So I’m sure you’ve heard the news by now: Anne Hathaway will be playing Selina Kyle in ‘The Dark Knight Rises.’
Of course the internet and many armchair critics shit their collective panties over this, but we were also concerned about the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker, and we all know how that turned out.
Here’s why I am fully prepared to see her appear in the film, and have it be another perfect casting move:
"Bette Davis Eyes. I has Them."
This is the movie she was nominated for an Academy Award for–an arthouse film by Jonathan Demme that sort of slipped through the cracks. Or maybe it didn’t. 2008 is kind of a blur to me.
It’s about a young woman who is given a brief pass from her rehab program in order to attend the wedding of her sister.
I have to be honest; I started watching it, but it was so heart-rending that I stopped about 20 minutes in. I’m going back to finish it some day, but at the time it hit way, way close to home for me.
Anyhoodle, this film and others are more than enough to convince people she has the acting chops to play Selina Kyle.
But Catwoman?
Here’s the thing: when Christian Bale was cast in Batman Begins, he was cast as ‘Bruce Wayne’ and not ‘Bruce Wayne/Batman,’ likewise for everyone else, except The Joker, who had no other name.
I’m not going to guess how they’ll present Catwoman, if they do at all; Nolan doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to strong female characters, and it was discussed on another well-read blog that I’m too tired to find the link to. I don’t know if I’d want to see her as the usual ‘jewel thief’ character she tends to be; they might take a lot of inspiration for her from the ‘Hush’ storyline, so that’s a possibility.
So that’s just my two cents on the Anne Hathaway casting. I haven’t even wrapped my mind around the casting of Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. However it turns out, it’ll be awesome, I know that much.
Below, which opened in like, no theaters in 2002, was written by Darren Aronofsky and directed by David Twohy, so its pedigree is pretty well established just from their involvement. The characterizations are spot on, the writing snappy, and the situations introduced nothing short of terrifying, on a conceptual level.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
A few years ago, an English friend and I were exchanging comments on my personal blog about something or other when he brought up an interesting point: if you watch American films about World War 2, you’d think the US won the war single-handedly.
Which means when you say ‘World War’ it sounds kind of like the US was up against the rest of Earth. It sounds that way if you watch The History Channel, if you talk to a Greatest Generationer, or to my dad.
Below, a horror movie taking place on an American U-boat, presents a more ecumenical grasp of the US’s involvement in the war, while delivering some pretty decent scares along the way.
The film begins with a group of shipwreck survivors floating in a rubber raft; a small plane flies over, but the plane is low on fuel and can’t stop to pick them up. The plane relays the raft’s location to an American Uboat crew on patrol nearby, who immediately change course, though they are hesitant because of the presence of Germans nearby.
The survivors were aboard a British hospital ship torpedoed by a German sub, and are the only ones alive of the 300 or so medical staff and patients. Olivia Williams , best known for her role in Rushmore and Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse TV series, plays Claire, one of the survivors, and the fact that there is now a woman on board complicates an already complicated situation.
Now in the film there comes a narrative shift–we come into the movie thinking our protagonist is Odell, the sharp young officer who can recite the submariner’s motto in Latin or perhaps Captian Brice, a career Navy man played aptly by Bruce Greenwood. An ugly incident concerning the third survivor of the British shipwreck and Captain Brice leads Claire to realize that Brice is only ‘acting’ Captain, filling in for Captain Winters, whose mysterious death Claire sets out to investigate once things begin going hinky on the sub.
And let me say, a WW2 sub is no place for things to go hinky. Not at all.
Besides being a decent murder mystery and atmospheric horror, the sub itself triggers a very special form of claustrophobia–fear of being trapped in a small space where one will run out of oxygen and die. Everything is horribly, horribly analogue, reflecting the reality of the very slim margin of error on board a Uboat. Especially since the survival of the crew hinges on someone understanding the importance of Checking Their Work and remembering to Carry The Goddamn One. To wit: Not only did a crew have to keep track of their own movements to know where the hell they were, they had to keep track of enemy Uboats in order to be able to guess where the latter were so they didn’t just blunder across each other’s path. And they did anyway, since all the Germans had to do to screw up one’s plans was slightly change course.
Plus, if your engine doesn’t run smoothly you may wind up a adrift a few hundred feet below the surface, with no way to get back up. You could try and go out the hatch, and die in the first few seconds from either drowning or hypothermia. Plus there’s no way you can hold your breath long enough to swim the 600 feet. Plus you might get the bends, unless that’s only for scuba divers. Plus there are eight hundred billion other things that can go wrong so it’s a wonder any submarine crews survived the war, at least according to my own semi-hysterical calculations. And that’s just what can happen WITHOUT running into the enemy!
"What do you mean, 'forgot to carry the one?' DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT GERMAN WATER LOOKS LIKE AS OPPOSED TO ENGLISH?"
The rest of the cast is comprised of capable character actors–some of which are playing against type with pretty interesting results. Nick Chinlund, who usually plays sleazebags, is the tough and reliable Engineering Chief, Zach Galifiniakis plays a nerd fascinated with ghosts and the supernatural who reads his ‘Tales from the Vault’ type comics to the rest of the crew as entertainment, and Holt McCallany, best known from his small role in Fight Club or Alien 3, plays man’s man and yoyo enthusiast Loomis, an alpha consigned to beta status. Jason Flemyng, from approximately any English movie with special effects or action scenes, puts in a memorable turn as Stumbo, a scumbaggy fellow with a penchant for tasteless jokes involving dead bodies.
Below, which opened in like, no theaters in 2002, was written by Darren Aronofsky and directed by David Twohy, so its pedigree is pretty well established just from their involvement. The characterizations are spot on, the writing snappy, and the situations introduced nothing short of terrifying, on a conceptual level.
This is definitely one to add to your Instant Watch queue, a great film for a dinner party or date night. I can’t recommend it highly enough!
I cannot count the cinema essays and articles I’ve read over the years where some critic lists scenes in movies that first introduced him to the concept, ‘Whoa! Girls and Boys have DIFFERENT PARTS!’
If I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard Phoebe Cates’s red bathing suit scene mentioned, I’d be dictating this entry to my houseboy ‘Ceviche’ while we lounged poolside somewhere decorous and decadent.
I cannot count the cinema essays and articles I’ve read over the years where some critic lists scenes in movies that first introduced him to the concept, ‘Whoa! Girls and Boys have DIFFERENT PARTS!’
If I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard Phoebe Cates’s red bathing suit scene mentioned, I’d be dictating this entry to my houseboy ‘Ceviche’ while we lounged poolside somewhere decorous and decadent.
If this doesn't drum up traffic I don't know what will. Except porn.
There are others, usually somewhat unique to the critic; mentions are made of Marilyn Monroe’s famous subway grating scene, Raquel Welch’s furry underpants, Sophia Loren, Bridgette Bardot; the list goes on and on into the ‘sirens’ of today, none of which are coming to mind.
I remember in elementary school my good friend Eddie waxed rhapsodic about the tassle scene at the end of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark; we swore a pact that if I sprouted boobs like hers I would practice spinning tassles off them, and one day find him and show him. Alas, I sprouted no such thing(s). I’m sorry I let you down Eddie–it’s my life’s great failure.
Anyhow, I was reading one of the inestimable Todd Alcott’s film reviews when I saw he’d chosen to review ‘Labyrinth.’ But Nowhere in his review did he mention how David Bowie’s tights-swathed area ignited a fascination in millions of young girls, sending them toddling down the road to puberty, or how Jereth’s entreaty for Sarah to love him by obeying him was the hardest task for her to face in the whole story–after all, physical dangers are often easy to identify. It’s the emotional pitfalls that are hardest to escape from.
So! In the interest of exploring new territory, I bring you the subject of this entry, and encourage you, the reader, whatever gender you are and however you are oriented, to share your own stories in the comments below: A Girl’s Guide to Sexual Awakening in Film.
1. Labyrinth – Men Can Also Be Objectified.
Ken’s parts were different that Barbie’s. That much I was clear on.
The Man, The Legend, The Peen
But how they differed was not readily evident, not even in the art books I was exposed to as a child. What wasn’t carefully covered by a fig leaf was pretty weird looking, and it was hard to believe such a fuss in our culture was made over covering the equivalent of a garden slug.
And well–just LOOK at our boy there. Not very inspiring, in the crotchal region. And of course that was intentional on the part of Michelangelo, but still. You hear a line in an action movie where someone says something about a ‘huge dick’ and that is your frame of reference.
There’s also the fact that for a few years in the 80’s, it was acceptable to show naked women in PG-rated movies. Sheena, Clash of the Titans..others that aren’t coming to mind. Anyway, I waited patiently to see naked men, thinking it was only fair–to no avail.
Enter a little movie about a sparkly, fancy-pants magic man who wants a girlfriend he can boss around.
This picture is worth lots and lots of words. LOOOOTS of words.
What really cemented my fascination with the movie was the fact that OTHER girls were fascinated, too.
What was IN there? WHAT?
We speculated, joked, stuffed our pajama bottoms with pillows and danced around. But our questions weren’t answered until much later in life, usually in sweaty and breathless encounters with people as terrified (or drunk) as we were.
But the magic of those pants and their mysterious contents lives on, both in the silly, girlish thrill I get watching Bowie dance and in the hundreds of thousands of websites, artwork, and articles dedicated to them. Articles like this one right here.
Objectification holds within it certain flaws; after all, turning a person into an object removes responsibility from the viewer for the object’s feelings, motivations, and any dissenting opinions they might have. It removes the object from being ‘The Other’ and makes being attracted to them simpler, and without emotional risk to the viewer. In short, you don’t have to care about them.
Since Jereth is the film’s villain (and I’m not confusing him with, you know, a real person) I feel quite okay objectifying him. I objectify the HELL out of him, in fact.
2. Conan the Destroyer – Girls can chase boys!
When asked by a young naive girl what Zula, played by Grace Jones, would do if she were attracted to someone, Zula responds ‘Grab him, and take him.’
When I was little, for a time, I wanted to be Grace Jones when I grew up.
This was MAGNIFICENT when I heard it.
I had been taught by movies, cartoons and books that boys went after ‘ladies,’ that they came to your house with chocolates, flowers, and awkwardness. You played hard to get, you pretended you weren’t interested, you spent your life waiting by the phone for boys to call.
We all know now what bullshit that is. I have been approached by men a handful of times, and each relationship I’ve had began by my showing interest in someone and pursuing them, not the other way around. Given my poor track record for social interactions and tendency towards bluntness, chasing the boys was pretty much my only option. And they ran, believe me. They ran like hell.
But for every ten or twenty who hauled ass, at least one was into that. Men (at least the men I tend to hang with or date ) are HUMAN, which means they are not above wanting emotional validation, and not above wanting to feel special, sometimes even feel pursued. These men, at least I’ve found, are often the ones who are much more secure emotionally, are are less likely to pull bullshit mindgames or marginalize their significant other. And they don’t want it done to them, either.
So I’d like to thank Grace Jones for her portrayal of strong, confident Zula, even if she was a little crazy. The rest of the United States might be thanking her for single-handedly introducing ecstasy to the New York club scene in the 80’s, but I’m glad she showed tomgirls (and anyone, really) how to really go after what you want.
3. The Breakfast Club – People Do Stupid Things To Impress Other People
John Bender. My god, that would have been my ultimate man right there when I was in college. Brash, arrogant, dark eyed, floppy-haired, he had it all.
He was also monstrously immature and at heart a frightened child, which would have been tailor-made for me and all my unarticulated neuroses 0f the time.
It was a simpler time, then.
But growing up and leaving behind a fascination with ‘bad boys’ is why I’m where I am today, and not on my third divorce or struggling with a serious habit instead of just being an unemployed drunk. Lesser of two evils, believe me.
Anyhoodle, there are multiple scenes in the film illustrating Bender’s attempts to impress ‘Princess’ Claire; in several conversations, after Claire has made some kind of declaration towards one thing or other (it’s okay if a guy’s a virgin, sex with someone you love is okay), the camera cuts to a quick reaction shot from Bender, showing how he is processing this new fact and how he will probably try to use it to his advantage–or against Claire when he decides to lash out at her, as he is prone to doing. Bender is a criminal, but he’s also, like most people his age, deeply invested in other people’s image of him, and manipulating that image is a full-time job. He shows off by mouthing off to the principal and to Andrew, the Wrestler, and bullying Brian the Brain until he notices she isn’t impressed by that.
Also, I’d like to submit the scene later in the film where Claire has snuck into the closet to see him as exceptionally hot. When she leans forward and kisses him on the neck, it’s a special moment–there’s a smash cut to the scene, and you can tell from the way they’re sitting it’s obvious that Bender was probably saying something ridiculous and posturing to impress her, and was caught off guard by the move. I love that scene, because it acknowledges that yes, women can be sexually assertive and the world won’t burn down, and also that deep down Bender has been wanting to be pursued– just a little.
So, thus armed with my iconoclastic notions of romance, I sallied forth and probably wreaked unspeakable harm on the boys I chased. I left roses on their desks (I still cringe at that one), wrote them inane notes, catered to their egos, even gave them presents. I can’t even imagine how embarrassing it must have been for them, especially the ones I fixated on for more than a few days.
Sorry guys, but hey, we all had crap to work out back in the day. But if the worst thing that happened to them in middle school was being treated to cookies or handed a flower by The Weird Girl, then that’s not too terrible a thing. Maybe a few of my ‘victims’ even look back fondly on those days
When I saw the box cover in our Instant Watch queue I thought from it’s Tom Of Finland look that it was a gay documentary of some kind, and wondered if my boyfriend had put it in the queue for me, as he sometimes does.
Man, I was really, really wrong.
Midway through Inception I finally realized why the actor playing Eames was familiar–it was Tom Hardy, who I’d seen a few months before in the brutal, brutish and brilliant documentary Bronson. I just didn’t recognize him because he was urbane, dressed and not covered in mud and policemen!
Who wants a terrifying mustache ride?
Bronson is the stylized biography of English career criminal and ‘most violent man in England’ Charlie Bronson, who changed his name at an early age when he decided he wanted to be famous (but didn’t know for what).
When I saw the box cover in our Instant Watch queue I thought from it’s Tom Of Finland look that it was a gay documentary of some kind, and wondered if my boyfriend had put it in the queue for me, as he sometimes does.
Man, I was really, really wrong.
Bronson is still a marvelous film–just not the one I thought I was watching.
It’s genius lies in the fact that you realize early on that you are being charmed by a sociopath–what it took the Sopranos almost three seasons to address, Bronson manages to explore in about 2 hours. It shows Bronson the man as a stifled artist, a man with a rich inner life but no tools to express that other than violence. Violence became his art, and we the audience have a duty to remember that no matter how he convinces us to cry, how he charms us or shows us he just wants to be understood, he is still a dangerous animal.
Do Not Trust This Man.
And the engine powering this complex, manipulative machine is actor Tom Hardy.
Many biopics seek to paint a picture of their subjects not quite aligned with reality. They often overplay their sympathy–especially in the case of serial killers or psychopaths–while leaving out the inhuman cruelty such a person visits on their victims. No matter how ugly the portrait of a disturbed artist is, it is still attempting to humanize the subject enough for the audience to empathize with their plight. After all, who wants to sit and have their stomach turned for 2 hours by how revolting a human being can actually be?
Which is where we come back to Tom Hardy. His witty, sometimes funny portrayal of Bronson charms and entertains us, but never lets us forget that we are not to trust him, never to think that he’s ‘safe.’ He has depth, certainly, and there is something heartbreaking in watching someone who might have been a great artist founder on the tides of his own passions–but you must never, ever turn your back on him. Not for a moment.
Remember to brush your teeth, because this picture is just candy. Plain and Simple.
(BTW, I’m not dissing Hardy’s appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis–it’s just I saw that when it came out, it’s not on Instant that I know of, and as a vehicle for Hardy’s acting talents it wasn’t that engrossing.)
Bronson is not a movie for everyone, but now that you’ve read a little about it (and perhaps will watch the trailer) you will appreciate what a marvelous range Tom Hardy has.
I point that out not because I am creepily fangirling him, but because MOST actors have a range they never get to explore, because they are typecast from the start. Although his depiction of Eames was spot-on, it is not the limits of his ability and I hope filmmakers in the future remember that.
“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, Darling.’ – Eames
Logic has no place here. The film staggers to its conclusion less like a picturesque and drunken Irish poet than a paralytic hobo whose palsied fingers can barely hold onto his bottle of methyl alcohol.
I like a bad movie every once in a while.
There was a time when I spent a lot, a LOT of time on bad movies. Then I realized that my time on earth is finite, and that I’d rather fill that time with earnest films made by talented and creative directors than with films whose own makers were either slumming geniuses or complete whackos.
That said, I still like a bad movie once in a while.
The Room came at me sideways like a crack addict waving around the razor-sharp skeleton of a dead large-mouthed bass.
There was no way to see this coming. No warning, no review has yet captured exactly how execrable this film is. Nostradamus might’ve seen it coming, but he would have written it down as some vague ‘and there will come a stringy man of taut thews and stygian hair who is either madman or genius, who shall entertain and terrify in the same fell swoop. And that man shall not speak truths but mumbles.’ That could refer to any number of filmmakers. Hell, that could be Joaquin Phoenix’s recent dabblings with madness.
Yup. That's about it.
Anyhoo, I’d heard a few things about ‘The Room’ and when a friend invited us over to watch, I went willingly. For some reason I thought it was a horror movie.
I wasn’t completely wrong.
‘The Room’ is the story of Johnny (Tommy Wiseau, who is also writer, director, and executive producer), a man who loves his fiancee Lisa, has a job where he makes good money, and seems to be the risen messiah in every other aspect of his life. He ‘rescued’ a troubled youth and is sending him to college, no one can shut up about how great he is, and the only time people don’t like him is if he doesn’t loan them money. Otherwise, the rest of the cast stand around singing jeremiads for the man.
The inciting incident of the story is that the aforementioned fiancee suddenly decides she doesn’t love him anymore and that he is boring. The rest of the film unfolds (or maybe ‘metastasizes’ is a better word) in a bitter lovers’ triangle with Lisa cheating on Johnny, having long boring conversations with her mother about it, and Johnny’s best friend Mark being sort of conflicted about diddling Johnny’s fiancee.
Logic has no place here. The film staggers to its conclusion less like a picturesque and drunken Irish poet than a paralytic hobo whose palsied fingers can barely hold onto his bottle of methyl alcohol.
Consider this scene: There’s Johnny (Wiseau) talking to his friend Mark (colleague Greg Sesteros) about Lisa.
Johnny did not hit Lisa, she just got him really drunk and then tried to convince him he did, and Mark is the guy she’s cheating on Johnny with. The acting on display here is on par with the rest of the movie. Erratic tonal shifts, bizarre dialogue, nonsensical actions taken by the actors, plot threads that never pan out or are abandoned (Lisa’s mother offhandedly mentions she has breast cancer once and this is never again addressed) and sex scenes that make one reach for a bottle of Purell are all part of the package.
But while the movie is indeed embarrassingly awful, I can’t get into the spirit of mocking it as much as others have. Mr. Wiseau spent five years of his life raising funding for the film, and it’s suspected he did so through ‘less than legitimate’ means: there’s a story about him importing leather jackets from Korea that sounds fairly shady, and other people have suggested the movie exists as an elaborate money laundering scheme for the mob.
Although now he promotes the movie as a Rocky Horror Picture Show-like parody and travels to midnight screenings where people throw spoons and footballs (it’s in the movie), some of the actors from the film indicate that Mr. Wiseau was absolutely earnest in his intent when making it in 2003 and that there was nothing tongue-in-cheek about his attitude.
I can’t help but imagine someone who managed to make his creative dream come true witness his film be reviled by the few critics who saw it, then embraced by an audience whose self-professed love of shit is damning praise. Maybe at that point he decided that any publicity is better than none. It’s my own secret dream (as it is most critics’) to make a film of my own, and since I don’t have the courage or means to pursue such a dream and I consciously know this, I can’t help but feel bad bashing the product of someone who managed to pursue it themselves. Even so, this is one incredibly bad movie. Let’s be absolutely clear on that.
There's a reason you always see this image in connection with the movie. You just have to see it.
I’m not someone who enjoys laughing at the efforts of others, unless they really want me to. If Mr. Wiseau convinces me of his earnest effort to create a black comedy, well, I guess I can laugh at his film then.
‘The Room’ is not available on Instant Watch but can be rented from Netflix or GreenCine. Check it out, but for God’s sake, know what you’re getting into!
Besides being a decent murder mystery and atmospheric horror, the sub itself triggers a very special form of claustrophobia–fear of being trapped in a small space where one will run out of oxygen and die. Everything is horribly, horribly analogue, reflecting the reality of the very slim margin of error on board a Uboat. Especially since the survival of the crew hinges on someone understanding the importance of Checking Their Work and remembering to Carry The Goddamn One. To wit: Not only did a crew have to keep track of their own movements to know where the hell they were, they had to keep track of enemy Uboats in order to be able to guess where the latter were so they didn’t just blunder across each other’s path. And they did anyway, since all the Germans had to do to screw up one’s plans was slightly change course.
