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Hello, I'm Dana Stevens, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Anora poll dances to the the Oscars Conversation. It's Wednesday, October 23rd,

2024, and on this week's show, we will be discussing Anora, the new film from writer-director

Sean Baker about a Brooklyn sex worker who gets involved with the son of a Russian oligarch,

and winds up, to quote the title of an old Michelle Piper movie, Married to the Mob. It won the top

prize at Cannes this year. It's also now a frontrunner in the Best Picture Oscar conversation.

Second, we're taking on Matlock, not the 1990s Andy Griffith starring legal procedural,

but a brand new CBS Network show that's a gender-swapped reboot starring Kathy Bates as the

downhome trial lawyer. And finally, we'll talk about hearing things, a new online magazine that's a gender-swapped reboot starring Kathy Bates as the downhome trial lawyer.

And finally, we'll talk about hearing things, a new online magazine that's trying to revive and

maybe reinvent music criticism on the web. I'm joined today by Stephen Metcalf, who's remote from

somewhere. Where are you, Steve? I am back in my old stomping grounds. I'm in Ghent, New York,

at a dear friend's house. Ah, the land of pie stands. We get upstate Steve, a little infusion of upstate Steve. All right, we're going to see how that stirs the brew today. That's actually fitting for Matlock. He can be our folksy, our representative of folksiness for the week. And joining us from L.A., where she's a fellow at the Annenberg School of Journalism, is our beloved Julia Turner. Hey, Julia. Hello, hello. And on to Anora. The indie filmmaker, Sean Baker, has made eight films now, with the best known titles being the last three, Tangerine, the Florida Project, and Red Rocket. His movies have often taken place on the margins of society,

many of them focusing on sex work. In fact, when Onora won the Palm Door at Cannes this year,

Baker dedicated the award to sex workers everywhere. Anora tells the story of Annie. Her full name is

Anora, but that doesn't become important until late in the film. She's a stripper from Brighton Beach,

Brooklyn, who early in the film dances for a client named Ivan Zakharov.

Ivan, or Vanya, turns out to be the son of a Russian oligarch. He's obscenely wealthy. He's inexhaustibly horny, and he's eager to throw money at Annie to hire her as his pretend girlfriend.

After they take a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas together, their relationship starts to become something more than that of sex worker and client, which is when Vanya's powerful family

calls in the security team of large men they've hired to keep an eye on their wayward son.

In this clip, you'll hear Mikey Madison, who plays Anora, meeting Yvonne for the first time

in her strip club.

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