,
Yorgos Lanthimos, produced by a long -time collaborator,
Ed Geeney, alongside Andrew Lowe. The film reportedly
is an English -language remake of a South Korean
cult sci -fi comedy called Save the Green Planet.
That alone should tell you something. Yeah. Stars
Jesse Plemons. Emma Stone, yeah, it's been nominated
for Best Picture this year at the Oscars. Shit,
okay. It's also been nominated for Best Original
Score. Okay. Emma Stone was nominated for Best
Actress, and it was also nominated for Best Screenplay
Adaption. Fair enough. You obviously didn't like
it. Well, the movie centers on two conspiracy
-obsessed, Men who kidnapped a powerful corporate
executive, Emma Stone, because they believe she's
an alien planning on destroying the earth. Simple
premise, completely unhinged execution. But,
yeah, I thought Emma Stone done a sensational
job. And Jesse Plemons, holy shit, that dude
can act, man. Yeah, I think they've both done
really fucking well. And I'm surprised that we
haven't got a best actor. nomination for Plemons
in this because he got some chops. I think he's
proved himself in this one. What would you give
it out of five stars? Three. Three. I was going
straight down the middle for three as well. Three.
I agree. Jesse Plemons does deserve more praise,
man. You haven't watched Civil War yet? No. No.
He's in that for all of ten minutes and you instantly
hate him. And the worst part is he's acting opposite
his wife in real life. And he just steals it.
And when I've seen the trailer of this, I'm like,
it's not telling you anything. It doesn't sell
you that this is what it's about. Quite incel
-y at times. Heavy opening, fucking 10 minutes.
But, dude, yeah, three. It was a solid movie.
Yeah. I do not think it's going to get Best Picture.
If it does, all right. I mean, original score,
maybe, from what I've seen so far. I had so many
jump scares in this movie because it could be
quite quiet at times and then massive crescendo
out of nowhere. Very orchestral. Very kind of
like throwback style soundtrack to it. Very operatic.
Yeah, it's very different. Like when he's riding
his bike towards the end of it. It's like, wow,
this is just grinding on you for a completely
different reason. Yeah. I can't comment on Scream
Adaption because I haven't really seen the original.
Me neither. Emma Stone? I mean, update. Actually,
are we going in now? We'll go in, yeah. Actually
shaved her head for this role, dude. Yeah, 100%.
It's an indie film. It's not a massive film that's
going to, well, it's getting Oscar buzz. Well,
so this was his largest budget movie he's done
to date. What was it, $40 million or something?
$45 million they budgeted. I think there's reports
that it bumped up as much as $55 million. Now,
very low budget. There's no special effect. There
are special effects, but. A lot of practical
effects. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of practical effects.
Special effects, not so much. A lot of that would
have been cast. I can't see where that 40 mil
comes in when you've got Iron Lung, which came
out last month, and it was $3 million. So this
thing was shot all over the world. It was London,
America. What? Yeah, heaps of places. So the
house was built from scratch in America. Why?
Yeah, a lot of the outside scenes are done in
England. Yeah, so it's all over the place. It
could have just been filmed. It doesn't look
otherworldly, this movie. It looks like a hick
-ass town in America. Yeah. Her home is in a
different country, picked specifically for the
fact that, you know, apparently he's some CEO
who has weird tastes that aligned with what they
wanted her values to be. The factory is in a
different country. Like, yeah. They didn't just
stick to, well, I mean. Far out. He's not American,
so, you know. Who isn't? The director. Oh, no,
he's not. No, you're right. So I think this is
the first movie of his I've seen. But I was looking
at him and, like, I know about the movies. So
he did that Kinds of Kindness that came out last
year that had. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in
it. That's another thing. He's collaborated with
Emma Stone a lot. She's been in like four or
five of his films. Yep. She was in Poor Thing.
That was with Mark Ruffalo as well. Right. That
was kind of like a psychedelic looking type of
thing where she looked a bit crazy in it or whatever.
There was The Killing of the Sacred Deer with
Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. I'd heard about
it at the time, never watched it. And The Lobster
with Colin Farrell and Rachel Weiss, who's been
in a lot of his movies as well. So he seems to
collaborate with a lot of people. Aidan Deblis
plays the cousin. His name's Donnie. I thought
he was so charming, dude. And there's a scene
of his in the movie where he just completely
steals the show. And then, fuck. Yeah. The director
decided he wanted to hire a non -professional
person with... Really? Yes, with neurodivergent...
He killed it, dude. He done such a good job.
So they picked up this guy, yeah, and this is
his first ever gig. And apparently there was
a point where the director's the first time he's
ever cried on set was because of this kid's presence
on set. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Like, he did a
good job. He really did, man. He wanted to bring
in somebody non -professional to change up the
presence between Emma Stone and Jesse and, yeah.
I would not have thought he wasn't a trained
actor. He'd done such a good job, man. And he
really brought a lot of heart, I thought. I could
tell he wasn't pro. I could tell that, you know,
he was what he was. He's true to himself. because
you look down the camera a couple of times. Yeah.
I caught it. I'm like, I can suspend disbelief
for that because he's doing really well. I did
notice that the camera does linger really long
on certain things and characters say the wrong
things at the wrong time all the time and you
just feel like your skin's itchy and you want
to move your shoulders and shit. It plays into
the idea of the conspiracy culture that is everywhere
these days, man, all the way down to fucking
Ivan Mactan and podcasters saying shit. Like
it's, it just, it really does say, it shows how
easy it is to spiral when you're the only one
that knows the truth about something. Exactly.
You're Jesse Plemons in this. No, I'm not. I
don't have red hair. You've got red hair. Yeah,
that's right. And I'm not seven feet tall like
Jesse Plemons. I know somebody seven feet tall
like Jesse Plemons with red hair. I didn't expect
to see Alicia Silverstone playing his mother.
Me neither. The cunting mother. Yeah. She dropped
the C word, yo. She's only 12 years older than
him. Fucking hell. That was some weird flashbacks,
weren't they? The floating. Holding like she
was a balloon. Full of needles. What the fuck?
Yeah, that's obviously the way he views things.
I don't even know what was wrong with her. Was
she schizophrenic? Was she a fucking drug addict?
I think she had cancer. You reckon she had cancer?
I think she'd been treated for something, wasn't
she? Yeah. And whatever she was being treated
for made her sick or? Yeah, it made her worse.
It did, yeah. Well, no. We know in the end. Yeah.
So this was another one shot on that VistaVision,
the 8 perforation, 35mm. It was the first one
to do it almost entirely since, like, the 60s.
And, yeah, I mean, some of the scenes were fucking,
I think they were worth it. So this got 88 %
from 327 critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Don't say
anything. 7 .4 out of 10 on IMDb and 3 .9 out
of 5 stars on Letterboxd. So it's up there, but
it's not as up there as Sinners or I think, what
did I say last week about Train Dreams? I think
it was 97 % on fucking Rotten Tomatoes. I was
going to sit down and watch this with Rachel
last night and then I watched the opening 10
minutes and I'm like, no, babe, I don't think
this is a movie for you. Now we're going to get
into the spoiler -driven part of the show because
we're going to just spit shit. And if you want
to go check out Begonia before we do that, pause
us now and come back later. Chemical castration.
Straight up, Jeremy. Fuck me dead. What is going
on in the world today? Yeah. That gives you an
idea of what these. Incel fuckwits. Yeah, what
they're willing to do. I think that's a comment
on all these people during the COVID times injecting
themselves with fucking horse shit. Yeah, look,
I honestly thought it opened well and I thought
that Emma Stone coming in straight away with
that. Can you remember, it wasn't Glenn Close,
it was the other hot chick. Sharon Stone. No,
the other hot chick, Meryl Streep, the streeper.
When she was in The Devil Wears Prada. I haven't
watched it. Okay, I have. It's the executive
chick who walks through the office and everyone's
like, oh, shit, look busy, look busy. She's over
there. Oh, shit, blah, blah, blah. She'd done
it really well even to the point where she's
like, from now on we're going to be leaving at
five every day unless you've got work to do and
you've got other stuff to do and there's deadlines.
Then you will stay back. And you will do the
thing. So I was like, oh, hey, look at me. I'm
a good altruistic person, but you better fucking
toe the bottom line and still be here after five
if it needs to be done. I love that it asks the
question all the way through. Is this cunt a
schizophrenic psychopath? Does he know something
that nobody else does? Or is he just trying to
punish the lady who has hurt his mum? Yeah. There
is an underwriting tension throughout the entire
movie and it plays pretty well in it. Stavros
was in this. Have you seen him before? The cop?
Yes. He's a comedian and he's pretty funny. That
was another thing. He says all the way through
the movie, I'm sorry about what I did to you.
What the fuck did you do? Yeah, I don't know.
Like he's not that much older than. God dang
it. Jesse Plemons in real life, surely. Jesse
Plemons looks older than him by about ten years
in this movie. And, man, he's lost some weight
for this movie. Really has, dude. Because he's
a fair lump of a lad. Husky lad. Big -ass head.
His head didn't look as big in this one. Looked
homeless really well. Pulls off homeless really
well. Yeah, disheveled. Fucking so disheveled.
Yeah, the relationship between him and his cousin.
It's beautiful sometimes. Mm -hmm. Tragic. Extremely
tragic most times. when he says, you know, okay,
I'm ready to go now. Fucking what? It was like,
oh, he's going to turn on his cousin and go and
live a good life and blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. Yeah. Trigger warning, guys. Fucking trigger
warning. There is a trigger warning for that
scene. Kurt Cobain warning. Kurt Cobain. Well.
Yeah. Did you see the news? We'll talk about
that later. Yeah, some of the notes I got about
the actors, Emma Stone, sensational in this role,
couldn't peg her down for the entire movie. Like,
yeah. Fucking right. Which way is she going?
Jesse Plemons deserves more love. This dude can
act. Holy shit. Can act. And I said about Aidan
before, about what the director said about him,
and that, yeah, just like solid cast. Very small
cast, apart from when they're in the, the warehouse
and when they're in the offices and shit, it
is just three people in a room. Basically, yeah.
And then when the cop comes around, when the
way that they hold it together until she breaks
free and goes into that little other room and
you see all the other bodies. Yeah, I'm like,
ooh, what's behind there? Holy fuck. And then
when she goes, how many of them? Yeah. And I'm
like, fucking what? Yeah. How many of them were
Armadians or something? Andromedans. Andromedans.
Yep. And he's like, two. She pulling this out
her arse? Yeah. What's going on here? What the
fuck? But then you get back to her office. Oh,
yeah, I've got to do this with the calculator.
Yeah, and it's still like, hang on, what the
fuck's going on? And then right at the end. Yeah.
It held it together just before the credits.
Yeah. That whole. Actually, that was probably
the most expensive part where they're filming
all the dead bodies in different parts of the
world. Yeah. Because there was a lot of dead
people. And I did love the fact that every time
it goes four days till the lunar eclipse, it
was a flat Earth. It was a fucking flat Earth.
With the bubble over it. With the bubble. And
then at the end when she decimates all of humankind,
she just pops the atmosphere. See, what I didn't
get about that is she popped the atmosphere.
Like, I thought, okay, no oxygen. Why did the
dogs, cats and everything else survive? And why
are the engines still running? Yeah. Like, yeah,
okay, so it's not oxygen. I don't know what that
whole deal was, but okay, I'll fucking roll with
it. Yeah, and she seemed like she didn't want
to do it, but she did anyway. Where did you watch
it? At home. Where? In my kitchen on the laptop.
Gar. Did you ar? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hired it.
Right. So I hired it off YouTube. I'm going to
have to stop doing that because right at the
end when she's speaking the alien language, it
doesn't translate it. So I had to go on to Meta
and Meta translated it for me. Thanks, buddy.
I had the subtitles. I got to see everything.
Nothing thanks, Meta. It's okay, buddy. Yeah,
I saw the whole thing. I understood everything.
And, yeah, that was weird. Like the bomb going
off, was that a coincidence? Yes. Yeah, it was
a pure coincidence because even the lady said,
you know, this is just something that happens
with homemade explosives. You don't know when
they're going to go off. Yeah. But, dude, when
she got smacked in the face by his head. She
got her head butted by the. Fuck off. I laughed
so fucking hard. Yeah, like. As soon as that
happened, I'm like, what the fuck? And then she
got out of the ambulance. I'm like, I know what's
happening here. And then it just got weirder
and weirder. I'm like, why is she running? How
is she running? What the fuck? But even when
she gets a knee after he hits her with the butt
of the gun, it's like, and I'm like, I've had
that happen before. I'm not walking nowhere.
I'm going to lay on the ground screaming. But
that's when I knew she was an alien. Yeah, spoiler
alert, she's an alien. She's an alien! She's
an Andromedan. Fucking weird -ass designs. And
they're fucking walking around in these big,
heavy -knit fucking whatever -the -fuck jumpsuits.
Dead set. The wool looks this round. And they've
just made suits out of it. Yeah. It's like on,
what is it, Dude Wears My Car. They're all wearing
the fucking bubble wrap suits. Salty. Yeah. They're
all fucking long -haired, shaky -looking. Fucking
ridiculous. Yeah. Weird, weird movie. At the
end, it definitely went sideways. Fucking sideways.
But I found out afterwards that it was an adaption
of a South Korean movie, and then that all made
sense. South Koreans are weird. They make some
weird shit, dude. Have you ever seen Oldboy?
No, 100%. 100%. I don't want to be racist about
this. I'm not being racist about this, but a
lot of Asian shit is weird in the best possible
way. I love it. Have you seen Oldboy? No. I haven't
seen the remake or the fucking original. It's
Thanos in the Scarlet Witch. Yeah, I know. And
I haven't watched it. Have you watched the original?
Yeah. Is it true to the original, the remake?
No. Which one's better? The original. Cool. The
original. Better ending. Yeah, better ending.
I'm not going to ruin it because it's a fucking
great film and you need to watch it. I will watch
it, yeah. Lots of incest. Okay. So much incest.
Yeah, you get that with a lot of foreign films.
I don't know what's going on there, but anyway.
It's like a movie I refuse to watch. I have never
watched it, but I've read the entire synopsis
of it, a Serbian film. Yeah, I haven't watched
it either. Have you read the synopsis? No. Go
and read the synopsis and then come back. No,
I'm going to go into it blind when I watch it.
Don't. It is. It's the worst movie ever made.
Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. Don't do it. I don't
know. It'll ruin your life. Anyway, yeah, three
out of, I didn't go right down the middle. I
thought it was above average. Yeah. And we can't
do, we're not doing 0 .75. No, no. So, you know,
I'll go three. Go by halves, yeah. A little review.
I ended up listening to the audio book for Train
Dreams. You did say that, yeah. Are you going
to listen to it? I will listen to it, yeah. Okay,
so I won't say anything. Should we do a book
review of that in the later weeks? No, it's not
long enough. No, it's only a short book. Yeah.
We can just tack it on to one or the other. It's
a little bit different to the movie. You get
some extra details in some places. It doesn't
really clarify the ending. I mean, it does a
little bit. It's still up to interpretation.
Yeah, right. Dude, that movie was so beautiful.
I'll stand by it. I still tell everybody that
has ears about Marabon, that's still for me the
pinnacle of movies we've watched together. 100%.
Wow. I still think of it daily, you know. So,
yeah, I guess I'm hoping for that sort of. High
again, looking for that, chasing that high. Yeah,
dude, chasing that cinema because that is just
gorgeous. This was a nice. No, I'll never watch
this again. Begonia? No, I'll never watch it
again. The worst part was I actually rented another
movie before this one. It was called Begonia,
B -E -R. It was a 1943 Western. I started watching
it and then I realised that, hang on a minute,
it's not a period film. Okay, next week we're
going to check out another movie that's in contention
for Best Picture. In the run -ups to the Oscars.
We're going to watch Marty Supreme. Oh, fucking
why? It's about fucking table tennis, dude. It's
about the person playing table tennis. Fuck me
drunk. Well, it's either that or F1's on the
list, and I thought you'd probably want to choose
that. Yeah. The Night Agent, which I've never
heard of. That's a TV show. Oh, what is it? Something
Agent. It's something Agent. There is an agent
on the list. Or Hamnet, which is about Shakespeare.
I have heard about Hamnet. Apparently it's pretty
good. Yeah. People think it's beautiful too.
But you cry. The lady who directed Hamnet? Mm
-hmm. I think it was a lady. They reckon, what's
her name? She was in The Bride. Chloe Zhao. Yeah,
she did fucking Eternals. Yeah, bro. Give her
more. Mm -hmm, mm -hmm. Jessie, what's her name?
She was in The Bride. I don't know. I can't remember
her name. Anyway, she's been a bit of stuff.
Pommy girl. They reckon she's going to take out
the actress. For the bride? No, no, no. Oh, Hamnet.
Yeah. I haven't, yeah, I haven't, I don't think
we've even watched the trailer. No, we haven't.
It's got old mate from The Gladiator. No, Gladiator
2, the next, the second Gladiator. Poor Mescal,
whatever his name is. Mescal, yeah. Fucking hell,
he's a shit actor. I reckon he's great. He's
so shit in Gladiator, man. Did you hear what
Russell Crowe decided about Gladiator 2? No.
Fucking he said they completely missed the mark.
They lost. You've just gone and shit in Maximus'
fucking mouth because you've just gone and said
that he cheated on his wife when all he wanted
to do was get back to his wife the entire movie.
Yep. So you've just completely destroyed Maximus'
fucking legacy. Reputation, yeah. For what? For
Denzel not even to put on a fucking accent. Yeah,
100%. I expect him to say fucking King Kong ain't
got shit on me, like something. He's going to
bring something out. But, yeah, I think we've
got three weeks until the Oscars, so we've got
another three choices. So Marty Supreme will
be my choice. You'll have another choice. Maybe
we'll just leave the last one. Yeah, right. So
Mighty Supreme this week, F1 the week after.
Right. Maybe we might watch Hamnet because people
are raving about it. And if we're chasing that
high of Marrowbone, it might be up there for
something to watch. Maybe. Maybe. We will cry.
Yeah. Why? They reckon it's sad. If they talk
like fuckwits, I'm not going to cry. If they're
all the R out there and Phil Harmonic Orchestra
and all that stuff, I don't give a shit. I'm
not going to care. Okay. Cool. I don't know why
I said Phil Harmonic Orchestra. I'm pretty sure
I heard that on TV once or twice. That's about
it. Cool. Makes sense. Thanks. Anyway, thanks
for joining us, guys, for another week in review.
Please like, comment, subscribe, follow along.
We really appreciate all of you. Thank you so
much. Bye. Bye. Peace.