He Likes to Watch

Movies: Don Jon

Don Jon, is the first full-length film directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who has previously directed a few short films) and, perhaps I'm biased since JGL is both attractive *and* incredibly talented, but I quite enjoyed the film despite its flaws.

I have to hand it to JGL: not many directors are capable of tackling the issue of pornography with any sense of nuance or moderation. Previous films about porn (or, rather, the porn industry) include such uplifting films such as Lovelace and Boogie Nights, in which characters (real or fictional) pretty much have their lives ruined by porn.

Don Jon is not exactly gung-ho about porn, but it is slightly more even-handed and light-hearted. However, I felt a bit spoon-fed by JGL's message that real sex between people who care about each other is more fulfilling than jacking it to an erotic video.

Btw...there is adult language in this review.

JGL plays Jon Martello, a young New Jersey guy living a pretty simple life. As he explains in a voiceover, there are only a few things he cares about in life: his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls, and his porn. But Jon has a special relationship with porn. He lovingly describes how porn is far better than real sex, even real sex with a beautiful lady (Jon regularly takes home 8s, 9s, even "dimes" he picks up at clubs). In porn, you get the payoff with none of the work. The girls are willing to do stuff that real life ladies aren't willing to do. And there are no STDs or icky emotional complications. So as much as Jon prides himself on being good with the ladies, his true love is between himself and...well, himself (and his computer).

That is, until he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson, playing an equally sultry and grating Jersey girl). Barbara is beautiful--easily a dime, in Jon's estimation--and Jon decides he's in love with her. After catching him watching porn on his laptop one night, Barbara freaks out and makes him promise to never indulge in porn again. Jon agrees in order to placate her.

But over time it becomes clear that Barbara is very controlling--and not just about the websites Jon visits. At first, it seems like she just wants a serious, grown-up relationship with Jon: she insists on meeting his parents and friends, makes him wait to have sex with her, and encourages him to continue going to school in hopes that he can get a "real" job someday (Jon's a bartender). But all of the positives Barbara brings into Jon's life are not because she cares about who he truly is, but because she is shaping him to be the man *she* wants. Barbara has a fixation of her own: romantic movies with unrealistic expectations, and these movies are affecting her ability to accept imperfections in relationships.

The analogy JGL draws between romantic films and porn is not *entirely* accurate, but it does show how the media we consume leads to unrealistic expectations about other people. Mainstream porn promotes a certain body type and certain way of having sex. Romantic movies suggest that your "true love" will be all you need and fulfill you in every way. Both forms of media promote a selfish way of viewing love and sex.

Neither Barbara nor Jon fully understand that their preferred entertainment are fantasy-based and not reflective of reality. And both Barbara and Jon are selfish people with agendas who are stuck in their own ruts about how sex and love should be.

But since this is Jon's film, he begins to break out of his rut and open his mind to what he truly seeks in a partner and how good sex can be when it's actually meaningful.

<Spoilers, dawg!>

Jon engages in an awkward friendship that blossoms into a deeper relationship with Esther (Julianne Moore), an older woman he meets in his adult education course. At first, Jon barely perceives her (she's an old lady, and he doesn't care about old chicks), but by the end of the film, the two have a couple intensely intimate scenes that in my mind make the film. They also engage is some very heavy-handed discussions about porn that, as I mentioned above, feel like JGL is spoon-feeding his message to the audience. That, I didn't like so much.

</End spoilers>

One major drawback of Don Jon is that it treats pornography and porn-viewers as a monolith. We don't see much of the porn Jon watches (it's an R-rated movie, not an NC-17 movie, after all), but his voice over describes the "tits, ass, blowjobs, sex, and cum shots". The kind of porn Jon watches is what I'd consider "mainstream"--fairly vanilla and directed toward heterosexual men. Also, the movie draws a clear line between men and women when it comes to attitudes toward porn. Jon and his guy friends take porn for granted--it's just part of their lives. Barbara is flat-out disgusted by it. The other main female character, Esther, isn't disgusted by it, but points out that it's pretty cheap compared to "the real thing".

The are plenty of women who watch porn (and if you count written erotica, the number shoots up even further). There are also gay people and trans* people who watch porn. And despite the prevalence of mainstream (boring) porn, I can guarantee you that there is pornography for every kink, position, gender, political persuasion, and fantasy in the book. And--you might not believe this, but I swear it's true--there are *couples* that watch porn *together* (or even separately sometimes!) as part of their sex lives. Mind blown, right? Well, something's getting blown anyway.

Obviously, Don Jon isn't claiming to be an academic treatise on pornography, but it would have been nice if JGL had shown a few more shades of a topic that really isn't black and white. Also, the discussion about how much is too much is an important one, but instead of really examining how a person can become addicted to pornography, Jon is able to quit cold turkey when he meets the right person. That seems just an unrealistic as the romantic comedies Barbara is obsessed with. 

Don Jon is a funny, very entertaining movie. The acting is excellent (Tony Danza gives a terrifying and hilarious performance as Jon's macho dad). There are moments of truth and poignancy scattered among a pretty simplistic and on-the-nose take on the topic of porn. But JGL's thesis, that with our world of endless media consumption, we are practically born and raised to objectify other people (particularly, women being objectified and men doing the objectification), is solid. The film makes the case that we have to re-train our brains to see other people as human individuals with needs of their own who aren't there to "complete" us if we want to have meaningful relationships. And I think that's a true and important message.

4 out of 5 stars

Horrorshow

Movies, Books: You're Next, The World's End, American Mary, Night Film


Hello dear readers, it's been too long! I haven't been able to update due to a busy period in my work and social life, so I'm back with a mega-review of some of the movies (plus a book!) I've seen/read lately. Appropriately, with Halloween around the corner, they all fall into (or close to, at least) the horror genre.


You're Next

Adam Wingard's indie take on the classic home invasion film combines dry comedy with blood and guts in a way that reminds one of Scream. It's a very self-aware horror film. The cast is made up of unknowns--some of whom (Ti West and Joe Swanberg, for example) are filmmakers themselves, lending the film a winking sense of humor (especially when two characters get into a passive-aggressive argument over "underground cinema" at the dinner table).

You're Next follows a WASPy clan of adults: Mom and Dad are in their 60's, wealthy and retired, and just purchased a mansion out in the middle of nowhere. They invite their grown children, three sons and a daughter, and their kids' significant others to spend the weekend celebrating the new abode.

Little does the family know that they've fallen into a trap. During a family dinner, all hell breaks loose when one of the guests is killed in a gruesome and unexpected way. The chaos that follows is palpable and the shaky camera and quick-cutting add to a feeling of fear and nausea.


One guest, Erin (Sharni Vinson), the girlfriend of one of the sons, emerges as leader during the invasion and makes for an unusual and ass-kicking heroine. She doesn't use brute strength or karate moves to fight off the bad guys; rather, she is resourceful, calm, and uses her outrage to fuel her when she gets a bad guy in her sights (and proceeds to bash his head in). I loved Erin. She was so unexpected and unique. I don't think I've seen a character quite like her before.

There is a twist and it's revealed early, which works in the film's favor. It also changes your entire perspective and makes you think back to events that happened earlier to see if you can find the clues. I found You're Next to be incredibly intelligent and entertaining with its meta take on its genre--kind of like the low budget slasher sister of Cabin in the Woods.

4 out of 5 stars

***

The World's End

While not strictly a horror movie, this genre mash-up of science fiction, comedy, and drama from the director, writers, and actors who brought you Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, has plenty of tension and violence (and menacing robots). It also has a surprisingly emotional core.

"The World's End" refers to the final pub in an epic pub crawl dreamed up by Gary King (Simon Pegg). He and his buddies attempted this twelve-pub marathon, dubbed "The Golden Mile", when they were young, spry lads in the '90's.  They didn't make it to all twelve pubs, but they had a hell of a night.

Decades later, Gary is a washed up loser in serious denial about his alcohol problem. He manages to round up his buddies--now grown, with kids, jobs, and middle-age spread--to recreate the journey they failed at years ago.

As the four friends--including one who is now a teetotaler--hit the bars in their old hometown, they realize something is amiss. The locals, including some people the guys grew up with, are acting very bizarre. After a bar fight with some teens reveals that robots have taken over the town (not exactly a spoiler--the plot twist is in the trailer), the guys have to figure out how to finish the pub crawl with their humanity intact.

What's great about The World's End is that it so seamlessly weaves together a variety of genres. On the one hand, the film is a dramedy about a guy who can't stop living in the past, even as everyone around him has moved on. The film doesn't skimp on the painful confrontations between Gary and his friends--particularly Andy (Nick Frost), a man who years ago made a stupid decision while drunk and had to live with the consequences, and now has to watch Gary continue to destroy himself with booze. The film doesn't celebrate drunkeness in the way movies like The Hangover tend to, but it's also not preachy or overly sentimental.

On the other hand, The World's End is a ridiculous comedy about robots and the apocalypse. Just like in Shaun of the Dead, the horror is suffused with outrageous, kooky humor.

While Shaun of the Dead will probably always be my favorite in Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost's "Cornetto Trilogy", The World's End just seems like the best film. It somehow manages to balance sadness with joy, humor with action, and robots with booze without coming off as schizophrenic or overstuffed. No small feat.

4.5 out of 5 stars


***

American Mary

Ah, now here's some good, old-fashioned body horror. Directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska (who also plays twins in the movie), American Mary is an indie (and somewhat amateurish) horror film with a female lead who is both the heroine and the villain.


Mary Mason is a medical student who is sick and tired of med school. She's poor, one of her professors is a huge dick, and after a sickening turning point (involving the evil professor), Mary finds herself scoping out the world of extreme body modification. While initially disgusted by the requests of her customers, she finds that she excels at splitting tongues, removing nipples, and adding sub-dermal devil horns to her patients. While the parade of freakish body parts and strange characters is horrific in its own right, there is a subplot about that old, evil professor which *truly* brings the horror to a boil.


Oh, alright, I'll tell you. Spoilers!!

After inviting Mary to a "party" where he drugs and rapes her (and films the whole thing), Mary kidnaps Dr. Grant to use as her own personal guinea pig for practicing weird body modifications. By the end of the film, Dr. Grant is armless, legless, with his mouth sewn shut and hanging from his back skin on meathooks in Mary's apartment/dungeon. God only knows what she did to the parts of his body we don't see! This extremely grotesque torture shocked even me and was very effective horror...although certainly Dr. Grant's punishment didn't fit his crime.

/End spoilers!

American Mary was entertaining, I'll give it that. I definitely felt that strange, naughty delight--like I was watching something I shouldn't have been watching. For a movie directed by two women who were interviewed in Bitch magazine (a pretty staunch feminist mag), the film has some fucked up gender politics. There isn't a man in the movie who treats Mary kindly (except maybe Lance, a taciturn bodyguard). Her "mentors" are horrible assholes, and her "love interest" treats her like an object. Perhaps the message is that in a world of evil men, Mary must be strong--even cruel--to survive? But really, it's just an excuse to see sexy Mary, with her Bettie Page bangs and va-va-voom figure, torture and mutilate folks. Scary fun, but not exactly deep.

3.5 out of 5 stars

***

Night Film

I read Night Film, by Marisha Pessl, in two weeks. This is a 600 page novel, and I'm a slow reader. But I could. not. stop. There was one day where I got up and read for three hours in the morning, took a break for lunch, and read for three more hours in the afternoon. I haven't done that in God knows how long.

I don't know, it just seems like Night Film was written for me. It's about a girl, Ashley Cordova, who jumps to her death in an elevator shaft in New York City. Turns out, she's the daughter of reclusive film director Stanislas Cordova, a man whose terrifying "night films", shown in underground tunnels and available to purchase on Ebay for thousands of dollars, have earned him a cult-like following. Cordova is part Stanley Kubrick, part David Lynch, and part Dario Argento--an eccentric genius whose legend is larger than life itself.

When Scott McGrath, a journalist who tried to expose Cordova years before, and was promptly sued by the director's lawyers, hears about Ashley's death, he sees his chance to go after Cordova again. He finds himself hopelessly sucked into Cordova's vortex, and witness to increasingly bizarre places and events.

This book has underground websites, creepy sex clubs, witchcraft, mental hospitals--all the fascinating, scary things you can think of. There were passages that actually caused the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Pessl knows how to build suspense and rely on atmosphere and implication to horrify the reader.


Night Film isn't perfect though. There is a lot of exposition. Partway though the book, a pretty clear formula emerges: McGrath and his "partners" (Hopper, a former lover of Ashley, and Nora, a young woman who is fascinated by the case) would discover a lead, follow it, and wind up talking to someone who knew Cordova. That person would end up telling a story about Cordova and his family that would go on for dozens of pages. Usually, another lead would emerge from their story, which McGrath and company would then chase down. Wash, rinse, repeat. Now, while all this exposition was fascinating and thrilling, it's hard not to notice this kind of device when the author uses it over and over.

But despite the hefty amount of exposition, Night Film was such an immense pleasure to read, I forgive the book all its flaws. It's fun, it's scary, it's well-written and meticulously detailed. I'm just sad I can't forget all of it and go back and read it again with a blank slate.

5 out of 5 stars

Anything for his Daughter

Movies: Prisoners

Prisoners, director Denis Villeneuve's first English-language film, is a tense thriller with a weird and inconsistent moral framework.

The film opens on Thanksgiving weekend in Pennsylvania. Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) just took his teenage son hunting and the boy shot his first deer. We learn that Dover is a survivalist who values preparedness in all situations. He is also a religious man, who leads his family--son Ralph, young daughter Anna, and wife (played by Maria Bello, who I strongly dislike--more on that later) Grace--in prayer over a meal.

Setting up Dover as a man with extremely strong convictions, who is also handy with a deadly weapon or a toolbox, is crucial to the storyline. We'll see why in a bit.

The Dovers head over to their neighbors, the Birches, for a Thanksgiving meal. As the parents get tipsy on wine, the two young daughters--Anna Dover and Joy Birch--leave to go back to the Dover's house. But they never come back. After a neighborhood search turns up no sign of the girls, the cops get involved and the parents--particularly Dover--get more and more frantic.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Detective Loki (was Detective Thor on vacation?). Loki follows a lead to an RV that the girls were supposedly seen playing near, and finds a mentally slow young man, Alex Jones (played sympathetically and beautifully by Paul Dano) behind the wheel. After interrogating Alex for 10 hours, Loki is convinced the young man is innocent. Unfortunately, Keller Dover isn't convinced, and when he gets word that Alex Jones is being released from police custody, he decides to take matters into his own hands.

*Spoilers below, y'all*

The plot splits into two story lines: one is a noirish whodunnit with Detective Loki chasing down leads to find the kidnapper of the girls. The other is vaguely torture pornish, with Keller Dover kidnapping Alex Jones and holding him hostage in an old apartment building, and then coercing his neighbor, Franklin Birch (Terrance Howard), into helping him "interrogate" Alex by pummeling the shit out of the poor guy. Dover is absolutely convinced that Alex knows where the girls are, despite the fact that Alex has the IQ of a 10-year-old, and barely understands what is going on. This ruthless conviction is a mirror of Dover's religious belief--and we see him saying the Lord's Prayer before continuing to torture Alex.

I found the use of faith as a motif in Prisoners to be distasteful and bizarre, given the plot. It seems, at least at the beginning, that the audience is being set up to view Keller Dover as a self-righteous hypocrite and violent nutcase who believes that the ends justify the means. I found this disrespectful to people of faith, who (mostly) aren't going to interpret Christianity to mean "torture your mentally slow neighbor by pouring scalding water on him until he confesses to a crime he didn't commit". I figured the film had an anti-Christianity bent that was going to reveal Dover to be the true monster, which I thought was simplistic and stupid.

Well...I was partially correct. In a twist, it turns out that although Alex Jones is indeed innocent, it is his "aunt" (Melissa Leo, invisible behind a gray wig and huge glasses) who has kidnapped the girls. Alex reveals a crucial bit of information that leads Dover to the aunt's house where he attempts (and fails) to rescue the girls. So...the moral of the story is...torture is justified? Sort of? [Note: upon further inspection, I remember that, in fact, another character in the film reveals the information that leads Dover to the aunt's house. So, actually, all that torture led to nothing].

More hilariously, when Dover confronts Alex's aunt, she reveals why she has made a habit of kidnapping children over the years--is a a weird sexual thing? Is she a sadist? No. She (and her late husband) were, and I quote, "waging a war on God". By kidnapping peoples' kids, they cause parents to lose faith and become "monsters like you" she says to Dover. All this because her kid died years ago.

WHAT!?? I'm sorry, but this is the stupidest motive a criminal in a movie has ever had. "Waging a war on God" by kidnapping kids? What kind of cockamamie bullshit is that? Children are abducted all the time in real life, and it usually has something to do with relatives kidnapping kids because of custody arrangements, or psychos taking children/teens for sexual and/or violent jollies (Ariel Castro, anyone?). I found the "big twist" to be laughably stupid and insulting to Christians, atheists, and everyone in between.

It also means that Dover was justified. By torturing his way into solving the mystery (before Detective Loki busts in to actually save the day), Dover is (kind of) a hero. And the bad guy is a woman so anti-Christian, she's taken to kidnapping kids and murdering them to force others to "lose faith". The logic is twisted and just...weird.

So Prisoners is a taut thriller up until the final 20 minutes or so when the whole thing falls apart. Hugh Jackman's character is incredibly unlikeable (and dumb! he spends the movie torturing a guy who obviously suffers from a mental disability) and his complacent neighbors are gutless and go along with his delusions. His wife, played by Maria Bello, spends the entire movie in bed, doped out of her mind to avoid facing the pain of her daughter disappearing. God, did I hate the character of Grace Dover--she is such a weak, stupid woman who has no idea what her husband is up to. And I've been side-eyeing Maria Bello ever since she made a comment about women wanting to be dominated by men when she played the role of another violent man's wife in A History of Violence (she made the comment in an interview when asked about the rape-y sex scene she has with Viggo Mortenson). I hate that shit.

On the plus side, Paul Dano's performance as Alex Jones (ironic name, given the career another Alex Jones has made out of bullshit conspiracy theories) is excellent. He elicits such sympathy, while still coming off as creepy. And Jake Gyllenhaal gives another one of his patented sexy, masculine--yet doe-eyed and introverted--performances as Loki. His performance, and the movie itself, remind me of another creeptastic thriller, Zodiac, also starring Gyllenhaal and much superior to Prisoners.

Finally, and this is a relatively small thing, but the cinematography in the movie is spot on. Gray, wet, November/early December in Pennsylvania. It's the perfect setting for a film about desperation and hopelessness.

Prisoners was entertaining and had some excellent performances, but the film's quite frankly wrong-headed message and the unbelievable motive of the bad guy left a bad taste in my mouth.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Was the film worth watching for a tattooed, buff Gyllenhaal? Imma say yes.

Catching Up

Movies: Elysium, Insidious, House of Pleasures, Behind the Candelabra

Y'all, I have been lazy and remiss in my duties to review all the movies I see in a timely manner. Sometimes I have to wait for the mood to strike to write something; other times, I like to wait until I see a couple similar movies that fall into a "theme". But in any case, I've gotten behind and now it's time to catch up with some mini reviews.


Elysium

I really wanted to like this summer blockbuster starring Ben Affleck's better half, but I wasn't very impressed with it and, having seen it more than a month ago, it hasn't stuck in my memory.

Matt Damon plays Max, an ex-criminal and blue collar worker living on earth circa 2154. Earth is in shambles--polluted, overpopulated, dry, and hot. Earth's wealthiest inhabitants live in an idyllic satellite called "Elysium" which hovers like a star, miles above earth's surface. Other than the beautiful landscape, the biggest advantage residents have on Elysium is technology that can heal all wounds--from a cut to cancer--in seconds. On earth, sick people are desperate to make it to Elysium to attempt to get healed. Like Cubans floating to Florida in shaky life rafts, very few people make it to the satellite without being killed.

After being exposed to high levels of radiation at his factory job, Max looks into black market flights to Elysium. The guy running the flight operation asks Max to help him illegally download information from an Elysian's (Elysite?) brain as payment for a flight to the satellite. To do this, Max is outfitted with a kickass exoskeleton thing that makes him super strong, despite his radiation poisoning, and also plugs into his brain. If he can accost the man who is carrying the information needed and download that info into his own brain, he can pay for a flight to Elysium.

Well, needless to say it doesn't go according to plan. There are a bunch of chase scenes and fight scenes, a subplot with a romance and a sick child, and an absurd ending with a million plot holes.

What fascinates me is that the director, Neill Blomkamp, who directed the apartheid metaphor film District 9 in 2009, chooses to focus more on Matt Damon kicking ass than on the actual message of the film, which is about the wealth gap and unequal access to health care. I wish we could have seen more of Elysium. Most of the scenes shot on the satellite, aside from a few scenes of what appears to be J. Crew models playing croquet, take place in some kind of government compound were a fascistic Jody Foster ruthlessly orders "illegals" from earth to be arrested or shot on sight. I would have liked to see more of the daily life of people living in Elysium as compared to the poor saps stuck on earth.

The ending promises a future of equality for earthlings and Elysians, but I didn't buy it for a second. It comes off as a lazy deus ex machina to a film that wasn't that interesting to begin with. Thumbs up to Matt Damon, who is good with flowing locks (see Behind the Candelabra, below) or with a bald head. Thumbs down the the rest of this forgettable popcorn movie.

3 out of 5 stars

***

Insidious

When I was a kid, I hated vegetables. The concept of a salad--a mixture of all kinds of raw veggies--was absurd to me. Even with dressing and cheese, who could eat that shit? Then, one day in my mid-twenties, I discovered to the surprise of my taste buds that I could eat salad. I liked salad. I craved salad. With the right toppings and dressing, salad was divine.

Likewise, after seeing The Ring in 10th grade, I decided I hated horror films. They weren't for me, and with the exception of some excellent horror movies of the 70's and 80's (Rosemary's Baby and The Shining), I avoided them. Then, one day not long ago, I realized that I liked horror movies! I liked the feeling of being scared and jumping in my seat, grabbing the arm of my (preferably male) companion. Now, I actually seek scary and gory films out.

My point with this analogy is two-fold: first, you never stop growing. If I could learn to eat salad and watch scary movies in my twenties, who knows the awesome things I'll do/be into in my thirties. Bring it. Second: Insidious, directed by James Wan, is both pants-shittingly terrifying and so, so fun and inventive.

In less capable hands, the plot of Insidious might come off as pretty stupid: a family moves into a new house and the young son hits his head and goes into a coma. Really freaky shit starts to happen and it turns out that the kid is an astral projector: his soul can leave his body as he sleeps and travel to supernatural dimensions. While his body is in a coma, his soul is stuck in this place called "the Further". Ghosts and demons and all sorts of creepy crawlies are using the kid as a lifeline to get back to this dimension. All of this is explained neatly to the parents (Rose Byrne and Patrick "Sexy Dad" Wilson) by a concerned psychic (Lin Shaye).

Like I said, the plot COULD have been absurd and awful, but in Wan's hands it is creative and different than most other haunted house or demonic possession films. And it's a great excuse to feature some truly freaky ghouls inhabiting "the Further", which Wan envisions as a nightmarish shadow world that faintly resembles the real world.

There's something to scare everyone here: creepy children, jump scares, haunted houses, possession--whatever floats your boat, Insidious has it. I'm not surprised they're making a sequel.

Although some critics have claimed Wan's recent film, The Conjuring, is more frightening than Insidious, I found this movie to push my terror buttons a lot harder. And I watched it on my TV in the middle of a sunny afternoon.

5 out of 5 stars

***

House of Pleasures

I wanted to wait to review the French film House of Pleasures until after watching another movie, Sleeping Beauty (not the Disney film, but a movie about a young woman who lets paying customers play with her sexually as she sleeps). I could have had a prostitution-themed review. But alas, I haven't gotten around to watching Sleeping Beauty yet.

House of Pleasures is a visually stunning and emotionally arresting film set at the turn of the 20th century in a Parisian bordello. It follows the high class ladies of the evening who live and work there over the course of a year or so. This includes one lady who is brutally disfigured by a customer for a reason that is never revealed. When the camera abruptly cuts to this woman, screaming and bloody, it's outrageously disturbingly (certainly more so than any of the sex acts the audience is privy to).



In addition to this act of violence, we witness other problems of this house of ill repute: the rent is going up and the Madame of the house isn't sure she will be able to keep paying the bills; one lady contracts syphilis and the man who gave it to her abandons her; romantic intrigues abound; a young, new girl joins the house...all of these stories feel both mundane and voyeuristic, given the setting.

And what a beautiful setting it is. The house and the bedrooms are gorgeous. The women are all lovely to look at. The lingerie is a modern day burlesque dancer's wet dream. But all that beauty covers over a life of difficulty and occasional degradation. Not all the men who pay for the ladies' services and attention are monsters, but the women pretty much have to go along with what they ask for in order to continue receiving their business. When the disfigured woman is offered a tidy sum to go to a decadent party where she is treated kindly, but also gawked at as a freak, it's hard to tell whether this is the kindest treatment she can expect to receive.

Another focus of House of Pleasures is the ladies friendship with one another. There are no catfights or hair pulling. Instead, the women build each other up as the world around them tries to tear them down. The film doesn't glorify prostitution and brothels--rather, it attempts to give an even-handed glimpse into a secret world.

5 out of 5 stars

***

Behind the Candelabra

Supposedly Steven Soderbergh's final film, Behind the Candelabra is the (partial) story of Liberace's secret life. It focuses on the years 1977-1986 (when Liberace passed away from AIDS) and much of the story is shown from the perspective of one of Liberace's younger lovers, Scott Thorson (Matt Damon, with fabulous hair). Liberace was nearly 60 years old when he "hired" Thorson as his "companion". Thorson was a teenager (frankly, Damon is way to old to play Thorson at his real age). And Michael Douglas, giving a bravura performance as the Showman himself, plays Liberace as the horny old goat he was. When Scott wakes up after (chastely) sharing a bed with Liberace to find the old man watching him as he sleeps, it really made me want to scream and vomit simultaneously. I guess I'm a little ageist!

Behind the Candelabra shows the absolute excesses that marked Liberace's private life--from his outrageously expensive furs to his palatial home. It also shows his controlling and downright freakish behavior toward Thorson (and, presumably, his other lovers). My favorite part is when he convinces Thorson to get plastic surgery to look more like Liberace himself. It's like Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo times a million. I wanted to scream "MOM!!" and hide under the couch. This movie had parts that were scarier than fuckin' Insidious!

Soderbergh doesn't preach--he leaves it up to the audience to judge. But Liberace comes off as the flamboyant, narcissistic nut we would all assume him to be. And man, is it fun to watch Douglas ham it up. There is some indication that Liberace and Thorson really loved each other, and that very well may be true. The film is based on Thorson's book, so there is probably some bias coloring the story, but oh well. I'm not an expert on Liberace, so I can't speak to the factuality of the film. But it is quite entertaining with some excellent (and, let's face it, pretty brave) performances by Douglas and Damon. Douglas especially gives a vanity-free performance as a man whose life was ruled by vanity. That's a tall order and he pulls it off quite nicely.

4 out of 5 stars

Dignity in Service

Movies: The Butler

Lee Daniels' The Butler is the perfect antidote to the sentimental pat on the head to white people that 2011's The Help* was.

Whereas in The Help, a young, white woman was the heroine of the story, a black, aging man is the hero of The Butler. Whereas the lives of black women in domestic service in pre-Civil Rights Mississippi were shown through the lens of which white people were mean to them and which white people were nice to them in The Help, The Butler tells the story of a black family through its own lens. Whereas you are bashed over the head with LIFE LESSONS in The Help, the lessons of The Butler are not so simple and not so obvious.

Where The Butler succeeds is in its ability to be a gentle movie with a strong message, and to tell the black characters' stories without the use of caricature and--more importantly--without the measuring stick of "BUT WHAT WERE THE WHITE PEOPLE DOING??" that haunts so many films about race.

The Butler, based on a true story, is about the life of Cecil Gaines. Born on a cotton plantation in the 1920's, Cecil watches as his father is murdered in cold blood by one of the hotheaded white male owners of the plantation--right after that same man rapes Cecil's mother. The matriarch of the plantation takes young Cecil aside and tells him, "I'm going to teach you to be a house nigger." This is the first instance of uncomfortable, yet brutally honest cognitive dissonance in the film. On the one hand, the term "house nigger" forces you to cringe. On the other hand, this "promotion" is a godsend to young Cecil, who learns valuable skills that will carry him through life. As racist as her words are, the matriarch was doing Cecil a kind turn by bringing him into her home to serve.

As a young man, Cecil leaves the plantation and finds work in a small hotel and is mentored by an older black man who slaps him when he refers to himself as a "house nigger". This man becomes a father figure to Cecil, teaching him the value of self-respect. As time goes on, Cecil (played by Forest Whitaker) gets a job in a ritzy hotel in Washington, DC, where he captures the attention of a politician who recommends him to work as a butler in the White House. And this is where the historical events of the story take off. Cecil (like his true life counterpart, Eugene Allen), serves in the White House over the course of eight presidential administrations. He serves at a time when race and racial integration were at the forefront of Americans' minds. One drawback of the film is that there is a definite hint of Magical Negro syndrome every time the president of the United States--from Dwight D. Eisenhower (played by Robin Williams--what?) to Richard Nixon (John Cusack--WHAAAT??!) to Ronald Reagen (Alan Rickman--ah, ok. He works) asks Cecil for his opinion on a matter regarding race.

The lack of subtlety in regards to how The Butler handles race on a large scale is the biggest flaw of the film. There are definitely moments that are cringeworthy and "on the nose". But The Butler has a nice card up its sleeve--the story of Cecil's family and how they cope with the Civil Rights Movement through the years. The film shines when it focuses on the relationship between Cecil and his alcoholic wife Gloria (Oprah, who gives a powerful performance, but appears to stay the same age over three decades) and the relationship between Cecil and his rebellious older son, Louis (David Oyelowo).

Cecil and Louis' father/son dynamic is especially interesting and complicated. Louis grows up to be a Civil Rights activist, participating in lunch counter sit-ins (a FANTASTIC and horrifying scene), freedom bus rides, and the Black Panther Party. While Cecil tries to be open-minded towards his son's liberalness, Louis sneers at his father--a mere butler spending his life dedicated to serving powerful, white men. I loved this dynamic because both characters are vastly sympathetic. On the one hand, I identified strongly with Louis' need to shake things up. But as "right" and with the times Louis is, he's such a dismissive little snot to the man who gave him everything. And militancy is an unstable ideology, whereas Cecil's path of hard work grants him the ability to raise a family and rise far, far above his start as a lowly house servant.

Despite the myriad cheesy moments of The Butler, the film has a good heart and soul. I can't quite give it a 4 star review because it has some problems, but I can say that I wish there were more films like it. It's sad that in 2013 we haven't quite evolved enough as a society to have some truly complex, interesting, and perhaps challenging films about race in mainstream theatres. In my very short time on earth it seems that racism has gotten more vile in recent years (a combination of the Internet, 24 hour news cycle, and the fact that the president has dark skin). But my dad, who actually lived through the Civil Rights Movement and is a man who has allowed his heart to be opened and changed by Civil Rights issues, says "We're doing better. But we're not there yet."

3.5 out of 5 stars

*I apologize if this is a strong opinion, and the fact is that the film The Help had a wonderful, female-friendly cast, but aspects of the film really made me chafe.

Skin Flick

Movies: Lovelace

One of the most popular and sensational films of 1972 (a great year for movies, incidentally) was a 61 minute long pornographic "comedy" about a woman whose clitoris is located in her throat. Linda Lovelace's (nee Boreman) ability to engage in the titular sex act launched her into short-lived fame. Despite her popularity, Lovelace's life was a hell. Coerced into the porn industry by her physically abusive husband, Lovelace was a symbol of the sexual liberation movement despite being a prisoner herself.

Lovelace attempts to show both sides of Linda Lovelace's life--her public persona as a sexy, bubbly young woman and her private life having the shit beaten out of her by Chuck Traynor, her terrifying husband. The film mostly succeeds, but it doesn't go far enough and comes off as white-washed for a mainstream audience.

The actors are the film's greatest strength. Amanda Seyfried gives a strong performance as the wide-eyed Lovelace, and Peter Sarsgaard (who has made a career out of playing characters at once both sexy and menacing) is perfectly cast at the terrifying Traynor, who seduces Lovelace and convinces her to marry him, only to become more and more physically and sexually violent towards her. The ensemble cast also includes Sharon Stone playing Lovelace's strict, dowdy, and unloving mother. Adam Brody shows up as Harry Reams, Linda's gentle and charming costar (from the interviews I've seen of him, Reams actually did seem to be a truly nice guy). James Franco is inexplicably cast as Hugh Hefner, which is more silly than anything else.

For a movie about the most famous porno of all time, Lovelace's main focus is on Linda and Chuck's relationship and her efforts to escape him. I liked that the movie was able to show the seediness of the porn industry while not blaming it for Lovelace's abuse. It wasn't the porn industry's fault that no one stepped in to help Lovelace--it was the culture of the early 70's; a time where sexual attitudes were becoming more liberal, but attitudes towards women's "place" were still very retro. Women were seen as the property of their husbands and men in general. Porn was a symptom of this, not the cause. So the movie manages to stay neutral on this issue of pornography while showcasing the horrors of domestic violence.

Eventually, Linda left Chuck and became a spokeswoman for the feminist anti-pornography movement. She wrote a book called Ordeal about her time in the porn business and her marriage to Traynor. Unfortunately, Lovelace only touches on this portion of her life very briefly, and she is portrayed as a dowdy victim who is expected to "atone" for her sins and prove herself to the public. This is a shame, because it glamorizes the most vulnerable time in Lovelace's life while painting her to be a pathetic victim once she actually escapes her abusive marriage.

The issue of pornography and the porn industry is a tough one, and no single filmmaker can capture the complexities of the issue. But a film that does a better job of thoroughly exploring the phenomenon of Deep Throat and its effect on the culture at the time is the excellent documentary Inside Deep Throat.

Lovelace features wonderful performances by Seyfried, Sarsgaard, and Stone. It's an interesting (and occasionally funny) movie. But if you are really curious about the history of the famous sex flick and the actors involved, I'd recommend watching Inside Deep Throat instead.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Hat Trick

Movies: Now You See Me

(Ye be warned: thar be mild spoilers in this review)

Now You See Me, aka "that magician movie starring the guy who played Mark Zuckerberg", is a pretty bad film. But its fatal flaw is simple: it does not know what kind of movie it wants to be.

The film starts off intriguing and entertaining: four talented magicians, each with a special skill, are brought together by a mysterious fifth party. One year later, they perform a trick where they rob a bank in Paris while standing on stage in Las Vegas. As money swirls around the huge venue, and a credit union in France realizes they've been robbed of 3 million dollars, the FBI gets involved.

But as the movie continues, with Mark Ruffalo and Melanie Laurent as a pair of FBI agents tracking down the "Four Horsemen" (Jesse Eisenberg as an arrogant, young magician; Woody Harrelson as a hypnotist; Isla Fisher as a sexy escape artist; and Dave Franco as a punky pickpocket), Now You See Me gets unbearably complicated and silly.

What starts out as a heist movie takes a turn for what appears to be a film with a social justice message. The second time the Four Horsemen do their now world famous trick, they quite literally rob a rich man and give to the poor audience--an audience pre-selected to attend the show because they all lost houses, possessions, and loved ones during Hurricane Katrina.

But the social justice aspect isn't there for long, and the movie takes a sharp into "revenge film" territory: where a man who sets out to debunk the Four Horsemen is framed for a crime he didn't commit. All because he has some vague ties to another magician who might or might not have died under mysterious circumstances years before.

Does this sound as crazy as fuck to you? Well, I'm right there with you. It's not too long into the movie before you realize that the filmmakers of Now You See Me didn't have a clear vision of the kind of movie they wanted to make. So they ended up throwing everything they could against a wall to see what would stick. And what we're left with is a very messy wall.

Disappointingly, Now You See Me had a lot of promise: an initially entertaining premise, a star-studded cast, some decent laughs, etc. But as the twists and turns keep coming, the audience (well, me anyway) got more and more unamused and bored. The film ends on a final twist that is more laughable and stupid than shocking. After watching the movie, you realize it's not so much a complicated, cerebral film as it is lazy and loosey-goosey.

I spent 2 bucks to see Now You See Me, and I consider it money well spent if only for Mark Ruffalo's embarrassingly ridiculous performance as a frustrated FBI agent. But I can't recommend this movie, which tries so hard to fool the audience only to end up fooling itself.

2.5 out of 5 stars