What I Read in 2012

I'm a librarian, and people have a lot of assumptions about librarians. Some people assume librarians are mousy, strict, and repressed. Others believe that we are raging sexpots who can't wait to take down our buns, kick off our sensible shoes, and get wild in the stacks.

But one thing everyone believes of librarians is that we read. A lot.

For some 'brarians this stereotype is based in truth. I have colleagues who polish off multiple books a month, or even a week. Sadly, I am not as quick/strong/prolific a reader as them. I average about one book a month. And (this is a true mathematical statement) about 10 magazines a month. I am a magazine freak.

This year I did pretty well on the reading front. Below is a list of the books I read (a few of which I am still reading) and my thoughts on them. Enjoy, and if you like, please leave a comment with your favorite book you read this year!

***

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta is one of my favorite authors, and I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Southern Festival of Books in 2011. The author of Election, Little Children, and The Abstinence Teacher, Perrotta writes about big, difficult issues set in middle-class, suburban locations. And even though many (most) of his characters are deeply flawed, he writes with such compassion (minus the pity), that you feel for even the worst characters. In The Leftovers, Perrotta veers from his previous plots, which were grounded firmly in reality. This novel opens a year after the "Sudden Departure": a Rapture-like event in which a significant number of people (a mix of Christians, Muslims, atheists, and others) disappear mysteriously off the planet. No one can make sense of what happened and why. For some, life keeps moving forward as usual, but for others, the answer lies in following self-proclaimed holy men or joining cults. The Leftovers follows the Garvey family as they try to make sense and find meaning in what happened.

5 out of 5 stars

***

Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality by Hanne Blank






Straight was one of the books I reviewed for Library Journal this year and let me tell you, I actually squealed when I received the book in the mail (they just send you a book, you don't get to choose what you review). Hanne Blank is a gender studies scholar who wrote an excellent book entitled Virgin: The Untouched History a few years ago about the history of the concept of virginity. Straight discusses the history of the concept of heterosexuality; a concept that, incidentally, is only a little more than a century old. Before the late 1800's, there was no "heterosexual" identity because there was no "homosexual" identity to counter it. Instead, there were simply culturally and religiously approved sexual acts (married, procreative intercourse) and sinful/deviant acts (pretty much anything else). It wasn't until the likes of von Krafft-Ebing and Freud got their hands on the idea of sexuality as part of one's identity that what we understand today as "straight" and "gay" emerged.

4.5 out of 5 stars

***

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Everyone knows about The Girl Who Was on Fire and her trials as she navigates a battle royale in a futuristic, dystopian version of the United States. Collins' first book of the Hunger Games trilogy comes as a wonderful shock of fresh air after being endlessly exposed to Edward and Bella's fucked up romance in the other popular teen series. And yes, the "kids killing kids" plot of the novels is controversial and upsetting to say the least, but Collins uses the horror of the Hunger Games to make a strong statement about political authoritarianism and violence-as-entertainment, while revealing that true heroism comes in the form of trust, love, and mercy.

4 out of 5 stars

***

 Deadlocked by Charlaine Harris

If you don't follow the Sookie Stackhouse series, the plot of Deadlocked, the penultimate book in Harris' wildly entertaining series, will mean nothing to you. If you do follow it, I have a simple two-word prediction for you:

Sam. Merlotte.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining Your Love Life by Samhita Mukhopadhyay






This book was a Christmas gift sent to me by one of my closest friends. It was the perfect book for me at the time I received it. I had just spent a few months on OkCupid, which is an addictive and very fun dating site. But dating is a source of anxiety for me since there is so much up and down and ambiguity. After the last fella called off our short-lived what-have-you, I was sick of it. Outdated, a book about dating from a feminist perspective, didn't really say anything new to me (it is an excellent book for young, budding feminists), but it was a wonderful reminder that love in unpredictable, and although we can't control others, we can control our responses to others and our boundaries. It was also a reminder that dating-while-feminist puts you in the driver's seat and having standards makes it easier to find someone compatible. For what it's worth, around the time I started reading it, I was in a much better relationship with a much better person than those OkCupid dudes.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell

Written by the co-creator of the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog, this humorous book is a very light read. It's good, but not as good as Wendell's previous book, Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches Guide to Romance Novels.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel

Nothing will ever top Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home in my mind, but her follow-up,  Are You My Mother? comes close. In Fun Home, Bechdel details her father's life as a very intelligent, closeted gay man. Her father's death/possible suicide coincides with Bechdel coming out as a lesbian in college, and she weaves her and her father's stories together in a magical way with her words and images. Bechdel picks up with her mother's story in Are You My Mother? and ties it to her own experience in psychotherapy. Where Fun Home was close up and emotional, Are You My Mother? is removed and erudite. Still, Bechdel's second memoir captures the sadness in her and her mother's lives while refusing to wallow in melodrama.

4.5 out of 5 stars

***

She Walks in Beauty by Siri Mitchell







I have a terrible secret: I love Christian romance novels. It started when I worked at Books-a-Million and picked up Deeanne Gist's book A Bride Most Begrudging because the cover was really pretty. But not all Christian romances are created equal. Too often, they ooze with chaste sentimentality and eye-rolling preachiness. (see Colonial Christmas Brides below). But Siri Mitchell impressed me with her novel Love's Pursuit which has a tragic love story and an interesting setting (the Puritan colonies). She Walks in Beauty is not quite as good as Love's Pursuit, but it also had a fascinating setting: the Gilded Age (late 1800's) among the extremely wealthy class in New York City. Clara Carter is being pushed by her aunt and father to marry a rich, boorish man because, shhhh! the family money is all gone. Clara can't stand her strict beauty regimes and the endless, boring balls and dinners--especially once she becomes aware of the suffering of the poorer classes in New York. There is some preachiness, as to be expected in any religious novel, but it's preachiness on the side of honor, character, and kindness.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Gone Missing by Linda Castillo







This crime novel takes place in Ohio's Amish country. Detective Kate Burkholder grew up Amish, so when Amish teen girls start to go missing from the local communities, Kate is on the scene to gain the trust of the families. A fairly gruesome book, especially at the end--but, hey, what would a crime novel be without some bloodshed?

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis

Scrabble is like a communicable disease. Once you start playing with someone who is *really* into it, their obsession rubs off on you. A close friend of mine got me into scrabble (I played it before, but hadn't really bothered to learn the official rules or anything) and lent me this book, which is a journalist's account of attempting to become a professional scrabble player, which is more difficult than it sounds. My friend infected me, and then I went on to infect my dad. My game is still comparatively weak, but I don't quite have the passion for it like Fatsis did.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Keep Sweet by Michele Dominguez Greene






Keep Sweet is short young adult novel that takes place on a fundamentalist Mormon compound, complete with 14 year old brides married off to gross, abusive older men who already have multiple wives. Alva Jane dreams of marrying her sweetheart, but after she gets caught illicitly kissing him, she's beaten, imprisoned, and married off to an older, terrifying man. That's when she starts to question her whole life and religion. A bit unrealistic (I doubt a young, very isolated teenager would go from complete belief in her religion and culture to complete rejection of it in a matter of months, but then again, there have been similar stories of "escape" from crazy-ass religious cults, so who knows?). But it was very short and entertaining.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed recently revealed herself to be the writer behind "Dear Sugar", the advice column on The Rumpus. It seems really cheesy to say that this book, a collection of Sugar's greatest hits, changed my life, but....this book kinda changed my life. Or, at least, my worldview. Strayed advocates the concept of "radical empathy", which doesn't mean having no boundaries, but does mean putting yourself in another's shoes before judging them. Strayed is an excellent advice-giver because she's been through very difficult times in her life and is open to sharing what she's learned throughout the highs and lows in her life. Somehow, despite cutesy soundbites like "acceptance is a small, quiet room" and "To make a home in the body is an act of faith", Strayed manages to dig far, far deeper than trite quotables. This is a book for people who believe in humanity. I really fucking recommend it.

5 out of 5 stars

***

The God Problem: Expressing Faith and Being Reasonable by Robert Wuthnow

This is another book I reviewed for Library Journal. Sadly, it was not as interesting as Straight. Wuthnow, using language studies, examines how people of (specifically, Christian) faith believe and express that belief without coming off as insane. For example, nearly everyone he talked to about Heaven qualified their thoughts on what the afterlife would be like by saying something like "no one really knows" or "I imagine...", because to claim to know what Heaven is really like would be unreasonable. This one was a bit too esoteric for me, and also bizarrely condescending. I felt a bit of contempt come through on Wuthnow's side for his interviewees. Perhaps that's me projecting, but his repeated exclamations of "how do people believe in this crazy shit?!" (dressed up in academic language) annoyed me. Everyone believes in some amount of crazy shit--we couldn't get through life without some level of belief in crazy shit.

2.5 out of 5 stars

***

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn






Gone Girl is one of *the* books of 2012. A jaw-dropping, page-turning, acid-and-barbed wire story of a marriage from hell, Gone Girl tells the story of Nick and Amy Dunne, a once-hip New York couple whose marriage unravels once they lose their jobs and move back to Nick's hometown in Missouri. When Amy goes missing one day while Nick is at work, the insidious, mutual contempt of the couple rises to the top of a pile a unusually perfect clues that point to Nick as the killer. The book goes back and forth from Nick's point of view to Amy's, and reveals not one, but dozens of twists that shock until the very end. This is one of the few books I've stayed up waaay past my bedtime to read in long time.

5 out of 5 stars

***

Christmas Colonial Brides by Lauralee Bliss and Irene Brand

Okay, here's an example of bad Christian romance. I picked up this collection of four novellas set in the early years of America because I am a sucker for the colonial period in American history. Unfortunately, the stories were, by and large, historically inaccurate sentimental pap with plodding dialogue and insufferable characters.

2.5 out of 5 stars

**

Undressing the Devil by Angel Strand







One thing that makes my enjoyment of Christian romance even weirder is my *other* love of steamy (very, very secular) romance. Undressing the Devil by Angel Strand is an erotic, historical romance with a very interesting setting: 1930's Europe. As Hitler and Mussolini build their war machine, Cia Finnemore galavants around Italy, Switzerland, and England with various lovers. When Blackshirts burst in on Cia and her boyfriend one night, the BF murders them and then runs off, forcing Cia to hide with friends until she can make safe passage to England. And that's where I'm at right now...I'm only half-way finished. The setting and pace really set this book apart from other, cheesier romances.

4 out of 5 stars


***

In conclusion: Best books I read this year:
The Leftovers
Gone Girl
Tiny Beautiful Things

Runners up:
Are You My Mother?
Straight 

Delicious Oscar Bait

Movies: Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook

November, December, and January are my three favorite months, movie-wise. Why? Because this is the season when directors and producers push to have potential Oscar contenders released. It's a three-month party of (generally) better-than-average films!

This does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I love all Oscar-winning films. I found the last two films to win Best Picture--The Artist and The King's Speech--to be cute and pleasant. Was my mind blown and world shaken by them? No. In fact, since I like lists, here is a list of all the Best Picture winners that I can say I truly love or made a difference in my life:

Casablanca (1943)
Annie Hall (1977)
Amadeus (1984)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Titanic* (1997)
American Beauty** (1999)
The Departed (2006)
No Country for Old Men (2007)

*I realize this isn't the greatest movie ever, but it did make a huge impact on me in middle school.
**Ditto

Point is, even though not all Oscar-winning or -nominated movies are great, Oscar season itself is peppered with many indie gems, old-school epics and musicals, costume period pieces, and many other films vying for that top spot. And this delights me.

Two movies I've seen lately will most definitely be up for some awards come January and February. Lincoln is an intimate historical piece that, rather than attempt to cram all of the 16th president's life into two hours, focuses mostly on January of 1865, as Lincoln struggles to pass the 13th amendment abolishing slavery before the end of the Civil War.

Daniel Day-Lewis carries the burden of such an inspiring and legendary historical figure on his 6' 1" shoulders more than capably. Day-Lewis is, I think, one of the only actors who could so totally inhabit this role--both in spirit and physical presence--that the actor himself becomes invisible. We are watching Lincoln, complete with his reedy, high-pitched voice, stooped posture, and predilection for telling amusing stories at the drop of a (stovepipe) hat. This isn't a surprise to me, since Day-Lewis has made a career out of obliterating any trace of Day-Lewis as he disappears into his intense and difficult roles.

The myriad other actors in Lincoln are just as impressive (and sometimes just as "invisible" behind feature-masking facial hair and makeup). Pretty much everyone in Hollywood is in this film (just check out the cast list on IMDB), but a particular standout is Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, a woman who weeps and gnashes her teeth in agony at her husband's feet in one scene and makes a witty and cutting remark at a party the next. It's believed that Mrs. Lincoln suffered from bipolar disorder, and she was most certainly severely depressed for years after two of her sons died in childhood. Mrs. Lincoln was a woman who might be described as "difficult", but Field portrays her as a sympathetic (and, at times, funny) woman with some serious grit to her, in addition to an endless sea of rage and sadness.

Another standout performance is Tommy Lee Jones as radical abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. Stevens, much like TMJ himself, is an old grump. He heckles and sneers at the congressmen who disagree--even a little--with him. He gets one of the best burns in movie history during a climatic scene where he is asked to explain his views on race equality.

Other wonderful performances include Lee Pace as Fernando Wood, a congressman firmly against abolition, Jared Harris (best know as Lane Pryce on Mad Men) as Ulysses S. Grant, and James Spader as W.N. Bilbo, the leader of a group of men Lincoln sends out to convince congressmen to vote for the amendment--whether it means promising them a job, appealing to their good Christian character, or something more shady.

Lincoln delighted me because I learned so much from it--not only in the theatre, but afterwards when I went home and immediately started Googling to find out answers to questions I had during the film. It's a historical film that intellectually challenges the viewer rather than spoon-feeding us a Hollywoodized version of history.

In sum, Lincoln deserves any and all accolades it receives. It's an excellent movie and bears watching multiple times to catch the details you missed the first time.

4.5 out of 5 stars

***

I also watched Silver Linings Playbook recently. SLP is a film than defies genre. It's definitely both a drama and a comedy, but it's also a bit of a sports movie and a romance. It's about broken, but genuinely good people.

Bradley Cooper--an actor I have much disdain for, but who was excellent in this movie--stars as Pat Solatano, a man recently released from a mental institution after beating the crap out of his wife's lover after catching them in the shower together. Pat can't get his act together. He goes home to live with his loving, but passive mother (Jacki Weaver) and obsessive-compulsive Philadelphia Eagles fan of a dad (Robert De Niro). Pat has delusions of getting back together with his wife and spends his time exercising and reading the books she teaches in her high school English class. These pursuits aren't enough to occupy Pat and he continues to live an emotionally destructive life. Then he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a young widow with a depressive streak herself. Both Tiffany and Pat have no filter and screwed up social skills. Tiffany blatantly propositions Pat a couple hours after they first meet. Pat attempts to manipulate Tiffany into contacting his wife. Etc, etc.

 The two find a reason to work together when they enter a dance competition. This competition is extremely important to Tiffany and, over time, becomes important to Pat as well.

Silver Linings Playbook is notable because it portrays mental illness in a sympathetic and light-hearted manner without making a total cartoon out of it. The film really does walk a fine line between hilarity and gut-wrenching emotion--often in the same scene. In a few scenes, Bradley Cooper cries in a way that is utterly unselfconscious and cringe-inducing because of how REAL it sounds. Yet, his performance is not melodramatic in the least (especially given that Pat is diagnosed as bipolar. Hey, Mrs. Lincoln, you have a friend down here!)

Silver Linings Playbook is an odd little film that is garnering a surprising amount of Oscar buzz. It's definitely not your typical Oscar bait, and I highly recommend checking it out.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Marriage; On the Rocks

Movies: Smashed

There be spoilers in this review!

Smashed is a film about a married couple, Kate and Charlie, who are codependent alcoholics. And when I say "alcoholics", I don't mean that they share a bottle of wine over dinner a few times a week. These people drink and drink and drink. They have a serious problem. Kate, especially, has problems. The film opens with her getting up in the morning after another night of hard drinking. She has wet the bed (again), and she and her hubby act like it's no big thang. She drinks a beer in the shower as she gets ready to go to her job teaching first graders. She ends up throwing up in front of them. And that's not even remotely the most humiliating thing that happens to Kate as a consequence of her drinking.

After a bender that involves urinating in public and drunk bicycling, Kate realizes things need to change. A coworker who is a recovering addict himself offers to take her to an AA meeting, and within one meeting, Kate finds a sponsor. But as she begins to sober up, her relationship with Charlie unravels as the two realize they don't have much in common besides getting wasted.


In my opinion, Smashed was just an ok film. Mary Elizabeth Winstead's performance as Kate was the best thing about it. This is a very unglamorous role. Kate wears no makeup and hideous "mom who gave up" type outfits. I admired the choice of the filmmakers to make Kate the opposite of a sex object. She's naturally pretty, but they don't gussy her up in tight clothes and high heels. The focus of the film is 100% on her struggles with alcohol and relationships; her looks are beside the point.

The rest of the cast is...ok. Aaron Paul, so fierce and edgy in Breaking Bad, is well-cast as the laid back, arrested development hubby who loves partying with his wife more than he actually loves his wife. Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec plays Kate's supportive, but creepy coworker, who gets the best/worst line in the movie. Octavia Spencer is Jenny, Kate's AA sponsor, in an uncomfortably "mammy"-like role: a recovering addict African-American woman who provides tough love and lots of food to those around her.

I really can't speak for alcoholics or addicts, but Smashed didn't seem very realistic to me. Kate has a *serious* drinking problem and is probably physiologically addicted to alcohol. Yet, after one AA meeting, she quits drinking cold turkey for months. Of course, she falls off the wagon near the end of the film after a serious setback in her life. But after an emotionally gripping scene where she comes home drunk and then rages at Charlie, telling him she can't be sober AND be with him, --BAM--the movie flashes forward and Kate is sober one year. Whaaaa?!

Smashed had an intriguing premise: what happens to a marriage when one person makes radical changes in their life? What if those changes are for the better, but the other partner isn't ready to deal with them? However, in practice Smashed didn't really seem to work. The movie had a lot of unrealistic extremes that didn't match up: for example, Kate' extreme alcoholism and her extremely easy time getting sober. I mean, I guess I can't judge because I don't know much about alcoholism and AA, but I had to give this movie the serious side-eye many times.

3 out of 5 stars

The Joy of Disabled Sex

Movies: The Sessions

"I asked Cheryl whether she thought I deserved to be loved sexually. She said she was sure of it. I nearly cried. She didn’t hate me. She didn’t consider me repulsive."
--Mark O'Brien, from "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate" 

I've always been fascinated with sexuality. Not always in a prurient way, although, yes, sometimes in a prurient way (Mom, if you're reading this...sorry!). But fascinated by sex in an academic way, and also in a socio-cultural way. What are the implications of sex in our society? In other societies? In history?

Something I often think about in regards to sexuality is that despite being one of the most powerful and transformative experiences in human life, sex is so often used as a weapon to shame or hurt. Physically, rape and abuse are disturbingly prevalent, especially among vulnerable populations. But sexual shame and humiliation are just as prevalent and perhaps even more insidious. Religious communities police sex to varying degrees, using shame and threats of hell to control what they see as sexuality that goes "against God". Secular culture is filled with messages that tell people they are too fat, too ugly, too slutty, too virginal for sex. Or, conversely, that they are not enough: not enough of a man, not enough of a woman.

I'm not a clergyperson. And I'm not a psychologist. And I don't have an advanced degree in sociology or gender studies (yet...). But I can tell you something that I know is true, and I think you know is true as well: the people and forces in society who say that you don't deserve physical affection and that you are in some way "not good enough" for sex are wrong. You are good enough. The religious communities that tell you your sexuality and sexual expression are sinful? They are the sinners. Is it a worse sin to have sex outside of marriage, or to be gay, than to systematically remove someone else's bodily agency through constant shame, physical punishment, and threats of God's wrath?

Mark O'Brien, a poet who contracted polio at age 6 and spent most of his life immobile in an iron lung, knew something about shame and sexuality. He was raised by a Catholic family that never spoke of sex. Despite Mark's severe disability, he graduated from college and became an accomplished poet and writer. But by age 38 he had no sexual experience beyond kissing. He could achieve orgasm, but it was often out of his control and usually while he was being washed by his attendants, adding an extra helping of humiliation.

In his wonderful essay, "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate", Mark explains that it wasn't just his disability that kept him from having a sex life; in fact, he had interviewed a series of disabled people with active sex lives for an article, so he knew that it was certainly possible. The biggest obstacles for Mark were his repressive upbringing and his own self-loathing about his disabled body.

But Mark O'Brien was a brave and pretty independent dude, and so at age 38 he decided it was time to lose his virginity. With the blessing of a very cool priest, Mark hired a sex surrogate to teach him how to have sex and how to accept his own sexuality.

The Sessions, a frank and sincere film, chronicles Mark O'Brien's experience with sex surrogate Cheryl. The mind-blowingly amazing and versatile actor John Hawkes (from Winter's Bone and Martha Marcy May Marlene) plays O'Brien--a man who used words and a sense of humor as both an entrance into and a defense mechanism against a world that had trouble adjusting to his body and disabilities. Helen Hunt plays Cheryl, a warm woman who is able to see that Mark's fear of sex stems not from his disability, but from the anger, shame, and self-loathing that he has had to fight against his whole life. Cheryl doesn't just teach Mark to control his body in order to have "fully penetrative intercourse", but also to forgive himself for contracting polio as a child.

The Sessions itself is a pretty decent film--the acting, as mentioned above, is excellent all around. It's lightly humorous and talks about sex in a very frank way without being vulgar or even showing anything too explicit. The film itself is unoffensive, positive, and, honestly, not that challenging. What is challenging are the ideas that propel the film: that disabled people have just as much of a right to sexual expression as able-bodied people. That being a man means more than have a strong body or the ability to be virile in bed. That God Him/Her/Itself rejoices in physical love and affection. These ideas surround and influence the movie. But to get the full experience of what Mark O'Brien was thinking and going through, you should really read the article. It's not long, but it gives insight into how even just a few hours spent with a therapist whose job it was to help him explore sex truly changed Mark's life and perception of his own body and sexuality for the better.

We live in a weird world. The constant thrum of not good enough not sexy enough not thin enough not rich enough surrounds us. We get messages from our families, our churches, our communities, and our peers on what acceptable sexuality looks like. We feel like we need to ask permission to be ourselves: is this ok? am I normal? will you love me? will you accept me? Our politicians use our bodily autonomy as wedge issues to ensure votes. And some of us, like Mark O'Brien, have the added burden of an unprivileged body. A disabled body, a fat body, an "ugly" body. 

What is so easy to forget as we negotiate and navigate this world where it feels like so much is at stake, is that it's up to us. Perhaps God gave you your body, but in giving He also gave you the right, the access, the choice. It's your body. It's your sexuality. Don't use it to hurt others or yourself. Don't waste it on shame and fear. Use it for love.

4 out of 5 stars

Mark O'Brien and a friend.

Bite Me

Movies: Breaking Dawn, pt. 2

"It's over. Now let's never speak of it again."
-My friend, upon leaving a screening of Breaking Dawn, pt. 2


Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief. The Twilight Saga films are officially over and done with (for now...until Stephenie Meyer decides to continue the series). I stuck with the Twilight movies to the bitter, sparkly end, and I can't say I'll miss the series. However, the final part of the series, Breaking Dawn, pt. 2, had a surprising amount of...bite to it. Ho-ho!

For one thing, now that Kristen Stewart's character, Bella, is a vampire, she is finally granted a personality. No longer the shrinking violet with a masochistic streak, Bella is kinda cool as a vamp. She's sexy, she's hungry, she's strong. She also has a quirky little special power--she's a "shield". She can protect others by projecting her shield onto them (visually, it kind of looks like when movie characters have flashbacks and the screen gets all wavy and blurry). So, finally, Bella isn't so damn weak. And it's a good thing, since she's made an enemy of the Volturi.


Let me remind you who the Volturi are again. Basically, they are the high church of vampires. They reside in Italy and make sure that all other vampires in the world are following the rules. When the Volturi get word that Bella and Edward Cullen have created an "immortal child" (a vampire child), which is a huge sin in the vampire world because such children cannot be controlled, they amass an army to confront and punish the Cullen clan.

What they don't know is that the "immortal child" is actually mortal. She's the half-human, half-vampire spawn of Bella and Edward, conceived and born while Bella was still human. She also has a terrible name, Renesmee, and a grown man (Jacob) is in love with her. But, you know, let's roll with it.

So the Cullens begin amassing an army of their own--not to fight, but to serve as witnesses to the fact that Renesmee poses no threat to the vampire world. This is an excuse to meet cool vampires from all over the world, include a couple of black vampires from the jungle who are dressed like exotic natives and it's all racist and shit!

Once the final showdown begins, with the Volturi showing up to confront the Cullens and all their cool vampire friends, it gets veeerrry interesting.

Stop reading now if you don't want to get spoiled!

In the trailers for BD2, you may have noticed that there is an intense fight sequence between the Volturi and the Cullens. Indeed, there is an epic battle scene in the film that begins with Aro (Michael Sheen, camping it up wonderfully), the head of the Volturi, ripping Carlisle Cullen's head from his motha-fuckin' body!!! During this battle we see many beloved characters kick the bucket before Bella and Edward finally take out Aro himself.

Here's the thing. I've read Breaking Dawn and no one, except one minor villainous character, dies at the end. The ending of Breaking Dawn is one of the dumbest, most anti-climatic endings ever. Basically, the Volturi come, they try to pull some vampire tricks on the Cullens, but Bella protects everyone with her womanly childbearing hips "shield", and then after the Cullens explain that Renesmee is actually not 100% a vampire and will grow up, the Volturi leave. The end. Seriously, it's THE WORST. Even J.K. Rowling had the balls to kill off Hedwig and one of the Weasley brothers at the end of Harry Potter.

Ok, so the movie seeeeems to take the source material in a radically different direction by actually having a battle sequence where characters actually die. And man, the crowd was going wild in the theatre where I saw the movie. But at the last minute, they pull the biggest cliche in the book: it was all a dream! Sort of. It turns out that the fight sequence was a vision. Alice Cullen, who can see into the future, takes hold of Aro's arm to show him how a battle could turn out (with Aro, and many other Volturi, dying the true death by getting their heads ripped off) if the Volturi insist on fighting. Well, needless to say, Aro doesn't much like that, and the Volturi turn tail and head back to Italy. And no one dies! Yay!

Ultimately, BD2 wanted to have its cake and eat it too--to have an awesome battle scene, complete with shocking and violent ends to beloved (and not so beloved) characters--but to also please the fans by staying true to the (awful, bad, poorly written and plotted) source material. And you know, it kinda works. I would have loved it if the battle scene had been real--what a shock to the throngs of tween girl fans!--but even though they pulled the whole "It was only a dream" switcheroo, I'm glad they got even a little subversion in there. It was better than nothing.

End spoilers!

I could mock the Twilight movies further, but they are such easy targets that it's not very fun. The books are poorly written and the final book is absurdly anti-climatic and reads like bad fan-fiction. The movies are not great, and Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are underwhelming. The whole Twiverse is sexist, heteronormative, shallow, and simplistic.

But are they the worst books and movies ever? The most sexist books and movies ever? No. Not even close. It's kind of sad, actually. The series is so mediocre, it doesn't live up to the haters' expectations of it.

In conclusion, the only thing to really say about Breaking Dawn, pt. 2 is: it's not as bad as the other Twilight movies.

3 stars out of 5

Argo See These Movies

Movies: Argo, Looper

I feel guilty for not getting around to reviewing Argo and Looper sooner, since it's been a few weeks since I've seen them and the details are fading in my memory, but hey...other stuff like hurricanes and work get in the way.

Argo



Ben Affleck's latest directing/acting effort since The Town is a real nail biter. Based on the true story of six American embassy personnel who managed to escape from Iran during the tumultuous 1979 revolution, Argo is one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" movies. Affleck plays Tony Mendez, a CIA exfiltration expert who, after watching Planet of the Apes with his son, devises the hare-brained scheme to smuggle the embassy employees out of Iran under the guise that they're a production crew of a science-fiction film being shot in the area. The plan needs to be elaborately detailed and fool-proof, so Mendez gets the help of somewhat sleazy Hollywood producer Lester Siegel (Alan Arkin) to guarantee that all of Hollywood is fooled into thinking this movie ("Argo", picked out of a pile of random scripts) is actually happening. Then Mendez travels to Iran and has the unenviable job of convincing the six stowaways at the Canadian prime minister's house to trust him with their lives and run with this plan.

Perfectly cast with many familiar faces who disappear into their roles (Clea Duvall as one of the six embassy employees hiding out, and Victor Garber as the Canadian prime minister among them), Argo is really entertaining. Affleck sustains a palpable tension for most of the movie, particularly in the last third when the escape plan is put into action. Argo isn't my personal favorite of the year, but it's objectively a great movie and is definitely going to be up for some awards during Oscar season.

4 out of 5 stars

***


Looper

One must go into Looper prepared to suspend one's disbelief. As with any movie about time travel, the film is rife with plot holes. But if you're able to get past that, and not ask too many questions, Looper is a hell of a good time.

I was genuinely surprised by the direction Looper took. I won't give too much away,  but I'll say that Emily Blunt's character, the homesteading mom Sara, who was barely featured in the previews, takes on a pivotal role in the movie. In fact, Looper is less about the mechanics of time travel and more of a philosophical exercise in how our current choices and actions affect those around us and our future selves.

The year is 2044. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, a "looper" whose job is to arrive at an appointed spot at an appointed time and kill people that criminals in the future (around 2074, when time travel is invented and immediately outlawed) send back in time. It's a glamorous--if unethical--job that pays well (in silver bars!) and lets Joe and his fellow loopers party their asses off in a society where the gap between the rich and poor is outrageously large. [On that note: vote Obama on Tuesday!]

The only thing that sucks about being a looper is that at some point you will be required to "close your loop". Basically, the baddies in the future will send the future you back in time. You are expected to kill your future self with your giant blunderbuss, take a final golden pay check, and kick back and relax until 30 years from now...when you're on the other end of that blunderbuss.

Those loopers who "let their loop run" by failing to kill their future selves are in for a world of hurt, as Seth (Paul Dano in a small but memorable role) finds out. The loopers' bosses can't allow this to happen, so if your loop runs, you better find him and kill him or risk being killed yourself.

And guess who accidentally ends up letting his loop run and must spend the rest of the movie hunting his future self down?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt once again shows his acting chops as Joe, a looper with a little more foresight and motivation than the others. JGL wears prosthetics in order to look more like Bruce Willis (playing Joe's future self). I gotta say, he looked both creepy in an uncanny valley way, and really hot in a "butch Joseph Gordon-Levitt" way.

Another great actor in Looper is Jeff Daniels, playing the loopers' big boss, Abe. Daniel's plays Abe as basically an evil version of the Dude in The Big Lebowski--a man just as likely to offer you a drink as his is to smash your fingers with a hammer.

And I mentioned Emily Blunt earlier, but the real standout is Pierce Gagnon, who plays her son, Cid. This kid is un-frickin'-believable. Not *quite* as good of a performance as Quvenzhane Wallis in Beasts of the Southern Wild, but pretty damn amazing. And creepy. Although most child actors are creepy. It's that uncanny valley thing again: they're talking like grown-ups, but they're obviously tiny children. Eeek!

I won't say anything about what happens in Looper because it's too complicated and spoiler-y, but I will say that it is totally worth checking out. It's slick and dark and brain-twisty. Kind of like Inception, but a little more rough around the edges. Like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's prosthetically-enhanced face.

4.5 out of 5 stars

JGL with his normal face.
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JGL with his butch Bruce face.
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I'll Have a Baby; Hold the Marriage

Movies: Friends with Kids

Friends with Kids came out earlier this year and was touted as a Bridesmaids cast reunion. Indeed, the film stars Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, and Chris O'Dowd (along with Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott as the leads). Unfortunately, Friends with Kids does not have the humor or optimism of Bridesmaids. It's a pretty bland romantic comedy and even a bit of a downer.

Scott and Westfeldt play Jason and Julie: platonic pals since college. The two remain single and childless while their friends pair off and, eventually, have kids. Julie and Jason observe their friends (Wiig and Hamm play one couple and Rudolph and O'Dowd play another) transform from fun-loving, lusty young adults into angry, tired, humorless parents. And they decide that although they want little brats of their own, they don't want to sacrifice the romance and lust for life like their friends did.

So they do the logical thing and decide to have a kid together. They figure that as good buddies, they'll be able to share the duties of child-rearing while still being open to sex and romance with other partners. It's ingenious! Except that, of course, this is a romantic comedy so you know they'll get together in the end.


Friends with Kids had a few nuggets of insight thrown in to an overly-simplistic narrative. At one point, high strung Leslie (Rudolph) discusses Julie and Jason's unusual arrangement with her laid-back hubby, Alex (O'Dowd). Leslie says, "They're doing this to undermine us" and Alex scoffs at the idea that Julie and Jason's life choices have anything to do with Leslie and Alex's marriage. This was a throwaway scene, but I really wish that Westfeldt (who wrote and directed the film) had spent more time exploring it. We're always hearing about the so-called "Mommy Wars"--staying at home vs. working; daycare vs. a nanny; breast vs. bottle. People get so caught up in how others raise their kids (or if others choose to reproduce at all, when, and how often) and probably not because they actually care about the kids' well-being, but because they think other peoples' choices undermine their own. I think women get the brunt of this pressure because, hey, we're the ones with wombs. And we're supposed to all be excellent, perfect mothers. It's enough to make a gal give herself an at-home tubal ligation!

Sadly, the film does not explore parenting pressure at any length or depth. Instead, we get to see Julie and Jason's slow journey toward realizing that each other is "the One" as they raise their child and their terrible, judgy friends fight and make each other miserable.

A couple things that rang false to me: first, the reason that Julie and Jason never got together in the first place is because they weren't attracted to each other. Jason makes it very clear that he is not sexually interested in Julie, which is hurtful to her. But then--BAM--at the very end, Jason decides that, wait a second, he's actually totally hot for Julie! The two can have a romantic relationship now! Yay! Except that in real life if you knew someone for two decades and never had the desire to hook up with them, why would you now? That's not realistic to me. And I guess you could argue that Jason realizes that he loves Julie on a level deeper than surface attraction, but for a movie that is so intently invested in sex and sexual attraction as a core component of a lasting romantic relationship, it seems disingenuous for the movie to throw all that out the window at the end.

Secondly, Julie and Jason seem to base their ideas about marriage and kids on two sets of couples they know: Alex and Leslie, and Ben (Hamm) and Missy (Wiig). That's kind of narrow-minded because, for one thing, Ben and Missy have an obviously terrible (and, it's hinted at, abusive) relationship--kids or no kids. Ben is a complete bully (for what it's worth, Hamm is great at playing handsome bullies) who even makes a "joke" about how he had to rape his wife to get her pregnant. Ha! Ha! ...ha? So the whole having kids thing is irrelevant--these two were clearly headed for divorce court anyway. And then Alex and Leslie's relationship really isn't that dysfunctional. Leslie is just a control freak whose tendencies escalate after she has kids. Alex is laid-back to the point of being passive and just accepts that he gets to have sex like, once a month from now on (this fact horrifies Jason, who apparently didn't know that many couples' sex lives drop off after they have kids). Alex and Leslie actually work together--a little couples therapy and a babysitter once in a while would do them a world of good.

So, my point in breaking all this down is that Julie and Jason make this important life decision based on a rather small sample. They look at their friends and think "kids have ruined their marriages", when actually Ben and Missy's marriage was over before it started, and Alex and Leslie have a pretty normal, if stressed marriage. Kids have little, if nothing, to do with it. So the whole premise of the movie is flawed.

I was disappointed by Friends with Kids because it had the potential to be an interesting exploration of alternative parenting choices, and the pressure society and our friends and loved ones put on us to not only to get married and have kids, but to do it in exactly the "right" way and have a smile on your face while you're doing it. Instead, the movie was tired and cliched. It wasn't horrible. It just didn't live up to its potential.

3 out of 5 stars

When the Bud Becomes too Painful Not to Blossom

Movies: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I love a good coming of age story. The journey into adulthood/loss of "innocence" is one of those most compelling aspects of human life, and it's something we all go through in one way or another.

That said, a lot of high school movies suck. Possibly because they're often made by greedy, cynical adults who "just don't understand". High school movies tend to cast beautiful, tall, perfect actors in their late twenties as 17 year old kids. These films fall into two camps: movies where teens get wasted and have bizarrely tidy/softly lit sex; or movies where teens' lives are ruined by pregnancy/abortion/drugs/bullying/[insert cliche here] and that misery is played out in a dark avalanche of schadenfreude for the audience's entertainment and self-righteousness.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, directed and written by Stephen Chbosky (who also wrote the book, which I confess I've never read), is a rare teen movie that transcends its genre. There is still a whiff of "after school special" hovering around it, since the teens in this movie each have a laundry list of pretty awful problems to deal with. But even at its darkest, Wallflower never wallows into preachiness or melodrama. The film remains buoyant, genuine, and--most importantly--humane.  A high school movie where the characters treat each other with kindness and care--but not in a totally phony way? That's a big deal.

In Wallflower, Logan Lerman plays Charlie, a gentle and shy high school freshman. He hopes to make some friends, or at least be allowed to eat lunch with his big sister and her friends, on the first day of school. Alas, the only friend Charlie makes is his English teacher (Paul Rudd), and he eats alone in the cafeteria. But Charlie isn't the terrified, wilting wallflower he initially seems. He gets up the courage to sit with the openly gay class clown--Patrick, played by Ezra Miller, who is pretty freaking awesome--during a football game. Patrick introduces Charlie to his stepsister, Sam (Emma Watson, in a wonderful post-Harry Potter performance). Sam and Patrick decide to take Charlie under their wing, like teen guardian angels. They take Charlie to parties where he experiments with mind-altering substances. They get him into The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which was also a rite of passage for me--albeit in freshman year of college). And Sam gives Charlie his first kiss as if it were a gift. "I want to make sure that the first person who kisses you loves you." she says.

The thing I liked about Wallflower is that it never seems fake or forced. One of the core messages of the movie and book--"We accept the love we think we deserve"--is passed from Charlie's English teacher to Charlie to Sam. And it's the kind of message that could easily be expressed in a sappy, shallow manner. But Chbosky handles this idea--that learning how to love yourself is imperative so you don't let others treat you like crap--sensitively and earnestly. And it's surprisingly deep. Because it's so true; and it's something many adults--let alone kids--struggle with.

I won't go too much into the drama in Wallflower. Much of it is typical teen drama (dating, mating, and relating). But there are some surprisingly dark issues explored. Patrick, Sam, and Charlie struggle with things that have been done to them or ways other people have treated them. All three characters were treated poorly by someone who proclaimed to love them. And they learn over the course of the movie that when someone who says they love you hands you shit on a silver platter, you have the agency to reject that shit. Which, of course, goes back to the theme: "we accept the love we think we deserve." They learn not to accept what other people hand them, while calling it love. Instead, they seek love among each other and in themselves.

My generation traffics in irony. Our motto is "If you can't say something sarcastic, say nothing at all. Especially on Facebook." And when you're surrounded by endless snark and cynicism, you forget how nice earnestness feels once in a while. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an earnest movie that catches you off guard with it's humanistic approach to high school, and life in general.

4 out of 5 stars

My Fat Friend's Wedding

Movies: Bachelorette

Bachelorette is an enjoyable, if a bit "on the nose", bad-girl movie. The lovechild of Heathers and Bridesmaids, Bachelorette is neither as evil as the former nor as kind as the latter. It's a bitchy movie, but not a nihilistic one.

When I say "on the nose" above, what I mean is that the characters in Bachelorette are broadly drawn stereotypes. There are two significantly overweight characters in the film: Bride-to-be Becky (played by the awesome Rebel Wilson, who played Kristen Wiig's creepy roommate in Bridesmaids), and groomsman Joe. Both of these characters are nice, funny, and caring towards their fellow human beings. The rest of the characters are conventionally good-looking and slim, and with the exception of Becky's nice-guy fiance, Dale, the skinny characters are selfish, immature, stupid, slutty, drug-addicted, and just plain mean.

While it's nice to see an inversion of the "fat guy gets skinny chick" stereotype, with plus-size (but otherwise conventionally good-looking) Becky getting fit, attractive Dale, it's also just plain dumb the way these characters line up perfectly as heroes and villains. Becky is the first of a group of high school friends, the "B-faces", to get engaged. Her fellow B-faces (why do high school girl groups always have names? I'm pretty sure there were no "Plastics" or "Heathers" at my high school) include slutty coke-fiend Jenna (Lizzy Kaplan), unbelievably stupid Katie (Isla Fisher), and Type-A mean girl Regan (Kirsten Dunst, walking the line between loyal friend and complete bitch nicely). Regan is the first to find out about Becky's engagement and calls her friends expressing her confounded feelings that the fat friend, known as "Pig face" in high school, is the first to get married!

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS. FAT GIRLS GET MARRIED!!?? My mind is blown, seriously. Especially since, you know, overweight people make up the majority of Americans and like, 90% of Americans marry at least once in their lifetime. But ok, ok. Let's take this movie at face-value. Becky is the fat, and also awesome friend, and she is achieving a traditional, heterosexual rite of passage before her skinny, terrible friends, which is like TOTALLY CRAY-CRAY AMIRITE?!

Jenna, Katie, and Regan come together as bridesmaids of Becky. Regan is the maid of honor, which is smart on Becky's part because Regan is basically a more glamorous version of Tracy Flick from Election. Regan may be a bitch, but she gets. shit. done. I want a maid of honor like her if I ever get married.

During a drug/alcohol-fueled pre-wedding moment of tomfoolery, these three geniuses manage to tear Becky's plus-size wedding dress. The rest of the movie revolves around them trying desperately, in the middle of the night, to repair and clean the dress. Meanwhile, the gals continually run into the groomsmen, who are out for a night on the town with hapless Dale, the nice guy groom who doesn't want to go to a strip club (awww...but also, yeah right).

I won't go into details about what happens, but I will say that Regan redeems herself by actually being there for Becky minutes before she has to walk down the isle. Becky falters for a moment, whispering, "My mom thinks I'm too fat for [Dale]." Regan, who spent much of the movie mocking Becky's weight, looks Becky in the eye and says "Becky. Fuck everyone."

Fuck everyone. 

Wow. Obviously, you can't use "fuck everyone" as your day-to-day mantra because everyone would say "fuck you too" back and you'd have no friends. But at a moment like this, when it's time to woman-up, put on the big-girl panties, "fuck everyone" is exactly what I would want a friend to say to me. This is why Regan manages at the last minute to transcend the hero/villain dichotomy of Bachelorette. Sure, Regan is terrible in a lot of ways, but she still saves to day--with her sheer iron will and dominance. Some people in the movie refer to her as a psychopath. But I think she's just smart.

Bachelorette is hardly a paradigm-shifting film. The characters can be pretty one-dimensional, particularly Isla Fisher's brain-dead portrayal of Katie (between Ansel in Killer Joe and Freddie in The Master, dumb people are having a moment in film). And it really annoyed me, but also kind of cracked me up how, in the first scene, Regan and Becky are having lunch together and Regan orders a Cobb salad, "hold the chicken, bacon, and avocado" and Becky orders a burger and fries, with cheesecake for desert. I wonder if the director intended for them to order such eye-rollingly obvious "skinny" and "fat" people food. It's actually kind of genius how brazen some of the stereotypes were.

Bachelorette is no Bridesmaids, but it's also smarter and funnier than your average chick flick.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Hot Talk

Movies: For a Good Time, Call

For a Good Time, Call is bubbly, happy little movie that had me leaving the theatre with a smile on my face. It's not going to win any awards, but it will probably get some laughs and maybe even tug a few heartstrings.

On its surface, For a Good Time, Call is a raunchy sex comedy about two women in their late twenties who start a phone sex business to make some extra dough in a crappy economy. But what the movie is really about is friendship; specifically, it's about how friendship in and of itself can be a sort of love affair.

Katie (played by Ari Graynor, a lady so cute that she strongly tests my heterosexuality) and Lauren (Lauren Miller, also the screenwriter) don't start out as friends. The met briefly in college, but due to a mishap involving a cup of urine in a moving car, they had a falling out and never spoke again...until 10 years later when their guy pal introduces them since they are both in desperate need of a roommate.



Begrudingly, they move in together. When prim Lauren hears lusty, deep-voiced Katie constantly talking dirty on the phone, she asks what's up. Katie admits that she makes extra money on the side as a phone sex operator. Lauren's response? To make it into a business. The two ladies coin their sex talk business "1-800-MMM-HMMM" and the cash (and heavy breathing) starts rolling in.

But here is where the movie goes from a good-natured sex romp (with cameos by Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen as horny customers) into something more. During a "threesome" scenario, a customer asks Katie and Lauren to look at each other and describe what they see. Instead of the typical lewd talk, a tightly-framed camera focuses on each actress while they say things like "She's the most honest person I've ever known." and "She's so beautiful. Her hair is perfect." Katie and Lauren have gone from vaguely hating each other to what can aptly be called a "homoromantic" relationship. And the best part is: they never make out!

Don't get me wrong--I would not be adverse to seeing them make out. It's just that the For a Good Time, Call doesn't exploit Katie and Lauren's friendship as an excuse to show some unrealistic girl-on-girl (for a hetero male gaze). I'm a woman who tends to have female friends. I've never made out with any of my female friends...but have I told some of them that I loved them? Yes. And I meant it.

Likewise, For a Good Time, Call shows female friendship as love, not backstabbing and bitchery. Sure, Lauren and Katie have some serious ups and downs, but when it comes down to it, they genuinely care about each other and want each other to be happy. This is what real friendship is--when you accept someone's flaws and want the best for them. When you can be yourself around them and know that they won't judge you (much...). Without that comfort, honesty, and caring--why bother?

For a Good Time, Call also handles sexuality in a really positive way. It takes place in a world where women own vibrators, and that is considered normal. There's also a subplot where a character reveals a secret about her sexuality that is indeed unusual, but it's treated as not a big deal. The film has an attitude of "I'm OK, you're OK" when it comes to sex. It's refreshing.

Even though I don't run a phone sex hotline, I felt like For a Good Time, Call really spoke my language. The characters were friendly and relatable. Unlike other female-led comedies such as Clueless and Mean Girls, this movie is populated with people I'd actually want to be friends with. Although clearly feminist and sex-positive, For a Good Time, Call is also just plain fun.

4 out of 5 stars

Cult of Personality

Movies: The Master

Paul Thomas Anderson directs horror movies in which no ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, or vampires appear. Instead, the monster haunting his films is humanity itself. When I saw Boogie Nights for the first time in high school, it disturbed me so much that I vowed never to watch it again. However, when a friend in college proclaimed his love of the scene in BN where Alfred Molina uses a blowtorch to smoke crack, I gave the film a second chance (that scene is pretty classic, btw). I was still disturbed, but I was older and more able to feel uncomfortable while also acknowledging greatness in movies, books, and art.

Years later, P.T. Anderson's movies still disturb me, but I am up for the challenge. His 2007 film, There Will Be Blood, is a true masterpiece and a total gut-punch of a movie ("I'm fiiiinnnished!"). It shows the complete obliteration of empathy and decay of the soul in the character of Daniel Plainview, especially after his one tie to humanity--his adopted son--is damaged. It's a terrifying film, but it's also a brave one. It acknowledges that monsters do indeed walk among us. And sometimes, they drink our milkshakes.

In The Master, Anderson once again turns a brutal eye on humankind. And it is beautiful, unsettling, and kind of...disappointing.

The Master has been hyped as a movie that's about Scientology, but not really, but yeah kind of is. Officially, Anderson denies any connection between his character Lancaster Dodd (played grandly by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. However, the fictional character and the real life man do share a similar timeline, and "The Cause"--as Dodd refers to his religion/cult/lifestyle--has similarities to Scientology.

But these connections are beside the point. Dodd creates The Cause as a way for human beings to rise above the animals and perfect themselves. According to The Cause's followers, humans can mentally go back in time to past lives and correct mistakes and illnesses in an attempt to perfect themselves in the present. It all sounds like mumbo jumbo of course, but Dodd has a gentleness and warmth that lulls new followers into a sense of security and belonging.

A place to fit in is exactly what troubled WWII veteran Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, in a performance that will make us all forget that unfortunate "rap" career) needs. Quell is violent, shell-shocked, and an alcoholic whose addiction is so extreme, he turns to Lysol and paint thinner in a pinch. Phoenix plays Quell with a mush-mouth that would put Marlon Brando to shame. I could barely understand what the man was saying (and could hear all the other characters perfectly). Quell seems so out of it that I wondered if he was supposed to be brain damaged. It's an excellent performance, but it's not relatable in any way. It was hard to feel anything for Quell except a mild, consistent sense of disgust.

Quell stumbles into Dodd's world purely by accident, but he's accepted by the man immediately. It's clear that Dodd wants to use Quell as an experiment of sorts: can he cure this broken man? And Quell, although eager to fit in, proves more slippery than Dodd expects.

The Master is an ambitious film. It's a visually beautiful film as well, shot in 65mm film, which has an extremely high resolution. Indeed, you can see every crinkle, freckle, and imperfection on Hoffman and Phoenix's faces (which are often shot in close-ups). There are also wonderful scenes of oceans and deserts. I felt like I was watching an IMAX film in a regular theatre.

As I mentioned above, the performances, particularly Phoenix and Hoffman, are just wonderful. This really was a great choice for Phoenix in the aftermath of the I'm Still Here dumbassery. Phoenix, like Daniel Day-Lewis and Marlon Brando, is a hell of a method actor. His agony and anger is palpable. Phoenix really becomes Freddie Quell. And Hoffman once again blows a performance out of the water. He's the perfect fit for the serene, yet self-righteous cult leader.

Despite all my praise, I didn't really like The Master. There was something missing. Boogie Nights had dark humor, Punch-Drunk Love had sweetness, and There Will Be Blood had brutality. All The Master seemed to have was weirdness. Weird bordering on alienating. Granted, pretty much all of Anderson's movies are alienating, but in the case of The Master, it just didn't work. I don't know. I think Anderson really, really wanted this movie to be a great masterpiece--and it shows. It tries too hard. From the interviews I've read about Anderson, he seems like a pretty pretentious and prickly dude. I think he is very aware that he is a great artist, and perhaps this self-knowledge is his achilles heel. The Master has a studied self-consciousness that holds it back.

This is a hard movie to grade. On the one hand, it's got so much going for it. On the other hand, it's too cold and clean to truly be a masterpiece. It's solid, it's good...but it's not great.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Finger Lickin' Good

Movies: Killer Joe

Sometimes I think there is something wrong with me. A miss-wiring of sorts that lets me laugh at events and situations in movies which would be horrifying in real life.

Or maybe I just like dark comedies.

Killer Joe, directed by William Friedkin, is a movie that I would describe as "Tarantino-esque" in the sense that it is graphically violent and also hysterically funny.


Based on the play by the very talented Tracy Letts, Killer Joe is about the Smith family. Chris Smith (Emile Hirsch), a drug dealer, owes his boss a considerable amount of money. He decides that the best way to make some quick dough is to hire a hitman to kill his hated mother, who has a hefty insurance policy. He conspires with his moronic father, slutty stepmother, and young, naive sister, to hire Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey, in a performance that deserves an Oscar)--a cop who moonlights as a hitman--to dispose of the woman.

When Chris and his dad, Ansel (Thomas Hayden Church), can't front the killer's fee, Joe says he is willing to accept collateral in the form of Chris's virginal sister, Dottie (Juno Temple). With no other option, Chris reluctantly agrees.

Of course, things don't work out as planned.

A few spoilers ahead...

I was surprised at how much of the film was dedicated to Joe and Dottie's "relationship". Dottie is a very interesting character. She's looks like, acts like, and is treated like a naive schoolgirl. However, she is very observant and is the focal point on which the movie turns. I had difficulty figuring out how old she was supposed to be. There was a scene where I thought she said she was twelve; but then the friend I saw it with insisted she was actually older--say, 15. In either case, Dottie is clearly underage, but has a body just mature enough so that's it's only creepy with she and Joe have sex--as opposed to being downright repulsive.

Regardless of whether Dottie is pubescent or post-pubescent, her seduction is indeed gross. It's hard to read what Killer Joe's interest in her actually means: is he trying to infuriate Chris, or does he just really like young girls? In any case, his manipulation of Dottie is short-sighted since the girl is much smarter than she looks, and, as we find out in the end, isn't easily bossed around.

In addition to statutory rape, Killer Joe has some scenes of violence that made me cover my eyes. Let's just say that you will be put off of pumpkin soup and fried chicken for a while. But all of the scenes of violence were undercut by an absurd humor, to the point where the humor essentially overrode the violence. I found the fried chicken scene, which got so much hype, to be more silly than horrifying. But that's just my reaction. This movie is not for people who don't like violence.

Killer Joe is filled with excellent performances. Emile Hirsch, an actor we don't see enough of, is great as the weaselly Chris. Thomas Hayden Church nails it as Ansel, Chris's father, who is so idiotic he borders on brain dead. Gina Gershon plays the sexy, scheming stepmother Sharla who gets her comeuppance in the above-mentioned fried chicken scene (Google it, if you want to know the details). Juno Temple plays Dottie, the observant girl who falls for Joe. And the titular Joe is played stupendously by McConaughey, who, between this movie and Magic Mike, is having a hell of a year.

The wonderful cast has an excellent script to work with. Letts, who has written a few other very successful plays (Superior Donuts among them), balances the conventions of film noir with scenes that range from nail-bitingly tense to hilarious and absurd. There's a scene--and I don't know if I should credit the writer, director, or cinematographer for this--where Joe tells (not demands or requests, but tells) Dottie to take off her clothes and put on a black dress. While she disrobes, he turns his back and removes his handcuffs (remember, he's a cop), and sets them on the table. My stomach turned at the thought of him using the cuffs on Dottie...but then he removes his gun and badge as well. It turns out that he was also disrobing, in a way. But the way in which he removes the cuffs first was a clearly deliberate choice to make the audience cringe for a moment, before realizing in relief that he was only removing the cuffs, along with the badge and everything else, as a way of undressing. Of course, the relief is short lived when we remember that this is a 40-something man seducing a girl barely in her teens.

It's moments like this--moments that aggressively and cleverly challenge the audience--that were so appealing about this movie. Killer Joe really was a smart-trashy film, if such a thing is possible.

5 out of 5 stars

Prime of Their Lives

Movies: Hope Springs

Hello readers! I am, once more, back from an extended blogging break. I have been settling into my awesome new job and have barely had time to catch my breath, let alone go to the movies. I apologize for my disappearance.

However, I did find the time to see one movie recently: the pleasant, if unremarkable Hope Springs. The film concerns late middle-age couple, Kay and Arnold, who have been married for over thirty years and now act more like roommates than lovers/friends/spouses. In a desperate bid to save her marriage, Kay takes $4,000 out of her personal savings to pay for a week of intensive couples therapy in the small (and vomit-inducingly cute) town of Hope Springs, Maine. Arnold threatens not to go, then begrudgingly shows up but kicks and screams his entire way through the therapeutic process.

The film has *some* cliched characters. I feel like a blasphemer for writing this, but Meryl Streep feels miscast as the passive-aggressive, submissive (and not in the chicka-chicka-bow-wow way), sexually unadventurous Kay. I am so used to seeing Streep in strong, vital female roles that her performance as mousy, pleasing Kay just seemed off. I think the director wanted an attractive actress in her early 60's, and Streep was the only person he could think of.

Tommy Lee Jones, however, was perfectly cast as Arnold: an old fart curmudgeon who is content to live a life of separate bedrooms and nightly ESPN binges. Arnold is deeply suspicious of therapy and the huge amount of money it costs, and he belittles the process constantly, to the point of deeply hurting Kay, who has invested so much in saving their marriage. Arnold comes off as a close-minded bully, and it's hard to see any possible redemption for such a tightly wound jerk.

One very much *not* cliched character is Dr. Bernard Feld, played compassionately by Steve Carell in a rare dramatic role. Feld is a legitimate expert in marriage counseling and he is never played for laughs. He's a counselor you would actually want to go to in real life, and Carell plays him wonderfully, with kindness that is inherent to Carell's performances, minus the goofiness.

Other reviews have noted that the best scenes in Hope Springs occur between Streep, Jones, and Carell during the therapy sessions. I agree. These scenes show what therapy is really like--with the psychologist leading the couple through their thoughts and feelings, fears and hopes. As therapy often does, this leads to some uncomfortable revelations about oneself and one's partner. Therapy is hard work; you are forced to confront things about yourself that aren't pretty. And Hope Springs shows therapy in a true and sensitive manner, as opposed to a joke or something only for weirdos and crazies.

Where Hope Springs fails is in its cutesy, cliched humor, such as when Kay visits a "Cheers"-like bar where the bartender pours her a free round while commiserating with her marriage trouble. And then there are the scenes of sexual experimentation between Kay and Arnold that are played for laughs but come off as silly. But peppered among these silly scenes are moments of nearly painful intimacy (or lack thereof), such as when Kay and Arnold are given the basic "homework" assignment by Dr. Feld to spend time in each others arms. The two are so used to not touching--even in a non-sexual way--that this assignment is extraordinarily difficult. Even after thirty years of marriage. There but for the grace of God go the rest of us.

Hope Springs is a mix of silly, non-offensive sex jokes about 60-somethings doin' it, a genuine look at marriage counseling, and a somewhat depressing drama about how two people who love each other can become strangers in their own home. It's not the greatest movie ever, but it offers some hard truths--and, yes, hope--about marriage.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Playing Catch-Up

Movies: The Dark Knight Rises, Turn Me On Dammit!, The Campaign, Ruby Sparks

Hey guys, so sorry about not updating this blog for a long time. I have been busy moving to a new state and preparing for a new job! But now that I'm settled in, it's time to review a few movies I saw recently.

The Dark Knight Rises

For everyone living under a rock, TDKR is the third film in Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy. The final film finds Gotham nearly a decade after the Joker wrecked havoc on the city and the vigilante known as "the Batman" killed beloved public official Harvey Dent (or so the people of Gotham believed).

Now a new villain, the terrifying Bane, is causing chaos in Gotham in the form of violent civil unrest (imagine if the Occupy movement was run by an violent fascist). Bruce Wayne, who has been avoiding Gotham for years, must suit up and return to save the day, while also fielding the affections of two lovely women, Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) and Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard).

As with Nolan's other Batman movies, TDKR is intense, violent, and more than a little nihilistic. It has some truly intense scenes of destruction (when Bane starts setting off bombs all over Gotham) and fights (the opening scene where Bane takes over a plane in mid-air is awesome).

However, TDKR lacks something that The Dark Knight had. First, I didn't find Bane as compelling as the Joker. Part of this was due to the fact that you can't really tell what's going on behind that scary gas-mask contraption on his face. While Tom Hardy does the best with what he has to work with, his performance doesn't live up to Heath Ledger's insane and oddly sympathetic turn as the tormented Joker.

Also, as someone not familiar with the Batman comics, I was easily able to follow the plot and understand the motivations in The Dark Knight whereas I was often at a loss for what drove the villain(s) in TDKR. So many people seem to want to destroy an entire city because of its "corruption" (where the main corruption comes in the form of those who seek to destroy it) or for revenge. However, I did like the sequences that took place in the South American (or Middle Eastern?) prison.

Despite these quibbles, TDKR is a very good and entertaining movie. Once again, Nolan shows his flair for creating slick, fanciful, and exciting worlds, as well as writing complicated plots that leave the audience with much to debate and discuss.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Turn Me On, Dammit!

This little coming-of-age gem from Norway has something many American teen movies lack: female sexuality without the side helping of exploitation. The film opens with 15-year-old Alma masturbating while listening to her favorite phone sex operator, Stig, describe a juicy scenario to her. Like most teens her age, she lives with her mom and enjoys the rare moment of lack of supervision by indulging in a common pastime (masturbation...not talking to a phone sex operator).

Alma is a normal teenager in her podunk little town in Norway, but she soon finds herself an outcast after her crush, Artur, randomly pokes her with his penis at a youth group event. Alma tells her jealous, mean girl friend, Ingrid, who accuses her of lying. Artur of course denies it, and Alma earns the nickname "Dick Alma". The teasing becomes so bad, that Alma looks for a way out--whether by retreating into her fantasy life, or by literally running away.

The best thing about this movie is how real it is. Alma, Ingrid, and the other teens look and act like real teenagers. They're mean, petty, and horny, but also intelligent and capable of empathy and kindness. The film doesn't blow their small dramas out of proportion (for example, Alma doesn't end up pregnant or raped for her sin of having sexual feelings). Alma has a generally good relationship with her single mother, who is embarrassed and taken aback by Alma's interest in phone sex and porno mags, but she never flips out on her daughter. I can't imagine what this movie would look like if it were made by Americans. Probably pretty dumb.

4 out of 5 stars

***

The Campaign

Speaking of dumb, the latest Will Ferrell comedy sadly has more idiocy than laughs. The movie concerns North Carolina politician Cam Brady (Ferrell), a slick democratic incumbent, who loses popularity after he accidentally leaves a ridiculous and vulgar message intended for his mistress on the answering machine of a conservative local family. Republican bigwigs in DC see the opportunity to run a gullible Yes Man candidate against Brady in the hopes that if this man wins the election, he will blindly pass any legislation they want. Their pick for the Republican candidate? Effeminate, pug-loving Marty Huggins (Zach Galifanakis, who is the best thing about this movie). Huggins is the naive son of Southern Good Ol' Boy Raymond Huggins, who is so old-fashioned, he makes his Asian maid talk like a black Mammy to remind him of times gone by (the joke gets old before it even starts).

Although there are some pretty good jokes and great cameos, The Campaign offers very little you haven't seen a million times before. The writers seem to value penis jokes more than actually coming up with original ideas. It's your typical not great, but not awful comedy.

3 out of 5 stars

***

Ruby Sparks

Ruby Sparks, written by and starring Zoe Kazan, turns the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope on its head. Ruby Sparks is the name of a character created by young writer Calvin (Paul Dano, great as always). Ten years ago, Calvin wrote a Salinger-esque novel that was a huge critical and financial success. Hailed a genius, he has been living off the royalties since and has failed to come up with his next great novel. He has also failed at love, preferring to avoid women and keep to himself, opening up emotionally only to his therapist (Elliot Gould).



Calvin longs so hard for a perfect female mate, that he begins to write about a girl named Ruby who grew up in Dayon, Ohio. Ruby roller skates to work and doesn't own a computer. Ruby wears red dresses and purple tights. Ruby loves giving blow jobs and can cook French cuisine. In other words, Ruby is a geeky male fantasy. The weird thing is...this fantasy comes to life.

One day, Calvin wakes up to find Ruby in his kitchen. At first, he thinks he's going crazy. But when other people see Ruby too, Calvin realizes that he has literally written Ruby into reality. And not only has he created her, he can change her at will, simply by writing whatever changes he would like. The movie takes a dark turn when Ruby begins to do things Calvin doesn't like, such as bond with his mom and stepdad, and flirt with other men. In the end, Calvin has to decide whether he will keep a perfect woman as a prisoner, or let Ruby go off to become a "real girl".

In spite of a sticky-sweet ending that didn't mesh well with the rest of the movie, I loved Ruby Sparks. I thought the idea behind it was fun and interesting, without being heavy-handed. The acting was great--Paul Dano is perfect as the well-meaning but insecure Calvin, and his real life lady love Zoe Kazan is wonderful as the cute, moody Ruby. The supporting roles, including Antonio Banderas as Calvin's hippie stepdad, are equally well cast. If you hate the whole Manic Pixie Dream Girl phenomenon, I'd recommend giving Ruby Sparks a try. It suggests that even "kooky" femininity is still kept under lock and key by men who want a partner who was placed on this earth for their pleasure alone.

4.5 out of 5 stars