Author: Jandy Page 61 of 145

50DMC #37: Couldn’t Watch With Parents

On October 29, 2011

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s a movie that you could never watch with your parents?

Going with another sexually explicit film here, with John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus. The film is largely set in a free love type establishment, with a sex therapist going there to try to figure out why she’s never had an orgasm (and to, well, have one). Meanwhile, a gay couple struggle with their relationship and one partner’s thoughts of suicide. Mostly, they’re all seeking a human connection. Roger Ebert says, accurately I think, that “itâ€™s not about sex but about sexuality, not about scoring but about living,” but yeah. I could never watch it with my parents. Although, they wouldn’t watch it anyway, so it’s not really a concern.

Here’s the trailer, including an intro from director John Cameron Mitchell:

Classic Horror: Carrie

By Jandy

On October 28, 2011

In Film

It’s taken me a few years, but I finally got around to seeing Carrie this year, a classic horror film that’s been on many of my to-watch lists, including both my yearly horror watch lists AND the New Hollywood marathon list I went through last year (but never made it to Carrie). With all that build-up, I was really hoping it would live up to my expectations, and I can pretty well say it did, and even that it had a few surprises in store for me.

Carrie is an outsider at school, the kid that’s ridiculed in PE for being bad at volleyball, and generally shunned for her mousy looks and intensely shy persona. While the other girls cavort around the girl’s locker room freely and joyously, Carrie is content to hover alone in the showers, letting the soothing water wash over her loneliness. Until the soothing water is mixed with blood, and a confused Carrie screams for the help of her classmates, who helpfully explain the menstrual cycle and hand her a sanitary pad. Er, that’s not right. They mercilessly tease her and pelt her with sanitary pads and tampons, trapping the poor girl in the corner of the shower until the kind gym teacher comes to her rescue.

My only thought at this point was “does she not have a mother to tell her about this stuff, or what?” As it turns out, she does, but her mother is C-R-A-Z-Y. As soon as Carrie gets home from school and tells her what’s going on, her mother goes ballistic on her, telling her that the bleeding only comes after a woman has sinned. When we first see the mother (a scenery-chewing over-the-top performance from Piper Laurie), she’s earnestly evangelizing the neighbors, and I was about ready to write her off as just another lame attempt at a Christian character from writers who don’t know what they’re talking about, but she is far beyond that. I don’t know where she got her theology, but it is MESSED UP. Never you mind when she finds out that Carrie intends to go to the prom WITH A BOY and, oh right, has also gained telekinetic capabilities.

Anyway. The coach chastizes the rest of the kids for their behavior toward Carrie, and one of them, Chris, plots revenge on Carrie with her boyfriend (a super-young John Travolta) while another, Sue, sends her boyfriend to ask Carrie to the prom as a gesture of kindness – I wasn’t sure at first if Sue was sincere, and I kind of liked how that played out. The prom scene is pretty famous, and I knew essentially what was going to happen. What I didn’t know was how long and how well-played the prom scene is before Chris’s plot swings into action and Carrie takes her bloody revenge. There are some over-done parts that nevertheless end up being effective, like the constantly circling camera while Carrie and Bobby are dancing, a scene that’s both beautiful and ominous, since we know something’s going to go down but desperately wish for Carrie to have her moment in peace.

And that’s really the strength of the film. Sissy Spacek is able to get us on Carrie’s side really quickly, and make us ache for the acceptance she seems to be gaining at the prom. Everything is going so right for her, Bobby is genuinely kind to her, and she’s coming out of her shell into a beautiful young woman able to stand up for herself. The fact that we know it’s all going to go wrong makes it all the more painful. Well-drawn characters like this should be at the heart of every horror film – otherwise, they’re mindless exercises in jump scares and gore. Granted, no one else here is as well-written as Carrie (most of them are types to fill a specific role, and most of them play over the top), and De Palma doesn’t trust her solidity quite enough, resorting to camera tricks and flamboyant stylistics when they’re not really needed. But Spacek grounds things enough to stop all that from being too distracting.

The prom isn’t the end, though, as I always thought it was. There’s a whole other section after Carrie goes home and tries to seek comfort from her mother (“you were right, they did laugh at me!”), but there’s none to be found. Thre are some great visual moments in this secton, especially when Carrie climbs the steps to her attic bedroom and we slowly become aware of her mother’s presence in the shadows – an incredibly eerie moment that’s chilling to the bone without being a jump scare. But I’m not entirely sure what to make of this part. I’m going to spoil the ending, since I want to talk about it, so if you haven’t seen it, stop reading now.

Carrie’s mother thinks she’s been possessed by a demon, which is giving her the telekinetic powers. And to be fair, the film doesn’t explain that power at all (I haven’t read the Stephen King book it’s based on, so I don’t know if it’s explained in there or not). After Carrie returns from the prom, her mother stabs her, believing that Carrie is now evil due to the demon possession and needs to be killed. Instead, Carrie uses her telekinetic ability to throw knives at her mother, and immediately after that, the entire house starts imploding – perhaps due to her inability to control her telekineses, I’m not sure. She and her now-dead mother end up in the little cubbyhole where her mother made her pray and do penance before a crucifix which – get this – has wounds in exactly the same places as the knives made on her mother. So there’s a visual connection between Jesus and the mother. The house eventually disappears entirely into a charred plot of ground, and Sue later visits the site, which has been marked with a sign saying “Carrie is in hell.” After the empowerment of the prom scene, I have no idea what this ending means. She WAS possessed by a demon and has returned to them in hell, after symbolically killing Christ through her mother (which would indicate that her mother was a valid representation of a Christian, which I think is categorically untrue)? I kind of have a problem with that.

So I didn’t really care for the ending except for its visceral intensity, which was quite good, and the last few moments did have a solid scare, albeit the shift to Sue’s point of view is a little odd since we’ve been so closely tied to Carrie’s throughout the film. But so much of the rest of it was so good, especially the entire prom scene, that I’d still say I quite enjoyed it. As a character-driven horror film it’s quite effective, I just thought its overall message was muddied a lot by the ending.

50DMC #36: Most Uncomfortable Date Movie

By Jandy

On October 27, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s the most uncomfortable date movie?

It actually took me quite a while to think of an answer to this question, because I don’t really have a good grasp of the concept of a “date movie.” A good date movie is whatever both you and your date are interested in seeing. My boyfriend and I are both into a lot of different kinds of film and will go see just about anything, together or apart. I’ve heard people say they’d never want to see Blue Valentine with their significant other, because of its harsh look at the end of a relationship that started out pretty sunny, but we saw that together only a few months into our relationship, and we both loved it. So yeah.

But I think I found one. And when I ran the basic story of In the Realm of the Senses by my boyfriend, he agreed with me that it definitely sounds like a non-date kind of movie. I haven’t actually seen it, but the gist is this: a rich Japanese man and a maid (formerly a prostitute) begin a relationship at first because he molests her, but soon she is the instigator – fueled by secrecy and then pure passion and eventually destruction, their relationship moves from purely sexual to sadomasochistic, eventually culminating in the woman cutting off the man’s member. Sounds like a porno (until the end, anyway), but it’s a well-regarded art film. But not probably something you want to watch on a date.

Here’s the trailer:

The Comics: DC New 52 and More

By Jandy

On October 18, 2011

In Books and Reading

Since I heard that DC was rebooting pretty much their entire line, starting over at issue #1 and starting new storylines for almost every character, I’ve been a little obsessed with reading them. I’ve never been a comic book person, really, but I’ve dabbled with graphic novel collections and enjoyed movies based on the characters – getting into weekly comic reading was probably inevitable, I just needed a place to start. The DC New 52 gave me that place, and I’ve already started moving past it into other publishers and lines.

I posted a rundown of the 13 DC issues I read the first month of the reboot over on Row Three, but I don’t want to necessarily keep posting updates and continuing reviews over there on a weekly or monthly basis, so I’m going to do it here. First head over there and check out my thoughts on the #1s. Of course, there will be another group of #2s out tomorrow (Wednesday), but I didn’t want to wait to get this out there. I’ll try to be more on time in the future. For the record, after the first month I am no longer reading Superman, I, Vampire, or Voodoo. I did, however, pick up Demon Knights and Resurrection Man in their place, both of which I like much better.

(I’ve included some of my favorite panels from each comic; some of them may be spoilery. Click on any of the images to see a larger version.)

DC New 52

Swamp Thing #2

The first issue of Swamp Thing was a surprise top favorite of mine last month, but this time I was ready for it, and it didn’t really disappoint. The confusion I had at the end of the last issue is cleared up totally as Swamp Thing explains everything to Alec Holland, which is admittedly a whole lot of exposition at once, but it’s necessary and well-written. The art continues to impress as well, with the first half of the book (set in the swamp) is panels all separated by tangled and uneven branches, entangling Alec both in the plant-ridden physical location and his plant-ridden destiny. The second half brings back the neck-twisted minions that remain the creepiest thing in the whole of the New 52 that I’ve read, and they’re as chilling as in issue #1, despite the shock factor being somewhat diminished. I’m definitely noting Scott Snyder as one of my favorite writers so far.

Action Comics #2

I quit reading the Superman series after issue #1 in favor of sticking with Grant Morrison’s younger, edgier, more unpredictable take on Superman in Action Comics, and issue #2 didn’t make me regret that decision at all. Here Superman has been captured by Lex Luthor (who insists on calling Superman “it” and correcting everyone who calls him “him”) and is undergoing increasing levels of physical torture as Luthor tries to find out his breaking point – but instead Superman breaks out, and gleefully rampages through Luthor’s compound. I’m seriously loving this Superman, and the hints of the big bad working with and through Luthor and the army are pretty cool.

Animal Man #2

Animal Man #1 had me a bit on the fence – somehow both intrigued and uncentered by the shifting art style, the surreal parts, and the writing focused on family life rather than superherodom. It was just very different from the other things I read and what I expected from a superhero comic book, and it took me another issue, I think, to really warm up to it. Now I’m kind of embracing the sheer weirdness of it, and I think as the series continues, it’ll probably be one of my favorites. Buddy’s daughter is turning out to be as connected to the animal world as he is, maybe even more so, and the two embark on a journey to “The Red,” an abstract concept if I’ve ever heard one, to get ready to stop some big bad. The family dynamics continue to be central here, a very good thing.

Batgirl #2

I’m still enjoying the heck out of this series. I like the way Gordon is struggling with her physical abilities – she’s recovered from being paralyzed miraculously (the book still doesn’t go much into how that happened), but she hasn’t regained all her strength, and she often tries and fails to handle herself in fights the way her mind THINKS she can handle herself. I do hope they don’t continue to beat that idea in the voice-over, though, now that’s it’s been clearly established. I like her voice-over, despite how nearly omnipresent it is, because I like the way she slyly undercuts herself all the time. It makes Batgirl one of the most entertaining books in the relaunch. Here she meets and fights with the Mirror, who could turn out to be an interesting villain, but I hope they don’t let it get too caught up in his self-loathing backstory. I do really like her budding relationship with her new roommate. That’s a nice counterpoint to all the fighting and self-doubt.

Demon Knights #1 & #2

This was one I didn’t pick up the first week, but I’d heard good things about it and when I ended up with fewer books in the second week of #2s, I figured I’d try it out. Especially since the Comixology app is discounting the first issue of these runs as soon as the second one comes out – makes it easy to pick up back issues. And this is a really fun series so far, set in the Middle Ages. Thus it’s so far completely separate from any of the other books, which I kind of like. At the fall of Camelot, Merlin emprisons the demon Etrigan in human form; as the book continues, it turns out that this man Jason can turn into the demon at will, which he does whenever there’s danger nearby. There are bad guys with dragons, and various other knights and barbarians aplenty. Issue #2 was basically a really long, awesome fight scene, with some great art and fun character interactions. Not too deep, this one, but a rousing good time.

Resurrection Man #1 & #2

An intriguing one in concept, for sure, with a main character who comes back to life every time he’s killed with a different power. When we first see him rise at the beginning of #1, he’s attuned to metal and can control it the way Magneto does in X-Men. The next time, he can morph into water form. He also appears to have some level of amnesia, as he heads to try to find his father in a nursing home to find out about his past. Not all the dialogue writing is particularly good, but the concept is SO good, and so far I’ve enjoyed the action and interactions (I really like that he appears to be older than your average superhero, which gives him a maturity and gravity that’s unusual) enough to keep with it a while longer.

Other Series

Criminal: The Last of the Innocent

This is actually the newest of the Criminal books by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, but after seeing Ed Howard talk about it as a noir book playing off an Archie-like universe, I had to check it out. I used to read Archie incessantly, and that backdrop to a very dark crime story sounded awesome, and it totally was. Basically the main character Riley is the Archie-esque character, while Jughead becomes his junkie friend, and Riley has chosen to marry the Veronica character and live the highlife in the big city, leaving the Betty character behind in his small home town. (All the names are changed.) The current timeline is done in really evocative dark drawings (which is also how the other Criminal books are drawn), but there are lots of flashbacks as Riley remembers his time growing up, and those are done in Archie-style. It’s both an excellent story on the surface and a dark, twisted satire on the world of Archie and the perfect American Dream life that it represents. It’s only four issues long, all of which are available via the Comixology app.

Criminal: Coward

After I liked the new run of Criminal so much, a friend was kind enough to send me the first couple of collections, of which Coward is the first. It’s the same style as the modern sections of Last of the Innocent, but without any of the Archie connections. It’s a straight noir crime story of a bank robber who always gets away, thanks to following his “rules,” which basically look out for his own skin at all costs, hence labeling him a “coward,” since he’d rather run away than face any potential of being caught. When he’s approached for a job by a crooked cop and a former cohort of his father’s (also a crook), he’s suspicious but ends up taking it anyway – which is not a good idea. Lots of twists and turns are augmented by really great character writing, and it goes to some really surprising dark places. Can’t wait to read the next collection…and everything else Brubaker and Phillips write.

Batwoman: Elegy

I picked this up at the library after being confused by the New 52 Batwoman #1, and it was definitely a good choice. DC didn’t totally reboot Batwoman – she was destined for her own series anyway, and the #1 issue is basically just that. It contains a lot of callbacks to Elegy (which I believe was originally a run of Detective Comics) that make NO sense if you haven’t read Elegy and perfect sense if you have. It’s a great collection on its own, full of the same gorgeous art that made me love Batwoman #1 even whilst I was confused, and a bit of a whacked out story with a Religion of Crime led by an Alice in Wonderland lookalike that Batwoman has to take down. The Kate Kane character is an intriguing one, too, a woman kicked out of the military because she refused to lie about being gay who takes up the cape of a crimefighter after a chance encounter with Batman. Now that I’m all caught up on her story, I can’t wait to read the rest of the New 52 arc.

50DMC #35: Favorite Adaptation

By Jandy

On October 12, 2011

In Film

The 50 Day Movie Challenge asks one question every day, to be answered by a few paragraphs and a clip, if possible. Click here for the full list of questions.

Today’s prompt: What’s your favorite book-to-screen adaptation?

Like the “favorite remake” question, this one has a number of ways to approach it. Favorite movie that happens to be an adaptation? Favorite movie AS an adaptation (that is, something about the transition from book to screen is particularly loveable)? The first approach would be way too broad, so I tried to find one that does something interesting with the adaptation itself, which meant I had to have read the book. That knocked off a bunch of possibilities right there. Heh.

For a long while, West Side Story was one of my top five favorite films. It’s not quite that high anymore, but I do still love it a lot, and a good portion of that love is due to the way it takes the story of Romeo and Juliet and plops it into a modern and more relatable milieu. This is, in fact, a thing I like in most any Shakespeare adaptations, and something that’s quite common in stage versions of his shows, albeit they usually keep the language and West Side Story does not. The film version of West Side Story is a double adaptation; directly an adaptation of the 1950s Broadway musical by Leonard Bernstein and Steven Sondheim, which is adapted from Shakespeare’s tragedy. And even though the majority of the adaptation is between Shakespeare and Sondheim, the film has a few changes up its sleeve as well, most notably in the performance of a couple of the songs – the film swaps “Cool” and “Hey Officer Krupke”, which makes a lot more sense in the flow of the story (the ordering in the play is largely due to needing an upbeat song at a particular point for the peculiar pacing purposes of stage productions), and it also has both male and female members of the Sharks performing “America” instead of just female, as it was in the play. I prefer “America” as it is in the play, but swapping the other two songs for the movie as a great choice, and shows that the were really thinking about how this is going to play AS A MOVIE – a key consideration in adaptation that not every filmmaker takes into account as much as they should. Not to mention it looks incredibly cinematic, transcending its roots on the stage.

Both as a movie, then, and as an adaptation, West Side Story hits my sweet spots. Here’s the opening: