![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironic
The Black Cat (1934)
Five years afterthirdblindmouse vidded it for Festivids, disgruntled_owl and I watched this gem of a horror film in which a pleasingly eyelinered Boris Karloff runs a Satanic cult in the dungeons of an Art Deco castle in Hungary, Bela Lugosi plots his revenge after 15 years in prison, and a mystery writer and his fainting new bride try to find their way out alive. Also there are black cats that may or may not embody the spirits of a bunch of sacrificed ladies, and Lugosi's phobia of them remains mysterious. Need to read the Poe short story the movie was loosely inspired by; clues may lie within.
Great fashion, great cinematography, great one-liners (say it slowly: "Even the telephone is dead"), great—if much too short—scene of sinewy Karloff stripped to the waist and handcuffed to a St. Andrew's cross. We… may have watched that part twice. Here's a nice fan art version by SeizureDemon.
The whole thing runs a compact 65 minutes. Two thumbs up except for a yellowface character.
ETA for reference: moviediva
Ella Enchanted
A movie about the importance of consent! Who knew?
The gleefully anachronistic language, attitudes and music put this movie in the same category as A Knight's Tale. There was a lot about it that wasn't to my taste, and parts that were actively offensive, but I was pleased by its feminism, particularly its depiction of use and abuse of power over other people.
Conceit: (Cinder)Ella, played by the always luminous Anne Hathaway, has been cursed by her fairy godmother to obey direct commands from anyone who delivers them. On one side is her stepsister, who takes cruel advantage when she figures out what's going on. On the other side is the prince. He begins as a semi-sexist dude accustomed to privilege who orders Ella around without understanding that she's bound to do what he says both because of the royalty vs. commoner class divide and because of her secret curse. Later, however, he senses the weirdness in her abrupt compliance compared to how she speaks and acts the rest of the time and starts to realize how he puts Ella, and by extension others, in uncomfortable positions if/when they don't want to do what he "asks."
The most striking example took place in a tavern when, after the requisite progression from animosity to flirting, the prince and Ella lean toward one another and he says he wants her to kiss him—then clarifies that it isn't an order. That scene was about to go somewhere deeply uncomfortable, with a heroine who wanted to kiss the hero but definitely did not want to do so because of political or magical compulsion, and the filmmakers pulled it right back to where it should have been. A+ surprise model of consent.
ETA: LOL, if you, like me, have ever confused Ella Enchanted for another movie, or have questions about Anne Hathaway roles in general, check outseekingferret's amazing disambiguation flow chart below.
Colossal
What an odd yet compelling little magical-realism movie. Reviewers were right that marketing it as a comedy about a white New Yorker (Anne Hathaway again) who finds out she can control a Godzilla-like monster 12 hours away in Seoul did poor justice to what the story was ultimately about: the terror of becoming the target of a Nice Guy who doesn't get his way. Then again, I don't know how you put together a coherent trailer for a movie that is about both of those things, and I can understand why they chose to focus on the "quirky action movie" angle.
The real story took a long time to get going, but on reflection that might have helped convey how normal-seeming and sweet these kinds of manipulative dudes can seem at first—that all the ugliness lies in wait. Jason Sudeikis did a fantastic job showing how Oscar slipped further and further into true monstrousness, or rather dropped the veneer that he'd been anything but a bully and a psychopath since boyhood. I liked that the city boyfriend, Tim, while presented sympathetically at the beginning of the movie via his exasperation with the mess Gloria has made of her life, showed his true colors in the end as well, threatened by a woman who got her act together and learned to recognize negging for what it is.
From what I can remember—I watched it several months ago at this point—my main wishes were two. First, that when Gloria-as-monster held Oscar's life in her hands, Oscar hadn't made the decision so easy for her by turning full-force nasty. I would have liked to see her give him one last chance and for him to blow it again. Either way, we were gifted with a satisfying thrashing in a world where misogynists don't often enough get the punishments they deserve.
Second, the couple of South Korean characters who got lines, and the population of Seoul in general, should have had more screen time and development. Better than nothing, but not enough. (Also, how did Gloria afford that plane ticket?)
Manchester by the Sea
Okay, I know this isn't really a fair critique of any piece of art, but this is one of those cases where I wish the whole thing had been about someone else. We have to spend two hours with this standard blue-collar white guy from Boston* who's grieving because he'd been an irresponsible man-boy asshole until he screwed up big time. Problem one, I didn't sympathize with him. He'd been courting disaster and it found him. It's not that the tragedy wasn't sad and the subsequent soul-rending grief and regret understandable; it's just that I would have cared about almost anybody other than a white dude played by Casey Affleck who learned that recklessness can have consequences. Problem two, it's hard to portray relentless grief and depression on film. I mean, Casey Affleck did a fine job, I guess, but you're still staring at what is basically a blank face and listening to muted delivery. Yes, that's what long-term grief and depression can look like. No, it still did not make me like him.
*a.k.a. Casey Affleck, whose performances are marred by harassment allegations to begin with
So that was a barrier. The other thing was the ending. I assumed that despite all this hardship—the past family tragedy, the brother's terminal illness, the unstable sister-in-law, the complaining clients—the main character would find, at last, a small handhold, a glimmer of hope, a reason to go on, in caring for his nephew. But no. Okay, hints of it were there, but the hints were more like, 'Now Casey Affleck can envision a future in which he might be ready to care for his nephew, and that is progress.' Now I understand why my short-story instructor in college refused to let us write stories with circular narratives: it's super frustrating to read about or in this case watch a protagonist end up where they started without even having gone on a journey in the middle.
Reviewers praised the film for its rich and rare depiction of a case where a trauma runs so deep that recovery may not be possible, or not possible yet, and for its refusal to rely on platitudes or saccharine resolutions. That's the best defense of this movie's existence that I've seen. But it takes us back to point one: If this is your theme, why couldn't you have had a different main character?
That said… The writing was very good; a few scenes moved me to tears, especially the teenage nephew breaking down over frozen chicken because it reminded him of his dad's body in cold storage; and I found myself continuing to think about the movie after it was over.
Five years after
thirdblindmouse vidded it for Festivids, disgruntled_owl and I watched this gem of a horror film in which a pleasingly eyelinered Boris Karloff runs a Satanic cult in the dungeons of an Art Deco castle in Hungary, Bela Lugosi plots his revenge after 15 years in prison, and a mystery writer and his fainting new bride try to find their way out alive. Also there are black cats that may or may not embody the spirits of a bunch of sacrificed ladies, and Lugosi's phobia of them remains mysterious. Need to read the Poe short story the movie was loosely inspired by; clues may lie within. Great fashion, great cinematography, great one-liners (say it slowly: "Even the telephone is dead"), great—if much too short—scene of sinewy Karloff stripped to the waist and handcuffed to a St. Andrew's cross. We… may have watched that part twice. Here's a nice fan art version by SeizureDemon.
The whole thing runs a compact 65 minutes. Two thumbs up except for a yellowface character.
ETA for reference: moviediva
Ella Enchanted
A movie about the importance of consent! Who knew?
The gleefully anachronistic language, attitudes and music put this movie in the same category as A Knight's Tale. There was a lot about it that wasn't to my taste, and parts that were actively offensive, but I was pleased by its feminism, particularly its depiction of use and abuse of power over other people.
Conceit: (Cinder)Ella, played by the always luminous Anne Hathaway, has been cursed by her fairy godmother to obey direct commands from anyone who delivers them. On one side is her stepsister, who takes cruel advantage when she figures out what's going on. On the other side is the prince. He begins as a semi-sexist dude accustomed to privilege who orders Ella around without understanding that she's bound to do what he says both because of the royalty vs. commoner class divide and because of her secret curse. Later, however, he senses the weirdness in her abrupt compliance compared to how she speaks and acts the rest of the time and starts to realize how he puts Ella, and by extension others, in uncomfortable positions if/when they don't want to do what he "asks."
The most striking example took place in a tavern when, after the requisite progression from animosity to flirting, the prince and Ella lean toward one another and he says he wants her to kiss him—then clarifies that it isn't an order. That scene was about to go somewhere deeply uncomfortable, with a heroine who wanted to kiss the hero but definitely did not want to do so because of political or magical compulsion, and the filmmakers pulled it right back to where it should have been. A+ surprise model of consent.
ETA: LOL, if you, like me, have ever confused Ella Enchanted for another movie, or have questions about Anne Hathaway roles in general, check out
seekingferret's amazing disambiguation flow chart below.Colossal
What an odd yet compelling little magical-realism movie. Reviewers were right that marketing it as a comedy about a white New Yorker (Anne Hathaway again) who finds out she can control a Godzilla-like monster 12 hours away in Seoul did poor justice to what the story was ultimately about: the terror of becoming the target of a Nice Guy who doesn't get his way. Then again, I don't know how you put together a coherent trailer for a movie that is about both of those things, and I can understand why they chose to focus on the "quirky action movie" angle.
The real story took a long time to get going, but on reflection that might have helped convey how normal-seeming and sweet these kinds of manipulative dudes can seem at first—that all the ugliness lies in wait. Jason Sudeikis did a fantastic job showing how Oscar slipped further and further into true monstrousness, or rather dropped the veneer that he'd been anything but a bully and a psychopath since boyhood. I liked that the city boyfriend, Tim, while presented sympathetically at the beginning of the movie via his exasperation with the mess Gloria has made of her life, showed his true colors in the end as well, threatened by a woman who got her act together and learned to recognize negging for what it is.
From what I can remember—I watched it several months ago at this point—my main wishes were two. First, that when Gloria-as-monster held Oscar's life in her hands, Oscar hadn't made the decision so easy for her by turning full-force nasty. I would have liked to see her give him one last chance and for him to blow it again. Either way, we were gifted with a satisfying thrashing in a world where misogynists don't often enough get the punishments they deserve.
Second, the couple of South Korean characters who got lines, and the population of Seoul in general, should have had more screen time and development. Better than nothing, but not enough. (Also, how did Gloria afford that plane ticket?)
Manchester by the Sea
Okay, I know this isn't really a fair critique of any piece of art, but this is one of those cases where I wish the whole thing had been about someone else. We have to spend two hours with this standard blue-collar white guy from Boston* who's grieving because he'd been an irresponsible man-boy asshole until he screwed up big time. Problem one, I didn't sympathize with him. He'd been courting disaster and it found him. It's not that the tragedy wasn't sad and the subsequent soul-rending grief and regret understandable; it's just that I would have cared about almost anybody other than a white dude played by Casey Affleck who learned that recklessness can have consequences. Problem two, it's hard to portray relentless grief and depression on film. I mean, Casey Affleck did a fine job, I guess, but you're still staring at what is basically a blank face and listening to muted delivery. Yes, that's what long-term grief and depression can look like. No, it still did not make me like him.
*a.k.a. Casey Affleck, whose performances are marred by harassment allegations to begin with
So that was a barrier. The other thing was the ending. I assumed that despite all this hardship—the past family tragedy, the brother's terminal illness, the unstable sister-in-law, the complaining clients—the main character would find, at last, a small handhold, a glimmer of hope, a reason to go on, in caring for his nephew. But no. Okay, hints of it were there, but the hints were more like, 'Now Casey Affleck can envision a future in which he might be ready to care for his nephew, and that is progress.' Now I understand why my short-story instructor in college refused to let us write stories with circular narratives: it's super frustrating to read about or in this case watch a protagonist end up where they started without even having gone on a journey in the middle.
Reviewers praised the film for its rich and rare depiction of a case where a trauma runs so deep that recovery may not be possible, or not possible yet, and for its refusal to rely on platitudes or saccharine resolutions. That's the best defense of this movie's existence that I've seen. But it takes us back to point one: If this is your theme, why couldn't you have had a different main character?
That said… The writing was very good; a few scenes moved me to tears, especially the teenage nephew breaking down over frozen chicken because it reminded him of his dad's body in cold storage; and I found myself continuing to think about the movie after it was over.
no subject
Date: Jun. 30th, 2018 07:44 pm (UTC)Is that not a fair criticism? I think it all the time, frex about GOTG, which is really Gamora's story. I think it's a fair criticism.
I'm going to watch Colossal as soon as it comes up on my TiVo -- I missed it precisely because of the marketing, as you point out. I hate when that happens, not least because I'm mad at myself as well (I'm so sorry I missed Moonlight in theaters, for instance).
I love your analyses of fiction. You're one of the people I particularly learn from.
no subject
Date: Jul. 1st, 2018 01:45 pm (UTC)>>Is that not a fair criticism?
Yes and no. There's taking the film on its own merits, like, Someone made this thing, let's take that as a given and look at how well it fulfills its goals. And there's looking at the thing in cultural context, which, to your point, sure, is fair, but gets into questions of how much you can hold one artist or one piece of art responsible for perpetuating a broader trend. It's maybe less hard or unfair to apply such critiques to professional work like this, in Hollywood? Compared to what happens in fandom when people reply to a fanwork with a comment like "This should have been about [other pairing] or [other kink] or [other tone/ending]"? Or maybe not, and this is more like when a majority of people in a fandom glom on to a white guy/white guy pairing when there are awesome characters of color right next to them, for example? But even then, don't we talk about & to fandom at large rather than piling on to one author?
Anyway, all of that was tumbling around in my head when I tried to summarize with the "fair" statement. :)
no subject
Date: Jul. 1st, 2018 09:08 pm (UTC)Also *blushes and hugs you*
no subject
Date: Jun. 30th, 2018 08:03 pm (UTC)ETA that I also think your issue with Manchester by the Sea is dead on, and a perfectly fair point to make.
no subject
Date: Jun. 30th, 2018 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 1st, 2018 01:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 1st, 2018 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 1st, 2018 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 2nd, 2018 03:11 pm (UTC)I'm going to link this for the other commenters. Quick question, should there be another yes/no above Ever After & Enchanted or are they both "no"?
no subject
Date: Jul. 2nd, 2018 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 2nd, 2018 03:45 pm (UTC)+---------------+ | Does it star | | Anne Hathaway?| +---------------+ +-------+ +-----+ | No | | Yes | +-------+ +-----+ +------------------+ +--------------------+ | Is it set | | Is she a princess? | | in Modern times? | +--------------------+ +------------------+ +-----+ +----+ +-------+ +-----+ | Yes | | No | | Yes | | No | +-----+ +----+ +-------+ +-----+ +-----------------+ +------------------------+ +-----------+ +----------+ |In Modern times? | | The Dark Knight Rises | | Enchanted | |Ever After| +-----------------+ +------------------------+ +-----------+ +----------+ +----+ +----+ |Yes | | No | +----+ +----+ +----------------+ +----------------+ | The Princess | | Ella Enchanted | | Diaries | +----------------+ +----------------+no subject
Date: Jul. 2nd, 2018 03:46 pm (UTC)A+++++
no subject
Date: Jul. 7th, 2018 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 8th, 2018 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 2nd, 2018 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Jul. 1st, 2018 01:56 pm (UTC)Agree with everything you say here! That sucks about what your support group acquaintance encountered - but I guess it's helpful to know when the people around you don't care about modeling consent to children as much as you do. At least in the case of this movie, the antics were gradually replaced with the healthier message.