The Women Within

Link Roundup

2009-11-16T11:02:00.001-08:00

Here's what I've been up to lately:

My most recent review is a smack down of Mira Nair's tepid, disappointing biopic, Amelia, for In Review Online.

My review of Drew Barrymore's delightful debut, Whip It, is already up on In Review Online and will also be featured in Sadie Magazine's next issue.

This is the introductory post to my very own feminist film column at In Review Online, which I've named Kinofemmme.

Stay tuned for my review of Lauren Montgomery's Wonder Woman, Sally Potter's Rage, Top Feminist Films List, and more!

Bright Star

2009-10-03T08:31:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone,

My review of Jane Campion's masterpiece, Bright Star, is now up on The Feminist Review. Also, please feel free to read my interview with Jane Campion while you're there! :-) Thanks.

I can't stop thinking about Jane Campion's Bright Star

2009-09-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Some notes on Bright Star:

It's been nearly two weeks since I saw Jane Campion's newest film, Bright Star, and I can't get it out of my system. I'm currently writing a review of the film for the website I help edit, The Feminist Review, and I also have the great honor of being able to interview Jane Campion this upcoming Thursday. She has been one of my greatest heroes for a very long time. I love all of her films (including In the Cut!) and I've been anxiously awaiting her next project for six long years. Bright Star was worth the wait. I'm writing my feelings about the film here before I continue with my review in the hopes that I can write more cohesively about it in my more formal piece.

I don't really know what I was expecting from Bright Star, but I don't think I was really prepared for the emotional sledgehammer it delivered. My mind keeps drifting to the quiet moments of pure romantic entanglement between Fanny and her Mr. Keats. Though Bright Star is only a PG rated film, I can't for the life of me remember another cinematic romance that so enveloped my mind, body, and spirit in recent years. Whenever I think about it, I feel my cheeks grow warmer and my heart race faster. I feel like I just left the theatre. If you know me, you know that I watch movies with my soul hanging out. Most movies fail to penetrate its exterior and add their unique flavor to my persona, but some movies do. Bright Star is certainly one of them. I could hardly breathe when I left the theatre and I can hardly breathe right now while just thinking about it. There are so many seconds of pure bliss inside Bright Star's tender, tragic frames that I don't even know how to articulate its entire effect on me. I know I've described some of the physical sensations, but...I'm just so overwhelmed and destroyed by its effect on me emotionally that I don't know where to begin. This is why I could never be a truly academic film critic. I get too wrapped up in the glory of film to think about it from an objective standpoint. Writing like that is just so passionless and bland. I'm fully aware that that way of thinking might become detrimental to my future career, but I don't think I'll change as long as movies like Bright Star continue to bowl me over with their exceptional beauty and artistry. That's what cinema is all about. Bright Star opens on 9/18 and I encourage everyone to watch it. Please look for my review and interview around that time!

Bad Form

2009-08-20T16:05:00.001-07:00

Tsk, tsk.

Death Proof

2009-08-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is an essay I wrote for a Road Movie class in 2008. Enjoy!

Quentin Tarantino loves women. Of the six films he’s made to date, four of them have female protagonists who star in films that deal very directly with womanly plights. Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997) expresses the frustration of an aging black woman who has bared the brunt of society’s turmoil and builds a better life for herself. Kill Bill vol. 1 (2003) makes a woman’s choice to retire from her job in the manly world of professional killing to raise a family seem wrong because she is so skilled at her job. And, in Kill Bill vol. 2 (2004), the main character realizes she can have both her job and her family and still be happy. However, it is in his latest venture, Death Proof (2007), that Quentin Tarantino both out-do’s and out-don’ts himself by juxtaposing eight different women with each other under the watchful eye of both feminism and the road movie genre conventions. Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof is a kick ass woman’s picture that has a lot to say without a lot of ways of saying it.

The film tells the tale of two sets of girls who encounter a man with a “death proof” car by the name of Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell). The first group of girls, Butterfly/Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), Julia (Sydney Poitier), Shanna (Jordan Ladd), and, to a lesser extent, Pam (Rose MacGowan) are a group of gal pals who suffer the wrath of Stuntman Mike and his misogynistic tendencies because they succumb and accept the lifestyle bestowed upon them by society. The second set of female friends, Zoë (Zoë Bell), Kim (Tracie Thoms), Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), and Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) defeat Stuntman Mike because they band together in sisterhood and embrace their own inner-masculinity to fight back against oppression and sexism. These two sets of women are clearly juxtaposed to one another in two one-hour segments that follow the same basic plot structure - they get into a car and talk, meet somewhere and talk some more, interact with Stuntman Mike, and then either collapse or thrive under the bombardment of the Stuntman Mike persona - one that is never really explained or justified by him.

The only clues we get as to why he takes it upon himself to teach the girls a lesson by trying to kill them occurs at the very beginning of the film - the first image we see is of Shanna’s foot dangling on the dashboard of a car with red nail polish. The second is of Stuntman Mike’s death proof car with the sterling silver duck emblem on the hood going extremely fast down a narrow highway. The third and fourth images, that of Julia’s sultry bottom in cheetah-print panties walking down a hallway and Butterfly holding her crotch when she has to go to the bathroom are also cut in-between the Stuntman Mike moments. The forward motion of all the fetishized female images when compared with the forceful nature of Stuntman Mike’s car going down the highway eludes to two things - one) Mike is chasing them and two) Mike wants to be inside their bodies. The fast speed of the car contrasted with the fragmented female images implies that Stuntman Mike only sees them as sexual objects, objects that need to be conquered with his phallic-car. In fact, throughout the rest of the film, Stuntman Mike only talks and interacts with the girls on an objectified level, such as making remarks about their hair or licking their feet when they’re not looking.

Julia, Butterfly, Shanna, and Pam all fall prey to this type of misogyny from the stuntman and the rest of the men in the segment because they find it flattering. For instance, there’s a moment in the film where Julia essentially forces Butterfly to perform a lap dance on Stuntman Mike at a crowded bar. Instead of opting to not do it and keep her dignity, she performs because he was the only person to ask her all evening, telling her “there’s nothing more beautiful than an angel with a bruised ego.” The other gals’ have similar experiences with the men at the bar, specifically Shanna and Julia who drink vast amounts of alcohol given to them by Eli Roth and another fellow because, as Roth so eloquently puts it: “those fuckin’ bitches will drink anything as long as the guy’s are buying it."

And, unlike the second segment, the first group of girls don’t appear to have any personal boundaries. Aside from Julia, none of them speak about having jobs or responsibilities. Nor do they emit the sense of sisterhood the second set of girls’ has. These women seem to be friends because they enjoy being catty to one another. These conventions are most appropriate to the road movie genre, that of not having an important job and/or responsibilities or, in some cases, a sense of companionship on the road, but it is certainly unusual for a woman’s picture to have such a segmented window for one to look through, almost as if it were a “before” and “after” type of scenario.

The “after” occurs fourteen months after the “before,” - Stuntman Mike is hospitalized for the murderous car wreck that brutally maimed and destroyed the first set of girls. In fact, he fetishized them to death. All of Julia’s limbs went flying off, Shanna’s entire body went through a small, circular hole, and Butterfly’s face was rubbed off by a tire. He’s back on the road again tracking down the second set of girls and finds them after they find one of the most masculine cars of all time - a 1970 Dodge Challenger with a white paint job. The same car Kowalski drove in his cross-country journey in Vanishing Point (1971).

The biggest jump the gals’ in the second segment have over the first set is their ethical nature. They’re still fun, sexy, and beautiful like Butterfly, Julia, Shanna, and Pam, but they have more than pretty faces. They’re hard-working gals (two stunt-women, a make-up artist, and an actress to be exact) who are surviving in the very male-dominated industry of Hollywood filmmaking. And, yet, they’re all still capable of being in loving, fruitful relationships with men, friendships with women, and of even having children, like Abernathy does. Most importantly, the girls’ are able to utilize these tools when Stuntman Mike starts to fetishize them on the road.

While playing a game of ship’s mast with the Challenger, Stuntman Mike smashes into the car and tries to veer it off the road so that Zoë, and perhaps the rest, dies and he keeps spouting off dialogue like “why don’t you suck on THAT for a while” and then rams his car into the side of theirs. Kim is able to keep the car steady enough to ensure that Zoë doesn’t go flying off of the hood and Abernathy does her best to dissuade the stuntman. The tables turn after Zoë survives the incident and the girls form a female phallic unit of sorts inside the Dodge Challenger and go after the stuntman. Each woman takes on the same mindset, they become a trio of revenge-filled ladies who all want to destroy the man who did this to them! Kim starts screaming bits of sexual dialogue like “I’m gonna tap that ass” in reference to the Challenger smashing Stuntman Mike’s car. Thankfully, they destroy both Mike’s phallus and Mike himself - in fact, the last time we see him, Abernathy is kicking his skull in.

The second part of Death Proof is a little less faithful to the conventions of the road movie because its characters have their acts together so well. Typically, a road movie will feature one or perhaps two characters who are loner types of people that don’t really care about daily life. They don’t care about jobs, money, or responsibilities. Characters in traditional road movies are on kind of a listless mission to get from one place to the other and experiencing life through that mission is the key concept in their journey. The second set of women in Death Proof sort of set-out on that type of journey when they play ship’s mast, but any feelings for that sentiment are quickly resolved when Stuntman Mike comes into the picture because they are all on such a designated mission to destroy him.

Quentin Tarantino is one of the few male filmmakers in this day and age who is willing to experience female problems and plights through his own creations. His beloved filmography speaks for itself. Death Proof is just another layer of icing on the cake - another pro-female film that, while not his most popular, is certainly fitting amongst the rest of his womanly film history. Part road movie, part feminist propaganda, Death Proof is an unusual mainstream film that all too clearly dictates between the good female wrong and the bad female wrong.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2009-07-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

A new friend of mine named Theresa Shell started a support site for Terry Gilliam's newest endeavor, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. While it has (kinda maybe sorta) secured distribution in Europe, the rest of the world is still anxiously waiting for the unveiling. Please visit the site and voice your support!

Hollywood's Top-Earning Actresses

2009-07-07T03:25:00.000-07:00

Oh, Hollywood. Why do your contemporary ways always disappoint me?

These were the highest paid actresses last year. Though the numbers are down from last year, the majority of these ladies' really pushed themselves into new career paths/roles and I'm glad they were singled out. Without further ado, here are the sad, hard facts:

1. Angelina Jolie ($27 million)

2. Jennifer Aniston ($25 million)

3. Meryl Streep ($24 million)

4. Sarah Jessica Parker ($23 million)

5. Cameron Diaz ($20 million)

6. Sandra Bullock ($15 million)

7. Reese Witherspoon ($15 million)

8. Nicole Kidman ($12 million)

9. Drew Barrymore ($12 million)

10. Renee Zellweger ($10 million)

11. Cate Blanchett ($8 million)

12. Anne Hathaway ($7 million)

13. Halle Berry ($7 million)

14. Scarlett Johansson ($5.5 million)

15. Kate Winslet ($2 million)

Actresses' Grand Total: $183 million. Not bad, right? Well, last year they earned almost $245 million collectively, but that's not what my blogging gripe is this time around.

Guess what their equally talented, attractive male counterparts, cohorts, and co-stars earned in total last year? $393 million.

That is ridiculous.

Eight of these women are Academy Award winners. Each and every one of these ladies' is honored and cherished in her own way. Some of them not only act, but also manage their own clothing and perfume lines and write and direct films as well. Why, then, are they paid so much less than their male co-stars? The answer is painfully obvious and painfully out of date. Though the studio system is much kinder to the working class actress these days (in terms of allowing her to balance work, kids, and privacy), women just aren't box office draws anymore. In the last six months (correct me if I'm wrong), only three female-driven films topped the box office: Hannah Montana: the movie, Obsessed, and The Proposal. And what are those movies? Pieces of self-serving, irresponsible garbage. We gawk at Angelina Jolie for raising six kids, serving as Goodwill Ambassador, contributing to countless charities, and acting in at least one movie a year, but she does it all and she seems to do it well. So why does she earn so much less per film than her macho co-stars? Why does hasbeen Harrison Ford earn more than Meryl flurking Streep who continues to work both well and regularly? Why do audiences flock to the box office whenever someone like a bloated Tom Hanks or crazy Tom Cruise graces us with their presence? Almost all of the actors who earned their way into the list keep giving us recycled performances in redundant remakes or sequels while nearly all of the underpaid actresses are taking on daring roles and/or experimenting with their image. Frankly, I'm delighted by Drew Barrymore's next step in the director's chair with Whip It! This decade, however, is bullshit. Talented actresses like Katherine Heigl and Jennifer Garner NEED to stop appearing in simpering, one-dimensional male fantasy romcom's like The Ugly Truth and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Women contribute to the box office success of Transformers and the like because we don't have any strong women on screen. Sex and the City proved that if you center a film on female friendship that it's possible to earn money. We don't need films like Obsessed or, undoubtedly, the new Buffy the Vampire slayer movie to falsely represent us. We need these actresses, female filmmakers and technicians, and critics to stand up and at least try and take charge of this horrifying situation by saying no to demeaning roles, writing/filming strong female characters, no matter the size of their part, and pointing out the flaws and successes when they happen. Perhaps, in ten or so years, we'll have better roles for women of all ages, colors, and sexual orientation and better paychecks if we keep that in mind now.

Fallen but not quite Forgotten

2009-06-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

These photos were taken for a project on "Fallen Princesses" by Dina Goldstein. She says: "These works place Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict. The '...happily ever after' is replaced with a realistic outcome and addresses current issues."

While this project is a great idea in theory, I don't think Goldstein put enough effort into cementing her jabs. Specifically, the Jasmine and Little Red Riding Hood photos have caused a great amount of controversy on the internet because their messages are so unclear. Is Jasmine supposed to be a terrorist or a soldier? Why is she the only Princess to have a photo centered around race? The Little Red Riding Hood photo could have gone in so many directions. A pedophilia centered photo would have been more appropriate. Is she reinforcing the stereotype that fat people are only fat because they eat junk food?

Personally, my favorite of the bunch is the Snow White photo. It has the most direct agenda and I've often pictured Snow White in that very setting.

What do you guys and gals think? You can read the actual article here and read more commentary about the project at Bitch Magazine.

Belle is working hard to stay beautiful.

Jasmine is fighting...something?

Little Red isn't so little.

Chemo has taken its toll on Rapunzel's long golden locks.

Cinderella lost her slipper in that shot glass.

Snow White should have stayed with her little friends in the forest.

From Jungle Red to White Bread: The Women (1939) to The Women (2008)

2009-05-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

"There is a name for you, ladies, but it isn't used in high society... outside of a kennel." - Crystal Allen, The Women (1939)

When Clare Booth Lace wrote The Women in the mid ’30s, she had one main objective: to satirize the hell out of all the rich, petty women surrounding her in high society. Ms. Booth Lace worked for a living, married an intellectual equal, and only joined in on the malicious sewing circle of death out of sheer curiosity and disbelief. She found that the female upper crust managed to avoid mass suicide by stockpiling up on soap opera shenanigans in order to keep life interesting. Tabloid affairs, catfights, and pop fashions added the spice while gossip, lunches, and parties added fuel to the fire. No one really liked each other and yet they were always together, flitting about like ruffled hens in a barnyard. Clare Booth Lace saw the dramatic and comedic potential in satirizing their lives as well as knocking the bourgeois down a peg or two at the height of the economic crisis. Needless to say, the all-female play she ended up writing was a smash hit and MGM quickly nabbed the rights to the story in 1938.

After being fired from Gone with the Wind (despite filming its best scenes) famed woman’s picture director, George Cukor, stepped on the set of The Women and immediately got to work. Jane Murfin and Anita Loos, who penned Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, adapted the play for the screen and “jazzed up its lingerie” with naughty sexual innuendo. Together, Cukor, Loos, and Murfin faithfully brought the story of Mrs. Stephen Haines (Mary), a darling, rich housewife whose life is turned upside down when her husband has an affair with a perfume salesgirl, to life with all of the zest and zing of the original play. The film starred Norma Shearer as Mary, who was finally free of creative restrictions because her husband, producer Irving Thalberg had died that year. It also starred the adorably gawky Rosalind Russell as catty Sylvia Fowler, Joan Crawford as sultry perfume girl Crystal Allen, and Joan Fontaine and Paulette Goddard as two more hens in the hen house. These five ladies headline an entire female cast that delights as well as destructs. All bets were off with this throng. And yet, despite the scrumptious catharsis one feels while watching these dillies do their dallies, Cukor also manages to make us feel empathetic for their plights as well. He was the best woman’s picture director in the business because he, as a gay male working in the industry, understood the feeling of being an outsider housed in polite casings for mass consumption. Though he clearly dislikes most of the women in The Women, he still recognizes their own brand of persecution at the hands of patriarchy. For instance, if the film had been placed in the hands of any other director, I think the character of Crystal Allen would only have hit the “slut” note and backed away. Cukor admires her sexiness and daring for going after what she wants and he and Joan Crawford make her a three-dimensional character. Like Scarlett O’Hara, Crystal Allen isn’t afraid of ambition and hunts for success the only way she knows how: by conniving and clawing her way into a solid, wealthy marriage. I think the real threat she instills in the rich bitches around her isn’t that she’s going after Mary’s husband. No, they hate and tear her down because she uses those jungle red nails to grasp what they did once upon a time, except she’s doing it from a lower social status and succeeding all the same.

All of Cukor’s characters have that gray matter feel to them. The ladies’ start out at one extreme and gradually gravitate toward the middle of the spectrum by the film’s end. Though they’re all terrible people in one way or another, the film still manages to celebrate the camaraderie of the female soul through so many different types of powder puffed trixies. We don’t watch the film to see Mary get her husband back; we watch it to see women interact with one another on an even playing field that usually involves witty banter, fabulous clothes (Adrian is a saint), and equal doses of social backstabbing and friendship. Diane English doesn’t understand that.

With her first feature film, English successfully pecked out all aspects of the original Women that made it so timeless. Now, it’s just Sex and the City with better source material. Before directing, English’s previous claim to fame was writing and producing the somewhat feminist hit show, Murphy Brown, with Candice Bergan. She’s been tinkling around with this remake for over a decade and finally released it last year. And yet, her efforts are no more artistically apparent than your average run-of-the-mill director for hire job. Go figure?

In the updated story, there are fewer female characters and fewer bouts of feminine bravado and brassiere blazing. Mary Haines (Meg Ryan) is a happy-go-lucky rich hippie chick living in NYC’s suburbs with her tween daughter and wall street bound hubby. Her best friends are Sylvia Fowler (Annette Benning), a fashion magazine editor, Edie Cohen (Debra Messing), an artsy stay-at-home mom with four daughters and baby #5 on the way (she wants a boy, of course), and Alex Fisher (Jada Pinkett Smith), a stereotypical lesbian with one published book under her belt. The bland as balls Crystal Allen in this version is played by the insipid Eva Mendes, who has the right look for the part (I guess…), but none of the pizzazz or personality of her originator. Well, that’s kind of unfair because few people could live up to Joan Crawford’s personal laundress, let alone one of the parts she played. But both Mendez and the direction English took with her character are about as interesting as white painted walls. Fortunately, Cloris Leachman, Candice Bergan, Bette Midler, and Carrie Fisher in supporting roles make up for some of the wishy-washy main characters, though they can hardly save the day.

No, the remake fails to live up to the original’s bite because it’s just too nice. Too nice and too phony. While it’s always a pleasure to see women on screen get their groove on in the workplace and bond with one another, there’s just nothing earnest or potent within the film’s narrative to make it worthwhile. These modern women may pursue goals when they’re not around their men, but the male characters are still the driving force of their actions. By taking out the apparent satire of the original to make her version more friendly, Diane English has also taken out the emotional resonance and chemistry of the characters as well. The original film’s tagline may be “It’s all about men,” but it’s really about the women and how we use society’s perceptions of ourselves to manipulate certain situations and ideas. The women in the remake have little to no original thoughts and only pursue life by bouncing off the invisible male characters dealings.

On one of the documentaries included in the DVD, Diane English gives a guided tour through the history of her relationship with the remake and why she wanted to do it in the first place. She thought it was a good story, but “women don’t act that way anymore” and the original’s “camp value” detracted from its social message. How can someone so passionate about a project miss the point so thoroughly? Many terrible remakes have been created by modern Hollywood to eliminate the so-called camp/antique feel of classic cinema. How is the original campy? Just because they wear big hats and yell occasionally? It’s truly ironic and sad that a female director and mostly female crew managed to be just as unfeeling and convoluted about the female role as everyone else in Hollywood these days.

What might have been a golden opportunity to update a classic was truly wasted with English’s The Women.

A Woman in Berlin

2009-04-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

This was originally published in Sadie magazine.

Sadly, World War II seems like cinematic roadkill these days. World cinema, especially Hollywood, treads over so much of the subject year after year with story after story that there really shouldn’t be much of the narrative carcass left to peck. So much glossy exposure to any event is bound to desensitize viewers.

Though I’d glanced at the corpse beforehand, watching A Woman in Berlin truly brought this idea to my attention. My cynical, jaded eyes made me think it was another dime a dozen World War II picture the first time I saw it. However, upon my second viewing, I realized my mistake and acknowledged that it’s actually one of the more distinctive films to be released about the fray in many years.

One of the last taboos of the Second World War occurred as it was waning down in 1945. The Russians took hold of Germany for seven months and made Berlin their headquarters. Unfortunately, the Russians also demonstrated their clout by forcing the remaining German women, children, and elderly to do their bidding.

Though it’s hard to estimate, it’s been said that thousands, perhaps even millions, of German women were raped during this short Russian occupation. One of them, a worldly journalist who calls herself Anonyma, wrote her experiences in a diary that was later published across the globe. She is one of the few surviving women to ever tell this story because, according to the film and press notes, it affronts German women to even mention this time period. A Woman in Berlin is an adaptation of her personal saga.

Before the war, the German-born Anonyma (played by Nina Hoss) lived a life of cultural refinery as an educated writer. She used her fluency in five languages to report on stories from around the world. Both her diary and the film itself utilize her journalistic instincts to present her story in an unsentimental, objective fashion. There’s no apple pie Americana or tragic GI romance to make us feel for the characters—just realistic human reasoning for us to connect with and understand. The romance between Anonyma and the Russian officer is seen purely as solace and not as the end-all-be-all romantic awakening like it is in films like Pearl Harbor and Black Book (Zwartboek). Despite the brutality she endures, Anonyma never sees herself as a victim. Why should we?

In exchange for bodily security and a smidgen of power, Anonyma and the other women in her band of generally nameless pioneers prostitute themselves to the highest-ranking Russian officers. Though the movie entertains a World War II movie cliché through Anonyma’s relationship to her officer, the filmmakers don’t make it the focal point of her journey.

The film’s strongest scenes occur when Anonyma and the other afflicted women sit around and converse about their lives. Without shame or remorse, they candidly talk and even laugh about how many times they’ve been raped, the effects of syphilis, and their fears for Germany after the war is over. By excluding men from these scenes, the women are able, probably for the only time in their lives, to discuss their situation without feeling ashamed or disgraced. These parts of the movie are more harrowing than any battle scene ever could be.

Much like Fassbinder’s Maria in The Marriage of Maria Braun and Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus, the anonymous, enigmatic Anonyma is a resilient German heroine who demands survival at any cost. The unsentimental view with which she observes and writes about her current circumstances also applies to her fearless persona. In more than one scene, she gallantly walks up to a hoard of catcalling, threatening Russian officers and demands that attention be paid to the rape crisis. While she’s met with outright hostility and callous attitudes, it doesn’t stop her from trying again and fighting back. Even without a real name, Anonyma resonates because her mission for survival is so direct, hard-boiled, and sincere.

German filmmaker Max Färberböck, famous for his highly acclaimed Aimée & Jaguar, is devoted to portraying the situation fairly and accurately. For the most part, he does not present the Russian officers as faceless monsters or the women as nameless victims or statistics (which makes the plentiful rape scenes even more traumatic to watch). Though Färberböck clearly sides with the women in the film, he also creates an underlying political ambiguity between all of the characters. The movie is neutral and sympathetic to both German and Russian beliefs. It never takes the easy route by exploiting the circumstances for a political agenda.

Aside from the brief, generic battle scenes on the streets of Berlin, the film soars in articulating Anonyma’s inspiring endurance tale. After her book was met with an astounding amount of controversy, Anonyma refused to take credit for her work and demanded that her real name never be printed, even after her death. To this day, her book is seen as the pivotal source for information about the Russian’s stay in 1945 Germany.

A story like this could never really have a happy ending, but Anonyma and lots of other women survived the ordeal and quietly rebuilt their lives from the bottom-up. Anonymously or not, Anonyma bravely spoke against injustice when nobody else would. I can only hope that she used her objective reasoning to recognize what an impact she made in the world by sharing her experiences as both a rape and war survivor.

Sara's Favorite Movies of 2008

2009-03-05T12:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know it's March. So what!

2008 was one of the best and worst years of my life. On the plus side, I graduated from college with high honors, presented a paper at Notre Dame, started my professional writing career, and reunited with my dog-child, Libby. Negatively speaking, my life was turned upside down shortly after graduation because of my impending move to Madison, WI. Though I hated my entire stay in Madison for many reasons, my gravest complaint about the situation is that it single-handedly withdrew me from cinema culture and my film project. Failure isn’t something I’m accustomed to or take lightly. I rarely quit something once I’ve started it. I’m sincerely sorry to everyone who joined-in on my feminist film bandwagon and felt let down by the sporadic posting.

However, I’m going to try and make amends by catching-up on some of the more important female-driven flicks I missed last year. Those reviews will appear alongside the new reviews of 2009 releases because I‘m going in for year two, round two with my project. Hopefully I’ll be all caught-up by the end of spring.

As it stands now, I don’t think it would be ethical for me to write my proposed essay on 2008 female cinema. I’ll wait until I feel I’ve seen enough 2008 releases to warrant that endeavor.

Until that day in May, I’ll leave you with my mishmash of a top ten list. I think it accurately represents my very weird (but mostly awesome) taste in movies. I keep looking at this list and wondering what in the hell it must say about me. But if you’re reading it, then you probably know that I’m more interested and attracted to films that attempt to tread new thematic ground instead of meandering through the same old shit over and over again. All ten of these flicks, as varied as they are in budget and genre, are brave, brazen works of art that made a significant impact upon my way of thinking and feeling. They’re also films you won’t generally find on most generic top ten lists. I love Wall-E as much as the rest of ’em, but it’s been written about enough.

Aside from The Last Mistress (which is my favorite flick of ‘08), they are presented in no particular preferential order:

Ahem...

The Last Mistress (2007, Catherine Breillat)

Asia Argento is my favorite presence in 2008 cinema. While her other efforts this past year (Boarding Gate, Mother of Tears) were more or less under appreciated by the greater cinephile world, I’m very grateful that The Last Mistress earned some well-deserved praise and recognition. As an actress, I find Argento perfectly suited for the melding and melting of the great cinematic auteurs and their projects. Much like Deneuve and Magnani in their prime, her unique style transcends language, genre, and even gender conventions.

However, I don’t think her specific knack was fully utilized until Breillat cast her as the enigmatic La Vellini, a fiery French/Spanish coquette who, despite her better judgment, is drawn to the flame of eternal love with a subtly charming, social-climbing scallywag named Ryno de Marigny (Fu‘ad Ait Aattou). Though they’ve basically been together for ten years, Ryno is set to end their relationship permanently because he is about to marry a virtuous, boring heiress for financial security.

Breillat may not be the most skilled contemporary cinematic artist working today, but her compositions for The Last Mistress (which are full of dramatic reds, whites, and blacks) are candid pathways to classic romance. The passion Vellini and Ryno feel for one another as well as the plights they encounter greatly remind me of a dirty version of Rochester and Jane Eyre in Bronte’s novel or even Scarlett and Rhett in Gone with the Wind. It’s epic in emotion and enduring in intimacy.

But classic doesn’t always have to mean “stilted.” Though The Last Mistress is a period piece and the exhibited themes are as old as time, the combination of Breillat’s modern sexual flare for storytelling and Argento’s fearless chutzpah makes the material feel light, fresh and deeply affecting.

Like the blood Vellini sucks and licks from Ryno’s bullet wound, The Last Mistress is dripping wet with cinematic fervor and everlasting romance. I've already seen it three times and I can't wait to watch it again.

The Genre and Gender-Benders with a Super Natural Flare
Mad Detective (2007, Johnnie To)
Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson)

Mad Detective: Johnnie To is one of contemporary cinema’s greatest treasures. Like Exiled and the Election duo, The Mad Detective addresses masculinity and male kinship in a sensitive, almost trusting fashion that is really unique. There’s no useless dick-swagger or one-upsmanship in the To world, just a lot of sweet bad ass guys and (some) gals who know how to use weapons effectively and purposefully. Plus, the film is really funny, bat-shit insane, and full of weird mythology.

Let the Right One In: As a bit of a vampire fiend, I applaud Let the Right One In’s ability to simultaneously distance itself from traditional vampire fare through the relationship of the main characters and somehow stay true to its mythological roots by simple integration. The fact that Eli is a vampire is secondary to the essential building blocks of their coming of age tale. Sadly, this flick is already slated for a remake by the likes of JJ Abrams – a film that will no doubt take away all of the mystique and sensitivity of the original. Plus, Eli will undoubtedly be a girl and the tender gender-bender angle will be lost in the process.

The Cheese Stands Alone
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008, Marina Zenovich)

I’ve already written about this one here. Similarly to The Thin Blue Line, Zenovich dissects the entrails of this chaotic court case and unravels the truth entangled within it. Her efforts may have allowed Polanski to come back to the US if he wants to as well.

The Weird and the Whimsy: Two Underrated Gems
Boarding Gate (2007, Olivier Assayas)
Be Kind Rewind (2008, Michel Gondry)

Boarding Gate: Dirty-pretty is the term I’d use to describe Boarding Gate. It’s messy, kind of slutty, and chockfull of Assaya’s jet-setting, sleek aesthetics. While it lacks the soul of Clean and the cinematic pulse of Demonlover and Irma Vep, I’m somehow more passionately drawn to Boarding Gate than any of his other flicks. Go figure?

Be Kind Rewind: Sadly, earnest cinema is mostly a thing of the past. Films today are either too self-aware of their intentions or too auto-fellatious (I’m looking at you, Quentin Tarantino) to pull it off. That’s why it’s so remarkable that a big-budgeted flick that references countless blockbusters and starring Jack Black succeeds so admirably. It also celebrates history and the importance of a close-knit community in this otherwise commercial world. Plus, it’s absolutely whimsical! The references and good-natured feelings practically bounce off the screen with vivacity and warmth.

I Promise They’re Not Porn
Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2008, Jamie Babbit)
Midnight Meat Train (2008, Ryuhei Kitamura)

Itty Bitty Titty Committee: This is what Jessica Valenti’s rant-happy Full Frontal Feminism should have felt like. I wish I could have seen a movie like this when I was a teenager because it would have made the “f” word seem much more tangible and realistic. It’s a great introduction to feminism because it’s not pandering or self-conscious about its intentions and makes feminism appealing in a fun, political fashion. It would have played much better on the festival circuit and on DVD if it didn’t have such a terrible name. Many video stores refused to carry it because they thought it was porn. Hopefully it’ll become a classic much like Babbit’s other film, But, I’m a Cheerleader.

Midnight Meat Train: A contemporary horror film with a social conscience? Get out of here! Based on Clive Barker’s short story of the same name, Midnight Meat Train is a taut thriller with lots of amazing, eye-popping gore (snicker, snicker) that also acts as a scathing critique of the modern art world. Plus, the relationships existing between each of the characters feels genuine and human, unlike other recent horror flicks where all of those assets are taken for granted.

Socially Conscious without being Self-Conscious
It’s a Free World…(2007, Ken Loach)
Frozen River (2008, Courtney Hunt)

It’s a Free World…: Speaking of scathing critiques, this Ken Loach picture doesn’t let anyone off the hook with its wise look at our capitalistic system. I don’t really want to talk about the story because it’s such an impacting experience all the way through, but the film really is a forceful sledgehammer of intentionally exploitive circumstances.

Frozen River: Unlike Wendy and Lucy or even The Wrestler, Frozen River understands that poverty, while it certainly sucks, isn’t an entirely black and white situation. Being poor forces you to be creative and grateful for what comes. No one in this movie just sits around and mopes because they’re unfed, poorly paid or flat broke, they go out into the world and try to make their lives better. Alas, some of their choices aren’t always the right ones, but they don’t wriggle out of their mistakes either. It’s refreshing to see characters facing everything in their lives head-on. I can’t wait to see what Courtney Hunt does next.

Honorable Mentions:
Shotgun Stories, Girls Rock!, and Caramel.

Mainstream Flicks I Loved:
Wall-E and Milk.

Ones I Liked:
The Dark Knight, Happy-Go-Lucky, Rachel Getting Married, Encounters at the End of the World, Reprise, Mother of Tears, The Wrestler, Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Body of Lies, Flight of the Red Balloon, Christmas Tale, Paranoid Park, etc.

Biggest Disappointments:
Wendy and Lucy, Changeling, Sex and the City, and though my expectations certainly weren’t very high to begin with, Iron Man. Ugh.

Shit List:
The Reader, Gran Torino, Australia, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and too many more to mention.

Sad I missed:
Duchess of Langeais, Synecdoche, NY, Fear(s) of the Dark, The Pool, Sparrow, Bachelor Machines, Chop Shop, In The City of Sylvia, Quantum of Solace (kind of…), Sylvia Scarlett at the Gene Siskel Film Center, The Tenant at the Music Box, Last Year at Marienbad at the Music Box, Lola Montes at the Music Box, and probably more.

Archival/Retrospective Highlights of 2008:
- An American in Paris & Meet Me in St. Louis (July, The Music Box)
- The Young Girls of Rochefort (April (?), Rosenbaum’s Transition series at the Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (April, Wisconsin International Film Festival)
- The Big Country (April, Wisconsin International Film Festival)
- Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (May, Rosenbaum’s Transition Series at the Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Max Ophuls retrospective (Fall, UW-Madison)
- Text of Light (March, White Light Series at La Salle Bank Cinema/Bank of America Cinema)
- Posthumously Yours: The Films of Zack Stiglicz (January, Gene Siskel Film Center)
- Insect Woman (Imamura retrospective, Gene Siskel Film Center)
- 4th Annual Horror Movie Massacre (October, Music Box). Highlights: Old Dark House, Dead Alive, Phantom of the Paradise, Keaton’s The Haunted House, and the aforementioned Midnight Meat Train.
- Day of Wrath (December, Music Box)

Favorite DVD Releases/Discoveries:

Releases:

- Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women (Street of Shame, Sisters of the Gion, Osaka Elegy, Women of the Night), Eclipse Series #13
- Ernst Lubitsch’s Musicals (Smiling Lieutenant, Monte Carlo, Love Parade, One Hour with You), Eclipse Series #8
- Bette Davis Collection vol. 3 (Old Maid, In this Our Life, All This, And Heaven Too, Deception, The Great Lie, Watch on the Rhine), Warner Bros.
- An American in Paris SE, Warner Bros.
- Gigi SE, Warner Bros.

Discoveries:
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV Series
- The Quiet (2005, Jamie Babbit)
- Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman (2006, Jennifer Fox)
- Pilgrimage (1933, John Ford)

Movies I’m Looking Forward to Most in 2009:
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Public Enemies, Bronson, Tree of Life, Up, Bright Star, Puffball, Summer Hours, Bad Lieutenant: The Port of New Orleans, and lots more.

Favorite Actress: Asia Argento for The Last Mistress, Boarding Gate, and The Mother of Tears.

Favorite Actor: Michael Shannon for Shotgun Stories and Revolutionary Road.

Lastly, I'd like to thank all of the following cinematic institutions for showing all these great movies:

Music Box Theatre

The Gene Siskel Film Center

Doc Films

Landmark Century Centre Cinema

White Light Cinema Series

The Nightingale

Bank of America Cinema

AMC River East 21

Facets Cinematheque

Please, do your best to support these Chicago institutions by attending their movies. Aside from the AMC and Landmark, they’re all (mostly) independent venues that would certainly benefit from your attendance.

Revolutionary Road

2009-02-17T07:18:00.000-08:00

A variation of this review was also posted here at The Feminist Review.

In 1997, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio changed the face of cinema history by starring in the highest grossing film of all time, Titanic. Despite its expensively hokey exterior, Titanic demonstrated that DiCaprio and Winslet have talent to burn and mutually possess an intimate, intense chemistry that keeps audiences coming back for more. Following the success of the picture, both actors skyrocketed to superstar level fame, but neither one of them succumbed to the pressure by rarely appearing in mediocre work. Instead, each one continues to flourish as an artist by choosing their material wisely and challenging themselves with difficult characters.

Needless to say, their time apart from one another has been fruitful; both actors have earned critical success as well as multiple Oscar nominations since their pairing. The parts they’ve played over the past eleven years have ultimately helped in preparing them for the two most demanding characters of their careers thus far: Frank and April Wheeler in Revolutionary Road. As a pair of nobodies who think they’re somebody’s in the 1950’s, Frank and April are coming to terms with the fact that they’re living the same suburban lie as everyone around them. On an individual level, April is dealing with the unhappy housewife syndrome (which would later be ordained the Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan) while Frank grapples with the loss of masculinity in the mindless workaday business world. In their reunion film, Winslet and DiCaprio are full-blown adults that are struggling to find the beauty within themselves, their relationship, and the stagnant society surrounding them.

Revolutionary Road is based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same name by Richard Yates. Though the movie is somewhat plot-less, it revolves around Frank and April: a pair of nobodies who think they‘re somebodies living the same 1950s suburban lie as everyone else around them. By meandering through their life decisions, the now thirty-something couple find themselves settled down with two kids in a house with a white picket fence on the prestigiously middle class Revolutionary Road.

Seven years later, Frank and April now battle their individual demons by making each other miserable. They constantly fight, bicker, and moan, but never really do anything to make their lives or relationship better. Ultimately, the lack of communication and understanding within their world leads to disastrous consequences.

A filmed adaptation of the book has been in the coming-and-going stage of creation since the rights were bought in the 1960’s. Though, if you ask me, they should have let it stew a bit more on the page before bringing it to cinematic life.

Sam Mendes, the Oscar winning director of such films as American Beauty and Road to Perdition, was the wrong director to helm this project. Revolutionary Road suffers from the same bombastic arrogance that plagues the small-town America depicted in American Beauty. Both films are about contemplation and maturity, but there’s absolutely no sense of that within the film’s visual or thematic subtext. Each character is constantly spouting what they’re thinking without really thinking about what they‘re saying or feeling. Frank and April feel good about themselves because they understand the societal trap they’re inside, but they won’t do anything about it. Frank is afraid of the failure he may face if he leaves it and April is afraid of leaving Frank’s shadow, afraid of actually being April instead of Mrs. Frank Wheeler. The film itself is afraid to take flight and actually make a statement about the society April and Frank live in.

That’s not to say that the film doesn’t raise any potent issues and questions. Though presented like quarrels between children playing house, Frank and April’s tit-for-tat arguments with each other do address the surface level problems in the era’s middle class lifestyle. Gender roles, abortion, infidelity, and martyrdom are all nicely compressed into the film, but even those facets are too watered down and neutral to make a significant impact. Ultimately, it’s not the melodramatic potboilers that make Revolutionary Road compelling to watch, it’s the fear every single character possesses.

An “Oscar” film contender at its core, Revolutionary Road doesn’t succeed in influencing our cultural understanding of 1950s Americana. We’ve seen it all before and in much better place (Peyton Place, Written on the Wind, All That Heaven Allows, Harriet Craig, The Best of Everything, The Fifties: A Woman’s Oral History). What you will get out of Revolutionary Road is the pleasure of seeing three absolutely terrific performances by Kate Winslet (who was robbed of her nomination), Leonardo DiCaprio, and relative newcomer Michael Shannon, who steals the show in his limited time on screen. Coupled with Roger Deakins’ masterful cinematography, the performances are what make Revolutionary Road worth watching.

Pretty Baby (1978)

2009-01-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

Before Brooke Shields took an elongated tour down mediocre lane, she appeared in at least one good flick: Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (1978). The film, which was released under a mass amount of controversy, centers around Violet (Brooke Shields) and her life in a 1917 New Orleans brothel. As this was 1917, there is little puritanical virtue embedded into the lives of the prostitutes or young Violet. All of the women, including Violet's mother, Hattie (Susan Sarandon), enjoy their work and relish the company of the other prostitutes. Violet is entranced by her surroundings and leaps for joy when her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder. But it's not all peaches and cream. There's an odd, disquieting sensation felt throughout the entirety of Pretty Baby that leaves an aching, lingering feeling in your gut after the film ends. Could it be happiness? Few films deal with sexual encounters as openly and maturely as Malle does with Pretty Baby and his treatment of Shields' and the world's oldest profession never feels gratuitous or cheap. It's certainly one of my favorite films. One can only hope that Criterion saves it from Paramount hell in the near future.

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

2009-01-07T17:59:00.001-08:00

This review was also published in Sadie Magazine .

When I was twelve years old, my father introduced me to the work of Roman Polanski by showing me his most heralded film, Chinatown (1974). Though I couldn’t articulate it at the time, I was intensely attracted to the seedy, pessimistic vibe of it all—a vibe I would later come to know as the luminescent pulse that surges through the very flesh of almost every Polanski creation. Upon investigating more of his films and reading his wonderful autobiography, Roman by Polanski, I knew that Polanski, more than any other filmmaker I’d previously known or have known since, was my true cinematic soul mate. We share the same demons, desires, and, most importantly—at the risk of sounding corny—the same knack for survival and perseverance.

These four character traits are also the most common themes running throughout Polanski’s work. Out of the seventeen feature films he has made, nearly all of them present a character—from Oliver Twist (Oliver Twist) to Rosemary Woodhouse (Rosemary's Baby)—who is thrown into a life or death situation and forced to dig him/herself out at any cost. More often than not, this cost becomes the central question for the characters within these narratives. How much does Rosemary want to have a child? How badly does Wladyslaw Szpilman (The Pianist) want to survive, and why? How much is the truth worth to J.J. Gittes (Chinatown)? The questions, like the answers, go on and on.

It’s not terribly puzzling to surmise where these large questions come from. Until recently, Polanski’s life seems to have represented one questionable tragedy after another. As a young lad in Poland, he was left to fend for himself after both of his parents were shipped off to concentration camps. And, after the war was finally over, only his father returned. In 1969, Polanski’s wife, the strikingly beautiful and sweet Sharon Tate, was murdered by the hands of the Manson family.

And, in 1978, Roman Polanski fled to France from the United States to avoid a fifty-year jail sentence for having sexual intercourse with a minor, Samantha (Gailey) Geimer. He had been commissioned by a French fashion magazine to do a photo shoot of young women and hired Ms. Geimer to be one of his models. The sexual act occurred during their second photo session at the home of Jack Nicholson in March of 1977.

The circumstances of the situation still remain mysterious. We now know that champagne and Quaaludes were involved, and that Polanski was charged with six felony crimes. This includes child molestation and sodomy, both of which were eventually pleaded down to a single misdemeanor of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor. Samantha Geimer has gone on the record multiple times since then telling the world that she has forgiven Polanski and that his work should not be impugned because of this one instance in his life. But, the truth is, despite creating a mélange of brilliant films since, like Tess (1979), Bitter Moon (1992), and the painfully unseen Oliver Twist (2005), Polanski’s artistic credibility has diminished in our country’s eyes because of it.

And, due to a thick haze of courtroom drama and mountains of obstructing paperwork, the details of the case were inaccessible to the public eye. This made it very easy for the bulk of the nation to look at this very complex situation with a black and white lens. You can’t sell anything as complex as the truth. It’s much easier to call “child molester” and watch the magazines fly off the rack.

In the recent documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, filmmaker Marina Zenovich explores the netherworlds of this event and reveals that much of the agitation surrounding Polanski’s unique case was caused by the media-hungry Judge Laurence J. Rittenband, then notorious high-profile celebrity trials for his own ends. Though the case never officially went to trial, Rittenband often intentionally fed the media dynamic half-truths in order to both increase his own publicity and cloud the facts surrounding the case. Like a twisted magician, Rittenband created drama where there was none.

For instance, in the midst of the Polanski/Geimer madness, he staged a fake court session with each of the lawyers for the press, even though all of the players already knew the outcome. He was also the first judge to actually hold a press conference in his chambers. Through all this perplexing controversy, Polanski and Geimer reached an amiable plea bargain shortly after the preliminary hearings. The simple truth was that they both wanted to move on. Unfortunately for Polanski, Rittenband didn’t.

Though, initially, Rittenband honored their mutual decision, it wasn’t long before he succumbed to the controversy-starved media and reneged on his word. As Geimer says in the documentary: “Who wouldn’t think about running when facing a fifty-year sentence from a judge who was clearly more interested in his own reputation than a fair judgment or even the well-being of the victim?”

Zenovich not only does an immaculate job of sifting out the dirt of the case, she also does the near impossible: she attempts objective documentary filmmaking. Utilizing interviews with nearly everyone involved, a treasure trove of rare archive footage, and even clips from Polanski’s films, Zenovich accurately and patiently tells both sides of the story while simultaneously maintaining the non-judgmental eye required for such delicate material. She neither victimizes nor demonizes Polanski and Geimer. Instead, she treats her cinematic subjects as people, as living, intelligent beings that deserve to finally have their voices heard and recognized.

By providing this outlet for all of the players (except Polanski himself, as he doesn’t want to drudge up the past) in this epic saga, Zenovich has successfully created a nail-biting account of one of the most public media frenzies of the twentieth century. This documentary is smart and subtle and never relents on telling the whole truth, even if some of the details might make you uncomfortable. Zenovich doesn’t judge, and because of that, she has created one of the best documentaries of the past decade.

**Note** - As of last month, Polanski made the initial motions to get the thirty year old case thrown out of court, citing this documentary as enough evidence to put him in the clear. I love cinema.

Changeling

2009-01-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

“That’s not my son.” - Christine Collins

In March of 1928, a single mother named Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) arrives home from her work to find that her young and only son, Walter (Gattlin Griffith) is nowhere to be found. Following a five-month investigation with nothing but dead ends, the fuzz (LAPD) tells Christine that they have finally found Walter. But it’s not him. In order to save face, they guilt-trip Christine into taking care of the imposter and give up looking for the real Walter Collins. Christine, along with a few other kind (male) patrons, including John Malkovich’s Rev. Briegleb, conducts her own investigation and uses the testicular fortitude surrounding her to uncover the truth and deliver justice.

The woes and foes of motherhood are not easily imitated on screen. A mother’s role, like that of the many waitresses, nurses, teachers, and secretaries who keep our society afloat, are poorly represented in cinema because of the so-called humdrum nature of their job. After all, who wants to watch a movie about someone’s mother unless they’re a serial killer and/or prostitute on the side? What’s truly dramatic about raising children if there’s no seedy underbelly? In other words, motherhood needs be stranger than fiction to make the cinematic cut.

Changeling, though it definitely has a seedy underbelly, is ultimately a movie about motherhood and its hardships. Like the best flicks about mothers, such as the tearjerker classic, Stella Dallas, and Almodovar’s fizzy Spanish delights, All About my Mother and Volver, Changeling almost sacrificially surrounds its narrative with women’s issues and plights. However, unlike its predecessors, Changeling misses the motherly beat because of the specimen-under-glass mentality it delivers in showcasing the dilemma of Christine Collins. Or, in other words, the film may comprehend what Christine is going through at a distance, but it’s too afraid to explore her character any further than its surface-level meanderings. What we eventually come to know about Christine is what the other male characters have told us because she won’t open her mouth to tell us herself.

As both an actor and a director, Clint Eastwood is notorious for creating and embodying some of the strongest male characters on screen since the late 1950’s. Almost all of them, from the Man with No Name to Dirty Harry, are independent, resourceful, and for the most part, immortal. The same cannot be said for his female characters, who are both single-minded and bodied creations, kind of like aliens in better clothes instead of equal members of society. Eastwood just can’t seem to separate himself or his maleness away from the camera lens. In both Million Dollar Baby and Changeling, Eastwood polarizes his potentially powerful female leads into nothing more than vessels for the male perspective. Eastwood may be able to comprehend the inherent struggle of his women’s films and their characters, but he’s about as appreciative and understanding of their souls as The Man with No Name is of Tuco’s lust for gold in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - which isn’t much.

If Changeling had been harnessed by a more emotionally involved filmmaker, I’m sure Christine Collins and her amazing story would have been far more empowering. As it stands now, Eastwood’s Changeling is nothing more than a beautifully empty portrayal of motherhood and its ghost stories.

Four Minutes (Vier Minuten)

2008-11-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

This review was also published at the Feminist Review.

Since the advent of sound entered the motion picture business in the 1920s, audiences have continually been fascinated with the bebop rhythm of music and its creators. Al Jolson, who uttered cinema’s initial words (“…you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!”) was the first to be tackled by Hollywood’s dream machine. Next came the likes of Gershwin, Miller, and Porter. Busby Berkeley made violins out of the figures of women who danced to jazz numbers. Dorothy Arzner, one of Hollywood’s only feminist filmmakers, directed Dance, Girl, Dance. Soon enough, MGM’s innovative Freed unit followed suit and produced spectacular musicals with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. Music truly brought magic to the movies. Well, at least until the 1970s when the studio system collapsed and Hollywood took every ounce of musical cinema down with it. Today, musicals have dwindled down to the most inane form of entertainment: the bio-pic. Movies like Ray, Walk the Line, DreamGirls, and Moulin Rouge have all but ruined the movie musical with their tired narrative formulas and unimaginative aesthetics.

There are many grave misfortunes that go hand in hand with the reality of an over-commercialized film industry. One of the primary aspects is that there really are a few films released each year that are worth our attention. But we never get to see them on any sort of a mass scale because we’re too busy being bombarded with the latest blockbuster. However, I recently had the privilege to view one of those elite flicks, a German film called Four Minutes (Vier Minuten) that, thankfully, proves me wrong with its insane amount of passion, musical poise, and sincere subject matter.

Jenny, played immaculately by Hannah Herzsprung, is a convicted murderess serving out her sentence at an all-female prison in rural Germany. She was once a grand pianist who gave up her gift when her father began sexually abusing her as a teenager. Jenny is now a headstrong and irritable kook who has a devout need for self-expression in art, but is not able to access that kind of release until Mrs. Krueger (Monica Bleibtreau), an eighty-year old with a dark past, begins giving her piano lessons at the prison. Music becomes a source of freedom for both characters. It’s almost as if they’re only truly human while making beautiful music together.

There is a strange frenetic quality running through the veins of Four Minutes that will leave you feeling wonderfully disjointed by the film’s end. It doesn’t pull any typical punches. Like, when the main characters talk about their troubled past, neither the film or the other character stops to pay attention. Instead, these minor personal trifles are viewed as a small, necessary annoyance; something to get over with quickly so they can move onto what’s really important: the music; neither Nazism or sexual abuse can stand in its way. Four Minutes is a worthwhile modern musical because it embraces the power of the medium without losing itself entirely inside its own world. It’s a consciously musical film without being self-conscious.

Though discussing acting isn’t usually my forte when reviewing a film, I must make special note of Hannah Herzsprung’s performance as Jenny. She is remarkable because she makes a mostly monstrous person both realistic and heartbreaking. Passion and zest ooze out of her body language and speech. There are a few memorable images in the film - the plucking of a cigarette out of a dead person’s pocket, playing the piano with handcuffs on, and a dramatic musical finale in front of a huge audience - that stand out amongst the rest because of the sheer power and charisma of Herzsprung and her character. She has won several acting awards for this film, and if you see it, you’ll definitely understand why. I can’t wait to see more of her work.

Four Minutes is a rarity in contemporary cinema because it takes the passion and talent of its characters seriously. Instead of rigorously enforcing the narrative structure upon us with inane details and devices, the film freely takes flight in pure moments of cinema that tell us more about the characters and their thoughts than an expository scene that hits all of the right, but boring notes. If you have Four Minutes to spare, I sincerely recommend you track this film down as it is the best of the best of the now New German Cinema.

Catch-up Capsules

2008-10-07T00:48:00.001-07:00

Married Life

This flick doesn’t really know where it wants to go. Melodrama? Dark Comedy? Family Drama? Every person in this star-studded ensemble with Chris Cooper, Patricia Clarkson, Rachel McAdams, and Pierce Brosnan seems to have a different idea. It’s one of those everyone-is-sleeping-with-everyone roller coasters that doesn’t deliver in any one department completely. And, despite teasing us audience members with delicious, juicy tidbits like poisoning wives, Oedipus complexes, and post WWII mentalities, the film’s tonally stilted environment fails to bring light to any sort of worthwhile message or theme.

…But Rachel McAdams does wear amazing clothes. And I love the Lana Turner blonde upsweep.

What Happens in Vegas

My friend and fellow writer, Alex Dowd, brought a recent trend in Hollywood comedies to my attention - the two part sour and one part sweet three-act structure. Basically, the first two-thirds of the movie depict all of the characters being absolutely deplorable to one another only to chase it all down with a spoonful of spicy sugar at the end. What Happens in Vegas falls into that category, only it happens to be much worse because 66% of the damn thing is dedicated to guilt-tripping Cameron Diaz for wanting to be a career woman. The remaining 33% is spent reiterating the first two parts of the movie with a sappy marriage proposal from Ashton Kutcher along with the hopeful prospects of being a homemaker and stay at home mom. Aw.

Mamma Mia!

I have an immense soft spot for musicals…especially those that have a mostly all-female cast, take place in Greece, and have an entire dance number (Yes, the dancing queen routine) that features hundreds upon hundreds of women of all ages getting their groove on together in the spirit of womanhood. What I thought would be a frivolous flit into musical territory turned out to have some rather liberal messages about marriage (life first, marriage second), growing older (do it gracefully), and even women in the workplace (it works!). Also, Meryl Streep rocks as the Mamma in her sexy sixties and further proves she's not going to quit working anytime soon.

Switchblades and Suffrage - The Femsploitation Films of Jack Hill

2008-09-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

"It was easy for him because he really didn't believe it was comin', but it ain't gonna be easy for you, because you better believe it's comin'!"

Between 1970 and 1975, the second wave of the feminist movement was in full swing and making the most progressive strides of its generation. For the first time in history, schools of all shapes and sizes were supporting and acknowledging women’s sports because of the Title IX amendment passed by congress in 1972, feminist magazines were all the rage after the first issue of Ms. magazine debuted that same year, and, most importantly, the epic Roe vs. Wade trial granted women the right to safe, legalized abortions across the nation in 1973. Those five years were also the most prolific and groundbreaking for feminist film theory and criticism. For instance, two of the most innovative works of the movement, Laura Mulvey’s innovative essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, and Molly Haskell’s comprehensive book, From Reverence to Rape, were published in 1974 and 1975. Clearly, the topic of feminism was widespread across the American conscience. To this day, the entire feminist movement has never seen so many extensive leaps and bounds within such a short time span.

And, yet, while feminism ruled the newspapers, books, and colleges with the first ever women’s studies programs, there is a surprising lack of feminist cinema within this time frame. As this is, of course, the era in which male filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Steven Spielberg got their start in the mainstream industry as well as their start in dominating the movie screens with their masculine-driven narratives. While the feminists stepped outside the home to fight the good fight, the males moved into it and largely took over the entertainment industry with a death grip that still clinches our minds and bodies today.

However, between 1973 and 1975, filmmaker Jack Hill defied the odds by being both a male filmmaker who makes feminist films and for doing it under the vague guise of the exploitation film genre, or in this case, the femsploitation genre. In three of his films, Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), and Switchblade Sisters (1975), filmmaker Jack Hill created feminist works of art that exhibit strong female characters who actually think and feel like human beings. Not only that, but Hill also managed to weave narratives around these female characters that closely resemble a lot of the happenings and sensibilities of the feminist movement, like the battle between NAWSA and the NWP during the first wave of feminism in the early teens and the anti-lesbian mentality of feminists everywhere in the second wave. During the male-dominated cinema years of the early 1970’s, Jack Hill wrote and directed films with female characters and situations that ring true to the feminist feelings of the time period.

While all three of these films share a common theme within their main characters - the struggle for justice in a patriarchal world - it is the first film in Hill’s femsploitation niche, Coffy, that exhibit’s the most defined conventions of the femsploitation genre within a single female protagonist. Coffyis about a woman with the same name (Pam Grier) who systematically murders the members of a heroin empire, from the lackeys to the head honcho, after her eleven year old sister acquires brain damage because of a bad batch of heroin she accidentally came into contact with. And, while Coffy is totally in control of her actions and knows what she’s doing in terms of murdering each male figure in the empire, she also has a conscience that keeps her character from feeling too bombastic or devoid of feeling. In fact, her character feels quite the opposite - she feels more and more humane with each murder she commits because of the obvious physical and emotional effects it brings forth for her. Though she knows in her heart of hearts that what she’s doing is the right thing to do, she, nevertheless, hesitates a little more each time she has to pull the trigger or knife someone in the gut. So, by the time the film ends and she’s killed approximately twenty men, we empathize entirely with her because we as an audience have physically felt her entire emotional structure shift in more ways than I can count. After all, taking down an entire heroin empire single-handedly is pretty daunting.

However, these emotional shifts do not detract from the empowerment of Coffy’s character. While certain films would use this filmic platform to exhibit a woman who transitions from a strong, fierce woman to a simpering, blubbery mess throughout the course of the film, as it does in, for instance, the pre-code film, Female (1933) or Lubitsch’s The Love Parade (1930), Coffy is always seen as a smart, sassy, and sexy woman who can flirt or fight her way through life and attain what she wants, which is probably the film’s greatest success.

Released in 1973, Coffy is very much of a film of the feminist movement because it is the first, if I’m not mistaken, film of the era to feature a lone female character rising to power by defeating the patriarchy within a male-dominated field. Though it’s widely considered to be one of the originators of the blaxploitation film genre, and it can certainly be determined that way, I think it fits in with more of the ideals of the feminist movement because of the reasons behind her actions - her little sister having her life ruined and physically damaged by a masculine industry and her mission to prevent other girls in the future from being affected, is a very womanly mission.

However, there is one major flaw within the narrative structure that largely contradicts the feminist reading of the film - Coffy never asks for or takes support from other women. Her lone wolf status is empowering for her as a singular character, but if we were to look at the film’s overall structure and gage who she actually fights with throughout the entire film, it’s the women who are the dominating force. She may kill the men, but she fights with the women - women who are jealous of her presence around their drug pusher boy friends and, in one particular sequence, literally pour a bloody alcoholic drink all over Coffy’s white dress and expose her breasts by tearing off the straps. And, while, Coffy does fight back and tear off an equal amount or more of their clothing in a spectacular ten-minute catfight during a party scene, she never tries to recruit them for her mission. There’s no sense of a feminine community within this particular Jack Hill universe.

Foxy Brown picks up the slack in that regard except it does it in the worst possible way. During the second wave of the feminist movement, all of the organizations that were founded to support the mission, such as NOW and the Ms. Foundation, excluded lesbians from the scene because they thought the inclusion of fighting for gay rights as well as women’s rights would detract from their feminist objective. These sentiments are clearly expressed in all three of Jack Hill’s femsploitation flicks, but none are so strong thematically as in Foxy Brown, where there’s literally an elongated fight at a gay bar between Pam Grier and several stereotypically butch lesbians over one of Pam Grier’s female friends. The lesbians in Foxy Brownor should I say, the “fat, pig dykes” as the main character in Switchblade Sisters so eloquently spouts, are the dumb-jock, dumb-hick equivalents of the men who go after women in other exploitation movies – they’re one-dimensional characters, ahem, stereotypes, that are just looking for the next piece of ass to rape.

This is incredibly odd considering how progressive the films are in accordance to their racial and gender politics. Grier herself, now a gay icon and a cast member on The L Word, fails to address the problem, as expressed in a recent interview with her by one of Washington D.C.’s GLBT newspapers, The Metro Weekly. The interviewer asks:

“I know that both as a kid and as an adult I found myself attracted to this image you've had. What was it about you or your persona that drew that attention? Not every actress gets that kind of gay allegiance.”

Grier responds:

“I don't have a crystal ball, but it could be the fact that [those characters] fight -- she puts her neck out on the line for others. She's not a sacrificial lamb, but she will walk through the fire. She always fought for the underdog, and didn't take a lot seriously -- but what was supposed to be taken seriously, I did and the character did.

We didn't have a lot of women on screen then fighting for the underdog. In our communities we did, but it was never reflected on screen. Thank God, American International Pictures and [Coffy and Foxy Brown director] Jack Hill had this great respect for women and sexuality.”

But is that enough to warrant such blatant homophobia? I don’t think so and I don’t think Jack Hill does either. Because in his final foray into femsploitation territory, the 1975 flick Switchblade Sisters, Hill cuts down on the snarling stereotypes considerably and ups the female ante by creating the most empowering feminist film of his career. In the universe of the film, there are two gangs – the Silver Daggers (the male group) and the Dagger Debs (the female sub-group). The Debs, who, even though they have their own gang, are still buried underneath the masculinity of their male masters, the Silver Daggers because the Deb’s leader, Lace (Robbie Lee) is madly in love with the Dom (Asher Brauner), the leader of the male gang. She enjoys playing housewife to his manhood, which enables Dom to keep the Silver Daggers in a higher class above the Dagger Debs. That all changes when Maggie (Joanna Nail), the feisty, forthright feminist with big ideas struts into town with her thigh-high black boots and deadly belt and takes over the operation because of her moralistic values.

In my mind, the film could be seen as a metaphor for the battle of differences between the two political parties of the suffragist movement and the first wave of feminism – the NWP (National Woman’s Party) and NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association). NAWSAwas the old-hat organization started by women, like Carrie Chapman Catt, who wanted to fight for suffrage on a state-by-state basis, which would have ultimately culminated into nothing because they weren’t being active participants in their fight. The NWP, first known as the Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage (CUWS), was started by women like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who were people that actually wanted to go out and accomplish something instead of just sitting around and waiting for it to happen.

Though the battle between the two organizations didn’t end their feud in a cinematic knife fight as Maggie and Lace did in Switchblade Sisters, the film and the organizations do have striking thematic similarities. Maggie is the Alice Paul/NWP of the film universe and Lace represents women like Carrie Chapman Catt and NAWSA, in the sense that Lace stands for the old, torpid ideals of femininity. Maggie, like her counterpart Alice Paul, sees the patriarchal cloud hanging over her head when she joins the Dagger Debs and decides to do something about it by going after the rival male gang and winning the victory all on her own by using her ideas, wit, and craft to make it happen. The women in the gang gradually flock to her as their leader because she treats them with respect and dignity. This is very similar to both Alice Paul’s rise to leadership as well as some of her methods in acquiring the right for a woman to vote. For instance, in 1916, after Woodrow Wilson reneged on his commitment to the suffrage movement by not passing what is now known as the nineteenth amendment, Paul organized a twenty-four hour, seven-day a week picketing of the White House. Women stood outside with signs that said “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?” and “Mr. President, what will you do for women’s suffrage?” Those two lines are similar in spirit to Maggie’s last line in the film:
“No, let me give you some advice, cop. You can beat us, chain us, lock us up. But we're gonna be back, understand? And when we do, cop, you better keep your ass off our turf, or we'll BLOW IT OFF! Ya dig? We're Jezebels, cop - remember that name. We'll be back! “

While all three of these films are categorized under the “exploitation” genre because of their inclusion of graphic female nudity and explosive violence on screen, I don’t think that Jack Hill is exploiting these women in the same way, say Russ Meyer exploits his women. Jack Hill uses exploitation elements, like the unnecessary breast action in Foxy Brown, to distinguish the differences between his female protagonist and the other women in the film. The same application can be applied to his use of rape, misogyny, and violence – he’s utilizing their inherent power to show the audience how they effect his women, not how they affect the audience. Therefore, I think the term “femsploitation” is more of an appropriate title to give the films of Jack Hill because he’s doing the same thing with the feminist themes by combining them with the exploitation fundamentals – showing how they’re used to give them more meaning.

Though he started making films in the mid 1960’s, Jack Hill has only completed sixteen films to date, Switchblade Sisters being his penultimate film. He hasn’t directed a film in twenty-five years. His films may contain a certain amount of material I disapprove of, like the blatant homophobia, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend a better male filmmaker after the fall of the studio system who so lovingly engrained powerful female characters into our public consciousness like he did. Coffy, Foxy Brown, and Switchblade Sisters are all films whose themes revolve entirely around women, their plights, and the feminist sensibilities that allowed them to be there in the first place.

Save BITCH!!!!!

2008-09-16T13:21:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!!!

Bitch magazine, the best magazine around, needs YOUR donation! If they don't have $40,000 by 10/15/08, then, sadly, Bitch will cease to be no more. It's hard out there for a non-profit magazine, so please donate anything you can! Even $5.00 will help. You'll even get your name in the magazine! And, I will love you forever.

~Sara

I'm Back!

2008-09-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I apologize for being basically MIA over the past few weeks. I moved to a different state and almost immediately got a full-time job that's been kicking my butt on a daily basis. However, things are a little less wacky now and I've finally cleared my schedule a bit by completing some professional reviews for other places, so hopefully I'll be able to catch up on my project because I miss it dearly.

Here are some femme pics from what I've been watching in my web absence...

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953, Jean Negulesco)- Three girls (Bacall, Grable, and Monroe) get mixed up in their scheme to marry millionaires for their money by falling in love with some average Joe's...or are they?

The Furies (1950, Anthony Mann) - Barbara Stanwyck challenges the patriarchal west as the smart and sassy Vance Jeffords in this beautiful, epic western by Mr. Anthony Mann.

The Quiet (2005, Jamie Babbit)- In this severely under appreciated, almost Shakespearean drama about family life, two teenage girls, played by Camilla Belle and Elisha Cuthbert, seem to be opposites in every possible way - - when, in reality, they're a lot similar than they had originally hoped and planned.

And, please don't forget to take a look at my brief review of Babbit's Itty Bitty Titty Committee featured below.

It feels good to be back!

The Itty Bitty Titty Committee

2008-09-10T01:11:00.000-07:00

Indie female filmmaker Jamie Babbit, famous for her inspiring, inviting queer flick But, I’m a Cheerleader and moody family drama, The Quiet, teamed up with the feminist production company, Power Up Films, to create her third feature and unfortunately titled, The Itty Bitty Titty Committee. Thus far, Babbit’s films have focused solely on young female characters who undergo severe life changes that generally revolve around sexual awakening - in But, I’m a Cheerleader, Natasha Lyonne’s Megan Bloomfield accepts her lesbian feelings despite severe opposition, in The Quiet, Camilla Belle’s Dot is forced to confront her qualms about life when she learns of an incestuous relationship between her godfather and foster sister. And, in TIBTC, Melonie Diaz’s loner lesbian Anna discovers feminism when she joins the C(I)A (Clits in Action), a confidence-building feminist group that kicks ass.

TIBTC is probably the most direct feminist flick you’ll see this year. It’s mission is simple - to make people aware about the politics of feminism in a light-hearted, educational way that also happens to snugly fit in with the rest of the (good) quirky comedies of the past few years, despite being mostly typical in its three act romantic comedy plot (I.e., the two leads flirt, then fight, and then flutter). Thankfully, you won’t find any of that Juno or Little Miss Sunshine bullshit around these parts. TIBTC is well-acted and features some of the hottest young feminist women in Hollywood, including several L-word regulars and the best of the best of non-Hollywood talent. This is a true-blue indie gem that had a budget of a solid million and sadly, didn’t even receive a proper theatrical release even though it did really well on the festival circuit. I had the opportunity to see it on DVD a couple of weeks ago and I’m really glad I did. I highly recommend everyone taking a gander at this flick because it will definitely be making my feminist top ten list of the year. I hope to give it a more proper review when I have the time, but until then, please take my word for it and give it a rent. It’ll pump you up and make you feel like you can take on the world. Yeah!

Argento's Grande Madre

2008-08-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

“Style over substance” is the phrase one most often hears in relation to Dario Argento’s work. Whether it’s shards of stained glass impaling helpless victims (Suspiria, 1977), bullets being shot into your eye through a peephole (Opera, 1987), or simply a sixteen year old Jennifer Connelly falling into a “flesh” pool backwards (Phenomena, 1985), Argento truly knows how to create breathtaking, horrific images that stand the test of time. The lack of so-called “substance” in his work has never bothered me because, frankly, the images or “visions” as they are - speak for themselves. Dream logic is just as important in the Argento world as it is in the Lynch world - it may not always make sense, but the bits and pieces we accumulate through our consciousness somehow makes everything feel complete, not necessarily cohesive, but organically and cosmically whole. He doesn’t need the schlock dialogue or badly dubbed lines to articulate his cinematic feelings and I’ve often wished he would do away with those aspects all together. Can you imagine a no-dialogue Argento film? With just Keith Emerson’s and/or Goblin’s music accompanying the visuals? Bad ass.

Anyway, Argento’s uninspiring, self-parodist work in the 1990’s seems to have led him back to the “oldie but goodie” territory of his 70’s and 80’s films - namely, The Three Mothers trilogy, which started in 1977 with Suspiria (the mother of sighs) and continued on into the 80’s with Inferno (the mother of darkness, 1980). He’s finally capped off the trilogy with his latest film, The Mother of Tears, starring his daughter, Asia, and his long-time, on again/off again partner and mother of Asia, Daria Nicolodi, as well as a slew of other Argento returning guests like Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni. The usual suspects are all in place for The Mother of Tears except for the director himself, as this is least “Argento” feeling Argento I’ve ever seen. Indeed, The Mother of Tears paces and parades itself like a run of the mill horror flick without any of the painterly pizzazz of the Italian horror master himself.

And while this is troublesome for the cinephile in my soul who loves to sit in a darkened theatre with her mouth hanging open during the beginning of Suspiria, I can appreciate Argento’s choice to step away from his usual aesthetic and focus on new aspects of creativity because it means he’s trying to reinvent himself. Or should I say, reinvent herself? Most (80% or so) of Argento’s flicks feature a central (virginal) female protagonist who acts as a JV gumshoe in solving a murder mystery, a mystery usually involving a murderer who kills young, slightly “immoral” women in gruesome, disturbingly prolonged ways (razor blades to eyelids, glass in the face, etc). I used to consider this blatant misogyny and, in some cases, it is, (though Argento will never be as distasteful as his contemporary, Lucio Fulci), but my consideration was decidedly wavered when I learned Argento almost always uses his own hands on screen to commit the murders. Why would he do that?

It could easily be argued that Argento is merely executing the classic virgin/whore complex on film, that is, his murderers kill (or fuck, as most of the murders are hyper-sexual) the so-called slutty women in an effort to praise his virginal protagonists - the gals’ who are just too good to be caught. Too good, in fact, to wear anything but lily-white, not-too-tight frocks and generally be framed from the shoulders up. And the other girls, the dead girls, that is, show enough T&A while being sliced and diced in shredded dark clothing to open up their own strip joint. That and then there’s this quote by him:

“I like women, especially beautiful ones. If they have a good face and figure, I would much prefer to watch them being murdered than an ugly girl or man. I certainly don't have to justify myself to anyone about this. I don't care what anyone thinks or reads into it. I have often had journalists walk out of interviews when I say what I feel about this subject.”

However, Argento’s recent return to the Three Mothers territory has me questioning the director’s true intentions. In Mother of Tears, Argento places an incredible amount of importance upon well, motherhood, and the startling power of rebirth - the rebirth of the self, of the mind, and of the heart. Thinking back to all of the classic Argento films - Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno, Phenomena, Opera, etc. - they all seem to feature direct themes to the idea of rebirth and being born again. For instance, after Jennifer Connelly falls into the “flesh pool” and gets doused in bodily, bloody ooze, the plot directly takes her to battling a child mutant in a crisp, clear lake where she emerges victoriously with her long, flowing white attire billowing at her sides.

…Is Argento trying to exorcise his demons cinematically by physically killing off his “immoral” impulses through the murder victims? Does he want to become one of his protagonists?

Much has been said about Argento using his own daughter, Asia, as the central protagonist in the latter part of his career. In the four pictures, they’ve made together - Trauma (1993), Stendhal Syndrome (1995), Phantom of the Opera (1998), and now Mother of Tears (2007), Ms. Argento is frequently the victim of brutal, grotesque rape, violence, and even acts as a fetish subject for serial killers galore. However, to inspect the arc of these four films is to understand the basis of my argument. Argento is using Asia, his own flesh and blood, a piece of himself - to explore and conquer his own demons. It’s almost as if each of the film’s Asia is in removes a layer of his torturous psyche and desires. The first two layers, Trauma and The Stendhal Syndrome, are by far the worst - seeing Argento put his own daughter in the character’s situations feels like you’re watching the rape scene in Irreversible (2002) ten times in a row. She gets so mind-fucked by the serial killers in each movie that there’s no way her characters will be able to psychologically survive after the film’s end. Phantom of the Opera, perhaps Argento’s worst film, is much less severe on Asia’s end and even treats her as somewhat of an angelic presence.

And, in Mother of Tears, Asia rises above all of her previous protagonists to become the pure heroine Argento has always aspired her/himself to be. Heck, she doesn’t even get fully naked in the film. Several other women do, unfortunately, and Argento seems to have felt the need to shamelessly point out his puritanical victory by murdering his women in even more terrifying ways than before. The most prevalent example I can think of is a woman dying at the hands of a gigantic spear stabbing her vagina. In fact, almost all of the deaths in Mother of Tears, including infant death, involve his hyper-sexual flare. Except without his stylistic talents to back him up, Argento is merely provoking disgust instead of provoking discussion, which is what I genuinely think he was trying to attain with his latest cinematic effort and failed miserably in the process.

That being said, I have high hopes that Argento’s next picture, the appropriately named Giallo (2009) will introduce new, fresh ideas to the filmmaker’s body of work and inspire audiences to reappraise their preconceived notions of Argento as an artist and appreciate him once again. We need all of the horror film auteurs we can get.

Summertime Flicks

2008-07-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

Fun is in

It's no sin
It's that time again
To shed your load
Hit the road
On the run again…
Summer skies
In our eyes
And a warmer sun
It's one for all
All for one
All for all out fun

- It's OK by The Beach Boys (15 Big Ones, 1976)

There are many reasons summertime is my favorite time of the year. The previously dreary environment of the outside world is now warm, welcoming, and sunny with joy. Our clothing choices are no longer compromised by having to wear bulky, clunky winter coats coupled with sweaters and long johns. We, and I mean me - can now wear tank tops, pedal pushers, or skirts every single day if we want to. Hell, men and women can walk around naked now and still be comfortable. And, to be more specific to my current and previous age groups, the inspiring freedom of summer vacation allows us to concentrate on what’s most important in life - - doing whatever the hell we want to for as long as we can.

For me, at least for the last ten or so years, that has always consisted of watching as many movies as possible in a 24 hour time span and hanging out with my movie pals until all hours of the morning talking about movies and eating sweet organic junk food. Amazing. However, those are merely the activities I partake in during the summertime hours. There’s a mentality that comes with the territory that is also specific to the warm, sunny days and nights of June, July, and August. By not having to concentrate on the mind numbing repetition of school work and other such things, our minds are allowed to relax and wander into new zones of thought and feeling. I don’t know if this is a decidedly female trait, but during the summertime I have a difficult time completing just about anything because I become so enraptured inside my dreamy, listless world of imagination and enchantment. I'm not actually getting anything done, but I somehow feel accomplished - almost as if my soul becomes replenished during the summertime months because I actually have time to think things through. These feelings have been captured on film more than once and, not so oddly enough, have been captured most frequently by female filmmakers. These are the films of my youth.

Here are five examples of summertime flicks and the things they all have in common:

- The film usually only revolves around two female characters.
- Large chunks of the narrative are spent inside closed areas, which allows the two characters to get to know one another inside and out.
- Either actual or insinuated lesbianism combined with budding sexuality.
- Death.
- A journey - either of the metaphorical kind or the realistic.
- Rich vs. Poor.
- Gorgeous cinematography.

Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994): Juliet (Kate Winslet) and Pauline (Melanie Lynsky) provide fantastical, emotional, and sexual outlets for one another throughout the course of a single year - a year that changes everything forever.

The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 1999): Though it’s not strictly a summertime tale, Ms. Coppola and Jeffrey Eugenides (the author of the book it was based upon) make the Lisbon sisters’ story of death, depression, and desire feel romantically ethereal and honest while simultaneously honoring the summertime mentality.

Fat Girl (Catherine Breillat, 2002): While on a holiday by the sea, two physically opposing sisters discover sexuality only to endure disastrous consequences.

Morvern Callar (Lynne Ramsay, 2002): After the suicide of her longtime companion, Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) takes off on a journey to the Mediterranean sea with her best friend, Lanna (Kathleen McDermott) in an effort to get over the emotional damage and find a new life path.

My Summer of Love (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2004): The manipulated (“Mona,” Nathalie Press) and the manipulator (“Tamsin,” Emily Blunt) take charge in this darkly metaphoric film about the battle between good and evil.

And, I must give a shout out to Tideland (Terry Gilliam, 2006) because it possesses all of the feelings I just discussed except inside the story of a little girl named Jeliza-Rose (Jodelle Ferland) instead of a teenager.

And another shout out to The River (Jean Renoir, 1951) because it involves some summertime sass, but not quite enough to make the cut.

However, these are all great movies and I highly recommend a fourteen hour marathon of all of 'em! Or, at least do what I've been doing all summer long and watch one a week.

Sex and the City - It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing

2008-07-06T00:25:00.001-07:00

Do Whop Do Whop...

Hey Dickwad, I’m speaking!

In Sex and the City: the movie, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha may all sing, but none of them really swing. Or, in other words, they all talk the talk, but these ladies’ don’t really walk the walk.

I suppose it was wrong of me to invest so many of my feminist hopes and female dreams into this one fiendishly femme flick, but all of the signs pointed in the right direction and I must have gotten ’carried away’ with my desires to declare Sex and the City the most empowering chick flick of the year. It’s not. Plus, I was all starry eyed by the impact of the midnight show and being surrounded by hundreds of dolled-up gals. I’ve taken three weeks+ and three viewings of the film (…7.5 hours) to think things over carefully and considerately before declaring my verdict of the film to the world.

And, to be honest, I still haven’t completely made up my mind about the philosophy of SATC’s narrative. Though gray isn’t a prominent color in the wardrobe of these sparkling fashionistas, there sure is a lot of gray matter within their lives that either fails to be addressed completely or is glossed over and not given a second thought, which discredits a lot of the progress the film and TV show attains.

For instance, the fact that Samantha lives in Los Angeles now and, yet, still seems to appear in every single scene of the film. It had never occurred to me before seeing the movie that these friends don’t see each other every single day. The tourniquet-esque editing style coupled with the bombardment of lunches, shopping trips, and general hangouts between the ladies’ causes their lives to seem inseparable from one another. And, obviously, that’s the point of Michael Patrick King’s aesthetic choice and I absolutely love their towering friendship - however, it severely detracts from showcasing the women as individuals. It would be amazing to see Miranda kicking butt as a partner in her law firm and Samantha sassing up her agency. Or, better yet, see Charlotte slowly going insane with her happy housewife status and Carrie actually(!) doing some writing. In fact, about the only time they’re away from one another is when their men-folk are around.
So, what about their men folk? Why do these four talented, smart, absolutely gorgeous women drop everything for love with a sweet cheater, Mr. Blah but sexy, Mr. Blah but rich, and Mr. Blah Blah Blah? God knows they’ve tried, but why can’t the gals’ be involved with men who are as vibrant, passionate, and worthwhile as they are? Back in the glorious days of women’s pictures, it was perfectly acceptable for the man in the woman’s life to simply be “just” an archetype or even be a quadruple Blah (I’m looking at you Van Heflin) because the women themselves were larger than life - at least the life most women led at the time. They always put themselves first and didn’t revolve their entire lives around a man, at least not without wondering why they needed to. The ladies of SATC don’t have that option. Their friendships with one another may always come first, but the men in their lives come second with the third, less proportionate element being themselves as individual people. Why does it have to be that way?
Dare I say, is it because Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda aren’t worth a damn on their own? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Each gal may have her little niche inside the clan, but as separate characters, they’re mentally and emotionally malnourished and only become shall we say, “whole,” when around the other three women, kind of like Captain Planet for mature ladies with designer labels instead of teenagers with earth conservation.

Oh, but when they’re “whole,” glorious things start to happen - feminine love is spread throughout Manhattan and wonderful, sincere girl chat is vocalized and cherished by the three most important people in her/their lives. No other film this year has so completely understood the feminine need for friendship, for loving, comforting companionship. When the girls’ get together, there’s no stopping their powerful impact upon NYC, Mexico, LA, or anywhere else they choose to go. They rule the roost. And, most importantly, they cherish their femininity. They’re not ashamed to be women, in fact, they’re damn proud of it. The film, if nothing else, celebrates their pride and showcases it like a diamond necklace at Tiffany’s.

All in all, Sex and the City is a mixed bag of feminist feelings and ideas. I love the gals’ despite their shortcomings and seeing the movie at the midnight show with so many other women is a memory I’ll cherish forever. I'm also enormously happy to see it doing so well at the box office. Judging by the reaction to the film by critics and box office analysts, I'd say my hopes for studios creating other female-driven flicks based upon the success of SATC is a-go. Progression isn’t at the forefront of thought in either the movie or the show, but by doing its best to honor the code of femininity, I think the movie makes up for some of its falsehoods and meandering ideals.

She Did it the Hard Way - Bette Davis

2008-06-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

Bette Davis (1908-1989)

Ruth Elizabeth Davis, more commonly known as Bette Davis, was born April 5, 1908 in Lowell, Massachusetts. She was a precocious, self-absorbed child who discovered her love of acting while watching the play, The Wild Duck (by Henrik Ibsen) when she was a teenager, proclaiming, "Before that performance I wanted to be an actress. When it ended, I had to be an actress... exactly like Peg Entwistle (who played Hedvig in the play). Her doting, generous mother, Ruthie (Bette’s best friend for her entire life) sacrificed herself to Bette’s whim by working two jobs, one as a very talented portrait photographer and, the other, as a laundress, to supply funds for she and the Davis family to live in NYC and send Bette to acting school at the John Murray Anderson School of Theatre. Bette was, of course, the most exceptional pupil in her class, which made Ruthie’s efforts worth the trouble. By 1929 at age nineteen, Bette had already appeared in on and off Broadway productions, including playing the part of Hedvig in The Wild Duck. During the performance of one of her plays, a Universal Studios talent scout spotted the young starlet and invited her to Hollywood for a screen test, which led to a run-of-the-mill contract, followed by bleached blonde hair, and then a whole lotta nothin’.

Universal didn’t know what to do with the odd-looking starlet they had on their hands. She played numerous bit parts in generally bad movies until 1932, when (then) superstar George Arliss chose her to be his leading lady in The Man Who Played God (1932) and she signed her first Warner Bros. contract. That role paved her way into playing her first mind-blowing performance as Mildred in Of Human Bondage in 1934, a part that pushed Davis into the mainstream appreciation of critics and fans and started her precedent for playing unlikable, challenging characters. Though she didn’t win the Academy Award that year (despite a Hollywood-wide campaign), she did win her first Oscar the following year for the film, Dangerous (1935) and won again in 1939 for the 1938 film, Jezebel. She was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress eight more times throughout her career.

Her best-known performances are probably as Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager (1942), Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), and as Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Though Bette acted in various genres throughout her life (horror, comedy, drama, etc.), she is most fondly remembered for her startling commitment to the women’s picture genre – a section of time in film that she realized affected thousands of women everywhere and, along with supporting the troops of WWII by starting The Hollywood Canteen in 1942, Davis acted in films starring/about strong females to support the women on the home front during the war. After starting in 1936 what Olivia DeHavilland eventually finished in 1943 with the “DeHavilland Law,” Bette was basically able to pick and choose which parts she should play and which directors would work with her, which, to say the least, was unusual for a female star to do during that era (…and even now). She challenged authority on a daily basis and she usually won her battles.

Her unwavering power and determination is clearly displayed in each performance she gives, which she does with her entire being and soul. Whether she’s being good Bette (All this, and Heaven Too, Now, Voyager, Dark Victory) or very bad Bette (The Letter, In this our Life, The Little Foxes), Ms. Davis always acted as a tower of female strength and pride for her audiences to identify with and aspire to be. She inspires me everyday – through her films, through the books written about her, and even through the images of her I have placed all over my apartment. I love Bette Davis because her ghostly presence over my life encourages me to be a better person and a better woman. Her image has attracted me to her since I saw the insipid Watcher in the Woods (1980) when I was a small child (I loved horror movies, what can I say?), which only grew into staunch admiration when I saw All About Eve and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? in junior high school. I’ve seen over thirty of her films and I want to see more. My personal favorite is probably Jezebel (1938) followed by Now, Voyager(1942), Old Acquaintance (1943), and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

Off screen, Ms. Davis’ life was far less gratifying – she married four times, all ending with divorce (three times) or death (once), and had three children, one of which, B.D. Hyman, wrote her own version of Mommie Dearest entitled My Mother’s Keeper that amounted to nothing – no publicity and no shame on Bette’s part. In fact, she wrote a fiery response in the form of a book called This ‘n’ That. The love of her life was director William Wyler, who directed Bette in three of her most beloved films, Jezebel (1938), The Letter(1940), and The Little Foxes (1941). She had affairs with Howard Hughes, George Brent, and Vincent Sherman. It seems that no man in her life liked being known as “Mr. Bette Davis.” They should have been honored.

Sara's Shit List - John Kass on Sex and the City "Because No Man Should Feel The Agony of this Film"

2008-06-06T15:40:00.001-07:00

Ugh

John Kass, writer for the Chicago Tribune, took it upon himself to create a "Get Out of Watching Sex and the City" Card for all of the other insecure males out there. Are men really so freaked out by SATC's hyper-femininity that they'll go to these lengths to put an end to it?

More on this later.

These are a few of my favorite things... (Joan Crawford edition)

2008-06-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Dearest blog, I haven’t forgotten thee – I’m just kind of in movie limbo at the moment because I haven’t had an entire day set aside to catch up on chick flicks. Hopefully I’ll remedy that this weekend. Until then, I feel like making a guide to some of the filmic feminist icons, films, and such that I absolutely love.

Let’s start with Joan Crawford.

There are three women in the history of cinema whose work I continually turn to for both inspiration and identification and they are Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, and Joan Crawford. These ladies’ don’t really need an introduction because their lives and work have been so well documented by other fans and writers, but I love ‘em passionately and generally watch one of their films per week. Without further ado:

"Damn it . . . Don't you dare ask God to help me." - Joan Crawford's last words

Joan Crawford (1906-1977): Born Lucille LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, Ms. Crawford came to Hollywood in the mid 1920’s to be an actress in silent pictures. She had a career ranging chronologically from 1925 until 1972. Though her forty-seven year livelihood is the shortest of these three particular women, her grasp on the overall history of cinema is the strongest because it started significantly earlier (in show business years, that is) – she worked through the silent years, the early talkies, the golden age, and teetered off around the rise of the independents. She is probably best remembered for her role as Mildred in Mildred Pierce, the only film for which she won a Best Actress Oscar in 1945, because it encompasses her sizzling persona so accurately in the mainstream world. She generally acted in women’s pictures that put her character in a position of change – a change that mostly revolves around her trying to get out of a relationship with a bad man and move on with her life. She has fury to burn. Watching Joan Crawford get mad makes me feel like I just told someone off, which is kind of a combination feeling between a wonderful adrenaline rush and giddy enthusiasm. I’ve only seen about twenty of her films (basically all of the ones released on DVD), but I love her in nearly all of them. My favorite Crawford flick is The Damned Don’t Cry (195), closely followed by A Woman’s Face (1941), Harriet Craig (1950), and Johnny Guitar (1954). It’s certainly a shame that all of the hard work and dedication Ms. Crawford paid to cinema has all but been thrown back in her face because her…darling…daughter, Christina, chose to write an exaggerated tale of child abuse entitled Mommie Dearest. Crawford was a severe hypochondriac (for example, she washed her hands every ten minutes), but she loved her four children and her youngest daughter, Cathy (her twin, Cindy, died last year) has recently gone on the record to say that Christina fabricated a lot the material in Mommie Dearest. Alas, that’s all she’s known for in pop culture these days and I wish people could get over it and see what a great asset she is/was for us.

* I plan on doing two more posts - one on Ms. Hepburn and the other on Ms. Davis within the next few days. So, stay tuned!

A few fun and games...

2008-05-27T23:14:00.001-07:00

Well, I got "tagged" by Ms. Alexa over at Pop Elegantiarum and I must comply with her wishes! :)

Five Things in my Purse:

(I don't have a digi camera handy, so I'll steal from google)

Fossil Wallet

Burt's Bees chapstick

Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti, founder of Feministing.com

Rhodia notepad with a Katharine Hepburn postcard glued to the cover.

And, a Yoyo!

Five Favorite Things in MY Room:

1. My DVDs
http://planet-baptiste.dvdaf.com/
2. Libby!

3. The Mickey Mouse blanket my father bought me when I was 7.
4. The Tenant (1978) original AU daybill poster Jake bought me for Christmas in '04.
5. My collaged coffee table.

Five things I've always wanted to do:

1. Visit Europe for an extended period of time with Jake.
2. Take my mom on a vacation to NYC.
3. Publish a book.
4. Write the sequel novel to Roman by Polanski with Roman's blessing.
5. Dance!!!

Five things I'm currently into:

1. Learning more about Jennifer Jones.
2. Reading classic literature.
3. Taking my dog for walks.
4. The TCM "flim flam" game.
5. The midnight show of Sex and the City.

Five impressions of Alexa at Pop Elegantiarum:

1. She's very talented.
2. She has a wide range of interests that help with the creation of her art.
3. She's a feminist.
4. She's considerate.
5. She's super cool!

My six quirks:

1. I hate it when the volume of the television is not at an even number.
2. I hate it when people use "your" when they mean "you're."
3. I wear black almost every day...I just like it.
4. I feel at home in cemetaries.
5. I can't stand writing with pencils.
6. I don't drink or do any drugs and I never have nor will.

I'll tag Lisa and Alex!

So what are we going to do? Sit around bars, sipping Cosmos and sleeping with strangers when we're eighty? Thoughts on Sex and the City: The Movie

2008-05-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, I’ll admit it - I’ve seen every episode of Sex and the City at least twice. The girls’ (Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda) kept me company during the latter part of my high school years and my first year of college. Even then, I detested certain elements of the show and it’s almost constant need to pair up its ladies’ with mostly terrible men (among other things), which is exemplified in the show’s finale, but I couldn’t and still can’t help being drawn to the caring friendship between all four women. They’re goddamn soul mates for Christ sakes! And they’ve made it a point to flat out tell us so on more than one occasion.

So, even though I sold off my DVD sets long ago and haven’t watched the show in close to three years, I’m looking forward to the movie immensely…and so are other women, apparently. As it has sold more group sales tickets than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! The trailer has me hoping that the movie will un-do all of the romantic knots it created within the lives of the characters at the seasons end. I can’t wait to attend the first ever female oriented midnight show this upcoming Thursday evening. Could this be the first chick flick blockbuster in a decade? Could Sex and the City: the movie prove to studios, like, ahem, Warner Bros., that women want to see strong, important women on the big screen? It very well might.

Let’s hope certain obstacles don’t get in the way. Reporters keep trying to place the “bitch” label on each actresses forehead for some reason. Why do women have to be seen as constantly fighting with one another to sell newspapers and magazines? BTW, Kristin Davis (Charlotte) has emphatically denied all of the squabbling accounts here:

Sex And The City star Kristin Davis has denied reports alleging the hit TV show was marred by infighting between the four leading ladies. Davis and her co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall have long been dogged by rumors they don't get on - with speculation that petty arguments about costumes and pay had divided the group. There was even gossip that the new movie adaptation was almost shelved because of the growing rift between the actresses - in particular between Parker and Cattrall, who have both admitted to a dispute over money. But Davis insists the four women rarely fight when working together - especially not over a trivial matter like costumes. She tells British TV show This Morning, "If we were fighting over shoes, if we actually got into a physical altercation over shoes - we would have to be in the nut house. We don't fight over shoes, we don't really fight. We are four of the luckiest, overpaid women in the world - with the best job in the world. We have been together for 10 years, working together for 18 hours a day. We would never have got through this if we weren't close. We love each other."

The reviews of the film are also very mixed thus far and while those aren’t all that interesting, the comments the reviews receive online are:

“This may not be an indictment of men, but it is surely an indictment on the kind of people too many women of this generation have become. Promiscuous, foul-mouthed male bashing sexists. I am in my early thirties and I am thoroughly disgusted by the way many women who are ten years younger than me to around my age act. Where are the feminine women who know how to be a lady and respect men. I guess women could say the same thing about men. Masculine men are becoming less and less. There are so many Gay men nowadays and women seem to want their men feminine instead of true men. When did the line between the way men and women act become so blurred? It makes me SICK! Speaking of sick, the way women and Homosexuals idolize this show and these women also makes me sick. Women of this generation need to join us in reality!!!”

Ok, well, this review is particularly hilarious:

That said, I am revising my box office estimates for the film to about double what was being bounced around the studio just a few weeks ago. In the last decade, I have never seen the New Line screening room this full… not for Rings… not for nothing. If the fire marshall had shown up, at least a dozen women would have been thrown out before they could show the film. And it was 88% women in the room. And 8% gay men. And me.

But in a summer where Anne Hathaway is playing with boys and Meryl Streep is in a movie that Universal is now trying to sell to the High School Musical set with the unknown blonde girl and there is not really a single film for women of all ages all summer long… this one is going to be a big, stinky hit.

Yeah!

Sunsilk, Sunsilk, Sunsilk

2008-05-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

Well, Unilver and Sunsilk hair care are up to no good once again. They never returned my follow-up e-mails to the original “icon” complaints I gave them, but I hope they’ll respond this time around.

Their new campaign is geared towards the every day Jane’s who buy their product – women had the opportunity to submit “their own story” to the company in hopes of becoming one of their starlet icons and undergoing the celebrity pampering treatment. Out of all the entries they received, Sunsilk chose twenty-five women as finalists whose stories range from admirable to absolutely pathetic. I guess that’s fitting considering the icons they chose to represent them, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, and Shakira. However, their stories aren’t necessarily what I’m concerned with, it’s the way they chose to represent them -

On their website, people from all over the world can visit, watch the video of the finalist telling their story, and vote who they think should be the first Sunsilk starlet. Instead of filming their finalists as if they’re people (from a head-on perspective, perhaps showing us some of their backgrounds in relation to their tale), they constantly fetishize their bodies with extreme, frenetic, Michael Bay editing that totally distracts from the person’s story. So, what they’re basically doing with this campaign is saying “vote for the person with the prettiest face, the hottest body, the most jewelry, and, of course, the best hair.” Way to go, Sunsilk.

If you’re interested in seeing of these vile shenanigans, visit their official website because I can’t post them here.

Blurbity Blurb Blurb - Inside (2007)

2008-05-11T00:25:00.000-07:00

Touted as the anti-Juno, the French horror flick Inside examines some of the inner-workings of the female mind through pregnancy via a life and death battle between two women. It's possibly the goriest film I've ever seen (and I've seen plenty, trust me) and it all takes place inside the home, using traditional female objects like sewing scissors and hair styling products to commit the acts of violence. I'm not easily manipulated by horror films because I've seen so many, but this film really got to me and I can't believe it's only eighty-two minutes long because it's so effective.

Check out some of the images:

Tina Fey wants a Bebe...

2008-05-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

And I don’t know why.

Neither does she, apparently. Baby Mama begins with an informative voiceover heard over blank credits from Fey’s Kate Holbrook explaining how she managed to succeed in the male-driven business world. She attests (slightly paraphrasing): “I wore the short skirts,” “I let the old men cop a feel during business lunches” and then suddenly - - “I woke up one morning and felt like all the babies on the street were staring at me,” and goes on and on about how much she wants a baby. For comedic effect, the first real image we see is of Fey sitting at a dinner table with a man who obviously looks disturbed by the wealth of information just thrown at him. “Too much for a first date?” Fey asks.

So begins Baby Mama - a film with all of the bells and whistles of a grade-A female comedy that has too many balls and not enough bite to make it soar.

I hate to sectionalize films with trite remarks like “the first third of the movie was good, but the middle act and half of the climax sucked” because, well, it’s useless. However, Baby Mama warrants this type of criticism because there is a clear-cut distinction between the scenes in which Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are alone in their wondrous, pregnant universe and basically the rest of the movie when either or both of the ladies step outside and interact with the men of their worlds.

When Amy Poehler moves into Tina Fey’s apartment after she leaves her boyfriend, the movie takes an uplifting turn that kicks it up a few more notches than it actually deserves. As I pointed out in my quarterly review, few films allow women to have actual friendships that don’t involve catty, petty motives or some steak knives buried in shoulder blades. Baby Mama allows Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to be friends - to support one another, laugh, cry, and play the American Idol video game incessantly. They create their own loving, nurturing nest inside their environment. So much so, that certain people in the movie think they’re in a lesbian relationship. And, oddly enough, Fey and Poehler don’t really disagree. I don’t think I’ve seen such good chemistry between two women since Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis appeared together in Thelma and Louise (1991). They’re really fun to watch on screen together.

If the film had been written and/or directed by Ms. Fey as it should have, there’s no doubt in my mind that it would be ten times more clever and empowering than it is right now. I’m not one for television, but I’ve recently joined the Tina Fey bandwagon and can’t wait to see where she goes next with her career. She’s one of the few recognizably female powerhouses in the industry who is frequently lauded and applauded for her work. And, Amy Poehler, for that matter is an up and coming talent behind the scenes, having just created her own animated series called The Mighty B.

And those are the precise reasons the rest of Baby Mama is such a startling disappointment. About half-way through the running time, the film takes an out-of-nowhere turn for the worse by turning Amy Poehler’s character into one of those wenches who had intended to stab her friend in the back. For no reason! That plot point unravels the rest of the girl-power progress the film had been making with the Poehler/Fey relationship and quickly regresses in the opposite direction. By the end of the film they’re still friends, but each woman is paired off and stuck with a simpering infant to take care of. No one bothers to point out if Fey is still a high-powered business woman or if Poehler got her act together and went to college.

Another major problem I have with the film is its take on surrogacy and any sort of baby-making process other than that of the biological. Tina Fey can’t get pregnant via artificial insemination because she has a T-shaped uterus. She can’t adopt a child because she would be a single parent and they don’t like those. She opts to pay $100,000 for a surrogacy with Amy Poehler because it’s her only option. However, and I don’t want to give away any plot points, but the movie paints surrogacy as some sort of Alien invention by making the creator, Sigourney Weaver, of the agency Fey goes to as some eccentric loony-bin who can still get pregnant in her fifties. And, in case you’re wondering, there are plenty of jokes about that too.

**Spoiler**

When the surrogacy with Amy Poehler fails to work because of her own stupidity and Tina Fey gets knocked up the old fashioned way, the film is taking a conservative bend that is most unwelcoming. It’s saying “you can still get pregnant if you wait for the right man to come along.” Greg Kinnear’s penis must be the eight wonder if it can turn a thirty-seven year old T-shaped uterus into something workable. Movies like Baby Mama that deal directly with topics like different kinds of reproduction methods should be striving to depict these issues in a positive light or they won’t be taken seriously.

Bad Baby Mama. Bad. Bad.

The Cyrus Complex

2008-05-01T12:51:00.000-07:00

Which picture is more disturbing?

I’m sure everyone and their mother has heard about the Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair photoshoot by now. It’s gained a lot of controversy for the first picture because it supposedly depicts the latest role model/pop princess as a sexual being. The latter picture, included in the same article, is not being discussed at all. I’ll ask the question again – which picture is more disturbing?

The latter one is for several reasons. The first that springs to mind is obviously the fact that she’s entangled in her father’s arms in the same way several perfume/cologne ads (heck, just ads in general) feature men and women as sex objects to sell their product. Secondly, by not ackowledging and abhorring the father/daughter photo for the same reasons as the individual photo, society is proving, once again, that it’s perfectly alright to be a sexual object as long a man is in the picture. That, in my opinion, is abominable.

Miley Cyrus is a beautiful, young woman. The first picture, though somewhat provactive, captures her youth while simultaneously capturing her emerging maturity as the woman she will grow into being in a few years. It’s a stunning photograph that looks almost like a painted portrait. She’s wearing very little make-up and looks natural for a change. Miley Cyrus should not be ashamed of this photograph anymore than she should be ashamed of growing up. More importantly, she should not be afraid of expressing her sexuality. She's fifteen! Not eight, ten, or twelve. She's probably been on her period for a few years and entertained the idea of having a boy friend/girl friend by now.

And her fans, if they really are fans, shouldn’t try to box her into being the perpetual tween angel. She should be allowed to grow-up in front of our eyes. If society won’t let her do that, then we’ll have another case of Spears and Lohan. They weren’t allowed to grow into mature women because “we” loved that damn virginal box so much. We want everyone to keep creating the same work over and over again because we don't want to re-evaluate our connotations of who that person is. Famous people must stay the same. Both women ended up exploding inside of their boxes by reacting childishly to adult situations. I don't mean childishly in the sense that they're infantile and end up sucking their thumbs after a bad night out partying, but childishly in the ways that they handle responsibility, relationships, and temptations. They have no barriers given to them so they don't know how to form their own. I realize the stress of being famous and more importantly, staying famous must be incomprehensible, but that’s our fault, not theirs. We as a society should try to rectify our viewpoints on stardom so that we can continue to adore our childstars when they become adult sensations. Everyone should be allowed to grow.

Unfortunately, Miley Cyrus has copped-out and issued an apology:

"I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed. I never intended for any of this to happen and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about."

Vanity Fair and Annie Liebowitz (the photographer of the shoot) have retorted that claim:
A spokesperson for Vanity Fair has defended the publication, saying:

"Miley's parents and minders were on the set all day. Since the photo was taken digitally, they saw it on the shoot and everyone thought it was a beautiful and natural portrait of Miley."

The article accompanying the pictures quoted Miley as saying the pictures are "really artsy. It wasn't done in a skanky way."

Annie Liebowitz:

"I'm sorry that my portrait of Miley has been misinterpreted," the celebrity photographer said in a written statement. "Miley and I looked at fashion photographs together and we discussed the picture in that context before we shot it. The photograph is a simple, classic portrait, shot with very little makeup, and I think it is very beautiful."

I must say, Vanity Fair and Annie Liebowitz are handling the situation beautifully. I also love that VF's official website has an essence of snarkiness coursing through its HTML encoded veins about the ridiculousness of this controversy as well.

Nim's Island

2008-04-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

Nim's Island (Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin)

Despite a very clichéd ending, Nim’s Island proves to be, for the most part, a positive representation of the girl adventure film. Abigail Breslin’s Nim is a fun, frolicking, and fierce little gal who cannot only save her island from tourists and help her father with his lab experiments, but can also connect to another slightly ambiguous older woman, namely Jodie Foster’s Alex Rover - a character I’m guessing is supposed to emulate J.K. Rowling.

Foster’s Rover has given her own name to the male main character in a series of adventure books she created, which gives the film a wonderful duality in two ways - one, Foster’s Rover suffers from agoraphobia and uses the male character to explore the world for her. Two, the film uses that misogynistic overtone for its feminist advantage - the male character Alex Rover springs to life from the real Alex Rover’s imagination and encourages her to leave the household and take care of her own life. One could also say that Nim’s Island is the watered-down, Hollywood version of Gilliam’s Tideland in that it depicts a little girl thrown into a situation beyond her supposed mental years and somehow (notice the sarcasm) manages to thrive in that environment.

It should also be noted that Nim’s Island is one of the few female-driven films I’ve seen this year that has its production roots deeply embedded in female filmmakers. It’s co-directed by a woman, produced by a woman, the book it’s based upon is written by a woman, and two of the four screenwriters are women. Though the films of Hayao Miyazaki still own my heart as far as girl adventure films go, I’m happy to say that Nim’s Island provides a positive, mostly empowering outlet for girls of all ages.

Girls Rock!

2008-04-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

Girls Rock! (2007, Arne Johnson and Shane King)

During the summer of 2005, two male filmmakers (Arne Johnson and Shane King) ventured into the very female world of rock ‘n’ roll camp for girls - a one week program in Portland, OR for eight to eighteen year olds to learn how to rock their hearts out with instruments and roll into supreme self-confidence.

The purpose of both the documentary and the camp itself is to set a positive example for girls who are growing up in the putrid pop era of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Kelly Clarkson - gals who reinforce all the negative stereotypes that the likes of PJ Harvey, Alanis Morrisette, and Fiona Apple tried so hard to eliminate in the previous musical generation. In the one week they’re at the camp, girls are given the learning tools of not only how to read music and play a guitar properly, but are also taught the connotations of the self-image and how important it is to have a good one. The gals’ are educated on confidence (how to use your physical space and voice), self-defense techniques (no means no!), women’s history (the great female rockers of the past), and the value of female community (how to interact with other women on a non-bitchy level). At the end of the camp, all of these ideas culminate into one concert where all of the bands formed at the camp perform in front of hundreds of people.

The filmmakers utilize statistics on young women (which all basically sum up to - girls are in trouble!), interviews with the amazing camp counselors (all women), and one-on-one discussions with the female protagonists themselves - Laura (age 15), Misty (age 17), Amelia (age 8), and Palace (age 7) to show us the utter positivity the camp bestows for young girls everywhere. All of these girls are bright, spritely, and talented young women who definitely experience positive outcomes because of the ideas taught to them at camp. Their music is heart-felt, in-your-face, and often funny - my favorite song was created by Palace and it's entited "San Francisco Sucks!" By focusing on four distinct girls with varied backgrounds within a camp full of hundreds, the documentary further proves how important it is for young women to have the skills rock ’n’ roll camp sets-up because it clearly shows that all women are being affected by the poor state of femininity in the media in one way or another.

By acting as a catalyst for all of fury being built up by young women everywhere, Girls Rock! really and truly succeeds in its mission to help give young girls the minds -- and voices to enter the world of female adulthood with a clear-minded perspective on how to be an empowered woman.

I simply cannot ask for more.

Since 2005, rock ‘n’ roll camp has branched out significantly. There are now camps all over the U.S. and there are more making their debut in Europe and South America. The documentary is making the rounds at festivals (I saw it at the Wisconsin Film Festival) and theatrical venues throughout the country. You can read more about it on their official website.

I can’t recommend this film highly enough. Girls Rock! is certainly my favorite female flick of 2008 thus far and I can’t wait to buy copies of the DVD for my nieces, cousins, and, of course, myself when it comes out in September. You can pre-order the DVD on the official website and, just so you know, all of the proceeds will go to female-driven charities.

Rock on, ladies!

She keeps her own name, motherfuckers!

2008-04-13T20:37:00.000-07:00

This is pretty darn funny.

Yeah, yeah...I'm working on three reviews (Teeth, Girls Rock!, and It's a Free World...) and doing some other feminist film fun stuff, but until I'm done, enjoy this!

Female Filmmakers

2008-04-10T22:11:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all,

I'm busy and sick. Not a good combination. But here is a list of female filmmakers I've made! I've separated them into categories regarding their over all talent as filmmakers who bring forth feminist themes into their films. Enjoy!

Great

Chantal Ackerman (1950-present, Belgium)- Born in Belgium in 1950, Ackerman has created forty-two movies for either film or television. Her films utilize avant-garde aesthetics to create deeply personal material. She currently has a DVD box set of her work released that features a significant portion of her filmography, including the wonderful News from Home (1976) and Hotel Monteray (1972).

Dorothy Arzner (1897-1979, U.S.)- The first female filmmaker inducted into the DGA. She led one hell of a life and created approximately twenty feminist films between 1927 and 1943. You should see Dance, Girl, Dance (1940), Craig's Wife (1936), the predecessor to the Joan Crawford film, Harriet Craig (1950), and Christopher Strong (1933).

Sadie Benning (1973-present, U.S.)- Daughter of famous avant-garde filmmaker James Benning. Her videos, which she started creating in her early teens exhibit feminist themes and often deal with gender roles and queer cinema ideals. Look for It Wasn't Love (1992) and The Judy Spots (1995).

Jane Campion (1954-present, New Zealand)- One of the most famous female filmmakers of contemporary cinema. She entered into the American mainstream in the early 1990's when she directed the Oscar hit, The Piano (1993). She has been making films since the early 1980's starting with such short classics as Passionless Moments (1983) and working her way into longer films like Sweetie (1989) and An Angel at My Table (1990). Following The Piano, Campion made three features - The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Holy Smoke(1999), and, most recently, In the Cut (2003). Since 2003, Campion has returned to her roots by making short films. Her next feature is set to come out in 2009 entitled Bright Star - a film about the relationship between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Campion is one of three female filmmakers to be nominated for a best director Academy Award.

Sofia Coppola (1971-present, U.S.)- Despite the fact that she only has three features to her name - The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006) and is the daughter of one of the most revered American directors of all time, Sofia Coppola has successfully made a name for herself with film-going audiences. All three of her films thus far have dealt with the inner-isolation of the female mind and what it feels like to be a young woman thrown into a situation beyond comprehensible reasoning, all amounting to the advent of womanhood in the forms of puberty, living in a foreign country, and becoming the ruler of one of the most prominent countries in the world. She is also one of the three female filmmakers to be nominated for a best director Academy Award.

Su Friedrich (1954-present, U.S.)- Avant-Garde film/videomaker Su Friedrich creates diary documentaries that, for the most part, revolve around her own life and family members. I highly recommend Hide and Seek (1996), Sink or Swim (1990), and The Ties that Bind (1984.)

Alice Guy (1873-1968, France)- Silent cinema filmmaker Alice Guy is probably the world's first female filmmaker. She created nearly three hundred films during her lifetime, most of which were produced under her own production company, Solax Film. Though a large portion of her work is long-forgotten and unrecoverable, a few of her shorts exist on compilations like the American film archives (where you can find her film, Falling Leaves (1912) and The Movies Begin box set (where you can find Making an American Citizen (also 1912.)

Miranda July (1974-present, U.S.)- She made a splash with the indie crowd in 2005 with her film - Me, You, and Everyone We Know, which is also her most recent venture. She has a total of four films to her name and all of them seem to encapsulate that rare adult-yet-child-like sense of whimsy that audiences fell in love with when they watched Me, You, and Everyone We Know.

Ida Lupino (1914-1995, U.S.)- Feminist actress turned feminist filmmaker, Ida Lupino made a handful of Hollywood films during the late portion of the golden age and turned to television when it became popular. She rocks the feminist house as both an actress and as a filmmaker. Only two of her films are available on DVD - The Hitch-Hiker (1953) and On Dangerous Ground (1952) - a film she both acted in an did an un-credited directing job when Nicholas Ray stepped out of the picture.

Marie Menken (1909-1970, U.S.)- Andy Warhol actress and director of several short experimental films, Marie Menken is regarded as American avant-garde royalty in all the right circles. As far as I know, only one of her shorts, Visual Variations on Noguchi (1945), is available on DVD through Kino's Avant-Garde vol. 2. She is also supposedly the basis for the character of Martha in Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Lynne Ramsay (1969-present, Scotland)- Thus far, she's created three short films, Kill the Day (1996), Small Deaths (1996), and Gasman (1997). Ramsay has also directed two feature length films - Ratcatcher (1999) and Morvern Callar (2002). Her films exude this sort of listless, dream-like quality that center around several horrific events in her main characters' lives, causing seemingly violent acts like chopping up a dead body into tiny pieces to become strikingly beautiful.

Adrienne Shelly (1966-2006, U.S.)- She could have been one of the best female filmmakers of the twenty-first century if she hadn't been violently murdered for no reason in November of 2006. Waitress, her third feature since she started directing in the early 1990's, encompasses everything positive about womanhood in cinema. Though I only knew of her a short time before she died, I will nevertheless continue to tout her name to anyone who will listen to me. She got her start in the industry as part of the Hal Hartley indie crowd, which eventually led to creating her own material. In her short career as a director, Adrienne Shelly made three short films and three features.

Julie Taymor (1954-present, U.S.)- The great narrative visualist female filmmaker of contemporary cinema. Her roots lie in theatre and her love lies in the work of Federico Fellini, which shows greatly in her body of work. She's made three TV films - The Tempest (1986), Fool's Fire (1992), and Oedipus Rex (1993) and three feature length films - Titus (1999), Frida (2002) and, most recently, Across the Universe (2007.) I can't wait to see what images she can create if she were to work from her own screenplay.

Agnes Varda (1928-present, Belgium)- Best known for her films Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) and Vagabond (1985), Varda is regarded as one of the sole female filmmakers of the French New Wave film movement. Since 1954, Varda has directed 45 films and/or television programs and is currently in post-production for her own autobiographical film, which is set to be released later this year.

Good

Allison Anders
Katherine Bigelow
Catherine Breillat
Zoe Cassavetes
Vera Chytilova
Tamra Davis
Catherine Hardwicke
Mary Harron
Amy Heckerling
Patty Jenkins
Kasi Lemmons
Mira Nair
Kimberly Peirce
Sally Potter
Sarah Polley
Liv Ullman

Mediocre

Nora Ephron
Callie Khouri
Penny Marshall
Nancy Meyers
Betty Thomas

More Sarah Marshall

2008-04-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

* A big thank you to Lisa and Jake for acquiring pics for me!

More people are getting pissed off about the Sarah Marshall ads:

(From IMDB)

'Sarah Marshall' Campaign Turning Heads
The teaser billboard campaign to promote Universal's upcoming Forgetting Sarah Marshall, produced by Judd Apatow, is drawing much praise from advertising executives, considerable comment from bloggers, and even some viral parodies. In an item headlined "You Win This Round, Advertising," Condé Nast's Portfolio reported that the campaign, which includes ads like "You Suck Sarah Marshall" covering placards and billboards around several cities, has aroused the curiosity -- and bemusement -- of tourists in New York. On the website /Film, writer Peter Sciretta reported last week that a backlash has developed in San Francisco. "It's actually a very cool campaign, maybe too good," Sciretta wrote. "Last week, flyers that look like the Sarah Marshall advertisements have started appearing on trees around the city reading, 'I'm So Over You Tree'."

(From The Gothamist)

The Real Sarah Marshall Speaks Out
Observant New Yorkers may have noticed that someone's got an ax to grind with Sarah Marshall. There are posters all over town telling the woman that she is maternally hated, she sucks, and that yes, she does look fat in those jeans. The posters are part of an ad campaign promoting the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, featuring Kristen Bell as an ex-girlfriend who is difficult to forget. In a city the size of New York, however, there are the inevitable actual Sarah Marshalls, who can't help but notice they're being harangued by name all over town.

The Daily News spoke to a few SMs it could find and their reactions to the campaign varied. One Sarah in her mid-30s told the News, "You see . . . words like 'hate' and 'suck' with your name over and over again. It just doesn't feel pleasant inside." Her mother, who is 71 years old and shares the name, was more put off by the salty language on some of the posters. On the other hand, one 27-year-old Sarah Marshall who teaches 4th graders in Queens, says that the signs have her students asking for autographs.

These damn ads just won't leave my mind! Every time I walk outside, I'm bombarded with stark black and white female hatred in the form of a movie ad. I've thought about the Sarah Marshall statements a lot more and I'd like to point out a few more of my observations from a feminist perspective -

There's an even bigger fish to fry than the Apatow female I mentioned in my previous post. These ads are reminiscent of the "true" messages seen in John Carpenter's They Live, in which a man is accidentally given special sunglasses that allows him to see the subliminal messages implanted upon billboards by the media and government - saying things like "stay asleep", "marry and reproduce", "conform", etc. But these ads aren't subliminal! Do you really think people will be able to sit through Forgetting Sarah Marshall and have a clear-minded perspective of her character? No, whether we like it or not, our minds will subconsciously drift back to "You do look fat in those jeans Sarah Marshall" and start to question the merits of waif-then Kristen Bell's physique when she appears in a bikini or remember the "I always hated you Sarah Marshall" ad if her character does something even slightly bitchy. To put it bluntly, the collective "we" will hate Sarah Marshall before she even steps out on screen.

Part of me wants to give the film's publicist credit for at least being honest about their intentions with the marketing of this film. The misogyny of their product isn't hidden with an inane poster of say, something like an awkwardly charming Jason Segel in the middle of sexy-smiling Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis. But that doesn't make it anymore morally right than the other misogynistic advertisements being seen in today's media.

Sarah Marshall is a woman who is fat, stupid, sucky, and, apparently, unsuitable marriage material. And what are women not supposed to be? Fat, stupid (at least not that stupid), sucky (unless she's giving you a bj), and!!! unsuitable marriage material (mom must hate you for a reason). And I sure am glad we all know that now.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

2008-03-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all,

Well, I just got back from vacation! I didn't think I would be gone from the blogging world for so long or I would have posted something about it. Sorry! I went to New Orleans for five days and had a wonderful time soaking up the sun, taking in the history, smelling all of the beautiful perfumes, and walking around from sun up to sun down. Alas, it wasn't entirely peaceful because even in New Orleans, I kept encountering the horrific ads for the new Apatow production Forgetting Sarah Marshall. One of them looks like this:

And this:

I can't seem to find any decent pics of the more offensive ones like "You do look fat in those jeans Sarah Marshall" or "My mom always hated you Sarah Marshall." But I'm sure if you live at least close-ish to a big city, you've had to have seen one of their ads on a subway train, billboard or on top of a taxi at some point.

I've watched the trailer three times now and I can't seem to find any evidence as to why Sarah Marshall is receiving this kind of flack. Relationships end sometimes, ya know? People change, people grow, and sometimes they change and grow in different directions. You can see it here. Apatow and his affiliates are tring really hard to make it on my misogynistic shit-list. I appreciate the fact that their films center around "every man" issues and use "every day" looking fellows to portray them, but why do they feel the need to put women down in the process? It doesn't make the men look any better. Do they write the films this way as a conservative ploy? Say, if Seth Rogan gets his shit together then he'll end up with the woman of his dreams, Katherine Heigl? All of Apatow's women (and I say Apatow because he is regarded as the auteur of his productions) seem to suffer from The Philadelphia Story's Tracy Lord syndrome, except in the opposite direction - instead of being placed on pedestals because of their personalities and sheer ferociousness, they're placed in a rocking chair in the corner so that they're in a place where they can still be looked upon and admired for their beauty, but are still cast below their male counterparts and therefore, have to look up to them and react or just not react at all. I'd be very interested to see an Apatow comedy with a female protagonist.

I'll find out the real dirt about Forgetting Sarah Marshall on April 18th.

Battle with Sunsilk

2008-03-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

(This picture isn't from this particular marketing campaign, but it's just as offensive!)

I guess I couldn't leave well enough alone. Yesterday I e-mailed Sunsilk/Unilever because I am so irritated with their insultingly offensive product advertisements. Below is my letter:

Dear Sunsilk,

So that there won’t be any discrepancies with what I have to say, I will state my name and background with your product first – My name is Sara Freeman, I live in Chicago, IL, I and came across your billboard(s) a little over a month ago when I was walking down Clark St. I am a twenty-two year old female college student, feminist, and an active analyst of the media coverage of women. And I am absolutely appalled by the marketing strategies you apply to your products.

Before I saw your advertisements, I used your shampoo because my mother recommended it to me. Granted, I should have investigated your company before I bought it, but your ads weren’t as bombastic then as they are now and I didn’t think twice about it. Now, I do. I threw the bottle of shampoo in the garbage as soon as I read your website.

Your ads first struck a bad nerve with me when I saw the way you use Marilyn Monroe’s image. First of all, in the inspiring icon section of your official website, you list her as being a 1960’s movie starlet.

When it comes to inspiring women, they don't come bigger than 21st-century pop legend MADONNA, 60s' movie starlet MARILYN MONROE and hip-shaking SHAKIRA.

This is entirely not true, as she died in 1962 and only technically completed three films in the 1960’s: Let’s Make Love (1960), The Misfits (1961), and, parts of Something’s got to Give (1962). She died during production of the last one. Monroe ruled the 1950’s and, much to her chagrin, was known solely for being a sex symbol. I agree that her impact is still powerful today, but not in the way you advertise it. But I’ve already written about your treatment of Monroe’s image here: http://film-fatale1907.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-wanna-be-loved-by-youwait-life-cant.html

After I wrote that essay, I thought I could get forget about Sunsilk all together and just move on with my feminist life and shift my focus to other poor representations of women. Well, I couldn’t do that because, as I said, I live in Chicago and I ride the redline EL every morning – and you know what’s plastered on the outside of quite a few of the train cars? Your advertisements. Every time I see one of your ads, I fume with anger and writhe in frustration. Today, I decided to look at your website and Myspace page for the first time in over a month. I may have missed it the first time around, but you seem to have added even more content to both that makes it even more offensive. You even have 16,995 friends on Myspace, and I realize I am assuming, but I’m willing to bet that most of your “friends” on the website are young women. Am I right?

To get more to the point, my biggest complaint with your advertisements, especially the explanations for the products on your website, is the sheer smarminess and condescending tone you seem to exude in regards to why women might want to use your product – with comments like:

“Life has a nasty habit of passing us by while we’re too busy stressing about nothing – what shoes to wear, whether to text that loser, how to cope with bad hair days (weeks, months...), why our room-mates keep stealing our milk… blah, blah, blah. Whatever happened to us grabbing life by the ponytail?”

With the examples you give about “stress”, you make women’s lives seem trite with little regard or consideration given towards real-life stresses like a woman’s career, education, or lifestyle. You generalize our everyday lives with stereotypes like boyfriend troubles, clothing mishaps, and petty problems with living situations. I understand that smaller problems coexist with bigger concerns, like the ones I mentioned, but to imply that women should use your hair products because “life can’t wait” and that by using your products they will somehow attain some level of freedom they didn’t have before…does that sound right to you? Do you really think women didn’t live life before using your shampoo?

To go back to the “Life Can’t Wait” icons, can you please tell me why Shakira’s hip shaking is inspiring? Why is the fact that Madonna is “one step ahead” in the fashion world inspiring? Why did you choose “icons” like Monroe, Madonna, and Shakira for their looks instead of their lives? I find Monroe inspiring for an entirely different set of reasons other than the ones you listed. Since you don’t even know when she was popular in her lifetime, it leads me to believe that you don’t even understand why you’re picking these particular women – you just know that they have “pop” image capabilities. Is that right? I would love to hear the real reason why you chose these three ladies. Please tell me! Prove me wrong. I just want to know.

All we have to do is just stop thinking, start doing, then come back and tell everyone. BRILLIANT.

And, lastly, why on earth would you tell girls to stop thinking? If we don’t think, then we’re on the same level as animals. Animals act on instinct. And if we were to follow their example, we’d live in a world far worse than the one we live in now.

In conclusion, I ask you to please reconsider the marketing campaign of your hair care products. I agree that life can’t wait and we should make everything happen, but we should be doing it for the right reasons. Millions of women see and read your advertisements and I sincerely believe the end result of experiencing that marketing could be detrimental to their mental health.

I will use Sunsilk for the rest of my days if you choose to do so.

Thank you very much with the most sincerity,

Sara Freeman

--------------------

This was their response:

Hi Sara,

Thanks so much for writing!

We are writing in response to your comments regarding our
commercial/advertisement for our product.

As a manufacturer we feel it is a major responsibility to provide our
friends and consumers with the most creative and informative means of
advertising possible. Needless to say, we are most concerned with your
comments as they suggest we may not be successfully promoting this
message on behalf of our product.

We certainly do not wish to offend anyone. You may be interested to
know that all of our commercials/advertisements are pre-tested and
various techniques are used to evaluate consumer reactions. Based on the
results of our pre-testing procedures, the presentations are chosen for
their majority appeal. However, we do appreciate that sometimes what may
be amusing or informative to one person may not be so to another.
Please let us assure you that your comments are extremely important to us
in evaluating the success of our commercials/advertisements.

Thanks for your interest!

(I don't know if I should disclose their name)

-------

Isn't that the most annoying response in the entire world? They'll be hearing back from me by the end of the day. Grrr!

The Belle of the Jezebel Ball – Bette Davis

2008-03-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

William Wyler’s 1938 film, Jezebel, is one of the best examples of a Bette Davis vehicle imaginable. The role of Julie Marsden was allegedly offered to Davis as a sort of pay-off to not fuss over the fact that Warner Bros. wouldn’t let her out of her contract to compete for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Though I suspect the rumor is false, it’s hard not to notice the striking similarities between them - both films are set in the civil war-era South, both films involve a certain dress that helps/harms their persona's, and, most importantly, both Julie and Scarlett are strong, pioneering women who taunt and toy their way into becoming pillars of feminine power. Fact or fiction, I’m glad Davis landed the role of Julie and Vivien Leigh landed the role of Scarlett because both actresses are superb in their respective roles.

That being said, Davis and Wyler make Jezebel a far more resonating and important film than Gone with the Wind because Julie Marsden is one of the first cinematic examples of a feminist hero. The story is something like this – Julie, a free-spirited, free-thinking rich girl is engaged to be married to Henry Fonda’s Preston Dillard, a respectable, traditional banker who is both attracted to and repulsed by Julie’s outspoken nature. He loves her in private and hates her in public. But she’s no slut – she speaks her mind about the roles men and women play with each other and is vastly amused and disgusted by the rigorous formalities she must go through in order to be a “proper” woman in the patriarchical south. Julie connives and manipulates everyone around her just to entertain her whimsical nature. This is one of my favorite lines:

“This is 1852 dumplin', 1852, not the Dark Ages. Girls don't have to simper around in white just because they're not married.”

The most telling example of her character occurs in the first act of the film, when Julie decides to wear a garish red dress to the Olympus ball – an event in which all women are supposed to wear virginal white. Though Julie doesn’t really care about the color of her dress, she goes through with it just to see if Preston will still accompany her, which he does.

Davis, always the center of the frame, enters the ballroom with her head held high and her arm proudly wrapped around Preston’s. Despite the gawks, stares, and comments, Julie is strong enough to handle the polite public torment – at first. When Preston asks her to dance, everyone moves away to the edge of the room so that they’re all alone in the center. The whispers start. The camera casually glides up from Davis’ perspective all the way to the ceiling where an epic chandelier is placed. We see Julie dancing rigidly below with Preston and can still hear the (now) loud vocal disapproval Julie is receiving. She wants to run away, but Preston won’t let her – he wants to teach her a lesson in humility.

When Preston breaks off their engagement at the end of the night, no one is surprised but Julie. She thinks he’ll be back. He does come back – a year later, but not for her. He’s secretly married a wife that fits the bill of the genteel southern belle.

Hell hath no fury like a Davis scorned.

The story itself might sound a little shaky as far as feminist ideals go, but the subtlety in Davis’ performance and Wyler's direction derides any misogynistic patterns the story might have. As I mentioned earlier, Davis is always in the center/focal point of the frame, which isn’t unusual for a classic women’s picture, but it’s rare to see one like Jezebel that also places its female character towards the top of the frame so that she is almost always looking down at the men and women beneath her. Julie is totally in charge of the world around her.

The only time Davis is looking up at anyone is during the pivotal scene towards the end of the film when Preston has returned and Julie has put on the original white dress she was supposed to wear to the ball the year before. She is by herself in the center of the frame and almost sitting on the ground looking up at Preston who is so astounded by her womanhood that he can hardly breathe, let alone interact in the conversation happening between them. The overwhelming nature of her white dress, with its feminine lace, tulle, and massively poofy skirt, marks the first time in the film that Julie has actually embraced the traditional femininity bestowed upon her by society. In the previous scenes, she didn’t wear “manly” clothes necessarily, but she wore a set of outfits that were not designated for the occasion she wore them – the red dress at the ball being the most prevalent example. But wearing the white dress is no copout for her character, not at all. In fact, it advances the nature of Julie because she has discovered another way to push the boundaries of patriarchy – by playing into the role. Julie is far more likely to attain her goals if she enters the forbidden waters in a disguise. And, she does – at the end of the film, Julie pushes Preston’s real wife aside with her tower of feminine strength by going with him to the island of the lepers when he and several others contract yellow fever. She agrees to be the fearless protector Preston always longed to be for her. But that’s where she wants to be.

Davis won her second and final Oscar for Jezebel. It marked the first of three collaborations between Davis and Wyler - the second occurring two years later in The Letter (1940) and the last occurring in 1941 with The Little Foxes. Before Jezebel, no other filmmaker accurately captured the fiery sensitivity of the Davis persona we all know and love today. Though it doesn’t get its due as often as it should, Jezebel is a landmark film for feminism on film that also, in my mind, is the epitome of the Davis persona - strong, fierce, and brave.

The Horror...The Horror...Remaking "Rosemary's Baby" for Today's Audiences

2008-03-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Rosemary-s-Baby-Remake-8042.html

Rosemary’s Baby (1968) is my favorite movie of all time. Roman Polanski is my favorite filmmaker. I'm writhing in anger as I write this. To even hear/read the word “remake” come into contact with anything related to either the film or the filmmaker causes both my gag reflexes to kick in and the hair on the back of my neck stand up with utter fright and shock. It also makes me extremely sad.

I’d like to be optimistic, but why should I lie to myself? If track records matter (and they do), then I’m likely to be 100% disappointed and disgusted because all of the harrowing, truthful ideals Polanski instills in his films, especially in Rosemary’s Baby, are going to be long-forgotten and lost in the sugarcoating process of a Hollywood remake.

I feel the need to write about this here because, in all honesty, it sums up the entire reason I’m doing this project in the first place – to make people vastly aware of the poor representations of women in Hollywood films.

There are few films in the history of cinema that articulate internal fear as successfully as Rosemary’s Baby does. There’s a horrific subtlety felt throughout that’s never really apparent, but nonetheless extremely uncomfortable. The only way I can think to describe it is to have you imagine hearing a buzz saw far off in the distance when you’re tied to a chair in a cabin somewhere in the middle of the woods. You can hear it getting closer and closer…day by day you wait, getting more impatient and unsettled as time progresses, until finally, “it” is right outside your doorstep and the buzz saw is louder than ever. No one can hear you scream. That’s what Rosemary’s Baby feels like every time I watch it.

But do you know why I feel so uncomfortable when I watch it? There aren't any blood and guts in the movie, so that's out. It’s not because of the epic chase sequence between Rosemary and her predator through the woods because one doesn’t take place. And, it’s certainly not because of the monsters (at least traditional ones), vampires, or werewolves hunting their victims because there aren’t any of those types in the movie either.

No, Rosemary’s Baby is terrifying to me because it depicts societal female normalcy for what it really is – absurd. Rosemary, played wonderfully by Mia Farrow, is a girl next door type who discovers she’s been impregnated by the devil for two reasons – one, the patriarchy of the underworld needs to be restored and two, Rosemary’s Husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), wants to advance his acting career. In exchange for Rosemary’s body, Guy gets a career boost and the devil gets a male heir for his throne. Though that is a horrifying idea in itself, the best/worst (depends on how you look at it) aspect of the film is the ending – Rosemary, even though she understands the dastardly circumstances, agrees to raise the devil’s child AND stay with her husband because being a mother is the only thing she’s ever wanted to do.

The absurdity of the situation is disguised by the swinging ‘60’s mise-en-scene and mentality – everything is colorful, everyone wears fun summer dresses and bell-bottoms, and, Rosemary herself is radiant with joy at the thought of being a mother, of moving into a new apartment with crisp white walls and raising a perfect, American family with her handsome husband. Oh what a world.

Polanski, of course, delivers the tour-de-force with his trademark chilly aesthetics and the often satirically humorous approach he takes in bringing Rosemary to the screen. No other film or filmmaker in my mind has so articulately expressed the horrors of the female role as honestly or expertly as Polanski has, which can be equated to the buzz saw metaphor I used earlier – a woman who becomes pregnant is in a sense tied down to a place she may or may not belong/want and the noise she hears is actually time ticking away towards the end of the inevitable nine months when she must give birth to her baby. The terror Rosemary feels throughout the film isn’t that she has to give birth to her baby or be a mother, it’s the fact that someone might take it – that privilege - and everything else away from her. She doesn’t even want to scream. To depict a woman who is willing to raise the devil’s spawn and stay with her evil husband just so she can attain the “ideal” of feminine value speaks volumes about our society.

Now, should I really be optimistic about some Hollywood hack remaking this film? Does anyone really think they’ll keep that underlying message there? Of course not. Mia Farrow’s Rosemary will become Jessica Alba’s (or some other inane actress’) Rosemary – a submissive, baby-hungry weakling with no purpose. The original character may be all of those things too, but her character arc (or lack thereof) serves a devout and important purpose – to show women (or men since they generally watch more horror movies than women do) how idiotic it is to sacrifice your entire self in exchange for the American female’s box of patriarchal freedom. No original or remake created in this day and age is brave enough to even attempt to capture that message, even if it is a rehash of an original story.

Pray for Rosemary's Baby not to be remade.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

2008-03-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008, Bharat Nalluri)

I had severe misgivings about Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day based upon the terrible poster (oh my god, I’ve never seen legs before!) and the trailer (ugly duckling turns beauteous), but I am pleasantly surprised to report that Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is A-OK in my book.

Set in England on the bring of WWII, former governess Miss Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) and actress/singer Delysia LaFosse (Amy Adams), find themselves to be two stereotypes - the prude and the slut, respectively, who are in dire need of some mellowing. Guinevere is so terrified of the male gender that she literally runs away whenever she encounters one on the street and DeLysia is so hell-bent on advancing her career that she’s willing to sleep her way to the top with any Tom, Dick, or Harry or in this case, any Nick, Mike, or Phil. She simply can’t say no.

Miss Pettigrew helps her out in that department - she takes on the role of DeLysia’s “social secretary” and keeps the male characters from stepping all over her. In the process of their single day together, Miss Pettigrew and DeLysia mellow each other out by unconsciously taking on some of each other’s personality traits.

Miss Pettigrew gets a “fixie” (make-over), which is fine by me because she’s not necessarily doing it to improve herself cosmetically, she’s more or less discovering her previously uninvestigated womanhood, which should be embraced by every female. With or without the make-over, Miss Pettigrew helps DeLysia out by cutting out all of the bullshit with men which helps her learn about her own, previously undiscovered self-respect.

In the end, each woman does end up with a man and it does seem like a happily ever after type ending, but the women choose to partake in the relationships on their own terms and they’re not sacrificing anything (or much of anything) by choosing love. DeLysia’s mate even encourages her to have a career and wants to see her succeed. Miss Pettigrew enters her adult love life with a person her own age who respects her intelligence and wants to see her blossom into her own person.

Though it might seem trite and light on meaning because of the airy sense of humor felt throughout, I think Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is one of the more rewarding and femininely intelligent endeavors you’re likely to find at your local movie theatre these days.

Also, Amy Adams is becoming one of my favorite actresses because she consistently chooses to be apart of femme-centric films that not only question the female role, but empowers it.

Wedded and Bedded in The Other Boleyn Girl

2008-03-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008, Justin Chadwick)

“When did people stop thinking of ambition as a sin and start thinking of it as a virtue?” - Lady Elizabeth Boleyn (Kristen Scott Thomas)

Ooh, snap!

This is the film everyone accused Elizabeth: The Golden Age of being - catty, melodramatic, and it entertains the idea of a love triangle between royalty. Difference being, Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a sensitive portrayal of an aging woman in power and The Other Boleyn Girl is Peyton Place with patriarchy. Mary (Scarlett Johansson) and Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) are two sisters who love and adore each other until one of them is chosen above the other to be King Henry VIII’s mistress because the Queen, Catherine of Aragon, can no longer produce children. The film is chockfull of sexual escapades, miscarriages, and backstabbing. I literally counted sixteen scenes in which a woman is lying in bed - either being bedded or birthing a baby.

But what’s the point? There is none, really. The film is so bombarded with bad melodrama and over-directed scenes that the pseudo-feminist ideals it possesses are lost in the process. It’s only pseudo-feminist because it clearly defines the submissive/aggressive characteristics of the two sisters - Anne is aggressive and Mary is submissive and Anne is the one who attains what she wants. But Anne, at least in the movie, isn’t aggressing for the right reasons.

All of the men figures are more than happy to see their daughters/nieces/wives “traded like cattle for the advancement of men”, which is obvious and not surprising, but the sisters take it in their stride with no question because they see being the King’s mistress (and albeit, eventually, Queen), as empowering just because they get to “one-up” the other sister. The only character to raise any question to all of this wedding-and-bedding is the Boleyn sisters’ mother, Lady Elizabeth Boleyn (Kristen Scott Thomas), who frequently spouts dialogue like “…by allowing the men to think that they’re in charge is the true art of being a woman.”, but she is looked upon as more of a whiny burden than the solid voice of reason she should be.

By all of the accounts I’ve read, Anne Boleyn seemed like one hell of a lady and it seems very fitting that she would be the woman to give birth to one of the strongest women of all-time, Queen Elizabeth I. Unfortunately, with Natalie Portman’s portrayal and the badly written version of Boleyn she’s forced to play, she turns her into a simpering, power-hungry fuck-machine with no soul and a very bad accent. Scarlett Johansson’s Mary Boleyn is no better, in fact, she’s worse because she is so stoic and submissive that the film might as well just be called The Boleyn Girl for Anne’s sake.

Quarterly Review

2008-03-09T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, my project is nearing the 25% completion mark. Therefore, I’ve decided to write a broader quarterly review regarding the overall depiction of the women I’ve witnessed in modern cinema. I’ve missed a few movies due to time constraints and what not, but I will definitely (and unfortunately) catch up on those flicks (The Hottie and the Nottie, Untraceable, Mad Money, etc.) when they hit DVD. I promise.

In short, I’ll state the obvious: I think modern cinematic women would be A-OK if they didn’t have to deal with the traditional feminine conflicts of such “blessed” events as marriage, love, or children. Most of the gals’ possess advanced educational degrees, have high-level careers, and, judging by their clothes, seem to support themselves fairly well. Then again, Joan Crawford wore “shop girl” costumes designed by the fabulous Adrian in her woman‘s pictures. The only difference being Joan Crawford’s films empower women and today’s…just don’t. The clothes don’t always fit the lady, which is why the modern women’s film doesn’t fit the woman.

But who could fit into the tight, air locked corner filmmakers push their women into, anyway? More often than not, one of those darn feminine conflicts comes along and torpedoes the female character straight into a situation in which she has to make some sort of a life decision, but the creators don’t give her any resources to help her out with the decision-making process. She has no friends, or if she does, then they’re catty bitches who would rather criticize than empathize. Nor do the women rarely, if ever, have a significant other to back them up since most of the films I’ve watched have been about attaining a relationship instead of keeping one.

What’s worse is that creators don’t give enough personality to their characters to make them even question why they’re being forced to make a decision in the first place. Women are pushed into the corner without any accessible internal resources to pluck out when they need them. One of my favorite aspects of the Joan Crawford persona is her anger - she gets mad! She gets furious! And she does something about it. Few moments in cinema make me smile more than the first act of The Damned Don’t Cry (1950) when Joan Crawford ups and leaves her abusive husband and unsupportive mother and father after her son dies because she has nothing to keep her there anymore.

Her dad says: “Let her go, she’ll be back. She’ll find out what it’s like.”

Joan Crawford replies: “Whatever it’s like, it’ll be better than this. I want something more out of life. And I’m gonna get it.”

None of the actresses or the characters they’ve played in today’s world have that kind of fiery pepper coursing inside their veins. They’re just not written well-enough. Even female screenwriters don’t know how to write women. The worst film I’ve watched so far, 27 Dresses, was even directed by a woman and sure, Katherine Heigl’s character gets mad for five minutes, but she’s ridiculed beyond belief for it and is down for the submissive count in no time at all. It’s almost as if filmmakers are putting women on the battlefield and not giving them any weapons or protection to help them fight their own battles. Of course they’re going to perish within minutes. I just wish I could be the one to bayonet them before they hit the big screen.

Off the Record

2008-03-02T23:27:00.000-08:00

Though this doesn't relate to female cinema specifically, I feel that it certainly does relate to the grander scheme of womanly things.

The Tale of a Loner Girl - Sara's Night Off (3/1/08)

Jake went to work around 3:00 yesterday. From basically 3:00 until 9:00 I worked my ass off editing an essay for the consideration of publication and doing random bits of homework. When the time came for me to leave my lovely apartment and venture into the outside world to see The Other Boleyn Girl, I felt solid, confident, and happy.

Before I got ready, I checked the temperature outside and deemed it warm enough to wear a skirt with warm tights instead of wearing blue jeans for the umpteenth time since winter started. In case you can't tell, This is what I decided to wear:

- Green turtleneck sweater
- Black knee-length skirt
- Warm, artsy black tights
- Black high-heeled, knee-high boots
- Black Beret

All of which were covered with my heavy black winter coat and rainbow-colored scarf.

To be honest, I thought and still think I looked cute. I’ve been having a plethora of self-esteem issues lately and yesterday was the first day in a very long time that I felt “OK” with my appearance.

Until I stepped outside.

I left home with my warrior make-up on and came back with runny mascara and cheeks full of tears.

As I neared the train station, the first incident occurred - some gentlemen who had just left the train station saw me, stopped dead in his tracks, looked me up and down and proudly asked: “Where’s your papa?” My warrior make-up was untarnished then - I scowled at him and he quickly walked away.

By the time I got to the platform, I realized I was going to be in for a bumpy night because I had chosen to wear a skirt instead of a pair of jeans.

On the train, men looked at my legs while I read Homer’s The Odyssey. Some boys at the end of the car screamed and hollered with cigarettes and booze in their hands. My comfort level began to decrease.

I got off at Grand and walked as fast and carefully as I could through the smelly passageways to the AMC Rivereast theatre. I always hear screams in those passageways when I’m alone at night. It’s quite terrifying. But my eyes were on the prize - I had a mere ten minutes to make it to my movie on time as the train had stalled between North and Clybourn and Clark and Division for fifteen minutes. I couldn’t think about being alone and afraid just yet. And, besides, there were a few people wandering around that dimly lit path so I knew if I screamed someone would be able to hear me at least.

Got to the movie on time. Watched it. Left the theatre around 12:15. Piles of people filed out of the building side by side and we were all going in the same direction - or at least I thought we were. At St. Clair, they all took a right while I kept going straight, through those dimly lit passageways yet again. I didn’t realize I was alone until I hit the first intersection. I began to quiver. I couldn’t hear any noise, which, for Chicago, means bad news.

I looked in my purse for my handy, legal three-inch blade. Left it at home. So, I plucked my ball-point pen out of my purse and took the cap off and held onto it like a knife in my pocket as I quietly walked through the remaining nooks and crannies to get to the train station. I peered around every corner, object, and suspicious-looking doorway. No one was there.

Two cars drive-by at different times and each one slowed down to honk at me. Lovely. Now, not only do I feel vulnerable for being by myself at 12:30 in the morning, I feel objectified and freaked out by the loud car horn. Thanks guys. That makes me feel so special.

I near the end of my journey through the dimly lit passageways. But, shit! I forgot the sidewalk was out. I have to cross the street. I had been talking to Jake off and on during this trip, but his phone just died. I have this crazy idea that if I’m talking on the phone then people will be less likely to bother me. I’m usually wrong.

And, of course, as I cross the street, a gang of drunken (mostly male) friends walk down the staircase by the bookstore and start in with the comments and whistles. I basically run away from them. Nothing feels worse than having several sets of eyes on you when your heart is beating this fast.

I finally make it to the train station. No northbound trains you say! I have to go to Lake and then, walk to another train station, and then go northbound? Isn’t that fitting? In the pit of hell that is the Grand train station lately there is not one woman to speak of besides myself in a crowd of over thirty. I must be imagining things, but I feel all of their eyes looking me up and down. This feeling is heightened even further by the extremely loud sound of construction taking place ten feet away from me. I have to wait for the southbound train for twenty minutes. My eyes well-up with tears.

I finally get to Lake and walk as quickly as possible to the train station that will take me to Jake at the Fullerton stop. Again, there is perhaps one woman on the platform in a crowd of several men. One guy says “hey baby” to me as I walk by. I’m too terrified to say anything which is the most frustrating part of the entire evening because I should say something in the minimal hope that my fighting back will change his ways. But I can’t. I can hardly walk because I’m so scared. All I can do is turn and stare at him with the tearful look of disgust on my face. He just smiles.

My warrior make-up is gone.

I get on the train and Jake gets on board with me at Fullerton. He comforts me to the best of his ability and we go home.

I realize that this might sound like a lot of female neuroticism coming to life. But it’s not. Honestly. When men look at women up and down with that one-track mind mentality, it feels like our souls are being stripped bare - we feel naked and judged. Nothing in this world feels worse. I’ve had many, many conversations with other women about this topic and all who know better understand the feeling. Some girls get turned on by this attention. I definitely don’t.

There are several things wrong with the story I just presented to you, but the one I hate to admit most is the one I already tried to explain - that when I get so terrified by the so-called flattery men are bestowing upon me, I can’t say anything. It’s incredibly frustrating and I feel like a hypocrite to my ideals. I just freeze because I know that if I say the wrong thing to someone, I could very easily get hurt.

And why did I feel this way to begin with? Because I decided to wear a skirt instead of a pair of jeans - a skirt that sticks out like a horrendously sore thumb among the masses of blue-jeandom other girls were wearing yesterday. I might as well have been wearing a goddamn target. It’s not right that I shouldn’t be able to wear what I want to, when I want to because of the very realistic fear that someone may rape me, hurt me, or just verbally abuse me with their comments. It’s just not right. I should be able to wear what I want when I want - no matter what.

Today I wore that same outfit just to test the waters of going out into the world with Jake by my side. No one said a word. No one even took a glance.

I know it’s a long shot, but last night as well as many others like them just remind me of how valuable my project really is. By bringing to light all of the bad representations of women in modern, mainstream cinema, perhaps it’ll make a difference in the way both women - - and men perceive the female gender. I doubt any man would want to harass Pam Grier after watching Coffy or Foxy Brown. Maybe there will be more of those types of women in the future? I can only hope because I’ve got to keep on truckin‘.

Thankfully, my pals over at www.feministing.com wrote several letters to the creators of this shirt and it was taken out of circulation. However, they just created this t-shirt:

Lovely, huh?
I'll review The Other Boleyn Girl after I see Penelope sometime this week.

Fool's Gold and Definitely, Maybe

2008-02-25T21:28:00.000-08:00

**SPOILER WARNING** (Not that anyone who reads this will care about narrative giveaways for these movies...but still, it's nice to be considerate!)

Fool’s Gold (2008, Andy Tennant)

Ah, an old-fashioned tribute to both the classic adventure film and the “battle of the sexes” genre. But Matthew McConaughey is no Clark Gable or Tyrone Power and Kate Hudson is certainly no Jean Harlow or Linda Darnell - not in the least. Instead, they are the lovelorn lollies and co-conspirators in this retarded treasure hunt film. Not only is there no chemistry between them to speak of, but Matthew McConaughey (perhaps the blandest actor in Hollywood) is given all of the masculine kudos and gold-digging chutzpah. His character is also oddly rewarded for his mental deficiencies and irresponsibility, which includes flying a plane based on knowledge he learned from playing his play station. Lovely.

Though Hudson basically holds her own during the chase/fight sequences and vocal disputes (and is apparently working towards her PhD), any progression her character may have made for women in that regard is entirely discredited by the film’s ending - which shows a pregnant Hudson stroking her belly by her newly regained McConaughey husband’s side as he is applauded at a museum opening. I look forward to seeing Hudson in the kitchen with the kids while McConaughey hunts treasure in the future.

Most appalling sequence: Character introductions!

McConaughey: He’s looting around for treasure under water and discovers the first piece of the physical puzzle for their epic treasure hunt after an accident he causes sinks his boat.

Hudson: She’s hysterically crying and screaming at herself about her self-confidence while she looks in a mirror.

She is clearly the smarter, braver, and more successful of the two, but for some reason she’s made to look like a fool next to McConaughey’s swaggering, imbecilic self.

Definitely, Maybe (2008, Adam Brooks)

This is probably my favorite of the romantic comedies I’ve had to sit through so far this year.

The film is mainly about a man, namely, Ryan Reynolds’ Will Hayes, but women are the force behind all of his life decisions and career goals. You’ve probably already seen the trailer, but Hayes’ job is to weave a web of intrigue for his young daughter, Abigail Breslin, regarding the myth of how he met her mother, which coincides with his decisions and goals. He settles upon three past girl friends to tell the tale - Emily (Elizabeth Banks), Summer (Rachel Weisz), and April (Isla Fisher).

Each woman represents three diverse, and slightly clichéd stereotypes - Emily is the blonde college sweetheart and girl next door, Summer is the raven-haired, sexy career gal, and April is the flighty, artsy, best friend and redhead. Despite their clichéd nature, these characters do not fall prey to their roots in the least. For instance, Emily decides she doesn’t want to be the Jackie O to Hayes’ half-baked ideas of political candidacy and hit’s the road, Summer, a journalist, chooses her career over her love for Hayes by doing her job and writing a slandering article about his boss when she had to, and April gets her act together, goes back to graduate school, and earns a high-level career at Amnesty International.

And instead of ridiculing these women for their decisions like other romantic comedies tend to do, Hayes’ respects their decisions and in the end, admires each for their guts and determination. This is of the utmost importance because he is telling the story to his daughter - obviously, a young, impressionable mind, and he shouldn’t want her to get the wrong, un-feminist idea about the break-up of a relationship. By showing his daughter that he’s attracted to strong women, she’ll be more inclined to be one herself.

Though the film doesn’t really dive into the real reasons Reynolds is attracted to these women (despite the obvious) or even why they‘re attracted to him, I think the fact that he’s attracted to and relates to each instead of their Fool’s Gold or 27 Dresses counterparts in the first place is potent enough evidence to gain my certified seal of approval.

Definitely, Maybe is truly a refreshingly inoffensive romp into rom-com land.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007, Cristian Mungiu)

2008-02-24T00:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks, it's been a busy week. I'm catching up on homework, some capsules, and a mini-essay on my observations thus far in my project. Hopefully I'll have everything done soon! Plus, it's my birthday! Yay!

Without further ado:

While I appreciate the film and the filmmaker for addressing the cinematically taboo subject of abortion directly, I can’t help but be disappointed with the heavy-handed pessimism and victimization felt throughout the entirety of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. To put it bluntly, every man is a predator and every woman is prey. It’s exhaustingly manipulative in both aesthetics and themes, especially the use of the "box" framing device which is constantly used on the female characters to further imply their persecution.

Otilia (Anamaria Marinca), the film’s central character, is supposed to be seen as some sort of a feminist hero because she “fights” the oppressive forces that bind her to the situation she’s in - namely, helping out her best friend, Gabriela “Gabita“ (Laura Vasiliu), secure an illegal abortion in pre-revolutionist Romania. But that’s just surface level.

Instead, the film depicts Otilia as well as all of the other women (especially Gabita) as helpless victims who somehow know they’re being victimized yet never do anything about it (except pray on each other for some reason). The most blatant offender is Gabita, who manipulates Otilia several times without any consequence befalling her - she seems to like all of the ill-treatment she’s receiving because it ups her “woe as me” ante and even that’s giving her more foresight than I think she deserves.

The only way I can understand Otilia as a feminist hero is through the idea that she’s the only woman in the film who is seen as active - she’s basically the lone female character seen outdoors aside from the abortionist’s senile mother who, when on screen, is being ushered back inside her home (notice Otilia‘s blank and uncaring stare while she watches from afar). Yet even when Otilia is outside she’s always doing errands for other people and I never, for one instance, feel as if Otilia is performing any of these exhaustive labors for herself or the good of her community.

She’s more than happy to serve up anything from perfunctory sex to hotel reservations as long as she never thinks to herself - "why am I doing this?" Her character is entirely stripped of independence, ambition, and thought, which I suppose could be the point of the film, but the mere fact that we are forced to understand her perspective only when considering that she’s running on survival instincts that aren’t hers speaks volumes about the failure of this film.

The setting of this film is the Romania of 1987. Two years later, a (partially) student-led revolution ended communism in the country. What’s clear to me after 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is Otilia had absolutely nothing to do with it - which begs the question - why am I watching her?

I wanna be loved by you...wait, life can't wait?

2008-02-14T22:55:00.000-08:00

From www.lifecantwait.com:

LADIES, have you noticed that while we're in a flap over what shoes to wear (it’s difficult, right?), life's flying by, waving at us in the full-length mirror. Enough! It’s time we realized life can’t wait.

We girls need inspiration. And, inspiring people don't come much bigger than MADONNA, MARILYN MONROE and SHAKIRA. Women who know life just can't wait. See just how they've made their lives happen through their timelines, and how their hairstyles have followed. But we all know the girl next door can be just as inspiring. Soon you'll be able to share your own life-can’t-wait moments, too, for the chance to become one of 25 international female icons, selected by us.

I think I'm going to enter the contest because I want to bad mouth them from the inside out.

Before I get started, I'd like to address an issue very close to my heart -

Hasn't Marilyn Monroe been through enough? Everyone owes her an enormous apology, namely, the past generation of women who hated her for being a sexual object and the men who made her one. My generation owes her an even bigger apology for thinking she's "cool" because she was regarded as a sex symbol. People put pictures and clips from her films on their Myspace pages or blogs without ever seeing a single one of her films or even reading anything about her. It's quite disgusting.

Marilyn Monroe may not have been the best actress of her day, but she certainly acted in quite a few worthwhile films that amply display her comedic abilities. Films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Some Like it Hot (1959), Monkey Business (1952), and The Seven Year Itch (1955) all play into her sex-bomb status by making her the object of alluring lust, but it's rarely degrading because she sarcastically plays into it by knowing she's better than what she's portraying. Monroe isn't known for being much of a thinker (though she tried!), but she's always thinking on screen.

Her biggest misstep came in the mid-1950’s when she decided to take a break from Hollywood and get some genuine dramatic acting training from Lee Strasberg‘s famous acting institute in New York City. This caused quite an uproar because it displayed Monroe’s true ambitions to better herself - something men and women couldn’t comprehend with their love/hate relationship towards her.

Alas, that relationship sustained itself until she committed suicide in 1962. Bus Stop is the first film she made when she returned from New York City with all of that freshly learned dramatic skill and it is probably my most hated film of all time. Monroe plays a character named Cherie and she is the absolute epitome of what society thought of Monroe at the time - sleazy, slutty, stupid, and, susceptible to the whim of any man. In Bus Stop, it’s a barbaric cowboy who wrangles her heart by literally flinging her over his shoulder and telling her she’s going to marry him. But that’s acceptable because he apologizes at the end of the film and she sees all of his “little boy” insecurities come to light. Can you figure out the ending? I thought so.

If Monroe hadn’t acted in Bus Stop and held out for a more empowering role (like Susan Hayward’s part in I’ll Cry Tomorrow also released in 1956), I believe the next few years of her life would have been radically different. Namely, it would have shook the world’s core into acknowledging her acting prowess. It wasn’t in the cards though and she endured the latter part of her life with the barest of grins and the saddest of sorrows. Her marriage to Arthur Miller failed because her insecurity overpowered their relationship - the world loved her for one thing and one thing only and she needed a different kind of love. No one could fully give her what she needed.

Now she’s sentenced to stereotype/caricature hell and I don’t think she’ll be able to turn her high heels around any time soon. She’s stuck on billboards advertising hair care products that flat out lie to the girls they’re trying to entice by saying their particular kind of hair care will set them free and let them live life to the fullest. Because we all know how important one’s hair history is to the progression of our minds and lives.

Some girls can’t wait
To make life happen
Their hair tells their story
Make your hair happen
Life can’t wait

Monroe’s simulacrum has permanently taken over the original. I don’t really care about Madonna or Shakira - I’m just wondering what these three ladies have in common other than they’re all blonde occasionally. This ad is problematic, to say the least, and other than the apparent feminist issues I have with it, I’m mostly concerned with the fact that a troupe of even younger little girls will associate Monroe with this ad and think she’s synonymous with hair care products. I’d metaphorically equate that offense to be like the lone pedophile in a court room full of arsonists or something of the sort.

Puh-leeze.

P.S. I'm sorry if this isn't very eloquent - it's 3:00 in the morning and I spontaneously felt compelled to write about this ad and Ms. Monroe.

Sara Freeman's Favorite Films of 2007

2008-02-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

Frankly, I don’t have the time to create an extensive top ten list. I would really like to, but I’m busy doing other things. Therefore, I’ve decided to create the abridged version of Sara Freeman’s favorite films of 2007. The only film I will expand upon is my absolute favorite film of 2007:

"Waitress" (Adrienne Shelly)

I’ve been putting off writing about this film for some time because I’m afraid I can’t do it justice. I honestly love it with all my heart. Before I watched Waitress, I was a very unhappy person - I didn’t feel “right” in my own skin. I worked in a customer service position in which people treated me like I was lower than dirt on a daily basis, I wasn’t writing, and, most annoyingly, I didn’t know how to fix it. Writing about women’s films had always been enjoyable for me and I knew how to dig deep into their themes, but I had never considered making it a goal in my cinematic life to write about “chick flicks.”

Well, obviously, that changed. One day, after a particularly disheartening shift at work, I decided to watch "Waitress." It revolutionized my way of thinking about modern women’s cinema. The film is not epic in any traditional sense of the word, it doesn’t have A-list stars, and many people consider it to be “schmaltzy” because of its supposed feel-good ending.

So what!

Waitress’ cinematic progression is unique because it is entirely societal - it colors new shades into our ideas of certain stereotypes (the abusive husband being the most radical) and most importantly, it shows the world that a woman - an average, simple waitress, can shed her circumstances and live life as a strong, ambitious person. That goes a long way in my book.

I loved the film instantly, but it took me a couple of months to figure out what a rarity it really is. I started taking note of the other terrible chick flicks coming out, read a great deal of feminist literature, and had to begin formulating my idea for this project before I fully grasped the power of the film. The critical and public reaction to "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" was the cincher to my blog decision.

And I think I’ve finally found my cinematic calling in life. I love what I’m doing. It’s tough sitting through terrible movie after terrible movie, but I honestly feel like I’m benefiting the cinematic world in my own small way. And it's all thanks to the care and consideration of one film and one filmmaker, Adrienne Shelly, who is sadly no longer able to create more wonderful femicentric films.

These are the other films released in 2007 that really knocked my socks off:

(In no particular order)

- "Romance and Cigarettes" (John Turturro)
- "Lady Chatterley" (Pascale Ferran)
- "There Will be Blood" (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- "Youth Without Youth" (Francis Ford Coppola)
- The Jacques Rivette retrospective, specifically "Out 1" and "Celine and Julie go Boating"
- "Private Fears in Public Places" (Alain Resnais)
- Films by Jake Barningham (honestly!): "Cinema Poetics 1-3"(though 1 is unfinished) and "Lola Lane Listens"

To a lesser extent:

- "Bug" (William Friedkin)
- "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (Shekhar Kapur)
- "Away from Her" (Sarah Polley)
- "Hot Fuzz" (Edgar Wright)
- "Broken English" (Zoe Cassavetes)

And:

- "Death Proof" - a film I’ve spent months digging through my brain trying to figure out why I like it so much. I believe I’ve figured out the looser meaning of my adoration, but now I’m wondering why I devoted such thought to a movie as convoluted as Death Proof is. Shame on me.

I wasn’t able to attend the Chicago International Film Festival for personal reasons, so these selections are strictly based to theatrical showings at the Gene Siskel Film Center, The Music Box, Landmark Century Centre Cinema, and AMC Rivereast 21.

An Odd Threesome: The Eye, Over Her Dead Body, and Persepolis

2008-02-07T00:20:00.000-08:00

The Eye (2008, David Moreau): While the film is about as memorable as a dirty, wet piece of cardboard on the sidewalk, Jessica Alba’s character, Sydney Wells, does act as a strong female protagonist. She’s independent, saves a few men and women from utter death, and uses her instinctive feminine voice to guide her decisions. But her character isn’t fleshed out well enough to garner any sort of a feminine stance. She’s just…nothing. Perhaps if Alba were a more capable performer, the film and its central character could be elevated a little farther up from the filthy ground.

Over Her Dead Body (2008, Jeff Lowell): This film is honestly a lot smarter than it has any right to be. It teeters on the edge of offensiveness like a mini-skirt in a Catholic church yet never crosses that forbidden line. Though in its most basic sense the film is a catfight between two women over a man, I rarely felt my feminist “no-no” button being pushed because they don’t play dirty, meaning they don’t (or rarely) make fun of the stereotypes women are socially ordained to bestow upon one another in films, i.e., fat jokes, cosmetic jokes, clothes jokes. They’re earnestly fighting over the love of the same man and who wouldn’t adore a surly, bitter Paul Rudd? Eva Longoria is a delightful bitch without too much of a sting and cinema newcomer Lake Bell is charming and sprightly. I would never call Over her Dead Body a good movie, but I certainly didn’t want to peel my eyes out layer by layer while watching it either.

Persepolis (2007, Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud): Phew, a good movie! A really good one! This is technically a 2007 release, but it didn’t debut in Chicago until the middle of January.

Marjane Satrapi delivers a one-two punch to misogynists, bigots, warmongers, and the simple minded sheep who follow in their footsteps. It’s very refreshing to witness a female main character, animated or not, who is so sure and righteous of her beliefs and actually acts upon them. She leaves little doubt to where she received her fine moral education - she learned how to respect her womanhood from her mother and grandmother and her faithful father pointed her in the right philosophical direction. The film is also refreshing because it subverts the notion of the “coming of age” tale which has been told too many times to count in American cinema. Marjane doesn’t really sweat the small stuff like the teenagers do in American films so much as she takes it all in her stride to make herself a better, more well-rounded gal. She handles the repression of her rights in Iran in the same way she handles the divorce of her first husband - like the warrior she really is. It’s terrible when it happens, but why dwell on it when you could be fighting your next battle? Marjane is fierce and fiercely intelligent and we need more characters like her in our cinematic culture.

27 Dresses or 27 wretches?

2008-01-30T22:48:00.000-08:00

27 Dresses definitely has something blue (me - while watching it), something borrowed (the audience a good movie deserves), and it even has something old (the plot), but where‘s the “something new”?

I’m still wondering.

Jane (Katherine Heigl) is the perfect woman - she’s helpful, kind, never says no and she looks killer in a variety of dresses, brides maid dresses to be exact and there are twenty-seven of them hanging in her closet. Her lovely personality traits all come back to bite her in the ass when her younger spoiled super model sister, Tess (Malin Akerman), steps into the picture and gets engaged to Jane’s boss, George (Edward Burns), who just happens to be the love of Jane’s life.

Sound cliché?

Well, that’s because it is.

Nothing new exists within the world of 27 Dresses. It’s merely a culmination of several very bad female stereotypes housed in the body of one Katherine Heigl (who Cosmopolitan magazine recently called “the fun, fearless female of 2007“ Hardy har har). Jane is subservient without complaint – she honestly and vehemently wants to be the definition of the mindless housewife, complete with a “Kodak moment” worthy marriage to someone and it doesn’t really matter who. She lives, breathes, and eats weddings (and lots of wedding cake) and subjects herself to the bride’s maid torture in order to be closer to her dream – almost to the point of saying that she’s masturbating her false ideals every time she’s apart of the wedding experience.

Any sort of step she makes in the right direction towards independence is completely and almost instantaneously undermined by the fact that her character is basically an exercise in humiliation. No one is on her side - not the little sister she raised, not the boss she takes care of, not even the bride-friends she powdered and puffed at the twenty-seven weddings she organized. Jane is on her own and instead of being a fightin’ rooster, she settles upon being just another hen in the henhouse, satisfied with having her eyes pecked out by the rest of the hens.

I honestly can’t believe this film was directed and written by women (Anne Fletcher and Aline Brosh McKenna) who treat the material as if it were fun and harmless. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to state that Fletcher and McKenna treat Jane in the same vein Lucio Fulci “handles” the women in his Giallo slasher films. The only difference being Fulci has the courtesy to actually kill the women he tortures instead of banishing them to marital movie bliss. What’s the deal, Fletcher and McKenna?

I also feel that Katherine Heigl has the potential to actually be the “fun and fearless female of the year”, but that day hasn’t arrived yet. She’s a capable comedienne, pretty, and ambitious. And I adored her after she said this about Knocked Up:

“…A little sexist. It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I'm playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you're portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”

I don’t like Knocked Up either, but anyone with half a brain can tell that 27 Dresses is by far the more offensive film.

Trailers attached to 27 Dresses:

- The Eye
- Fool’s Gold
- Made of Honor
- Definitely, Maybe
- What Happens in Vegas…
- Jumper

Manifesto

2008-01-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

Hey y'all,

I finally wrote the manifesto for this blog. Check it out in the links section!

Or look below:

Better late than never.

In an effort to eliminate or at least make people aware of the poor representations of women on screen (movie screen, television screen, computer screen), I have decided to create a critical blog entitled "The Women Within." I strongly dislike labels, but I will say I have several feminist tendencies which will be helpful in my quest for a higher portrayal of female intelligence in life - art - and especially - cinema.

Unfortunately, it seems as if the changes and benefits the feminist movement of the 1960's instilled didn't last very long. I hope to do a timeline of the feminist film cycle in The Women Within as soon as possible. To nutshell it: by the mid 1980's, all of the progress that had been made in previous years by women and men of all different professions and art forms reversed itself with the advent of silly, trite romantic comedies which initiated a negative connotation towards women. Those connotations still hold fast today and it looks as if they're in for the death grip of the century. 2008 looks like the worst year for women in quite a long time.

These are the rules:

1. I must see every new release of 2008 which has a female protagonist, either in theatres or on DVD.

2. There is no genre bias, but I will pay close attention to films whose themes revolve around the world of classic women's cinema (1930-1950). Themes: romance, weddings, children, sacrifice, friendship, etc.

3. Comparisons between classic women's cinema and the cinema of today is acceptable.

4. The blog must be updated on (at least) a weekly basis.

5. I will do my best to bridge the knowledge gap between myself and other art forms in order to give a fuller representation of "the" woman of today. This includes art, literature, music, and journalism, with special notice paid to advertisements directed towards women.

Ultimately, my personal goal with this venture is to grow as a woman as a writer, and as a theorist. Women are more than vessels in poofy wedding dresses and hookers with a heart of gold. I know that in my heart. Now I'm going to try and prove it.

1/21/08

Any updates to this manifesto will be noted and dated.

Also,

Expect a different kind of review for 27 Dresses this week. You're in for a lulu.

2008: a look ahead at the next 11.5 hellish months of my feminist film life

2008-01-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

Thus far, two of the first nineteen days of 2008 have brought me to the magnificent AMC Rivereast theatre where I've endured two very bad chick flicks - P.S. I Love You (2007) and 27 Dresses (2008). Watching both films gave me both a sour stomach and, as an added bonus, a preview of worse things to come - trailers for even more bad women's films! Right now I'm going through IMDB's release calendar to see what's in store for me this year. Ahem:

January:

Mad Money
Teeth (actually looks interesting and...good!)
How She Move
4 Months, 3 weeks, 2 Days (technically a 2007 release)

February:

The Eye
Over Her Dead Body
Caramel
Fool's Gold
The Hottie and the Nottie
Definitely, Maybe
My Blueberry Nights
Possession
The Other Boleyn Girl
Mama, I want to sing!
Penelope

March:

College Road Trip
The Accidental Husband
Doomsday
Funny Games (remake)
Sleepwalking
Meet the Browns
Stop Loss (directed by a woman - Kimberly Pierce)

April:

Nim's Island
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Baby Mama
Amusement

May:

Made of Honor
Sex and the City: The Movie
What Happens in Vegas...

June:

...

July:

Mama Mia!

August:

Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2

September:

...

October:

...

November:

...

December:

...

If anyone would like to donate money or AMC gift certificates for my cause, I'll be more than happy to give you my address. I will need help. Sheesh. I'm so depressed.

3 short reviews for 3 bad (or mediocre) movies

2008-01-14T13:01:00.000-08:00

No time for the feature, so I hope a short will do. Here are some nice, neat capsule reviews that will hopefully give you a succinct idea about the films' intentions:

La Vie En Rose (Oliver Dahan, 2007): Despite a gloriously faithful characterization of French singer Edith Piaf by Marion Cotillard, the movie just is…is…blah. It doesn’t say anything new, doesn’t subvert any female messages or even address them, and fails to make the “extraordinary life of Edith Piaf” interesting in the least. Honestly, the movie isn’t even worth five sentences.

A Mighty Heart (Michael Winterbottom, 2007): I’ve been thinking about this movie since I watched it a few days ago, wondering how I should approach writing about it. The presentation of Marianne Pearl’s passivity in the film really bothers me. I realize the circumstances she was involved in regarding her husband, Daniel Pearl, and his kidnapping and subsequent beheading were ones that reached far beyond her control, but the film depicts Marianne as a troubled dichotomy – it says she’s a strong, worldly female, but never shows her doing anything. There’s a worrisome sequence involving several male police officers kicking ass and taking names in the hunt for Daniel Pearl, which is cross-cut with images of poor Marianne sitting at home holding her pregnant belly. The same police officers later give her pregnancy advice because, obviously, Marianne can’t do anything for herself.

The Daniel Pearl saga was one of the first political/societal stories I followed during my teen years. Therefore, I am very aware that the real Marianne Pearl is not some wishy-washy woman with no mind of her own, but A Mighty Heart does little to show me the true power of her person.

P.S. I Love You (Richard LaGravenese, 2007): B.S. I Hate You is a more appropriate name. The film pulls all sorts of strings to try and imitate the “weepies” of the 1940’s (it even includes clips from no less than three Bette Davis films and a Judy Garland for good measure) but vastly fails to live up to the likes of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), or The Letter (1940), which share very similar themes. One major thing prevents that from happening (plus those three were made by talented directors!) – the main character’s actions are being dictated by a dead man! Ho ho ho. Hilary Swank’s character, Holly Kennedy, never runs her own show. Every single step towards her “independence” after the death of her husband is ordained by the dead so and so in question because he was kind enough to write her several letters telling her just what to do and how to do it after he dies. Now we have dead men telling women what to do!

A staple of the weepie isn’t even present – good girl chatter between all of the best friends in the film. Gina Gershon and Lisa Kudrow are supposed to fill those roles, but their presence is just as placid and lifeless as everything else. P.S. I Love You is a terrible movie with a terrible message.

Barf-worthy trailers attached to P.S. I Love You:

- The Accidental Husband
- Over Her Dead Body
- 27 Dresses
- Definitely, Maybe
- Fool’s Gold
- The Bucket List

Next time I’d like to have reviews up for The Insect Woman (1963), Offside (2007), and perhaps a male-centric review of Paul Thomas Anderson’s crème de la crème new film - There Will be Blood.

Romance and Cigarettes (2005-2007, John Turturro)

2008-01-05T01:24:00.000-08:00

Romance and Cigarettes (2005 - 2007)

by
Sara Freeman

Romance and Cigarettes, an anti-musical-musical and an anti-romance-romance, is a film that sets fire to all of its nearby genre walls just so it can have the privilege of pissing on the ashes. It’s crude, it’s lewd, and it’s a jazzed-up song and dance fest that turns a significant number of sensibilities on their head. They don’t make films like Romance and Cigarettes every day.

The plot, though bordering on slim and nil, is about a construction worker named Nick Murder (James Gandolfini), who is cheating on his wedding dress designer wife, Kitty (Susan Sarandon), with “one crude broad” and lingerie sales girl, Tula (Kate Winslet). Throw in a bout of lung cancer, three adult daughters (Mary-Louise Parker, Mandy Moore, Aida Turturro), and a poem about the lusciousness of the female orifice and you’ve got the plot of Romance and Cigarettes in one wacky nutshell.

I’m not a fan of the term or idea of camp or campiness, but I’ll use it here because it’s the easiest way to give you an impression of Romance and Cigarettes. I’d say the camp factor falls somewhere in-between the worlds of John Waters and Douglas Sirk, which is mostly caused by the incredibly strange and wonderful staging of the many musical numbers. Some of the people who dance can’t actually dance and most of the people who sing can’t really sing, which I would say falls under the umbrella of John Waters’ auteurism and puts a great deal of people off because they‘re used to the bravado of musical film productions like Chicago (2002) or Moulin Rouge (2001). But the film works as a both a whole and as a better movie than both Chicago and Moulin Rouge because of the Douglas Sirk aspect - that strong, ultimate power of anti-emotion or over-emotion and artifice. However, instead of being artificial, Romance and Cigarettes is as gritty and potent as possible in terms of emotional content. Those aspects are sort of a counter-point to the clear artifice of the musical numbers.

John Turturro, the film’s director, purposefully plays the film like it’s amateur hour (poorly composed shots, out of sync music, bad acting) for the majority of the film to add to that artifice. He also takes elements of golden era musicals - pastel colors, choreographed dance sequences, and spontaneous bursts of song - and applies them to the crass underbelly of Brooklyn, NY. These musical moments are staged with folks as diverse as construction workers, nuns, heavily pregnant women, and occasionally Christopher Walken impersonating Elvis Presley. Diversity is even more prominent with the tunes played in the background to guide the characters - they sing and dance to Tom Jones, Janis Joplin, Engelbert Humperdinck and occasionally a bit of Irving Berlin. Odd as it seems, all of these seemingly wacky puzzle pieces fit together and create one of the weirdest and one of the best musicals in the history of the genre.

There’s nothing conventionally beautiful about the people in Romance and Cigarettes and yet they’re all beautiful people. The songs they sing lift them out and beyond their circumstances and into the realm of influential, poignant cinema. Foul language never sounded so poetic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it before. Having seen the film twice now (once in theatres and once on a R2 DVD), I can safely say that my love for this cinematic oddity wasn’t a lark the first time around. Few moments in movies this year make me smile and laugh as I did during the first musical number “A Man Without Love” and few have the impact to make me cry as I have the two times I’ve seen it like the ending of this film.

A sincere and profound joy exists within Romance and Cigarettes. It is also brash, crass, and hysterically disobedient in terms of content, narrative, and the traditional fare of the lead actors. The story itself may not revolutionize your way of thinking, but the melodic aesthetic may make you reevaluate the way you think about the musical genre itself. I can’t recommend the film highly enough.

Enchanted (2007)

2008-01-01T20:18:00.000-08:00

Disney’s Enchanted (2007)

By
Sara Freeman

Enchanted is both a return to and a departure from the richly textured legacy of Walt Disney’s past. This works for and against the film; in an effort to right some of these wrongs, Enchanted attempts to subvert Disney chauvinism by creating a pro-female role model in the form of a traditional Disney princess, Giselle (Amy Adams). She’s a bubbly, kind-hearted gal with lots of pep and vigor towards, well, getting married. That’s when she’s animated though. The meta-cinematic blending of animation and live-action pokes fun at such Disney stereotypes as singing with “forest” animals and the “prince saves fair maiden” ending.

After being banished to the “place with no happily ever after’s” a.k.a. NYC, Giselle takes what she likes of reality and lovingly discards what she doesn‘t. She lends the city a dose of her fairy tale magic and in return, is given a bit of advice (and genuine chemistry) from a handsome divorce lawyer, Robert (Patrick Dempsey). He tells her she should take some pride in herself - find some of her own interests and passions and, hey, get to know the handsome Prince (James Marsden, this generation’s Ralph Bellamy) she’s going to marry.

While the ending of the film does subvert a significant number of Disney’s chauvinistic ideals (she marries the divorce lawyer, opens her own clothing store), it fails by making Giselle follow everything Robert says instead of letting her find out about the ways of the world for herself. Which, in turn, gives the other, far less important female in the film (Robert’s girl friend, Nancy (Idina Menzel) the opportunity to marry Giselle’s has-been Prince. The NYC girl wants the fairy tale and the fairy tale Princess wants NYC.

I feel a little guilty admitting to this, but Enchanted is unabashedly and utterly delightful in all other regards. I know that sounds cheesy, but…it really is. Amy Adams is both hilarious and sincere in her princess role and her sense comedic timing reminds me greatly of Katharine Hepburn’s first foray into comedy (Bringing Up Baby, 1938) with a few hints of Carole Lombard and Ruby Keeler thrown in. As a devout Disney watcher (god damn the child inside me), I found myself giggling with the other seven year old ladies in the theatre at the in-jokes about Disney’s older films.

There’s also the matter of the musical score - it’s composed by Disney alum’s Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz who were responsible for the snazzy tunes of The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and I can’t help but love the Broadway-esque quality to both the music and the four or so musical numbers in the film.

Ultimately, Enchanted is a worthwhile film that has its heart in the right place with its head following closely behind it. I would much rather show my theoretical daughter Enchanted than the likes of Cinderella (1950) for a positive example of a female heroine inside the marvelous world of Disney. Maybe Disney’s next rendezvous with a Disney Princess will be more fulfilling on every level.

Sex and the City Movie Trailer

2007-12-11T14:35:00.000-08:00

The trailer is here on the snazzrific site www.jezebel.com
They theorize the trailer's hidden intentions (narratively) by going shot by shot.

I used to love this show, but now I have very mixed feelings about it. However, I'll definitely see the movie! Probably with my mom because she'll be here for graduation when it debuts.

Welcome -- The African Queen (1951)

2007-12-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I'm very sorry I don't have a new review ready as of yet. I'm working really hard on an Enchanted review. Alas, finals are kicking my ass. However, I expect to have it finished before the week is over. I might even post one of my final papers - Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as seen in Film-Noir- on Wednesday night.

On the docket of Women's films to watch this week:

The Three Faces of Eve (1957) - starring Joanne Woodward. She won an Oscar for her performance as a woman with split personalities. Can't wait!

La Vie En Rose (2007) - starring Marion Cotillard. I love bio-pics and I love Edith Piaf. What's not to love? I hope those are my sentiments after the film.

For now, here is a review I wrote recently for John Huston's The African Queen (1951), which may be published in the near future on DVD Up Close. It's not exactly a woman's picture, but...I don't care.

Anyway:

The African Queen (1951) - Carlton R2 DVD, released 7/16/2001
http://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Queen-Humphrey-Bogart/dp/B00005AY14/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1196065140&sr=8-1

Charlie Allnut: A man takes a drop too much once in a while; it's only human nature.

Rose Sayer: Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.

John Huston was one hell of a fella. He directed forty-seven films, acted in over fifty movies and television shows, wrote a great deal of his own screenplays, and occasionally took on the role of producer and cinematographer. He also traveled the world, got married five times, fathered a few kids (including Anjelica Huston), drank a lot, smoked a lot, won two Oscars, and -- kept a monkey as a pet. It only took him fifty years.

Throughout his career, Huston’s films dealt almost entirely with the ethical questions of right and wrong, good and bad, and “to be or not to be.” I feel that because he was an immoral man in many ways, Huston felt the need to explore these themes in his work in order to better understand and decipher the difference between them in his own life. And, since they’re universal questions, these particular themes are easily transferable in cinema, which is why he was able to work in so many different genres. Huston created every kind of film – everything from film noir (Maltese Falcon, 1941 and Asphalt Jungle, 1950) to musicals (Annie, 1982) to bio-pics (Moulin Rouge, 1952) and even war documentaries (Battle of San Pietro, 1945). He could do it all and he could do it well.

One of his best cinematic and philosophical efforts is the 1951 romantic-adventure film, The African Queen. Humphrey Bogart (as Charlie Allnut) and Katharine Hepburn (as Rose Sayer) headline the movie as a jolly, drunken, go-with-the-flow riverboat captain and an educated, independent, spinster missionary in East Africa. In order to escape from the Nazi’s after a whirlwind of events, Rose must join Charlie on board his ship, The African Queen, to survive. Together, they hatch a plan to sink the German ship, Louisa, to join in the efforts of their country (England) and fight back. Morals collide on the tiny boat as puritanical Rose and lackadaisical Charlie go head to head with one another.

Judging by the brief character descriptions I just presented, I’m guessing one could easily define the moralistic battle between Rose and Charlie. Though that is extremely important to the story, I think their relationship is the most significant aspect of the film to take away after watching it. Katharine Hepburn was truly a rarity among actresses of her era (or any other era for that matter) because she stood the test of time in cinema - graduating from a young woman (Morning Glory, 1931) to steadfast leading lady (The Philadelphia Story, 1940) to mature woman (The African Queen, 1951) and lasting all the way into old(ish) age (On Golden Pond, 1981). Most actresses have ten good years in Hollywood before being cast aside for the next round of lovelies. Men possess the gift of growing more charming and handsome as they grow older which grants them a much longer lifespan as a leading man. One can frequently see a forty or fifty year old man romancing a girl half his age. Therefore, it’s not unusual to see a fifty year old Humphrey Bogart as the leading man in a romantic-adventure film. What is unusual is to see Humphrey Bogart taking a loving interest in Katharine Hepburn - a woman who was only eight years his junior during the making of the film. He was fifty-two and she was forty-four. Hollywood doesn’t often foray into the realm of mature, adult love, but The African Queen stands as a beautiful testament that they should do it more often.

I appreciate the delicate balance each of the main characters, Charlie and Rose holds with one another. Unlike other romantic-adventure films where the male character is totally in charge of the helpless little lady, Charlie respects and accepts Rose's intelligence and skills in her own area without defeminizing (or emasculating) her in the least. He teaches her how to steer the boat while he handles the mechanical side of things and they both take turns cleaning, cooking, and frankly, masterminding their plans. The same can be said for Rose, who respects the wise intellect of Charlie as well as his know-how about mechanics and the way the world works from a blue collar standpoint in society. She never emasculates him either. In order to go down the river of no return, sink the German Louisa ship, and survive the God forsaken jungle, they both need each other and their individual strengths to do it.

The respect and admiration they share for one another might make it sound like their love story is kind of cold and heartless, when in fact, it is the exact opposite. Charlie invites Rose aboard his boat, The African Queen, because her god-fearing Reverend brother recently died of heartbreak and fever after German soldiers burnt down the African village he and his sister built from the ground up over ten years ago. Rose has never been in a romantic relationship before. Sub text shows that Charlie’s been involved in far too many. They're both honest about their situations from the get-go.

Yet, there are no specific points or scenes that declare "oh this is where they fall in love" or "this is where they start flirting." Their loving relationship grows organically and feels pure. It's not contrived or manipulated. By the time it's hinted at that they have made love, you feel just as happy as they do because, despite their individual strengths, they really do need each other to survive the world, not just the situation they're in. Opposites do attract.

Unfortunately for us, Huston is a vastly underrated filmmaker. Despite his prolific and generally successful career as a director, he is seldom recognized as one of the great cinematic creators of the twentieth century. In the mid 1960’s, critics started disregarding his work because they didn’t feel he was an auteur – that his framing, style, and the cinematic tone of his work wasn’t embedded with his own personal signature. They weren’t necessarily wrong, but I feel they were a bit too quick to judge. Quick judgment is what caused Huston to be one of the underrated filmmakers of the twentieth century.

Huston, like a great deal of classically trained Hollywood filmmakers, believed in telling the story 1st and embedding style 2nd. I suppose that means he wasn’t an auteur in the traditional sense of the word, but Huston certainly possessed style and particular themes (man in “crisis” being the biggest one) were definitely prevalent in all of his work. I highly recommend Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Misfits (1961), Night of the Iguana (1964), Fat City (1972), and The Dead (1987). Though all of his films, except for Annie (1982), are all definitely worth seeing.

The Carlton DVD presentation is beautiful. They preserved the "film" like quality of the print while also improving the Technicolor presentation and removing the graininess. It’s presented in its original aspect ratio of 1:33:1. The audio is a bit muffled at times and at other times a bit too loud. I also noticed a few pops and hisses, but over all, everything is audible, sometimes too audible.

There are some neat extras as well, including an audio commentary with one of the best cinematographers to ever live, Jack Cardiff (see The Red Shoes, 1948), as well as an on -set stills gallery (15 photos), poster gallery, and the original theatrical trailer. Cardiff’s commentary sounds just like it should - like an old man reminiscing about the good ol’ days. He shares production stories, what it was like to work with Huston, Hepburn, and Bogart, and reveals a few of his cinematography tricks.

Currently, there is no R1 DVD release of The African Queen. Warner Bros. has been promising a release for the last few years, but nothing has come of their promises yet. For now, the R2 Carlton DVD is definitely worth picking up from www.amazon.com/uk because of the transfer, the audio commentary by Jack Cardiff, and the simple pleasure of possessing this DVD on your shelf. If you have a region-free or PAL compatible DVD player, I would certainly pick this up! Worth it!

On a final note, I highly recommend checking out Katharine Hepburn’s book: “The Making of the African Queen or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind” for her up close and often humorous account of her experience filming this American classic.