Last night, on the recommendation of a colleague, I watched The Devil Wears Prada.

Meh. I think he’d told me the 2 funny parts from it. The dealing with insane demands from reality-detached bosses hit too close to home to be funny, and I don’t care about fashion enough to be interested by Anne Hathaway’s Chanel boots. (Plus the rest of the characters’ chiding of her for her “fatness” at a size 6, and her triumphant “FOUR!” at the end of the film were honestly revolting.)

What I really thought about the film was that it was sappy and sentimental. And even though Streep’s character was an irrational, sadistic bitch, I didn’t see anything too shocking in anything she did. I mean, at least she was a competent sadistic bitch. The plot pinnacle where she screws over her long-time employee’s future dreams for happiness to ensure her own - was I supposed to be shocked? That’s what anyone would do. She should give up her own job to make someone else’s career better? That’s nonsense.

Anne Hathaway’s wide-eyed “I can’t [go to Paris instead of] Emily, it would break her heart!” was pathetic. There’s heartbreaking in business? Well, sure I guess there is. But that’s not what we base our decisions on. We base our decisions on what makes sense for us and our careers. Breaking the heart of someone who isn’t able to get the job done is not a factor in business. And walking away from her responsibilities in Paris, after her “epiphany” about how she didn’t want to be like Streep, that was just irresponsible, selfish and immature. She was there, being paid to do a job. She can wait to quit until she gets back. You can’t leave your employer in the lurch like that. And the idea that Streep’s character would respect her for that is pure nonsense. You do not walk out on a job you’ve agreed to do, right in the middle.

Anyway, it left me wondering if I am more of a cold-hearted bitch than most. And not caring overly if I am. I treat the people around me at work decently, but don’t let their feelings take precedence over making the right business decision.

The best thing about the movie IMHO was that guy she screwed in Paris. I do not normally (well, ever) go for blondes, but he was delectable. Plus had his shit together, plus wasn’t an overly-sentimental piece of foppish hurt-feelings like her soulful wounded-puppy boyfriend. And her supposedly cutting “I’m not your baby!” as she walked away from him was retarded. No, you’re not. You’re last night’s piece of ass, actually.

Whatever. Told you I was dead inside.

So, in keeping with my love of catching a trend so far after it was popular that it’s almost counter-culture again, I finally saw the movie Boondock Saints a few weeks ago. It was one of those movies my Tivo decided I would like, and I was bored and stuck on the couch so I decided to check it out. It was on FX or Spike though, so immediately I could tell that there was going to be an issue with most of the actual dialog being bleeped. The intro scenes are pretty captivating though, and I couldn’t turn it off despite the long protracted silences where most of the characters had their lips moving, but all sound was removed. I thought as I watched it - “I have to see this in the uncut form.”

Then, wonder of wonders, it shows up at the local independent theater as a midnight movie the weekend before St. Patrick’s day! Sweet! Finally seen in all its “Fu*king, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck.” glory - it was pretty much covered in awesome sauce. (and of course, being one of only two people in that theater over the age of 30 = priceless)

Now this morning I spot this bit of news on these here intarwebs: Saints Rise Again with ‘Boondock’ Sequel

Troy Duffy, genius-to-be who was lost in the carnage that is Hollywood, as well as the writer/director of The Boondock Saints, has posted a video officially announcing the sequel that the entire cult following has been clawing and scratching for like Britney Spears at a “Free Crack Samples” stand — The Boondock Saints: All Saints Day.

So yet again, I am so far behind a trend that my actual discovery of it comes at the point where it is back to being “alternative”. Yay me.

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

12/23/2007

Plot Summary: Barber Sweeney Todd returns to London to seek revenge on the corrupt judge who stole his wife and child, he joins forces with the macabre Mrs. Lovell and many meat pies are made.

For some reason I thought this wasn’t even coming out until Christmas day, so when I was perusing the web this afternoon and saw it was at the Moolah I jumped up and ran to the next showing. Burton, Depp, Carter, Rickman - gotta love that, right? Well, not necessarily - if you remember the Corpse Bride. Blech. But anyway, I was not overly disappointed here. The costuming was lush and scary and filthy and somehow lurid. (One more crotch-shot of Sascha Baron Cohen or Alan Rickman in their bulging manpris was going to make me embarrassed, seriously)

The sets were perfect. Both the costumes and the sets had that whimsical touch o’ Burton that one expects, but not so much that you got turned off from the story. JDepp, well yeah - he was perfect. Helena BC was also wonderful, the quality of her voice amazed me. (So did her boobs actually. I heard that she was pregnant during the filming, and it showed in the rack. I say - rock that rack, HBC!) Alan Rickman is the sexiest old lecher in modern film making, and there was this beautiful, dirty-looking little Calvin Klein model of a boy in that movie from whom I am sure we will be seeing much more. Those are the good things.

Bad things: the sound! OMG the sound, the score, the acoustics where I was, whatever - but I could only understand about 50% of most of the songs. Since you needed to understand those to get vital plot points, this was a bit difficult. JDepp and HBC both mumbled their respective ways through a lot of the songs, especially in the first 1/3rd of the film - if I’d been listening to a foreign language rather than just Ye Olde Britishe Englishe I would have thought they’d done beautifully. But it was just one of those situations where the score was way too loud and the singers not great enunciaters (?) and it was frustrating.

Also, there was a group of fuckwits standing in front of, and blocking, the ticket counter in a way which would take a diagram to fully explain. Note to Fuckwits: When someone repeatedly hollers “Excuse me!” over and over, and you have to get out of the way so they can get where they’re trying to get, since there’s no other way to get there; DON’T go right back to wherever you were standing like an amorphous mass of liquid gelatin grimly intent upon seeping into every empty particle of space in a given area, K? And when the same person turns and finds her path away from the ticket counter blocked yet again by you and your wrinkly group o’crones, the second round of “EXCUSE ME!” is not accidentally over-loud. K? No need to grimace and make your visage yet even more creased and cragged. Oh, and get the fuck out of the way, too.

I’ve heard people crab about the amount of blood. Well, there was enough blood to make it over-the-top and mildly silly. To make it theater - and it’s supposed to be theater, so I think it worked. And yeah, it’s a violent story and it had a lot of violence and that much violence makes people laugh, somehow. Anyway, it was not that bad. There was an equal amount of blood as there was raging bad teeth. Burton seems to glorify in these extreeeeeeeeeme closeups of crooked yellowed teeth, because somehow crooked, rabbitty teeth = Teh Evilnuss. And it works. Also Depp builds a clockwork machine, because there’s no way there could be a Burton movie without a clockwork machine, but I won’t spoil that part.

Overall, see it, yeah, but I am going to look forward to getting it on DVD so I can adjust the sound manually.

02/11/06 - “Underword - Evolution“

Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy, Derek Jacobi, Tony Curran

Directed by: Len Wiseman

Rating: Totally Off the Rag

Plot Summary: Picking up where the first film left off, the story of the Lycan/Vampire war continues, and we learn more of the orgins of both races, as Michael and Selena both struggle to understand what he has become.

I have to say, I don’t think that critics understand movies, or the people who love them. This film has been widely panned, so much so that I had a soupçon of doubt that I wanted to see it, but in the end I knew I would. Though I did have to see it at the most ghetto-fabulous theater in town and had to go in the middle of the day so I wouldn’t get shot. I can’t believe how quickly films turn over in this town.

Anyway, I loved it, and though it was perfect. As the first film ended, the only thing I could think of was how badly I wanted to know what happened next, and this film scratched that itch to perfection.

The action picks up quite literally where the first film left off. The same night as Selene killed Victor, as she and Michael race to find supplies and cover before the other death dealers are after them. Michael doesn’t know what he is, but he does thank Selene for saving him, telling her that he “wasn’t ready to die.” Scott Speedman is a very understated actor, and he is perfect for the role of Michael. He does remind me a bit of that role he played in Felicity, so I don’t know if he has a broader range than this type of character, but I suspect so. He doesn’t steal scenes, and that’s what makes him so effective. He is very in tune with a character who never wanted the spotlight or what’s come to him, but is facing it calmly, with what we can surmise is his customary calm and quiet strength.

Of course, Michael doesn’t want to accept a fate of living on blood, and one of the few problems I had with the plotline was that Selene and Michael never fed. Selene gave Michael some of her blood when he was wounded, and in the end Selene takes the blood of another vampire, but as far as we are shown, neither of them takes in any sustenance throughout all the action. I found that a bit odd, but then, I suspended my disbelief enough to believe that vampires and lycans are hunting each other in the middle of this east-European country and no one is aware of it, so I don’t know why this niggled at me.

Selene thinks her only hope is to wake the last sleeping elder, Marcus. Kraven, from the last film, has the same idea. Without spoiling you too much, I can say that Marcus does awaken, and the results are not what you might think. The film takes us on a fast-paced journey, in which we learn more about the history of both lycans and vampires, Selene’s place in the intricate plot that’s led us to this point, and a bit more about Michael, though not as much as I would have hoped. (Underworld III, I hope?)

Selene and Michael break their palpable sexual tension in a really well-done sex scene. It was a bit more than I am used to seeing in movies, rather graphic - and I had to wonder what it was like for Len Wiseman to direct his wife in a such a scene. Or maybe he got off on it, I don’t know. We do get to find out what Selene wears under all that latex though, and the scene between her and Michael is soft, and tender and very satisfying to see. It comes at a perfect point in the film’s action, when you’re thinking “can’t these two catch a break already?” I have to say that the paint splashing scene (no, not during the sex scene) was oddly long, at least twice as long as it should have been. Half the action would have been twice as good. In the accompanying scenes Speedman explains so much of Michael’s character and feeling for Selene without speaking that I couldn’t help but be moved. But I am a closet romantic, afterall.

I think the film was well-served to have the same director, as it fit seamlessly in with the visual style of the first film. Everything was perfect, from the sets to the costuming, Selene’s blue-glowing eyes, the transformation of the lycans (OK, that was a little choppy, but overall impressive) and the moody, tense atmosphere of the film itself.

As for Kate Beckinsale’s performance; I have such a hard time believing that the actress that plays Selene is the same innocent girl who played Hero in Kenneth Brannaugh’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” There is nothing of that sweet little white-gowned girl to be seen here. Selene has a stern, emotionless control of every situation that allows her to live through it - it’s only with Michael that she shows any more tender emotion. But when she does it is very believable, as well as her grim determination when she sets emotion aside and continues to do her duty as a death dealer.

Obviously, I loved this movie. I think of this series as a sort of mega-budget graphic novel. Self-contained, interwoven stories that leave you hungry for more. I want a new chapter every month, dammit. I want more and more of these characters and this world. I sincerely hope that the box-office returns are enough to warrant “Underworld III” and I will be first in the line to see it, moronic movie critics be damned.

10/03/05 - “MirrorMask“

Starring: Stephanie Leonidas, Gina McKee, Robert Brydon (II), Jason Barry, Dora Bryan

Directed by: Dave McKean, Screenplay by Neil Gaiman

Rating: Totally Off the Rag

Plot Summary: Helena is a fifteen-year-old girl working for her family circus, who wishes–quite ironically–that she could run away from the circus and join ‘real life’. But such is not to be the case, as she finds herself on a strange journey into the Dark Lands, a fantastic landscape filled with giants, Monkeybirds and dangerous sphinxes.

This movie is a whole-mind experience. The visuals are awe-inspiring (though it’s a bit disconcerting to step inside Dave Mckean’s head after seeing his work on the page for so long.) The score is perfect. Brilliant. Perfect. Love it. The story is very simple, yet full of characters you feel as if you know, or want to know more of. Monkeybirds? I want a whole documentary just about their lives. The gatekeeper sphinx? He wants a short story all about him. And I would *dearly* love a really useful book. And the visuals… wow. Also the costuming and creature work. The actors were wonderfully cast and did a great job. I could listen to Valentine speak for the rest of my life - but maybe that’s just my American fetish for Scottish accents. :)

Well - obviously I just can’t say enough good things about it. As a long-time Gaiman fan I couldn’t wait for Mirrormask to hit the theatres, and now I can’t wait to go back and see it again. Kudos to Gaiman and Mckean on the realization of this project.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou just totally reeled me in. Had no idea it was going to be real. I loved it. I really love Wes Anderson’s films which show us in all our morbid human weakness. But, depressing.

Had one of those puttering days that may or may not be the sign of being a grownup. Didn’t go out but got much satisfaction from cleaning out drawers and closets, purging my life of unwanted necessities. I just want less stuff. And the addition of a new cabinet in my bathroom has made me happy to a?strange degree. Finally, a place for the towels to rest.

Dreamed last night for hours and hours. Michael C. from The Shield was the husband to this woman who was sometimes me, and also the leader of a huge S&M cult. They were abusing their daughter and when the woman found out she tried to get away. She was locked in a house and there were ATV chases, near escapes, bondage, exploding poop-filled toilets, a bathroom that was filthy and no one’s responsibility to clean, a man picking up a turd off the floor, dolphin poop dripping on my leg (poop’s been a dream theme lately) Michael C trying to rape this woman’s best friend with a picture frame, mutiny in the S&M club, and women willingly being crucified while supporting their body weight with their feet on wooden spikes.

It wasn’t a nice dream. It may have something to do with my neighborhood blowing up on Friday.

12/31/03 -  “Peter Pan”

Starring:Jeremy Sumpter, Jason Isaacs, Lynn Redgrave, Ludivine Sagnier, Olivia Williams

Directed by:P.J. Hogan

Rating: Slender Tampon

Plot Summary:  Peter Pan is the boy who won’t age, who lives in Neverland with other ageless kids, the Lost Boys. Peter and Tinkerbelle, a fairy, give three children: Wendy, John, and Michael Darling the ability to fly; and soon they’re off to Neverland, where they’re soon in battle with the evil Captain Hook and his band of pirates.

Loved it! Loved it! A wonderful adaptation of the classic novel, with all the great details and none of the Disney saccharine crap. The sets and the scenery were so beautiful, just the way you’d want and expect Neverland to be. I have to admit I had a little bit of creepy pedophilia vibe going on at the beginning (especially with all the recent Michael Jackson revelations of how he’s obsessed with Peter Pan). It’s sad to say that as an overly-sexualized adult, I just kept expecting these two good looking young teens to make out or something.

I won’t tell you the story, you know the story. I will just say that the actors were fabulous, especially Tinkerbelle and Captain Hook/Mr. Darling. Go see it, it’s a treat for the eyes, and unless you’re oversexed like me, it’s an innocent story to soothe the soul.

10/12/03 “Kill Bill”

Starring:Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Sonny Chiba

Directed by:Quentin Tarantino

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: Uma Thurman is going to KILL BILL, in Quentin Tarantino’s latest film about a former assassin betrayed by her boss, Bill (David Carradine). Four years after surviving a bullet in the head, the bride (Thurman) emerges from a coma and swears revenge on her former master and his deadly squad of international assassins, played by Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox and Michael Madsen.

I was mildly interested in going to see “Kill Bill.” Like many of the people I have spoken to, when the first trailers came out I was thinking “pass!” But once I heard more about it and saw some better, more updated trailers, I was interested. I am a big “Pulp Fiction” fan, I hated “Reservoir Dogs” and I could take or leave “Jackie Brown.” So, I was prepared to be entertained, without expecting too much. That said, I really really enjoyed “Kill Bill Volume 1.”

The action is so over the top, gory and cartoonish that you can’t help but be drawn in, with trademark QT mind-fucks and scenes shown out of order, so that much of your time is spent having “aha!” moments. Of course, Quentin’s view of the world is a dark one indeed. He seems to have a talent for treating the most horrific of human behaviors as if they were mundane, everyday things. Which they probably are, though we don’t like to admit it. Like Buck “I came to Fuck” the male nurse who rents out his comatose patients to friends, and even supplies the dodgy looking tub of crusty lube. He’s also careful enough to note that “her plumbing’s all messed up so you can come in there as much as you want.”

After waking and ridding the world of Buck, Uma (we never learn her characters name, at least in Volume 1) proceeds with singular resolve to dispatch with the team of assassins in Bill’s hire who massacred her wedding party on her wedding day, leaving her and her unborn child for dead.

Even though the world is dark and pessimistic through QT’s lens, it’s got a gritty, if over the top, realism and sense of honor in its characters, as evidenced by Uma Thurman’s character’s words to the 4-year old daughter of the woman she’s just killed. “When you’re grown up, if you’re still raw about it, I’ll be waiting.”

Tarantino uses several interesting effects (blood geyser, anyone?) to make his cinematic point, one of which is a beautiful anime sequence to develop the character of “Cottonmouth.” Though I am not a fan of anime I really enjoyed it, and saw that it was the best way to move the plot along, while giving us a break from all the blood and gore that we’d already taken in. And blood and gore there are aplenty. But in such a way as to be non-disturbing. There are more severed limbs in this film than you’d find at a tree surgeon’s convention, but the violence is not realistic, plus it’s a girl who’s doing the perpetratin’ so it’s all good…

I recommend KBV1 - and will absolutely go see KBV2 - though I do think the studio gouging us for double the admission price sucks. From what I have read, they intend to release the DVD and rental in two phases too - capitalistic bastards.

09/22/03  “Underworld”

Starring:Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy, Danny McBride, Michael Sheen

Directed By:Len Wiseman

Rating:Off the Rag

Plot Summary: Set in the secret nocturnal and supernatural world of vampires and werewolves, two groups that have been at war for centuries, this is the story of a romance between a female vampire warrior, Selene (Beckinsale), who’s famous for her strength and werewolf-hunting prowess, and a peace-loving human, Michael (Speedman), who wants to end the war.

I have to say from the beginning that I have NO idea why the critics are panning this movie like they are. From the previews I had wanted to see it, but then several reviews I read, most notable that in Salon led me to believe I was in for a clichéd groan-fest when I agreed to go with friends to see this movie on Saturday night. I was very pleasantly surprised. (note to girl at the front of the 20+ person line at the only open cashier window: Saturday night at 7:20 is NOT the time to start asking the cashier what each movie at the cineplex is about. Really.) Anyway, I was snuggled into stadium seating with my large rootbeer and very meager expectations, when I was confronted with the lovely imagery and sound of this film.

As one would expect of a vampire film, the lighting is dark, the city is that ubiquitous metropolis you can’t quite place, and everything looks slightly damp. The heroines dress in black leather, the bad guys skulk in sewers and have ratty facial hair, and the blondes are all only out for what they can get.

This being the tone, let us follow Selene (Kate Beckinsale) into a world where humans exist as only so much temporary background noise/food source. On an immortal scale, the vampires are at war with the Lycans (werewolves.) Like several middle eastern conflicts raging today, it’s a centuries old war that no one can quite remember why they’re fighting, but the vampires have the distinct upper hand, having hunted the Lycans to near extinction. This is why Selene is surprised when her crew of three vampire “Death Dealers” is attacked in full view of the public by three Lycans. She’s even more astonished when one of her team is killed by a new Lycan weapon - a gun that shoots bullets filled with ultraviolet light.

Selene soon sorts out that the Lycans were hunting a human man that night, and not for food. She tries to tell the vampire coven leader (Kraven - it’s a terrible, obvious name, and I hate to even type it here, so I am going to call him Jeff) Anyway, she tells Jeff that she thinks they need to further investigate this, but he’s just way more interested in getting into her hot, tight, little black leather trousers. (Which I can’t quite understand, because I think there would be sweatiness issues.)

Determined to follow up on her own, Selene soon finds that everything she thought she knew might be a lie, and the people she thought she could trust are the ones she’s soon to be running from. It’s a very well thought out plot, and the story is obviously the set up for a franchise. I for one can’t wait for the next installment.

The effects in this movie were well done. The Lycans and their transformations from human to wolf and back were subtle and scary and shown only in glimpses, so your imagination fills in horrors beyond what film could have possibly shown. The worst of the violence is handled that way throughout the film, so you KNOW that the one guy just had his head ripped off and the bloody stump of his spinal column is probably sticking out and covered in gristle, but all you see is shadows, and all you hear is crunching noises. It’s much more effective than gallons of red corn syrup or crazy CGI effects.

The lighting and photography were stellar, and the soundtrack was impeccably selected (Skinny Puppy and Lisa Germano together on a disc? It’s genius.)

I highly reccomend this film, for anyone with a taste for the intelligent vampire genre. Reject all the stuff you hear about this being a lame “Matrix” rip-off - those reviewers didn’t have an idea in hell what this movie was trying to do.

Official website Underworld

08/16/03 “The Magdalene Sisters”

Starring:Geraldine McEwan, Dorothy Duffy, Anne-Marie Duff, Eileen Walsh, Nora-Jane Noone

Directed by:Peter Mullan

Rating:Off the Rag

Plot Summary: an unflinching and compelling emotional drama, charting several years in the young lives of three “fallen women” who were rejected by their families and abandoned to the mercy of the Catholic Church in 1960’s Ireland. While women’s liberation is sweeping the globe, these women are stripped of their liberty and dignity and condemned to indefinite sentences of servitude in The Magdalene Laundries, in order to atone for their “sins.” The last Magdalene Asylum in Ireland closed in 1996, and only since has the true horror of conditions in these institutions begun to emerge.

It’s difficult to know how to begin to talk about a film like “The Magdalene Sisters” It was a powerful film to watch, and as a woman it is a frightening story to try to absorb. Denial would be so much more comfortable.

Like a Catholic nun of the order of the “Sisters of Mercy” who spoke after our viewing of the film, it would be easier to label this film a piece of “artwork which is dramatized and changed for emotional effect.” But that would be a further rejection of the truth for women whose voices have already gone unheard for far too long.

We follow three young women on their journey to the Magdalene Laundries. Margaret, raped by her cousin at a wedding, her crime was making public what happened. Bernadette, an orphan, whose sin was only being too temptingly beautiful. Rose, who had a baby when she wasn’t married. These three girls arrive at the Magdalene Laundries on the same day, with no explanation of why they’ve been sent there, no word on how long their “sentence” is to be. They are told only that they are there to atone for their sins, by working beyond human endurance, as Mary Magdalene did, in order to get into heaven.

In a way that vividly reinforces how female sexuality is and has always been repressed, feared and demonized, these women are removed from society for “sins” from which their male counterparts suffer no consequences. The beautiful Bernadette is told that men will be tempted to sin, and she must be removed from society to remove the temptation from them. We never learn what happens to Margaret’s rapist, or the father of Rose’s baby. Presumably they do not pay for their actions, while the girls are made to work from sunup to sundown for cruel, capricious and sadistic nuns, subjected to physical and psychological humiliations beyond endurance, and kept under lock and key in conditions it would be generous to call spartan.

The film is a clear indictment of the Catholic church - which certainly needs indicting, and not nearly enough of an indictment on an Irish society and government so cowed by the power of that church that they did not act on women being deprived of their basic civil liberties.

But the Catholic church has spoken -  scolding both the Toronto and Venice film festivals for giving this film their highest honors, and calling on Disney to sever contact with Miramax, who are distributing the film. Even today the documentary on which this film is based “Sex in a Cold Climate” has never aired on Irish television. The “magdalenes” who still live in Ireland are too ashamed to speak of their experience. Only those who have escaped to other countries are able to speak about what happened to them.

This was a disturbing film to watch, and it was frightening and inspiring at the same time. Much in the way of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” it brought vividly home the way in which society wants to control women by controlling their physical autonomy. How men are allowed and expected to have sexual thoughts, actions, desires, and how women with any of these are to be punished and degraded. But while “The Handmaid’s Tale” is, for now, in the province of fiction, “The Magdalene Sisters” is all too real.

Check out Miramax’s official website here.

08/01/03 “Capturing the Friedmans”

Starring:Arnold Friedman, Elaine Friedman, Jesse Friedman, David Friedman, Seth Friedman

Directed by:Andrew Jarecki

Rating: Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: This documentary “captures” the experience of a family in crisis, through the actual home video movies of the Friedmans, a seemingly average upper-middle-class Jewish family in Great Neck, NY whose world was changed disastrously when the father and son were charged with horrible crimes of child molestation in 1987.

Almost everyone I told that I was going to see this movie got that face. The “Oooh. That’s going to be a bummer.” face. And on the surface, any movie about a man and his son, convicted of heinous child abuse charges against children they taught in their home, is going to be, well, depressing. But strangely this film wasn’t. It was baffling, it was sad, it was funny in parts - but since the focus was on the dysfunction of this family and not the alleged sexual abuse of children, it managed to keep me fascinated rather than nauseated.

Like so many of these stories it starts out “They seemed like a normal family.” And on the surface they did. Mom, Dad, three healthy sons. But through nature, nurture or whatever means it takes, this Dad is a pedophile. Caught by the US Postal Service receiving magazines from the Netherlands containing child pornography, Arnold Friedman’s house is searched. The search turns up much more pornography and a computer lab in the basement. In the words of one of the investigating officers “We may have a problem here.”

Now admittedly, Arnold Friedman had a sexual interest in young boys. Admittedly, he liked some very sick pornographic material. Admittedly, he molested at least three young men in his life, the first being his 8 year old brother, when Arnold was only 13. But this is where things start to get a little murky.

Arnold and his son Jesse are arrested and charged with hundreds upon hundreds of sex abuse and sodomy crimes. Jesse, only 18 at the time of his arrest, served 13 years in prison after accepting a plea bargain. Arnold died in prison - committed suicide actually, with a major overdose of anti-depressants. And the film leaves the audience not at all convinced that these men were guilty of the charges against them, or if any crimes at all had occurred in the basement of that home.

But the Friedmans aren’t all innocence and piety by any stretch. As one of my friends commented on leaving the theater “There wasn’t a single sympathetic character in that whole movie.” Each one, from the lawyers to the police, to the prosecutor, to the family members and their alleged victims, was uniquely unlikable. Each seemed to live in a world of their own construction, believing what is convenient and discounting the rest.

David, Arnold’s oldest son, maintains that his father died suddenly “of a heart attack.” All the boys deny that their father molested them. Jesse denies ever molesting any of the children in his care. But there were hundreds of claims to the contrary. Some of them totally unbelievable, like the claims of “leap frog” where the young boys “sat with their bare butts in the air, as Arnold and Jesse jumped from child to child sticking their dicks in each one.” Obviously the person who came up with that one hasn’t ever experienced anal sex. Also completely lacking was ANY physical evidence. No blood, no semen, no bruises, no fibers. Nothing. Not from one single child.

So, was it all sexual hysteria? Were these memories invented by cops and therapists? Were they some sick form of one-upmanship among the housewives of Great Neck? (”My son was raped 7 times!” “Well MY son was raped 8 times, and orally sodomized!”) Did these events actually occur? Or were the Friedmans railroaded into plea bargains because they knew they could never win their cases with the publicity against them? Why did the family turn on itself and collapse, rather than coming together to fight these charges? What the hell was going on over at the goddamned Friedman place anyway?

What the film leaves you with is the certainty that you will never know. There is too much emotion, too much denial, too much dishonesty for the real truth to be known. But it’s a weird and wild story, and watching this family implode helps you realize that your family isn’t the worst one out there - maybe just the second worst. And that just isn’t the kind of bummer I was expecting.

07/02/03 “28 Days Later”

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Megan Burns, Christopher Eccleston, Brendan Gleeson

Directed By: Danny Boyle

Rating: Off the Rag

Plot Summary: A virus which locks those infected into a permanent state of killing rage, is accidentally released from a British research facility. Carried by animals and humans, the virus is impossible to contain, and spreads across the entire planet. Twenty-eight days later, a small group of survivors are trapped in London, caught in a desperate struggle to protect themselves from the infected. As they attempt to salvage a future from the apocalypse, they find that their most deadly enemy is not the virus, but other survivors.

All in all I spent $20.00*  watching this movie. It’s a good movie - but in retrospect I really could have owned the DVD. But then again, if I’d waited for the DVD I wouldn’t have reviewed the movie for you all, so I guess my loss is your incredible gain.

Anyway, like I said, it’s a good movie. It’s wonderfully successful in what it intends to do, which is to be a horrifying look at a post-apocalyptic world caused by man’s own ignorance and idiocy (no, the use of “man” was not an accident)

Jim, a bicycle courier, wakes up stark nekkid in a hospital to find all of London a ghost town (how the HELL did they film this I want to know?) and soon is set upon by crazed, red-eyed, blood vomiting creatures. These are “the infected.” People who have been exposed to “Rage,” a virus created by scientists and accidentally let out of the lab by well-meaning animal rights Nazi’s. This virus spreads faster than your white trash neighbors thighs, turning those tainted to raving beasts within 10-20 seconds of infection.

After a misadventure in a church with an infected priest**(best “quote” of the film is written on the wall there: Repent, for the end is very fucking nigh.) Jim quickly meets up with some saviors in the form of Selena and a guy who gets killed so quickly I forget his name. Kudos to the directors in making him too good looking to be killed so quickly, you assume that (Hollywood style) they’ll kill off the minority character Selena, so when forgot-his-name kicks it, it’s all the more shocking. Jim figures out that yes, his family is dead too, no The Government doesn’t have it all under control, and yes, he does need a haircut after his emergency brain surgery.

So, what do you do when you’re trapped on an island where mostly everyone is dead, the people that aren’t dead are blood-vomiting animals that want to rip you limb from limb, and you have no idea if the rest of the world is even there anymore? Well, Selena, Jim and a father-daughter duo of uninfected that they meet set off to find an army base which is transmitting radio signals that they have the “cure to infection.”

True to form, salvation promised easily by others is never what it seems, and the film’s moral (men are fucking pigs and deserve to be wiped off the planet, especially any men who have voluntarily joined the military) is quickly proved when the quartet find what they are looking for.

The film is quite gory, albeit in brief flashes so you don’t really know what you’re seeing. It was filmed digitally and the grainy appearance serves to enhance the dreamy/nightmarish aspect of the story. The characters, true to Brit style, are human looking enough to be believable. No capped teeth, siliconed breasts and liposuctioned thighs in this group. This is “reality” and in reality people don’t look good all the time, especially people with no access to running water.

For women, who know where the second half of the film is going as soon as they see these military guys, it’s a scarier film than for men I think. It’s support to the premise that men are animals, and in the films climax it’s really hard to tell the difference between the infected/uninfected, the human and the primate, the sane and the insane.

It’s a good film, it’s not the formulaic dross that’s normally out there (take note Legally Blonde II and The Italian Job!) and I can recommend it to anyone who doesn’t get upset at the sight of men with chains around their necks vomiting blood and what looks to be part of his stomach into a muddy courtyard.

Note: The much touted “alternate ending” is not worth paying to see the film again for. Wait for the DVD.

*$7.50 first showing

$5.00 second showing to see the “alternate ending”

$7.50 for chocolate and lemonade at second showing.

** Again, proving that men are pigs and one shouldn’t seek “salvation”

06/19/03 “Owning Mahowny”

Starring:Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, John Hurt, Maury Chakin

Directed by:Richard Kwietniowski

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: Based on a true story, Dan Mahowny (Hoffman) is a bank manager with two problems: he’s an obsessive gambler in Atlantic City, and his job gives him free control of a $20 million account. As his debts grow, so do the lengths to which he will go in order to camouflage his actions.

I am not one to talk to a movie screen, but this movie made me literally itch with wanting to scream at the celluloid. Watching this man self-destruct in painfully slow motion made me almost physically ill.

I have to give kudos to Philip Seymour Hoffman in his first lead roll. Usually playing bit-character parts such as the phone sex line operator cum shakedown artist (pun intended) in “Punch Drunk Love” or the tabloid reporter who comes to a very bad end in “Red Dragon,” this was Hoffman’s first chance to show that he could carry a feature film on his own, and he does it easily. Completely immersed in the character of Mahowny, a compulsive gambler with no passion for anything and no discernible emotion, Hoffman still can make you feel the pathos of a man caught in the grip of an obsession he can’t possibly control. Utterly contemptible, and yet utterly vulnerable at the same time, Mahowny is horrific and fascinating to watch.

It all starts rather innocuously. A $10,300 debt to a local bookie, who cuts him off until he pays up, has newly promoted bank manager Mahowny desperate. His solution is chillingly simple and the beginning of a slide down a steep and slippery slope. He opens an account for a fictitious client in the amount of $10,300. But then, why stop there? Mahowny, who dresses (as his bookie describes it) like a douche-bag, and drives a beat up piece of crap car, starts living the high roller life in Atlantic City, flying down on weekends with large sums of cash he’s taken from the bank. It’s clear that he thinks that one big weekend could make everything OK for him, but the rub for the compulsive gambler is that they can’t stop, even when they are winning. At several points in the film he has enough to clear him - but with a passionless precision he wastes away all his winnings.

The amounts of money he’s dropping soon catch the eye of casino manager Victor Foss, played by the voraciously sinister John Hurt. He is an easy mark, needing no special treatment to keep him contentedly gambling, and none of the usual high-roller amenities other than “ribs, no sauce, and a Coke.”

Mahowny graduates to the Vegas big leagues, and actually comes home up $1.4 million, even though the trip causes the implosion of his co-dependent relationship with the perennially mousy and scarily blonde Belinda. Belinda is played by Minnie Driver, who - God love her - couldn’t get a Canadian accent down, and thus wavers fitfully between Irish, American and Minnesotan inflections all through the film.

In the final, climactic sequence of the film, Mahowny is once again in Atlantic City, enjoying one of his few runs of good luck. He gets up $9 million, and this is the part where I wanted to scream “Walk Away for Christ’s sake!” at the screen, but loses it all, down to his last dollar, that same night. He returns home, unaware that the Canadian police are waiting for him at the airport, and arrest him upon his arrival, in one of the only comedic moments of the film, “On suspicion of theft over $200.00″

Mahowny’s life is ruined, and he takes out 9 other bank employees with him, people who weren’t involved, but are fired for allowing themselves to be tricked by this sociopathic gambler. I don’t know what the lesson is in the film - what I took away was the feeling that human beings have a limitless capacity for idiocy, self-destruction, deceit and greed. So, not the feel good movie of the summer, but captivating none the less.

See the official website at http://www.sonyclassics.com/owning/core/hasFlash.html the continuous sound loop will make you want to shoot yourself, but if you turn your speakers down this Flash site is pretty well done.

05/05/03 “X2: X-Men United”

Starring:Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Famke Janssen, Halle Berry, Brian Cox, Alan Cumming

Directed By:Bryan Singer

Rating:Slender Tampon

Plot Summary: The X-Men have opponents new and old to face this time around. Magneto is back, but there is also a threat to Professor Xavier’s school for mutants led by a human named Stryker, not to mention a vicious woman named Yuriko who has it in for Wolverine.

The wait is finally over - X2 has hit the theaters. I can’t say it was worth the wait, I hate waiting. But it was worth the $7.50, finding parking at the mall on a Saturday, and sitting in a packed theatre in one of the first ten rows listening to little kids rustle around.

We re-enter the world of X-men where the first story left off, with the somewhat dubiously evil Magneto locked in his plastic prison, and Logan off to investigate his forgotten past. I felt the transition to the second film was seamless. Although the budget was presumably much higher, the sets and characters have the same look and feel. You can slide yourself right into the illusion that this is only a few weeks later than the events of the first film. This is aided by the return of all of the actors playing the main characters, with a few additions like the absolutely delightful Alan Cumming as the Nightcrawler, and the wonderfully evil, if somewhat taciturn, Deathstrike.

Now, having said that the movie was excellent (it was) I am going to jump immediately to what I wish would have been different. Character development. Anyone remember that? While the main characters were true to form and hilarious (Wolverine’s lines, delivered in a savage deadpan, are the film’s top comic moments) the secondary characters like Deathstrike seemed to have fascinating stories that I would have loved to learn more of. Her history was hinted at yet never explored. Likewise, the transformation of Senator Kelly was almost completely ignored. I wanted to know more about his mutation in the first film at the hands of Magneto. Whose side is he on now? He shuffles around aimlessly in a few scenes and then disappears. Just a quick showing of his mutant abilities with a sly grin would have done it, and in trade you could have cut the whole useless scene where Logan first researches the abandoned facility that Professor Xavier has sent him to.

The effects were great, especially those related to Nightcrawler (can I love Alan Cumming any more?) and Mystique. The beautiful way that Mystique morphs from character to character is so well done that you don’t even appreciate it, you just accept it as reality. The characters were believable (well, comic book believable) and as I said before the sets were gorgeous and preserved the look and feel of the original X-men. I can’t wait to go see it again, and I suggest you get your bootie out to one of the batrillion screens it’s on this week and do the same.

The site is http://www.x2-movie.com/ and it has some fun downloadable goodies and trailers, it’s an example of Flash done correctly - check it out.

05/26/03 “Blue Car”

Starring: Agnes Bruckner, David Strathairn, Margaret Colin, Frances Fisher, AJ Buckley

Directed by: Karen Moncrieff

Rating:Off the Rag

Plot Summary:  The film takes us into the teenage psyche of Meg, a gifted but emotionally scarred 18-year-old. Haunted by her father’s abandonment of the family, she is neglected by her overworked mother and left to her own devices in dealing with her emotionally disturbed younger sister. Meg finds solace in writing poetry. Her English teacher steps into the role of mentor and father figure, encouraging her to enter a national poetry contest for which he is a judge. As tension at home escalates his role in her life becomes increasingly complex.

Wow - this was one hell of a movie. I know some will strenuously disagree with my top rating of this film, but I had to separate not liking how a movie makes me feel from not liking a movie. One must acknowledge that a celluloid image’s ability to make one feel anything is a mark of its success as a film.

This is a painful, at times very disturbing, look at what it’s like to be a teenage girl in a family that doesn’t work, in a world where no one cares what you’re feeling. It explores how uniquely vulnerable these creatures are to any display of affection or attention - even in the most manipulative, sleaziest of forms.

Meg’s father is gone and, as in life, why this is so is never made clear. What’s clear is the effect that this has had on her. Isolation, loss of self-esteem, lack of confidence, feeling unloved - she’s been affected by her father’s absence and her mother’s subsequent bitterness and emotional unavailability. Her younger sister is also deeply troubled, and Meg’s teenage rebellion (like telling her mother “You had her, you take care of her”) isn’t helping matters.

Seen in all her naked vulnerability by her AP English teacher, Meg seems for a time to blossom under his regard, his sharing of intimate details of his life, and his encouragement for her to “go deeper” with her poetry. But even when things are looking up for Meg, the film’s tone tells you that many more troubles are ahead for this bright, but still lost, girl.

Though you can’t approve of the choices Meg makes, you can understand how she comes to her decisions, the circumstances that force her hand - and you can empathize with her situation. The ending, though somewhat predictable, leaves you cautiously optimistic that this beautiful girl/child with her mother’s shirt and chipped nail polish can negotiate the minefield of her teenage years without being destroyed by them.

The performances by each cast member are exquisite. Each character so utterly believable, so painfully real that you want to look away but can’t. Agnes Bruckner is wonderful as Meg - and David Strathairn’s Mr. Auster is so horrible that you want to punch him. Meg’s little sister shines as well.

Take a Xanax, and then go and see Blue Car. You’ll be glad you did, unless you kill yourself.

Check out the website at http://www.miramax.com/bluecar/