Podcast: Is Ex-Machina Great or Slightly Flat?
Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 11:48PM 
Katey Rich rejoins Joe Reid and Nathaniel R to discuss Alex Garland's buzzy sci-fi artificial intelligence thriller Ex Machina, now A24's biggest box office hit. Amir Soltani, from Hello Cinema & TFE, guest stars. This podcast is filled with many spoilers about a surprising movie so please see the movie before listening, if you haven't made it to the theater yet.
Running Time - 43 Minutes
00:01 Intros, Randomness, Cannes project
06:00 Ex Machina - Misleading promos vs going in cold
11:22 [SPOILERS] - Mood versus Substance, sexual issues and slavery metaphor, Princess and Mad Scientist and Frankenstein Tropes, seduction and porn profiles. And we're split on the ending. [/SPOILERS]
29:45 What else we're excited about this summer
36:20 Reader Questions: Bald women, Oscar Isaac
41:50 Goodbyes
Please to enjoy and continue the conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of this post or download from iTunes.
Further Reading (Related/Referenced): Nick's Cannes Jury / 1995 Retrospective; Michael's Ex Machina Review; Nathaniel's Oscar Isaac Tweet; Stephen Whitty's The Third Man Tweet; Ava's Drawings & Sessions; Ricki & The Flash trailer
Reader Comments (6)
Thanks for having me!
As a side note, I said on the podcast that my answer to the bald women question was not what the audience was looking for, thinking that the films I had in mind would all be unavailable, but it turns out I was wrong.
Here is one of them on Amazon Instant. (This is a great film, aside from having bald women, and totally worth your time.)
Amir - thanks :) that was actually such a great unexpected anecdote so i'm glad we took that question.
I loved Amir's anecdote about the princess, and how she eventually just ditched him. I also love these deep dives into the movies, as it sort of gives you additional conversation about a film after your less-cinematically minded friends want to switch topics.
Tks for taking up my question guys!! ^^
Apart from Amir's anecdote, which really wasn't what I had in mind when I asked the question, it was really fun to hear Katey mention The Coneheads and then go on to say "I am clickling through a horrible slideshow of bald actresses right now, by the way", which just made me LOL really hard!
My favorites would be Sigourney Weaver in Alien and Samantha Morton in Minority Report!
Oh, and Amir's contribution, though obviously not what I had in mind, was such bizarre/wonderful contribution, I'm really glad he shared it! :D
FYI, Ex Machina also did a really cool tech-based promotion where they had an Ava bot go on Tinder and troll men.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/16/ex-machina-stunt-sxsw-users-falling-for-robot-tinder