Episode 75 - The Shape of Water

The 2018 Best Picture winner, "The Shape of Water" was labeled "a
fairy tale for troubled times" by its director, Guillermo del
Toro. Coincidentally, the unanimous acclaim that the movie
received despite its total lack of substance is reminiscent of
another fairy tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes." Del Toro is a
poor man's Tim Burton who repeatedly employs the same trick of
blending together macabre yet magical scenarios that take place
in the past, wide-eyed ingénues and heavy-handed musical scores.
They should have been honest and just titled this movie what it
is, "Edward Webbed Fingers."


Sally Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito, a mute janitor who works in a
top secret facility and lives a life of quiet desperation until
she meets and falls in love with her soulmate, a slimy fish
creature. She also has a vague backstory about being found as a
baby abandoned near some water as well as some symmetrical
scaring on both sides of her neck that looks a lot like gills, so
we’re supposed to think that she's part sea creature or
something.


Richard Jenkins plays Giles, Elisa's neighbor who was recently
fired from his job as a commercial artist after his alcoholism
started to interfere with his work. Giles's character arc is
driven by his failed attempts to get his job back and the fact
that he is a closeted homosexual who gets rejected when he tries
to makes a move on the proprietor of a local Jell-O pie
restaurant. After experiencing these defeats, he's willing to
risk it all so that Elisa can save her fish creature lover.


Michael Shannon plays Colonel Richard Strickland, a psychopath
bent on torturing and killing anyone who gets in the way of him
advancing the misguided goals of the American Government. After
swapping out prohibition with the Cold War, it's clear that
Guillermo del Toro instructed Shannon to play the exact same
character that he played on "Boardwalk Empire."


Octavia Spencer plays Zelda Fuller, a talkative janitor who works
alongside mute Elisa at the top secret facility. Throughout the
film, her incessant complaints about her ne'er-do-well husband's
shortcomings are supposed to provide comic relief.


Michael Stuhlbarg plays Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (a.k.a. Dimitri
Mosenkov), a scientist and secret Russian spy. After he discovers
that the fish creature possesses human-level intelligence, he
decides to disregard his orders to kill it and instead helps
Elisa free it from the evil Americans before getting vivisected.


Doug Jones plays a slimy disgusting sea creature with a hidden
retractable penis. 


Join us as we discuss the sick history of Kellogg's cornflakes,
the strange legality of bestiality in the United States, and the
double-life Jim constantly tries to hide from his wife.


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This episode is sponsored by Modern McCarthyism.


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