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

Bridget Jones' Diaphragm

Movies: Trainwreck

Judd Apatow is the director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, This is 40, and, most recently, the Amy Schumer-penned comedy Trainwreck. If you've seen Apatow's movies (including the ones he's written and produced), you may have noticed that they tend to have a vein of conservatism and traditional values running through them. Mostly, this works--for example, The 40-Year-Old Virgin had the perfect mixture of vulgar humor and sweet romance. Sometimes, however, I give his movies the ol' side-eye. In Knocked Up, a film about a pregnancy resulting from a one-night stand, those who recommend abortion as a solution are presented as cruel and shallow. (If you think that abortion would be a terrible element to add to a romantic comedy, please see the wonderful Obvious Child).

Likewise, Trainwreck has some oddly conservative moments. But luckily, with Amy Schumer's script, the film finds that sweet spot of edgy and vulnerable humor.

There is no comedian who I feel captures my view of the world quite like Amy Schumer. Her humor is extremely sexual, but in a clever way. She's self-deprecating, but with a wink that lets us know she actually likes herself (I think. I hope.) She's a feminist, but a flawed one. She's gotten some shit for her early years working her way up through the male-dominated world of comedy by being "one of the guys". She's also gotten shit for the occasional racist joke in her repertoire. But faced with that criticism, she's responded not by becoming defensive or by doubling-down on the troubling jokes, but by evolving into more sly and knowing humor.

The point is, I fucking love Amy Schumer. And Trainwreck is a great showcase for her gifts.

Trainwreck is strongly autobiographical. Schumer plays Amy, with a sister named Kim, and a father who suffers from Multiple sclerosis whom she loves deeply. The real life Schumer also has a sister named Kim and a father who had MS. Unlike many other romantic sex comedies, family figures largely into Trainwreck, and not in an annoying "rapping granny" kind of way, but in a relatable, realistic way. One of the main subplots involves Amy and Kim arguing about moving their dad to a cheaper nursing home. Amy may sleep around, get blackout drunk, and smoke pot to escape anxiety, but she's a deeply caring daughter.

The main plot is, of course, about a commitment-phobic, 30-something woman who has to re-evaluate her life choices and beliefs about monogamy when she meets a really great guy, Aaron Conners (Bill Hader, fucking wonderful and perfect here). Amy works at "Snuff" magazine, a men's mag that runs articles about how semen tastes if a guy eats a lot of garlic and how to score a threesome. Amy's boss (played by an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton, with a tan and long hair!) is a devil wears Prada type ice queen who assigns Amy to interview Conners, a sports doctor to the stars. As Aaron and Amy get to know each other, it's clear that they're a great match. But with Amy's skepticism of commitment and serious fear of being rejected, she is constantly waiting for the ball to drop, which messes with their relationship.

There is a whiff of wish fulfillment here: a perfect guy--he's got money, a fabulous job, he's mature, he's terribly kind and understanding--being totally committed to an immature, emotionally messy, kind of mean woman. But at the same time, haven't we seen a ton of movies where some pot-smoking  man-boy gets the hot, perfect chick? (see Knocked Up). If we're willing to believe that kind of match can work out, we need to believe in this match, with the genders reversed. Well, we don't need to, but it's only fair to to give it equal weight. Some people get mad when "feminism" includes letting women be fucked up and vulgar. But I say fuck that! Feminism IS about not expecting perfection from women. And if you think women are morally better than men, well fuck you. They aren't.

Can you tell I'm a bit defensive of Trainwreck? Bitch Magazine ran some online articles criticizing Trainwreck for its casually racist jokes, and, indeed, there are some real clunkers in there (such as when Vanessa Bayer, Amy's work friend, tells a sexy, black, male nurse that she "dated a black guy in high school...and would do it again"). But when they criticized Amy's SPOILER ALERT --

tearful eulogy at her dad's funeral, where she admits that he was a racist, heavy-drinker asshole, as well as a loving father and hilarious friend. Well, Bitch can go fuck itself*. That's literally what every person who has ever lived is: a mix of good and bad traits. I think that scene was deeply emotional, for Amy Schumer as well as the audience. To have the guts to stand up and tell the world that your dead parent wasn't close to perfect, but you loved them anyway. It's beautiful.

/end spoiler

This is why I loved Trainwreck so much. It wasn't 100% raunchy sex comedy (although there is plenty of that, and I loved it). It also is about some real shit.

If you are not watching Amy Schumer's TV show, Inside Amy Schumer, then go seek it out immediately. Not only is it hilarious, it--like Trainwreck--is about real life shit. It's feminist without being a Buzz Killington. It's raunchy without being dumb. Schumer is clever, subversive, and relatable. And she makes the world a slightly better place to live.

Grade: A-

* Bitch is actually an excellent magazine/website that exists specifically to examine pop culture through a feminist lens and offer criticism. I don't always agree with their articles, but I read it religiously and promote it 100%.

Ghosts of the Past

Movies: The Gift

When I first saw a preview for The Gift, I thought "Man, that looks like a piece of shit." Well, 93% on Rotten Tomatoes later, here I am eating my words.

The Gift is the directorial debut of chameleon-like actor Joel Edgerton, and it proves to be a taut and twisty thriller. It has some flaws, which I will go into detail about at the bottom of this entry in a spoiler area. If you want to go into the film knowing nothing (which I recommend), rest assured that it's quality entertainment. It's not exactly The Godfather, but it's a really fun movie.

The film stars Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall as a married couple who move from Chicago to California (where Bateman's character, Simon, grew up) and get one of those mid-century homes that has a lot of giant windows and glass. Well, you can tell right away that living in a fucking glass house won't lead to anything good. Simon works at some kind of fancy technology company and makes a boatload of money. His wife, Robyn, is an interior designer who works from home and tries to maintain a stress-free lifestyle since she and Simon want to conceive and it becomes clear they had trouble doing so in Chicago.

At a home goods store, the couple runs into Gordon ("Gordo") Moseley (played by Edgerton), who knew Simon in high school. Simon doesn't recognize him at first, but then remembers him and some pleasantries are exchanged and a promise to get together for dinner is made. If Gordo was a normal person, he would probably never follow up and Simon and Robyn would never see the dude again. But Gordo's a bit of a socially-awkward weirdo (his high school nickname was the rather uncreative "Gordo the Weirdo") and he starts sending the couple very nice gifts and showing up at the house while Simon's at work. Robyn eventually invites him to dinner, where Gordo talks about how the bad things in life can be a gift and won't shut up about his and Simon's high school and the people they knew there. Simon is, unsurprisingly, weirded out. Especially when Gordo continues to contact the couple.

Well, because this is a psychological thriller, you know from the get-go that there's more to the story about Simon and Gordo's high school years. I'll reveal more info below, after a spoiler warning. But one thing I want to mention is that Rebecca Hall's character really gets to shine in the second half of the film when she starts exploring what's really going on with her husband and this Gordo character. The Gift easily shifts from Single White Female to Rosemary's Baby when Robyn starts doubting what Simon tells her about Gordo.

Spoilers below








It's probably no surprise, but Simon was a bully in high school who made up a rumor about Gordo that literally destroyed Gordo's life. Because of the rumor, Gordon was bullied, beat up, pulled out of his high school, and suffered violent wrath from his father. He went on to join the military, only to be discharged, and generally became a fuck up in his adult life.

What's great is how perfectly Jason Bateman plays this role. For the first half of the movie, you're 100% on his side, even when he makes fun of Gordo to his wife. When he confronts Gordo and essentially "breaks up" with him, you think "Yeah, this Simon guy is a strong, forthright man. He's mature. He's an adult." But when Robyn learns about his past and confronts him, he believably morphs right back into a bully: treating her like a child who needs to mind her own business, being completely unrepentant in his torment of Gordo, etc. Bateman plays an asshole so well!

The biggest flaw in this film is the big twist at the end (of course there's a big twist at the end). Not only is it over the top and melodramatic, it also effectively disempowers Robyn, turning her into a plot device to further the story of the two men--Gordo and Simon. Up until the very end, The Gift is a quality thriller that plays with the idea of right and wrong really well. But the end, and Simon's comeuppance, turns the film into a slightly ridiculous Greek tragedy.

End spoilers

Despite its flaws, The Gift is a very entertaining film. Probably nothing you'll watch twice, but a fun night at the movies. All the main actors, particularly Jason Bateman, do a wonderful job of creating and then upending audience expectations.

Grade: B+

Female Trouble

Books: Dietland, The Girl on the Train

Sarai Walker's Dietland and Paula Hawkins' The Girl on the Train feature difficult heroines who start off weak and gradually gain strength throughout their respective stories.

In Dietland we follow Plum Kettle, a woman of about 30 who weighs 300 pounds. Plum has been overweight her whole life and copes by ignoring the stares and rude comments of strangers, obsessively dieting, and fixing her hopes on the life she will have after she undergoes gastric bypass surgery and becomes the "real", thin version of herself. After circumstances throw her into the path of Verena Baptist, the daughter of Eulayla Baptist, a woman famed for creating the "Baptist diet plan", Plum stars to rethink her entire approach to life. Verena, who rejected her mother's fraudulent and unsafe diet empire, promises to give Plum a check for $20,000--to use on the surgery, or anything else--if Plum follows Verena's "new Baptist plan", which includes standing up to strangers who stare at her and buying attractive clothes that fit her.

This description of Dietland probably makes the book sound like it's a feel-good beach read about accepting one's body. It's not. The last thing it is is touch-y, feel-y. There is a secondary plot that involves what can only be described as a feminist terrorist group that goes by the name "Jennifer" (because the name is so common--it could be "any woman in your life"). This group does things like kidnap rapists, torture them for months, and then drop their bodies out of airplanes. They blackmail British tabloids into replacing images of nude or scantily-clad women with images nude, aroused men. They kidnap an imam and, on television, force him to tell the men of his religion to pour acid into their eyes rather than force women to cover their heads and bodies. You get the picture.

 As "Jennifer's" antics escalate, Plum is taken under the wing of a group of women (including Verena) who make up Calliope House--a feminist collective dedicated to creativity and helping other women. Plum gets angrier and more aggressive as the story progresses. She gets herself in dangerous confrontations with men who call her a "fat bitch". She starts stealing.

While the story is about Plum's transformation from beaten-down fat girl who loathes herself to a freer woman who can walk the streets unashamed, there is still a heavy note of sadness weighing down this novel. Plum finds her chosen family in the women of Calliope House, but she doesn't find acceptance in the world at large. In fact, Plum's self-acceptance does not arise in spite of the world's hatred of her body, but because of it. By being 300 pounds, Plum figures that she gets to see people's true selves: if she were skinny, people who treat her decently while treating fat women like the scum of the earth. Plum finds that she would rather be fat and hated that well-liked by the very people who get their jollies by humiliating fat people. It's a dark--if very truthful--thesis to a difficult, entertaining, complicated book. Also of note: men barely exist in Dietland except to humiliate or reject Plum. While she finds her band of sisters, there are no men who also reach enlightenment. It's a very separatist perspective, and one I don't entirely buy into.

Likewise, The Girl on the Train features an absolute mess of a heroine. Rachel is in her early-thirties, divorced, overweight, alcoholic, and just incredibly sad and lacking in personal direction. As she rides the train every morning and evening, she makes up a story about the lives of a beautiful couple whose house she can see from the train--she dubs them "Jess" and "Jason". But then one day she sees an indiscretion that explodes her perfect view of the couple and she begins an obsessive--and dangerous--investigation to find out what's really going on. Her sleuthing is complicated by the fact that she has a tendency to black out for hours at a time when she's drinking.


The Girl on the Train has been compared to Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl for obvious reasons: they both tell the same story from multiple perspectives, they both have unreliable (and "unlikeable" protagonists), they both involve themes of betrayal, violence, and the dark side of marriage. I personally think Gone Girl is the better book--it's sharper, better written. The Girl on the Train gets a bit repetitive after a while, and Rachel is bland and gray compared to the acidic glow of Gone Girl's Amy Dunne. But The Girl on the Train is highly entertaining and genuinely keeps you guessing. It doesn't reveal all the cards until the very end. It's also very realistic in its portrayal of alcoholism. Author Hawkins isn't afraid to have Rachel vomit, piss herself, cry, fuck up over and over. You never hate her, but you seriously pity her--which is worse, in some ways. Hawkins has big, brass ovaries for never turning Rachel's alcohol problem into something sexy and glamorous. Unlike other hard-boiled fiction with detectives or PIs who keep a bottle of rye along with a handgun on them at all times, this amateur investigator's antics are very sad and unsexy to read about.

Neither Dietland nor The Girl on the Train hit the sweet spot 100% of the time for me, but they're both really good, solid reads. Dietland is especially fascinating in its uncompromising anger at a society that treats women's bodies like public property, to be jeered at, or jacked off to, depending on how "hot" said body is. It was a cathartic book, if nothing else. The Girl on the Train is the perfect read for, well, a train ride (or plane or car ride). It sucks you in and leaves you turning pages for hours. So although neither book is perfect, they're both worth your time.

Dietland: B+

The Girl on the Train: B

Dirty Dancing

Movies: Magic Mike XXL

Something happens when something out there in popular culture excites women en masse --particularly if that something is related to sex. People sit up and pay attention. They write articles. They start discussions at the water cooler at work (or the Starbucks). They ask, "Is this what women want?" And, a lot of the time, they laugh at whatever *it* is.

Take the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey. A book that sold millions of copies. What happened when it went viral? Katie Rophie wrote an article in Newsweek about how the popularity of the novel proved that women--particularly modern, empowered women--wanted to be ravished by a strong, stern man at the end of the day. Articles and blog posts trumpeted how the book "saved marriages" by giving couples the fuel to "spice things up" in the bedroom (I always thought it was weird how few of these articles mention the big M--masturbation. Surely more women just read the book in private and did their thing than actually incorporate the acts described between its covers to their life under the covers). And, more than anything else, people laughed at it. They laughed at it on the Internet, on late night talk shows, in daily life.

Now, I'm not saying that Fifty Shades doesn't deserved to be laughed at (it does, as it's a piece of shit). But I think it's interesting that a book that certainly got a lot of women hot and bothered so quickly became the butt of everyone's joke.

Steven Soderbergh's singular film, Magic Mike, was released six months after the final book in the Fifty Shades triology was released. Another pop culture phenomenon that seemed ripe for mockery, Magic Mike upended everyone's expectations by actually being a good movie. It was one of my favorites of 2012, and I'm gonna defend that goddamn movie until my dying day--it's a great fucking film, made even better by the rock bottom expectations most people had going into it.

But even though Magic Mike got critical accolades, people still treated it like a joke and a silly thing for women to enjoy. Even though the movie is about male friendship, first and foremost. I think people are incapable of taking a movie about male strippers (or, if we're being honest, strippers of any gender) seriously. People see Channing Tatum humping a woman's face to the strains of Ginuwine's "Pony" and they can't think of anything more ridiculous. Though, if given truth serum, I think most heterosexual women would admit that being dry-humped by whatever perfect male they have in their mind is a more than appealing thought.

All of this brings us to Magic Mike XXL, the sequel to Magic Mike that is exactly what people thought the original film should have been. Under the guidance of a new director (Gregory Jacobs), the plot has been stripped down (HAR HAR HAR) and the deeper emotions of the original buffed (GET IT?) out, leaving nothing but oiled up hunks grinding on a parade of women of all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages.

Not that I'm complaining.

Magic Mike XXL is a fantastically entertaining sequel, although it's certainly nowhere near as "good" as its predecessor. XXL takes place three years after the events of the original film. Mike Lane (Tat-yum) owns his own furniture design start up just as he dreamed of in the first movie, and he has left stripping to work on his business full time. When the boys--Ken (Matt Bomer), Tito (Adam Rodriguez), Tarzan (Kevin Nash), and--my personal favorite--Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello, who takes a much-deserved center role in this film)--contact Mike about performing at a stripper convention in Myrtle Beach, the man can't help but take the opportunity to try out some of his magic moves again.

The movie explains the absence of emcee Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), fellow stripper The Kid (Alex Pettyfer), and Mike's love interest, Brooke (Cody Horn), in a couple throwaway lines of exposition. Who cares about those losers? Onwards and upwards!

Magic Mike XXL is a typical road trip movie. People try to get to a destination and stop and have adventures along the way. There are a lot of memorable scenes that wouldn't be out of place in a porno: the guys stop at a private club in Savannah called "Domina" run by HBIC Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith); the guys end up at the house of a middle-aged, divorced woman (Andie MacDowell) and a group of her friends as they get plastered on expensive wine; Big Dick Richie has a great scene cheering up a lonely gas station clerk. Etc, etc. And then they finally get to the stripper convention and create the act of a lifetime--all new dance numbers to represent the real men underneath all those abs and bedroom eyes.

Magic Mike XXL works because it completely, unashamedly owns its corniness...and it's horniness. This is a film that makes some noise about how women should be worshiped as the goddesses they are and how all women are beautiful--while also exacting a strict standard for how the men in the film look. I kind of like that. It's the reversal of all those comedies where a homely Kevin James-type ends up with Rosario Dawson--because he has inner beauty, dammit! In Magic Mike XXL women get to have the inner beauty and men are all but required to have the outer beauty. It's not fair, it's not right...but it's titillating in its unserious subversiveness.

Eh, I'm probably trying too hard to find the deeper meaning in a film that has very limited depth. Magic Mike XXL is pure spectacle: it's fun, it's funny, it's campy, it's sexy. And it also makes me want to go back and watch the original, which was all of the above adjectives plus quality. The two Magic Mike's work in perfect symbiosis: when taken together, they have the body, the brains, and the heart.

Grade: B

All Thumbs

Movies: Life Itself

When I was in 10th grade, my career goal was to be an "entertainment journalist". A fervent reader of Entertainment Weekly since the late 1990's, my dream job was to watch and review movies and get paid for it.

Well, the world has changed a lot since I was 16. With the advent of the Internet, blogs, and social media, everyone has the ability to critique everything, from films and television shows, to vaccines and the right for gay people to adopt children. Everyone has a voice and an opinion--and we all know that this is both a blessing and a curse.

But society has changed in another way: the idea of "expertise" has changed. With Wikipedia, the average Joe or Jane on the street has the right and ability to add their expert knowledge to the flowing stream of publicly available information. Again, this is a blessing and curse: on the one hand, we have more access to information than ever, AND we aren't bound by old-fashioned (and racist, sexist) notions of who qualifies as an expert. But on the other hand, the idea that everyone and no one is an expert leads some to lose faith in the actual experts and professionals. For example: losing faith in doctors and evidence-based medicine has led to measles, mumps, and whooping cough outbreaks.

All this is to say that there was a time not too long ago when a few individuals could achieve fame and (relative) fortune simply by giving their opinion about the movies. Roger Ebert was one of those individuals, and boy did he deserve his fame and (relative) fortune. If you've ever read Ebert's reviews (they're all archived here, along with current reviews from writers carrying on Ebert's torch), you'll find that they are, to a one, thoughtful and funny. Reading his reviews is like listening to your clever, irreverent friend describe a movie he just saw. In fact, when I started this blog, I modeled it after the way Ebert wrote his reviews: he went beyond basic description and tied films to the realities of our culture (for example, his review of Raging Bull opens with a meditation on the "Madonna-whore" complex some men have). This makes sense, as cinema is not just entertainment, but art. And the purpose of art is not simply to be beautiful or ugly, but to reflect beautiful and ugly things in our culture. Ebert understood this, and his deep, passionate, unquenchable love for the movies--and, indeed, life itself--shines through his reviews in a way you don't see too often.



Life Itself is a documentary about Ebert based on his autobiography of the same title. Though it covers all the highlights and achievements in Ebert's life (his Pulitzer win in 1975, his decades-long partnership with film critic Gene Siskel [and their 'frenemies'-style relationship], his late in life marriage to Chaz Hammelsmith), Life Itself is notable for its lengthy scenes set in the hospital near the end of Ebert's life. Throughout the early 2000's, Ebert underwent multiple surgeries to remove cancerous tissue in his neck and jaw. By 2006, most of his lower jaw had been removed and he could no longer speak or eat without the assistance of a tube. This documentary is, in my opinion, incredibly brave (as is, obviously, Ebert) to show the full extent of Ebert's physical appearance and daily challenges near the end of his life. Sensitive viewers should be warned: it's not pretty. Ebert's jaw is gone, leaving behind the skin that would have covered the absent jawbone. It's gruesome to watch at first, but as the documentary progresses, you realize that there's still a twinkle in Ebert's eyes, and he's still quick to smile and make a joke (albeit with the use of a computer) and that he is still complete, still whole, despite his many health setbacks. It's a wonderful--and heartbreaking--thing to see. Especially since Life Itself takes us right to the brink of Ebert's final days.

Even if you're not very familiar with Ebert's work (and to be honest, I haven't read as much of his writing as some of my more gung-ho movie friends), Life Itself is a fascinating, heart-wrenching, and joyous documentary that celebrates the life of an imperfect, unusual, whip-smart man who, with a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down", had the ability to make or break a movie. Or at the very least, convince you to go see it. He influenced multiple generations of film lovers, including myself, with his writing. Life Itself pays him a well-deserved tribute.

Grade: B+