Alex Goldman
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
And we had additional help this week from Jake Loomis.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Donald Trump Is Trying to Rewrite the Rules of Capitalism
That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Returning to a Home Consumed by the Wildfires
That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Elissa Slotkin to Fellow-Democrats: “Speak in Plain English”
That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Rachel Aviv on Alice Munro’s Family Secrets
That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman. You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that. I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems, and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering, and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Senator Chris Murphy: “This Is How Democracy Dies—Everybody Just Gets Scared”
That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Well, I'd actually read about Baby Girl when it was just entering production. And the premise sort of grabbed me immediately. I feel like there's been all of this conversation in recent years about the state of sex on screen, concerns about power differentials and the workplace and age gap relationships.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And here was someone who was sort of throwing herself directly onto the third rail of all of that. Right.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
The basic premise is that Nicole Kidman is playing this CEO of a robotics company, this woman called Romy, and Samuel, played by Harris Dickinson, a young British actor, is an intern at the company.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Yes, that's right. It is the most extreme.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
The HR department nightmare, yes. Oh, my God.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And, you know, the idea is that she is in this happy marriage, but she has these desires that she has not even named her husband. And this young man proves to be the outlet for that. And initially, there's the kind of flirtation in the office, and they're easing into it, and then he sort of tempts her into this kinky affair.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Oh, yes. It is a three-minute-long close-up on Nicole Kidman's face. It's pretty remarkable. They take their time. Congratulations. Yes, that scene is very intense, and deliberately so. It was actually the last day of shooting, they saved it for the end, and when I talked to Helena, she wanted to wait until everyone trusted each other, they knew what they were about.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
The scene itself is kind of funny and awkward, deliberately, they're defining this dynamic, they're figuring out what the other person likes, they're testing these boundaries, and then something clicks. And the take is unflinching. It is three minutes long, and originally she wanted it to be even longer. She had hoped for an 18-minute orgasm scene, although she was quickly called back to reality.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Very. I mean, you know, Glenn Close was nominated for Fatal Attraction back in the day, but she didn't win, and that was sort of at the peak of the genre's power and popularity. But as you said, this role really is a showcase for Nicole Kidman's range, and she won Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She has some momentum behind her, so we'll see if voters are ready for it now.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Now, what makes an erotic thriller as opposed to a movie that just has a sex scene or two? I mean, if you look at the ones that came out in the 80s, 90s, early 2000s, I feel like the hallmarks are these very Baroque, over-the-top plots, mostly to justify the sex. And also the idea that the danger and the sex are inextricable from each other.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
You know, the erotic and the thriller have to go hand in hand. The point is that that's why it's exciting until it decidedly is not.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Yes, exactly. I mean, Michael Douglas, who had the kind of erotic thriller hat trick of disclosure, fatal attraction, and basic instinct. He was the man for the job, they decided. And he said at the time that the ideal audience reaction is, I laughed, I got turned on by the sex scenes, and I got scared.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Basic instinct. We have to go there. It's sort of the apex of the genre. It was released in 1992. It's directed by Paul Verhoeven, who's really the master at this. And he has Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas, so great cast. She plays a novelist whose boyfriend is stabbed to death with an ice pick in circumstances that are very similar to a novel she herself has written.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And he's the detective on the case who wisely decides to fall in love with her.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
Indeed, yes. Very polarizing for a reason.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
You think it's a good movie? I think it's a great movie. I think it holds up. It is absurd. It is over the top, but it knows what it's doing. I think it's playing with the tropes in a fun way.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
is one of controversy. What is it? Eyes Wide Shut, the Stanley Kubrick film. Right. Starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, once again, back in the erotics-related space.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It is about a lot. And, you know, I think audiences at the time didn't quite know what to do with it because it was marketed as a conventional erotic thriller. And it will not shock you to learn that Stanley Kubrick's take on this genre is a little more esoteric. But Tom Cruise is playing this doctor, Bill Hofford, whose wife, Nicole Kidman, confesses to fantasies about another man.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
And he spirals as a result of this information, I think it's fair to say. Yeah. And a friend of his tells him about a secret party. He sneaks in and finds out that it's an orgy with dangerous consequences for those involved.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It's a rare occurrence, and I think it means something. What does it mean, do you suppose? You know, if two divergent critical sensibilities can find something to admire in this film, then maybe it should be vindicated by history.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I mean, Nicole Kidman is a very prolific actress. Did you ask her about this? I did, yes. What did she say? She said that Ryan had given her something that no one's given me. And I don't know that it's the genre itself. I think in this case it was Helena. You know, she's obsessed with Adrian Lyne. She's obsessed with Paul Verhoeven. You know, she was in a Verhoeven film herself.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
She has an idea of what it takes to be in these roles. But she also realized that those films had a lot of sexism in them and there were these problems. And she wanted something that played with all of those tropes but was also true in its depiction of sexuality and a little more aware of the roles and responsibilities and the archetypes that women are expected to fulfill.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
It's taking this stuff and it's twisting it and making it a little more modern.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
The Art of Cooking with Ina Garten
I hope so. I mean, I think, you know, those movies were ridiculous at times, you know, often. No. But they also, in their willingness to really go for broke, I think they had the chance to show us something fun and something real. And it'd be nice if people took a few more risks in their filmmaking.