Trans for the Masses

Movies: The Danish Girl

The Danish Girl is a movie that is difficult to judge for a few reasons. Directed by Tom Hooper, who previously directed The King's Speech and Les Miserables, The Danish Girl feels very refined and tasteful. I'm not so sure that this is a good thing.

Other reviews have suggested that The Danish Girl's main problem is that it's too "safe". It's the story of Lili Elbe, the first person to undergo gender-confirmation surgery. Born Einar Wegener, Elbe was a landscape painter. Her wife, Gerda, was also a painter (and painted some VERY NSFW art, btw). In the film, Gerda asks Einar to sit for her while wearing a pair of stockings and heeled shoes, since the model for the painting she's working on cancelled. As Einar sits and looks down at his own stockinged legs, something comes alive in him (note: I'll use "him" along with "Einar" and "her" along with "Lili" to avoid confusion).

Einar begins to sit as Gerda's model on a regular basis and to wear women's clothing and makeup in public. While Gerda thinks of this a game--maybe even with a sexual component--Einar understands that it's something much deeper and life-altering: Einar is dying and Lili is taking his place. While this is difficult for Gerda to understand and accept, she eventually supports Lili, who is now living fully as a woman, in her quest to have surgery so that her outsides match her insides.

I don't really know if I agree that The Danish Girl is "safe"...and I don't really know that I care if it is. In 1993 Tom Hanks--America's male sweetheart--played a gay man with AIDS in Philadelphia. It's a classic example of a difficult, and, to many, terrifying issue being made "safe" for mainstream audiences. But Philadelphia was one of many works of art, safe and unsafe, that made mainstream people care about AIDS. Yeah, it would be great if everyone was born caring about everyone else, but in reality most people have to actively learn how to be empathic to people who are different from them, and film and entertainment help a lot with that.

Also, look at this this way: when you teach a 6 year old about sex, you teach them the names of body parts and how a stranger shouldn't touch them in their "bathing suit areas". You start with the basics. The essentials. You don't read Fifty Shades of Grey to them. That's for the graduate-level lessons, right? For people who literally never heard the word "transgender" until Caitlyn Jenner appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair--they are the 6 year olds of trans rights! They need to start with the basics: trans people are human beings like everyone else who have feelings and should be treated with respect. Gotta have kindergarten before you get to college, right? The Danish Girl is, in many ways, kindergarten.

Ok, I digress. "Safe" or not, there's definitely something lacking in The Danish Girl--especially the second half, which gets very melodramatic. The first half is exciting and fun--and a little edgy. We're seeing Einar's awakening through both his and his wife's eyes. There are so many mixed feelings. When Gerda undresses Einar only to discover that he has her slip on underneath his clothes, it's a dangerous (will she be mad?) and sexy (oh, she's definitely not mad) moment, filled with possibility. When Einar appears at a party as Lili and is propositioned by Henrick, a friend of the Wegener's, Eddie Redmayne's (more on his performance below) face is a canvas of emotions: confusion, fear, disgust, curiosity, and desire all at once. The film hints at but never really fully explores the intersections between sexuality and gender. In the early stages of Einar's "coming out" (for lack of a better term), it's possible to read his interest in women's clothing as a sexual thing, or an adult form of make-believe. Einar is trying to figure out who exactly he is and what he wants right along with the audience.

It's a testament to Eddie Redmayne's acting skills that we are able to see and understand the full range  of emotions during Einar's transition into Lili. When Gerda suggests he dress as Lili and attend a party, he is breathless with excitement, but also freaked out. It's like a teenager losing their virginity--the absolute desire for it to happen coupled with nausea-inducing fear of the unknown. But once Einar starts living as Lili full time, she can't "go back" to being Einar for Gerda's sake, even as Gerda pleads for her to "Go get Einar. I need my husband." It's an incredibly emotional scene that cements Lili's true nature: she is a woman and can't just go back to being a man.

The filmmakers got flack for casting a cis-gender man as a trans character and I agree that it was a missed opportunity to have a trans actor play a trans role. But I really enjoyed Redmayne's performance and thought he did an excellent job, especially in portraying Lili's efforts to learn feminine posture and mannerisms. I think my favorite scene in the movie is when Einar visits a peep show to watch and model the mannerisms of the nude woman behind the curtain. I dunno. The scene was a little "Film School 101", but it just was a beautiful melding of Einar's erotic and emotional journey.

But, as I mentioned above, the film kind of goes limp in the second half. It becomes cringe-inducingly earnest and loses all of its honesty in the process. It becomes Lifetime movie material, with lots of sobbing, running away dramatically, bedside reunions, and the like. It tries very hard to get the audience to FEEL ALL THE FEELS that it ends up feeling only one thing: forced.

Ultimately, The Danish Girl is a tease. It's a good enough film, with excellent performances (I didn't even get around to mentioning Alicia Vikander's AWESOME, natural, earthy performance as Gerda Wegener), but not a great film. It does its part to educate audiences in trans history and why trans rights are important, but it kinda hedges its bets there too. It's one of those movies where you leave thinking, "That was good. But it could have been so much better."

Grade: C+

Eddie Redmayne is prettier than you...and prettier than your boyfriend. 

Lifestyles of the Rich and Communist

Movies: Trumbo

We like to think that we learn from past mistakes, but clearly we don't. Here we are on the verge of 2016 and the frontrunner of the Republican Party is calling for a ban on a particular group of people entering the country, as well as a database to keep track of those same people who are actual US citizens. We're scared shitless of Muslims, y'all, and so we look to the very bullies and blowhards who took our lunch money in elementary school for protection. LOL. We're not any different than we were 60 years ago, when we were scared shitless of communists and allowed bullies to trample First Amendment rights in order to "protect" us from...what? Ideas? Different decade, same bullshit.

Trumbo isn't a great movie. It's very on the nose. Its protagonist, Dalton Trumbo (played with equal parts grit and intellectual snobbery by Bryan Cranston), speaks more in soundbites than actual dialogue. And it asks us to look with pity upon rich, Hollywood people. It's hard to feel bad when actor Edward G. Robinson, whose walls are decked in paintings by Monet and Van Gogh, moans about being out of work for a year and then see a note at the end of the film detailing how average Americans who were suspected of communist activities also lost their jobs. School teachers lost their jobs, for pete's sake--and I bet most of them didn't have Monets to sell.

But although Trumbo isn't a masterpiece, it does do a very good job at pointing out the absurdity of attempting to criminalize and punish people for their political beliefs in a country that also prides itself on the democratic process. We're all about that freedom of speech--until someone says something we don't like. And this desire to censor and chastise others transcends party lines. Conservatives and liberals--they're all annoying as fuck when they get "outraged" over whatever stupid thing someone else says, or does, or jokes about. But outrage is one thing. Systematically hunting down, categorizing, and labeling people based on their beliefs--be they political beliefs, religious beliefs, whatever--and threatening violence against them, denying them work. Well, now that's just plain un-American. And the very people doing this hunting and punishing claim to be the most patriotic of them all.

Oh my, I feel just as much of an angry old coot as Dalton Trumbo was (at least as portrayed by Cranston). Trumbo was a screenwriter, hailed as a genius (he won Oscars for writing Roman Holiday and The Brave One), who ended up blacklisted for his allegiance to the Communist Party (which still exists, btw. Take a look). He and his fellow communist screenwriters tried to take on the House Un-American Activities Committee and were found to be in contempt of Congress. Trumbo served a year in prison. After he got out, he took to writing screenplays under pseudonyms to pay the bills...but also to, you know, stick it to the man. Eventually, with the support of Kirk Douglas, Trumbo was billed as the screenwriter of Spartacus under his own name. While some people boycotted the film, it was too good and too popular--JFK himself made a public show of support by seeing the film. The blacklist was effectively over.

Trumbo has a lot of excellent actors, but the show is 100% stolen by Helen Mirren, who plays gossip columnist Hedda Hopper--a flashy broad with a strong hatred of communists and a surprising amount of power to wield. She brings so much to this film. Although she's ostensibly one of the "bad guys", she's such a fabulous bitch, you almost want her to win (especially when she tells Louis B. Mayer that she's going to fuck him over). She also adds depth to the anti-communist viewpoint. She feels so strongly for the young American soldiers (including her son) who are fighting communists in Europe, that she allows herself to hate people who have similar political beliefs in her own country. Her character humanizes the antagonists, something many "message" films fail to do. Filmgoers aren't used to being encouraged to sympathize with the bad guys, as well as the good guys. But as Trumbo says in a speech at the end of the film, there were no heroes and villains during the time of the blacklist--only victims.

I think this message--that a culture of fear and suspicion hurts us all--is a good one to remember in current times. The United States has a peculiar history of being freakishly open to diversity and also freakishly paranoid of whatever group du jour we're supposed to be afraid of--witches, communists, black people, Muslims, gays. Jesus Christ people, calm the fuck down. Go see Trumbo (or better yet, rent it from Redbox, since it's just an OK movie) and remember that the beauty--and the agony--of being an American means that because you get to have your beliefs and your opinions, others do as well. And it could just as easily be you who Donald Trump wants to put in a database.

Grade: C

Caged Birds

Movies: Room

 Spoilers in this review

Woof. You guys, Room is a challenging--yet so rewarding--film.

To be clear, I'm not taking about auteur Tommy Wiseau's film The Room, which is also "challenging" and "rewarding" in its own ways, but rather the film based on Emma Donoghue's wonderful novel about a woman and her child who are held captive in a garden shed by a monsterous man.

Directed by Lenny Abrahamson and written by Emma Donoghue herself, Room is both an emotional gut punch and also a deeply moving ode to the relationship between a mother and her child, as well as the joys and aches of growing up.

Like the novel, Room is told primarily from Jack's five-year-old perspective. To him, the 10x10 ft room he inhabits with Ma (a stunning Brie Larson) is the entire world and contains everything he will ever need. It's a paradise filled with time for play, TV (which he doesn't understand is pictures of actual things in the world), and cuddling with Ma.

For Ma--whose real name is Joy--the room is hell on earth. Kidnapped by "Old Nick" (Sean Bridgers), a man whose real name she doesn't know, at age 17, Joy has been in the room for 7 years. Jack is obviously Old Nick's biological son, the product of the nearly daily rapes Joy endures, but instead of hating and resenting the child, Jack is Joy's entire reason for living.

Joy lets Jack believe that there is nothing outside the room and Old Nick brings them groceries and clothes via 'magic'. Jack's way of thinking goes like this: "Spiders are real. And that mosquito that once was sucking my blood. But squirrels and dogs are just TV." But once Jack turns five, Joy begins to tell him the truth--there's a whole world outside their little room and they are not in the room by choice. Jack rejects this thinking at first, but Joy keeps pushing him in the hopes that she can hatch an escape plan by tricking Old Nick into taking Jack to the hospital.

The first half of Room focuses on Jack and Joy's life in the room. The second half is their reorientation to society after their escape. I mentioned spoilers at the beginning of this review, but the fact that they do escape is simply the plot. Life outside the room is still relatively traumatic for both Joy and Jack. Joy is very depressed, mainly because she has been depressed her entire time in the room and can't magically snap out of it now that she's free. Larson understands what depression looks like: both in the room and out of it, Joy rarely cries. Instead, she maintains a blank expression and sleeps a lot. Back in the room, she would have entire days where she wouldn't get out of bed--Jack referred to those as "gone days"--but she would pull it together for the sake of her son. She also trained herself to be docile and agreeable to Old Nick when he showed up, not wanting to incite violence in him. Joy puts her mind and emotions on autopilot just to get through each day as a captive. I love that Larson doesn't overplay the intense emotions her character must be feeling--there are no crying jags or screams of despair. Just a lot of surviving.

As for Jack (played by the remarkable Jacob Tremblay), he adjusts with a little more ease since he is, as a psychologist puts it, "still plastic". He's young enough to basically have his entire world turned upside down and still adapt pretty easily. At first, he doesn't understand that there are new rules to go with his new world, and some of the old rules he followed in the room don't apply any more. He also insightfully points out that that there is less time in the outside world than in the room because "[time] has to be stretched out over all the new places". Pretty smart!

There are a lot of issues that novel covers more deeply than the film--for example, Joy's father has a difficult time accepting Jack as his grandson, given that Jack's father is the man who took his daughter away and brutalized her for years. William H. Macy plays the rather thankless role of Joy's dad, showing up to make this point, then exiting the film. Joan Allen plays Joy's mom, who bonds beautifully with Jack.

Another issue the book explored that the film only touched on is Joy's experience with speaking to the media about her captivity. A talk show host feigns sympathy, only to ask Joy if keeping Jack in the room with her instead of trying to convince Old Nick to drop him at a hospital was "best for Jack". The absurd cruelty of this question--i.e. you might have been the victim of captivity and daily rape, but gosh, why weren't you a good enough mother?--skewers the culture of shame and judgement mothers face no matter what decisions they make. Donoghue spends more time exploring this issue in the book, but we only get a taste of it in the movie.

Instead of exploring these issues, Room focuses on Jack and Joy's relationship. One thing I really liked is that once they're out of the room, Old Nick is basically gone from the movie. There's a mention of his arrest on TV, but we don't see him again or learn his name or any details about him. I think this was a conscious choice on the part of Donoghue--once Jack and Joy escape his clutches, he has no power over them (I mean, other than the lingering power of the trauma he caused). But by refusing to focus on him, Room solidly remains about Jack and Joy.

What keeps Room from being completely devastating is Jack's perspective. As I mentioned above, the room itself is not a cage to Jack, but literally the whole world. When he escapes into the actual world it overwhelms him at first. But soon he sees the excitement and adventure in exploring a universe that is larger than he ever could have imagined. There are times when Jack misses Room (as he refers to it, with no "the" in front)--the way a child with a new bed might miss his childhood crib. That sense of security is gone. While Room is a story of survival and motherly devotion for Joy, it's a story of growing up and out of the fantasies of childhood for Jack--and the acute sadness that accompaniesthis maturity.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone, although it may be harder for some people to watch than others. If you think the movie might not be for you, then instead try reading the book. It might be easier to absorb the story through words rather than images. And it's a story worth reading.

Grade: A

Reading Material: A Review of Books I Read in 2015

I rarely review the books I read on this blog, so I figured I'd take this opportunity to look back at some of the books I read this past year. This is not a comprehensive list. You'd be surprised, but a lot of what I read is trash I don't want my mom to know about. These are the more intelligent, dignified books I read this year:

Wild
By Cheryl Strayed

At the very end of 2014, I broke up with a guy who wasn't right for me. Although it wasn't a long relationship, it threw me for a loop. Was I throwing away something awesome because I was being "too picky", or was I simply following my gut?

Part of what spurred me to end it was seeing the film Wild, based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed. Wild is about a woman's relationship with herself. When her mom dies, Cheryl loses control of herself. She drinks too much, sleeps with strangers (despite being married), and eventually succumbs to drug addiction. After getting a divorce, she has a revelation that she needs to do something so physically demanding that it will reset her life. She decides to hike the arduous Pacific Crest Trail from Southern California to Oregon--alone. She tells her friend, "I'm going to walk myself back to the woman my mother thought I was." And she does.

I have to admit that while I thoroughly enjoyed Wild the memoir, I loved the movie more. Maybe there was something about the visuals or the soundtrack (the use of Simon and Garfunkel's "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)" in that film makes me want to fucking weep, it's so beautiful), that helped me connect with the story in a way the book did not. However, I still highly recommend the book--as well as Tiny Beautiful Things, Strayed's collection of essays from her "Dear Sugar" advice column.

Wild--the book and the film--helped me begin 2015 with a commitment to choose what and who I want, even when that means being unsure or ambivalent. The closing passage in both the film and the book states,

It was my life--like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be. 

Grade: A-

***

Bad Feminist
By Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay is a writer who has a magical ability to make people feel welcome and comfortable with her writing. Bad Feminist is--duh--a collection of essays about feminism, which cover everything from pop culture to racism to why women should be friends with other women. While I'm a feminist who eats this kind of thing up, many folks feel alienated from feminism--as if they're going to be scolded by a cluster of scary, mean women.

While Gay never condescends to those new to feminism, her writing is like a welcome wagon of feminist thought: she's straightforward, easy to understand, and never judgy. While some of her essays will inevitably become outdated (even I, a longtime fan of Lena Dunham, tire of the debate about whether it's "ok" for a feminist to like Girls), others, such as the one about the problem with "likeable" female characters, are more likely to stay relevant.

Overall, Bad Feminist is great if you call yourself a feminist, or if you shy away from that label (as Gay points out, she is hardly the "perfect" feminist anyway). It's also a good book for the precocious niece or young girl in your life whom you want to nudge in the, ahem, right direction.

Grade: A
***

Dietland
By Sarai Walker

Now, here's a "scary" feminist book. The novel Dietland has two plot lines that run parallel. The first concerns Plum Kettle, a thirty-something woman who weighs 300 pounds. Sick of being stared at and taunted, she's a few months away from gastric bypass surgery, after which she is convinced her "real" life will begin. Because life as an obese woman is nothing less than a nightmare.

Plum meets and becomes involved with a group of feminist writers who challenge her about her beliefs about looks and weight. Eventually, Plum comes to embrace her fatness--but not for reasons you might think. This is *not* a feel-good book. Instead of accepting herself as she is for positive, "you go girl!" reasons, Plum realizes that her fat is a way to reveal the ugliness of other people. If she were skinny, a guy at a bar might treat her nicely--flirt, pay for drinks, be a decent human, But since she is fat, that same guy will laugh at her and mock her. Plum comes to see her fat body as a bullshit detector that separates the few decent people from the hordes of shitheads. And then she begins getting into physical altercations with said shitheads, who all assume fat girls won't throw a punch.

The other plot line is about a terrorist group that calls itself "Jennifer" (one of the most common female names--could be your daughter, coworker, or best friend) and does things like kidnap rapists and throw them out of airplanes at 20,000 feet. Or kidnap imams and force them at gunpoint to encourage the male followers of their religion to pour acid into their eyes instead of requiring women to cover their bodies and heads for "modesty's sake". As Plum becomes more radicalized in her everyday life, the news gleefully reports on the insane (or...completely justified?) acts of "Jennifer".

Dietland was a fucking wild ride. It upended my expectations. It scared me and depressed me. It also made me laugh at its insane audacity. This book kicks you right in the balls. It *wants* you to be uncomfortable, and it wants you to grin with glee at a world in which men who commit acts of violence against women get painful comeuppance.

Grade: A+

***

The Girl on the Train
By Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train wants so desperately to be Gone Girl...but it's no Gone Girl. While Gillian Flynn's novel of extreme marital discord hurt so good, with its acid wit and intelligence, The Girl on the Train feels more like acid reflux. Now, that's not to say the novel wasn't entertaining--it got me through a flight to from the east coast to Colorado--but, for all its success as a bestseller, it never felt like much more than a generic potboiler crime novel.

The main character, Rachel, is spiraling out of control. Unhappily divorced, she has become a blackout drunk who loses her job, comes home shitfaced every night, and is generally an object of pity and disdain among the few people in her life. The train she takes everyday passes by a home that Rachel becomes fixated on. In it live the "perfect couple": attractive, happy, and healthy. Rachel names this couple Jess and Jason and looks forward to spying on them for a few minutes everyday when the train stops near their house. But one day, Rachel observes that Jess is no longer there. The books becomes a mystery in the spirit of Hitchcock when she decides to do a little sleuthing on her own.

There are definitely many twists along the way. However, The Girl on the Train never felt surprising enough or intelligent enough to realy grab my attention. It's a good plane (or...train) read for sure, but probably not one that will haunt you afterward.

Grade: B-

***

Modern Romance
By Aziz Ansari

Oh Aziz, you're a national treasure. The first time I watched Aziz's stand-up (I think is was his "Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening" special) I was like, eh, this guy's just ok. But after watching more of his stuff, I really started to like him. In particular, I loved his "Live at Madison Square Garden" special--which is basically a preview of Modern Romance, a book he co-wrote with sociologist Eric Klinenberg.

Modern Romance can be summed up by the book's cover photo: Aziz staring down at his phone with giant pink hearts plastered on his eyeballs. Aziz sets out to explore what it means to look for love in 2015. He interviews people at an old folks' home, where he finds that many people who got married in the 1950's and 60's met their partner in their neighborhood, church, or school--in other words, proximity was key. And these oldsters rarely described their spouse as "the love of my life" or "my perfect match", instead saying things like "She seemed like a nice girl" and "he had a good job". These interviews set the stage for the book's thesis which in essence is: we are overflowing with dating and mating options--and sometimes that's a good thing, but sometimes it's a terrible thing.

Aziz also looks into other cultures--the trend of "herbivore men" in Japan and the high tolerance for marital infidelity in France,

The book is infused with Aziz's voice, such as when he adds "damn!" to emphasize a statistic or writes "peep this graph above". After I read this book, I let a friend borrow it and she in turn lent it to another, who lent it to another, who I think lent it to another. So that just goes to show how great Modern Romance is.

Grade: A+

***

The Secret History of Wonder Woman
By Jill Lepore

I really wanted to like this book, which is a deep historical dive into the man who created Wonder Woman, his personal life, and the historical events and atmosphere that made Wonder Woman such a sensation when she premiered in the early 1940's. Although I wouldn't say the resulting book is "bad", it's actually pretty boring. Ok, and I'm saying this as a feminist who has a nosy interest in people's salacious love and sex lives--and The Secret History of Wonder Woman is chock full of feminist history and William Moulton Marston, who genuinely believed women should be the dominant gender and also lived a polyamorous lifestyle. What's not to like!?

Yet, somehow, against all odds...Jill Lepore manages to make a story filled with suffragists, sexual bondage, and bigamy dry as a desert. There's no humor in this book. No personal touch. And any trace of anything sexy or truly shocking has been sandpapered and lysol-ed into a clean, smooth surface. Bah! I don't want the PG-13 version of the secret history of goddamn Wonder Woman when it's not a PG-13 story!

So, although this book does have a lot of interesting facts and backstory (too much backstory, I'd say) about the creation and popularity of Wonder Woman, Lepore's inability to suck the reader in results in just an average grade.

Grade: C

***

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief
By Lawrence Wright

Now, with this book I made the mistake of watching the documentary based on it first. Also titled Going Clear, the documentary provided all the information I needed about Scientology. It covers L. Ron Hubbard's life and his creation of what is basically the biggest (and wealthiest) cult of all time, as well as all the horrible things done to Sea Org (Scientology's version of clergy people), such as starvation, forced labor, and beatings. And, of course, all the juice on Tom Cruise.

The book covers all of the above and more. I ended up skipping giant chunks about L. Ron Hubbard's life and instead investing more time in the chapters about Tom Cruise and his relationship with current leader of the church David Miscavige (who is a textbook psychopath). These later chapters were absolutely fascinating and reveal how Cruise really is a true believer in Scientology. We also get to hear the detailed account of how director Paul Haggis left the church--spurred on by the church's intolerance for gay people (Haggis has two gay daughters).

A line of thought occurred to me while reading the book and watching the film: people love to mock Scientology because it's soooooo crazy. Yet, basically every established religion is nuts too. A virgin gives birth to a man who is also a God, and who is also the Son of God. Mormons believe that when you die, you get your own planet. If you die in battle on behalf of Allah, you are rewarded with 72 virgins in paradise. You get the picture. (And full disclaimer: I respect everyone's right to religious belief blah blah blah) I think Scientology is a special case since the church leaders demand an insane amount of money from their followers in addition to blind faith. At least most of the established religions, even if you count tithing, don't require their followers to give thousands to the church.

But the point is that the anthropologist in me goes back to what I was taught in college: make the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Scientology is bat-shit crazy and their practices are not only unethical, but criminal. And yet, people do horrible and bizarre shit in the name of religion every day, from murdering innocent people to disowning their children to attending formal balls where they pledge abstinence until marriage. I guess it has something to do with how we're wired. We seek meaning, and the craziest beliefs and actions can make perfect sense if you need that meaning deeply enough. So I guess my advice is: believe what you want, but never stop questioning.

Grade: A-

***

Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own
By Kate Bolick

And finally, the year comes full circle. Where I started out reading the story of a woman who goes on an extreme adventure to rediscover herself, I end it by reading about a woman with a less-harrowing but equally eye-opening self-discovery. Spinster is by Kate Bolick, a writer for The Atlantic who wrote the excellent article "All the Single Ladies" a couple years ago, which is basically about quote unquote "the end of traditional marriage". While I don't think we're quite there yet, it's undeniable that this is one of, if not the best times in history to be a single woman (at least in Western societies). You can support yourself. You can have sex. You can even have a baby on your own (if you got the dollas). Which means...you don't have to settle. You can wait until you find "true love" or whatever. You don't need to grab on to the man you're with at X age and never let go. You don't need to grab on to any man.

After years of serious relationships that never end in marriage (usually by her choice) followed by years of living alone and focusing on her writing, Bolick realizes that she maybe actually doesn't want to be married. To anyone. Ever. Not that she doesn't want sex and companionship occasionally--who doesn't? But she never wants the closeness that comes with marriage, which always feels suffocating to her. In Spinster, Bolick weaves the life stories of her "awakeners"--female writers, who mostly lived around the turn of the twentieth century, who may or may not have been married, but spent long portions of their life alone--with her own life story. She examines her relationship with her mother, her relationships with men (all positive, I should add. Bolick is no "man-hater"), and her relationship with her jobs. The result is part-memoir, part-cultural history. It's a very intellectual book, yet accessible. If you're a single woman, in particular, and you have a sense that you're "meant" to be single or you still feel single even while in a relationship, I think you'll relate to a lot of the sentiments expressed in Spinster. I know I did. What's great about the book is that it's not a polemic. Bolick isn't claiming being single is better, she's claiming that it's equally valid.

Grade: A

***

So there you have it, folks! Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more movie reviews of what are likely to be some of the best films of the year (it's Oscar season!) and, sometime in January, a rundown of my fave films of 2015.

Abuse of Faith

Movies: Spotlight

A decade and a half ago, the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Boston archdiocese was all but an open secret. Accusations of priests abusing the children in their charge (many of them boys, but some girls as well) date back to the mid-twentieth century or even earlier. However, as disgusting and shocking as these crimes were, there wasn't a large-scale investigation into the culture of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church until fairly recently. The events depicted in Tom McCarthy's unflinching film Spotlight caused the dam to burst, not just in Boston but around the globe.

"Spotlight" is the name of a investigative journalism unit at the Boston Globe newspaper. In the summer of 2001, the team, composed of Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James), and led by Walter "Robby" Robinson (Michael Keaton), started a project to look into the accusations against a priest named John Geoghan who was accused of molesting vulnerable children in his church. They quickly discovered that the scandal was much more widespread than just one priest and, in fact, had been covered up by Cardinal Bernard Law.

At the urging of Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), the new editor of the Globe, the Spotlight team engaged in a months-long investigation of the Catholic Church in Boston, ultimately shining a light on abuse perpetrated by as many as 75 priests in the Boston area that was swept under the rug all the way up the Catholic hierarchy to the Archbishop.

Spotlight is an intellectual, methodical film. It focuses primarily on the day-to-day work of the journalists who scoured archives, knocked on doors, and hob-knobbed with Boston's elite to get all the pieces of the puzzle together before delivering the devastating story to Boston's doorstep on January 6th, 2002 (appropriately, the fest of the Epiphany). Along the way, they are told to shut the hell up by a number of people who would rather keep the rampant culture of abuse in the Catholic Church quiet. Church officials, politicians, heads of Catholic schools--all seem to have a vested interest in simply moving pedophile priests from parish to parish instead of removing them completely and actually confronting their crimes head on.

Although the film doesn't linger on the lurid details of the abuse, there is a dark undercurrent of the horrors that the victims endured. One man, the head of a victim's support group, points out that for a poor, Catholic kid, having a priest take an interest in you can be life-changing. It's as if God Himself has taken an interest in you. And how do you say no to "God"? This same character points out when a priest assaults a child, it goes beyond physical abuse--it's also spiritual abuse that can destroy a person's faith for life.

Another victim says explains that he knew he was gay as a kid. When his priest asked him for a blow job, it was the first time someone--and not just "someone", but a priest--told him it was ok to be gay. So he was simultaneously grateful to be seen and understood as a gay person, but confused and sickened by the abuse. 

Perhaps the most interesting moment in the film, which is not explored in depth, is when the team talks to Richard Sipe, an ex-priest who left the church (and married a nun!) and dedicated his career to studying sexuality in the church. Sipe points out that his studies indicate that sex abuse among the clergy is shockingly common (he estimates that 6% of priests have abused children), to the point that pedophilia among the clergy is an observable psychological phenomenon. One of his theories is that the celibacy mandate can cripple a person's normal sexual development and outlets, so that abusers are on the emotional level of the children they abuse. I'm definitely not an expert in this and have no idea how accurate these theories are, but it intrigued me to learn more. Here's a link to the book Sipe wrote, which is referenced in Spotlight.

With an all-star ensemble cast, Spotlight is both heart-breaking and heartening. It shows that average people can actually make a difference and stand up to injustice. I also liked the message that sometimes outsiders (like the Jewish, non-Boston native Marty Baron) have to be the ones to overturn the rocks in insular institutions. Certain religious denominations claim to be inclusive, but are often cold--and even hateful--to those outside of their system of belief. But sometimes those who "don't understand" are the ones who can most clearly see the problems within such institutions. Spotlight reminds us that no one--not even men of God--are above doing evil...nor can they get away with it in the end.

Grade: A

A Girl Grows in Brooklyn

Movies: Brooklyn

It's rare for a film to be both sweet and earnest without being saccharine and pandering these days, but Brooklyn manages to do it--and beautifully so. Directed by John Crowley, adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby, and based on the novel by Colm Toibin, Brooklyn is the story of Eilis (pronounced "ay-lish") Lacey, a young Irish girl who travels to Brooklyn in 1952 to make a better life for herself than she could have in her country of birth. Sponsored by a kindly priest (Jim Broadbent), Eilis (played by the lovely Saoirse Ronan) has a room in a boardinghouse and a job as a shopgirl in a fancy department store. She is also enrolled in an evening bookkeeping class and has dreams of becoming an accountant.

But Eilis misses her mother and sister back home and feels awkward and out of place in America. That is, until she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), an Italian boy from a warm, blue collar family. Eilis and Tony fall hard and fast for each other, but then a tragedy calls Eilis back to Ireland, where her friends and family strongly encourage her to stay. She even has a handsome, wealthy suitor--Jim Farrell (Domnhall Gleeson). What's a girl to do?

But the love triangle at the heart of Brooklyn is only part of the story. Eilis' choice isn't so much between Jim and Tony, but between a comfortable, familiar life laid out before her in Ireland and an exciting, unsure life of independence in Brooklyn. It truly is a coming of age story where a young woman who is just beginning to get a sense of her own power and purpose in life has to make a life-altering decision.

There are a few things in particular that I love about Brooklyn:

1) It's woman-centered

Brooklyn is about a woman's journey in both love and life. In addition to Eilis' suitors, we see her interactions with her mother, sister, best friend, fellow boarders at the boarding house, and her boss at the department store (a delightful cameo by Jessica Pare--aka Megan Draper from Mad Men). Eilis may have to choose between two men, but women are just as, if not more important to her story. They offer her advice, friendship, and love--but also guilt and shame. She has complicated relationships with all of them, especially her mother. Brooklyn not only passes the Bechdel test, it transcends it.

Another thing I have to add: In Brooklyn, whatever choice Eilis' makes will ultimately hurt and disappoint someone. She is given the freedom to cause sadness in others in order to seek her own life, and is not punished for it. Let me repeat: a woman is not punished for choosing her choices, even if those choices may disappoint others. This is a big fucking deal, since most female characters exist for the sole purpose of soothing life's boo-boos and miseries in others.

2) The love story and life story are given equal weight

So many films are about a woman's path towards a man and the wedding altar. Although the love stor(ies) are not watered down one bit (see below), Eilis' "life story"--i.e. her job, education, family life, friendships, and general sense of adventure in a new country--are given equal weight in their role in her decision between the old (Ireland) and the new (Brooklyn). Eilis longs for love, as most people do, but she has a life beyond men which is explored in depth in Brooklyn.

3) The men are her equals--in different ways

Eilis' choice between Tony and Jim is not easy. Both men have a lot to offer her, as well drawbacks. Tony is warm, passionate, and--most importantly--is there for Eilis at a time when she feels lonely and homesick. He is "home" personified. But then there's Jim. Played by the incredibly handsome Domnhall Gleeson, Jim is exceptionally good-looking, educated (whereas Tony is barely literate), from a rich family (Tony's family is solidly blue collar), and in many ways is Eilis' equal. He also--most importantly--lives in Ireland, alongside Eilis' friends and family. Jim is "home" personified.

So with two men who represent "home", Eilis does not have an easy choice. She must choose which home she herself wants.

With its remarkable cast, beautiful cinematography and costumes, and open-hearted view of the life, Brooklyn is worth immersing yourself in. It's a love story without the cliche, a coming of age story without the melodrama, and a period piece that feels lived in. I can't say enough great things about this movie.

Grade: A

Silver Tongued

Movies: Do I Sound Gay?

Do I Sound Gay? is a documentary by journalist David Thorpe that explores the so-called "gay voice" or "gay accent". It's not the most substantial of documentaries, but it raises some interesting questions.

Thorpe interviews a number of celebrities about gay voices, including Dan Savage, David Sedaris, Margaret Cho, and Tim Gunn. Listening to their perspectives is far more interesting than listening to Thorpe talk to his own friends about his own insecurities surrounding his voice (his friends are basically like, "who cares?"). 

Sedaris, in particular, has a couple moments of honesty and vulnerability that are touching--such as his embarrassment when people call him "ma'am" on the phone or his shame-ridden delight when someone meets him and says "I didn't know you were gay." His comments get to the the heart of the matter: 1) the "gay accent" sounds effeminate to most people's ears and 2) a number of gay men are embarrassed by it for a variety of reasons, not least of which is, as Dan Savage bluntly explains, good old fashioned misogyny. Gay guys don't want to sound like women because being "like a woman" is humiliating for a man, no matter his sexual orientation.

Thorpe also visits a speech therapist who points out his habit of up-talking, which is the thing where it always sounds like you're asking a question even when you're making a statement. She also makes him aware of his tendency to hang on to his vowels. These are all speech patterns women tend to exhibit more than men. So, again, we have the female/gay male connection.

A theory that Thorpe points to is that people tend to pattern their speech on those they spend the most time with while growing up. So for some gay men, and many women, that's female relatives and friends. Thorpe gives the example of one of his gay friends who grew up with four brothers and thus sounds "the straightest of all of us".

I'm not a gay man, so I can't speak to that experience. But as a woman, I do know that women are given mixed messages about their speech. For example, we are taught not to sound too assertive, lest we alienate people and come off as bitchy. This is one reason why women up-talk, say "I'm sorry" a lot, or act self-deprecatingly. But then, we're also told that our speech patterns hold us back--by up-talking, apologizing, and having "vocal fry" (I'm probably most guilty of that last one), we come off as weak and ineffective. As with many aspects of womanhood, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

This leads to a lot of interesting, and potentially upsetting questions. Why are gay men seen as "effeminate"? Is that something our culture thrusts upon them? Are gay men more "privileged" than women...or are they less privileged? And does amount of privilege really matter when both groups still struggle for dignity and equality? Growing up, I realized that straight men seemed to reserve a special anger/hatred/violence for "flaming" gay guys. Is this because those straight men hate women...or just hate other men who don't act masculine?

The answers to these questions aren't simple. Gender and sexuality don't fit neatly into boxes--there really is no concrete definition of what it means to be "masculine", "feminine", "gay", or "straight"...and I think most of us logically know this despite our efforts to categorize people for reasons both harmless (hey, I want to know if that cute guy is gay or straight before I ask him out!) or harmful.

Thorpe's documentary merely scratches the surface of this topic. It raises more questions than it answers, and it barely touches on other markers of gayness, like body language and clothing. It also briefly brings pop culture into the mix, using clips from old movies to show how gay characters have been portrayed as harmless, effeminate sidekicks and/or dangerous killers (children's movies are no exception--think Scar from The Lion King). But not until very recently have they been portrayed as normal human beings and/or heroes.

I'd love to see more work from Thorpe. Do I Sound Gay? is an more of an appetizer than a full meal.

Grade: B-

Black and White and Red All Over

Movies: Crimson Peak

Guillermo del Toro's Crimson Peak isn't so much "good" as it is entertaining. The film has an enormous gothic sensibility, with a crumbling old mansion at its center; and like many gothic novels and films, the melodrama is rampant and, at times, hilarious.

Mia Wasikowska plays Edith Cushing, an aspiring writer who falls for delicate, pale Baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). Thomas and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) are titled but poor, forced to travel the world all but begging for funds to help get Thomas' invention--a machine that pulls red clay from the ground so that it can be made into bricks--afloat. Despite the Sharpe's destitution and her father's distrust of the siblings, Edith falls for Thomas and the two get married and travel to England to Allerdale Hall, the Sharpe's family mansion which is in complete ruin. It's also filled with unsavory spirits.

To say that Crimson Peak is over the top is putting it lightly. The film has more plot holes than a moth-eaten negligee and enough half-baked metaphors to fill a 7th grade English class. Allerdale Hall is built on a red clay mine. Since the house is so old, it's slowly sinking into the ground, which means that the clay oozes through the floorboards looking, of course, like thick, red blood. Edith is a sensitive woman who has seen ghosts her whole life--so naturally she can't get a decent night's sleep in a place like Allerdale Hall--a veritable boarding house for ghosts (interestingly, the ghosts are all portrayed as having Nosferatu-like fingers and big, ol' titties [they're all lady ghosts, you see]). But despite seeing ghosts literally every second, Edith never thinks to actually leave Allerdale Hall--nor does she seem all that frightened to begin with.

The secrets of the house--and of the Sharpe siblings--is revealed slowly over the course of the film. When the big "twist" is revealed, it's not all that shocking. More of a confirmation of what the viewer was already expecting.

But despite the ridiculousness of the whole premise, Crimson Peak is good, mildly spooky fun (it's a good scary movie for people who can barely tolerate scary movies). And it is absolutely gorgeous. The fact that red, blood-like clay leaks through every crevice of the mansion is certainly a ham-fisted metaphor for violence and decay, but damn if it doesn't look beautiful and haunting on the big screen. And the ridiculous, high-necked gowns that Chastain and Wasikowska wear should have their own museum exhibit.

So: mediocre film, good fun, and Tom Hiddleston's ass. It's not the worst night you could have at the movies.

Grade: B-

A Brilliant Asshole

Movies: Steve Jobs

Some of the promotional materials for Steve Jobs ask "Can a great man be good?" Indeed, this is the question at the center of the beautifully filmed, theatrically paced movie.

I don't know a lot about Steve Jobs. I know he wore black turtlenecks and died of cancer--cancer that was initially curable, though he refused traditional Western treatments for it. So really, Jobs was killed by his own hubris, which, in Greek tragedy style, is incredibly appropriate given that he was brimming with self-importance.

Jobs was an asshole. A brilliant asshole. Which is a label we give, almost reverently, to Great Men (Great Women are dismissed as "bitches", but that seems to be changing).

This biopic was written by exactly the correct person to write it: Aaron Sorkin, master of the "walk and talk", a man with a love for Great Men (and the Women Who Stand Beside Them, But Not Too Close as to Gain Their Own Glory). Sorkin writes condescending assholes really well, and his script for Steve Jobs is excellent--witty, fast-paced, informative but not expository.

However, the movie transcends Sorkin-dom because director Danny Boyle at is also at the helm. Boyle's films are edgy and gorgeous. Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, 127 Hours: they're nervy, edgy, and cool. Boyle takes Sorkin's intellectual script and shakes it up with scenes filmed at skewed angles, or softens it with scenes of a young girl wandering among Christmas lights in the bowels of the symphony hall where Jobs launched one of his greatest failures: the NeXT computer. Together, Boyle and Sorkin create a film that is arty and intellectual, dreamy and down-to-earth, soft and hard.

That young girl is Lisa Brennan. Lisa was Jobs' daughter, though he denied paternity for years (although he bought Lisa and her mother, Chrisann, a house and paid child support). The beating heart of Steve Jobs is Jobs' relationship with Lisa. The film suggests that once Jobs realized Lisa was a very intelligent girl, he started accepting that maybe, in fact, she was his.



Jobs is played by Michael Fassbender. Fassbender doesn't really look like Jobs at all. He's too square-jawed, handsome, and masculine. But he nails Jobs' nasally, soft-spoken tone of voice. Fassbender, who is also known as a brilliant asshole (albeit in the world of acting, not computers), is surprisingly appropriate to take on the role of a man who is very soft-spoken and perhaps even a bit wimpy-looking, but is aggressive and off-putting to even his close confidants. One of those confidants is Joanna Hoffman (played just fucking wonderfully and perfectly by Kate Winslet), his marketing executive and the only person who is able to hold her own around him.

The film is divided into three 40 minute acts: in 1984 at the launch of the Apple Macintosh, in 1988 at the launch of the NeXT computer, and in 1998 at the launch of the iMac. The action during these acts is almost all "behind the scenes". Jobs interacts with the same people each time: Hoffman, Lisa and her mother, John Sculley (played by Jeff Daniels)--who was the Apple CEO from 1983 to 1993 and played a major role in ousting Jobs from his own company--and Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen). In each of these acts we see the various power struggles Jobs had with those closest to him and we also learn a bit about the history of Apple.

Steve Jobs doesn't set out to give all the entire arc of Jobs' life and achievements, but rather a glimpse into a few key moments in his career. Biopics that try to show ALL of someone's life often fail since they can only scratch the surface of each life event. By focusing on literally three days in Jobs' life and his interactions with just a handful of people, we learn more about the man than we would if the film tried to cram his entire life into 2 hours.

Unless you are 1) a Steve Jobs fanatic and/or 2) a film buff who wants to see the film for its dream-team collaborators, Steve Jobs probably won't interest you all that much. But, for what it is, Steve Jobs is a great film and fitting tribute to a complex and difficult man.

Grade: B+

PS: for whatever it's worth, I'm typing out this review on a MacBook Air...and I fucking love my MacBook Air.

Spooky Scary

Movies: Favorite scary movies

Hello, Dear Readers,

In honor of Halloween, I present to you a few of my favorite scary movies--with a convenient "scare-ometer" to gauge how frightening the films are. Enjoy!


Nosferatu (1922)

This silent German classic, directed by F.W. Murnau, depicts a vampire--Count Orlock--who is so iconic that he became the subject of an episode of 90's Nickelodeon TV show Are You Afraid of the Dark. Unlike the majority of portrayals of vampires on screen, Count Orlock is not sexy. Bald, with snow-white skin, long fingers, and rat-like teeth, Orlock has none of the seductive powers of Dracula. He is simply terrifying. Nosferatu was one of the first silent movies I ever saw, and though it may not be quite as frightening as some of the other films on this list, its images are forever seared in my brain.

 Scare-ometer: 2 out of 4 skulls


***

 Rosemary's Baby (1968)

The scariest thing about this 1968 film about a woman (Mia Farrow) carrying Satan's child isn't the plot--it's the fact that the director (Roman Polanski) once raped a teen girl and still received a standing ovation at the Oscars when he won Best Director for The Pianist. Womp.

Despite my repulsion at Polanski's crimes, I simply cannot ignore the suspense, dread, and artful storytelling of Rosemary's Baby. In short, this film gives me the creepy-crawlies no matter how many times I watch it. The sense of claustrophobia and dread as Rosemary creeps around her own New York City apartment, becoming more and more paranoid about her difficult pregnancy and the strange behavior of her husband, Guy, is suffocating. I find myself looking over my shoulder whenever I watch the movie. Another element I love about Rosemary's Baby is the "satanic panic" plot and Rosemary's quest to find answer about her strange, elderly neighbors through both research and--in one memorable scene--Scrabble tiles. Rosemary's Baby is not only a masterpiece of horror, it's a masterpiece of film in general.

Scare-ometer: 2.5 out of 4 skulls

***

Suspiria (1977) and Deep Red (1975)

Two films directed by Dario Argento--one about a coven of witches at a ballet school and the other about a series of bizarre murders--Suspiria and Deep Red are exemplary giallo films. Both of them are deeply unsettling and feature violent and imaginative deaths. They're just barely on the right side of campy/trashy horror. They're also really, really entertaining. For those with sensitive ears, be warned that Suspiria has a harsh score by prog rock band Goblin that sounds like hell and adds to the general feeling of discomfort while watching the film.

Scare-ometer: 
Suspiria: 3.5 out of 4 skulls
Deep Red: 3 out of 4 skulls

***


The Shining (1980)

Based on the book by a master of horror, and directed by a genius with an especial talent for cinematography both vibrant and clinical, The Shining is inevitably a creep-fest of the highest order. Although author Stephen King hated director Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of his novel, I personally feel that Kubrick brought the sheer insanity of King's writing (King was extremely fucked up on drugs when he wrote The Shining--and you can tell, especially when Jack Torrance starts going nuts) to the big screen perfectly. From the use of a child's perspective as Danny Torrance rolls down the hotel hallways on his Big Wheel, to the weird mixture of sexuality and horror in the scene where Jack finds a naked lady in room 237, there is something absolutely sinister about The Shining. I never get sick of watching it.

Scare-ometer: 3 our of 4 skulls

***

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Like Rosemary's Baby, The Silence of the Lambs is a movie that no matter how many times I watch it, I never stop being freaked out by it. Clarice Starling's investigation into the kidnapping and murder of half a dozen young women leads her to some strange and horrifying places, such as an abandoned storage unit...and to Dr. Hannibal Lecter's prison cell. The Silence of the Lambs is not only good horror, it's a great film with two extremely solid performances at its center: Jodie Foster in a very pro-woman, feminist role as the strong, intelligent, almost foolishly brave Starling, and Anthony Hopkins as the psychopathic charmer Dr. Lecter. While the film's take on transgender individuals is, shall we say, a bit out-dated, Ted Levine's performance as killer Buffalo Bill makes me shudder to this day. It puts the lotion on its skin...

Scare-ometer: 3 out of 4 skulls

***

The Ring (2002)

The American remake of Ringu brought Japanese-style horror, with its long-haired, crawling ghosts, to the States. And it scared the ever-loving shit out of 16 year old me. I could barely sleep for a week after I watched it in the theatres with a couple friends. Between the heart-stopping opening sequence, that damn horse jumping off the ship, and the cursed film itself, The Ring has some images you won't soon forget. Almost everyone I know who has seen this film was fucking terrified of phones, televisions, and long-haired little girls afterward. The film's cinematography, based on the beautiful yet eerie paintings of Andrew Wyeth, make the viewer feel both scared and depressed. And the twist at the end ("You weren't supposed to help her.") which turns the "help a ghost to move on and it will leave you alone" trope on its head is genius.

Scare-ometer: 4 out of 4 skulls

***

The Descent (2005)

A couple movies on this list have elements of claustrophobia: Rosemary's apartment, The Overlook Hotel, etc. But nothing compares to the claustrophobic nightmare that is The Descent. Six women go spelunking--an activity the ladies have enjoyed doing together for years. After a passage in the cave collapses, one of the women admits that she led the group into an unexplored cave system--which is extremely dangerous. As the women try to figure out an alternative exit, their camaraderie breaks down. But the horror is only beginning. Various members of the group start seeing and hearing things around the cave. It becomes clear that they are not alone.

The Descent is not child's play. This is a scary fucking movie. It combines fear of being trapped, fear of monsters, and emotional trauma and doesn't let up. It also has a number of highly effective jump scenes. Watch at your own risk.

 Scare-ometer: 4 out of 4 skulls

***

Insidious (2010)

Directed by James Wan, Insidious has a really different premise. Patrick Wilson (who is amazing in everything and I want to have 10,000 of his babies) and Rose Byrne (she's cool too) play Josh and Renai Lambert, the young parents of Dalton and Foster Lambert. After Dalton takes a spill off a ladder, he ends up in a coma--a situation that would be any parent's worst nightmare. But it gets worse. As Dalton languishes, the Lambert's home seems to become infested with ghouls and bad vibes. The Lamberts hire a psychic who explains that Dalton is able to astral project onto another plane/dimension. His comatose body is serving as a bridge of sorts from the other dimension to this one, letting in all kinds of creepy, spooky things. Yeah, it sounds weird, but it somehow works in the movie. In order to save his son, Josh allows himself to be put in a trance so that he can also project to wherever his son has gone and bring him back. Although PG-13, Insidious is so scary, it *feels* like it should be rated R. It also has an infamous jump scene that practically made me shit myself. If you watch it, good luck...

Scare-ometer: 4 out of 4 skulls

***

The Conjuring (2013)

For the more sensitive movie-goer, The Conjuring (also directed by James Wan) is a gentler, more old fashioned scary movie. Based on the "true" story of the Perron family, the film takes place in 1971 and has fabulous costume and set design. Carolyn and Roger Perron (played wonderfully by Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) and their 5 daughters move into a beautiful farm house, only to find that's it's just fucking lousy with ghosts. Ghosts out the wazoo, I tells ya! So after an increasing number of sleepless nights, Carolyn seeks out the help of Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, also great), ghost hunters who have devoted their lives to cleansing people's homes of spirits.

Although there are some truly original scares in The Conjuring (including the infamous "three claps" game), the film builds suspense by holding back instead of going for dozens of cheap jump scares. I mentioned above that the movie has an old fashioned feeling to it, and not just because it's a period film. It reminded me of the more suspenseful, less gory scary movies of the 60's and 70's. It was also the movie that brought me back to horror after years of avoiding scary movies completely (thanks to the trauma I suffered by watching The Ring). So if you're looking for a chilling movie that isn't *quite* as intense, The Conjuring is a good one to check out.

Scare-ometer: 3.5 out of 4 skulls

***

It Follows (2014)

It Follows, directed by David Robert Mitchell, also has a retro feel--partially because of its awesome synth score. It's a movie I would describe as singular and unique. The monster at the center of the film can take the shape of any person--an old woman, a tall man, a close friend. And the monster doesn't run at you or jump out at you from the bushes--it simply walks directly at you at a steady pace. This monster, or demon, or whatever it is, is passed from one victim to the next through sexual activity. Once you're "infected", it will find you and kill you--unless you have sex with the next person and pass it to them. But beware, if the person you pass it to is killed by this thing, the curse reverts back to you.

The rules of this film sound both complicated and goofy when I try to lay them out in words. Director Mitchell avoids goofiness by only giving the characters (and thus, the viewer) a tiny bit of information at a time--they're just as confused about this thing as we are, and our questions ("Can you kill this thing by shooting it?") are explored and answered over the course of the film. Beware though--if you like your movies wrapped up in a nice, explanatory bow at the end, It Follows may not be for you.

Scare-ometer: 3.5 out of 4 skulls

***

So there you have it--some of my favorite scary movies. There are many more, of course (The Babadook, Audition, You're Next, and Bram Stoker's Dracula are a few "honorable mentions" for this list), but the above films are ones that are not only excellent, terrifying scary movies, but great films the stand on their own outside of the horror genre.

Happy Halloween!

He Blinded Me With SCIENCE

Movies: The Martian

Ridley Scott's The Martian (based on Andy Weir's bestselling novel, which I have not read), requires a good amount of suspension of disbelief. But if you're willing to suspend that disbelief, you're in for an optimistic, pro-humanity, pro-science treat. And the ride is definitely worth it.
The Martian takes place in the not-too-distant future. The United States makes regular trips to Mars, and during one particular mission, a team of astronauts (lead by Jessica Chastain) is forced to evacuate the planet because of an intense storm. Their colleague, Mark Wattney (Matt Damon), is hit with debris during the storm and the team can't rescue him. They assume he's dead and take off without him...

...but he's not dead. Wattney comes to, realizing that a piece of debris that punctured him also plugged what would have been a deadly hole in his spacesuit. He makes it back to the team's base camp before his oxygen runs out. But even though he has survived the storm, he is basically living on borrowed time. He calculates that it will be 4 years until the next group of astronauts arrive...and he can only stretch his food supplies for about a year.

Not one to give up easily, Wattney decides to "science the shit" out of his hopeless situation. He keeps a video diary of his attempts (and successes!) to grow food on the desolate planet and rejigger a moon buggy so that he can drive it to where he is supposed to "meet" the next mission to Mars. Damon plays Wattney with a jokey, friendly looseness. He's relaxed and calm in the face of almost certain death. I enjoyed Damon's performance, although it was a bit too similar to George Clooney's performance in Gravity: a handsome astronaut who jokes and flirts with Sandra Bullock even as he is literally drifting into space to die. Like Clooney, Damon could have used a few more moments of humanity. I would have liked to see a good, snot-nosed, weeping and gnashing of teeth scene in addition to his scenes of being a cool, science-nerd badass.

Meanwhile on Earth, NASA realizes that Wattney is still alive collectively brainstorms ways to get a rescue mission to him before he starves. This is where we have to suspend our disbelief--would NASA really spend millions (or billions) or dollars and months/years of time to rescue one man? Or would they simply cover up their mistake and let Wattney die--with no citizens the wiser about what happened? The skeptical side of me says there's no way in hell they'd try to rescue this guy. But The Martian isn't about the *real* world, it's about the *ideal* world.

The Martian envisions a United States that values collaboration, ingenuity, and science. A US that laughs in the face of danger while it grows potatoes from its own shit on planet Mars. It's a story that the US likes to tell about itself, but rarely (though certainly we've had our moments as a country) puts its money where its mouth is. We say that we're smart, we're brave, and we value human life--where, actually, we have politicians that don't believe in climate change or vaccines and we are careless not just with human life around the world, but the very humans living within our borders.

The Martian gives us a beautiful, hopeful glimpse of what we could be, as a nation, if we were "our best selves" as many a pop guru puts it. And I admire the film for that.

This is a film Americans need right now. A story about how logic and intelligence can solve problems. We've become increasing skeptical of science and intellectualism over the past couple decades, and it's a real shame. Of course, yes, there have always been folks skeptical of science or who lean too heavily on faith and misinformation. But as someone who works in education, it saddens me that some people now see ignorance as a badge of honor, or who dig in their heels to their false beliefs when presented with accurate facts.

The Martian, while not a perfect movie, is a film that proudly proclaims that it's cool to be smart and dares to believe that if we all put our heads together, we can achieve anything.

Grade: B

Short Takes

Movies: The Skeleton Twins, Obvious Child, Enemy, Sleeping Beauty, Going Clear

To paraphrase John Oliver on Last Week Tonight: just time for a quick recap of these movies I've seen recently

The Skeleton Twins

As far as I'm concerned, low-key dramedy The Skeleton Twins serves one major purpose: to highlight Bill Hader's gifts as an actor. Between his role here as depressed, gay, 30-something Milo and his role as the romantic lead in Trainwreck, Hader is killing it in his post-Saturday Night Live career.


As Milo attempts suicide in the opening scene, his estranged twin sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig, not very impressive in this role) is also contemplating suicide miles away. As she stares down at a handful of pills, she's get a phone call informing her that her brother is in the hospital. The twins are thrown back into each others' lives and gradually realize that maybe a lot of their problems in life have been caused by their estrangement.

Luke Wilson costars as Maggie's extremely nice doofus of a husband, and he's great in the role, but The Skeleton Twins is ultimately Hader's show.

Grade: B

***

Obvious Child

Obvious Child isn't all that different from The Skeleton Twins in its low-key, slice-of-life plot, only where Twins begins with a suicide attempt, Child ends with an abortion. Starring comedian Jenny Slate, Obvious Child has been called the 'abortion rom-com', but that's a bit of a misnomer since the abortion doesn't play a huge role in the film--it happens at the end, almost as an afterthought, which is precisely the intention of the filmmakers; i.e. to present a woman getting an abortion as NDB.

Slate plays Donna, whose boyfriend of many years dumps her. She goes to a bar and has drunken rebound sex with a random dude named Max (like ya do) who turns out to be a really nice person who actually wants to date her. Most of the movie is Max (Jake Lacey) trying to convince Donna to go out with him. Oh, she also gets preggers from that hook-up, which complicates matter.

I liked Obvious Child a lot, but it wasn't quite as good as I had been promised by the feminist blog-o-sphere. I think they were just happy to see abortion portrayed as not an insane tragedy. And it does in fact accomplish that goal.

Grade: B



***

Enemy

Ugh. The Redbox description of director Denis Villeneuve's film Enemy calls it an "erotic thriller". I wish! Instead, this arthouse film, starring Jake Gyllenhaal (the sole reason I rented it) is an abstruse, confusing mess. Gyllenhaal plays a college professor who winds up meeting a man who looks exactly like him (also played by Gyllenhaal). He attempts to unravel the mystery: are they twins separated at birth? Two versions of the same man living in alternate universes? Beats me. We never get a straight answer and it's very annoying. This is the second film of Villeneuve's I've seen and not enjoyed (I wasn't crazy about Prisoners).

Grade: C-

***

Sleeping Beauty

This ain't your grandmother's fairy tale. Sleeping Beauty (2011) stars waifish Emily Browning as cash-strapped college student Lucy who takes a job providing erotic companionship to rich, old men. No, she's not a prostitute--she never has sex with these men. Instead, Lucy allows herself to be drugged into a deep sleep and then put into a bed where these old pervs can come in and do almost anything they want to except penetrate her or leave marks.

The film, directed by author Julia Leigh is very beautiful, but only "erotic" in the way films like Belle de Jour and Eyes Wide Shut are. That is to say, not at all. There's no heat, only chill. One assumes that there's a deeper point the director is trying to make here--perhaps that men prefer women young, beautiful, and comatose--but when the movie is over you may scratch your head and say "what was the point?"

Grade: B-

***

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Directed by Alex Gibney and based on the thoroughly researched book by Lawrence Wring, Going Clear takes a deep dive into Scientology: what it is, what its followers believe, how it started, and what convinces people to stay in it. Gibney and Wright take a firm stance against Scientology, particularly for its abusive tactics (especially towards "Sea Org", aka the closest thing Scientology has to a clergy) and extreme wealth hoarding (since it's technically a "religion", Scientology churches are tax exempt).

The best part of Going Clear are the candid interviews with former members, such as director Paul Haggis. Their willingness to be forthright to the point of admitting that they were sucked into a cult gives the film both its emotional heart (Haggis left in part because Scientology is still pretty anti-gay and he has two gay daughters) and its credibility.

Beware: watching Going Clear will make you question your own religion, political, and social beliefs in that you'll start to see group think patterns (in less extreme forms than in Scientology) everywhere.

Grade: A

Underage Boinking

Movies: The Diary of a Teenage Girl

I had sex today. Holy shit.

So begins the magical, confrontational, uncomfortable film The Diary of a Teenage Girl. Based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, who also wrote the screenplay, Diary is a funny and unflinching glimpse into the mind of 15 year old Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) who is equal parts horny, emotional, and whip smart. Growing up in 1976 San Francisco and being raised by a single mom who is *really* into partying (Kristen Wiig), Minnie has ample opportunity to explore her sexuality and her interest in comics and art...but she chooses to explore the former with Mom's 35 year old boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgaard).

This is where Diary presents a challenge: Minnie's coming of age (which includes more than her sexual awakening, btw) is shown primarily through the lens of her ongoing sexual relationship with a man 20 years her senior. The filmmakers handle this relationship in the most balanced, honest way possible: they make it clear that it is as consensual as possible, with Minnie excited by sex with Monroe, but they also make it clear how manipulative and unequal it is, with Monroe turning his own guilt back on Minnie, saying that she's manipulating him. The filmmakers never excuse Monroe's actions or suggest that because Minnie has fully developed secondary sex characteristics she's not really a child. By examining Minnie's inner-world, which is much like an other 15 year old's--she makes many poorly thought out choices, but also has moments of wisdom and is often sharper and more clear-eyed than the adults around her--the film encourage us to understand and empathize with her relationship with Monroe while not thinking that it's totally ok.

Let me first say that the acting is incredible in The Diary of a Teenage Girl. Bel Powley, who is 23, plays the 15 year old Minnie as a girl who is becoming aware of her own power in the world. Her physical features are striking: a curtain of long, black hair; huge eyes; a lovely figure--and the film lingers on her body in a way that doesn't feel exploitative (perhaps because there is a female director behind the camera?) but feels...knowing. Minnie spends some time looking at her naked breasts in the mirror and contemplating her body. She feels fat, but she also feels sexy. I'd argue that this war of emotions over how to view our bodies is something every woman (can't speak for men, sorry) is familiar with.

Alexander Skarsgaard plays Monroe perfectly--he may be 35, but he's about as emotionally mature as Minnie herself. He's basically a really cute man-baby, so it's easy to see why Minnie would like him. It takes guts to play someone who fucks an underage person, and  it takes talent to play them well--not as a total monster, but certainly not in a way that excuses his actions--so hats off to Skarsgaard. I can't really imagine anyone else in this role.

A subplot in Diary is Minnie's growing interest in comics and comic art. Living in San Francisco in the late 70's, she has opportunities to explore the world of underground comics (including sending Aline Kominsky some of her comics and getting encouragement back). The film incorporates graphic art, with scenes that fluidly move in and out of animation.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl shows a young woman exploring the boundaries of her sexuality and coming out the other side alive and better for it. This will disturb viewers who would prefer to think of teen girls as sexless and innocent. I can assure you--you're living in a dream world if you believe that. When I was 15, I was the ultimate "good girl"--no drinking, no drugs, and certainly no sex. But sex took up about 75% of my brain space. Like Minnie, I was both intellectually precocious and emotionally all over the place. That's the thing about 15 year olds that can be disturbing to adults: we might *look* like we're ready for the shit the world throws at us, but our brains haven't yet caught up to our bodies. The Diary of a Teenage Girl captures this paradox: humans at the peak of hormones and sexual desire who are still a little too young and inexperienced to know the full consequences of their actions. But instead of condemning or belittling the awakening a 15 year old girl might go through, Diary treats it as important and meaningful.

Grade: A