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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bobby

i saw this one awhile after it was released but nonetheless, here it is...

bobby tells multiple interconnecting stories all occurring on the last day of robert kennedy’s life before being assassinated at the ambassador hotel in 1968. emilio estevez directs and stars as part of the huge ensemble cast. estevez has cast over twenty famous actors, both young and old for this film and I think that stands as the most impressive thing about it. he effectively weaves all the characters stories together but does not establish most of them with much depth. there were several stories that felt tacked on and somewhat inconsequential in comparison with other narratives. while this multiple-stories-in-one-movie thing was interesting and innovative, it has now become clichéd. and considering the thematic concerns of race being tackled amongst the kitchen staff in bobby, it began to feel like i was watching crash all over. this is one of those films where there is no guessing what emotion you are supposed to be feeling at any given moment. the soundtrack is constantly present guiding you through the emotional spectrum, in addition to the often heavy-handed dialogue about tolerance and understanding. no characters are without fault or flaws, but we are made very aware of how we should feel about the characters, no matter how morally ambiguous estevez would have us believe they are. not to say that the actors are to blame; there are many good performances in the film, particularly by sharon stone, shia labeouf, helen hunt, and laurence fishburne, to list a few who come to mind. i just think it’s a shame that the collective talents of all these actors be put to use on a film that to me, was only mediocre. i did find it interesting because i personally knew very little about bobby kennedy and this film combined archival footage with the fictional film to give more realism to the story. i didn’t think this film left much room for different interpretations, as the plot was explicit and left very little room for ambiguity. to sum up, even though it sounds like i didn’t like bobby, i did…i just thought there was potential for a lot more to be done with the story and the cast involved.

trailer