rachel getting married

so i’m out of school again and back to seeing movies. and that means writing about them. it’s the little way i make sure that i’m still thinking when i don’t have to write an essay every 2 weeks or so. since this is the first blog back since my hiatus, i’m open to suggestions…what i’m mostly thinking is whether or not i make these little reviews spoiler-free or not. currently, i’m leaning towards spoiler-free since i think more people will be likely to read them. but, either way, i welcome feedback and discussion – please weigh in! down to business…

i saw rachel getting married last night. this film premiered (i think) at the toronto international film festival, but i didn’t get a chance to see it there. it’s the newest film from jonathan demme (yeah…silence of the lambs. wtf?) everything i keep hearing is about how diverse a director he is, basically because people can’t find a constant theme or even style across his work. you might say he defies the auteur theory. and i think i agree…i couldn’t even fake some connection between anthony hopkins’ hannibal lector and anne hathaway’s kim. but i’d love to hear any attempts!

so, first off – i liked this movie quite a bit. mostly because it was a relatively original story, and the acting was great. anne hathaway was especially delightful. she plays kim (rachel’s sister), a recovering drug addict who is returning home from rehab for her sister’s wedding. kim is a self-obsessed person – always expecting people to focus on her, given that she’s received a lot of attention in the past due to her various addictions (which she alludes to comedically in passing). many important plot points and histories of the characters are elucidated this way – through brief references that are not difficult to piece together. i much prefer this to being told explicitly the details of the past – it seems more realistic this way – as often we don’t explain in detail our histories to people we know well. there is one scene i can recall where this does happen, but it occurs when kim is divulging a piece of personal information to her narcotics anonymous (NA) group, and that felt pretty natural to me. (no spoilers!)

the film is focused entirely around rachel and kim’s family, as well as rachel’s fiancé, sidney, and his family. rachel and kim’s parents are divorced and both remarried – the father’s side of the family is much more involved in the wedding and the lives of the two women than their mother and her husband. sidney is a black man and rachel is white – this fact is never verbalized, though obviously…obvious. i’m not sure whether its omission is due to its irrelevance plot-wise or to simply avoid any potentially offensive pitfalls, OR to avoid getting into issues of race that the film simply doesn’t have time for. i bring this up because i was honestly surprised that it wasn’t mentioned in the film. i half-expected there to be a crotchety grandparent character that objected or something along those lines…but nothing. i haven’t made up my mind about this. but I think it needs to be addressed. i mean, it’s great if the film is suggesting that race is a completely irrelevant issue, but i think this is somewhat unrealistic, even still, for many people and families. i think perhaps it serves to further the theme of blending families that can be seen in the film. divorce and race both serve to alter the family structures from the typical homogenous nuclear family to one with step-parents and different races. both of these things can be said to expand (or break down, however you choose to see it) the family.

and this brings me to kim herself, who has been a source of stress, drama, and difficulty for her family. before kim’s return from rehab, it seems as though things in their home had been moving smoothly, but that every other character expected problems when she did come back. her father is overly protective, though well-meaning, while her mother barely acknowledges that she has been absent – she pays most attention to kim when scolding her for poor behavior (ie smoking indoors). kim seems to desire something between these poles – she demands a great amount of attention, but doesn’t want to be coddled by her parents.

this contradiction in kim’s character is what i find most interesting about this film, and more specifically, the way anne hathaway walks this line – making kim sympathetic in one instant, yet painfully annoying and childlike in others. at the outset, we know this film is about kim – it begins with her parents picking her up from rehab; we are aligned with her and instantly sympathize with her as she has a somewhat painful conversation with her father and step-mother in the car ride home. she is instantly relatable as someone who has difficulty communicating with her parents. even as she arrives home, excited to see her sister, we sympathize that her plight is being overshadowed by the wedding planning happening all around her. kim must go to an n.a. meeting and her father will not even let her borrow a car to go – she must ride her bike. however, in many other instances, we see kim turn into a narcissistic brat. most notably, during her speech at the rehearsal dinner to her sister – kim decides to take this opportunity to make amends with her sister as part of her 12-step recovery. this causes a major argument between the sisters afterwards, as rachel suggests that kim did this not to actually apologize, but to bring all the attention back on herself. it is a painful scene to watch because we as the audience wish kim to stop speaking, and merely wish her sister well; we can recognize that she is indeed attempting to command the attention of the room. one subtle aspect that i thought conveyed this tension in kim was the way she constantly smoked in front of people, indoors, and seemingly anywhere she wished, without consideration for those around her. this seemed to me to point to kim’s self-indulgence. when kim is asked to stop smoking a couple of times in the film, once by her mother and once by her sister’s best friend, we see kim resenting the request, yet still complying. she has gained attention again, but in a negative way – and this allows kim to complain about her family and friends for not being supportive or offering her the attention she needs. even the title of the film fits into kim’s dichotomous personality – the title ‘rachel getting married’ is superficially about the wedding, and rachel’s character. yet kim is the character to utter this line and it is in reference to her return home from rehab, for “rachel getting married”. even when the day or the event is not about kim, she remains present and holding much attention.

and……….one last thing i noticed, the music of the film. we learn that sidney (rachel’s fiancé) has a career in music and that amongst his family and friends, music is a passion. consequently, there is a wide variety of music throughout the film, showcased at the pre-wedding festivities as well as during the wedding day and night. the music really aids in conveying the tone of each scene; similarly balancing the good and bad, and refreshingly, does not give away where the scene is headed, nor does it guide our emotions to a particular conclusion. i would just say pay attention to the different styles while you watch.

that’s it. let me know what you think.

here's the trailer.

knocked up

judd apatow’s (40 year old virgin, freaks and geeks) newest comedy again brings together his favourite actors (seth rogen, paul rudd, jason segel, etc) for knocked up. seth rogen plays the lead, ben, alongside katherine heigl (grey’s anatomy) as alison. the two meet at a bar one night, have a one night stand, and alison ends up pregnant. the word abortion is never quite mentioned in this film and is clearly not considered by alison, even after her mother subtly suggests it. once the film hits this point, it is essentially about struggling to keep an unlikely relationship between ben, a stoner, and alison, a successful woman working in television, together. i think the film is so accessible for so many people because the humour comes from very relatable situations that occur in relationships and during pregnancy. ben knows he must take responsibility but finds it initially difficult to leave behind his immature lifestyle, living with roommates and working on a porn website. the two also deal with more specific issues, like feeling unattractive during sex while alison is pregnant. ben and alison’s relationship is held up against alison’s sister, debbie (leslie mann, apatow’s wife) and her husband, pete’s (paul rudd) marriage. they deal with similar problems with communication and the men and women each confide in each other, all realizing that they are imperfect. i think apatow’s films are successful because he writes realistically; the interactions between friends are so believable, and potentially involve a lot of improvisation amongst real friends. while seth rogen and katherine heigl are charismatic together and well cast in this film, i think the supporting cast is just as crucial in making knocked up one of the funniest films i’ve seen so far this year.

watch the trailer

away from her

away from her is the directorial debut of sarah polley, who has been an actor from a young age, starring in the long-running road to avonlea and more recently in films such as exotica, the sweet hereafter, and my life without me. for her first film as a director, she has adapted a short story by alice munro, called the bear came over the mountain. the story follows fiona (julie christie) as the onset of her alzheimer's necessitates that she leave her husband, grant (gordon pinsent), of forty-some years to live in a nursing home.

in the opening scene between grant and fiona, they are washing dishes after dinner and after drying a pot, fiona puts it in the freezer. i found this to be quite effective at establishing their relationship with the current state of fiona’s alzheimer’s. from grant’s reaction we get the full effect of what their life has become in a simple expression. much of the emotion conveyed in this films is done through the facial expressions of the two stars, which in my opinion makes their casting very important and deliberate on polley’s part. the decision for fiona to enter the nursing home is ultimately her choice; grant in fact tries to convince her not to go when he discovers that he can’t see her for the first thirty days. we learn through discussions between the two that grant cheated on fiona several years before when he was a professor, but fiona says she has forgiven him. however, what becomes clear as fiona enters the nursing home and forgets who grant is, is that she has essentially chosen to leave him at this point in their marriage. she does not see grant for thirty days and begins spending time with another man in the home, aubrey (michael murphy). i think it is viable to interpret this as her punishment to grant for his adultery years ago; he is forced to watch her be in love with another man. this perspective is reinforced through grant’s conversations with one of the workers in the nursing home. the nursing home is shot with over-exposed lighting and soft focus, making it appear very idyllic, but this element of grant’s punishment gives the setting a darker component to consider along with the typical difficulties of an alzheimer’s story.

watch the trailer

year of the dog

year of the dog is the directorial debut of mike white (writer of the good girl, chuck&buck) and stars molly shannon as peggy, a woman whose closest companion, her dog pencil, dies and subsequently, her life as she knew it falls apart. peggy is a secretary whose only friends are her coworker layla (regina king) and her brother and his wife (thomas mccarthy and laura dern) but we see that these relationships are more or less superficial and that peggy truly feels closest to pencil. when peggy adopts a new dog, she meets newt (peter sarsgaard) who feels the same as her about animal rights and she begins to like him and it seems as though they may have a relationship. however, he like peggy, has better relationships with animals than humans and is incapable of being anything more than a friend to her. after this realization, peggy adopts a strictly vegan lifestyle which alienates her from her friends and family. molly shannon effectively portrays the balancing act that peggy attempts to perform between living a normal life and adhering to her beliefs. in the scenes when we see her using her company’s money to support animal rights foundations, and when she takes her brother’s children to a farm and then a slaughterhouse, we know she is attempting to do good things, but they end up backfiring because her gestures are too extreme. shannon conveys this through her performance by shifting between humour and drama, even within particular shots. it is often difficult to know whether we’re supposed to be laughing or feeling deeply sympathetic towards peggy. i think this technique is effective especially when peggy ultimately abandons the traditional life she had been living to support her cause entirely at the end of the film. even after she has been rehabilitated and her boss has welcomed her back, she cannot rejoin the life she lived before. i saw this film soon after zoo (a film dealing with real-life zoophiles) and it got me thinking about the spectrums of animal love. year of the dog seemed to me to be the safe side of the spectrum, portraying a woman with a deep emotional connection to her pet, so intense that when he dies, it upsets her entire world, and zoo being the dangerous territory of beastiality. i do not think the relationship portrayed in year of the dog is meant to suggest that peggy is a zoophile; just to perhaps bring to light the idea that the connections some people feel to animals are often more fulfilling than their human interactions. and that the way the men in zoo had to negotiate their regular lives with their love of animals was similar to the way in which peggy negotiates her animal rights beliefs with her existence in a more traditional setting.

watch the trailer

disturbia

director d.j. caruso’s (taking lives) disturbia begins with a car accident that kills kale (shia labeouf)’s father and causes kale to become reclusive and act out in school. an argument with his spanish teacher ends with kale punching him and receiving a punishment of three months under house arrest. he has an ankle monitor attached that allows kale to reach the boundaries of the yard and if he is to go beyond that, the police are immediately dispatched. initially, kale wastes his days playing video games, watching trash tv and eating junk food. his mother (carrie-anne moss) gets frustrated with this behaviour and cuts off all of his entertainment. out of boredom, kale begins spying on his neighbours, including Ashley, a hot teenage girl who spends most of her time lounging poolside, and mr.turner (david morse), a man he suspects to be a serial killer who is all over the news. kale employs the help of ashley and his best friend, ronnie, to do the investigating that he cannot. the parallels to hitchcock’s rear window are unmistakable with shia labeouf’s house-bound kale mirroring jimmy stewart’s wheelchair-bound l.b. jefferies, both of whom become obsessed with an unsolved murder mystery in their own neighbourhoods. however, disturbia does not extend the mystery of the killer’s identity in the way that rear window does. the clues in disturbia are laid out blankly through the television reports and kale realizes that mr.turner is in fact the killer, almost immediately. beyond this point, the tone of disturbia changes and it becomes a fairly standard teen thriller, albeit a suspenseful one.

watch the trailer

hot docs: girls rock!

the world premiere of arne johnson and shane king’s girls rock! was the best screening i attended at hot docs. the film is about a rock n’ roll camp for girls aged eight to eighteen. while at this week-long camp, the girls must choose an instrument (that they may never have played) and form a band with other campers. at the end of the week, all of the bands perform for a large crowd. the film focuses on several campers and follows their progression through learning to play instruments to resolving conflicts with other band members. along with learning to play music, the girls take lessons in self-defense and discuss body image issues as well as pressures they face at school and home. a lot of emphasis is placed on the idea of girls not being afraid to be loud and to express themselves. we witness many of the girls undergo transformations when they lose their initial inhibitions and allow themselves to play loudly, make mistakes, and get sweaty. one of the camp leaders mentions the ways in which girls are taught to be small and quiet in this culture while boys are allowed to be loud, take up space, and get dirty. part of the focus of the camp is working to undo these behaviours in the girls, by providing a space that they feel comfortable and encouraged in. one of the most profound realizations that some of the campers reach is discovering that they are happy with themselves; a quality lacking from many of them when they begin the week. i felt that this documentary worked really well because the girls they interviewed and followed for the week were all very endearing in their own ways and the film approached the difficult subject of teenage girls’ self-confidence through the guise of a music camp, while still addressing a full spectrum of individuals and struggles.

hot docs: zoo

director robinson devor’s zoo depicts through interviews and re-enactments the story of a seattle man’s death in 2005. the man died of a perforated colon due to engaging in intercourse with a horse at a gathering of zoophiles on a washington farm. devor constructs the story out of order, cutting between establishing the psychology of the zoophiles involved and the lead up to the actual event of the man’s death. it was obvious that devor was extremely careful to not pass judgment on this group of people, and to treat the situation delicately. the film portrays these men as misunderstood and somewhat alienated from healthy human connections. we never see the actual people involved, only re-enactments (for privacy reasons i assume), but we do hear their voices in the voice-over. it is nearly impossible to distinguish the voices from one another, giving the sense that they are all speaking as a unified group. much of the film is dark and sets an eerie mood when the events leading up to the death are recounted for us. conversely, when we are hearing some of these men discuss the emotional connections they have with animals (sexual relations are barely mentioned), the cinematography is quite beautiful; a lot of nighttime outdoor shots with vibrantly coloured flowers, trees, etc. i think devor used this technique of two distinct filming styles to visually reinforce the idea of a spectrum of animal love. because much of what the men discuss is emotional connections, it helps us to move beyond the initial shock of the sex to see that it’s not such a simple distinction between zoophiles and everyone else. i thought devor’s cautious treatment of this subject was effective because i left the theatre not focused on the man’s death, but more on the psyches of zoophiles and where exactly i stand on my beliefs about them.

hot docs: dreamworld / my second life

this was the north american premiere of both dreamworld and my second life. jorien van nes’ dreamworld tells the story of patrick, a 30 year old man living in the netherlands who spends most of his time playing second life, the online virtual world that has been gaining popularity recently. he describes creating an online avatar and the process of creating a second life identity. we meet patrick’s wife, danielle, who also spends a great deal of time in second life. cut between this story, are interviews with two other women living in the u.s. one of these women, christine, is patrick’s online girlfriend and he is planning a trip to meet her in real life. his wife also has an online boyfriend and so allows him to make this trip. once patrick arrives in the u.s., we witness how awkward their interactions are. at the end of the weekend, patrick discusses how the trip was not what he expected, while looking clearly disappointed. the films running time was only 30 minutes and i think had it been longer, van nes could have focused more on the implications second life has on the increasingly indistinguishable boundaries between reality and fantasy. while patrick had clearly functional distinct lives in reality, with his wife danielle, and in fantasy, with christine, when he tried to bring his fantasy life into reality, the two did not easily mesh. i think dreamworld is important because it’s one of our first forays into the effects of our culture entering into more and more virtual and online social networks, and as a result moving away from personal and physical interactions.

douglas gayeton’s my second life is the first documentary to be shot entirely in second life. the premise is that a california man named molotov alva went missing and director, gayeton discovered diaries of this man who chose to leave his real world existence behind and “entirely” live in second life. the documentary within a documentary is told from alva’s perspective in what is a problematic conflating of the real and fantasy worlds. granted these concepts are philosophically very interesting, i found gayeton’s approach to be superficial and pretentious. throughout the film, quotes from philosophers and various intellectuals are used to blatantly further these lofty ideas, while not actually expanding upon them, in what seems an attempt to deceive the audience into thinking gayeton is more insightful than he actually is. afterwards, these suspicions were confirmed at the q&a where gayeton came across as highly arrogant about the “truth” of his documentary.

hot docs: girl inside

this world premiere of maya gallus’ girl inside was presented with hell’s grannies at hot docs and was co-presented with the inside out film festival. the film follows twenty-six year-old madison’s male to female transition. this is a fairly typically structured documentary, mostly involving talking heads style interviews edited together with observational footage. a significant part of the film is madison (formerly matt) speaking directly to the camera in a diary style about her experiences with transition. she begins by explaining the incongruity between her biological sex and gender that she felt even as a young child, but how she did not ‘officially’ start transitioning until her early twenties. once given a summary of madison’s progress up to the present of the film, we are aligned with her as she visits several family members for the first time since transitioning, including both parents and her brother and sister. these visits all go relatively well; while still demonstrating a few complications within her family in regards to the transition. the other primary voice in the film is of vivian, madison’s grandmother. we learn that madison left her rural new brunswick home to live with vivian in toronto when she was seventeen without much reason given for the move. vivian functions as madison’s main support through this transition, offering her advice on how to perform as a woman. i found vivian’s perspectives interesting because while she is entirely accepting of madison’s decision, her notions of gender are rigid. she obviously understands that gender is fluid but recognizes the importance of societal cues and expectations for gender. for example, she instructs madison in several scenes on proper behaviour for a woman; like when madison dives into her swimming pool, vivian tells her that ‘isn’t how a girl would dive’. she also gives Madison tips on hairstyling and makeup which seems to be what madison wants; to pass as a woman and be as unremarkable as possible. we witness madison going through hormone treatments, minor surgery to remove her adam’s apple, and the struggles of saving enough money to have the final gender reassignment surgery over the course of the three years that the film spans. during this time, before she’s had the final surgery, madison decides to pursue dating using the internet. dating pre-transition was an issue that i had personally never considered as part of the process. madison chooses not to state online that she is transitioning, but instead decides that if she meets a man who she could potentially be serious with, that she will tell him in person before it does get serious. we don’t see her dates but learn about them through madison’s brief descriptions to vivian; we learn that some were uneventful and she does end up telling a couple men about her transition and while they are both accepting of it, they choose not to continue seeing her. about half way through the transition process, madison and her best friend cameron begin dating which creates an interesting dynamic. a generous amount of time is paid to this relationship in the film; cameron identifies as a straight male and sees madison entirely as female even after being friends with matt for many years. madison makes clear that if she had any doubt that cameron might be gay, their relationship would not work. cameron and madison date for a couple of years before madison can afford the surgery and when she reaches that point, he travels to montreal with her for the surgery. we see post-surgery that madison is obviously happy and that their relationship is doing better given that they can finally have a sexual relationship as well as an emotional one. at the q&a, madison confirmed that they are still together and happy. i found their relationship one of the most interesting parts of the film as they both obviously needed to be completely secure in their own sexualities for the dynamic to work for them. madison also discusses what she describes as her own internalized homophobia being a struggle when deciding to transition and all the way through the process. as a boy, when she had feelings towards another male, she explained that she would repress them because she had internalized the idea that being gay was wrong. so the idea of self-hatred arises and gets complicated in this situation because as madison explains, she never felt like she was attracted to a man as a man, but as a woman. this situation helps to make obvious how psychologically damaging heteronormativity can be; that there are more people willing to acknowledge their gender dysphoria but that there still must be countless others who refuse to come to terms with it. while the film presented an overall positive conclusion, madison made clear at the q&a that this was only her story of transition, and not the exemplary model of a transsexual story. i think it was important that she spoke about the trans organizations in toronto to explain that more work towards understanding needs to be accomplished and how she has met many other people not as lucky as her.

hot docs: hell's grannies

jason gileno’s hells’s grannies was screened with girl inside as part of the canadian spectrum. hell’s grannies is a short documentary, following a group of elderly women who are lead by sybil rampen, 75 who decided as she got older to do something about the rut that often accompanies aging. they create a book of them posing with motorcycles and appear on tv shows. the documentary also follows their trip to port dover for the friday the 13^th biker gathering where they attempt to sell their book and see where they fit in the biker world. the grannies themselves were cute and the film had a positive message of not letting your age determine your behaviour, but overall i felt like it wasn’t very cohesive and after it was over, i was still unclear on whether the grannies actually rode motorcycles. during the q&a, this question was asked and apparently not all of the grannies ride. i got the impression that the film was edited quickly because some of the footage was from about two weeks earlier and would have benefited from more time and a lengthier running time.

hot docs: o amor natural

o amor natural, a brazilian film from 1996 by heddy honigmann, is a series of conversations with elderly brazilian people about the famous poet, carlos drummond de andrade. honigmann asks all those interviewed if they are familiar with his erotic poetry. this collection of poems, titled o amor natural, was published posthumously. andrade was concerned that the poems would be perceived as pornographic. honigmann asks these elderly people to read selected poems for the camera. most scenes of this contain a shot of the person reading a poem while the camera zooms in slowly on their faces. some of the people interviewed offer what they know about andrade, the person. most interesting to me was the man who made his hats; he shows us the two colours of hats that andrade preferred. while we never actually see andrade himself, we begin to create an image of him built from these anecdotes and the poems. several of the people interviewed speak about their own sexual history, providing a surprising look on elderly sexuality, a more or less ignored subject in this culture. as if to emphasize or draw attention to their age, honigmann includes footage of almost every participant commenting on needing their glasses to read the poems. the elderly come across as much less repressed than we often think through the relaxed way the interviewees discuss the poems and in turn, their own sexuality. we can see from the image built that andrade was equally as comfortable with his sexuality, yet due to a perceived sexual repression on the part of the public, his erotic poetry could not be published until after his death.

grindhouse

i saw grindhouse, the postmodern homage to the experience of 60s b-movies, about a week ago and am still excited about it. grindhouse consists of two feature length films, planet terror (directed by robert rodriguez) and death proof (directed by quentin tarantino) as well as four trailers for non-existent films. two of these trailers come before the first feature, machete (rodriguez) and don’t (edgar wright), and two come before the second feature, thanksgiving (eli roth), and werewolf women of the s.s. (rob zombie). taken all together, these films and trailers are meant to recreate the experience of visiting a seedy grind house theatre during the 60s were exploitation films heavy on sex and violence were screened. rodriguez’s planet terror does exactly this; the plot revolves around a highly contagious virus spreading through a town and creating zombie-like creatures, complete with disgusting bubbling goiters, and rose mcgowan with a machinegun leg. rodriguez captures the feeling of these films including using effects to make the film appear damaged and announcements and apologies for missing reels. while i found planet terror to be a lot of fun and probably a genuine facsimile of exploitation films, i felt that tarantino’s death proof was a far more interesting reinvention of the genre. death proof begins with a group of three girls going out to a bar in texas one night and meeting stuntman mike (kurt russell) who claims to have a car that is ‘death proof’, meaning you cannot be killed while in it, regardless of the damage inflicted. stuntman mike also meets pam (rose mcgowan again) and offers to give her a ride which is when we see him finally turn out to be the creep we can tell he is. after pam’s death, stuntman mikes goes after another group of four girls all working on a film set, and it feels as though an entirely new film is starting. the four girls have the day off and three of them end up taking an old and expensive car for a ‘test drive’ that involves their daredevil australian friend to ride on the hood while holding onto belts attached to the doors. stuntman mike finds them and tries to run them off the road; thus starting the longest and most intense roughly fifteen minute car chase that i was almost certain would end in a disgusting bloody mess, given all of grindhouse that I had seen up until this point. what does end up happening is a complete surprise within the context of the film but not so surprising when you realize tarantino is directing. the final scenes take the typical treatment of women within this genre, i.e. exploitative, and turn them on their head. the women are no longer frightened, nor do they allow themselves to be objectified or taken advantage of. they save themselves from stuntman mike and essentially end up kicking his ass. it only took about five minutes of death proof to realize that it was a quentin tarantino film, right down to the atmosphere and the dialogue-heavy script. i realize a lot of people criticize tarantino for his pretentiousness but i think it’s at least partly earned; he has enough knowledge and understanding of these genres to enable him to not just pay homage to them but to construct and completely re-imagine an exploitation film for an audience in 2007. i’ve been hearing lately that due to grindhouse’s poor performance at the box office, planet terror and death proof may be separated and sold as two different films, albeit in longer cuts of each. and while granted, i’d enjoy seeing longer versions of each, i think it would be counterproductive to the effect that rodriguez and tarantino were hoping to establish; that of a grind house double-bill, something that many of us have never had the opportunity to experience. i think this speaks to the complications in trying to recreate this genre inside a box-office driven multiplex, instead of the grind houses that would have screened them in the past. i think it’s clear that rodriguez and tarantino love and respect these exploitation films and wanted to bring the experience to a younger audience but it just doesn’t quite work within the current structure of north american cinemas.

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the namesake

the namesake was directed by mira nair (vanity fair, monsoon wedding). it is an adaptation from the novel by jhumpa lahiri, and follows the story of gogol, a young man born in america to indian immigrants. the film is essentially about leaving one’s homeland and assimilating in a new country with entirely different cultural codes and beliefs, all the while attempting to instill a sense of heritage into children born outside of this culture. i found that the film was effective at establishing how frightening and lonely it would be to leave home through the character of ashima, gogol’s mother. we are aligned with her as she enters into an arranged marriage with ashoke and he brings her to america where he is working on his phd. i was completely drawn into the first half of the film as it followed the story of gogol’s parents immigrating to america and establishing their life there. however, there is a noticeable shift when the alignment of the film switches to gogol (kal penn) and his difficulties being an indian american, desperate to discard his heritage and be just an american. we start with gogol at his highschool graduation where he is getting high with friends and then must go home to visit with family friends. we see him traveling between his two worlds and the familiarity with both, but we also see how he clearly resents his parents for expecting him to celebrate his indian heritage. this shift of identification in the film causes it to feel like a completely different genre. when we were with ashima, i felt like i was watching a carefully paced and executed indian film, and when we our brought forward to gogol’s teen years, i suddenly felt like i was watching a teen movie meant for kal penn’s harold and kumar fans. i found his character very annoying during this period of the film because we see him rejecting his parents over and over as they patiently try to explain to him about his culture. i think part of this frustration comes from the fact that we’ve been aligned with the parents up until this point and all of a sudden we are thrown an obnoxious teenager who wants nothing to do with them, but also from the fact that I don’t think kal penn is a great actor. i never really believed him as a teenager, nor was he convincing as he got older. i don’t think kal penn should be blamed entirely for this odd change in the mood of the film; it also felt like maybe the filmmakers needed to edit it quickly and tried to rush a lot of the second half of the film. there are several important plot points that get fast forwarded through and almost glazed over; whereas everything in the first half was given great attention. an example of this contrast would be when we first see ashima and ashoke, there is a scene where ashima is about to meet her soon-to-be husband and she is trying on his shoes in the hallway. there is so much time spent on watching her put these shoes on and model them as she considers what america will be like. conversely, in the second half we are shown gogol’s relationship with maxine (jacinda barrett), ashima’s death, the breakup of gogol and maxine, his subsequent relationship with moushumi (zuleikha robinson), her infidelity, their breakup, and the conclusion of the film. because of this rushed conclusion, i was taken out of the film and found it really hard to believe many of the characters’ actions.

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300

i saw 300 awhile back but luckily i don’t have much to say about it. 300 was directed by zack snyder and is the newest frank miller graphic novel adaptation. the film is based on the true battle of thermopylae and the 300 spartan soldiers who fought in it. this film has a similar aesthetic style to that of sin city, 2005’s frank miller adaptation. having read neither of the graphic novels upon which these films were based, i can’t really speak to the quality of the adaptations, but in terms of purely comparing the films, i enjoyed sin city more. while the visuals of 300 are impressive, i found myself a little bored part way through the film. the beginning of the film that builds towards the battle was interesting, but once at war, the film was somewhat tedious. the style of the battle scenes were all the same (regular speed, fast motion, slow motion, etc) which looked amazing but didn’t impress me as much once i’d already seen the techniques. the dialogue of the film is primarily meant to inspire the spartan soldiers, and us in turn, the audience. for the most part though, the script is cheesy, flat, and decidedly uninspiring; the same could have been true of sin city given that both have a graphic novel as source material but in my opinion, sin city was a much denser text. i think its safe to say that 300 is attempting to wow us with its visuals and violence and that the focus should not be so much on the narrative or the acting. but in retrospect i don’t find myself remembering the aesthetic as particularly exceptional, and therefore i feel like 300’s visuals failed to compensate for its lack of a strong story.

another aspect to the film i found interesting was the way it negotiates between being homophobic and homoerotic. as a film targeted primarily towards heterosexual males, there are surprisingly few females in it; only one in fact comes to mind, queen gorgo. not only are there very few women present, but the incredibly muscular, half-naked spartan soldiers who all live and fight together have clearly formed strong bonds amongst each other that leave open the possibilities for queer interpretations. these homoerotic overtones seem to be balanced by the homophobic treatment of the persian leader, xerxes (rodrigo santoro). xerxes, the spartans’ enemy is highly feminine and could potentially be sexually threatening, and thus the film demonizes him by implicating the villain as queer. the homoerotic nature of the spartan soldiers relations are a threat to masculinity within this testosterone-heavy film and therefore xerxes is villianized to ease these anxieties and reinforce the heterosexuality of the soldiers. granted, all this comes with the comic book territory and fanboy culture but i still hoped for less adherence to this gendered structure.

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black snake moan

black snake moan, the new film from craig brewer (hustle & flow), feels like a pulpy, almost-exploitation film, with a budget. however, it emphasizes the importance of human connection and the possibilities for salvation. the film begins with rae (christina ricci) and ronnie (justin timberlake) spending their last moments together before ronnie leaves for military training. it is hinted at briefly in this scene that ronnie has some sort of anxiety issues and that rae seems to calm him. once ronnie leaves, we see that rae has issues of her own; being that she is essentially a nymphomaniac, and without ronnie there, she sleeps with several different men and abuses drugs and alcohol, seemingly to deal with the fact that she misses him so much. simultaneously, we are shown lazarus (samuel l. jackson), a man who’s wife is leaving him for his brother. both his wife and brother attempt to make peace with him but being a strongly religious man, lazarus will not accept their apologies for their adultery. cross cutting between scenes, we watch lazarus get drunk at home and throw out much of his wife’s belongings and rae attends a party where she ends up taking too many drugs and drinking too much. after the party, rae is beaten and left in the middle of the road near lazarus’ house and he finds her the next morning. wanting only to help her, lazarus takes rae in to let her sleep and sober up. she remains for a few days and wakes up to find that she’s been chained to the radiator because, as lazarus explains, she’s been having fever-induced dreams that cause her to run around the fields surrounding his home. but his intentions are also to cure rae of her “evil ways”. the relationship is tense at first as rae is held against her will but eventually the two develop a friendship of dependency, as both are in need of companionship and help. we see rae’s flashbacks of abuse from her childhood and her angry interactions with her mother who works at a store in town. blues music plays an important role in the film; lazarus used to play guitar and sing at a local bar and rae finds it soothing when she plays for him. when ronnie returns, he finds out that rae had been sleeping with other men and when he finds her and lazarus together, he assumes that they are involved sexually. once all is made clear, rae and ronnie realize that they need each other to stay sane and healthy. the plot, which sounds odd whenever i explain it, actually worked for me inside the aesthetic of the film and the soundtrack. i found that even the opening credits won me over by being, for lack of a better word, cool. the acting was strong by all the main characters, particularly ricci, who does white trash really effectively. i’d also heard criticism that this film was misogynist, but i think that would be an over simplification of brewer’s images in the film. granted, ricci spends most of the film in short shorts and a cut off shirt, but i didn’t feel that he was trying to objectify her character; we are aligned with lazarus and he doesn’t look at rae with sexual intentions. nor do i think that just because brewer has a woman chained to a radiator in his film, that this would indicate that he hates women. if we were to subscribe to this reductive logic of filmmaking, we’d be forced to reexamine many films that have dealt with sexism, racism, homophobia, etc. i thought brewer used all of these components to give the film a particular mood and aesthetic that is constant throughout.

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little children

****spoiler warning***** (there's a lot of plot description and i give away SOME stuff that happens at the end so proceed with caution...)

little children is the new film from todd field (in the bedroom) and i recently saw it for a second time. the first time i saw it, i wasn’t exactly sure what made me like it so much so now i’m attempting to figure that out. i think it has to do with field’s structuring and pacing of the film and the treatment of the subject matter. little children was adapted from a novel by tom perrotta and he worked on the screenplay with field. the narration in the film makes it feel very much like a novel as the narrator usually expresses inner thoughts of the main characters. the film begins with sarah (kate winslett) at the playground with her daughter and three other women who also have children there. it appears that the film might be a satire of suburban life as we witness sarah’s outsider perspective to the organized, strict, routines of the other moms. the narrator tells us that sarah wants to view these women anthropologically, and we are shown that she does not fit in when she forgets her daughters snack. the leader of the moms, mary ann (mary mccann) looks on condescendingly as she offers sarah tips on how to be better prepared for the day. at this point, brad (patrick wilson) enters the playground with his son and the women tell sarah about the ‘prom king’ as they refer to him, the very attractive stay-at-home father who makes them slightly uncomfortable. the women see brad at the playground every day that week and when sarah’s daughter and brad’s son end up on the same swingset, they finally meet. intercut with the playground scenes, are some news footage about a pedophile who has been released from jail to return to live in the neighbourhood; the man had been in jail for indecent exposure to a minor. the mothers at the playground are quick to condemn this man and there is a suggestion more than once in this film that “they should just castrate him”. brad and sarah end up spending most days of the summer together with their children, at the pool and eventually they begin an affair together. sarah’s much older husband is shown to have a porn addiction and brad feels inferior to his wife, kathy (jennifer connelly) although neither is shown as having a particularly bad home life. the affair seems to come out of their mutual dissatisfaction with their current states; sarah never finished her phd, and brad has failed the bar twice since finishing law school. they are both highly educated stay-at-home parents who have plateaued in their lives. i think we are meant to see them both yearning for passion in their lives and this causes them to regress to an adolescent state. i kept noticing that sarah and brad were acting very much like young adults; sarah comes to brad’s football game and cheers enthusiastically, brad becomes obsessed with the skateboarders, and their children become almost secondary thoughts for them; more like a mutual interest that provides the excuse for them to be together. i noticed this with sarah most when she takes her daughter swimming for the first time and tells her to just pee in the pool so that she won’t have to interrupt her flirtation with brad. along with this affair, both sarah and brad become more socially involved with other friends and clubs. sarah joins a bookclub with her workout friend and brad joins a night football team with larry, an old acquaintance. sarah’s interpretation of madame bovary makes clear her motivations for the affair, as well as confirms mary ann’s suspicions about her and brad. i believe larry and mary ann are counterparts who each represent the group mentality and panic surrounding ronnie (jackie earle haley), the pedophile. they are both the characters who suggest that he should be castrated, as if this would be a final solution to the problem. similarly, sarah and brad are deluded in thinking that their relationship would solve their mutual dissatisfaction in life. as we see in one of the final scenes, as brad and sarah are planning to run away together, ronnie takes the castration suggestion literally and this is what wakes sarah up to her delusions (she misplaces her daughter while talking to ronnie). i think brad recognizes his mistake when he attempts to skateboard and ends up unconscious, proving to himself that he is no longer a young man without responsibility. ironically, ronnie and his mother are the most self-aware characters and yet they cause the most anxiety to the neighbourhood. ronnie’s mother loves him unconditionally, and only wishes he could be happy. ronnie himself says to his mother that he has a psycho-sexual disorder, and in this scene we are shown that he recognizes and owns up to his problems. it is through ronnie that sarah, brad, and even larry eventually come to terms with their own. i think also by seeing how public ronnie’s indiscretions are, brad and sarah fear the same kind of shaming that ronnie consistently endures should their affair continue and be brought to light.

ps - i realize there's a lot going on in this movie that i didn't really touch on...so i'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the other stuff too.


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this film is not yet rated

this film is not yet rated is a documentary made by kirby dick (twist of faith) who wishes to expose the processes by which the mpaa (motion picture association of america) assigns ratings to films. the purpose of the mpaa is to be a board of parents who decide how appropriate a film is for a particular age demographic; basically policing what children should and should not be able to see. yes, they’re doing it for the kids. apparently the mpaa’s practices have long been contested, in large part due to the fact that the identities of the raters on the board are kept secret. the official reason for the secrecy is to protect the raters from outside influence. as dick points out, since the mpaa is owned and run by the major hollywood studios, the raters are actually most susceptible to the influence of these studios. these 5 major studios and the other media conglomerates have a monopoly of around 90% control over all media viewed in the united states, thus explaining why it is nearly impossible for independent films to get distribution or an audience. the film explains how the highest possible rating a film can get is an nc-17 meaning that no children under the age of 17 are to be admitted. this is essentially a death-wish for filmmakers because it means they will have great difficulty advertising and a large part of the population will be unable to see their film in theatres. dick uses interviews with several filmmakers like kimberly pierce (boys don’t cry), kevin smith (jersey girl), atom egoyan (where the truth lies), john waters (a dirty shame), and matt stone (team america: world police) who have all received an nc-17 rating and dealt with the mpaa and their appeals process. all of these films received the rating for sexual content, while films with gratuitous violence tend to be given the tamer r-rating. this double standard is indicative of deeper social values and the taboo placed upon sex in this culture. similarly, films portraying queer sexual content seem to get stronger ratings than straight sexed ones. and beyond this, scenes of female sexuality are more restricted than scenes of male sexuality. the bottom line to this is that there are no definitive standards that each film is held up to; the rating process is relatively arbitrary. this point is demonstrated when during the appeals process, filmmakers are not allowed to cite precedent using other films as examples. in terms of aesthetic, this documentary is fairly standard; a mixture of talking heads, interviews, archival footage, statistics flashing on screen, and the footage of what is essentially dick and his private eye stalking the raters. dick hires this private eye (becky altringer) to help him identify all of the people on the ratings board. becky’s own personal narrative factors in to the film as she is, although it is never blatantly said, a lesbian living with her “best friend” cheryl and raising their children together. i thought this real narrative worked well when combined with interviews with queer filmmakers, such as jamie babbit (but i’m a cheerleader). babbit disagrees with the way the mpaa purports to be a group of average parents looking to protect children from films that are unsuitable for them. babbit herself is a mother and a lesbian and calls into question what the “average” american parent is. and unsurprisingly, one former member of the mpaa admits that there were no openly gay or lesbian raters when he was on the board. i thought this documentary was effective because dick went beyond the showcasing of several condemning facts about the mpaa, to actually identifying all of the current raters as well as their demographics, like the ages of their children. and I recently heard that the mpaa is changing some of their policies, to make available the demographics of the raters (although not their identities) and to allow filmmakers to cite precedent in the appeals process. it was speculated that this is due to this documentary’s fast-approaching release on dvd (february 6), and the expected impact of it.

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notes on a scandal

notes on a scandal is a delight. this film was adapted for the screen by patrick marber (writer of closer) from zoe heller’s novel. we view the film from barbara (judi dench)’s point of view with her voice-over, which is taken from the diaries she keeps throughout the film. barbara is a history teacher one year away from retirement when sheba (cate blanchett) starts working as an art teacher at the school. barbara quickly takes a liking to sheba, which we discover is more like an obsession; and not the first of its kind. the two women become friends and sheba invites barbara to her home frequently as well as other social gatherings. for about the first half of the film, we are aligned with barbara and therefore find out along with her that sheba has been pursued by one of her 15-year old male students and they have developed a sexual relationship. instead of turning sheba in, barbara agrees to keep the secret if she ends the relationship. i don’t want to give away much more of the plot because this film is fun to discover. essentially, barbara believes that sheba wants out of her marriage to her older husband and away from her two children and sees this as her way to win sheba for herself. what i found most interesting was the way the film dealt with predatory sexuality in more than just the illegal relationship sheba has with her student. this relationship is the most obvious example of predatory sexuality, but sheba is a participant in three separate relations with people who are significantly older or younger than she is. first, sheba’s husband, richard (bill nighy) is visibly older than sheba and we learn that he is a professor, this is his second marriage and that he met sheba when she was twenty and one of his students. and I think it’s assumed that he left his first wife for sheba when he was about twice her age. second, barbara is significantly older than sheba and while her interest in her is somewhat ambiguous, we are to assume she is hoping for a more intimate relationship. and thirdly, sheba’s sexual relationship with steven, her student, who is only a teenager. a story about a teacher engaging in relationships with students is something we hear about frequently in the news, yet i believe this film takes a different approach to its judgment of sheba for this act. we all have our own morals surrounding the appropriate differences (age, race, gender, etc) involved in sexual relations, and this film does not steer us towards any particular judgments. the way in which the film situates sheba as the common person in all three relationships seems to suggest that if we are quick to judge any one of the relationships as immoral, we should consider how similar all three are. there is a scene between sheba and her husband that i think best articulates this notion. once he has found out about her affair with steven, he asks her if she thinks she’s the only person who’s ever wanted someone younger, and references his own attraction to her. they discuss how she was only twenty when they met and how steven is almost sixteen now, and the fact that they are both student/teacher relationships. i didn’t view sheba as a pedophile (and i don’t think the film wants you to see her that way either), but more as a woman who ended up in a situation that quickly escalated beyond the point that it could be considered innocent. in the same way that it would be an oversimplification to label sheba a pedophile, we cannot just call barbara a lesbian with an unrequited crush. she never once refers to herself as a lesbian (even when her sister and other family members suggest it) and frames her desired relationship with sheba as a friendship. i never got the impression that barbara had even been a part of any lesbian relationships in the past; only a series of obsessions with women she couldn’t have. i think it is barbara’s deluded perspective and manipulative actions that we are meant to view as inappropriate in this film. i am impressed with the way notes on a scandal handles this topical subject matter from an open-minded perspective and without any arbitrary oprah-like judgments.

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pan's labyrinth

guillermo del toro's (hellboy, blade II) latest film, pan’s labyrinth, is set during the spanish civil war and depicts the battle between resistance fighters and the oppressive rule of franco’s spain, entangled with a young girl’s fantasy world. the girl, ofelia (ivana baquero) is the daughter of a woman who is carrying captain vidal’s (sergi lopez) son, and ofelia’s real father is now dead. ofelia and her mother travel to captain vidal’s camp so that her mother can give birth, and we are immediately shown what an awful man captain vidal is, particularly to ofelia. when left on her own, ofelia’s imagination (or is it?!) runs wild as she lives out the kind of stories we see her read about in her fairytales. one of the servants at captain vidal’s headquarters, mercedes (maribel verdu, y tu mama tambien) shows ofelia the garden/labyrinth she returns to and where most of the fantasy sequences occur. throughout the film, ofelia’s mother tells her that she may be getting too old for the fairytales she enjoys and when her mother becomes very angry with her, informs her that magic does not exist. however, magic acts as ofelia’s way of understanding the ‘real’ world of spain in 1944. and we are never lead to believe that this magical fantasy world is disconnected or solely in ofelia’s mind. one scene in particular where this is demonstrated is when captain vidal finds the root monster under ofelia’s mother’s bed. ofelia has been instructed by a fantasy creature to put it there because it will make her mother better. when captain vidal finds it, he is furious but ofelia’s mother insists on dealing with the situation. she ends up throwing the root into the fire, and immediately afterward, becomes ill. the film sets up a dichotomy between those who blindly follow rules (captain vidal and his army) and those who think for themselves (the resistance fighters, ofelia, etc), good and evil, love and hate, and other binaries that structure many children’s tales. by setting this against an historical event, and seamlessly wandering between the two worlds, del toro seems to suggest that children have the clearest perspective on the world and that perhaps their simplistic view of things is a lens more adults should adopt. ofelia is challenged in both worlds to make choices that will inevitably have a larger impact. she makes both right and wrong decisions and learns from them, something captain vidal never seems be capable of. the typical tropes of fairytales are employed in this violent, historically informed, and decidedly adult film to refreshing ends, while maintaining its integrity as a moral tale. as a note of warning, this film is violent, gory, and intense; therefore making it a fairytale not suitable for children. (i was covering my eyes more than once throughout). as for the aesthetic, the cgi in this film is fairly flawless. clearly realism is not a concern in the fantasy sequences, but i was completely drawn into the world of fairies, fauns, and various monsters because of the wholeness of the fantasy del toro and his team construct. the fantasy was as consistent as the reality; something i feel is important given the film requires a belief in the two respective worlds and their interconnectivity. i definitely recommend this film.

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alpha dog

well, luckily I didn’t have high expectations for this one…because it more than lived up to them. i don’t have a whole lot to say about this. alpha dog is based on the real story of the murder of a 15 year old boy named zack muzursky. directed by nick cassavetes (the notebook), this film follows several teenagers/young 20-somethings through an escalating war between johnny truelove and jake muzursky. johnny and his friends kidnap zack (johnny’s brother) on a whim and believe they will hold him hostage until jake pays back the money he owes to johnny, without truly realizing the consequences of this. we watch as justin timberlake’s “frankie” watches over zack, and slowly befriends him, and the upsetting/cheesy conclusion of this whole situation. however, most of the film is devoted to glorifying the kids’ drug-dealing, gang-fighting, partying lifestyle. the only benefit to this is watching karen from mean girls hit a bong. i’ve never seen so much weed-smoking in one film. of course, we can’t have impressionable kids leaving a film thinking this lifestyle is something to strive for…so there’s a murder and we get post-script text letting the audience know the consequences for everyone involved. cliché much? the real murder this is based on happened in 1999, so one could argue that it was “too soon”, but that wasn’t my problem with this film. i took issue with how trivialized and stylized it all was. the actors are all young, pretty, mediocre celebrities, meant to appeal to a teen market. and even the big guns like sharon stone and bruce willis aren’t that impressive. i thought sharon stone was just bad, particularly in the scenes where she is being interviewed several years after the murder. there were even laughably bad parts, such as when ben foster (jake) is looking for johnny once his brother has been kidnapped. foster enters a party and proceeds kung-fu style to beat up all the people who approach him physically. and I was not the only one laughing. it’s an interesting story, and i’d like to know the original now that i’ve seen the film but i found it easy to forget that it wasn’t fiction. alpha dog felt like a heavy-handed fable about why you shouldn’t be a rich, spoiled, white kid pretending to be a gangster. ok, i think i’ve said enough about the cons. so, the pros: a tattooed justin timberlake.

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