#kristen roupenian

[jerichopalms]

*Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022, dir. by Halina Reijn)

[stronghours]

saw the cat person movie with @drdemonprince last night, a truly national event, and while definitely like, artistically and craft-wise a bad movie, it was a treat for a couple people who did not like the short story at all - the interesting, charming, and intriguing things about it, though absolutely not done on purpose, really underscored the dysphoria between the reader reaction to the short story itself and the reality of the writing (bad)

1 - the short story came out in 2017! I'd only been in chicago for 10 months! truly this was a geological age ago.

2 - the twitter discourse on the publication of this short story was more encompassing and wild than the short story itself. people compared it to "the lottery". people called it "the first viral short story". people called it haunting and twisted and nasty and trenchant and intense. the extreme blurbage really set it up for a vaster failure to me specifically (the only opinion that truly matters) when I read it and thought it was like, a kind of dull story with listless characters.

3 - short stories have been adapted before! Frank Perry did The Swimmer back in the sixties! He had Burt Lancaster! (don't know where I was going with this - I think was going to say an actually literally wise director can adapt cleverly from brief material, but then I remembered I have not actually watched The Swimmer yet and probably shouldn't say that in good faith)

4 - so anyway - and once again, I think this was absolutely done unintentionally, so not 'good' per say - Cat Person The Movie portrays yes, the text of the short story, but due to both the deficiencies in the text and the deficiencies of the filmmakers, forces itself to literally play out the fantasies of the mass reader reception, fantasies that arguably swallowed the actual short story itself - that this was a chilling portrayal of modern dating/war of the sexes/misogyny/male violence, etc.

5 - I believe these fantasies happened because, 1, a lot of people aren't textually very wise. it is truly fandom bullshit. people have an intense emotion from deficient text or content and then start squeezing blood from stone and things snowball from there

6 - while, once again, I say, the movie most definitely not doing this shit intentionally, it had enough awareness for the usual tongue-in-cheek stuff, not because this was "the good thing to do craft-wise" but because tongue-in-cheek awareness is de rigueur these days, and because the adaptors, though maybe not craft geniuses, have the pragmaticism of Movie/Film People and were like "we absolutely do not have enough shit to go off on" and, again unintentionally, squeezed blood from stone just like the readers from yesteryears and managed to beautifully mimic the mass delusion that surrounded, again, this fucking bad and boring short story and managed to bring some actual violence to the table

7 - due to the fact that this is a Film with Actors and had Moving Visual Images, it benefited from like, you know, some of the actors being charming and kind of funny

8 - the story came out, again, in 2017, the stone ages, and modern dating and the twitter lit scene has gone through several more geological cycles since then, so the whole thing felt just a little old fashioned. the salad days!

9 - the ending close up on Margot's shit-im-nutting face when the second guy asks her out at the movie theater is such a fucking funny choice and departure on the og story, that this girl is now addicted to the rush of thinking every dude she dates is going to stalk/kill/drug her - (and she's correct! robert was, apparently, willing or contemplating to do two out of three of those things! but also - maybe she's crazy too and, you know, kind of deserves it?) like, such a hysterical and cynical choice, masterstroke.

10 - bad story! (no stars)

11 - bad movie! (five stars, would see again, love and light to all)

12 - The Swimmer (1968) dir. Frank Perry and starring Burt Lancaster is free on Tubi

[theblackestofsuns]

R. Kikuo Johnson’s illustration of Kelly Link for Kristen Roupenian’s piece on Link in this week’s New Yorker magazine.

[goodsniff-m8]

“Cat Person”

Short story by Kristen Roupenian

[kitchen-light]

In “On Writing and Book Culture,” a 2009 essay published in Présence Africaine, Nganang writes about how he always imagined that one day his books would sit on the shelves in his father’s library, an ostensibly straightforward goal complicated by the fact that his father was, for many years, the librarian for the Cameroonian Ministry of Internal Affairs—that is, for the oppressive Cameroonian state. Nganang’s essay describes the way his formative understanding of his father’s library—which contained newspapers, pamphlets, and scholarly dissertations, as well as novels and poetry—led him to be skeptical of genre distinctions that would cordon off “literature” from other kinds of text. He would define literature in the broadest of terms, as “a combination of letters,” and a writer as simply someone who puts those letters down on a page. “This lack of discrimination between texts makes me see the platform of a writer as being extremely potent, for it certainly makes me see no distinction between writing a novel and writing an interventionist essay,” he wrote. Nor would he distinguish between “writing a poem and using the Internet to build a network of writers, to defend the constitution of Cameroon.”

Kristen Roupenian, from her essay “When a Novel Reimagines a Nation”, June 20, 2022

[petnews2day]

Adaptation of the Viral Short Story 'Cat Person' Is Over-Padded but Not Declawed | Movie+TV Reviews | Seven Days

New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/5Qo01

Adaptation of the Viral Short Story 'Cat Person' Is Over-Padded but Not Declawed | Movie+TV Reviews | Seven Days

click to enlarge Courtesy Of Studio Canal Dating is hell in Susanna Fogel’s interesting but uneven adaptation of the viral short story. Perhaps not since Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” has New Yorker fiction gone as viral as “Cat Person.” (And what did “viral” even mean in 1948?) Kristen Roupenian’s 2017 short story about a college […]

See full article at https://petn.ws/5Qo01 #CatsNews #CatPerson, #EmiliaJones, #GeraldineViswanathan, #KristenRoupenian, #NicholasBraun

[mylifeinfiction]

Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian

"the sensational New Yorker short story"

I only read this because I saw the words above on a movie poster and I was curious to see just how badly they were exaggerating. The answer is ‘a ton’, but I do see the appeal/necessity of stories like this. Kristen Roupenian’s Cat Person boldly examines dating in our overly-connected yet emotionally disconnected age where – for most – texting is the sole form of communication. And I think it deftly gets to the core of this generation’s communication issues in a mostly effective way. Robert made me cringe so many times. Seriously, Red Vines?!? “Concession-Stand Girl”?! Ew. Also, he’s too old for the whole hot-and-cold mind game nonsense, just say what you mean. He is definitely a Cat Person. It’s not all on him, though. Neither of these characters really knows how to honestly communicate in a blossoming relationship and the technology at hand exacerbates that to a point where things fall apart in just about as messy a way as possible. But also, men are the worst. Right??

Anyway, the movie got mediocre reviews out of Sundance, so reading this was ultimately a waste of time. I probably should’ve checked that out before hitting the New Yorker. Oops. Honestly, though, I like its stars (Emilia Jones – who was fantastic in CODA – and Nicholas Braun – y’know, Cousin Greg on Succession) well enough, so I’ll probably waste some more time once it’s streaming.

5/10

Cat Person was originally published in the print edition of the December 11, 2017, issue of The New Yorker, and can be read online HERE.

-Timothy Patrick Boyer.

[jerichopalms]

#137: Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022, dir. by Halina Reijn)

[ladygavgav]

The Satisfaction Line vs the Finish Line

New blog post: The Satisfaction Line vs the Finish Line.

At the weekend, I was talking with other writers, which led to a discussion about narrative structure. Unlike a theatre or film script, there is no standard or accepted narrative structure for a short story. While this can be freeing for an author, my experience also tells me it can lead to a disappointing story without a decent resolution. I’ve had some difficulty articulating exactly what…

[screenzealots]

"Cat Person"

Takes a thoughtful, interesting, and cautionary tale about the perils of modern dating and tacks on an icky third act that results in a massive misfire.

Inspired by Kristen Roupenian’s short story  of the same name (which is also the most-read piece of fiction ever published in The New Yorker), director Susanna Fogel‘s “Cat Person” takes a thoughtful, interesting, and cautionary tale about the perils of the modern dating scene and tacks on an icky third act that results in a massive misfire. Adapted for the screen by Michelle Ashford, her script…

[p00li]

Esa combinación de responsabilidad e impotencia; allí, a su lado, vi con absoluta claridad que no podía echarle la culpa a nadie, que era yo el que había dejado que mi vida perdiera cualquier tipo de rumbo. Todo lo que alguna vez había hecho me había llevado a aquel punto; todas mis decisiones me habían conducido precisamente hasta ahí, a eso. Pero si esa hubiese sido mi forma de tocar fondo, habría cambiado, ¿no es cierto? Ver la luz me habría provocado algo, me habría ayudado de alguna manera. Pero no fue así. Solo me hizo sentirme peor.

Lo estás deseando. Kristen Roupenian  

[kitchen-light]

Shortly after he was freed, Nganang released a statement titled “In Defense of the Anglophones,” and subtitled “Declaration made to the Criminal Court in Yaoundé.” Addressing the judge in charge of determining his sentence, he denounces the state for pressing “charges against me for what is clearly fictional.” In particular, he says, "I stand before you accused of . . . things that are clearly linked to writing, by which I mean the use of the alphabet to make meaning, for in the end, I used nothing more than twenty-six letters to write the contested text. Nothing more. So, I will prove to you in my statement that those twenty-six letters, such as I employed them, cannot in any way constitute a threat to the Head of State."

Kristen Roupenian quoting Patrice Nganang, from her essay “When a Novel Reimagines a Nation”, June 20, 2022

[stuff-diary]

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Movies watched in 2022

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022, USA)

Director: Halina Reijn

Writer: Sarah DeLappe (based on a story by Kristen Roupenian)

Mini-review:

Well, I can definitely tell why this movie has been so divisive among audiences, but I have to say I loved it. It's not scary at all and there are barely any kills, so those going in expecting an old-school slasher will be disappointed. However, the movie is a fantastic dark comedy/satire that made laugh from beginning to end. The screenplay is very witty and cheeky, but the real reason why it works so well is the perfectly chosen cast. Among them, the standout is clearly Rachel Sennott. I've been obsessed with her ever since I watched Shiva Baby at the start of the year and this film just fueled that obsession further. She's just so naturally funny, every single one of her lines made me laugh out loud cause her delivery is spot-on. To sum up, this is a very fun, tongue-in-cheek movie that I thoroughly enjoyed, even though it's not really much of a horror movie.