Road Rage

Movies: Mad Max: Fury Road

Holy. Shitballs. Mad Max: Fury Road had been the tiniest of blips on my entertainment radar until a few weeks ago. Not only do I have very little love for "action movies" generally, I've never even seen the other Mad Max movies in the franchise.

But, my sisters and brothers, I have seen the light, and it is SHINY and CHROME! Mad Max: Fury Road is so goddamn awesome I want to scream. The film opens with zero exposition, yet you don't need to know the backstory to enjoy the film. Max is immediately captured by the denizens of the Citadel--a city in a gas and resources-deprived futuristic wasteland ruled by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne, who was also in the original series), a fleshy despot who doles out water to the desperate masses one dribble at a time and raises young boys to be kamikaze warriors, ready to give their lives in service to the Citadel at a single command.

Max (Tom Hardy--he of the sexalicious lips--taking over the role from Mel Gibson) is enslaved as a "blood bag" for young, eager warrior Nux (Nicholas Hoult, still a cutie pie under all that white, hideous makeup). The fact that Max, who is ostensibly the main character, spends the first third of the film either hanging upside down while his blood is forcibly drained into another man or tied the front of a souped-up vehicle driven by Nux is significant in how unusual it is. How many other action movies spend so much time with their heroes helpless and enslaved? I'm sure you've read the reports of MRAs going apeshit over what they perceive to be "feminist propaganda". Indeed, the film explodes so many tropes of action films while embracing others that it should be lauded for its inventive take on the genre.

Basic plot: Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) drives a war rig to collect gasoline. On an otherwise typical trip, she goes off route, much to the confusion of the rest of her party. It turns out that Furiosa is smuggling five of Immortan's Joe's wives (aka breeding and sex slaves) out of the Citadel and to a "green place" where Furiosa was born. When Joe figures this out, he leads a war party to capture her and take back his wives. Max, as I mentioned above, is strapped the the front of Nux's car and is along for the ride. After a number of car chase-battles, Max manages to break free and joins Furiosa and the wives on the rest of their trip to the green place.

So what makes Mad Max: Fury Road so awesome and unique? For one thing, Max is essentially a supporting character in his own movie, or at least he shares equal screen time and action sequences with Furiosa. The two are forced to work together and contribute equally to their perilous voyage. There are also a ton of women in this movie. Furiosa, of course. The five wives, whose desire to escape baby-making servitude drive the plot. And then once the group reaches their destination, they are met by a clan of motorcycle-riding women, the Vulvalini (yes, really), who join in their quest for freedom.

Tom Hardy was asked by a reporter if he thought "Why are all these women in here? I thought this was supposed to be a man's movie." Hardy replied "No. Not for one minute. I mean, that's kind of obvious..." What's interesting is that the movie isn't made up of *exclusively* female characters, just an approximately equal number. But gender equality in a so-called "man's movie" is so bizarre that many people (including myself!) feel compelled to comment on it and ask what the significance of it is. Maybe the significance is that director George Miller wanted to create a realistic dystopian society: one that would certainly be perilous for many women (see: the wives) but where strength and cunning would be valued regardless of gender (see: Furiosa).

Another unusual, yet very pleasant surprise was (SPOILER) Nux's redemption. Nux starts out as a brainwashed War Boy, raised by Immortan Joe to give his life in battle (with the promise of a Shiny Chrome place in Valhalla). He is nearly killed in the chase to capture Furiosa, but he lives. He stows away in Furiosa's truck and is accepted into their group when he is discovered. In any other movie he would either aim to kill Furiosa, or be killed once discovered. In Fury Road, he is given a shot at redemption and he takes it. It was a beautiful character arc in a movie that otherwise pays little attention to character development.

Finally, the way Fury Road is filmed is just completely nutso. The film is frenetic, with certain scenes played much faster than the usual 24 frames per second. The action is almost non-stop from the beginning to end, but the action sequences are so unusual that it never feels boring. For example, during one chase scene warriors are tied to long, flexible sticks so that they can swing over Furiosa's gas rig to grab a wife or stab Max. And of course, there is the infamous Doof Warrior, a guy whose job is to play a guitar that spits out flames while he is bungee-corded to the front of a war vehicle. I guess he does this to rally the troops, kinda like those little kids who played the fife during the Revolutionary War?

Part of Fury Road's appeal is its insane part-steampunk, part-horror film images, from souped-up vehicles to the many characters with missing limbs, or with rather interesting--ahem--bling, such as that bad guy who wears nipple clamps and a metal nose. Although I wouldn't exactly call Fury Road "beautiful", it certainly is eye candy. Or eye sriracha. 

For its sheer uniqueness, as well as its treatment of women as an equal part of its insane world and the many gentle, humane touches amidst otherwise violent action sequences, Mad Max: Fury Road is a visionary film as well as a good, old-fashioned popcorn movie. There is nothing like it, and I give it my highest recommendation.

Grade: A+

                                                                                   

Hannibal Lecter-type bondage only makes those lips more kissable...*sigh*

Three's a (Madding) Crowd

Movies: Far From the Madding Crowd

Dating problems don't seem to change much from century to century. In Far From the Madding Crowd, independent, land-owning Bathsheba Everdene (the always wonderful Carey Mulligan) is in a position to choose between three suitors: faithful, steadfast Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), needy, wealthy William Boldwood (Michael Sheen), and immature, sexy Sgt. Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge). Or she can choose not to marry at all.

I knew very little about Thomas Hardy's novels going into this film. All I knew is that they are tragic. So I was pleasantly surprised at how little Bathsheba was "punished" for her independent and impetuous ways. Bathsheba is granted second and third chances after making pretty terrible mistakes. Ironically, her suitors are the ones who suffer most egregiously.

Set 200 miles outside of London in 1870, Far From the Madding Crowd presents us with a highly unusual heroine. Orphaned at a young age, Bathsheba inherits her uncle's farm after he passes away. Not only does she control the farm's finances, she gets out there and bales hay with the farmhands. Gabriel Oak is a fellow farmer who lives near Bathsheba, but when his entire flock of sheep dies in a freak accident (if you're an animal lover, don't watch this movie) he must sell his farm and take up a position as a shepherd at Bathsheba's farm. The power reversal, as well as Bathsheba's desire to remain independent, make a marriage between the two seemingly impossible.

Bathsheba is soon pursued by William Boldwood, a man about two decades older than her and a lifelong bachelor after being jilted by a fiancee years ago. Boldwood is the "nice guy" in this story: he pursues Bathsheba after she makes it clear she doesn't have feelings for him, promises her a life of ease if she marries him, and is so desperate that it makes you cringe.

Finally, there is Sergeant Francis Troy, who literally bumps into Bathsheba as she is wandering in the woods one evening. Troy is the sexy bad boy of the three suitors: after being left at the altar by the woman he truly loves, Troy foolishly pursues Bathsheba as a way to get over his grief. Bathesheba, swayed by lust (she's never been kissed before meeting Troy), agrees on a whim to marry him...and regrets it almost immediately.

You might think the story ends there. After all, divorce wasn't common in 1870's Britain. But through a few melodramatic twists and turns, Bathsheba has a second chance to make things right and to be with the man it's so clear from the beginning that she's meant to be with: Gabriel.

I had mixed feelings about Far From the Madding Crowd. It's definitely a beautiful film, filled with lush scenery from the English countryside. It also has a strong, yet realistically flawed heroine. It seemed to me that Bathsheba's (and, for that matter, Troy's) main problem is that she is young. Although she is given a great responsibility at a young age wisdom hasn't caught up with her yet. Thus, she shares a passionate kiss (and grope) with Troy in the woods and then marries him, thinking passion equals a good match in a partner. Likewise, Troy is not exactly the bad guy I expected him to be--just really immature and more interested in partying and pining over his lost love than running a farm.

I wasn't a fan of the overwrought melodrama of the story. There are more twists and turns in the two hour film than in an entire season of Days of Our Lives. I realize that this is just the nature of Victorian romance, but the twists felt so arbitrary and unlikely.

Overall, Far From the Madding Crowd is decent and enjoyable. If you're a fan of period films you'll probably enjoy more than I did. The real draw for me was Carey Mulligan's performance as the proud, self-assured Bathsheba.

Grade: B-

Topping from the Bottom

Movies: The Duke of Burgundy

How can I express the beauty, the ecstasy, of watching a film like The Duke of Burgundy? Director Peter Strickland pulls the ultimate bait-and-switch with this lovely, dreamy love story. Ostensibly an erotic story of a sadomasochistic relationship between two women, Duke has no nudity, very little of what most people would consider "sex", and not a single male character--not even a male extra. Folks who show up to see hot girl-on-girl action will be surprised by this supremely arty film with an extraordinary soundtrack, over-exposed cinematography that recalls both Italian giallo horror films and 70's arthouse porn, and a deeply relatable (for all its bizarreness) love story about what it means to make sacrifices for the sake of a lover's desires.

The film opens on a woman, Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna), biking to Cynthia's (Sidse Babett Knudsen) home, where she is chastised for being late and put to work scrubbing the floors. It becomes apparent that the two are engaging in sadomasochistic play, with Evelyn as the submissive and Cynthia as the dominant. But when the two reenact the the same scene a second time, only this time shown from Cynthia's perspective, we can see that it is in fact Evelyn who is engineering these games, down to the very lines Cynthia says to her. Evelyn gets off on being degraded, but it is Cynthia who struggles with living up to her lover's exacting standards. The film handles this story with genuine humor, such as when the two have a consultation with a woman who creates bondage furniture. This may be the most sophisticated film ever to include the phrase "human toilet".

What's even more interesting about The Duke of Burgundy is the dreamlike fantasy world in which is takes place. I mentioned before that there are no men in this movie, but it goes beyond a simply casting choice. In the world of The Duke of Burgundy, men don't even appear to exist. Likewise, children don't exist. Work or normal jobs don't exist. All the characters appear to be entomologists, or at least moth and butterfly enthusiasts. When Cynthia and Evelyn aren't playing their kinky games at home, they're attending lectures about various types of moths. ("The Duke of Burgundy" is actually the common name of a species of butterfly).

The film is set in the past, but it's not clear exactly when (I'd say early 1960's, based on the clothes, but the decade is besides the point). It's also set somewhere in Europe, but never revealed where. All of these choices are deliberate ones on the part of Strickland, who, by creating a single-gender utopia where there are zero obligations to work and family, strips away all the noise that accompanies conversations and stories about love. It comes down to two people who desperately love each other despite being mismatched in a few big ways. One scene that is both heartbreaking and funny is when Cynthia tries to tell Evelyn how much she loves her, only for Evelyn to ask Cynthia to talk degradingly to her so that Evelyn can get off to her lover's cruel words. Anyone who has accommodated a partner's fantasies, despite not being into them, can relate to this scene, and it shows that in order to make a relationship work, sometimes one must "play along" to bridge the gaps between one and one's partner.

Dedicated cinephiles will, I think, be naturally drawn to The Duke of Burgundy for its style and homage to overripe 1970's Euro arthouse erotica as well as the sheer uniqueness of Strickland's vision. Other viewers, I'm not so sure. While I certainly found the movie entertaining, it takes a lot of patience. Watching The Duke of Burgundy is closer to the experience of visiting an art museum and slowly savoring the works of art. But, like the S&M games Cynthia and Evelyn indulge in, it may simply be that it's not for everyone, but for the right audience it's heaven,

Grade: A+

A Mishmash of Movies

Movies: Cheap Thrills, The Guest, The Hunt, The Internship, Life After Beth

I've been asked repeatedly by a colleague who reads my blog when I'm going to write some more reviews, and, indeed, I do need to catch up! Here's some stuff I've seen in the past few months and haven't had the time to review:

Cheap Thrills

This gimmicky thriller is entertaining, but ultimately insubstantial. Directed by E.L. Katz (this is his freshman effort), Cheap Thrills finds blue collar family man Craig (Pat Healy) fired from his job and on the verge of being evicted from his apartment. Rather than face his wife and toddler son, Craig goes to a bar where he runs into old friend Vince (Ethan Embry). After commiserating, the two make the acquaintance of a couple, Violet and Colin (Sara Paxton and David Koechner) who make no secret of their abundant wealth (they order a $300 bottle of tequila for the table).


When they offer to pay $50 to the man who does a tequila shot the fastest, and then up the ante to offering $100 to whomever can get a girl in the bar to slap his face, Vince and Craig realize that this couple might be the ticket to easy money. Craig is hesitant at first, unwilling to participate in some of the more vulgar dares, but when Vince makes it clear that he's game for anything, Craig's sense of competition kicks in. The foursome retreat to the couple's opulent house where the "fun" continues as the dares get weirder and the stakes higher.

I enjoyed Cheap Thrills despite its overall ickiness (how far will a man go to make some money when he desperately needs it? What is the price of his soul I ask you!?). Pat Healy and Ethan Embry are great foils for one another, with Healy's uptight (yet far more desperate) Craig getting more and more irritated by Embry's impulsive and vindictive Vince. Koechner, probably best known for his role as Champ Kind in Anchorman, is gregarious and bizarre as the cocaine-snorting Colin, and Paxton as his wife Violet is an enigma--a woman who barely speaks and has a dead-eyed 1,000-mile stare but who may, in fact, be running the show.

Good for some harsh, mean laughs and not much else.

Grade: B

***

The Guest

Well, I watched The Guest about a million years ago, so I'm not sure how accurately I remember the plot, but the overall impression I had of it was that it was underwhelming and disappointing given the very positive critical reviews it received. The Guest is directed by Adam Wingard, who also directed the excellent and smart indie horror movie You're Next, and the two films are stylistically similar. Dan Stevens, taking a giant leap away from his most famous role as Matthew Crawley on Downton Abbey, plays David, a soldier recently returned from Iraq. He drops in unexpectedly at the home of the Peterson's, who lost their son, Caleb, in action.  David claims to have known Caleb and is indeed in a photo with Caleb and a few other soldiers. The Peterson's warmly welcome David into their home and tell him to stay as long as he likes.

But, surprise surprise, strange things start to happen. For one, David takes the Peterson's younger son, Luke, under his wing and shows him a few self-defense moves after he learns that Luke is being bullied at school. Fair enough. But then he takes the underage Luke to a bar where he knows the bullies will be and antagonizes them by buying them girly drinks and flirting with their girlfriends. When the bullies start a fight, David beats the shit out of every one of them, destroying the bar in the process..and throws down a couple hundreds on his way out for the bartender's trouble. So obviously something is amiss with David.

The Guest is one of those annoying movies where something is obviously wrong, but only one person can figure it out while the rest of the cast is oblivious. In this case, daughter Anna Peterson (Maika Monroe, most recently in It Follows), catches on pretty quickly that David is not being 100% honest about his past. She calls a military base to ask about David and the base tells her that the solider by that name died a week earlier in a fire. Hmmm. Despite David's increasingly violent and erratic behavior, Mr. and Mrs. Peterson refuse to believe that David is anyone but the person he claims to be--a friend to their beloved, dead son.

I didn't really buy the premise of The Guest and I found the ending to be confusing and unfulfilling. There is, in fact, and explanation of who David is, but this explanation is tacked on near the end and the director makes the choice to tell the audience what's going on through exposition, rather than slowly revealing the truth over the course of the film. It's a classic example of telling rather than showing and it felt very lazy and haphazard to me.

The Guest was a mediocre film from an otherwise talented up-and-coming director. Let's hope his next effort is a little more polished.

Grade: C-

***

The Hunt

Oh man, you guys. The Hunt is good, but so depressing. The film stars Mads Mikkelsen (best known for his role as Hannibal Lecter on TV's Hannibal) as Lucas, a soft-spoken, divorced kindergarten teacher. Klara, the daughter of his closest friend, is one of the pupils in the kindergarten and takes a real liking to Lucas. She gives him a valentine and then, while playing, kisses Lucas on the lips. Lucas tells her she should only be kissing her mom and dad and asks if she wouldn't like to give the valentine to one of the boys in the class. Understandably embarrassed, Klara tells a lie to the director of the kindergarten, saying that Lucas is the one who gave her the valentine and kissed her.

The director, shaken, invites a police officer to interview Klara. He asks her leading questions which only appear to damn Lucas more. The audience knows that Lucas is innocent and has no sexual interest in children, which makes his public shunning all the more awful to watch. It would have been interesting if the audience didn't know for sure whether Lucas was innocent or not. But because we do know that he is innocent, the story takes on a bit of an apologist bent towards suspected sex offenders, implying that the only wafer-thin safety net between an upstanding citizen and a hated scapegoat is the word of a child. Indeed, the true criminals in this film are the adults that push Klara towards lying about what Lucas did, even as she starts to protest that she "made up a story".

This is a difficult film to watch because you can't help but sympathize with Lucas' friends and neighbors who start to turn against him. After all, if a child said she saw *your* friend's penis, wouldn't you start to question everything you know about your friend? You don't want to be the last person to stand up for a pedophile.

The Hunt stands on its own as a solid, effecting drama, but it also works as a kind of public service announcement, warning us to be very careful in how we approach accusations of child abuse. Our instinct is to protect the child, no matter the cost to the adult accused. But our own country's history of getting carried away with baseless accusations of abuse shows that we'd do well to be extremely cautious before we start a witch hunt in the name of righteousness.

Grade: B

***

The Internship

The Internship is a bullshit comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson about how INCREDIBLY AWESOME Google is and how Google's workplace model is the best and Google's employees are the best and if you're a snob or hate nerds, then Google hates you. Because this is a PG-13 movie, Wilson and Vaughn don't have full range to use their raunchy humor, thus the film comes off as toothless and formulaic. It's directed by Shawn Levy, and if you look at a list of his films, you pretty much know what the plot arc of The Internship will be: a couple of goofballs try to make good with a group of misfit friends and after some mistakes and hard lessons they succeed, much to the chagrin of the bad guy.

But the worst thing about The Internship is how it's an entire movie created to kiss Google's ass, as if Google doesn't get enough blind worship in reality. If you want to watch a two-hour commercial for a product you already use, then The Internship is right up your alley!

Grade: D+

***

Life After Beth

I really wanted to like this movie because it stars Aubrey Plaza as a zombie, but it just didn't do it for me, although it does take the zombie genre in a different direction. Plaza stars as Beth, a young woman who dies from a snake bite at the beginning of the movie and then crawls out of her grave and makes her way back home, to the shock and delight of her parents (John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon). Beth has no recollection of dying...her mind is stuck a month or so in the past. Beth's boyfriend, Zach (Dane DeHaan...who looks like a younger, but more balding, Leonardo DiCaprio), is confused and upset when he realizes Beth is back, mainly because it's impossible to return from the dead. When Beth's behavior becomes more and more erratic and violent, only Zach is willing to face the reality that Beth belongs dead--a reality her parents will not accept.

Life After Beth's treatment of zombies is really unique---they start out normal when they first awake from death, but become increasingly erratic, almost as if their brain is still decaying even if their body is up and moving. Beth is super horny and super strong. I get the horniness--maybe a zombie is reduced to his or her most basic instincts: anger, hunger, and a desire for sex. But the super strength? Don't know where that comes from.

The most annoying aspect of Life After Beth, and what kept me from fully enjoying the movie, is literally every other character besides Beth. Plaza as Beth is great, and perfectly cast. DeHaan's Zach is weird and histrionic. All the parents (Beth's and Zach's) don't act remotely like real parents. Zach's brother is complete weirdo. I have a special hatred for movies where people don't act like people. Basically everyone in this movie was miscast and given weird motives, lines, and quirks that didn't line up with how people would actually behave in this (admittedly, fantastical) situation--except Beth. When the most believable character in your movie is a zombie, you have a problem.

But an attempt at a unique vision, some really funny and affecting moments, and of course the great Aubrey Plaza, keep Life After Beth from being a total disaster.

Grade: C

Sexually Transmitted Demons

Movies: It Follows

Warning: I will describe the plot of It Follows below, which might be inherently spoiler-y for some. If you want to see this film with a blank slate, stop reading and see it now.

Director David Robert Mitchell's sophomore effort, It Follows, is a masterpiece of horror cinema. It is wickedly inventive and scary, terrifying the audience from start to finish with well-earned scares and minimal gore. It's also beautifully shot and naturalistic, with an excellent original score that only adds to the tension. Never have I been so excited to see a movie that made me want to curl into a fetal position in my theatre seat.

Taking place in the suburbs of Detroit in an indeterminable time period (all the TVs have rabbit ears and the characters have polaroids hanging in their bedrooms, yet one character has a futuristic smartphone-type device with her at all times), It Follows makes the average and the mundane terrifying and seemingly safe locations very much unsafe.

Jay (Maika Monroe) is a high school student seeing a handsome 21-year-old, Hugh (Jake Weary), who acts suspiciously jumpy at their date to a movie. The two wind up having sex in the backseat of his car, after which he reveals to her that he has passed on a curse. Jay will now be constantly pursued by a thing--a thing that can take any form, even the form of someone she loves--until it catches her or until she passes the curse on to the next person she sleeps with. This thing, and it's never explained exactly what it is, will never stop pursuing her, but it will do so by walking. This means that if Jay gets in a car and drives far enough, she can buy some time before it catches up to her. However, if the thing catches her and kills her, the curse reverts back to the last person who had it (i.e. Hugh), so although she can pass it on, there is always the danger than it could come back at any moment.

A couple more rules: only people currently afflicted or previously afflicted by the curse can see the thing, and there is no way to kill it or stop it.

The description of the plot sounds both silly and mind-bogglingly on-the-nose (something that you can't kill, but that can kill you, which is passed on via sexual activity? Hmmm...sounds familiar). But trust me, It Follows is genuinely smart horror. After you gets a taste of what this "thing" is, you can't help but scan the screen for signs of it slowly walking toward the camera. Some forms the thing takes are not very scary (a girl in a white dress), while others are fucking nightmares (an extremely tall man with no eyes)--and you never know what form it will take next.

Mitchell utilizes camera movements and angles to maximize the tension without resorting to cheap jump scares (although I certainly jumped and shrieked a number of times). The absolute relentlessness of the pursuit of the victim by the thing imbues even quiet moments in the film with a sense of danger. The result is a film that feels very fresh and different while also scaring the fucking bejesus out of you.

The obvious metaphor of the film is one of sexual danger and disease, but it's interesting that the cure is more sex, not less. In many horror films, teenagers are punished with death or violence for being sexually active. In It Follows, teens are both punished (by receiving the curse) and rewarded (by escaping it for a while by passing it on) for engaging in sexual activity.

But there is a deeper symbolic meaning to this curse. It is about the inevitability of death and the terror in not knowing when and where it will occur. One character reads a passage about torture and pain from Dostoevsky's The Idiot near the end of the film:

"But the most terrible agony many not be in the wounds themselves but in knowing for certain that within an hour, then within ten minutes, then within half a minute, now at this very instant – your soul will leave your body and you will no longer be a person, and that is certain; the worst thing is that it is certain.”

 The themes of It Follows do, indeed, lack subtleness. Sexual terror. The grim reaper at your door. The journey to adulthood fraught with peril and dismay. The dawning realization that we only have less time to be alive, not more. But for a film with such obvious metaphors, It Follows is as singular a horror film I've seen in a very long while. And after a decade of torture porn like Hostel and Saw, I'm ready for an artful renaissance of the horror genre.

Grade: A-

"A Disgusting Movie With Disgusting Ideas"

Movies: essay

Upon reviewing the controversial, gross-out flick Wetlands and the pearl-clutching Fifty Shades of Grey, I was thinking about the movies I've seen that others might find appalling. I remembered a conversation I had in college with an acquaintance where I talked about how much I enjoyed the 2006 film (based on the exquisite novel by Patrick Suskind) Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. This acquaintance did not feel the same way I did about Perfume, describing it as "A disgusting movie with disgusting ideas." Not disturbing. Not bad. Disgusting.

This conversation has stayed with me ever since--whenever I watch a violent or gross movie (and believe me, I am not remotely a connoisseur of disturbing movies) I usually chuckle to myself: I'm watching a "disgusting movie with disgusting ideas."

Although I've never tackled some of the films out there that have reached cult status for their outrageousness (such as Martyrs or--God forbid--A Serbian Film), I've seen a fair number of movies which have been banned, boycotted, resulted in fainting, or are otherwise controversial and disturbing to many. Below, I outline a few of them and take a look at whether or not they actually add something to culture and/or art.

--> General spoiler alert! <--

-->General offensive language alert!<--

***

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Let's start with the titular "disgusting" movie. Perfume is, well, the story of a murderer. But not just any murderer. Ben Whishaw plays Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, a young man in 1800's France with an almost supernatural sense of smell...and no conscience at all. He becomes a perfumer's apprentice, but creating scents from roses eventually bores him and he seeks to create the most magnificent, luscious, heavenly scent of all...by murdering delicious smelling young women and distilling their essence.

I think what is most potentially upsetting for viewers is not than Jean-Baptiste is an amoral, calculating killer, but the peculiar end of the film. It's pretty bonkers. Jean-Baptiste has been arrested and is about to hang for his crimes. As he is led to the gallows, Richis (played by Alan Rickman), the father of a noblewoman Jean-Baptiste murdered, comes up to confront him before he hangs. Jean-Baptiste whips out a handkerchief soaked in the perfume he created by killing thirteen lovely young women and waves it around. When Richis catches the scent, he is so bewitched by it that he bows down and kisses Jean-Baptiste's feet. But that's not the end of that--when the crowd catches the scent on the wind, they immediately begin disrobing and engage is a gigantic public orgy. I can see how my acquaintance saw this as "disgusting" (in fairness, Jean-Baptiste kills himself at the end of the movie by dousing himself in the perfume, leading a mob to literally tear him to shreds and eat him. So there's that).

Perfume is a movie (and book) that is equal parts bizarre and beautiful. The descriptions in the novel are gorgeous and the images in the film are equally dazzling. I considered Perfume, both movie and book, to be art (and I wasn't alone: Kurt Cobain wrote a song, "Scentless Apprentice", inspired by the book). But one person's art is another person's trash.

Disgusting level (1-5 scale): 3
Grade: A

***

Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Woo, doggies! Talk about a disgusting film! Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and based on the novel by--yes--the Marquis de Sade, is widely considered to be one of the most disturbing films ever made.

The story centers on a group of noblemen in Nazi-controlled Italy (in de Sade's novel, they were 18th century French noblemen) who round up a group of 18 teenagers--9 girls and 9 boys--selected for their beauty, and keep them captive in a secluded villa. They proceed to rape, torture, and humiliate said teenagers for months before killing most of them off (and those are the lucky ones) in the end. The film ends with two of the young guards dancing with each other while the torture and mass murdering goes on in the courtyard outside. Talk about the banality of evil.

Why was movie with such a horrible premise created? Pasolini was a well-respected director whose earlier films (he was murdered shortly after Salo was released) centered on religious themes and classic literature. There have been many interpretations of Salo, but at its heart I believe Pasolini's intention was to show how unbridled power can lead to unspeakable abuse. There is a scene in the film where everyone--the victims AND the torturers--dine on a meal of shit. Pasolini has said in interviews that this is symbolic of consumer culture--that we'll feast on whatever "shit" they tell us to. I also think it's worth noting that while the victims are disgusted by being forced to consume excrement, the noblemen love it and consider it a delicacy. If the shit stands for evil and debauchery, then this makes sense--an act of evil that would disgust a good, innocent person will feel wonderful to an evil person.

Salo is widely written about, if you want to learn more. Although it is definitely a disgusting film, the ideas behind it are important ones we should be able to discuss.

Disgusting level: 5
Grade: A-

***
The Last Temptation of Christ




When The Last Temptation of Christ was released in 1988, it was the subject of many boycotts by Christian groups around the world. The Saint Michael theatre in Paris was attacked during a screening of the film by a French fundamentalist group who threw Molotov cocktails into the packed theatre  (apparently, they forgot the sixth commandment...)

While violence is always an overreaction to controversial art, it's understandable why so many religious groups were upset. Last Temptation portrays Christ (played by Willem Dafoe) as all too human: tempted by lust, the promise of a "normal" life married to Mary Magdalene, and finally tempted to refuse to fulfill his destiny by dying on the cross. Last Temptation is not really meant to be theologically sound; it is based on the novel by Nikos Kazantakis. But religious groups don't take well to artsy-fartsy types messing with their Jesus. Plenty of other works of cinema, literature and art that use Christ imagery (artist Andres Serrano's Piss Christ) or tell alternative versions of the Gospel (Christopher Moore's hilarious novel Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) have riled up religious groups left and right.

Personally, I don't find The Last Temptation of Christ disgusting or upsetting at all. I find it inspiring, actually, to see the Jesus portrayed as a normal man, not as a superhuman. Religion is a huge part of many people's lives and of our culture. I would wager that many people actually crave depictions of religious figures that they can relate to, that challenge them, and that make them think.

Disgusting level: 1
Grade: A


***


Swept Away...by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August

Well, we've pissed off the Christians...now it's time to piss off the feminists! Directed by Lina Wertmuller, this 1974 film (NOT the wretched remake starring Madonna) concerns a wealthy, elitist woman stranded on an island with a lower class, communist sailor. Having treated treated Gennarino like shit, Raffaella is now at his mercy to survive. Gennarino believes that women were born to serve men and forces Raffaella to wash his clothes and serve him if she wants to eat. He also slaps her around, calls her a bitch, and attempts to rape her (but decides to wait until she freely consents to sex).

Well, what do you think the prideful Rafaella thinks of all this? She loves it, of course! Well, she grows to love it. Not too long after the master/slave reversal, Rafaella and Gennarino fall in love and have insane amounts of sex on their island paradise....until the rescue team shows up.

As a feminist, of course I am horrified by the idea that women *naturally want* to serve and submit to men and that men and women find sexual and romantic harmony when these gender roles are fulfilled. But I don't find this movie disgusting. Not in the least. Mainly because I don't believe that the male superiority/female inferiority message is what Wertmuller truly believed, even if she used it as a lens through which to portray class conflict (the true heart of the film). The master/slave dynamic is, to my memory (it's been a while since I've seen it), firmly tongue-in-cheek, with a winking nod to kinky sexuality. Although a Men's Rights Activist could have made such a film in sincerity, in the hands of a female director (who I believe considered herself a feminist) it becomes something very different and almost satirical.

Disgusting level: 1
Grade: B-

***
Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist

Very few people probably know about this documentary, directed by now well-known documentarian Kirby Dick (This Film is Not Yet Rated, The Invisible War, and most recently The Hunting Ground). Bob Flanagan was a performance artist with cystic fibrosis. Given what is essentially a death sentence at birth, Bob lived to age 41, which, at the time, made him the longest living person with CF ever.

Flanagan was also very, very into sexual masochism. For those of you who don't know, masochism is when you are sexually aroused by receiving pain. Flanagan explained in interviews that the moments where he received the most love in his childhood (adults fussing over him, holding him, etc) were the moments when he felt the greatest pain due to his illness. For him, love and pain were one. Subjecting himself to pain was also a way for Flanagan to exert control over his body. He couldn't control the agonies CF inflicted upon him, but he could control the agonies he inflicted upon himself...and by adding elements of sexuality to the pain, well, it makes a certain counterintuitive sense.

Sick chronicles the final years of Flanagan's life. He was married to Sheree Rose, his collaborator in art, his Mistress, and his wife. The film shows a lot of Flanagan's performance art, which revolves around themes of illness, religion, and sexuality. Not all of the art is for those with a weak stomach, particularly the scene where Flanagan hammers a nail into his own penis (to the strains of Bad Company's "Hammer of Love"). Whether you find the film disgusting or not, it is most certainly sick. And hilarious. And heartwarming. And interesting. And life affirming. When Flanagan isn't mutilating himself, he is surrounded by friends and family (Kirby Dick and his wife actually became close friends with Flanagan and Sheree Rose during the years it took to film this movie) who love him and accept him as he is. His openly gay brother talks about how he was scared to come out to his parents...and then his brother usurped his throne for weirdest sexuality in the family.

The film also gets real up close and personal with a dying man. Much like Marlon T. Riggs' wonderful documentary, Tongues Untied, Sick films a man literally on his death bed. And it's not lurid or melodramatic. It's just very sad. You see a man you've grown to love over the course of the film gasp and struggle his way into the next life...which you can only hope for his sake is filled with whips, chains, and nails.

Disgusting level: 4
Grade: A+

***
Bamboozled

I'm including Spike Lee's 2000 film Bamboozled here because I watched it in a class called History of Popular Culture in America in college. The film is about a black television writer who creates an offensive minstrel show for TV to piss off his racist boss, only for it to become a huge hit. After we watched it a woman in the class said in a snotty voice, "I am so tired of apologizing for being white."

Well, color me baffled! I really had no idea that Spike Lee wrote and directed this movie to get this lady in my class to apologize for her skin color. But that's the response it elicited (another memorable response by a [white] guy in the class: "Spike Lee is the most racist director out there!").

Bamboozled explores how black people can harm other black people for various reasons: to make money, to be accepted in white culture, to become successful, etc. The main character, Pierre Delacroix (played by Damon Wayans) is a highly educated black man who is bedeviled by his racist, crude, white boss (Michael Rapaport--always excellent at playing the asshole role). When his boss tells Pierre to create a new show that'll be a hit, Pierre decides to create the most offensive show he can think of: a full-blown minstrel show with black actors in blackface playing characters named "Sleep n' Eat", as an enormous "fuck you" to his boss. The plan backfires when audiences love it and Pierre has to decide if fame and fortune are worth bringing back blackface.

Bamboozled is not Lee's best work, but it has an interesting premise. It begs the question: how responsible are artists and entertainers for portraying minority or disadvantaged characters in positive and non-insulting ways? What about the audience? What is our responsibility as consumers? What do advantaged members of a overall disadvantaged group owe to other members of that group? Lots of interesting ideas and potential discussion topics, yet the initial response by (white) college students was defensiveness and dismissal. If anything, that proves we need more provocative films and books to encourage conversation around sensitive topics.

Disgusting level: 1
Grade: C+

***
Pink Flamingos

I love John Waters. He is equally adept at directing sweet, fairly innocent movies (Hairspray, Pecker, Cry-Baby) as he is at directing outrageous trash like Pink Flamingos. I don't even know how to brain when I watch something like Pink Flamingos. Is it funny? Is it perverse? Is it delightful? Is it horrifying? Yes.

Pink Flamingos stars the incomparable Divine as Babs Johnson, known as "the filthiest person alive", a title she wears proudly. When married couple Connie and Raymond Marble seek to knock her off her throne by sending her disgusting gifts, sabotaging her birthday party, and attempting to be even filthier than she is, Divine/Babs doesn't go down without a fight.

It's kind of pointless to explain the "plot" of Pink Flamingos because the film is so surreal and purposefully shocking. It's the film equivalent of Andy Warhol pissing on a blank canvas and calling it art or Duchamp turning a urinal upside down and naming it "Fountain" (boy, there's a big obsession with pee in the art world, isn't there?). Pink Flamingos features two people having sex with a live chicken between them (the chicken died. Sorry, PETA), a man lip-synching to "Surfin Bird" with his butthole, and Divine eating actual dog poop. Is this art? Well, the dictionary defines art as:  

"the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." 

Pink Flamingos may not be beautiful, and it most definitely a disgusting movie (with pretty disgusting ideas), but it definitely has some emotional power (hint: the primary emotion is squealing in embarrassment as a man lip-synchs to "Surfin Bird" with his butthole).

Disgusting level: 5
Grade: C

***
A Clockwork Orange and other films of Stanley Kubrick

Director Stanley Kubrick was an unparalleled genius. His films are splashed with brilliant colors, scored with unnerving soundtracks, and manage to be highly artistic while still massively entertaining. For some folks at least.

A Clockwork Orange is, for my money, Kubrick's best film. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange presents to us a surreal dystopian world where the streets are ruled by hooligans who speak in a strange slang called "Nadsat", relax at milk bars, and then go out and commit all manner of crimes and high-jinks. Alex (Malcolm McDowell) is the leader of his pack and is an unusual young man because he enjoys his rape and violence with a side of Beethoven. Burgess and Kubrick make a point to befuddle the reader/viewer by adding an intelligent, cultured element to a character that would otherwise just be a monster. When Alex has a chance to get out of a prison sentence by undergoing a procedure called the Ludovico Technique, which will strip all violent impulses from him, as well as the very things that make him human, the audience is forced to reckon with the idea that taming criminals might come at a cost.

I took a film class freshman year where we watched A Clockwork Orange and during a discussion following the film a girl in the class said that she was mad Alex went back to his "normal" self at the end. She wanted him to die. She wasn't the only person to hold this view, and A Clockwork Orange isn't the only Kubrick film to elicit consternation. Kubrick's final film, the beautiful and strange Eyes Wide Shut, explores ambivalence and secrets within marriage, as Tom Cruise cruises around town looking for some strange after his wife, Nicole Kidman, confesses an erotic fantasy involving another man. Similarly, Kubrick tackled the inanity of war in Full Metal Jacket--a war film that is anti-war.

Kubrick annoys some people not just because his films can appear pretentious at first blush, but because they often leave the audience with an unsettling sense of issues not being fully resolved. Bad guys get away with being bad. American soldiers who should be heroes act cruelly to their victims. Cruise and Kidman's marriage is not destroyed, nor is it fully renewed at the end of Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick's only sin is showing the world as it actually is, not as we expect to be in the magic of the movies.

Disgusting level: 2
Grade: A+


***

Shortbus, 9 Songs, and Nymphomaniac

Finally, I want to address the issue of sexually explicit films, which can be disgusting to many people. Shortbus, directed by John Cameron Mitchell, 9 Songs, directed by Michael Winterbottom, and Nymphomaniac, directed by Lars von Trier, are examples of "mainstream" (read: not porno) movies that feature actual sex. Their plots also revolve heavily around the sex lives of their characters.

Shortbus follows a group of New Yorkers, including a gay couple obsessed with their neighbor and a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, who fumble through life and all end up at a artistic/sexual salon called "Shortbus" which promises to solve all of life's problems via sexual liberation. The two things I took away from this film are 1) as much as sexuality is an important part of life, I don't agree that having a giant orgy will lead to world peace, and 2) apparently it's possible for some guys to give themselves blow jobs because that's exactly what happens in the opening scene of this movie. Unlike John Cameron Mitchell's opus, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus is pretty dull and, in my opinion, filled with stupid--though not disgusting--ideas.

Similarly, 9 Songs is an incredibly boring movie. The plot is this: a couple have sex and go to concerts. That's it. That's the whole plot. The actors have real sex, and it's actually pretty hot, and then they go to concerts (including a Franz Ferdinand--one of my favorite bands--concert). But despite the good music and sexy sex, 9 Songs is just...uninteresting. It, and Shortbus, prove that featuring explicit sex doesn't automatically make a movie worth seeing.

In contrast, I found Lars von Trier's epic story of a woman's sexual journey, Nymphomaniac, to be beautiful and fascinating. This is likely because there is plenty of plot to move the film along, although most of it focuses on the heroine's sex life. In 5 hours, von Trier takes us through lead character Joe's life, from childhood to lusty young adulthood, through her marriage to Jerome and the dissolution of that marriage. And, like Kubrick, von Trier gives no easy answers or explanations as to where Joe's self-described "nymphomania" came from and whether it adds to or takes away from her life. Is the film misogynist? Is it feminist? Is pro-sex or anti-sex? It's a little of all of the above.

Each of these films features explicit, real sex. But none (well, very little) of the sex struck me as "disgusting". The only moments that upset me were a few instances of violence and non-consensual sex in Nymphomaniac. Sex, to me, is not naturally disgusting or repellant, although of course rape is another story. Personally, I'm more likely to be grossed out by a PG-13 movie that treats female characters like shrews and prudes and male characters like lugs and man-babies (listen up, Adam Sandler) than an NC-17 movie where a dude blows himself in the opening scene. Sex is a private matter for many people--sacred, even--but my gag-reflex is triggered by stale gender roles and casual violence against women rather than making public the things people do in private.

Shortbus:
Disgusting level: 2
Grade: C-

9 Songs:
Disgusting level: 1
Grade: C-

Nymphomaniac:
Disgusting level: 2
Grade: A

***

Conclusion

In this essay I've taken a look at some of the more controversial, shocking, or disturbing films I've seen and weighed their merit against their level of "disgustingness". For me, disgust is measured not in violence, sexuality, or as the college acquaintance put it, "disgusting ideas", but in offensive tropes, lack of authenticity, and lack of creativity. For me, the biggest sin a movie can commit is to be boring. The second biggest sin a movie can commit is to rest on lazy, offensive stereotypes. For example: any movie starring Katherine Heigl, an actress who once disparaged her role in Knocked Up as anti-feminist only to go on to star in roles that portray women as shrewish, uptight bitches. Also: the Tucker Max movie and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. In my opinion, these are the films that truly have "disgusting ideas".

I realize that there is more than a bit of elitism and snobbery in my assessment. While I look down my nose at the films of the masses, I adore films that are "art". I won't deny that I can be a film snob. However, a movie doesn't have to be directed by Kubrick, or be 3 hours long, or have subtitles to be a quality film. All a movie needs is creativity, authenticity, and a fun or interesting premise.

As for "disgusting movies with disgusting ideas"--I've found that these are often the most interesting movies of all, and whether you love them or loathe them, you can't pretend they don't have a place in our culture.

Gross Anatomy

Movies: Wetlands

Warning: graphic descriptions of gross and inappropriate behavior in this review.

The German film Wetlands, based on the controversial 2008 novel by Charlotte Roche, is an excellent follow-up to the last movie I reviewed, Fifty Shades of Grey. Where Fifty Shades attempts to appropriate feminism for its own capitalistic, male-focused brand of "sex positivity", Wetlands takes all those middle-class, clean, quiet values about sex what it means to be a "good" (non-threatening) feminist and shoves them where the sun don't shine.

Literally. This film involves a TON of shoving things into orifices where the sun don't shine. Wetlands follows 18 year old Helen, a young woman who disdains any and all forms of hygiene. Being taught as a child that vaginas are hard to keep clean by her clean-freak mother, Helen now engages in behaviors such as rubbing her vulva on dirty public toilet seats, swapping (used) tampons with her best friend and "blood sister", Corinna, and masturbating with a variety of vegetables.

But despite Helen's anti-social gross-out behavior, she still has a sensitive heart. Her mom and dad got divorced when she was a child and her fondest wish is for them to get back together. When Helen ends up in the hospital after a shaving accident (where the sun don't shine), she conspires to surreptitiously get her parents back together by asking them to visit her at the hospital at the same time. She also seduces her handsome male nurse, Robin, during her hospital stay.

You might ask why would I want to watch a movie about a girl who engages in objectively disgusting behavior and where the main event that moves the plot forward is a anal shaving accident. Good question! For one thing, if you can get over the gross-out scenes, Wetlands is actually really fun. It's so very, very different from any movie I've seen before. And it's weirdly feminist. Helen doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks. She rejects religion, cleanliness, and manners. She seduces men with abandon and experiments with sex. But she's also a typical young woman who fights with her mom, is disappointed in her lothario dad, gets jealous of her best friend, and acts protective of her little brother. So, Wetlands takes a typical young adult heroine and turns her into something we've never seen before.

While Wetlands is certainly novel, it's also fairly shallow. Helen aches to get her parents back together, but given that they are so obviously a terrible match for each other, it's hard to understand why she's so invested in it. A scene at the end reveals a terrifying and tragic event from Helen's childhood that might explain her strange behavior, but it's thrown in right at the end and never properly explored. The film ends with Helen getting a ride out of the hospital with Robin. It's cool to see a hot guy paired with a gross (but otherwise conventionally attractive) woman...but their relationship lacks depth. Wetlands the novel was accused of being nothing but empty shock. I haven't read the book, but I'd say that the movie is about 75% shock value, 25% critique of gender/hygiene norms. The film is trying to say something about our society (or, German society), but it doesn't quite give us enough to work with.

For those with a strong stomach, Wetlands is a funny, quirky movie with a very unusual heroine. But don't expect it to change the world.

B-