The Hip Pocket #309 - Kristen Lopez

I love it when good things happen to good people.

Earlier this week, the National Press Club gave out its National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards, and several of my friends picked up awards. I don’t think any of us do this with the thought of awards as an end result, but it’s a great affirmation that someone likes the work you’re doing and an encouragement to dig deeper on every single assignment.

One friend in particular was awarded for her work about the way our industry both covers disability and treats disabled artists, and I’m not remotely surprised. I’ve known this writer for many years now, and she’s a smart, empathetic critic with a deep love of movies. We recorded this episode a little while ago, and did so because she has a brand-new book in stores that we wanted to talk about. The timing of this week’s award is coincidental, but delightful.

Our conversations about movies are always a pleasure, and I know plenty of other people feel that way. I went to the premiere of Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein at the Academy Museum, and by coincidence, my seat was pretty much directly behind hers. I got there early that night, and for at least forty minutes, I watched people stop by to chat with her. Famous people. Plenty of them, all going out of their way to make time for her in a room that was chock-full o’ famous folks. Hopefully after this week’s episode, you’ll understand why so many of us like making time for conversation with her, and you’ll be eager to check out her work if you haven’t already.

KRISTEN LOPEZ is a writer, editor, and disability advocate whose work has been published at Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, MTV and Turner Classic Movies. She was the film editor at The Wrap and the TV editor at IndieWire, and her new book, Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies, is in stores now. Her next book is an oral history about Tales From The Crypt, while her earlier book, published by TCM Press, was all about the books that inspired some of the biggest titles in classic Hollywood. Her work covers a lot of ground, and she brings a wealth of knowledge to the things she covers.

We definitely wanted to place the focus on the subject of her new book, and her choices are a carefully curated look at the way Hollywood interacts with disability onscreen. Her first pick is one of the most interesting and controversial texts on the subject, Tod Browning’s landmark film Freaks. She picked one of her absolute favorite films about disability for her second title, Hal Ashby’s deeply felt Coming Home. And then for her final film, she went the other direction, picking a movie that infuriates her, 2016’s Emilia Clarke weepy Me Before You.

I picked our response film, a movie that flattened me when I saw it at Fantastic Fest. It’s a movie that feels like a fascinating bookend to Kristen’s pick of Freaks, the 2014 Ukranian film The Tribe. If you haven’t heard of the film, it’s a movie set in a boarding school for deaf teenagers, and the entire film is performed in Ukranian Sign Language, with no subtitles of any kind. It’s a singular experience, and one that gave us a lot to talk about.

Finally, for the Hip Pocket Hall of Fame, I decided to include a movie that has a production history that is deeply entangled with Coming Home, which used Ron Kovic as an advisor. Of course, I’m talking about Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July.

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The Hip Pocket is hosted by Drew McWeeny and Aundria Parker.
Craig Ceravolo is the show’s bandleader and producer.
It is a Formerly Dangerous Production.