Woody Adjacent - Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson & Spike Jonze - HER (2013)

Welcome back to the Woody Allen Retrospective Podcast for another episode of Woody Allen Adjacent - the last one of 2024, in fact!

 

First of all, thank you for rocking with us for another year. We GREATLY appreciate our lovely listeners, loyal subscribers, and thoughtful supporters!

 

For those who don’t know, in Woody Allen Adjacent our podcast hosts work they way thought films they like to compare and contrast to Woody Allens filmography and or writing style.

 

Recently, Donald has charged the AI Assistant of the show to dig even deeper and generate an additional wider list of interesting Adjacent movies some maybe we may find 'out of the norm' so to speak. 

 

As we rotate our turns for adjacent every month we’re slowly working our way through a very interesting list of films. We’ve already done more than a bunch at this point in time, some obvious, some not so.

 

Fittingly, for the Ai’s turn this month, it has chosen Spike Jonze’s film - Her (2013) - a well celebrated, Oscar winning, romantic drama, where Artificial Intelligence is at the core of the love story.

 

In this timely episode James and Donald dive into Her, exploring its poignant themes of love, loneliness, and technology in a near futuristic world that actually feels more relevant than ever.

 

We have standout performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson and taking a look back now, we find a surprisingly well star studded supporting cast

 

Incidentally, the main leads here, do have ties to Woody Allen (Match Point, Irrational Man) and as a extra tid-bit of trivia, some people may not know, the original Ai voice that was replaced - Samantha Morton - is another Woody Allen alumni (Sweet and Lowdown)

 

With Joaquin Phoenix already in the spotlight earlier this year due to the Joker 2 box office disaster, we took 5 or so minutes to talk about that situation :P

 

Reality can be just as intriguing as fiction as this movie is drawing parallels to the ever-growing influence of advanced AI platforms like Character AI, in fact we even highlight a riveting mini YouTube documentary that showcases just how close we’ve come to living out the reality of Her: The Rise and Fall of Character Ai

 

So lets wrap up this year with this thoughtful discussion blending cinema, technology, and humanity, as we consider whether Her is still science fiction - or if we’re already living it.

 

Wishing you a very merry Christmas and happy new year 2025!

 

 - Links Mentioned in this Episode -

 

The Rise and Fall of Character Ai

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynqAB9K4icg

 

The Real Reason Samantha Morton Was Replaced In ‘HER’ (2013)

 

https://www.thelist.com/428711/the-real-reason-samantha-mortons-voice-was-replaced-in-her/

 

My Complicated Feelings For ‘HER’ (2013) by Passion of the Nerd

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMJcbigcDJU

 

Please check out the links below for the full cast, user reviews, ratings and info you may find interesting

 

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)

 

IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/

 

Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/her

 

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