Upper Middlebrow

The lads get all aughty with Roger Spotiswoode’s charming and unthreatening Ripley, Underground, where Tom Ripley is a glib opportunist instead of the darker, unpredictable Ripleys. The result is an entertaining romp that feels a little like going to a Bare Naked Ladies show: you probably won’t go again but it was fun while it lasted. It’s a welcome addition to the Ripley Cinematic Universe, bringing back an air of fantasy to Highsmith’s invention.

UCLA professor Peter Lunenfeld joins us to talk about Robert Altman's neo-noir based on Raymond Chandler's novel. Some reviewers call the film "satirical" but we argue, it's more a riff than a satire. It treats the source material lovingly, even as it updates it to match the 70's zeitgeist. Our guest Peter argues that the elusive Courry Brand cat food is a metaphor for the film, something that is labelled one way, but containing the unexpected.

The American Friend is loosely based on Patricia Highsmith’s third Tom Ripley novel Ripley’s Game. But Wim Wenders plays fast and loose with the source material, borrowing elements of another novel Ripley Underground and referencing Easy Rider, Rebel Without a Cause, and other cinematic forebears. The visuals are beautiful, and even if the plot is a bit puzzling, the lads find the mood of the film compelling.

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Chris and Jesse charge into our next group of works, Ripley en Filmes, beginning with René Clement's visually stunning 1960 film Plein Soleil, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. Clement casts Alain Dumont as Tom Ripley, Maurice Ronet as Philippe (a renamed Dickie Greenleaf), and Marie Laforêt as Marge. Clement makes some major divergences from Highsmith's plot in some places while hewing closely to it in others, leading to an interesting discussion about directors' responsibility to their source material. The lads are both thirsty for Alain Dumont, but does the plot rise to the level of the film's metaphorical weight?

Our favorite education researcher joins us to talk about Ted Chiang’s collection Exhalation, which includes the story “The Life Cycle of Software Objects” which Chris read from in our earlier Robot Friends show. We discuss several stories in the collection, and marvel at Chiang’s ability to surface the BIG questions by tugging at a small speculation about what our future might hold.

The Lads finish out James S.A. Corey's 2011 novel Leviathan Wakes, a huge success that powered The Expanse, the SyFy and then Amazon Prime space opera. Bagg and Dukes talk about whether or not you can marry noir and space opera effectively, how important the first sentence of a book can be, and whether or not the novel rises to the level of its ambition. Both of the boys prefer Detective Miller's chapters, but understand that, in novels such as these, your main character (James Holden, in this case) might need a little more curb appeal than the characters one deploys to explore...existential questions.

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Leviathan Wakes is cracking good solar system space opera, combined with very strong elements of noir. The lads think that at moments, the prose is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s lyrical voice, but wonder if there’s a little too much action for the noir themes to land. 

Show Notes

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The lads continue to admire China Miéville's genius premise for this novel, but will the second half of the book escape the issues we've seen in the noir and noir-adjacent works the UMBers have read? As Inspector Borlu closes in on the answer to this spiraling whodunit, the boys discuss the choices Miéville makes and whether or not they are to our taste—we're curious to know what YOU think once you've finished the book, too.

We invite podcast buddy Leah Jones from Finding Favorites to follow up on a recommendation she made to Dukes last year: to watch the film M3gan. We thought it would be fun to talk about films and books with robot friends (and enemies) more broadly, and we each make a recommendation. Since we don’t yet have actual robot friends (although according to Silicon Valley, they’ll be here soon) what are we really talking about when we tell stories about robots? Loyal servants? Monsters? Children? We discuss examples of each, and contemplate what makes a good story with robots.

The City and the City has a wholly original premise, and the pleasure of the book comes from the dawning realization of exactly what is going on between the two adjacent cities, Besźel and Ul Quma. China Mieville dribbles out occasional hints and clues, raising the question of whether the book is a murder mystery, or whether, like the characters in the book, it operates in two places at the same time.