Circle Jerk

Movies: Circle

I've mentioned on this blog before that my reviews tend to skew positive for the simple reason that I actively seek out movies I think I'll like and avoid ones I think I won't like.

I also like to read up on movies before seeing them--sometimes even going as far as spoiling the ending for myself before seeing it. So it's rare for me to watch a movie that 1) I know nothing about and 2) turns out to be garbage.

Circle is such a movie. Directed by Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione, Circle was released directly to Netflix (at least it never had a theatrical release and has no ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic) in 2015. The premise of the film is that a group of 50 people--all races and ages--wake up in a black chamber. They are standing on lit circles and if they try to step off the circle, a buzzer goes off, they are struck by what seems to be an electrical current, and they die. Additionally, every minute a person is randomly electrocuted and they die.

The group quickly realizes that, in fact, these executions are not random and that they can individually vote on people to die. Whoever gets the most votes is killed. While trying to figure out what's going on, a man suggests that the group buys time by together choosing to kill off all the people in their 70's or older because "they've lived their life". After each death they have about one minute to discuss and strategize.

You can see where all this is going. The message of Circle appears to be that in extreme circumstances, most people will panic and do anything to save themselves and only a valiant few will refuse to let the prospect of death rob them of their ethics and dignity. But this message is so incredibly ham-fisted that the film feels like it was written and directed by college sophomores who have just realized, like, hey man...people, like, make unfair judgements all the time. But you can't claim some lives matter more than others!! 

To illustrate the awkwardness of Circle, here are just a few things that happen in the movie (spoilers...in case you actually want to watch this garbage):

• At one point in the film, a character says "Everyone! Kill the black guy!" And they do.
• After it is revealed that one of the women in the circle is a lesbian, a white man who turns out to be a lawyer and who is wearing a dress shirt and suspenders (dude looks like he stepped right off the set of Wall Street) tries to convince the others to kill her next so that her child can be raised in a normal home.
• A man claims "95% of people believe in God" when an argument about religion breaks out.
• It is assumed from the get-go that the "winner" of the circle will either be the young child or the pregnant woman and the group forms two factions: the "evil" faction that wants to kill the kid and the pregnant lady so they can have a better chance of winning themselves and the "good" faction that aims to protect the kid and pregnant lady.

In other words, Circle is a lazy, obvious, clumsy attempt to make people think about how, like, you can't judge a person by their outward appearance man! Unless they're a child or a pregnant lady--then you totally CAN judge them because, according to this film, they are OBVIOUSLY worth more to society and thus "good" people will protect them and are willing to sacrifice their lives for them.

Circle is sophomoric and subpar as a film in almost every way. The dialogue is like someone on a megadose of valium trying to hit you with a baseball bat: it's clearly offensive, but in such a clumsy way that it's more hilarious than hurtful. The characters are incredibly two-dimensional, which is kind of the point, but it's hard to take a film where there are characters named "The Atheist", "The Soldier", "The Pregnant Girl" (side note: pregnant girl?? She's clearly in her 20's), and "The Lesbian" seriously.

I don't even get what the point is. Is the point that we're supposed to look beyond simple stereotypes when we judge other people? Or is it that people DON'T look beyond stereotypes and never will, so why bother trying?

I'm going to spoil the ending and you should go ahead and read it because if you watch this movie of your own volition after reading this review, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Ok, so a random white dude "wins" the circle because he was trifling the whole time--trying to act like he was a good guy and wanting to protect the poor little girl and poor pregnant lady from dying. But actually, this sneaky bastard, he waits until they are the only two left and then tells them "One of you will have to sacrifice yourself for the other" and when the little girl, sobbing, agrees to sacrifice herself and steps off her circle (and thus dies), this sneaky SOB votes for the pregnant lady, killing her.

BUT IT'S NOT OVER YET. Whenever there is a tie--i.e. two people get the same number of votes--a shaft of light hovers over the people who have tied and everyone has to vote for one or the other. So after this guy kills the pregnant lady, I fucking shit you not, a shaft of light hovers over him---AND THE LADY'S FUCKING BELLY. GET IT??? IT'S THE FETUS!!!! MIND BLOWN!!!

So then he votes against the fetus and kills it, which, ohmigod, shows how evil he is because unborn babies are people too (according to this film, very likely MORE worthy of living than the vessel woman carrying them).

BUT IT'S STILL NOT OVER. Once this douchebag "wins" the contest or experiment or whatever the fuck it was, he's magically transported to what looks like Los Angeles--he's outside in a big city with a bunch of other people (circle winners, presumably, given that like half of them are pregnant ladies). And there's a giant UFO circling overhead.

Yes, viewers. The mystery of the circle was...

And then the movie ends. Because why explore the real questions of this film (why aliens? why the experiment? what happens next?) when you could be devoting time to people yelling "Everyone! Kill the black guy!"

Grade: F+

Shirts vs. Skinheads

Movies: Green Room

Green Room is a rare film that offers gory grind house thrills, but with intelligence, clever twists, and great acting.

Directed by Jeremy Saulnier, whose previous film, Blue Ruin, was a critical success, Green Room follows punk band The Ain't Rights as they scrounge for enough money to make it from the Pacific Northwest back home to Arlington, VA. The band is flat broke, reduced to siphoning gas from other cars since they can't afford to buy it themselves. A friend of theirs who is also a local radio show host sets them up with a gig at a backwoods bar outside of Portland.

The only catch is...it's a skinhead bar.

The Ain't Rights foolishly, and befittingly punk-y, open their set with a cover of the Dead Kennedy's "Nazi Punks Fuck Off", which pisses off the crowd. However, the rest of their show goes well and it seems that they're going to make it out unscathed and a few dollars richer. But as they head out, one of the band members, Pat (Anton Yelchin), runs back to the green room to grab fellow band member Sam's (Alia Shawkat) cell phone...only to stumble onto the scene of a murder.

The situation quickly descends into chaos, with the bouncers forcing the band back into the room and calling club owner Darcy (a chilling Patrick Stewart) to figure out what to do. The Ain't Rights aren't naive--they know that the neo-Nazis who run this club aren't just going to let them go after they've witnessed a murder.

And so Green Room becomes a taut, breathless stand-off between the very disadvantaged band, plus Amber, a friend of the girl who was killed, and the skinheads who are armed to the teeth. The band has no weapons and are outnumbered. The skinheads have guns, knives, attack dogs, and "true believers"--young men willing to both kill and die for the Brotherhood. The fact that they're neo-Nazis is almost beside the point--they could just be any old group of violent goons--but it does raise the stakes since the bad guys are blindly invested in a violent, hierarchical lifestyle ("This isn't a party---it's a movement" says Darcy at one point, getting applause from the crowd).

When the violence begins it is incredibly gruesome, though never gratuitous. Unlike the cartoonish grindhouse violence of a Tarantino film, or the stomach-churning endless torture of the Hostel and Saw series, Green Room holds back to a degree, relying more on suspense mixed with brief bursts of realistic violence. That said, I wouldn't recommend this film to those with weak stomachs.

Green Room also has intelligent writing and plot twists. It shows, rather than tells. For example, Darcy tells his goons to only let people "with red laces" into the room where the murder happened. The film doesn't explain what he means by this, but the viewer figures out that red shoe laces indicate someone who is a "true believer" in Nazism and has proven their loyalty to Darcy. There were indeed a few times where I got a bit confused about the plot--particularly around the identity of the murdered girl and why she was murdered--but I was ultimately able to figure everything out and I appreciated that the film didn't rely on heavy exposition.

All this in addition to Patrick Stewart's excellent performance as the calculating, calm Darcy--who, against all reason, seems "safe" because of his British accent and genteel manners, even when he's ordering his goons to kill the band. It's a pleasure to watch Stewart play such an evil, charming character.

As I said at the beginning of the review, Green Room promises--and delivers--violent gore and Naziploitation. But it does so in a masterful, intelligent way that transcends the horror/suspense/grindhouse genres. To use an analogy, it's like going to a burger joint and realizing they serve prime cuts of grass-fed beef along with house-made dipping sauces. You thought you were getting the standard, greasy junk food, but actually you got a carefully cultivated meal. Saulnier's Green Room is a heart-pounding, delicious treat of a film.

Grade: A 

Update: I have been sooooo lazy

Movies, TV: Venus in Fur, Creep, Game Change, Broadchurch

Y'all, I've gotten so behind in my reviewing! Luckily, I actually haven't seen many new films lately as I've been quite busy in my personal life. But I'm finally going to give you some fun size reviews of a few movies (and a TV show) I've watched over the past month. Enjoy!


Venus in Fur

Based on the 2010 play by American playwright David Ives, director Roman Polanski moves the action in this funny and sexually tense story to Paris. Perhaps because Polanski raped a young girl in 1977 and then fled the United States rather than face punishment and can't re-enter? Or perhaps because Par-ee is the City of Love? In either case, I saw a stage play version of Venus in Fur and absolutely loved it so I was excited to see that the film version was floating around in my Netflix queue...and then I saw who directed it. Womp. I do try to avoid watching the films of directors whose personal lives are not just quirky, but outright criminal. I'm really hoping in this case very few of my $$ are actually making their way into Polanski's hands...

Anyway, I digress. The film is about a playwright, Thomas, casting the leading lady for his play Venus in Fur, which is based on the titillating 1870 Austrian novella about female dominance and male submission by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. Thomas is looking for an actress who can play the elegant, formidable Vanda von Dunajew. After a disappointing day of watching vacuous actresses butcher his script, Thomas is ready to give up. That is, until Vanda walks in. Yes, an actress who is convinced she is right for the part--she shares the same name as the female lead, after all!

Vanda convinces Thomas to let her read--while he reads that part of Severin von Kusiemski, a man desperate to become a woman's slave. As the two work their way through the play, they indulge in subtle power games. Vanda the actress seems a little silly and unassuming at first, but as she nudges Thomas--via his reading of the part of Severin--towards his own desire to submit to her, it's clear who really has the power in the room.

Venus in Fur is a very sexy movie in which there is no sex. Hell, there's no kissing and very little touching. All of Vanda and Thomas' power games are intellectual, and the build up of sexual tension is so strong that by the time Vanda takes off the leather collar she wears to the interview and buckles it around Thomas' neck, you'll barely be able to breathe. I admit that I found the stage version I watched to be even better than this film version, especially the ending, but overall Venus in Fur is a fun, sexy movie.

Grade: B+

***

Creep

Creep, directed by Patrick Brice, effectively uses the concept of the "found footage" film and twists it in unexpected way. Brice also stars in the movie as Aaron, a videographer who answers a Craigslist ad to spend a day filming a man, Josef (played by Mark Duplass). Josef explains that he is dying of cancer and his wife is pregnant, so he wants to make a sort of "day in the life" type video for his unborn son. Very quickly though, Josef starts acting in bizarre ways that, well, creep Aaron out.

I can't say too much without giving away the various twists and turns of Creep, but I can say that Creep is very entertaining and keeps you guessing--despite not being the scariest movie out there. So much of the film rests in Mark Duplass' hands as the "creep" of the title. Duplass is an interesting casting choice, but it makes sense. He's really good at playing the nice, dorky guy--and he uses this persona to disarm Aaron. After all, Mark Duplass doesn't *look* like man who would hurt anyone, right? But appearances can be deceiving.

Creep is Patrick Brice's first full-length film and it's quite good for a first time out. He went on to direct The Overnight in 2015 which I reviewed in late January and enjoyed immensely. Given that he has a knack for creating interesting storylines that don't always play out how you think they're going to, I'm excited to see what he does next.

Grade: B

***

Game Change

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but Game Change, based on the book by Mark Halperin, was really good and actually made me a little nostalgic for an era not too long ago when the Republican party wasn't completely full of psychopaths.

Game Change explores the question "what the fuck happened?" in regards to John McCain choosing Sarah Palin to be his running mate during the 2008 election. Director Jay Roach could have easily been very mean spirited in his portrayal of all the major players, especially Palin, but he restrains himself and paints what I assume to be a fair picture. According to the film (I haven't read the book), McCain was encouraged to choose Palin as his running mate by political strategist Steve Schmidt (played by Woody Harrelson), who realized that for McCain to beat superstar Barack Obama, he would need a "game changer" on the ticket. Palin, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative who also happened to be a woman (not just another old white guy) seemed to make sense and appeal to a wide demographic of Republican voters.

However, Palin was not properly vetted and was clearly in over her head. The film suggests that Palin wasn't a dummy. In fact, she was quite sly. After failing to do her research and consequently looking foolish in interviews, she makes the choice to go off script and pretty much say whatever she wants. You'll remember the media saying that Palin was "going rogue". Schmidt, a fiercely intelligent and dignified man, finds himself butting heads with Palin at every turn while McCain distances himself from the whole mess. "She might go after me!" is McCain's excuse when Schmidt asks him to get Palin in line.

Well, we all know how the story turned out. Palin was essentially accused of sinking McCain's campaign, despite the fact that she was incredibly beloved by the most conservative members of the GOP's base. She therefore became a convenient scapegoat for the more intellectual, old school Republicans and the symbol of the beginning of that godforsaken Tea Party. Julianne Moore gives a beautifully crafted turn as Palin. Transcending parody, Moore taps into Palin's bewildering arrogance and self-importance in addition to her infamous ditziness and Suburban Mom appeal. Likewise, Ed Harris and Woody Harrelson give great performance as McCain and Schmidt.

But just as Palin owned the spotlight during the 2008 election, Game Change is Moore's film, hands down.

Grade: A

***

Broadchurch

After I finished Jessica Jones, I found myself hankering for some more sweet, sweet David Tennant. Luckily, Tennant stars in two seasons of the British drama Broadchurch, which revolves around the aftermath of the murder of a 12 year old boy in a small town.

Let me tell you this: Broadchurch is a devastating series. This ain't no cozy Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. Shit gets real on Broadchurch. And that's because the series isn't so much about solving a murder as it is about the impact an act of terrible violence has on a community.

Tennant plays Alec Hardy, a detective called in to lead the investigation of the death of Danny Latimer. This is much to the chagrin of Detective Ellie Miller (Olivia Coleman), who is a local detective and thought she would be put in charge of the case. Instead, she's to serve as Hardy's second in command. The fact that Hardy botched his last assignment gives no one involved any comfort, and Hardy must prove that he isn't a total fuck up while under the watchful eye of the community.

As the mismatched pair interview persons of interest and find physical evidence of murder, the community of Broadchurch crumbles. Neighbors start to mistrust one another. Families, including the murdered boy's family, start to tear apart from both grief and suspicion. It seems like everyone in the town has a motive to murder a young boy.

Personally, I would recommend at stopping at the end of season 1 of Broadchurch (the killer is revealed by the end of the first season). The second season kind of goes off the rails and ends on a highly unsatisfactory note. Stick with the first season and you'll be good.

Grade: (first season only): A

"The More I Forbid, The More You're Provoked": A Quills Retrospective

Movies: Quills

Those who know me well probably know my deep abiding fondness for a little movie titled Quills. Based on the play by Pulitzer winner Douglas Wright and directed by Philip Kaufman, Quills came out in 2000. I've probably seen the film, oh, 10-15 times? I've also been privileged to see a stage adaptation as well.

Quills is a fictionalized account of the final years of the Marquis de Sade, a nobleman and writer of violent pornography during Revolution era France (he died in 1814). Sade was no saint in real life. He was a criminal who was accused of poisoning (not lethally) prostitutes and whipping/cutting a housekeeper. You can read more about his exploits on good ol' Wikipedia.

The film tidies up the Marquis' legacy by implying that he was a harmless horny old man who wrote naughty stories about innocent girls losing their virginities to perverted priests and the like, when the reality is that his novels are overly long, violent to the point of hilarity, and contain long passages praising atheism. I've read some of his stuff and it isn't sexy at all--more like a combination of ridiculous and nauseating. But the film Quills is not meant to be a true to life account of Sade as much as it is a fable of the dangers of censorship and repression.

Let's focus from here forward on the film itself, not the true events of Sade's life.

The film opens with Sade (played impishly by Geoffrey Rush) as a patient in the Charenton Asylum for the Insane. The Asylum is run by the gentle Abbe de Coulmier (Joaquin Phoenix during his prime "hot" years), who believes that art therapy can cure many ills. It is discovered that Sade has been smuggling out manuscripts with the help of the lusty laundry lass, Madeline (the forever-hot Kate Winslet). So, a new and extremely strict doctor, Royer-Collard (a devilish Michael Caine), is assigned to oversee the asylum and put an end to any monkey business.

Royer-Collard prefers strict punishments to control the inmates at Charenton. That, combined with his arranged marriage to a very, very, very young convent girl, Simone (Amelia Warner), implies the question, "Who is the real pervert here?" While Sade's name gave us the term "sadist"--someone who derives pleasure from hurting others--the real sadist is, of course, the "Christian" doctor, Royer-Collard.

Royer-Collard and Coulmier butt heads at every junction: the priest prefers art, music, theatre, and kindness to help his inmates where Royer-Collard prefers shackles and confinement. When it comes to the Marquis, Coulmier bends under Royer-Collard's commands--he reacts to the Marquis smuggling his naughty manuscripts out by taking away his writing utensils (we have a title, people!). But the Marquis responds by using chicken bones and wine to write on his bedsheets. The Abbe counters by stripping him of his bedsheets and anything he could use as an de facto ink and quill. The Marquis responds by cutting his own fingers to write in blood on his clothes.

The metaphor here is basic enough for a ninth-grader to grasp, and, in fact, the Abbe in a fit of despair exclaims, "The more I forbid, the more you're provoked!" The thesis of the movie is that censorship not only doesn't work, it leads to acting out. If you don't ban something, it doesn't become forbidden fruit. If you DO ban something, it becomes an obsession. But I saw Quills for the first time when I was in 10th grade. I was 16-ish years old. I was at the perfect age during which sex was becoming fascinating to me, feminism was something I deeply believed in, and I was beginning to see the ways in which religion sought to control people and make people feel ashamed of otherwise natural desires. I was ready for this movie. Quills was cupid's arrow right to my bleeding, liberal, young heart...and every time I've watched it since, I feel the pangs of youth, happiness, righteous anger, and--a feeling that is more rare with each year--naughtiness. A desire to break the rules. Raised a good girl, Quills (among many other movies) helped release and reimagine what it means to be "good" and created an alternative in which "bad" was right and "good" was wrong. I needed this movie to teach me that there is no black and white, there is only grey--and you get to decide where you fit in.

To this day, I adore the film. Its lovely soundtrack, its ribald sense of humor, its simple yet fiery sense of morality. I love how it doesn't pull any punches: in the end, the Marquis' violent stories lead almost directly to the death of an innocent. Because violent stories can, in fact, inspire violence. But the greater message is that when it comes down to it repression, censorship, and control are more violent than the potential consequences of freedom of expression, and that the most righteous of men can be the most despicable of criminals. For better or for worse, I owe my suspicion of "moral" people to this film--the most pure people always seem to be hiding the most grisly secrets.

Grade: A+

She's So Unusual

TV: Jessica Jones

I mentioned in my review of Deadpool that with the waterfall of superhero movies over the past decade, there is finally a place for me, someone who is deeply uninterested in superheroes. But give me a hero with a filthy mouth, mildly perverted sexual tastes, and a thirst for booze and I'm sold. Oh, they can fly/heal instantly/punch through a wall too? Well, that's just the cherry on top.

Along with Deadpool, Jessica Jones emerges as a superhero for people who are goody two-shoes averse. Jones (played by she of the lovely and perpetual resting bitch face, Krysten Ritter) is not a goody two-shoes at all. She's a private investigator who is overly fond of brown liquor, lives in a squalid New York apartment, and harbors deep secrets and hidden shames.

Jones wants nothing more than to be left alone to do her PI business: photographing people cheating on their spouses. But when a missing person case comes across her desk with eerie similarities linking the girl's captor to her own past abusive relationship with a man known only as Kilgrave, Jones is reluctantly forced back into the world of supernatural powers.

Kilgrave (played with the right mix of vulnerable puppy-face and sociopathic evil by David Tennant) has the powers of mind control. He can make people do whatever he wants. Victims describe the feeling as not wanting to do the things he commands, but feeling irresistibly compelled anyway. Jones, for all her abilities (super strength mainly, with some flying abilities sprinkled in), was a victim of Kilgrave's. Once she broke free, Kilgrave became hell-bent on finding her and "winning" (i.e. forcing) her back into his arms, and he was willing to get her attention by any means necessary.

Thus, Jessica Jones is a superhero show like no other because the relationship between the baddie and the good guy is an abusive relationship. A deeply feminist show, Jones confronts Kilgrave and says "You raped me." He sneers at her and asks at what point was it rape: after the delicious dinner? When they got to the fancy hotel? Clearly, the audience knows that there was nothing consensual about Jones and Kilgrave's relationship because of his mind control abilities, but the metaphor is potent: even the most "romantic" relationships can be violent underneath it all. And not all violence is physical--it is just as often emotional and psychological.

A lot happens over the course of Jessica Jones' 13 episodes, but it leads to one place: a showdown between a woman who was abused and the man who abused her and continues to delude himself that she wanted it. Ritter and Tennant are perfectly cast: a strong, no bullshit woman secretly terrified of a dangerous man and a man who appears harmless--even charming--but whose deep insecurities lead him to violence.

The other players on the show are just as three dimensional: bitter, hardened lawyer Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) whose motives are difficult to pin down and who would probably be considered "Lawful Evil" on the D&D alignment chart; Luke Cage (Mike Colter), Jones' sexy hook-up and fellow super person with indestructible skin; Jones' best friend, Trish Walker (Rachel Taylor), probably the purest of heart in the whole show; Trish's police officer boyfriend (Wil Traval), who comes off as a cross between hopelessly stupid and annoyingly macho.

That all the characters are written with such depths so that no one is 100% bad or 100% good helps Jessica Jones transcend a lot of the simplistic superhero junk. Also, the super-people's abilities are far more subtle than, say, in an Avengers movie. Jones, if anything, prefers not to use her super strength if she can avoid it. She is a hero who lives in the shadows and doesn't want glory, or fame, or eyes on her.

In an entertainment culture filled with super heroines in skintight outfits whose purpose is to arouse as much as it is to save the day, Jessica Jones stands out as an exception--she isn't interested in being a sex object. She isn't interested in being a hero. She is reluctant to get dragged back into the world of heroes and villains, but a soft spot in her hardened heart encourages her to confront the most terrifying demon of all: her own vulnerability. Jessica Jones is a hero for the average Jane, and we need more like her.

Grade: A

Hurts So Good

Books: A Little Life

Once in a great while I'll read a book that is so good, I'll stand up in my apartment and say out loud "SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD" like I'm some kind of demon being showered in virgin's blood.

A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara's 720 page doorstop of a novel, is such a book. Reading it was an ecstatic experience for me. It's a very intense, emotionally hardcore book, but written so well that it grips your heart and slithers into your brain.

A Little Life is the story of four college friends who move to New York City and begin to pursue their careers. They are: Malcolm Irvine, the biracial son of wealthy parents, who works at a fancy architecture firm; JB Marion, a temperamental, gay artist who acts like a spoiled baby at times because he was raised by his overly accommodating mother, aunts, and grandmother; Willem Ragnarsson, an aspiring actor with dead parents who is as kind and gentle as he is handsome; and Jude St. Francis, a law student who eventually becomes a vicious litigator. Jude was abandoned near a dumpster at birth and raised in a monastery. He remains closed off about his past, even to his closest friends, and suffers mysterious pains and ailments.

Although the book follows all four friends into mid-life, A Little Life is Jude's story. From the get-go it's clear that something went terribly wrong in Jude's childhood, but Yanagihara reveals the extent of the horrorshow of his life slowly and tantalizingly. The reader finds out he cuts himself. That he's never had a girlfriend or boyfriend. That the agonizing pains he experiences in his back and legs stem from a "car injury" (note, not an "accident", an "injury"). Because Jude is so taciturn around his friends, Yanagihara makes the reader feel like they're being let in on a secret--a terrible series of secrets. And she does a cruel thing as well: she makes the reader feel an enormous connection to the characters, and to Jude in particular, so that when all is revealed, his pain is your pain. Much like his friends who are loyal to Jude for decades, the reader feels helpless, angry, and frustrated at Jude's stubborn insistence that his past will haunt and cripple him until his death. I can't speak for other readers, but I felt like I had fallen in love with him by the end of the book.

Some readers won't like this. A Little Life has been described as "excessive" and "tragedy porn", and I see exactly where that sentiment is coming from. The sufferings heaped on Jude are so constant and awful, that the book seems almost Biblical or Shakespearean. A Little Life is undoubtedly about pain and the repercussions of abuse...but it's also about hope and grace and friendship. More details on this later.

Despite the heaviness of its plot, A Little Life is staggeringly beautiful and unique in its vision of the world. I was drawn to book from the first moment I saw its cover:

When I first saw it, beckoning me from a table in Barnes & Noble, I thought the cover image was of woman. I drew closer and saw that it's actually a picture of a young man. It seems clear that he is in some kind of emotional agony or pain. In fact, the cover shot is titled "Orgasmic Man" and is a photograph by Peter Hujar, who did a series in the late 1960's of men's faces while they...well, you know. What you're looking at here is not the face of a man at a nadir of pain, but rather at a zenith of pleasure. But who could really tell the difference? And that's what makes both the cover of the book, and the story inside the book so compelling--the story examines both extremities in life: a childhood of abuse that leads to a lifetime of emotional and physical pain, paired with explorations of love and friendship and hope so sweet that it almost feels painful. The two extremes are so intimately entangled that it's hard to differentiate them in the end.

Plot spoilers below! I'm not kidding!



It's not hard to guess at the generalities of Jude's past, but the almost baroque intensity of his abuse is shocking. He is sexually and physically abused by the monks who raised him. He is then abducted by one of the monks, Brother Luke, and taken on a cross-country trip where Luke allows him to be raped by men for money. Interestingly, in his memories, Jude refers to these men as "clients", not rapists or abusers, which makes sense given Jude's internalizing of what happened to him. He grows up thinking, as Brother Luke tells him, "You were born for this." He believes he was born to be used and that he deserves all the pain he receives.

Jude is rescued at age 12, only to be sent to a home for boys where he is further sexually and physically abused. He escapes and hitchhikes (using his body as payment, naturally) across the country until he is kidnapped and held captive by yet another adult man who tortures him and attempts to kill him, which results in a spinal injury that a doctor describes as an "insult to the body". It is only then that Jude St. Francis, age 15, is actually rescued by a social worker and sent to college at 16, where he meets Willem, Malcolm, and JB...and he begins to try to distance himself from the horrors of his childhood.

And then, despite his strangeness, his inability to discuss his past, his self-hatred, Jude is shown unconditional love by many friends throughout the rest of his life. In his adulthood, he is legally adopted by his mentor from law school, Harold, and Harold's wife. He is surrounded by friends and is considered almost scarily competent at his job. In perhaps the most surprising turn of events, his decades-long friendship with Willem shifts into something more as he and Willem enter their late-40's. I suspect some readers will call bullshit on this, as Willem is essentially heterosexual until he, conveniently, and almost by sheer force of will, falls in love with Jude.

The fluid sexuality of the characters in A Little Life, as well as the unrealistic cruelties and love shown to Jude, in addition to the fact that the story seems to take place in a continuous present day (the book covers five decades, but there are no indications of what year it is. Computers exist when Jude is a child, suggesting that the end of the book happens around 2050), mark the book as existing somewhere outside of our current reality. I referred to the suffering in the book as "Biblical", and indeed other reviews have described the novel as "mythic", or even possibly set in an alternate reality. I don't think Yanagihara intended the book to be speculative fiction, but I do think that--not unlike the world created by director Peter Strickland in my favorite movie of 2015--she created her own version of reality in the service of telling this story.

And like Strickland's Duke of Burgundy, which takes place in a world without men, A Little Life is almost entirely free of women. There are female characters--the social worker who rescues 15 year old Jude is a woman; Jude's adopted father Harold has a wife, Julia; and there are various female friends and girlfriends who enter and exit the story. But the number of lines spoken by women in this 720 page book probably amounts to less than 10 pages. But I don't believe this authorial choice is sexist or misogynist. I believe Yanagihara stripped women completely out of the picture in order to focus on what it means for men to love other men, as friends or as something else. And also to focus on the ways in which men destroy other men, as Jude is systematically dismantled by the endless series of men who beat and rape him.

Whether Yanagihara's insights into male love and male hate are accurate or not, I can't say. But I love the relationship she creates for Jude and Willem--the friendship that is *more* than friendship, but is not a traditional romance either (especially since Jude can't stomach sex, and he and Willem have an affectionate, but ultimately celibate relationship). It did make me wonder: are there men out there who have friendships like this? Women are at least given the freedom to be openly affectionate with one another. When I visit my best friend, we sleep in the same bed together and think nothing of it. We say "I love you" to each other and mean it. Do men who don't identify as gay have this? And what would the world be like if they did?

/End spoilers


A Little Life is like no other book I've read before. It seized my heart and then took a scalpel to it, slowly, painfully, and elegantly tearing it apart. As I mentioned above, extremes of love and pain are explored in A Little Life, yet it doesn't feel cheap or melodramatic or inauthentic--at least not to me. In fact, the characters felt so real, that it was hard to accept that the book had to end and there would be no more fussy Malcolm, or bitchy JB, or gentle Willem, or tortured Jude. Those 720 pages are all there is, and it's just not enough for me.

Grade: A+

Captain Snark

Movies: Deadpool

Deadpool knows that the way to this movie-lover's heart is through profane language and raunchy jokes about pegging (Google it. Not on your work computer).

I've never much been one for superhero movies, although between Jessica Jones on Netflix and Tim Miller's irreverent, fourth-wall breaking Deadpool in theatres, I'm realizing that there IS a place for me--someone who couldn't give a hoot about fight scenes and shit blowing up--in the vast superhero genre.

I like my heroes morally compromised. I don't want no goody two-shoes muscle man in a cape going around pulling kittens out of trees. I want my heroes to be hard-drinking, no bullshit, sarcastic, tortured, promiscuous smart asses. And Deadpool (as well as the above-mentioned Jones, which I shall review later) delivers.

Ryan Reynolds--the subject of a recent clickbait article on Jezebel where the author feels that much like Gretchen Weiner's use of the term "fetch", we should just stop trying to make Reynolds happen--plays Wade Wilson, an amoral mercenary who does things like rough up stalkers and other baddies for money and dates a beautiful, intelligent stripper (this is still a Hollywood fantasy after all). Things are going pretty well for Wade...until it is revealed that his extremely hot, jacked body is actually riddled with cancer.

Desperate to save his own life, he seeks out an experimental treatment that will supposedly not only cure his cancer, but give him incredible powers. The "treatment facility" ("torture dungeon" is really a more fitting description) is overseen by a sadistic man named Ajax whose goal is not to create superheroes, but super-slaves: people with amazing abilities who are so broken after endless rounds of torture that they become his obedient servants. Ajax promises to wipe the wiseass sense of humor out of Wade, who replies, "We'll see about that."

Ajax's methods do indeed bring out the powers in Wade--by the end of his "treatment", Wade is now indestructible. He cannot be killed. Cut off his hand and it grows back. Shoot him in the ass and the wound heals instantly. An unfortunate side effect is that Wade looks hideous--like he has third degree burns all over his body. He is convinced that his girlfriend, Vanessa, will never want to be with him again given his gruesome visage.

It's pretty cool that male body insecurities play a huge role in the plot of this film.

Now going by the name Deadpool, with a tight costume to show off his still quite amazing ass, Wade focuses his energies on finding Ajax and taking revenge. And unlike other superheroes who are morally averse to killing, Deadpool has no such code of honor, leaving a bloody trail behind him on his quest to find his tormentor.

Although some may find it tiring, the best thing about this film is its irreverent (I love that word) sense of humor. With apologies (or not) to the Jezebel article above, Reynolds is actually the perfect actor for this role. He is hilarious and sexy in a glib, wink-wink kind of way. Also, although the movie only hints at it, Deadpool is actually pansexual, which means he's into women, men, and all manner of people in between and outside of the gender spectrum. Reynolds portrays him as a flirt who cracks jokes about how his off switch is near his prostate--"Or is that the on switch?". But it's pretty cool to see such a fluidly sexual, over-the-top character, especially in a genre that is closely tied to traditional depictions of masculinity.

Deadpool was extremely entertaining and fun. Paired with last summer's Mad Max: Fury Road, it's yet another example of a genre film breaking the mold and achieving a level of innovation that's frankly fucking refreshing after a thousand dumb Marvel movies.

Grade: A-

And his costume makes him look like he's wearing nothing at all...nothing at all...nothing at all...