Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Scorned

Movies: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

 There's nothing quite as potent as a rape-revenge tale. And even more potent than a man taking revenge on behalf of a woman is a woman avenging her own rape. Perhaps this is why Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy has dominated the best seller list for so long. The trilogy (which, full disclosure, I haven't read, although I've seen all of the original Swedish films based on the books) would be nothing special without the character of Lisbeth Salander. Salander, a tiny, anti-social, goth-punk computer hacker is perfect fodder for our culture's weird fantasies about sex and violence. Salander is titillating enough to be a sex object (she's slim, bisexual, sexually aggressive), but also bad-ass enough to fulfill our love of eye-for-an-eye revenge fantasies.

There has been much ado made about Larsson's trilogy and it's relationship towards women and feminism. According to both Wikipedia and Larsson's long time partner, Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson witnessed a gang rape of a young woman when he was 15 years old. This incident caused a deep, lifelong disgust of violence and abuse toward women and was an influence on his writing. In fact, the original Swedish title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was "Men Who Hate Women". The novel is peppered with statistics about rape and assault of women in Larsson's native Sweden. All this would mark Larsson as a feminist. However, others find the focus on rape and torture of women in his novels distasteful at best and exploitative at worst--basically, "rape as entertainment". I, however, fall into the camp that believes Larsson was a feminist. You can find brutal depictions of violence against women in any number of thrillers and murder mysteries--many written by women. It seems to me that Stieg Larsson, whether or not he accomplished his goal, was at least trying to make a political statement about the way women are seen and treated in his country and in the world.

That background aside, David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is a very good, very atmospheric, and incredibly violent film with one major flaw which I will discuss below. If you liked the original Swedish film, you probably won't be *too* offended at the changes Fincher makes in his adaptation. And if you like Fincher's other films and are able to stomach a lot of violence (against both men and women), you'll find this film as thrilling, edgy, and elegant as his other films.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo follows the plot of the original film very closely and steamlines the many subplots. The main story concerns Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), a disgraced journalist hired by a rich and powerful old man to solve an old family mystery. As Blomkvist looks into the history of the powerful Vanger family, he uncovers some extremely dark family secrets--and find himself uncomfortably close to a man who is a serial torturer/rapist/killer of women.

The subplot, which gets just as much screen time as the main plot, is about Salander, the titular girl with the dragon tattoo--a genius computer hacker who is also a ward of the state because of a violent crime she committed as a child. When her state-appointed guardian begins to take advantage of her sexually, culminating in a distressingly violent rape scene, Salander fights back and take revenge in a brutal way--though arguably less brutal than what she had to undergo.

The two plots come together when Blomkvist seeks out Salander to help him with his research. Together, the two are able to discover not only what happened to the missing niece at the center of the Vanger family mystery, but to find a killer of women who is still at large. Of course, they risk their lives doing so.

This brings me to the biggest beef I had with Fincher's adaptation of the story:

Spoilers!

In the original movie (I can't speak for what happens in the book), Salander has sex one night with Blomkvist. She goes into his room, ravishes him, and goes back to her own room. End of story. No romance, no pining. The two have a mainly platonic relationship of mutual respect throughout the trilogy of films.

In the American version, Salander begins to kinda sorta fall in love (or at least get emotionally close) to Blomkvist. Her attachment is expressed in a number of scenes. For example, she makes him breakfast after they spend the night together. Later, she buys him a leather jacket and when she goes to give it to him, sees him with his longtime girlfriend and becomes visibly distressed. I found Salander's attachment to Blomkvist to be complete baloney. Salander would never make a man (or woman) breakfast after spending the night with them. And the character is often described as anti-social to the point of being nearly autistic. I highly doubt she would get a schoolgirl crush on a man she was working with. Then again, maybe Fincher's adaptation is truer to the book. But it seemed very pandering to an American audience that expects (heterosexual) romance to bloom at the drop of a hat.

That complaint aside, Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an excellent, elegant thriller with beautiful cinematography, a killer (no pun intended) soundtrack, and great acting. If you can stomach the violence, it's worth seeing.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Not On Bread Alone

Movies: Hunger

Continuing the theme of sad movies this month, I was interested in watching Hunger, directed by Steven McQueen (no, not that Steve McQueen, this Steve McQueen) and starring Michael Fassbender, in preparation for the upcoming film Shame, also directed by McQueen and starring Fassbender.

Hunger is--pun somewhat intended--a slim little movie with a very narrow focus. The film depicts the events surrounding a prison hunger strike led by Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army volunteer. Sands and the other IRA prisoners wanted political status and various other rights, including the right not to wear a prison uniform and the right not to do prison work. After an unsuccessful "no wash" and "blanket" strike (during which the prisoners refused to bathe and wear the prison uniform--instead they went naked and wore blankets), the prisoners of Maze prison in Northern Ireland used all they had left--their lives--to barter for their rights.

In the end, they were granted many of their demands, although nine men, including Sands, had starved to death.

Visually, Hunger is grotesque and disgusting. The Maze prison is hellish, the prisoners are filthy, there are several scenes of family members and girlfriends smuggling messages and contraband to the prisoners by way of...body cavities. In McQueen's view of things, the prison guards are robots and the prisoners are animals.

There is very little dialogue in the movie, aside from an intense scene between Sands and a priest. The priest tries to dissuade Sands from starving himself--he asks Sands to think of his family and "wee son". But Sands is insulted by the priest's pleas and is set on dying for what he believes is a righteous cause. I have to say, I sided with the priest.

In the final third of the movie, we watch Sands starve to death. It's amazing they didn't end up force-feeding this guy. I guess for all the rights they refused the prisoners, they didn't bother refusing them the right to die.

Hunger's final act appears more like performance art than a film. Fassbender lost a ton of weight for this movie and he appears to be authentically starving by the end of the film. It was distressing to watch--not so much because I care about Bobby Sands or his cause, but because it was alarming to see how radically Fassbender changed his body for the role. Someone get the man a sandwich!

Hunger accomplishes its goals in the sense that you feel for the prisoners, who faced terrible conditions and abuse at the hands of hardened guards. No matter how you feel about the actions of the IRA (I don't know much about the IRA, but I'm against their use of terrorism and violence), you sympathize with their demands. Yet, at the same time, Sands comes off as more of a martyr than a hero in this movie. He starves himself (and, by example, encourages other men to also starve) for what I believe to be no good reason. I would argue that there are very few causes worth dying for--and that people who want to change the world and make a difference have a big advantage in, uh, being alive to work on their goals.

Hunger is a good film, but, like Bobby Sands' stomach, I felt pretty empty afterwards.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Dreaming at 24 Frames Per Second

Movies: Hugo

Hugo is Martin Scorsese's love letter to film, and what a joyous, beautiful film it is. Based on Brian Selznick's book, the film follows the titular Hugo Cabret (played by adorable and talented newcomer, Asa Butterfield), an orphan in early 1930's Paris who, after his father dies and alcoholic uncle abandons him, keeps the clocks running in a train station and steals food from the shops at the station. He also steals knick knacks and small pieces of machinery that he uses to repair an automaton (a small robot) that his father found in a museum. The automaton (which is able to write out messages when wound up) is Hugo's last connection to his father and therefore very important and dear to him.



In his attempts to steal small parts to fix the robot, Hugo is caught by an old man (Ben Kingsley) who runs a toy shop in the train station. He takes Hugo's notebook, filled with drawings of the automaton, and makes Hugo clean and repair broken toys for him to earn the notebook back. Hugo makes friends with the man's goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz, aka Hit Girl from Kick Ass), who is also an orphan. The two work together to find out why "Papa George"--Isabelle's godfather--is so obsessed with Hugo's notebook.

Potential spoiler: It turns out that Papa George is actually George Melies, one of the earliest filmmakers and pioneer of the art of filmmaking. Melies, a prolific director in the early 1900's, lived to see his life's work and dreams destroyed during the Great War--a time so lean, that Melies was forced to sell his film reels to factories that melted the film down in order to make shoes.

Hugo and Isabelle dredge up a painful past that Melies has long kept buried (the automaton turns out to be an early invention Melies worked on before giving it to a museum). Of course, once the children convince Papa George that his work is still loved and valued, the old man realizes that he cannot and should not avoid his past, despite the painful memories. At the end of the film, Melies has adopted Hugo and hosts a film festival of his restored classics.

Despite the PG rating and neat and tidy happy ending, Hugo is not just a movie for kids. In fact, the gravity, leisurely pace, and tangents into film history make it more appropriate for cinephile teens and adults. As someone who fell in love with movies at a tender age (I remember watching City Lights and Annie Hall in middle school and never looking back), Hugo really meant something to me. There is a scene where Hugo and Isabelle visit a library and read a book called "The Invention of Dreams" about the early history of cinema. As they flip through the pages, the strains of "Danse Macabre" play to images of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, the Lumiere brothers--all the greats of early 20th century cinema. It's a breathtaking and deeply emotional scene that pays tribute to film as an art form and part of history.

In Hugo, Melies says at the end, "Come dream with me". I suspect that if you read this blog, you are also a movie lover. Hugo will remind you why you fell in love with seeing your dreams come true on the big screen.

4.5 out of 5 stars

I Know It's Over...And It Never Really Began

Movies: Blue Valentine

It must be sad movie week for me. First, Melancholia and now Derek Cianfrance's beautiful and gut-wrenching Blue Valentine.

The central conflict in Blue Valentine is devastating in its simplicity and commonness. Two young people who don't have much in common other than their initial physical attraction get married for the wrong reasons and end up miserable years later. It's a story as old as time and nearly everyone can relate to it: to love is to experience pain. I don't mean to sound like a melodramatic teenager (despite my use of Smiths lyrics as the title of this post), but when we love someone and take that leap into a relationship, we are accepting vulnerability and helplessness. It's a given--it's part of the deal. Vulnerability is what makes love...well, love.


But I digress. Michelle Williams plays Cindy and Ryan Gosling plays Dean. The couple have been married for about 6 years and have a daughter, Frankie. The movie opens at the beginning of the end of their marriage and then cuts back and forth between how they met and fell in love and how it all unravels in the end. In the beginning, the major differences between Cindy and Dean don't matter so much. Cindy is intelligent and ambitious. She is studying medicine. She comes from what appears to be an abusive home and is in a relationship with an abusive jerk. When she meets Dean, he becomes an escape route for her--an attractive, fun guy who clearly worships her. Dean lacks ambition. He never finished high school. His ideal job is one that allows  him to drink beer at work and make enough money to put some food on the table. But Dean loves Cindy the way a puppy loves its master: unconditionally and in a way that puts the two of them on radically different footing. Cindy starts out as a lost girl who is intrigued by Dean's boyish qualities, but she grows into a woman who needs to be with a man. Dean stays a boy and doesn't want anything to change. He just wants to love Cindy and Frankie and do nothing else with his life.

It's this dynamic that makes Blue Valentine so real and so, so sad: neither Dean nor Cindy is the villain here. They both have their flaws--Cindy is unable to communicate effectively; Dean drinks too much, etc. But no one is really the bad guy. The two are just fundamentally different people. So many relationships end not because one person is abusive or adulterous, but because two people just change and grow apart over time.

In an attempt to salvage their flailing marriage, Dean convinces Cindy to spend the night with him what has to be the saddest sex motel ever. They choose the "Future" room, which Dean aptly remarks looks like "a robot's vagina". Dean's plan is for the two of them to "get drunk and make love". Well, the succeed on the "drunk" part. In fact, it's probably the alcohol that ruins the evening. The two get massively blitzed and try to...er..."make love" is definitely not the right phrase. "Screw" is more appropriate. Dean's attempts to pleasure Cindy are met with resistance and disgust. The look of pain and repulsion on Cindy's face while Dean kisses his way down her body says it all. She has no love, lust, like, or respect for this man any more, as much as he keeps trying and trying.

The next day, Cindy leaves for work and doesn't bother to wake Dean up. Dean goes to the doctor's office where Cindy works as a nurse and confronts her. The scene transitions from awkward and cringe-inducing to violent. It culminates with Cindy telling Dean "I am so out of love with you! I have nothing left for you!" Ouch. It's not that Cindy hates Dean--that would indicate passion of some sort. She's just apathetic and exhausted. The marriage isn't dying, it's dead.

Despite the pain of Blue Valentine, I was enthralled by the film. It's a fascinating character study and although it's difficult to watch at times, it's never boring. For a movie with such a simple plot, Blue Valentine feels full and complete. Williams and Gosling are so talented--they fully inhabit their characters, and the viewer is able to forget their outer beauty when they let their characters' inner ugliness shine through.

A quick side note/rant: Blue Valentine was originally given an NC-17 rating before the director appealed to the MPAA and got the rating downgraded to an R. Apparently, the film was given its original rating for an "emotionally charged scene of sexuality". I've seen this movie and there is no way any of the sex scenes warrant an NC-17. You barely see the actors' bodies, since the camera focuses mainly on their faces in extreme close-up. In addition to the sex motel scene, there's a slightly more graphic scene of Dean performing oral sex on Cindy when they first start going out. The characters are fully clothed and the scene lasts about 20 seconds, but I can just see the MPAA counting the head bobs, or moans, or whatever it is on their checklist of "consensual adult pleasure" that offends them so much and slapping the film with an NC-17. I know it's been said before, but when movies like Hostel and The Human Centipede get R ratings and Blue Valentine gets an NC-17 for an "emotional" sex scene and half a minute of fully-clothed oral sex, there's something wrong with our culture and societal values. Or, you know, the values of the MPAA, which are extremely out of touch with reality.

I said that Melancholia was "painful and somewhat worth it". Blue Valentine is painful and completely worth it. It's a small-scale masterpiece. I know that Cindy and Dean aren't real, but at the end of the movie I found myself hoping that they would be able to move on with their lives and find new partners better suited for them. It's the mark of a great movie when the characters feel so real that you continue to think about them and worry for them long after the movie is over.

4.5 out of 5 stars

It's the End of the World as We Know It, And She Doesn't Feel Fine

Movies: Melancholia

Spoilers ahead.

"Divisive" is a good word to describe director Lars von Trier, both in terms of his work and of the man himself. Von Trier has been known to be a difficult man to work with at best, and downright cruel and piggish at worst. Earlier this year, he made a, er, gaffe at Cannes by saying he "understood" Hitler (Google the clip--it's painful to watch). It's no secret that von Trier, as talented as he may be, has some serious issues.

Likewise, von Trier's films are, well, difficult. I've seen a number of them and I always seem to either love them or hate them. While I felt that Breaking the Waves and Dogville were beautiful, amazing films, Dancer in the Dark was like nails on a chalkboard to me. And Manderlay, the sequel to Dogville, was just stupid in my opinion. Melancholia may be the first von Trier film that I didn't hate, but didn't love. It's beautiful, it's intense, and it's extremely difficult to sit through. At times, I was bored to distraction. But by the end of the film, my heart was racing. I still don't know what I really think of this movie.

Melancholia is about two things: depression and the apocalypse (now I know you're dying to see it!). The first half of the film focuses on internal depression. It follows Justine (Kirsten Dunst, in what I think is her greatest performance yet), a young woman on her wedding day. Her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and brother-in-law, John (Kiefer Sutherland), are enormously wealthy and the reception is held at their estate. Justine barely makes it through the evening, often sneaking away to walk outside or take a bath in the middle of the festivities. Claire, John, and Justine's brand new hubby, Michael (Alexander Skarsgaard), keep guilt-tripping her about not being happy. When she protests "I keep smiling and smiling..." her sister says "You're lying to all of us." God, with family like this, who needs enemies?

No wonder Justine is exhausted and depressed--I was exhausted and depressed just watching the damn thing unfold. Seriously, the wedding in Melancholia has to be the most awful wedding, in real life or on screen, ever. By the end of the evening, Justine leaves her husband and has sex with another guy on Claire and John's golf course (yes, they have a golf course. These people have more money than God) and then insults her boss and gets fired. You go, girl! It's her wedding and she can act like a crazy person if she wants to!

At the start of the second half of the movie, Justine is so severely depressed, she can no longer bathe herself or eat. She comes to live with Claire and John and just sleeps for 15 hours a day. Anti-depressants, people! They exist for a reason!

But the bigger concern of the second half of Melancholia is a giant planet that has been discovered by scientists. Appropriately named "Melancholia", the experts believe that the planet will pass by Earth harmlessly. Claire, however, is terrified of it. She has reason to be. Although Melancholia does initially pass by Earth, it starts heading back on a collision course. When John discovers this, he quickly takes the coward's way out and commits suicide, leaving his wife and young son behind. Claire is, of course, distraught. Her husband has killed himself, she has a young son she can no longer protect, and not only will she die when Melancholia hits the earth--everything and everyone she ever loved will be destroyed as well. Justine, on the other hand, emerges from her depression and becomes a source of calm and strength for Claire. Now that Justine's depression is externalized in Melancholia, she and Claire have reversed roles. In the last moments, she helps Claire's son, Leo, build a symbolic "magical cave" out of sticks.  Claire, Leo, and Justine sit in the cave as Melancholia gets closer to Earth and eventually destroys it.

Interestingly, watching the earth blow up was easier than watching Justine's travesty of a wedding.

What does it all mean? I think the simplest interpretation is the best--Melancholia is simply about depression and its destructive nature. Because of her depression, Justine destroys her marriage and career in the first half of the film. In the second half, a planet named after depression destroys everything. No one can escape it. Claire and John may be insanely wealthy, but even they can't fight the inevitability of such an enormous disaster. Like the disease of depression, the planet Melancholia is all-consuming.

Melancholia is filled with beautiful images (as well as a lot of gut-churning hand-held camera work) and devastating emotions. Claire's agitation and hysteria near the end of the film really got to me. I didn't enjoy the first half of the movie mainly because I couldn't relate to the characters or the situation at all. I just kept thinking how annoying, mean, and stupid everyone was acting. But I could sympathize with Claire's helpless response in the face of impending doom. If I was in the same situation, I would not be calm like Justine. I would definitely be like Claire--a frantic, trapped animal. So while the emotions I experienced during the second half of Melancholia were not positive, they felt very real and very intense. I don't watch Lars von Trier's movies to feel happy--I watch them to feel a sort of catharsis. And to that end, Melancholia was successful. In terms of cinematography and acting, Melancholia is among von Trier's best work. But it just didn't captivate me and hold on to me the way Breaking the Waves and Dogville did.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Person on the Inside

Movies: The Skin I Live In

Where to start? Pedro Almodovar's latest film, The Skin I Live In, is somehow both violent and delicate. Almodovar is no stranger to dark themes: AIDS, rape, incest, pedophilia, and pain of all kinds pervade his films, yet they still manage to be lovely and hopeful. His main characters are typically women and vulnerable/nontraditional men (crossdressers, gay men, boys, etc). These characters are pillars of strength even after facing abuse at the hands of "stronger" members of society. I love Almodovar's films because they don't patronize or condescend to women and queer men. Almodovar's characters have dignity and, to use the word again, strength that allow them to overcome and transcend their circumstances, no matter how rough.


The Skin I Live In is yet another beautiful and traumatic Almodovar film. It is not gender-normative, the sexuality of the characters is wildly fluid and even bizarre, and it is about a supposedly weak person who thrives under the thumb of a supposedly strong person.

I can't say much more without giving away a huge plot point of the film, which isn't so much of a surprise twist, but still radically changes your understanding of everything that comes before it. So, if you want to see the movie with a fresh slate, I'll say that it is difficult, but worth seeing (if you're a fan of Almodovar's other films, you'll probably love it, or at least know what to expect). If you're squeamish about violence, be prepared for scenes of rape, torture, and murder (not terribly graphic, but still pretty hard to watch). I can tell you that it's about a plastic surgeon, Robert Ledgard (played by Antonio Banderas) who has been developing a synthetic skin that is indestructible ever since the death of his wife, who was horribly burned in a car accident. Ledgard has a beautiful female captive whom he tests the skin on. The second half of the movie reveals who the woman is and how she came to be Ledgard's prisoner.

Now, if you want to know the twist, read ahead!

So, after the death of Ledgard's wife (who threw herself out a window after seeing her burned face), Ledgard's daughter, Norma, is emotionally destroyed. After she begins to recover and is able to socialize with peers, Ledgard takes her to a party where she meets a handsome young man named Vincente. Norma and Vincente sneak out of the party and start to make out in a nearby garden. Vincente fails to pay attention to Norma's increasing distress and proceeds to rape her until she starts screaming. He flees the scene, and Ledgard finds his daughter in a state of shock. She ends up back in a mental institution, with a crippling fear of men, including her father.

Ledgard finds out Vincente is the one who raped his daughter. He hunts the young man down, knocks him out, and chains his up. After starving him for several weeks, Ledgard drugs Vincente and performs surgery on him--specifically, a vaginoplasty. Vincente is completely broken at this point and just trying to mentally survive. Ledgard, over many months and years, turns Vincente into a woman--Vera--with the use of plastic surgery and drugs.

Vincente copes with his situation by rebelling in small ways (refusing to wear the makeup and female clothes Ledgard gives him) and also through yoga, which allows him to find a place to escape inside himself. Over time, he gains Ledgard's trust and even begins a *gulp* romantic and sexual relationship with him (so much wrong there!), leading the viewer to believe that Vincente has truly fallen in love with his captor, Stockholm Syndrome-style. But at the end, Vincente manages to escape and return to his mother, who doesn't recognize him.

So, for many reasons, this movie is all sorts of screwed up. But despite the violence and twisted plot, I loved it for its message that no matter what you look like on the outside, you are always yourself on the inside. In our culture of body shame, it's sometimes easy to forget that a person is much more than what they look like. I judge people based on their looks all the time (not proud of it)! Learning to look beyond outer appearances is a lifelong process.

In addition, The Skin I Live In suggests that gender identity is all in a person's mind. Some have accused to film of being transphobic, but I think it's the opposite. No matter how feminized he is on the outside, Vincente never stops identifying as a man on the inside. Much like a transgender person, Vincente knows who he is and does not let his outer appearance and the ways others perceive him affect his identity.

The Skin I Live In challenges many assumptions we make about people and the kinds of boxes we automatically put people in. Obviously, it challenges our perspectives on sex and gender--is Vincente still a man, even after his body and mannerism are completely feminized? Is he a man because he was born with male genitalia? Is he a man because he never chose to identify as a woman?

It also challenges our assumptions of sexuality. Both Ledgard and Vincente are straight men. Are they still straight after starting a (again--*gulp*) sexual relationship with one another--even though one of them now has a woman's body?

Finally, it challenges our view of criminality and justice. Vincente rapes Norma. At first, the situation is ambiguous--Norma appears to be into Vincente. But quickly enough we realize that she is terrified and not consenting, yet Vincente continues to have sex with her. Even though he does not throw her down and violently assault her, he still rapes her. Normally, that would make us hate Vincente, yet his punishment hardly fits the crime. We sympathize with him for the rest of the movie, as he faces unspeakable physical and psychological abuse at Norma's father's hands. Ledgard, on the other hand, is the true villain. He may have lost his wife and daughter, but his insane form of revenge makes it impossible to sympathize with him. However, there are a few moments where he seems to genuinely love Vincente/Vera. It's almost like reverse Stockholm Syndrome--the captor falls in love with his captive.

Writing this review makes me feel a little guilty for liking The Skin I Live In. When I see the plot laid out in writing, it seems that only a messed up person could enjoy this film. But watching Almodovar's films reminds me of reading John Irving's novels--specifically, The Cider House Rules. In that book, Irving manages to write about incest, rape, and abortion with what I can only describe as a "cozy" writing style. He managed to take the reader to dark corners while never making the reader feel alienated or frightened. Almodovar's films are similar--his themes are melodramatic and, at times, pitch black. But unlike other directors who cover similar themes (Todd Solondz and Lars von Trier come to mind), I don't come away from Almodovar's films hating humanity. Almodovar uses dark themes to uncover the deepest, most genuine emotions. When Vincente, now in a woman's body, kisses a picture of himself--his old self; his true self--he sees in a "missing persons" section of a newspaper, it is a classic Almodovar moment: it brings up feelings of love, heartache, and empathy in the viewer. Or at least it did in me.

5 out of 5 stars

PS: The Skin I Live In is based on an excellent novella, Mygale, by French author Thierry Jonquet. I read the book years ago, so I already knew the big "twist" in the movie. I highly recommend checking out the book.

Cancer Sucks

Movies: 50/50

50/50 is not your typical cancer movie. Unlike Terms of Endearment, Stepmom, and One True Thing, 50/50 treats cancer with a sense of humor and nonchalance bordering on apathy. Of course, while the aforementioned films focus on middle-aged women with cancer, 50/50's hero is a 27-year-old man, played a little too adorably by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Written by Will Reiser, who was diagnosed with cancer in his mid-twenties (and is now in his 30's), the film can't be accused of being unrealistic. However, it's surprisingly thin on comedy, drama, and character development. A movie in which a young dude is given a 50/50 chance of beating a disease has enormous potential--to be heartbreaking, enraging, hilarious, something. Yet, as much as I chuckled during the movie, I never really thought it lived up to its potential.

Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a young man who works in radio (at "SPR"--heh). Adam goes in for a check-up since his back has been hurting him and finds out he has a rare type of cancer on his spine. As he begins the process of chemotherapy, his god-awful girlfriend, Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard, who seems to be type-cast as a bitch these days), attempts to "compartmentalize" his illness by refusing to support him or accept reality. She cheats on him and, when confronted by pictorial evidence, attempts to emotionally blackmail Adam into not dumping her. Ugh. Do people this stupid and terrible actually exist? Sadly, I think the answer may be yes. In any case, with the support of his friend Kyle (Seth "the Bro-gen" Rogen), Adam dumps Rachel and sets out on a revitalizing course of smoking medicinal marijuana and using his bald head to pick up chicks.

By the end of the film, Adam has beaten cancer (at least for now) through surgery, since the chemo didn't work, reconnected with his meddling mother (Angelica Huston), and scored a new girlfriend: his young counselor, Katie (Anna Kendrick). After he's no longer her patient of course. Still, I think that's kind of unethical. Whatever. All's fair in love and cancer!

That's pretty much it. Laughs are mainly provided by Kyle in typical Seth Rogen style. There are a few heartwarming scenes. But overall, the film is bizarrely underwhelming. If I recall correctly, you don't really see the damage cancer can do to the human body. Adam shaves his head, so you don't see him lose his hair. I don't recall any vomiting scenes (although there may have been one). Even after Adam's surgery, which is described as very invasive, he seems totally fine. It's not that I take joy in seeing illness, but 50/50 seemed to completely skip over the realities of cancer that would have made the movie interesting in the first place: i.e. how does an attractive young man, who is mostly concerned with his budding career, women, and friends (all the typical things guys in their 20's are focused on), deal with the indignities of illness? For Adam, the indignities are few and the story never delves too deeply into the complicated emotions surrounding a sickness that would cause almost anyone to have an existential crisis. I didn't want melodrama, but I did want an honest look at how cancer would bodily, emotionally, and spiritually affect a guy in his 20's. Instead, I got marijuana jokes.

50/50 is not an unpleasant film. It's funny and cute--and I get the importance of there being movies about cancer that aren't all Lifetime movie three-hankie weepers. I admire what 50/50 was aiming for, but I felt that it fell short of the mark.

3 out of 5 stars

Vampire-Baby Mama Drama

Movies: Breaking Dawn pt. 1

Spoilers everywhere.

I might have left the theatre looking as guilty as a guy in a trench coat leaving a porno movie because, God help me, I enjoyed Breaking Dawn. Or, more accurately, I enjoyed the second half of Breaking Dawn. The first half is mostly concerned with whether or not Bella and Edward will have sex on their honeymoon (spoiler alert: they totally do!). But in the second half, things get crazy. Vampire-baby crazy.


The film begins with Edward and Bella's wedding. For some reason, this takes up about 30 minutes of the movie. The best part is Charlie Swan (Bella's dad) looking skeptical about the whole thing and pounding back champagne at the reception. Also, Jacob (Bella's werewolf friend) shows up to dance with Bella and then yell at her when he finds out she's planning on having sex with Edward while she's still human. Since Edward's super-strength allows him to crush diamonds as if they were rose petals, God only knows what he'll do to a human woman while in the throes of passion. Don't worry, Jake--the Twilight books have established that Edward is a 110-year-old virgin, so the consummation will probably only last a minute or two. Wocka wocka!

About the sex: because this is a PG-13 movie, they only show some softly lit kissing and Edward breaking the headboard. Hey, maybe the movie should have been titled "Breaking Headboard". Or, "Breaking Hymen: A Chaste Supernatural Love Story". Anyway, because we're in movieland, the wedding night defloration of two virgins is beautiful, not messy or awkward, and later described as "amazing" and "the best night of my existence". Thanks for setting the bar unreasonably high for all the tweens in the audience, movie!

The next day, Bella has like, three bruises on her arm and Edward emotionally abuses her by getting mad at himself and then mad at her for not being mad at him. Healthy relationship! Edward then denies Bella sex for the rest of the honeymoon because he is a meanie. They play chess instead.

At this point, we're an hour into the movie. I've had about all I can take of romantic indie rock and kowtowing to the Wedding-Industrial Complex. But then the movie takes a turn for the awesome: Bella realizes her period is a week late and that *gasp* her belly is puffy and there's something moving inside it! Edward looks horrified. He tells Bella that his doctor-vampire-father, Carlisle, will "Get that thing out of you". But Bella has already fallen in love with the fetus! I'm sorry, the baby! Heavy-handed anti-abortion message ahead!

They return to the Cullen's home in the woods, where Bella grows paler and more skeletal by the day. Everyone is against her having the baby except Bella herself and baby-obsessed vampire sister-in-law Rosalie. Rosalie doesn't give a crap whether Bella dies, but dammit, she will have something to care for and nurture! I guess Rosalie's maternal instinct didn't die when she did.

Meanwhile, Jacob and his pack of werewolves find out about the vampire-baby fetus and Sam, the alpha wolf, decides they have to kill it before it becomes an uncontrollable threat to their territory. All the wolves must submit to the alpha, except for Jacob because Stephenie Meyers says so Jacob is the grandson of the chief and has magical not-submitting powers.

Jacob vows to protect Bella, and he and the rest of the Cullens surround Bella and feed her delicious blood until the baby comes. When it does, Dr. Cullen is out feeding, so Edward has to deliver the baby. He does this by biting into Bella's uterus and tearing the baby out. It's a girl and Bella names her "Renesme", a mix of Bella and Edward's mothers' names. Bella then dies. Edward injects venom into her to "turn" her and then bites her all over. Jacob goes to kill Renesme, but ends up "imprinting" on her and falling insanely in love. Remember kids, this is Twilight world, where love just magically happens and isn't based on a history of shared experiences, respect, and trust, or anything like that. Silly!

Conveniently, the wolf pack can't kill Renesme now because their "most absolute rule" is that you can't kill someone that a fellow wolf has imprinted on.

So then comes the big reveal. Bella has been lying there like a corpse for days, but when the vampire venom starts working its magic, she transforms from a skeletal pasty-face to a big-boobed pasty-face! I'm serious. You actually see her boobs puff up. And apparently vampire venom gives you eyeshadow that is perfect for your skin tone and hair color...for eternity! In the last scene, Bella opens her eyes, and they are blood-red. END OF MOVIE!

Overall, it was pretty awesome. I still think Bella should have gone for Jacob because he's a lot more attractive and a lot less emotionally manipulative than Edward. He's a man who'll give it to you straight. Edward is the kind of man-boy who sulks and makes you guess why he's upset. Basically, he is a 17-year-old boy for eternity.

But of course, Bella marries Edward. In other news, Harry Potter defeats Voldemort and Anna Karenina throws herself under a train. Some endings are inevitable. For what it's worth, Breaking Dawn isn't a terrible film. If you think I'm damning it with faint praise, you clearly haven't seen the other Twilight movies. The first one is a truly awful film. The second one is pretty good because Jacob is the hero (and Edward almost kills himself! Alas, Bella saves him at the last second), and I can't remember what happened in the third one. So, by comparison, Breaking Dawn is...not as bad as it could have been. But I wouldn't buy the DVD or anything.

3 out of 5 stars

This doesn't happen in the movie. Sorry.

Cult Status

Movies: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Potential spoilers.

Martha Marcy May Marlene (hereafter referred to as MMMM) is not a good movie if you like solid answers and conclusions. We see glimpses into the past and the psyche of the main character, but we never know for sure what's really going on. Like Black Swan, MMMM blurs the line between reality and what's happening in the heroine's mind. Unlike Black Swan, MMMM is subtle, slowly paced, and gripping in a way that twists your guts rather than slapping you in the face.



MMMM is about a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen, a radiant and talented newcomer to film) who, in the opening scenes, runs away from what appears to be a family-like cult. The word "cult" is never uttered in the film, but it's clear enough that this group of people who live together on a farm in upstate New York are not part of an egalitarian commune. They are drawn in and manipulated in a variety of ways by Patrick (John Hawkes), the leader of this group/cult/family. It's easy to see how the women and men find themselves under Patrick's thumb--he's older than most of them and speaks with an authority that seems wise and seductive to the college-age members of the cult. The members of the cult also keep the other ones in line. When they step out of line, they aren't punished brutally (although the threat of violence hangs in the air), but rather approached with concern and gentle chiding: "Why did you run away to town? Patrick's worried about you." Through this gentle but consistent brain-washing, the heroine (known as Martha to her biological family and Marcy May to her cult family) loses herself to the cult for two years before she finds the courage to run away.

MMMM juxtaposes "before" and "after" scenes. The before scenes take place on the farm where the cult lives and reveal the weird rules and sexual violence Martha was subjected to. The after scenes take place at a lake house in Connecticut where Martha's sister, Lucy, and Lucy's husband, Ted, live. Lucy is the only family Martha has (mom is dead and dad's out of the picture) and is woefully unprepared to care for Martha who is clearly suffering from some sort of PTSD. Instead of letting Martha open up about her missing years when she's ready, Lucy repeatedly asks Martha "what happened to you?" in a tone that causes Martha to clam up. Lucy and Ted respond with frustration to Martha's inappropriate and strange ways--crawling into bed with them while they're having sex, asking inappropriate questions, etc. In one very telling scene, Martha freaks out at a party and becomes hysterical. Lucy and Ted respond to this breakdown by immediately giving Martha a valium and putting her to bed. To them, saving face at a party is more important than addressing Martha's obvious trauma and mental distress head on.

It was odd to me how Lucy dealt with her sister's disappearance and sudden reappearance. If my sister fell off the face of the earth only to reappear two years lately in filthy clothes, crying and acting strangely, damn if I wouldn't assume that she had been abused or traumatized in some bizarre way, even if she denied it. But Martha and Lucy are presented as having grown up with a dead mother and absent father, so I can see how that would affect their ability to relate and care for one another. Lucy treats Martha as if she's a cross between a distant relative that you have to be polite to and a wild animal who you're a little scared will attack you. There is no sisterly love between the two beyond the guilt Lucy feels: "I'm the only family she has" Lucy explains to Ted. To Lucy, Martha's return is more of a burden than a joy or a relief

As I said above, MMMM is a film that raises more questions than answers them. The last 20 minutes or so are especially challenging because there is little distinction between Martha's memories, fears, and reality. Is she being hunted by the cult? Is she having hallucinations? It's up to the viewer to decide. MMMM is an interesting film because it touches on the problem of mental illness and the effects of brain-washing, rape, and abuse, without directly making a statement about any of it. And although Martha comes off as increasingly disturbed and, yes, a tad crazy, our sympathies lie with her rather than with her sister and brother-in-law, who despite their concern, are more interested in not having their comfortable lifestyle interrupted than in trying to understand what happened to Martha.

Martha proves that she is a young woman of immense courage and strength, even after years of manipulation and abuse. But despite her survival instinct, she can't escape paranoia and haunted memories.

4 out of 5 stars

A Turn for the Worse

TV: Breaking Bad, season 1

"Breaking Bad" is, according to Wikipedia, is a southern colloquialism for taking a turn off the straight and narrow path. Or it might be defined as when someone forced beyond their limits to their breaking point--the point at which they're forced to do things they never thought themselves capable of.

Walter White, played in turns gently and ferociously by Bryan Cranston, is the definition of "breaking bad". He's a mild-mannered chemistry teacher with a loving wife, Skyler, who is unexpectedly pregnant with the couple's second child. Their first son, Walter Jr., has cerebral palsy. Walter and Skyler manage to hold it together as a lower-middle to middle-middle class family. They may not be able to afford a new water heater, but they're not exactly starving either. Things are going ok and they have a lot to be grateful for.

That is, until Walter is diagnosed with terminal, inoperable lung cancer. He will almost certainly be dead within two years, leaving his family with a mountain of debt. This turn for the worse is what pushes Walt to take a turn for the worse in the moral sense.

After Walt's brother-in-law, who works for the Drug Enforcement Administration, describes the massive amount of money meth dealers can make, Walt is inspired. He has the scientific knowledge to cook the world's greatest, purest meth. However, what he has in book smarts he seriously lacks in street smarts--at least at first.

Walt recruits Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul--you might remember him as Amanda Seyfried's husband in Big Love), a rough around the edges drug dealer, to do the street work for him. Turns out that Jesse is smart and, in many ways, a decent guy. He comes from a good family. Like Walt, Jesse wasn't born bad--he's breaking bad.

The first season of Breaking Bad is a short run of seven perfectly tuned, intense, gritty episodes. I was hooked from episode one. The concept of a good man pushed to his limits intrigues me. And unlike many other violent and exploitative shows, Breaking Bad has genuine heart below its grimy surface. When Walt's family tries to stage an intervention to make him undergo chemo (Walt balks at the idea), Walt explains as calmly as he can that in his last few months he doesn't want to be "unable to enjoy a good meal...to make love. To be so nauseous I can't turn my head...you would all remember me that way". As much as we sympathize with Skyler and Walter Jr., who think Walt would be crazy not to try to fight the cancer, we see Walt's point of view as well. He's going to die--why suffer to delay the inevitable for a few months?

Yet, the next day, Walt wakes up in bed alone. He walks downstairs to the kitchen, where Skyler is making breakfast. He hugs her from behind and says "Ok. I'll do it for you." At this point, Walt realizes there is something he loves and cares about more than a good meal and the ability to make love--his wife and son. He has decided not to live his last months for himself, but for them. The love in the White family is palpable, which makes it all the more heartbreaking.

But unlike a Lurlene McDaniel book or Lifetime movie, Breaking Bad removes any sentimentality of terminal illness. In the world of Walter White, illness leads to desperation--and a certain kind of exhilaration. Walt, previously a geeky, quiet, passive man is now on the road to becoming a criminal, a liar, and a killer. This is no 3-hankie made for TV movie where the cancer patient lies in bed and nobly waits for death to come. Breaking Bad is about what it's like to live when there is literally nothing left to lose. And it's a heart-pounding ride.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Night of the Living Hillbillies

Movies: Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a one-joke movie, but what a hilarious joke it is! Parodying all those movies where dumb, privileged teenagers (and adults, in the case of Deliverance) get lost in the woods, only to be brutally murdered by inbred yokels, Tucker and Dale takes this trope and turns it on its ear. In this movie, the hillbillies are nice, decent guys and the college students camping in the woods are slaughtered by their own ignorance.


Tucker and Dale is sly and, well, I guess you could call it "meta". The college kids in the movie assume that Tucker and Dale are mentally deficient killers because they've seen enough horror movies about college kids in the woods to know that that's just how it works. If there are rednecks in the woods, popular culture has taught us that they must be mentally deficient killers.

But in this case, Tucker and Dale are just slightly more rural gentleman. When they see comely Allison fall off a rock and conk her head during a bout of skinny-dipping, they row their boat out to save her. Allison's friends see them hauling her into the boat and assume they must be kidnapping her--so they do what any sensible people would do: run away, refuse to call the police (because calling the police never works in the movies, so why bother?), and plot to save her themselves. A series of misunderstandings follow, which lead to the funny and grotesque deaths of the college students.

This movie proves that to assume makes an "ass" out of "u" and "me"--and sometimes that ass winds up in a wood chipper.

Going back to my first point, as funny as Tucker and Dale is, it's ultimately one-note. By the time we get to the final act, in which the true villain--Chad, the preppy psycho and alpha male leader of the group--ties poor Allison to one of those moving buzz saw things, we've already gotten the joke, and the movie has little to offer except the inevitable conclusion in which evil is vanquished and the hero (in this case, the bearish sweetheart Dale) gets the girl.

More entertaining than Attack the Block but less substantial than Shaun of the Dead, Tucker and Dale vs, Evil is the latest in the growing genre of horror movie spoofs and proves to be a fun (and not *too* bloody) night at the movies.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Iran (So Far Away)

Movies: Circumstance

Considering I just saw it a week ago, I guess it's too soon to say that Circumstance changed my life. But as I was watching this amazing and heartbreaking film, I felt such a sense of luck and gratitude...and that feeling has stayed with me.

Circumstance takes place in modern day Iran; a country that has knowledge and access to "western" culture, but whose own culture is extremely religious, conservative, and punitive. Two teen girls, Atafeh and Shireen, navigate and negotiate the culture they were born into through small acts of typical teen rebellion. They pass each other notes at school, sass back to their parents, and doff their hijabs in favor of sparkly tank tops and tight dresses when they secretly attend parties. The only difference between Atafeh and Shireen's lives and the life of a teenager in the United States is that if Atafeh and Shireen get caught, the consequences would be severe--we're talking prison, "virginity checks", and worse.

In addition to partying and rock music, Atafeh and Shireen experiment with sexuality--both with boys and with each other. It becomes clear that they love each other as more than friends, though they don't have the words to express this love. Are Shireen and Atafeh lesbians, or are they simply indulging in a schoolgirl crush? It hardly matters. What matters is that throughout the film, the two young women lean on each other for the support that their families, teachers, and boyfriends cannot provide. They are the definition of soul mates, and, sadly, their culture and families conspire to keep them apart.

Spoiler!

After the two girls get in trouble with the law, Shireen is married to Atafeh's zealous and controlling brother, Mehran. Although Shireen tells Atafeh that she married Mehran so that the two girls could always be together, under one roof, it's obvious that the marriage is the wedge that will drive the girls apart.

End spoiler.

Although the film ends on a hopeful note (at least for one of the girls), Circumstance is...not so much depressing as it is eye-opening. The amount of institutionalized sexism and hatred toward women that Atafeh and Shireen face is staggering. Even Atafeh's father, who is relatively liberal and not religious, treats his daughter not as if she were a young woman about to enter adulthood on her own terms, but as if she were an ungrateful child in need of constant supervision and protection. Circumstance's message is all the more effective in because it reveals the insidiousness of benevolent sexism (i.e. women are in need of special protection)--as well as overt misogyny. It's agony to see Atafeh and Shireen driven apart because they need each other so badly--for strength, for encouragement, for love, and for all the emotional and psychological support they damn well aren't getting from anyone else in their lives.

Circumstance is one of the most deeply emotional (without being cloying) films I've seen in a while. Anyone who believes that feminism's work has been accomplished should see this movie, as well as those who know that we still have a long way to go on the road toward equality and respect.

5 out of 5 stars

Black and White Thinking

Movies: The Help and Drive

The two movies couldn't be more different, yet Drive and The Help both say powerful things about race and gender in the movies. And they don't say very nice things.

Drive, an intense and violent thriller about a stunt car driver who moonlights as a getaway driver, has been receiving rave reviews among film critics. Ryan Gosling's performance as a taciturn lone wolf who descends to Travis Bickle levels of obsession and violence in order to protect a woman he loves (and barely knows) is without a doubt astonishing and terrifying. It's hard to believe this is the same kid who wooed Rachel McAdams in The Notebook.

The Help, for those who have been living under a rock for the past year or so, is a sentimental film based on the bestselling novel by Kathryn Stockett about black maids and their white employers in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi. Although the acting is excellent, the film is predictable and, to use a phrase that I overuse, "on the nose". It tells you exactly what you need to feel about each one of its characters (especially the white characters, who fall into two stark categories: noble, liberated hero and dastardly villain).



The Help has been enormously popular among mainstream audiences and has received fair to good critical reviews. However, various media outlets, both progressive and conservative, have taken their turn crapping all over The Help. Why? For more conservative thinkers and anti-PC police, The Help represents Hollywood Liberalism and reverse racism at its worst. To this group of haters, The Help paints all blacks as saints and all whites (save the main "women's libber" character, Skeeter Phelan) as terrible, horrible, no good, very bad racists. Ironically, the more progressive and PC factions are not much kinder, seeing The Help as condescending toward black people and implying that black people--both historically and today--need help from white people to overcome societal injustice and should be damn grateful for that help.

What struck me as interesting after seeing the two films was that although I enjoyed Drive more than The Help and my instinct is to say that Drive is the superior film, I can't help but notice that while The Help has a cast full of women, both black and white, and makes a good faith attempt to examine the lives of black, white, poor, and rich women during a turbulent time in history, Drive treats women like they barely exist at all. You've heard of the Madonna/whore complex? The erroneous and subconscious belief that women are either saintly mothers or filthy sluts? Drive is a laughably textbook example of this kind of thinking.

In Drive, there are two women with speaking roles: Irene (Carey Mulligan), a young mother whose husband is in jail and who catches the eye of Ryan Gosling's character. Gosling (his character is nameless) sees Irene as someone who needs protection. He ends up getting involved way too deeply in a number of crimes that lead him to basically kill his way out of trouble. The other female character is in two scenes and comes to a very untimely and unhappy ending. Oh, and there's a scene where Gosling beats the shit out of a bad guy in the dressing room of a strip club, while wide-eyed, bare-breasted strippers silently look on. Fortunately, this scene is very intense--otherwise, I would have not been able to contain my laughter at the ridiculous misogyny of the whole situation. I mean, featuring strippers in your movie is one thing--strippers can be smart and cool and sexy (see: Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler), but a room of voluptuous, nude women just freakin' sitting there as the men folk fight, curse, and all but whip out their penises for a measuring contest just makes me laugh at the sad obtuseness of it all. Maybe director Nicolas Winding Refn was actually trying to say something about the violent world of men and how women have no place in it (actually I'm sure he was on some level), but other directors have managed to pull this off far more successfully. Martin Scorsese's The Departed was all about the violent world of violent men and had very few female roles. However, Vera Farmiga's character Madolyn, was an educated woman with a successful career who could take care of herself. Note to Refn: if you're going to have only one or two female roles in your movie, at least make them dignified. kthx!


And let's not forget race/ethnicity! Yes, The Help may treat black characters with some benevolent condescension, and that's not OK, but at least there are some meaty roles for black characters in the film. And at least these characters are fully drawn. In Drive there are no black characters. The closest Drive gets to having any "ethnic" flavor are the two greedy villains who will kill for money and power--and who are Jewish. Nice. Oh, and Irene's ne'er-do-well jailbird husband who is Latino.

So while I enjoyed Drive, a film that kept me on the edge of my seat, and merely thought The Help was a pleasant movie, there's no denying that on a practical level The Help is a better movie for women and minorities. The cast is filled with women--white, black, old, young, conventionally beautiful and not so conventionally beautiful. These women have conversations with each other, and men are rarely the focus of those conversations (the film passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors). Sure, some of the characters are two-dimensional (like Hilly Holbrook, the sociopathic mean girl), but overall the characters are far deeper than the characters that populate Drive.

Neither movie is perfect, but what I found fascinating was the media (including my beloved liberal media outlets, like http://bitchmagazine.org/ and http://www.salon.com/ ) was so willing to jump on a movie filled with women and minorities for not being feminist and racially sensitive enough, while ignoring or even offering slavering praise to Drive, a film that offers women and minorities less than nothing.

My enjoyment:
Drive: 4 out of 5 stars
The Help: 3 out of 5 stars

Treatment of women and minorities:
Drive: 1 out of 5 stars
The Help: 4 out of 5 stars

Aliens, Innit?

Movies: Attack the Block

Just as Shaun of the Dead was a fresh, funny, and very British take on the zombie genre, Attack the Block is a fresh, funny, and very British take on the alien invasion genre. Set in a working class neighborhood in South London, Attack the Block sets itself up as different from other alien movies right away. The heroes of this film are not the white, middle-aged American men we're accustomed to seeing in movies like Signs, War of the Worlds, and The Day the Earth Stood Still. The heroes of Attack the Block are young, black (with a token white kid), poor hoodlums who terrorize and mug a nurse on her way home from work in the first scene.

I liked how director Joe Cornish took the conventions of the alien invasion genre and turned them on their head. Not only does he play with moral ambiguity--i.e. the "bad guys" turn out to be good and the criminals become the protectors; he also makes a point that the most vulnerable and, presumably, weakest members of society--minorities, inner-city youth, kids from bad families--are stronger, smarter, and braver than we might think.

In addition to the unique spin, Attack the Block has plenty of laughs ("What's Ron's weed room?" "It's a room, filled with weed, that belongs to Ron...") and a few scenes of horror that seem all the more horrific given that they take place in a comedy. To use Shaun of the Dead once again as a comparison, the scene where a character gets his intestines ripped out by zombies is especially shocking because it comes right after a scene where they beat up a zombie to the jukebox strains of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now". In these two movies, the humor serves to both alleviate and exacerbate the violence and dread.

The main problem I had with Attack the Block was simply that I had trouble understanding the dialogue. The thick, English accents and slang made it damn near impossible to understand what the hell people were saying half (or more like 60 percent) of the time. And sadly, this diminished my appreciation and enjoyment of the movie.

Also, although Attack the Block is funny and scary, it was never THAT funny and scary to me. I giggled, I chuckled, I covered my eyes. But in the end, the movie was more forgettable than I expected it to be. I don't think it has the rewatchability factor that Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, or other similar comedies have.

So in conclusion, I like what Joe Cornish did with this movie, and I would recommend it to fans of alien movies and genre-defying flicks, but personally I wasn't crazy in love with it.

3 out of 5 stars

Black and Green and Red All Over

Movies: Black Dynamite, Greenberg, and Deep Red

Black Dynamite

Black Dynamite is a spot-on spoof of blaxploitation films of the 1970's and one of the more hilarious movies I've seen recently. Michael Jai White plays Black Dynamite, a former CIA agent, Vietnam vet, and all-around BAMF, who is on a mission to avenge his brother's death at the hands of drug dealers. Along the way, he uncovers a top secret operation called "Code Kansas" that goes all the way to the White House, leading to a final confrontation between Black Dynamite and Tricky Dick himself.


Black Dynamite was born out of White's affection for over-the-top blaxploitation movies and even though the film mocks this particular genre, it does so with love in its heart. Black Dynamite was shot in Super 16 Color Reversal Kodak film (thank you Wikipedia!) to give it that color-saturated look of cheaply shot 1970's exploitation movies. The script is cheesy and slangy ("We're gonna fricassee their honky asses!"). And the plot twists are downright absurd in the best possible way (the scene where Black Dynamite and a gang of pimps deduce what "Code Kansas" stands for is just...words cannot describe how funny it is).

I was in hysterics for most of Black Dynamite and as soon as it was over, I wanted to watch it again immediately. You can't say that for a lot of movies. Michael Jai White and director Scott Sanders really put their brains and hearts into this film--and it shows.

5 out of 5 stars

Greenberg

From indie screenwriter and director Noah Baumbach comes Greenberg, a comedy about a misanthropic manchild, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), who comes to live at his rich brother's house after having a nervous breakdown. What could have verged very quickly into cutesy, "aren't emotions just cah-raaazy!?" territory is saved by Stiller's performance and a pared down script free of too much affected quirkyness. However, Greenberg left me with a feeling of "it's all been done before". As in Baumbach's other films (Margot at the Wedding and The Squid and the Whale), the audience is expected to sympathize with irritating, immature, and downright selfish characters. Over the course of the film, Greenberg begins an affair with his brother's assistant/nanny, the much-younger Florence (played by Greta Gerwig, who does a fine job). He emotionally manipulates her and their relationship resembles something freshmen in college would go through: drama, pointless fights, and really horrible sex. It's hard to see why either one would want to be with the other and why we the audience should care. While Florence is the more sympathetic, "nice" character, I almost liked her less because she willingly put up with Greenberg's hot-and-cold (mostly cold) behavior.

Greenberg has some really funny moments, such as when the 40-something Greenberg attends a party with a bunch of 20-somethings and asks if it's ok to do coke when you're on Zoloft. But in the end, it's a forgettable movie about two random people who carelessly bump into each other while stumbling through life.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Deep Red

Italian director and master of horror Dario Argento considered Deep Red to be his best film. I've only seen one other Argento film, Suspiria, and I did indeed enjoy Deep Red more. Deep Red combines the gore and creepy-ass atmosphere of Suspiria with the taut murder mystery of Blow-Up. In fact, David Hemmings, the star of Blow-Up, also plays the lead in Deep Red.


Marcus Daly (Hemmings) witnesses a murder one night and when he goes to investigate, he notices something that he can't put his finger on is amiss in the murder scene. He becomes obsessed with figuring out what he saw that night and with solving the murder. Over the course of his investigation, more grisly killings occur and it seems like the killer is one always one step ahead...

I like Argento because his films contain enough gore to get a reaction out of the audience while still relying on atmosphere and plot to heighten the tension. If you're a fan of horror films, especially horror of the late 60's and 70's, Argento's Deep Red is definitely worth checking out.

4 out of 5 stars

Wisdom of a Fool

Movies: Our Idiot Brother

Our Idiot Brother, starring lovable Paul Rudd as the titular lovable idiot, is such a breath of fresh air after a summer of mean comedies. By no means perfect, the film and its laid-back attitude seem miles away from misanthropic, trying-too-hard yuks in movies like Horrible Bosses and The Change-Up (full disclouse: I did not see The Change-Up, but I feel no qualms about judging it anyway).


Paul Rudd plays Ned, who is labeled by the film as an idiot because he is overly trusting and not cynical enough towards humankind, as evidenced in the first scene where he sells pot to a uniformed cop. 8 months later, Ned is let out of prison early for good behavior, only to find that his hippie girlfriend is shacking up with a new man on the communal farm that used to be Ned's home. She kicks Ned out of the commune and, to add insult to injury, claims possession of Ned's beloved Golden Retriever, Willie Nelson.

Now that Ned is homeless and penniless, he takes turns living with members of his family--first his passive-aggressive, might-be-an-alcoholic mom; then his depressed sister Liz (Emily Mortimer) who is married to a grade-A asshole (Steve Coogan) and their young son; next his bitchy, bossy, career-driven sister Miranda (Elizabeth Banks); and finally his bohemian, lesbian, might-actually-be-bisexual sister Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) and her frickin' awesome girlfriend Cindy (Rashida Jones). Got all that?

Wherever Ned goes, it seems that chaos follows. However, it becomes clear that Ned does not create this chaos, but merely inconveniently brings it to light--such as when he catches Liz's husband in a (very) compromising position with another woman, and explains what he saw to another sister who then brings it up to Liz. Liz is so angry at the situation, that she immediately blames Ned. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the real idiots are Ned's sisters who lie, deceive themselves, and fail to take other people into consideration--and thus end up hurting themselves and others. Ned's only failure is that he is too good for this world.

I read a review of this movie that labeled Paul Rudd as cinema's first Manic Pixie Dream Boy, in that he is a magically quirky character whose job it is to encourage other people to be better, or to bring meaning to others' lives. I think there might be something to this. Although Ned certainly has interesting qualities, he serves less as a well-rounded character with a distinct arc than as an agent of change for the other characters. It would have been nice to see some of Ned's truly bad qualities. Although his foolishness and gullibility are apparent, Ned is fundamentally a good person. We never see any darkness or resentment--even when Ned blows up in anger at his family. Our Idiot Brother was a very fun, entertaining film, but I think it would have been better if Ned was allowed to be a bit more human and bit less of a magical hippie earth sprite.

Overall, Our Idiot Brother lives up to its intended purpose. It's a funny, light-hearted, end of summer comedy that has a better attitude (and funnier script) than many other similar comedies. Like Ned, it may not be the deepest movie, but it has a good heart.

4 out of 5 stars.

A Bloody Good (and bad) Time

Movies: Blood Car, April Fool's Day, Heartbeeps

Recently, I was lucky enough to watch a few movies with friends that ranged from awful in a genius way to awful in an awful way.

Blood Car

Everything you need to know about the 2007 indie horror film Blood Car is right there in the title. It is about a car that runs on blood. In the not-too-distant future, gas is priced at nearly $40 a gallon. Practically no one drives, although to actually be able to afford to drive is the ultimate status symbol. Our hero, Archie Andrews, is a vegan kindergarten teacher who attempts to invent a car that runs on wheat grass. When Archie accidentally cuts his finger one day and gets a little blood in the mechanism, causing the engine he's working on to whir to life, he has his "eureka" moment. It's not long before Archie is turning his back on his vegan principles: shooting puppies and killing disabled, homeless war veterans to fuel his car. Why does Archie feel the need to commit serial murder to run his blood car when he has a perfectly good bicycle? To get laid, of course! Blood Car has a really complex view of women: there's the dorky, nice, good girl who works at the wheat grass store and pines for Archie...and the bitchy, slutty, bad girl who works at the "meat shack" and wants to use Archie for his car and his...erm...meat. But I can't really condemn Blood Car for it's laughable misogyny when Archie himself is such a terrible, undeserving person as well. If there's such a thing as a sociopathic hipster, Archie is it. Also, it's a horror film. The whole point is to hate the characters so you don't feel bad when they end up in the trunk of Archie's death car.

For what it is, Blood Car is actually pretty damn funny. The very concept of a "blood car" has limitless potential, and I liked the idea of a self-absorbed, horny vegan guy as both the protagonist and the killer at the center of the story.

3.5 out of 5 stars

April Fool's Day


Speaking of terrible, sociopathic characters, April Fool's Day (the 1986 version) is full of them! The film is about a group of preppy college friends who get together at the "remote island mansion" (there's your first clue that something will go horribly awry) of their friend Muffy St. John (no, she's not a porn star...just a hardcore WASP) during April Fool's Day weekend. It's not long before bodies start piling up. But the characters are so, so awful that's it's actually a disappointment when you find out...

SPOILERS!

...that the whole "mass murder" thing was staged by Muffy as an elaborate April Fool's Day prank! Oddly, everyone was in on it except for two of the friends who were the ultimate victims of the prank, which is like, really mean when you think about it. I was so mad that no one was actually killed by the end of the movie because they all totally deserved to die horrible deaths. Lame.

Oh, and April Fool's Day may be the preppiest film of all time. Here's a partial list of the characters' names:
Muffy
Kit
Nan
Chaz
Arch
Skip

And yes, they behave exactly as their names suggest.

2.5 out of 5 stars

Heartbeeps

In the horrendous affront to human dignity that is Heartbeeps, Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters play humanoid robots that go on the lam and fall in love. I watched this movie at a "bad movie party" where the idea was to sit around and laugh at a bad movie. While Heartbeeps does have it's share of laughable-bad moments, there were also long stretches that were so bad and so boring that no one was laughing. One of my friends did fall asleep though.

The whole thing was just...weird. The dialogue was mostly stilted because, you know, these are robots. But after an hour of stilted, "logical" robot discussions about the nature of love and the meaning of life, I was ready to shoot myself. It was like listening to Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" talk for 80 minutes, but minus the humor and nerd references. Also, Andy Kaufman has a really annoying voice.

However, Heartbeeps was so terrible that you got to a point where you just surrendered yourself to the terribleness and end up gawking at the screen, gape-mouthed, the way someone would watch a train wreck. The badness was like a drug that made you unable to move...just sit there and wonder "how did this get made?!"

Oh Christ, no.







1.5 out of 5 stars

Warm Hearts and Cold Beds

Books: The Uncoupling

Meg Wolitzer's 2011 novel The Uncoupling mixes magical realism and suburban dysfunction. The novel centers on the students and faculty of Eleanor Roosevelt High School (known lovingly as "Elro") in Stellar Plains, NJ. A vibrant and intimidating new drama teacher, Fran Heller, is hired at Elro and decides to put on Lysistrata, the play by Aristophanes about a woman who leads the women of Ancient Greece to withhold sex from their husbands until the men agree to end the Peloponnesian War.


Soon, a "cold wind" begins to blow through Stellar Plains, causing the women of the community to lose sexual desire (and romantic desire). Teenage girls break up with their boyfriends, young women stop sleeping around for fun, and night after night, the wives of Stellar Plains turn away from their husbands.

It's not long before bitterness and sadness (mostly of the part of the men) begins to build to a fever pitch in the community. The men of Stellar Plains are literally begging the women to take them back, love them, and have sex with them again. I won't reveal what happens at the climax (heh) of The Uncoupling, but I will say that it's difficult to tell who triumphs in the end--the men, the women, or both.

[Side note: There's only one gay couple in liberal Stellar Plains, and the spell doesn't affect them. Apparently, there are no lesbians. Wolitzer gets a C- on her LGBTQA inclusiveness]

Wolitzer is excellent at the "realism" part, and not so excellent at the "magical" part. She masterfully creates a suburban world and high school that has just enough fictional elements to make it seem even more real, if that makes sense. She sprinkles made-up pop culture references (a band called "The Lungs" is named-dropped; the students of Elro are all into an MMORPG called "Farrest") that sound real, even though she just created them for the book. Wolitzer is great at getting the small details of suburban and high school life just right. I could see clearly the halls of Elro and what all the teachers and students looked like.

Wolitzer also gets the feelings that the characters go through. Every couple affected by the spell reacts differently: a passionate couple argue fiercely; an older couple who have already given up on sex give up on it even further and grow in resentment; a couple with a solid, happy marriage simply become bewildered and then resigned when the wife becomes repulsed at the thought of being touched. Each couple's current sex life is key to how they react when sex is suddenly off the table.

As far as the "magical" part, it's clear that the whole "cold wind" thing is just a construct to move the plot forward. The fact that it's supernatural (as opposed to a coincidence or a collective decision by the women) is taken for granted and then barely mentioned until the end. Why include this element of magic and then never comment on it or explain it? It's clear than the drama teacher, Fran Heller, has something to do with it. At the end it is revealed that, yes, the spell "follows" Fran, but she does not control it. She's not a witch or a gypsy with magical powers or anything like that. I thought this "explanation" of the spell was lame and flimsy.

Wolitzer is obviously more interested in the politics of what would happen if women collectively denied men sex. But even this intriguing scenario isn't examined very closely. The women of Stellar Plains start denying men sex, the men get upset--individual relationships get tense, but the community as a whole remains unaltered. When the spell is broken, most relationships are mended and are even better, and hotter, than before. This conclusion was a bit of an anti-climatic let down.

Overall, Wolitzer is great at describing people and relationships. If this book was anything, it was realistic, and the details of the characters' everyday lives were fascinating. Wolitzer is not so great at making a point. I read the book and wondered, "Did I learn anything about male/female relationships or men and women's sexuality?" No. No, I did not. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, because The Uncoupling was very well-written and entertaining. It just felt a bit lacking in the end, like Wolitzer had the opportunity to say something interesting and controversial...but chose not to.

I'd recommend The Uncoupling to readers who like literary fiction, specifically about adults living in suburbia. If you like Tom Perrotta, you'll probably dig The Uncoupling.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Twee Factor

Movies: Beginners

Cute is in right now. It's unavoidable. You can't do a Google search without a lolcat popping up in your face. You can't avoid Zooey Deschanel--she even has her own TV show now! You can't walk around in a downtown urban area without seeing guys in pants so tight you can read their credit card numbers right through the butt pocket, and young women with dyed black hair and tattoos of kittens wearing Native American headdresses (it isn't racist because I voted for Obama!!). Cuteness, tweeness, hipsterness, whatever you want to call it, is here and dammit, you better learn to like it!

And in addition to fashion and the Interblognets, tweeness is quite prevalent in movies and entertainment. Garden State, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Away We Go, (500) Days of Summer, Sunshine Cleaning, Lars and the Real Girl...and now, Mike Mills' (who is married to the Queen of Twee herself, Miranda July) semi-autobiographical film Beginners, about a man, his gay dad, his philosophical dog, and his Manic Pixie French Dream Girlfriend. Now, before you think I'm going to rip into this movie, let me just say this: I'm not. I really liked Beginners. I thought that, despite the twee elements, the movie had more emotional depth than 1,000--nay, 10,000!--Days of Summer. I thought that the lead actors--the wonderful Ewan McGregor and legendary Christopher Plummer (as well as the supporting actors, Melanie Laurent, Goran Visinjic, and Mary Page Keller)--elevated Beginners above the mire of oppressive cuteness.

But let's talk a little more about twee since I'm on a roll here. When did twee begin? Whose fault is it, really? Some may point the finger at Wes Anderson (full disclosure: I love Wes Anderson). But I personally would trace twee back to French New Wave. Have you seen Breathless? There's a reason college kids love that movie. It's twee as fuck! Or how about another one of my favorites: Jules and Jim, which features a scene of a woman drawing a moustache on her face, as well as shots filmed by cameras mounted on bicycles (the preferred method of twee transportation, btw), and mild homoeroticism. Twee!

The difference between old school twee and new school twee, in my opinion, is that old school twee didn't use preciousness as a substitute for character development. Take Jules and Jim as an example: the character Catherine is described as "capricious" and "free-spirited", much like Natalie Portman's character Sam in Garden State. The difference is that Catherine is a woman with a full range of personality traits and emotions. Catherine is simultaneously seductive and frightening; fickle and decisive. You can't decide whether you love her or hate her--and neither can Jules or Jim. What is Sam? Sam is a girl who wears a helmet to work and thinks the Shins will "change your life". She, like every other character in Garden State, is merely a collection of quirky traits and interests who exists for the sole purpose of getting Zach Braff's pathetic life back on track. Catherine is part of a vibrant and sexy and ever-changing love triangle...Sam is a really cute crutch.

So this sums up my problem with twee. Actually, I have two problems with twee. The first is that twee movies use weirdness, quirkyness, and preciousness in place of quality story telling and character development. And they usually go overboard with the whole "quirky" thing anyway. The second problem is that twee really, really, really wants to live in a world without problems. In the world of twee, Lars of Lars and the Real Girl acts like a sex doll is his living, breathing girlfriend...and the whole town goes along with the charade! In real life, Lars would probably be institutionalized or, at least, mocked. In the world of twee, 16 year old Juno gives her out-of-wedlock baby to a very nice woman and gets back together with her boyfriend. In real life, Juno would be tormented at school, her parents would probably be ashamed and angry at her, and her boyfriend would almost certainly break up with her at some point. The world of twee is a fantasy world where people are infinitely accepting of eccentricities and where sad things happen, but horrible things never happen. Oh, and the world of twee is almost exclusively populated by white people (It isn't racist because they listen to Danger Mouse!!).

But I'm being way harsh on twee movies. The fact is, I enjoyed a lot of the movies I've poked fun at. I'm not immune to a soundtrack populated by Belle and Sebastian and Nick Drake. I love the clothes people wear in twee movies. And I can pretty much guarantee that most twee movies have better scripts, cinematography, and acting than a great many blockbusters. At this point though, twee movies seem to be just as formulaic as any other lazy and oversaturated genre. Twee has gone mainstream.

But back to Beginners. The movie is about a man named Oliver (Ewan McGregor) whose 75 year old father, Hal (Christopher Plummer. Give this man an Oscar already!), comes out as gay after Oliver's mother dies. Hal decides to make up for lost time. He joins gay political organizations and gay movie nights. He gets a disturbingly younger boyfriend (Goran Visinjic). Four years later, Hal is dying of cancer. The movie is also about the avoidant, closed-off Oliver starting a relationship with the avoidant, closed-off Anna (Melanie Laurent), and the problems the two inevitably face, both being avoidant and closed-off and all. Beginners jumps back and forth between these two plots and I have to say, I strongly preferred the former. The whole coming out of the closest as a senior citizen story was both funny and fascinating. When Hal gives Oliver a rainbow sticker and tells him that it means gay pride, Oliver tells Hal that everyone knows that, which Hal can't believe. To Hal, gay culture is new and exciting. To Oliver, gay culture is pretty much just part of everyday life. McGregor is excellent as a modern and tolerant man who is bewildered by his dad's homosexuality, but not disgusted by it. He watches Hal kiss Andy, his younger boyfriend, on the lips, and the look on Oliver's face is amazement: this is a new side to his dad that was always there, but always hidden, and now surfacing. Oliver isn't threatened or angry, but simply in the process or recalibrating his whole view of his father.

When Hal gets sick, his attitude changes from "let's fight this thing", to complete denial, to acceptance. Plummer is remarkable in this role. He plays Hal as a gentle man with a happy and thankful disposition. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, Hal takes advantage of all the happiness and pleasure and fun available in life--even while lying on his deathbed. It's Oliver, who like Hal is a very gentle man, though a bit more passive, who carries the sadness of Hal's sickness like a weight on his shoulders. Maybe that makes Oliver a good son: he bears the emotional pain for his father, who is forced to bear the physical pain.

McGregor and Plummer breathe life into these fully-drawn characters, so that even when the cuteness is a little too much, the film remains grounded and substantive.

I was less thrilled with the other story, the love story, though Melanie Laurent and McGregor definitely have chemistry. I don't know how else to explain it, except to say that their kisses look real. Maybe it's just because I've had the hots for Ewan Mcgregor since early high school, but he kisses actresses like he freakin' means it (and maybe he does...McGregor and his wife apparently have an open marriage).

Overall, I found that Beginners was a rare twee movie that worked. The characters (well, Hal and Oliver at least) have solid personalities, yet they both change throughout the film. They have arcs. They react to situations such as cancer, sex, and love in believable ways. They live in a world where there are problems and hardships, yet they find ways to thrive and adapt. The father/son story in Beginners is heartwarming, but not sentimental or saccharine. Even at age 75, Hal is still able to teach his son something about life and embracing change. And that's exactly the point of the movie: it's never too late to try something different.

4 out of 5 stars