Kiss of the Spider Woman

[BuffaloKyle]

Trailer out for Jennifer Lopez in her first movie musical role. The reviews are actually pretty decent, it had it's premiere at Sundance this past January:

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 39 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Weaving a visually sumptuous web of musical intrigue, Kiss of the Spider Woman showcases beauty in tragedy through wondrous performances by Jennifer Lopez, Tonatiuh Elizarraraz and Diego Luna."

Comes out October 10.

 

[+ BenjaminNicholas]

The great thing about Bill Condon is that he has no issue putting a performer through 100 takes to get what he needs.

Case-in-point, Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls.  It took 100+ takes and three days to get exactly what he wanted for the 'And I Am Telling You' sequence.

Hudson has never been known as a great actress, but damn if she didn't take home the Oscar that year.

 

I have high hopes for Spiderwoman.

Edited June 6 by BenjaminNicholas

[+ ApexNomad]

3 hours ago, BenjaminNicholas said:

The great thing about Bill Condon is that he has no issue putting a performer through 100 takes to get what he needs.

Case-in-point, Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls.  It took 100+ takes and three days to get exactly what he wanted for the 'And I Am Telling You' sequence.

Hudson has never been known as a great actress, but damn if she didn't take home the Oscar that year.

 

I have high hopes for Spiderwoman.

I’m intrigued but cautious. Kiss of the Spider Woman is such a layered piece. It’ll be interesting to see what Jennifer Lopez brings to the role.

[BuffaloKyle]

1 hour ago, ApexNomad said:

I’m intrigued but cautious. Kiss of the Spider Woman is such a layered piece.

I saw this on the film's wikipedia page:

In adapting the musical to the screen, Condon cited Bob Fosse's 1972 film adaptation of another Kander and Ebb musical, Cabaret, as a source of inspiration. This resulted in cutting almost every song set in reality at the prison where Molina and Arregui are held (including "Dressing Them Up" and "The Day After That") and only keeping the ones set in the "fantasies" Molina comes up with, in order to create a stark contrast between the grittiness of prison life in Argentina during the Dirty War and the Technicolor lavishness and beauty of a classic MGM musical film. As a result, the aspect ratio also shifts between the 1.85∶1 format during the prison scenes and the 1.33∶1 format during the fantasy sequences.

Sounds actually just like Chicago which Bill Condon wrote the screenplay for the movie version. Every song was made to be a fantasy of Roxie's which is why they cut the songs they did including Class, which they did film though, from the final version.

Edited June 6 by BuffaloKyle

[BuffaloKyle]

Jennifer performed the title song at World Pride, I would've been telling everyone around me shut the hell up for fucks sake:

 

[BuffaloKyle]

Now they just put out a TV spot already. It's not even coming out for four months.

 

[BuffaloKyle]

Full trailer out, looks like a great movie:

 

[+ MikeThomas]

Shouldn’t it be in Spanish?  It seems like some sort of variant of cultural appropriation to have characters who would’ve been speaking Spanish speaking English.

[MaybeMaybeNot]

I bought the cast album years ago but could never get into it (which happens sometimes)  I hope the movie helps me with that.  

[BuffaloKyle]

On 9/8/2025 at 8:12 AM, MikeThomas said:

Shouldn’t it be in Spanish?  It seems like some sort of variant of cultural appropriation to have characters who would’ve been speaking Spanish speaking English.

Well shouldn't any movie set in a foreign country then be in that country's language and subtitled? It has to cater to the mass public. According to the film's wikipedia page under the movie details column some of it is though in Spanish:

Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025 film) - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

[BuffaloKyle]

Here's the title track:

 

[+ MikeThomas]

6 hours ago, BuffaloKyle said:

Well shouldn't any movie set in a foreign country then be in that country's language and subtitled? It has to cater to the mass public. According to the film's wikipedia page under the movie details column some of it is though in Spanish:

Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025 film) - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

There’s a line in the trailer that goes something like this, I’m paraphrasing… No matter how hard Hollywood tried making her American, she stayed Latin.  I still think it’s odd that these Latino actors would agree to do a film based in Argentina in English.

it’s been interesting to see the evolution of Apple TV’s Acapulco. At the beginning, it was  almost entirely in English. Now it’s still in English, except the scenes with Mexican characters, then it’s in Spanish with subtitles.

 

 

Edited September 10 by MikeThomas

[BuffaloKyle]

4 hours ago, MikeThomas said:

There’s a line in the trailer that goes something like this, I’m paraphrasing… No matter how hard Hollywood tried making her American, she stayed Latin.  I still think it’s odd that these Latino actors would agree to do a film based in Argentina in English.

I'm not trying to be a troll but Evita for instance is set in Argentina as well. So Antonio Banderas should get criticized as well for agreeing to be in it because he sang in English? It's all about making money for the studios.

[MaybeMaybeNot]

I really want to see this movie. I wouldn't if it was in Spanish. I don't think I am alone in that. 

[+ MikeThomas]

58 minutes ago, BuffaloKyle said:

I'm not trying to be a troll but Evita for instance is set in Argentina as well. So Antonio Banderas should get criticized as well for agreeing to be in it because he sang in English? It's all about making money for the studios.

Well, it's kind of hard to look at films made a longtime ago.  But you are right... Hollywood wants to make a lot of money and the actors want to buy their next home in the Cotswolds.

[+ MikeThomas]

39 minutes ago, MaybeMaybeNot said:

I really want to see this movie. I wouldn't if it was in Spanish. I don't think I am alone in that. 

I appreciate your perspective.  I watch a lot of foreign Netflix shows and I always turn off the dubbing and watch with subtitles.

[BSR]

On 9/8/2025 at 2:12 PM, MikeThomas said:

Shouldn’t it be in Spanish?  It seems like some sort of variant of cultural appropriation to have characters who would’ve been speaking Spanish speaking English.

If you want to go down that road, then the 2025 film’s 3 protagonists should be played by Argentine actors.  The Argentine author wrote the original novel in the context of his country’s brutal political repression, even interviewed a number of political prisoners to prepare for its writing.  The novel struck a chord with Argentines for its themes (amongst several) of political repression and quiet acts of resistance.  Despite being banned by the military dictatorship, it was widely read (or as much as a banned book could be) by Argentines, especially those in exile, as an act of defiance, and its popularity soared when the dictatorship ended.

Honestly, I didn’t care for the 1985 film, although I’m open to re-watching it today.  I just started the novel, which I purchased as my only souvenir of a 3-month stay in Buenos Aires.  If an English-language musical adaptation sparks renewed interest in and popularity of Puig’s novel, then I’m all for it.

[BuffaloKyle]

2 hours ago, BSR said:

If you want to go down that road, then the 2025 film’s 3 protagonists should be played by Argentine actors.

There was an uproar as well from people when Jennifer, who is Puerto Rican, was picked to portray Selena, who was Mexican.

[+ MikeThomas]

2 hours ago, BuffaloKyle said:

There was an uproar as well from people when Jennifer, who is Puerto Rican, was picked to portray Selena, who was Mexican.

Was it because she’s of Puerto Rican heritage, or because she’s a terrible actor 😂 (just having some fun!)

[+ nycman]

22 hours ago, MikeThomas said:

Was it because she’s of Puerto Rican heritage, or because she’s a terrible actor

Yes.

[pleasureseeker]

Who cares? It's a f****ing musical with a big star in it. Only produced to entertain and make money. If it's authenticity we want, we watch documentaries.

[Rod Hagen]

I thought this was solely a movie with Raul Julia decades ago.  Was it a musical before that, or afterward, and if afterward, why?

Edited 21 hours ago by Rod Hagen

[BuffaloKyle]

5 hours ago, Rod Hagen said:

I thought this was solely a movie with Raul Julia decades ago.  Was it a musical before that, or afterward, and if afterward, why?

From wikipedia:

Kiss of the Spider Woman (Spanish: El beso de la mujer araña) is a 1976 novel by Argentine writer Manuel Puig. It depicts the daily conversations between two cellmates in an Argentine prison, Molina and Valentín, and the intimate bond they form in the process. It is generally considered Puig's most successful work.

The novel's form is unusual in that there is no traditional narrative voice. It is written in large part as dialogue, without any indication of who is speaking, except for a dash (-) to show a change of speaker. There are also significant portions of stream-of-consciousness writing. What is not written as dialogue or stream-of-consciousness is written as meta-fictional government documentation. The conversations between the characters, when not focused on the moment at hand, are recountings of films that Molina has seen, which act as a form of escape from their environment. Thus there are a main plot, several subplots, and five additional stories that comprise the novel.

Puig adapted the novel into a stage play in 1983, with an English translation by Allan Baker. It was also made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1985, a Broadway musical in 1993 and a 2020 television special episode of Katy Keene. A film adaptation of the Broadway musical premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.