109: Aeon Flux with Kristen Lopez

Phil and Emily are joined by film critic and historian Kristen Lopez to break down Karyn Kusama's Æon Flux (2005). Charlize Theron plays the title assassin, sent by the rebel Monicans to kill the ruling Chairman of the last walled city on Earth (Marton Csokas), only to find a conspiracy about cloning and memory that goes back generations (Frances McDormand, Sophie Okonedo, Jonny Lee Miller). What starts as a straightforward hit spirals into questions about who's actually still human under all that latex.

The three dig into adapting a cult MTV animated series for a studio tentpole, the mid-2000s dystopian sci-fi boom, and how much style a blockbuster can get away with before critics turn on it. There's a real case here for reading Æon Flux as a genuinely strange studio experiment that got buried by its own rushed release. Sleek, weird, and a little sad, same as the movie.

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Phil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscove

Emily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjams

Kristen Lopez - https://www.instagram.com/kristenlopez88

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