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florencewellch · 4 years

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IT Chapter Two: A Failure.

I will be criticizing the characterizations, the plot, the horror aspects and I will be comparing the film to the 1990 miniseries and the 1986 novel.

Characterization:

Ben. While he is still similar to his book counterpart, the writing for his character in the movies could have been better, because apart from being the lovesick poet and the history buff (a role which belonged to Mike in the book and in the 1990 miniseries), he didn’t get much of a characterization beyond that. In the novel, Ben was still a curious kid, who was interested in architecture and physics, and he was still a hopeless romantic, but he was not quite the poet the movies and the fandom makes him out to be, and as he stated in the book the reason why he liked haikus is because they are “structured poetry”. He was also the one responsible for building the dam in the barrens, the silver bullets and the underground clubhouse, which, except for the latter, were all excluded from Muschietti’s films. Another important moment from the novel, which was left out of the movies, was the scene where he stood up to his Gym teacher, who was complicit in the bullying he suffered at the hands of his classmates, which could have been in the second film, instead of his flashback with Pennywise, who was disguised as Beverly, a scene which didn’t provide the viewer with any new information about the character and its sole purpose was to pay homage to the 1990 miniseries.

Beverly. The movie at its worst never gets as bad as the book did, but one would expect that two movies made in the 21st century would be more progressive than a novel written in the 1980s, while certain aspects of the character were slightly better handled in the movies, it was not as good as it could have been. In the first film, Beverly is an outcast due to false rumors of promiscuity, an odd choice, because in the novel and in the miniseries she was bullied for being poor and wearing secondhand clothes, and because classism was still an issue in 1989 (the year the first film is set), it’s still is todays, so that was an unnecessary change. As was the fact that she didn’t interact much with other Losers, aside from her love interests (Bill and Ben), but perhaps the most infuriating decision was turning her into a damsel in distress and removing her role as the sharpshooter of the group. There are still positive aspects in Ch1’s treatment of Bev, she was given a personality while her book counterpart was an incredibly flat character. In the second film the scene where she is physically assaulted by her husband is played for shock value, while in the novel Beverly left her husband severely injured and he was later killed by It, in the 2019 film this scene was never addressed in a meaningful way, so it just comes across as gratuitous violence. Perhaps the best decision the second movie made regarding Beverly’s character was replacing the one-night stand she had with Bill with just a kiss to show that those childhood feelings no longer existed.

Bill. He was much better handled in the movies, while in the book the other Losers (except for Mike and maybe Stan) idolize Bill, in the movies they don’t, which makes them equals. My only complaint would be that scene in the second movie where he tells Audra that he wishes she would be like that woman he wanted. This would have made sense if they were going to stick with book arc and have him cheat on Audra, because he was still attracted to Bev, but that didn’t happen so that scene felt out of place with the rest of the film.

Eddie. He is the case of a character who was relatively well-written in the first movie, but then suffered a complete personality change in the second film. While in the first movie Eddie was brave and kind, traits which his book counterpart has, Ch2 Eddie was mean-spirited and cowardly. Most of his arc and coding was given to Richie, because the director thought that his fear of illness and relationship with his mother was enough, but he failed to realize that his fears of illness/germs and that feeling that he’s rotten are due to his internalized homophobia. And Muschietti didn’t even do a good job at handling what remained of Eddie’s arc (his fear of illness and relationship with his mother), he played it for laughs. He did not even let Eddie have agency over his death, in the novel he chose to sacrifice himself to save Richie and Bill. In the movie he still saves Richie from the deadlights, but he turns his back on It, giving the creature the opportunity to stab and thus losing any agency the character had over his fate in the book and the miniseries. He also butchered his death scene, which in the novel was when he finally accepted himself:

“Fading, fading back. Becoming clearer and clearer, emptying out, all of the impurities flowing out of him so he could become clear, so that the light could flow through, and if he had had time enough he could have preached on this, he could have sermonized: Not bad, he would begin. This is not bad at all. But there was something else he had to say first. “Richie,” he whispered. “What?” Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. “Don’t call me Eds,” he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richie’s cheek. Richie was crying. “You know I … I …” Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died.” (Stephen King, IT pp. 1086-7)

And Muschietti replaced that with a scene that made Eddie’s death all about Richie’s grief and changed his last words to “I fucked your mom”. All the emotional impact his death had has been completely lost.

Mike. No doubt he was the character who got the worst treatment in both movies. In the first movie, he was barely given any screen time, his role as the history buff in the group was given to Ben and they killed off his parents. In the second film, they didn’t even give him his a proper place to live in, he was just leaving in an attic, they had him steal artifacts from Native Americans (I’ll discuss that later), drug one of his friends, lie about the Ritual of Chüd being effective and he was the only Loser who didn’t even get a flashback of their own. While in the book, he was the historian, had the best parents and was one of the most important Losers. The only positive change that Muschietti made was having Mike go down to the sewers with the group for the final battle.

Richie. Even though he was played by Bill Hader, he wasn’t given the opportunity to be funny, apart from 1 impression, which was improvised. Also they removed his struggles with his sexuality in the first film, which was poorly retconned in the second film, his own bi-coding in the book was ignored and replaced with Eddie’s gay-coding (whose sexuality was left ambiguous at best), had him try to run away every 5 seconds (which something he never did in the book, he is one of the most loyal Losers), made his parents negligent just to add more unnecessary angst, because Muschietti thinks trauma = nuance. And just flattened an interesting character and took away any charm he had in the book, miniseries and Ch1.

Stan. While he was still the least developed Loser in the book, we never even get his POV, he had more character traits than just “the kid who gets annoyed easily”. In the book he was an eccentric kid with an equally eccentric sense of humor, had an interest in ornithology (completely left out apart from that puzzle), a good relationship with his parents who encouraged their son’s hobbies and weren’t as orthodox as the movies portray them. They replaced his encounter with the dead boys in the Standpipe for a painting (apparently that was Andy projecting himself onto Stan), which makes no sense because the dead kids offended him and Stan is a logical person, he would not have been scared of a painting. And they romanticized his suicide, framing it was an act of heroism, which sends the wrong message about suicide and is inaccurate, because the reason why the Losers were able to fight It is because there were seven of them, It was even scared of them. So, saying that his death was necessary to keep the Losers united just misses the point.

Issues with the Plot:

Raising the stakes to be more dramatic ended up hurting the story, while in the book the Losers’ decision to stay and fight It was one of selflessness, they decided keep a promise they made when they were eleven years old, in the second movie if they didn’t destroy It, they would end up dying, so this decision became one of self-preservation.

In the movie if they didn’t kill It, they would end up dying. This damaged the plot and eliminated the feeling of friendship, in this movie the Losers barely felt like old friends and more like co-workers. Another odd choice was to include the Ritual of Chüd, turn into a Native American ritual and portray them in a stereotypical way and it was also unnecessary to include that, because the ritual doesn’t work, so the viewer just wasted an hour watching the Losers looking for their tokens and in the end It was killed by the power of bullying. Another flaw of Chapter Two is its runtime, the movie is almost three hours along, most of the flashbacks were unnecessary and its structure is rather disjointed.

The film also fails to address important scenes in a meaningful way, while in the book the murder of Adrian Mellon was based on a real event and was included to condemn this action, the film never addressed it (it wasn’t even mentioned afterwards), instead it was played for shock value. Probably because the actual scares of this were not effective at all, instead of relying on practical effect and trying to create tension, the filmmakers decided to use CGI for all these scenes. It would have been wiser if they had only used it in essential moments, for example, when It turned into a giant spider. In an attempt to avoid the criticism the 1990 miniseries faced for keeping the spider while also trying to stay faithful to the source material, they decided to create a ridiculous hybrid, a giant clown with spider legs, whose death was caused by the power of bullying. Ironic for a movie which was supposed to condemn such a thing. What the viewer was left with was a dull, unimpressive, charmless movie, filled with problems caused by the director’s failure to understand the source material and the characters.

#I spent 2 days working on this and have been thinking about this for a year so I'd appreciate reblogs #Ch2 was a mistake

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imaginationstimulation · 3 years

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In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 film, The Lady Vanishes, a young woman on a train becomes disturbed by the sudden disappearance of a kindly older woman, a governess and music teacher. The latter, a spinster, is introduced to the viewer when she writes the letters of her name in the condensation on one of the train’s glass windowpanes, only to have them evaporate almost instantly. Within minutes, she is gone, and the other passengers, steward, and conductor claim to have never seen her. Asked to describe her, the young woman can only say she was “middle-aged and ordinary,” before admitting, “I can’t remember.” Later in the film, the older woman is reduced to “a hallucination, a subjective image, a character in a novel subconsciously remembered,” and even “nothing but lumps of raw flesh,” all before she is revealed as a British spy, the movie’s ultimate heroine in the final scene.

[...] Her words evoke another woman walking, unseen, down the street nearly a century ago. As Clarissa Dalloway shops in London for flowers on a June morning, Virginia Woolf speculates about her protagonist’s transitory identity. [...] One’s identity, Woolf seems to say, is transient, and perhaps all the more so with age. As women become older, they entertain a wider set of choices about when and how they are seen. This vanishing can occur more rapidly or be felt more acutely. Clarissa Dalloway’s sense of fleeting self was described more explicitly decades later by the writer Francine du Plessix Gray in her essay “The Third Age.” If the gaze of others wanes, Gray suggests, one might choose to “acquire instead a deepened inward gaze, or intensify our observation of others, or evolve alternative means of attention-getting which transcend sexuality and depend, as the mentors of my youth taught me, upon presence, authority, and voice.”

Gray may be talking about the difference between being a subject and an object. It is a cliché to point out that ours is a culture in which men routinely objectify women, but according to Alison Carper, a psychologist who practices in New York, if a woman is complicit in this practice—that is, in viewing herself as an object—she cannot help but be acutely aware when that object loses its desirability. “As humans, we all need to be recognized,” Carper adds, “but as we grow older, the manner of recognition we search for can change. A subject is someone who experiences her own agency, who is aware of how she can and does have an impact on others and how she is, ultimately, the author of her own life. She is aware of the responsibility this carries.” A woman without fully developed interiority might continue to objectify herself.

[...] A reduced sense of visibility does not necessarily constrain experience. Associated with greater empathy and compassion, invisibility directs us toward a more humanitarian view of the larger world. This diminished status can, in fact, sustain and inform—rather than limit—our lives. Going unrecognized can, paradoxically, help us recognize our place in the larger scheme of things.

#books #akiko busch #feminism #modern feminism #why we need feminism #women #aging #age #feminine #divine feminine #articles #the atlantic

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writingvampires · 4 years

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A Different Cinematic Monster: The Cult of Midsommar

Maybe I’m writing this article because Midsommar (2019) is one of my favorite films of 2019 or maybe I was traumatized by the film and need to put the nightmares it gave me onto page. From the trauma Dani (Florence Pugh) experiences in the opening minutes to the trauma induced on the viewer over the course of roughly two and a half hours, Midsommar never shies away from causing severe discomfort. The monsters at the heart of the film are the traditions of the Swedish society the American travelers are subjected to as they try to maintain sanity amidst what may be a murderous cult.

Dani’s mental health has been negatively impacted by the suicide of her sister and death of her parents. Her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) is the textbook definition of a toxic boyfriend and may know this himself, but he still fears leaving Dani alone in her emotionally vulnerable state. Christian decides to tag along with his friends Josh (William Jackson Harper), Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), and Mark (Will Poulter) to a ritualistic festival in Sweden. They’re in college so of course they’re largely in it for drugs and the chance of having sex with international women. Christian and his friends allow Dani to join them out of pity and Midsommar kicks things off from here. The first section of the film does a great job of setting up the characters and developing a sense of dread within the viewer.

A traumatized young woman accompanying her emotionally abusive boyfriend and his college friends on a drug-filled trip to a ritualistic festival just sounds like a recipe for disaster. Writer/director Ari Aster is highly aware of this and utilizes this with his cinematic choices. As the group of college students arrive to Sweden, the camera flips upside down and stays there long enough for one to wonder: what have these people gotten themselves into?

At the Midsommar celebration in Sweden, tradition runs king. (major spoilers follow) Can the elderly die a more peaceful death than falling to their demise over a cliff before having their head smashed in to ensure the deed is done? Nobody questions it because it is simply an accepted tradition to the Swedish while the Americans are justifiably horrified. Why is a physically-deformed person who doesn’t speak making sacred texts for them? Without any reasoning or explanation for why these traditions are honored, they become even more haunting.

Upon subsequent viewings of Midsommar, it becomes even more apparent that Pelle is a monster in his own way. He invites Christian, Dani, Josh, and Mark to the Swedish festival with little warning of what they are about to experience. Pelle never really commits any acts of violence on screen, but his complicity is just as harmful. Josh (William Jackson Harper) is somewhat complicit as well since he knew more about the ceremonies than Mark and Christian. Sure Josh has a pretty valid reason to lie to his friends (his senior thesis), but subjecting your friends to a suicide ritual is pretty irredeemable.

The suicide ritual is one of the most disturbing parts of the entire film. This scene was so disturbing that I watched it through my eyes during a re-watch. Having the elderly die in such horrific fashion reminds me of an episode of the 1990’s sitcom Dinosaurs, although this episode was a lot more comedic in tone (coincidentally, the age the elderly fall to their death is also 72 in Dinosaurs). In this episode, the elderly are thrown off a cliff instead of jumping themselves. Unlike Midsommar, Dinosaurs has a moral compass in the character of Robbie who questions this strange practice.

Another troublesome practice by the Swedish people at the festival is their liberal use of psychoactive drugs. We are fully exposed to their abuse of these drugs through the cult’s treatment of Christian. Eventually he’s drugged into a state of complete immobility after he’s forced into impregnating a young woman. Dani becomes so under the influence that she begins to enjoy dancing around in a circle for hours in the hot sun. Josh, Connie (Ellora Torchia), and Simon (Archie Madekwe) seem to escape completely falling victim to the drugs, but meet violent demises as the cult uses them for sacrificial purposes. In the end, the cult lets their intentions be known: join us or else.

Unfortunately for the American college students, the trip to the Midsommar festival is doomed from the start. If Pelle had been honest with his friends about the true nature of the ceremonies, they may have cancelled the trip all together. I have seen a few opinion pieces online suggesting that Pelle knew Dani would become the May Queen all along. I certainly can believe this and I’m sure another watch will make this more evident.

A lot of horror films have characters that make consistently questionable decisions. In Midsommar, a lot of the characters’ decisions actually make sense. Josh meets his demise because of his dedication to writing a compelling senior thesis. Connie and Simon react like normal human beings to the suicide ritual and decide to leave. The viewer knows the couple’s vocal reactions may be their downfall, but any sane person would probably react in the same way.

Even Christian and Mark, the film’s two most unlikable characters aren’t tossed into the “let’s make these characters a**holes so the audience doesn’t care when they die” trope all too common in horror films. Christian is shown to be too dissociated from the drugs to make any rational decisions and Mark acts like a dumb, horny college student so his immaturity becomes comic relief from the film’s anxiety-inducing horror.

As I watched Midsommar for the first time, very rarely was I scared in the same way a mainstream film like It: Chapter Two can scare me. However, as I walked home and began thinking about what I just saw, the horror of the film began to settle. Eventually, I fell asleep in the later hours of the night, but the damage was already done. I felt like the American travelers who were subjected to this terrifying cult. The only difference is that I got out alive.

Monster Rating: 10/10

The Monster: The Swedish cult in Midsommar is a terrifying force. What gives it a 10/10 for me is the fact that it’s almost impossible to stop. People like Josh who wish to expose all of the cult’s secrets (whether for personal or professional reasons) are killed. Since the cult remains secluded, people like Josh would be scarce and the cult would have few problems remaining the terrible force that they are. For these reasons, Midsommar is one of the most frightening films of 2019.

What did you think of Midsommar? Let us know in the comments below!

#Midsommar #Movie Review #Mike C. Wilson

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edgeofisolation · 4 years

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Slice an Dice: An Acedemic Review of Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol Clover

Since its induction, horror films are one of the most evocative genres of film of all time. Horror has the power to evoke virtually any emotion out of its viewers. The genre has the power to make its audience feel fear, it can make them feel happiness, it can make them feel empowered, and it can even make them cry. But what is most interesting about the genre, perhaps, is the hidden codes and allegories contained within the film that have a lot to say about the socio-political climate of society at both micro and macro levels, Despite this, prior to the time of the release of Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, horror had been a grossly understudied subject and when it was studied it had been largely subject to the kinds of scrutiny felt by no other genre of film. In her seminal study of gender in horror films (particularly those taking place from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s), Clover provides a detailed and enlightening analysis of the underlying codes allegories contained in modern horror films as it pertains particularly to gender. She largely does this through the analysis of three subgenres in horror that have a (seemingly) central focus on female characters: the slasher film, the rape-revenge film, and the occult film.

At the heart of the book lies Clover’s central argument. Herein, Clover argues for the reasons why it is that young men – the majority audience of these particular genres – are able to identify with female protagonists in these films despite – and perhaps because of – traditional sentiments around cinema spectatorship of the time largely through the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis. Though the majority of the book roughly revolves around this argument, Clover does make interesting arguments on gender in horror as a whole, the role it places in spectatorship, and the notably frequent amount of times the genre makes use of dual gaze of the assaultive and reactive gaze where the subject of the gaze (at least temporarily) shifts between men and women. Despite the dominant discourse on horror films at the time which frame the genre as a wholly exploitative and ridiculous display of the worst misogyny has to offer, Clover provides a detailed, convincing argument to the ways in which horror (particularly subgenres covered) both reinforces and disrupts traditional notions of Western cinema spectatorship. Though she does not completely refute arguments made by film theorists and critics alike, Clover does provide at the very least an interesting analysis on the ways gender performs in horror movies and the implications it has on not just its spectators, but society as whole – something that had been scarcely covered prior to the time of its release. Succinctly, Clover is arguing that horror has a lot more to say than its gory exploitative exterior might imply. Through the analysis of multiple prominent (and infamous) films in each subgenre covered and framing it predominantly around a psychoanalytic framework, Clover provides an incredibly insightful – if not noticeably limited by its very theoretical framework – analysis on both women in horror and the men who watch and create them.

The book begins with an introduction that largely serves to form the base of the rest of the book and details not only Clover’s central arguments, but what the book as a whole will seek to uncover. This introduction begins with an analysis of the occult film Carrie. What is interesting about this beyond its analysis is the way in which the framing of this analysis broadly ties in the rest of the book. By giving her own understanding of the film and juxtaposing its seemingly feminist undertones to Stephen King’s (the author of the book version of the film) argument that Carrie herself is meant to be an embodiment of adolescent male anxieties, Clover is able provide a surprisingly apt summary of the entire book that becomes increasingly clearer as the book concludes: young men are able to identify with female protagonists (coined victim-heroes) not despite of their differing genders but because of it – something distinctively rooted in one-sex theory.

The following chapter begins her first subgenre analysis, the slasher film. The chapter opens up with a description and explanation of what a slasher film is, including all its tropes and narrative devices. What is immediately interesting is that Clover uses slasher films that are not incredibly critically acclaimed and are largely dismissed for their brutality and vulgarity (with the exceptions of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street) that on the base seem superficial and generic on their exteriors (such as her detailed analysis of Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), yet, for better or worse, say a lot interiorly. As the chapter progresses what was insightful is her analysis of the Killer and the Final Girl (a term she coined herself). Herein we have Clover describing the Final Girl as the (almost exclusively female) lone survivor of the Killer’s rampage, and the only one able to thwart and defeat the (male) killer (35). Though more prominent in the 1980s than mid-1970s, the Final Girl does so almost entirely on her own where male help is almost useless and entirely disposable – a stark subversion of the traditional cinematic apparatus situating the female as solely a victim and the male as solely heroic (37). More interesting – and a running theme throughout the book – is Clover’s analysis of the gender-swop that takes place here. As the movie progresses, Clover notes the feminization of the Killer (such as a stunted childhood) and the masculinization of the Final Girl (such as her usage of phallocentric tools). Together with the gaze swop from the Killer in the beginning to the Final Girl in the end, genders are swopped psychosexually and where gender now is not contingent on sex and the story becomes explicitly hers (49). The young male viewer is then able to swop identification with the male killer and distinctly towards the female victim-hero (i.e. the audience becomes both victim in the beginning and hero by the end). The story might be hers but it is still expressively male-centred (59).

The second chapter centres on occult films. Beginning much the same as the previous chapter, Clover describes the occult film in detail. On a literal level, Clover describes the Occult film as white science’s battle and submission to black magic. However, as this is distinctly coded through gender, occult films become yet another seemingly subversive narrative account on gender. Here, white science is coded as masculine whereas black magic is coded as feminine (with the exception of priests and children). What stands out as most interesting is then its subtle expression of gender swopping and Clover’s argument that though occult films have women at its core, is still decidedly male-centred – a story about a man in crisis (90). The woman serves as the body and site of black magic due to her femininity being more openness to the penetration of the black magic force (a vessel/accessory), the man serves as the psyche whose story the film is ultimately about. In such, the male, in order to save the female body, must renounce his white science conceptions of rationality (coded as masculine) and become open (coded as feminine) to the ideas and happenings and existence of black magic (99). Through openness the male is able to adopt a ‘good’ masculinity and fully renounce his old cold, distant and closed off ‘bad’ masculinity – if not he is likely to die or lose the woman. For Clover, the nature of the occult film and its psychosexual underpinning leave seemingly feminist readings of the film on hold because it implicitly implies that the creation of the new ‘good’ masculinity comes at expense the female and is still largely male-centric – for the male to more emotionally open, the female must become hysterical (113).

The third chapter introduces the rape-revenge film whereby the story centres on a woman who is brutally raped by one or more men and the similarly brutal revenge she enacts on the men/man involved (and sometimes even those complicit in rape). In a procaqtive study of I Spit on Your Grave and its influencer Deliverance, Clover details the socio-political underpinnings of the rape-revenge that veer away from just gender and incorporate class in its analysis (the only chapter to integrate satisfactory intersectionality). Many rape-revenge films in horror, Clover notes, often occupy on the double axis of male/female and country/city. Succinctly, this entails that these films have an intrinsically class nature to them that is intertwined with its gender-bending. In the rape-revenge film country is coded as masculine and is depicted with the male antagonists where these male country folk are more often than not depicted as poor, highly patriarchal, borderline uncivilised, and live beyond the norms of social law and order; whilst the city is coded as feminine depicted by a (mostly) affluent female protagonist who serves as the films victim-hero and represents civility and capitalist wealth (and exploitation) (144). In such, country men are ideologically positioned as wrong and their act of raping our city female victim-hero is depicted as an inevitable, making the revenge half of the film all the more justifiable. Much like the Final Girl in slasher films, the victim-hero and male antagonists have a gender swap where the men are metaphorically (and sometimes physically) castrated and penetrated by the now masculinized woman (representing psychosexual male anxieties on castration) (159). Rape becomes the problem of the woman to solve on her own and through her masculinization, the story once again appeals to male identification with the female victim-hero where the woman’s brutality is labelled as sweetly justifiable despite his own psychosexual desires/fears on castration and penetration (164).

The final chapter is perhaps the densest in the book that has three distinct but interlinking parts: a critique on film theory and its depiction of horror as solely sadist (i.e. assaultive), an analysis of horror as being both sadist and masochistic (i.e. assaultive and reactive), and the reiteration and settlement of Clover’s central argument. Beginning with an analysis of Peeping Tom, Clover highlights ways in which the film (argued to itself be a critique on cinema) occupies at a level of sadism (Mark Lewis’ murder of the women in front of his camera) and at a level of masochism (Lewis’ own experiences as a child study in front of his Father’s camera and his own eventual suicide) (179). By doing this, Clover argues for the inconsistencies of film theory to wholly regard horror as purely sadistic on the grounds of an assaultive gaze (coded as masculine) and dismissive as one of the vilest forms of modern cinema in its treatment of women. Here, film theory argues that modern cinema looks at women largely through the male gaze where the man serves as the subject, objectifying women by occupying at a level of voyeuristic sadism (the assaultive gaze) with horror being one of the extreme examples of this (206). However, Clover makes an interesting argument that what film theorists ignore, “in the name of feminism,” is that by positioning of horror movie occupying a purely assaultive gaze is to ignore a glaring blind-spot in their argument. Once again bringing forth the subgenre’s described (particularly the rape-revenge film), Clover notes that viewer identification with the victim being one of the tantamount features of the modern horror films, a fact that is heavily exploited by its filmmakers (210). Being that horror’s intention is to cause fear and pain onto its spectators, Clover argues that it is the filmmakers who largely occupy the assaultive gaze whilst the spectators occupy the reactive gaze (but there is an element of the assaultive gaze) which prove its tendency to occupy not simply in the realm of sadism, but of masochism as well despite what common criticism imply (212). Thus in terms of psychosexual fear and desire, the modern horror film, through its exploitation of Freudian notion of ‘feminine masochism’ and the tendency of repetition compulsion in its viewers, is able to locate the (young male) spectator in the reactive gaze (with secondary influences of the assaultive gaze) by aligning his identification with that of the (female) victim(hero) and locating his psychosexual experiences almost firmly is masochism and not simply in sadism as implied by film theorists (222). And it is because of this tendency of feminine masochism that Clover argues answers her overall argument as to why young male spectators would “choose to ‘feel’ fear and pain through the figure of a female – a female, in fact, whose very bodily femaleness is at centre stage” (226).

Clover’s argument, here, is entirely plausible. By positioning horror in the discursive framework of psychoanalysis, Clover is able to sufficiently argue the various ways in which gender plays out in Horror whilst still securely situating it in her initial argument. Though some of her claims would have been dismissible, her extensive use of actual film examples provides a detailed understanding on what Clover is actually trying to say, making the employment of her ‘evidence’ wholly convincing – especially highlighted in her critique of film theory. Lastly, it is interesting the way she positions women in horror. Though there could arguably be a number of feminist undertones in the subgenres described and it is impressive the extent of their subversive natures, they still comes across as heavily male-centric as Clover makes it seem that despite what may seem the story still revolves almost entirely around the experience of it majority audience – young white men.

However, her analysis is not without its faults. Perhaps what strikes as her most glaring problem is her over-usage of her theoretical framework. Though positioning gender psychoanalytically provides at the very least an interesting analysis and heavily influences her argument, Clover’s sole usage of psychoanalysis leaves a few things to be desired. Instead of situating gender in horror under the realms of their social and cultural contexts, Clover misses out a few interesting argument that would add further nuance to her argument(s). For example, in her study of slasher films in the 1980s, by extending her framework to incorporate socio-cultural backgrounds of the time, Trencansky (2001) is able to highlight the many potential allegories within the slasher film (such teenage transgression of neoliberal suburban values marked by the ‘transgressors’ in the film and the ascent to adult agency marked by the Final Girl triumphantly defeating her oppressor) and the analysis of the killer as being an allegory of rebellion gone wrong that is ‘othered’ by society (Trencansky, S., 2001: 68-70)

It should also be mentioned that her use of psychoanalysis itself holds some problems. In essentially trying to identify why it is that young white men are so invested in horror, Clover runs the risk of reducing her audience to a set of more or less fixed characteristics that further homogenizes her study (Tudor, A., 1997: 445). Instead of situation horror in a variety of different fields, and especially by little attention the socio-political climates and context of the period in which these films were made, Clover places a heavy influence on the inner workings of gender and spectatorship whilst largely ignoring any external factors that arguably have just as much impact(Tudor, A., 1997: 452). In the same vein that Clover critiques film theorists through imposing essentialist binaries on horror cinema, Clover runs the risk of reducing a very heterogeneous group to largely homogeneous characteristics. What then becomes interesting is the ways in horror and cinema spectatorship play out when one is to consider not only psychosocial factors that influence the genre and those who watch it, but the socio-political contexts they were made in as well.

As it stands, Clover’s seminal study of gender in horror movie stands as one of the most influential and cited works of the study of horror and spectatorship. Though not without its faults, the book is still able to convincingly argue the interplay and intersections of gender in horror and the broader implications it has on cinema spectatorship. Far from just another critique of horror gratuity, Clover’s book presents itself as an essential read for anyone even vaguely interested by the genre and especially those who study it.

References:

Clover, C., 1992. Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. United States of America: Princeton University Press.

Trencansky, S. 2001. Final Girls and Terrible Youth: Transgression in 1980s Slasher Horror. Journal of Popular Film and Television. 29(2): 63-73

Tudor, A. 1997. WHY HORROR? THE PECULIAR PLEASURES OF A POPULAR GENRE.

Cultural Studies

. 11(3): 443-463

#horror #gender #review #carol clover #final girls

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anticipatingevaporation · 5 years

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Joker

I just came out of Joker, one of my most anticipated films of the year, and let me tell you. I have a lot of thoughts. Unfortunately they are frightfully mixed, so this is going to be part review, part me trying to work out exactly how I feel about this film…

So as a preface, I am both a DC fan and completely done with this superhero wave of films we’re somehow still stuck in. I haven’t gone to see the last 5 or so Marvel movies because I find they aren’t really doing anything innovative or new. They simply don’t appeal to me anymore. The only time I find myself interested in an upcoming superhero/comic book film is when I see it doing something new with the genre. Take the recent Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, for example. The story structure, animation and choice to introduce Miles Morales was so intriguing to me, so I went to watch that film and loved it.

All of that being said, I was very excited to see Joker. I find the DC characters generally more interesting and complex and the dark tone this movie appeared to have really intrigued me.

Now I’m not a mega fan who has read every Batman comic, however I have read The Killing Joke, arguably the most famous one, and there is one quote in it that I kept coming back to. The Joker tells Batman “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.”

This film delves into that idea in a thought-provoking fashion. Here, we are introduced to Arthur Fleck, a man whose life is plagued with tragedy. This film asks the question of what it would take for a man like that to snap. It explores the society this man finds himself in and whether or not they are complicit in who he becomes.

Joker does many things well. Firstly, this film would be nothing without Joaquin Phoenix’s performance. He is magnetic in this role. At every single moment, there is that flicker in his eye that depicts a man on the edge of madness. It is equally unnerving and fascinating. When his transformation is complete I found myself genuinely perturbed and afraid. This Joker is frighteningly real. Phoenix is in almost every frame of the film, and I honestly think it would have fallen apart in the hands of a less talented actor. At one point he is just so phenomenal that I said out loud, “He’s winning the Oscar.” There is no doubt this will go down as one of Phoenix’s best performances among many. He’s just that good.

The lore surrounding Batman has been well documented since the 1930’s and depicted in multiple forms again and again and again. It has been done so many times that it’s easy to become tired and difficult to alter without angering a huge number of fans. Joker has an interesting take on this well known story; controversially giving the titular character, someone who has famously never had a true backstory, an origin. A big part of the Joker’s character was the fact that it was never made clear what pushed him to become who he is. While some storylines suggested it, it has never been outright stated.

In director Todd Phillip’s adaptation, it is a cruel society that creates the Joker, thereby making everyone around him complicit in his downfall. It asks some very interesting questions about mental health and how those suffering are treated in society, particularly the lack of compassion people tend to have towards the mentally ill.

It also discusses class divides and the blatant disregard the 1% seem to have for the 99%, effectively creating a different interpretation of the famous Wayne family that I found very interesting and not an unbelievable stretch to take.

The score is also fantastic: a haunting string melody that is perfectly used to underscore the poignant moments of the film. The soundtrack is just as great; music is well placed to keep you in the world and highlight that 80’s timeframe.

I also loved the Joker’s look in this film. His suit and makeup are brilliant, the hairstyling and the way he walks. Right down to the laugh and why he laughs, a unique and brilliant choice this film makes. Everything about this character screamed the Joker. However it never felt like an imitation of a version of this character we had already seen. It was remarkably unique while also staying very true to the character. When Phoenix walks down the hallway, flowers in hand, you know it’s the Joker, but it’s also Phoenix’s Joker. He makes the character very much his own while encapsulating what it means to be the Joker. (More than can be said for some... other recent adaptations.)

However I don’t think I loved this film as a whole. That being said I think this is certainly a film that makes you think about it for a while and this opinion may very well change in a day, or a week or upon repeat viewing. But based on this first watch, I think my issues with this film lie with the plot itself.

I think while I loved the individual elements of the story, and the character, performances, style and tone, I didn’t feel they all connected smoothly and cohesively all the time. At times it felt like a series of brilliant moments that lacked connective tissue melding them together. That being said, I’m really glad to see a film that doesn’t feel pressure to give you all the answers all the time. Some plot points are deliberately left unclear, which leaves room for debate and falls firmly in line with the Joker’s famous lack of backstory.

The plot itself had numerous twists and misdirects that left me genuinely shocked and on the edge of my seat throughout. I like that it left me guessing. I couldn’t predict what was coming next.

My biggest issue with this film is that it is very direct and clear with its themes. In that it lacks subtlety at times. One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is dialogue that sounds clunky and unrealistic. There was more than one instance of heavy handed and on the nose dialogue to be found here. Particularly during a climactic scene that took me out of the film for a bit.

When I say the film is direct and clear with its themes, I mean that there are clear bad and good lines being drawn. So while the cruel and unforgiving society is the impetus for Arthur Fleck’s transformation into Joker, it often felt like everything was going wrong for him, in order to justify his evil turn. Bad thing after bad thing kept happening to him to the point of absurdity. I understand that the point is to show Gotham as a nightmare place to be, but when Arthur gets beaten up for the 3rd or so time, it started to feel ridiculous and excessive.

Every single person in Arthur’s life treats him poorly. There is no compassion to be found anywhere for this man. Which makes his turn understandable but the world to be somewhat unrealistic and extremely grim. I personally find the morally grey far more fascinating than the straight up black. So I felt at moments that if this dark world was given more complexity, more twisted corruption as opposed to point blank awfulness, it would feel more realistic and that much more upsetting.

I think Phillips was just scratching the surface with what he could do with this world and I would like to see it delved into deeper, to expose what other horrors Gotham contains.

This film has gone through quite a bit of controversy for the violence and potential message it could spread. While I completely understand the possible criticism that this film simply gives those who are already unstable and wanting to incite violence a justification for their actions and an example to emulate, I have to say that:

It is not the onus of a filmmaker or artist to deliver a “positive message” through their art. It is to make their audience think, to influence their emotions and perhaps make them reconsider how they see the world. It is simply ridiculous to hold an artist responsible for how audiences respond to their art.

Joker, while a compelling character to watch, is never framed as a hero. He is a legitimately frightening individual whose life is never painted as something to strive towards. This is a troubled individual’s story and it is horrifying to watch.

In the end, despite the small problems I had with the film (I don’t think I loved it), it definitely made me think. I love this angle being taken towards DC characters. It is high time Warner Bros. understand that this is the treatment these characters need. Poorly emulating something else disappoints everyone. This film is doing so well because it is depicting this character in the way he should be shown.

These dark, gritty and realistic takes on comic book characters are far more intriguing to me. They make the viewer think about the society they live in, the injustices that are occurring and what we can do to put an end to them. This is where comic book stories shine, when they make us consider our own world in a new light.

While I didn’t completely love Joker, or instantly think it my favourite film, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since the credits rolled. And I think that is the type of film we need in the comic book space. One that makes us think, discuss and debate.

I’m starting to think that Joker didn’t give me what I wanted, but perhaps it’s what I needed…

#long review sorry not sorry #I still feel like there's so much to say abt this film #testament to the quality i guess #hmmm interesting #enjoy!#Joker #My Review #Joaquin Phoenix #DC

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faveficarchive · 5 years

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Ways to Be Wicked

Part 2 of Vivian Darkbloom’s White Trash series

By Vivian Darkbloom

Pairing: Xena/Gabrielle

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: Callie finds the Lord, Zina’s past comes back to harass her, and Gabrielle is there for love and support (and burgers).

I never claimed to be your savior. I said I had a dirty mouth. —Garbage, "Dumb"

The trailer formerly known as Zina's sat contentedly on its concrete foundations, sporting a new paint job on its exterior—a blazing red to dazzle and blind the hapless occupants of the trailer park, to let them know that the reticent firefighter who once lived there—and who had quite successfully entertained a string of blondes, one after another, stray housewives on "vacation," waitresses, recent fire victims, high school cheerleaders, the manager of the local Uni-Mart, and finally the factory girl-cum-poet who stole her heart—was no longer the mistress of said dwelling.

Its lone tenant sat inside the fire-red mobile home twirling locks of her white-blonde hair and watched, for the twelfth time in twenty minutes, a little Chihuahua mouth the words "Yo quiero Taco Bell." She gritted her teeth and her flat tummy rumbled. Once again the baseball bat of commercialism had smashed against the addled brow of another complicit, blissfully unaware TV viewer. With a growl she jumped up, snatched the keys to her Camaro off the table, and went off into the night.

An hour later she sat stuffed with the bounty of Taco Bell, and her mind, always chattering, chattering, chattering…well, finally the synapses gave out and she fell asleep.

And she dreamed. A voice, disembodied, spoke to her. Callie, it whispered fervently. Listen. She tossed her head about, hoping to shake the annoying voice. "No, stop," she moaned in her sleep.

Callie! Don't resist me, my child! Who was that? It sounded like…

Callie, you must change your life. Zina has shown you forgiveness, you can show her the same…you must release the rage in your soul, you must purify yourself again.

It was…Charlton Heston! Wasn't he the old guy who played Moses in that movie? And he was speaking to her—the foggy image grew clearer—through the Taco Bell Chihuahua.

You must give yourself over to the Lord, Callie. Let Jesus Christ into your heart.

"No!" she cried aloud again. Silence. She was grateful, and started to drift into a deeper level of unconsciousness…then…

Why not? the voice demanded petulantly.

"I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy!" she wailed.

Ah, but you are, my child. You are worth saving. That's why I'm here. You have the fire within you, Callie.

"I do, I do!"

You must accept Jesus as your own personal savior. And you must go forth into the world and spread my word, for I am the light and the way to salvation. Do you know what to do now?

"I do, I do!"

Callie woke up. Aside from the massive, almost crippling pain in her stomach, she felt great. She rose from her bed, ran to the door and flung it open. A breeze blew back her hair, and the moon glowed.

"Lord, I hear you!" she screamed into the night. "I shall do as you say! From this moment I am born again!!!"

The crickets cackled their approval. The stars twinkled benignly. And a lone male voice, from two trailers away, shouted, "Shut up, you crazy bitch!"

***

Gabrielle laid on the couch and read aloud from the book she held: " 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…' " She paused and closed her eyes. "Oh, wow…you were so right about this…the more I read it, the clearer and clearer it becomes…" she said to her companion, as she clutched the thin paperback of Howl to her chest.

Cyrene, sitting on the floor, leaned over and handed the joint to Gabrielle, their second one of the day. "See, honey, I told you…you just needed to relax and let your mind open up…" she waved her hands around, and her jewelry chink-ed in affirmation.

"Yeah…" Gabrielle sucked on the joint with a hiss. "When they assigned this to us in class, I just thought it was a bunch of bullshit written by some crazy hippie…uh, no offense, Cyrene."

"None taken, honey." She took the cigarette back from Gabrielle. "Cause you know something?" She took a hit.

"Hmmm?"

"It is a bunch of bullshit written by some crazy hippie!"

They dissolved into giggles, which turned into hysterical laughter once Gabrielle looked at the back cover photo of Allen Ginsburg again.

"Did you know—he was gay?" Cyrene informed Gabrielle, pointing at the photo.

"Really? Wow!" Gabrielle was still at the stage of her young life when one is continually astonished to learn that others in the wide world share one's inclinations.

"The 60s were a great time, Gabrielle." Here she goes again, Gabrielle thought. "Like, you could be gay and no one would care. No labels, man. You could experiment with sex and no one would care…I mean, I am not ashamed to say I had an encounter with another woman." She placed her hand over her heart to signify her sincerity.

"You did, Cyrene?" Gabrielle was impressed.

"Yeah. It was after I broke up with the drummer of Strawberry Alarm Clock. Man, that was a bad scene. Anyway, I kinda didn't want to deal with guys for a while, so I got involved with a chick. It was a beautiful, healing experience."

Gabrielle had ingested enough talk show fodder over the course of many years to know that "beautiful healing experiences" were usually pretty boring ones you could do without. Nonetheless she nodded solemnly at Cyrene. Then she heard a faint rumble. At first she thought it was her stomach. Man, I just ate two burritos half an hour ago….Then the sound grew louder, and more distinct. It was Zina's Harley. She sat bolt upright. "Shit! Zina's home!"

"Damn!" Cyrene crushed the lit end of the joint against the floor using her beer can. Then, in a panicky fit, she used the copy of Howl to brush the roach and all the ashes under the couch.

"Get the Lysol!" Gabrielle cried as she ran to the window. She and Cyrene had been sitting upstairs in her "study." She hoped that if she opened the window it would fumigate the room before Zina's hypersensitive nostrils could detect any aroma.

She flung open the window and looked down. She yelped again. The one flaw in her plan was that the room overlooked the front of the farm house; in fact, it was directly under where Zina usually parked her bike. The noise of the opened window caused her firefighter girlfriend to look up at her in surprise.

"Hi honey!" Gabrielle shouted, at a loss.

"Hey," Zina called up with a smile. She climbed off the Harley. "Anything wrong?"

"No! Nothing! Not at all."

"Why'd ya open the window?" It was cold out.

"I just wanted to say hi to you, baby!"

"You coulda done that inside." Zina was strangely logical at the oddest times.

"I know but, baby, I just love you so much I couldn't wait!" Gabrielle heard Cyrene behind her, her jewelry making the middle-aged woman sound like the percussion section of a Hare Krishna contingent as she waved around the hissing can of Lysol.

"Uh huh," Zina grunted skeptically. Carrying her fire helmet, she headed for the front door. Probably smoking reefer with Mom again, she thought, casting a look at Cyrene's powder-blue Volkswagen bug. As she entered the house she saw Gabrielle coming down the stairs with Cyrene. The little blonde ran right at her and jumped into her arms, smothering her lips with a kiss. The fire helmet dropped to the floor with a clang.

"Man, the honeymoon is never over with you two!" Cyrene said. It had been almost eight months since they had moved in together, six since they had been living at the farmhouse at Effie's behest; Effie, her new paramour, Hank, and her band, the Amazons, were all in Memphis, recording a new rockabilly album.

"How was your day, stud? Want some chicken pot pie?" Gabrielle cooed.

"Yes, please. Let me help you…" Zina carried Gabrielle into the kitchen. Cyrene shook her head. "Crazy kids," she muttered, then dashed upstairs to retrieve the roach she left under the couch.

***

Callie careened down Chakram Creek Road in her Camaro. She sang loudly with the radio: "I fell down, down, down into a burning ring of fire…down, down, down and the flames, they ran higher…and it BURNED BURNED BURNED, this burning ring of fire…" She was on her way to see the one person she was certain could help her in her mission to serve the Lord and save Zina. She had to save Zina, she realized, for the woman, corrupt as hellfire as she was, started her on her Journey to Jesus by giving her a home to live in.

She pulled into the parking lot of the Morpheus Mini-Mall, a desolate little stretch of under-utilized stores and buildings. There was a liquor store, a video store with a yellowed poster of "Ernest Goes to Jail" in the window, a frozen yogurt shop, a fabric store, and, near the end of the complex, a plain white sign on a door, which read "Ares Ministries, Inc."

Callie, of course, expected him to be alone, and he was. Artie, Zina's former friend, ex-sometimes-boyfriend, and maybe sorta either her first cousin or half-brother (Cyrene wasn't talking), sat at a desk in his fake-wood-paneled office reading "Guns and Ammo." He wore a scratchy looking light gray suit he bought at K-Mart for $29.95, and his green and brown knit tie was loosened at his throat. When Callie entered he looked up at her in utter shock, and, disbelieving, ran his hand through his long dark hair and then stroked his goatee. "Callie," he murmured.

"Artie." They stared at each other.

"I can't say I'm surprised to see you here. I always knew you'd find your way to me and the Lord."

Callie blinked. "Really?" She wanted to believe, oh so much…

He nodded solemnly. "My prayers have been answered, Callie. You are here, and I know why. "

"You do?" Callie said impatiently.

"Yes!" he stated firmly. He tried not to look too closely at the cutoff shorts she wore…even in February. He hoped she wasn't here to borrow money again, but he had a feeling, this morning, as he prayed…that God would send her to him. "You are ready to serve with me at the head of Christ's Army, Callie."

"I am, Artie! I truly am! I had a vision last night. The Lord spoke to me, and—"

"—and what did he sound like?" Artie narrowed his eyes and his voice lowered a register.

"Like…oh, that old dude, what's-his-face....You know, Ben-Hur." Wisely she omitted the part about how He looked.

Artie nodded with approval. He knew then her vision was real. "Go on."

"And God said I must spread the word! And I knew, Artie, I knew you were the only soul to help me. And…God said I must save Zina."

"Zina?" His interest piqued at the mention of his ex-lover's/cousin's/half-sister's name. He cursed himself at the hold this devil still had over him. Zina was his cross to bear, she was a test from the Lord, and sweet baby Jesus she looked divine when she was working out. (Sorry, Lord.) He stroked his goatee again. He knew the incredible guilt Zina felt about Callie, about the house in Cirra. Technically, he had been involved in that whole mess, but Callie didn't need to know that—it would only confuse her and detract from her mission. Besides, he'd paid his debt to his Savior. If Callie could use that guilt against her, she could bring Zina into the fold, and they would lead the Lord's Army of Love together! He could do it, with Zina at his side…the cable show would be revitalized, he'd get another book deal, he might even be asked to be a guest host on the 700 Club.…

He stood up and walked to Callie. Grasping her thin shoulders, he said, "Sister, it shall be done. I shall send you on your first mission. I shall send you to save that poor backslidden soul."

"Praise God, Artie!"

"But first…we go shopping."

***

Callie pulled at the tight collar of her white frilly blouse. She wasn't used to wearing something so close to her neck. But, she thought with a sigh, her body was no longer just something to flaunt, to use mindlessly—no, her body was sacred as a church, and it needed to be covered and protected as such. She adjusted the skirt of the light pink suit that Artie had selected for her at Sears. Drawing a deep breath and clutching the new Bible that he had given her as well, she opened the door of the parked Camaro and walked warily toward the farmhouse, the den of iniquity. How much sin has gone on in this place? she thought righteously, remembering its former occupants. Of course, Zina lived here now with that little tart…Callie's nostrils flared at the mere thought of the slut. She stopped. Then she took a deep, cleansing breath. "In with love, out with anger…" she muttered to herself. Steadying herself once again, she walked toward the farmhouse. I am a pillar of strength, I am filled and blessed with love, I shall be strong in the face of evil…she drew another deep breath and rang the doorbell. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall…

Zina opened the door. She wore nothing but a sleeveless white under-shirt which clung to her broad shoulders, muscled torso, and perfect breasts; black lycra shorts clung even more ferociously to her firm, luscious thighs. She cradled a barbell in one hand; a sheen of sweat covered her exposed skin, making her entire body glow and glisten. She shook her damp black hair and fixed her luminous blue eyes on Callie.

…want. She maketh me to lie down in black satin sheets, and…stop stop stop!!!

All thoughts of God had flown from Callie's head, except a brief fleeting thanks to the Almighty for making such a magnificent creature.

"Callie?" Zina said, utterly confused at the presence of her arch enemy. "Uh, is somethin' wrong with the trailer?"

"…zugzug…" She tried to speak but could not. But what were these noises? Hey, I'm speaking in tongues! Cool!

Zina looked her over, taking in the suit. "You got a job interview or something?"

Lord, I am fading fast. Help me! Send me a sign!

Zina shifted a little nervously; in doing so, she gripped her barbell tighter, causing a perfect bicep to flex. Her eyebrow twitched.

It was all too much.

"Oh Zina!" Callie cried. She flung her arms around the firefighter's neck and planted a wet kiss on her lips. Her wildly flailing tongue sought to break the barrier of Zina's warm mouth, but alas, her lips were in as good a shape as the rest of her (thanks to Gabrielle), and withstood the onslaught. She placed the tip of the barbell on Callie's chin in an effort to pry away the born-again beast. Callie didn't know how it happened, but before she knew it she was kissing a barbell. She withdrew, sputtering.

"What the hell's gotten into you?" Zina growled.

"Oh Zina," Callie moaned at the memory of those perfect lips on her own, "I have been sent here to save you, my child." She thrust the Bible into the firefighter's face.

Zina was so shocked at the turn of events that her barbell slipped from her sweaty grasp and fell onto Callie's foot, shod in a pair of pumps from Payless.

"Oh Zina!" This time it was a howl of agony.

***

Gabrielle burst through the door of the farmhouse, expertly carrying a pizza, a six-pack, two bags of Doritos, a two-liter bottle of 7-UP, and a pint of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey...with most of said items balanced on top of the pizza. "Honey, I'm home!!" she bellowed. She heard the radio from upstairs, and figured Zina was in her weight room, working out. Her assumption grew even stronger when she tripped over the barbell near the door and sent the precariously balanced food sailing merrily off the top of the pizza as she fell to the floor. She landed on her stomach, the weight of her backpack pinning her down (why did I have to take Fat Novel 101 this semester?). However, she managed to keep the pizza upright. Turning, she glared at the offending object and shouted, "Goddammit Zina, I told you not to leave your weights lying around down here!" Last week she had stubbed her toe on a hand weight that had been on the kitchen floor, for Christ's sake.

The guilty party sauntered down the steps. "Hiya, baby. Sorry 'bout that." Zina proceeded to pick up the scattered groceries. "How was school?"

"Uh…good." Zina noticed that Gabrielle hadn't moved; she laid there on the carpet, staring into space.

"Didja hurt yourself?" she asked, padding over to Gabrielle.

"Zina?" The tone was icy. It was that tone Gabrielle used when she was either really pissed or PMSing big time.

The firefighter gulped. "Uh, yeah, baby, what is it?"

"Why is there lipstick on your barbell?"

***

"Arise from your numb existence, readers. Awash yourself in Christ's beautiful and healing waters, awake in forgetfulness of the sins of the past. For the chariots of war are upon us, Satan's deceptive dreamworkers will rob you of your cradle of hope. Together, we shall embark on a quest for our destiny, to repay a debt and to sacrifice our wrongdoings for the greater good."

—Rev. Callie de Ash, from her book I Didn't Find God, But He Sure Did Find Me, p. 25

Callie awoke from her painkiller-induced slumber. Her dreams had been pleasant enough—she dreamt she owned a Porsche and had won the Indy 500, and then she drove through a huge daisy-filled meadow crushing every single daisy and ran over Gabrielle and a bunch of silly bunny rabbits too and grabbed Zina and threw her in the car and…

…then she was fully awake and staring into Artie's faintly disapproving and totally condescending face. The minister sat at the foot of her hospital bed. "You poor child," he sighed. He moved his chair closer to her, and took her hand. "The demon proved too much for you, didn't she?"

Defeated, Callie nodded sadly. Zina's barbell had broken innumerable bones in her foot and then, while she limped to the car (refusing any assistance from Satan's Handmaiden) her heel got tangled in some weeds and she fell, spraining her ankle.

"Callie," Artie clucked, "this is just as much my fault. I never should've sent you to her. She's a powerful one, Zina is. I have no doubt she will be dragged kicking and screaming into salvation. I know you wanted to be the one to bring her to God, but perhaps…" He stroked his chin. "…perhaps I need to try. At any rate I must confront her, after what she did to you." Callie had told him that the sadistic firefighter had jumped up and down on her foot with her shit-stomping boots, and had even trod upon her pristine Bible!

"I reckon you're right, Artie. I was too weak—too tempted by her. Don't believe anything she says, though!"

"Don't worry, child. I am prepared to battle the devil."

***

Cyrene turned off her sputtering Volkswagen. She grabbed the grocery bag, which contained organic yogurt and tofu burgers (she had been much horrified by the spectacle of Zina devouring a Spamburger last week and began anew her campaign to make her daughter a vegetarian). She got out of the car and headed to the house. With some confusion she noticed that the Harley was there but the Escort was not—she was supposed to be "studying" this evening with Gabrielle—in fact, she had brought her best bong, knowing that they would be tackling Modernism and that Gabrielle would need all the help she could get.

She entered the farmhouse and found Zina sulking in front of the TV, watching NASCAR.

"Hey honey," Cyrene called.

Her daughter grunted.

Trouble in paradise, Cyrene thought. "Where's Gabrielle?" she asked gently.

"At Lila's."

"Oh. Will she be back soon?"

"Nope."

"Aw come on, honey, spill it. Did you two have a fight?"

"Yeah."

Cyrene sighed. It was going to be a long night. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She definitely needed to have a few tokes before dealing with this. Patting her macramé purse, she retreated to the bathroom.

***

"I told you your unnatural relationship would fall apart," Lila said. She held a squalling baby—her daughter, named Tiffani Amber.

Gabrielle sat at her kitchen table, arms crossed. "Shaddup," she snarled at her sister.

Lila blew a stand of hair out of her face; shaking her head sadly, she took the baby into the bedroom for her nap.

Purdy, who had moved in with Lila after Gabrielle moved out, stood awkwardly in the kitchen. He had just got home from work to find his former girlfriend sulking in the kitchen with Lila, his current one, who was berating her sister at every turn. He actually felt sorry for Gabrielle—and he even liked Zina once he got to know her. Every time he saw her they had pretty cool conversations about motorcycles. He pulled two cans of Bud out of the fridge and handed one to Gabrielle. "C'mon, Gab, it'll make you feel better."

"Thanks," she said, taking the can from him. She popped it open and took a big gulp. "Purdy, you don't think I'm…weird or unnatural, do you?" Her green eyes begged for understanding, while her upper lip was covered in beer foam.

Was she weird? He had been surprised by it all, but not too—he remembered that when they were dating he made the mistake of looking through her diary and had read a rather detailed and explicit sexual fantasy involving Kate Jackson. He had found it very…interesting, in a stimulating kinda way. No wonder she always rushed home from school to watch Charlie's Angels. "What? Naw, hell no, Gab. It's your life. Not for me to judge. 'Sides," he added shyly, "Zina's pretty cute."

Gabrielle smiled gratefully. "Thanks."

"Wanna go down to the Saddle and get wasted?"

"Sure!"

***

"Trust me, honey, I had two years' worth of EST seminars."

Zina shifted nervously in her chair. Her mother's attempts to help in these significant arenas of her life left much to be desired. She recalled when, at the age of 12, she began menstruating; she had the typical feelings of confusion and ambivalence about it that most teenage girls encountered. Cyrene chose to mark the occasion with what she called a "feminist ritual": When Zina came home from school one day, sanitary napkin chafing, she found their house dark and eerie, lit only with candles, and "White Rabbit" echoing ominously from the stereo. Cyrene, wearing a purple-red muumuu, blathered something about how Zina will drink her own menstrual blood "because Germaine Greer said it's the true test of a woman." Zina didn't know who the fuck Germaine Greer was, but it was all weird enough to make her think her mother was involved in some cult and so she ran screaming from the house, spending the next month living with Artie and his family, until she made her mother swear that (1) she was not in a cult, and (2) she would cut down on the hallucinogens for a while.

So here she was, sitting at the dining room table with Cyrene, who said that her "under-emoting" child needed to get in touch with her feelings and she would be happy to help her do so. She said it would improve her "communication skills" with Gabrielle…whatever that meant…and that she would learn to "take responsibility" for her actions…even though IT WASN'T HER FAULT that Callie went insane and kissed her, it wasn't her fault that Gabrielle didn't understand this and had hit her…unconsciously she touched her cheek. Never had she been so frightened—not even in a crumbling, burning building—than when Gabrielle had pulled out of her knapsack the thickest paperback book Zina had ever seen, stalked over to her, and swung the mighty Modernist tome—Zina barely had the chance to read the name Ulysses—against the side of her head.

Cyrene sat across from her with a paper and pencil. "Now, I want you to tell me all the things you love about Gabrielle. Be as specific as you like."

The firefighter dropped her dark head against her strong forearms, which were propped on the table. Just like she used to do in high school.

What I do love about Gabrielle? Well, she's got a nice smile…her hair is pretty…she smells good…she makes a great chicken pot pie…yum!…I love her abs, the way they ripple when she's about to come…oh, and the meatloaf is pretty awesome…her skin is so soft…and she's a great kisser…and…and…I love how smart she is, how she figures things out so quickly…I love it that she's so kind…so gentle…like how she cried when she heard about baby seals getting clubbed…I love it when I hear her sticking up for herself and screaming "Fuck you!" at that dumbass sister of hers…I even love it when she recites stupid poetry to me that I don't get at all…

"Sure you don't want a little...?" Cyrene mimicked puffing on a joint. "It might help."

"No," Zina snapped. She sighed in frustration. "Aw, fuck, Mom, I love everything about her," she growled reluctantly. She hated getting all mushy.

Cyrene smiled and scribbled something down on the pad..

***

It was almost 3 in the morning. Zina had slept fitfully since midnight, when her mother had left. However, she was in a decidedly deeper state of consciousness when a noise brutally ripped her from a pleasant dream about becoming the first female quarterback for the Broncos:

"SMOKE ON THE WATER! A FIRE IN THE SKY!"

The entire house pulsated to the sound of Deep Purple. She sat upright, eyes bulging. She groped under the bed for her baseball bat, although it was doubtful the intruders were really thieves. Nonetheless, she thought evilly as she hefted the bat, I'm gonna fuckin' kill whoever is down there.

As she bolted out of the bedroom and approached the top of the stairs, she heard a figure treading lightly toward the top, oblivious to her presence. She snapped on the hall light.

Ed looked up at her, John Deere hat backwards and a little askew on his head. More than slightly trashed, he swayed on the steps. "Z!" he cried in greeting. "Hope we didn't wake you."

The long reach of Zina snared his flannel shirt and hauled him up the remaining few steps, until her snarling face was within an inch of his. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she said in her lowest voice.

"Hey, chill out! We brought Gabby home."

"We?"

She released him and he staggered against the steps, almost falling down until she grabbed him again. He giggled. "Me and Purdy. They're downstairs." He regained his balance and she released him tentatively. "But man…I gotta tell ya…I, uh, got into a little trouble with the truck, Z…"

She leaned on the baseball bat as if it were a walking stick and sighed in resignation. "Don't tell me you wrecked it again."

"Well, not exactly…I hit something."

"A deer?"

He shook his head.

"What? Someone's dog? Cat?"

Again, his head responded no.

She was losing patience. "What then, Ed?"

"A cow," he mumbled apologetically.

She grabbed him by the shirt again. "A cow? Is Gabrielle all right?"

He nodded in the affirmative.

"How the hell did you hit a cow?"

"I tried a shortcut," he moaned. "Look Z, I really gotta piss."

She released him again. "Go, then," she growled, giving him a shove toward the bathroom. She stomped downstairs.

She saw Gabrielle's red-gold hair splayed across the arm of the couch. "Gabrielle?" she called gently as she approached.

The young woman was curled up fetally, clutching an empty mason jar which reeked of beer. She was snoring. Zina took the afghan from the back of the couch and tucked it around her sleeping form.

Purdy was standing in front of the stereo playing air guitar when he spotted Zina. "Hey old buddy!" he shouted, stumbling over to her. He was even drunker than Ed. He flung an arm around her. "We brought your woman home!" he said proudly. With a burp.

"That's great, Purdy. Thanks," Zina replied sincerely, while flinching from the smell of the burp.

Suddenly he started to cry and hugged her. "I love you, man!"

"I love you too," she replied, whatever thread of patience she possessed threatening to snap. "Now get the hell out of here."

***

Alas, she had not gotten Ed and Purdy to leave for another hour; she felt obligated to help Ed wipe cow blood and gore off the front of his Ford pickup (apparently his "shortcut" was through Farmer Draco's pasture). There was a huge dent across the front of it, but she checked out everything under the hood and it seemed to be running fine. When Ed was sober enough to drive, she sent the boys on their way.

Gabrielle was still passed out on the couch when she dragged herself off to bed at 4:30. She had considered carrying the girl up to bed, but didn't want to disturb her sleep. And, frankly, she was pretty tired and had to get up for work in less than 3 hours.

Zina hadn't slept for more than 2 hours when she felt something heavy lying across her body. A sickly sweet breeze, smelling like cough medicine (like Jagermeister, she thought later), trickled across her face. Then she felt something warm and wet against her cheek, like a dog licking her.

She opened her eyes. In the fuzzy light of predawn, she made out Gabrielle's grinning face above her. "Pumpkin pie!" Gabrielle burbled happily.

Zina did not know if this was an endearment or a craving.

"Gabrielle?" she mumbled sleepily.

"Baby, I'm really sorry about yesterday…I got so jealous. I didn't want to come home at all, but Ed and Purdy got me too drunk so I couldn't protest much. Then I read what you wrote on the fridge."

"Huh?"

"You know!" Playfully she slapped Zina on the arm. Then Zina remembered: Her mother had posted the results of their "therapeutic session"—the message that "Zina loves everything about Gabrielle"—on the refrigerator with a Coke magnet.

"It's true," Zina said. It was, and didn't matter who wrote it, she figured.

"Ooooh, I love you, stud muffin!"

***

If you want to woo her

You will surely delight her

With a sweet tasting kiss

From a big ol' firefighter!

--"A Fire in the House of Love," performed by Effie and the Amazons. Music by Effie Phantes, lyrics by Gabrielle Hockenberry

The hangover was so atrocious that to even listen to anything on the radio was horrible. Especially Celine Dion. The lung-devouring wails of the woman were like a hang nail being torn across her consciousness. Maybe I kinda understand now why Zina doesn't like her, Gabrielle thought, switching off the radio with one hand and clutching her head with another.

She was sitting in the kitchen, wincing at the bitter taste of the instant coffee, when the doorbell rang. Still cradling her head, she wandered to the door, wearing her Olympus County Community College t-shirt and the baggy plaid boxer shorts she wore around the house.

A handsome man stood at the door, dressed in a dark suit and tie. His long dark hair touched his shoulders and he had a goatee. He was very striking, she thought, and vaguely familiar. Her mind raced and in her excitement the hangover lessened.

"Oh my GOD," she squealed, taking him by surprise, "you're the lead singer from Metallica, aren't you??"

His dark eyes grew wide with horror. "What?" he said.

"You are! Wow, this is SO cool! Are you lost or something? Hey, my girlfriend LOVES Metallica!! Would you autograph something?" Before he could respond she ran into the living room and retrieved one of her notebooks and a pen. "Okay, could you just write something like, 'Zina, you are an awesome chick' and sign it?"

He rolled his eyes. "I am not the lead singer of Metallica!" he growled. "I'm Artie Guerre. An old friend of Zina's..."

Gabrielle's excitement dissipated and was replaced by mistrust. So this was the infamous Artie. "You're Xena's cousin," she stated flatly, green eyes glinting suspiciously, "or is it half-brother?" she added accusingly.

"Nobody's even proven that," he said, shaking a finger into her face. "Where is Zina? I want to talk to her."

"She's at work, duh. D'ya see her cycle anywhere?" Gabrielle waved her arm around.

"Look, young lady, don't you take that tone with me. I am minister," Artie said proudly.

Gabrielle cackled in disbelief.

"You may laugh all you like, Satan's strumpet, but I know the nature of your relationship with our dear Zina is less than pure."

"Pure?" she snorted. "You're a fine one to talk about pure, Artie. You set fire to a house and slept with someone who might be your sister. So don't you lecture me. I love Zina."

"Love her enough to see her go to jail again, missy? 'Cause that's what's gonna happen unless I get to speak with her!" Artie demanded.

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Zina assaulted one of my disciples. Callie."

"Bullshit! The crazy slut assaulted Zina!"

Artie raised one of his black brows. "Really?" asked smoothly. "Well, who do you think a court of law would believe—a follower of God or some dyke with a record?"

***

All Zina knew was that one minute she was looking at a rerun of the Simpsons, and the next she was staring at Gabrielle's midriff. Her little companion, in an effort to get attention, had planted herself in front of the TV. This meant either one of three things:

Gabrielle was horny. (Unlikely, thought the firefighter, scanning the scowl on the young poet's face.)

Gabrielle wanted to have a Sensitive Chat. (Again, that scowl. Nope, she usually gets all puppy-eyed, so that's not it.)

Gabrielle was pissed about something. (Yeah, I think this is the one. Did I leave another weight on a floor somewhere? Tracked mud on the carpet? Did she finally notice the ring of soot I left on the lip of the milk carton the other day?)

Zina was a brave woman, and resigned to her fate. "Okay, what did I do now?" she sighed.

"How come," Gabrielle began slowly, her hands on hips, "everyone you sleep with either dies or goes crazy?"

"Huh?"

"Come on, tell me."

"It's not true…I mean, I slept with Hank, and he's alive and pretty normal, don't you think?"

"Well, he's the exception to the rule, I guess. Although who knows, maybe listening to Effie and the Amazons 24/7 might just push him over the edge."

"...and there was Ed, he's kinda normal..."

Gabrielle blinked in shock. "Ed? You slept with Ed?"

"It was only once, Gabrielle. I just did it to make Hank jealous." She grinned with sheepish pride. "Worked, too."

Gabrielle moaned and shook her head. "I met Artie today, Zina."

"Artie? Where?"

"He came out here looking for you. What a fuckin' nutjob he is."

"No shit, Sherlock. What did he want?"

"He's very pissed about Callie. Went on about how you assaulted her, said he was going to get her to press charges against you…"

Zina threw up her hands (after placing her can of Rolling Rock on the end table) in disbelief. "Fine, let 'em press charges! I didn't do anything wrong!"

"He said he and Callie are willing to let bygones be bygones if you come on his cable access show. He wants you to repent on TV, accept Christ into your heart, and ask for some pledges."

The firefighter's blue eyes grew icy. Which both chilled and thrilled Gabrielle. "I always knew it would come down to this," she muttered.

***

Gabrielle grabbed the ringing phone. "Den of iniquity!" she cried in greeting.

"Jesus H. Christ, you sure are learning big words in school," Effie’s voice responded.

"Effie!!" The squeal reverberated around the house, causing Zina to wince and grind her teeth, and a village of termites to vacate the premises. "How the hell are you! I MISS YOU!!!"

"I’m great, Gab honey. Our new album is coming out next week, with your song on it, of course! Hank loved it."

"Cool. How’re Pony and Sally?"

"Well, they had a rough time of it recently…"

"Uh oh. What happened?"

"Well, uh, promise not to tell anyone…"

"Okay. What?"

"Well, Sally had an affair with Wynonna Judd…"

"No!"

"Yeah! It was wild. But they worked it all out."

"How?" Gabrielle asked, mystified. Pony was not the most reasonable creature on God’s green earth.

"Well, then Pony slept with Wynonna and they decided to call it even."

"Can I tell Zina?"

"Oh sure, what the hell. Can’t quite see Tall, Dark, and Sullen running around telling people."

Gabrielle saw Zina in the kitchen, pulling on her leather jacket. "Eff, I gotta go. I hafta go help Tall, Dark, and Sullen with something…"

"And knowing you two, it’s something in the bedroom. Okay, Gab, I’ll talk to you later."

She hung the phone and ran into the kitchen. "Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go."

Zina gave her a blank stare. "Gabrielle, I don’t want you to come. It might get ugly." She was on her way to meet Artie at Roy Roger’s, in the hopes that they could reach an amicable solution to the Callie problem.

"Oh no, bitch. You’re not leaving me behind. We’re a team, remember? You may need me. And I promised you I’d always support you no matter what." She paused and gazed into her beloved’s deep blue eyes. "I may have been stoned when I said it, but I still meant it."

Zina broke into one of her lovely lop-sided grins. "Okay, baby."

"Besides, I really want a Triggerburger."

***

Artie sat at a table at Roy’s. His tray was littered with the ruins of his dinner. Arms folded, he glared up at Zina and Gabrielle, who were walking toward him. Zina was sucking on a shake, Gabrielle held a tray piled with three burgers and an order of fries.

They sat down across from him.

"You’re late," he growled.

Zina shrugged. Her ravenous small companion ripped the paper wrapper off a burger and started to devour it.

"Dear Lord, what a savage," Artie said condescendingly, looking at Gabrielle’s puffed out cheeks.

"Look Artie, knock off the bullshit. Gabrielle told me what you want. I’m not gonna do it. I’m sorry about Callie’s foot, but it was an accident."

"Hold your tongue, sinner!" Artie raised his hand. "I’ve had just enough of your lies and deception, Zina. You injured a member of my flock. A woman who has turned out to be more valuable to me than I ever could have imagined. I have placed my trust so thoroughly in Callie that I have given over to her the leadership of my ex-gay ministry, Homo Helpers."

***

Callie reached out and gently grasped the shoulders of the young man. "We’ll start out slowly, okay? No nudity at first. I just want you to get an appreciation of the female form."

The young man, terrified, nodded quickly. One minute he had been sitting in the office space of the Gay & Lesbian Student Union at the Olympus County Community College Student Center, then the next thing he knew this crazy chick in a pink suit, with a big cast on her foot, comes in, hits him over the head with a big black Bible, and he passed out. Then he woke up in this strange office with the crazy chick who started babbling to him about being saved, changing his ways, and so on….and he was tied to a chair, the ropes cutting into his thin little torso, clad only in an old Absolutely Fabulous t-shirt. Boy, if I get rope burns on this, Patrick is going to get really suspicious, he fretted.

The crazy blonde, who said her name was Callie, sat on the desk in front of him. She had a stack of photos by her side. "Now don’t be scared…what’s your name again, kid?"

"Chad," he whispered.

"Chad! See, no wonder you’re gay, with a name like that. Okay, Chad, take a deep breath…"

He did.

She held up a photo of Gillian Anderson, wearing a black bra. "Take it all in, Chad. Doin’ anything for ya?"

He stared at the photo.

"Talk to me, Chad. What do you like about her?"

"Uh…that’s a fabulous bra she’s wearing."

"Like to see more, huh?"

"Yeah, like I’d love to see her all in black lingerie. I’m sure it’d be a really kicky outfit. My friend Kevin is majoring in fashion design…"

"No!! Dammit, kid, stop being a fairy and focus on her body! Her face! Whaddya see?"

"They did a good makeup job on her. Her lipstick is perfect. It’s a good shade for her."

"You’re doing this deliberately to drive me crazy, you little brat. Look at her! She’s gorgeous! Look at those knockers! They’re lovely! They’re perfect!" Callie peeked at the photo herself. And became mesmerized. "They’re…oh Lord, they’re divine," she moaned. Defeated once again, she buried her face in her hands.

"Uh…Callie, is it?" Chad ventured gently.

"Yeah, what?"

"Sweetie, I don’t think this is working. Look, it’s Gay Night at Dahak’s Temple. Why don’t we go have a nice drinkie together…"

She looked up.

"Margaritas are half-price," he added hopefully.

***

"Baby, are you okay?" Zina asked anxiously, peering down at Gabrielle. At the mention of the Homo Helpers the little poet had laughed so hard that she spat half-eaten burger all over Artie’s best suit (from Sears) and fell off the seat in a fit of hysterics. Zina’s reaction, given her personality, was more subdued; she had merely blown out some milkshake from her nose.

"Homo Helpers," Gabrielle giggled helplessly.

"What’s so darn funny?" Artie demanded as Gabrielle climbed back into the booth.

"I think you should think ‘bout changing that name, Artie," Zina guffawed. "Have you been getting a lot of calls from people wanting to know where the nearest gay bar is?"

Artie glared at her suspiciously. "How did you know?"

"Just a wild guess."

"It was the best I could do under the circumstances! Nonetheless, Zina, I have Callie all prepared to press charges against you. She can hardly get around at all. It was a very serious injury."

At that moment they saw, from their window booth at Roy’s, Callie’s red Camaro pull up to the stoplight. The crazed blonde took the opportunity to stand up in the car and dance to the throbbing beat of the Pet Shop Boys which emanated from the car stereo. A young man, seated beside her, did the same. The light changed. A pickup behind them blared its horn. Callie flipped him the bird. After another minute of frantic dancing, she finally put the vehicle in drive and they were gone.

The trio sat in stunned silence.

"Who was that dude with Callie?" Zina asked no-one in particular.

"Oh, it looked like Chad. He’s president of the gay student union at OCCC," Gabrielle said. She merrily returned to the task of eating.

"Hell’s bells," muttered Artie. "The Lord is making my work very difficult indeed." He thrust a finger into Zina’s face. "I blame you for this, Zina. Obviously the injury has affected her judgment."

Zina flicked a French fry at him.

"Watch the suit!" he cried. "it’s bad enough your little tart spewed half-eaten cow all over it."

"Fuck off, Artie," Zina drawled in a bored manner.

"You haven’t heard the last of me yet!" He rose from his seat and stalked off. He half-turned to give Zina one last glare and tripped over a poorly placed mop and bucket. He snarled and staggered off.

"Man, he’s just like Snidely Whiplash," Gabrielle complained.

The firefighter laughed. "So which one of us is Dudley Do-Right?"

"You, of course, stud muffin." Gabrielle paused. "Although you’re smarter than Dudley Do-Right…and not quite as goody-two-shoes. You’re more a classic anti-hero."

"A…what?" Zina scrunched up her angular face. "I dunno if I like the sound of that."

"It’s a good thing, baby. Trust me. I learned it in school."

"School? You’re learning about cartoons in school?"

"No," replied Gabrielle haughtily, "I am merely learning how to apply my analytic skills in other fields of interest and art forms."

"Shit…if I knew college was all about cartoons and smoking dope, I woulda gone."

"You don’t need to go to college, baby. You already have many skills."

The firefighter lounged back in her seat. "I have many skills," she murmured to herself, although her beaming companion heard her as well. "I kinda like the sound of that."

THE END

#xena #xena warrior princess #xena/gabrielle #xena/gabrielle fanfiction #author: vivian darkbloom #femslash #fanfiction

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avidbeader · 6 years

Text

Okay, not forgetting this time.

Doctor Who S11E03 - “Rosa”

Caveat - I am well aware that my opinion should not matter as much as that of viewers of color. I am white and that gives me way too much privilege in the society we live in.

But I thought “Rosa” was an amazing piece of television and possibly one of the best episodes of all of “Doctor Who” ever.

Spoilers below.

It’s not perfect. Due to time constraints they had to gloss over the fact that Rosa Parks’ protest was an act of deliberate civil disobedience, a possibility that the local NCAAP had strategized for. They did get in the meeting with the Reverend King and the fact that organization was happening behind the scenes.

But they got so much right.

The contrast that Ryan had been taught by his Nan to not give in to anger, to not attract the attention of law enforcement against the very first reaction to him trying to be helpful being a strike to the face. The utter shock and then disgust from people when Graham calls Ryan his grandson. Yaz finding herself in a strange in-between where in the restaurant she’s reviled right alongside Ryan but on the bus no one cares that she’s sitting in the “white” section. The deliberate invoking of Emmet Till and the fact that the Doctor’s first instinct is to have at least Ryan and Yaz stay in safety in the TARDIS. Seeing the thrill that Yaz and Ryan feel at meeting Parks and King, and then the discussion that only the two of them can share about what has improved and what hasn’t in their own time.

And the fact that they have to witness the arrest, that they have to act complicit and let it happen in order for history to move in the right direction...that comes straight from so many previous historical episodes.

I loved the various callbacks and references from Christopher Eccleston’s “Big fan” to Dickens, to the Stormcage prison, to the continuity of the vortex wrist thingie, and apparently the “Banksy” thing was a reference as well because it delighted my husband. I love that she’s apparently tried nine times so far to get her new friends home (and hasn’t just let them walk out and assume that Aberdeen was Croyden).

I loved all the instances of not only the Doctor thinking fast and well, but also the companions. I loved how each member of the team contributed to the plans and did so competently to amazingly. I love the contrast of last-week Ryan running out with a laser like a video game and nearly getting killed to this-week Ryan paying attention to how the time manipulator worked and then using it against the villain successfully.

And oh, I adored the Doctor having her Oncoming Storm moment as she correctly assessed what Krasko was able to do and then shredded him, taking away all of his most important toys and declaring flatly, “Don’t threaten me.”

The set was incredible - it really felt like they were in Alabama in the 1950s.I thought Vinette Robinson was amazing (I am ashamed that I didn’t realize she was the same actress from “Sherlock”). The music motifs and the choices of opening and closing songs were masterful.

I almost always love the historical episodes and this one deserves to be at the top of the list.

Three for three.

#doctor who #thirteenth doctor #dw episode rosa #doctor who spoilers

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what-the-fuck-is-anime · 6 years

Photo

For the sake of people who are uncomfortable reading about sexual assault this is under a cut. TW

Every time. Every time I think this episode, or even this show is at its worst it manages to make me even more nauseous. This is disgusting. She is literally being assaulted as a joke, after she was turned into a pretty near-corpse, after she had the climax of her taken from her and given to Jojo, after both Cars and Jojo made fun of her for being a weak woman, after they established she was the strongest Ripple user on the planet. Lisa Lisa had any respect taken away from her and was turned into a sexy plaything and pardon me for being blunt but how the FUCK can anyone write all of this and not feel, what is the word, bad? Nauseous? Guilty? Any sort of voice that says “hm gee maybe we do not need all of this to happen...” or “Hm maybe anyone respects her ever” or “HM MAYBE WE SHOULD LET LISA LISA HAVE HER MOMENT OF COOL THAT SHE SUFFERED THROUGH THE ENTIRE SEASON FOR”

This is not even the first time someone gets casually sexually assaulted this is at LEAST the FIFTH this season

I am trying so hard to put these thoughts into words. I am mortified. Honest to fuck I thought she would die and it would be over. First I thought her being made fun of for being a woman was the end. Then I thought her being stabbed was the end. Then I thought her being left to die was the end. Then I thought her being called a prop was the end. I

There is such a world of a difference between calling sexual assault bad and becoming so incredibly comfortable portraying it in such horrible ways. And given how frequently this has happened and how protagonists were complicit in it (Jojo threatens to assault a girl to get her to move. Jojo watching girls get assaulted at gunpoint in an EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLY LONG SEGMENT OF THEM CRYING and using it as an opportunity instead of trying to help or caring at all! Caesar casually assaulting a passerby! Not quite nearly as bad but Jojo trying to peak on Lisa Lisa! Stroheim forced women to lick his face and now is getting portrayed as a hero while Lisa Lisa is faced with THIS)

I have no idea how to put this into fucking words. I have no idea what words are appropriate to how to express how appalled I am.

But here are some!

And here are some more!

And some more!

Every single woman in this season is either used in terms of being sexy or to be assaulted. Except for Erina, because she was already assaulted last season. Here is a rundown of every woman with more than a few seconds of screen time. In order. And if I missed any, let me know.

-Woman in the cafe. Jojo threatens to assault her.

-Journalist who got kidnapped. She got kidnapped, had a man shove his hand in her mouth, had her molar ripped out in the most sexual way possible, and was left screaming in pain after Jojo called her an ugly bitch.

-The women being forced to shave Stroheim. The one that messed up is forced to lick his face while her friends are powerless to help.

-The women trying to get back into their town. They were forced to strip and were molested at gunpoint. And then Jojo responded with this shit

-Caesar’s date. She exists only to be used as a kissing dummy while showing off to Jojo.

-The tourist girl. Caesar grabbed her, forcibly kissed her, hypnotized her, and then Jojo shoves a fucking bird in her mouth.

-Lisa Lisa is introduced in terms of not being cute. Called ugly. Repeatedly insulted for being a woman. Repeatedly had her entire life disrespected. Had her arc taken away. Jojo tried to peep on her naked. She got stabbed and left for death, she got molested while dying.

-Susie Q. Love interest. Almost all dialogue is either flirting or her being attacked, controlled, tortured, and used as a pincushion.

There are TWO new named women in this season and those are Lisa Lisa and Susie Q. And I bet you anything that if Jojo did not need a love interest that Susie Q would not exist in the first place or would have been killed off.

This show is so hyper sexual in fifty different uncomfortable ways, and so...horrible? People discuss the assault right? Nobody considers that entertainment right? Am I the only one who feels sick to the stomach watching this? Am I the only one that wants a girl to have a good day for once? There are no girls having a good day here. There is nothing positive happening to any of these women aside from Susie Q looking forward to presumably marry Jojo, and that is only happening because I presume he needs to have a son somehow.

I received a lot of messages that were hesitant to admit that this show is misogynist. Some said it was, but that it was appropriate for the 80s. I hate to break it to you but assault is not appropriate for the 80s, and THIS MUCH SEXUAL ASSAULT IS IN A SHITTY LITTLE LEAGUE OF ITS OWN. And that aside, women are not a new invention! They have existed for quite a bit longer than anime!

There are hentai. They exist. They have assault in them. But I cannot think of anything that is considered a “classic” that has everything listed here going on at once without being considered some form of porno. This is violent and gory and violent against women and has so much stuff that judging from the reactions I have been receiving these past few days, have been completely disregarded by the bulk of the fandom. So here comes my speech again.

I do not give two hecks if you like this show. You can love it until the moment you die, more than anything else in the world. But NO amount of love is going to cancel out all of the horrible and terrible things that are portrayed. And NO amount of love should exempt anyone from acknowledging these things. The fact that I feel physically ill watching every shitty segment aside, there needs to be more conversation critical about this.

Everyone needs to examine the things they enjoy, examine their faults, and acknowledge them. And make it perfectly clear that some jokes are not funny, and probably should be tolerated a tiny bit less in popular media! And before yet another person makes a joke about how all anime is like this, no! No the fuck it is NOT! I cannot think of anything that has less respect for women without advertising itself as being a horny anime! And absolutely nothing else comes close with this big of a following, with this bad of writing, and this little respect for women! And yes I have in fact watched plenty of anime before! Including SAO!

And when I say respect for women, I am somehow less concerned about how Lisa Lisa’s arc was handled, which I never thought was possible, and more concerned looking back on every single time I felt uncomfortable beyond words and almost too uncomfortable to watch. There is so much sexual assault, SO much sexual assault that is just brushed aside, and apart from the number of times that has happened, just the way that these scenes are animated is even worse. The segments are long. In your face. Uncomfortable beyond everything. Personal. After so much high speed action, some of the only times the show slows down from talking or fighting is for one of these numerous assault segments. The body language is violent. The women are horrified and miserable and powerless and often crying. And then every single time the women are left to suffer, and the viewer is forced to watch. And then every single time, these events are moved on from. Jokes are made about them, even.

In a show that was described to me as BAM! BAM! BAM! ENTERTAINMENT! ENTERTAINMENT! FUNNY! TURN YOUR BRAIN OFF! HIGHEST FORM OF ANIME! to see assault played off as a joke, and I cannot believe I can even say this but THIS MUCH ASSAULT played off as a joke, this

This is definitely groundbreaking I would say! It probably did do a lot of things for the first time! But I cannot, at all, under ANY circumstance understand ANYONE watching so much happen time and time again and not feel...sick? Uncomfortable at the very least? Do people who love Jojo love to watch those scenes too? I seen so much discussion of Jojo, so much beyond most anime I have seen discussed online, and I have never ever ever ever ever ever ever seen anyone discuss, mention, hint at, or acknowledge any of the sexual assault. I am caught so off guard here and that makes it worse. Usually with shows people say “yeah it has some shitty stuff, BUT” or something along those lines when introducing it to someone but nobody has ever acknowledged any of these things, and considering how powerfully horrifying each of these scenes are, I am so, so, so, so confused. I was not prepared for any of this. I expected fighting. I expected poses. Betrayed is another word I would use for how I feel right now.

I have felt this sick watching anime maybe once or twice before but nothing has ever come close to watching all of this. Please. Please. Please. Anyone. Anyone out there. Tell me I am not the only one that finds it all so difficult to watch. Tell me there is discussion about this. Tell me the sexual assault is acknowledged in the fandom.

I need to take a break before pressing play again and I am not looking forward to it.

what the FUCK

#jjba #jojo #liveblog #anime #anime liveblog #wtfia

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learningrendezvous · 3 years

Text

Cinema Studies

FILMFARSI

By Ehsan Khoshbakht

Sex, drugs, rock 'n roll - Iranian style! A personal journey through the history of Iranian popular cinema before the revolution and the world of "filmfarsi", a term referring to the rowdy and melodramatic genre films made from the early 1950s to 1979.

Filmfarsi provides a fascinating archaeology of "the biggest secret in cinema history" (The Guardian) - a compelling window into a lost past. This documentary uncovers a cinema of titillation, action and big emotions, which presented a troubling mirror for the country, as Iran struggled to reconcile its religious traditions with the turbulence of modernity, and the influences of the West.

Four years in the making, Filmfarsi features clips from more than 100 films, almost all banned in their country of production.

DVD / 2020 / 83 minutes

HORROR NOIRE: A HISTORY OF BLACK HORROR

Directed by Xavier Burgin

Delving into a century of genre films that by turns utilized, caricatured, exploited, sidelined, and finally embraced them, HORROR NOIRE traces a secret history of Black Americans in Hollywood through their connection to the horror genre. Adapting executive producer Robin Means Coleman's seminal book, HORROR NOIRE will present the living and the dead, using new and archival interviews from scholars and creators; the voices who survived the genre's past trends, to those shaping its future.

Includes interviews with Ernest R. Dickerson, Meosha Bean, Ashlee Blackwell and Robin R. Means Coleman.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2019 / 83 minutes

SACAVEM: THE FILMS OF PEDRO COSTA

By Julio Alves

A documentary portrait of famed director Pedro Costa, whose masterworks include Horse Money, Colossal Youth, In Vanda's Room and Casa de Lava.

Costa's work is explored using film clips and in his own words. Despite occasional glimpses into Costa's office, he remains an enigmatic personality, which we know only through his work and creative processes. How he thinks, what he feels, and how he lives must be derived from his work.

DVD / 2019 / 65 minutes

WILCOX

By Denis Cote

A man goes into the woods alone. We know nothing about him, apart from his military-style attire with a nametag indicating he might be called Wilcox. Is he a traumatized veteran, a survivalist, a desperate man or even a philosopher-hermit?

A documentary-style fictional film, a minimalist adventure yarn haunted by reality, Wilcox is both simple and mysterious. With encounters whose dialogue is inaudible, a sound design that transports reality into the world of the mind, and strangely filtered images to distance us, Wilcox, the latest film from award-winning filmmaker Denis Cote (Bestiaire, Curling, Vic and Flo Saw a Bear) is a nonjudgmental perspective on people who decide to remove themselves from the world, giving no clues as to why.

DVD / 2019 / 66 minutes

AROUND INDIA WITH A MOVIE CAMERA

By Sandhyu Suri

Award-winning filmmaker Sandhya Suri (I for India) skillfully weaves together archival footage-including hand colored sequences-with a new score by composer Soumik Datta to create an emotionally resonant story about life across India from 1899 to 1947.

Drawn exclusively from the BFI National Archive, Around India features some of the earliest surviving film from India as well as gorgeous travelogues, intimate home movies and newsreels from British, French and Indian filmmakers. Taking in Maharajas and Viceroys, fakirs and farmhands and personalities such as Sabu and Gandhi, the film explores not only the people and places of over 70 years ago, but asks us to engage with broader themes of a shared history, shifting perspectives in the lead up to Indian independence and the ghosts of the past.

DVD (Color, Black and White, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 72 minutes

CENSORED

Directed by Sari Braithwaite By Chloe Brugale

Deep in the vaults of the Australian National Archives lie thousands upon thousands of celluloid scraps: scenes that were cut by government censors from films imported into the country between the years of 1958-1971. Peppered through this collection are banned scenes from some of the most influential directors in history, including Godard, Polanski, Bergman, Varda and Fellini. But censorship extended to hundreds of forgotten films-from avant-garde and documentary films to Hollywood B-movies.

When Sari Braithwaite gained unprecedented access to this mysterious collection, she though she could create a work to liberate this censored archive, to honour these displaced frames, and condemn censorship. But, after years of bearing witness to these fragments of film, this archive became challenging and unnerving. It felt almost impossible to celebrate or reconcile.

[CENSORED] is a work stitched entirely from these never-before-seen artefacts of censorship: it is the story of how one filmmaker confronted an archive to reckon with film, censorship, and the power of the gaze.

Featuring an acclaimed soundtrack by Munro Melano and the End, [CENSORED] is an entertaining and provacative polemic, challenging audiences with questions that defy easy answers. Just as the censor and the filmmaker are amde complicit, so is the audience, who bear witness to this ambitious work.

DVD (Color, Black and White, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 66 minutes

CREATING A CHARACTER: THE MONI YAKIM LEGACY

Director: Rauzar Alexander

What do Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis, Patti LuPone and Alex Sharp have in common? They are but a few of the extraordinary actors who have studied under Moni Yakim at Juilliard, America's greatest performing arts school. With interviews with Laura Linney, Anthony Mackie and Kevin Kline, this compelling portrait of the master teacher-the sole remaining founder of the school's legendary Drama Division-takes us inside the drama classes where Moni and his wife Mina pour their love and passion into preparing the next generation of actors for the spotlight.

DVD / 2018 / 76 minutes

MARCELINE. A WOMAN. A CENTURY

By Cordelia Dvorak

MARCELINE. A WOMAN. A CENTURY is a fascinating portrait of the persevering French filmmaker, writer, and Holocaust survivor Marceline Loridan-Ivens (1928-2018).

Marceline was only 15 when both she and her father, a Polish Jew from LÃ³dz, were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She survived but her father didn't, and Marceline had to find radical and unconventional ways to heal after the tragedies of the war. In 1961, she appeared in Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin's landmark film Chronicle of a Summer, which gave birth to the term cinema veritÃ©. Later she married the legendary Dutch documentary director Joris Ivens, traveled with him to Vietnam, and co-directed films such as 17th Parallel: Vietnam in War (1968) and How Yukong Moved the Mountains (1976).

Filmed as she was nearing 90 years old and living in Paris, MARCELINE. A WOMAN. A CENTURY spans the broad arc of her life from Holocaust survivor to political activist to combatively critical filmmaker. Looking back on the momentous events she experienced and filmed such as the Algerian and Vietnam Wars and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, MARCELINE is a thought-provoking chronicle of a remarkable witness of the 20th century.

DVD (French, Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 58 minutes

MOTHERTIME

By Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

MOTHERTIME is a personal video diary that takes us on a corporeal journey in parenting via a small portable Go-Pro camera. Worn by both mother and child, or left on any surface and turned on and off remotely, the camera over the period of a year and a half captures a real-time, sensorial journey spanning the frenetic to mundane.

Set primarily amidst scenes at home, the film explores the whimsical, ordinary, sometimes claustrophobic repeating loops of work and play in daily domestic life. The audience is drawn into the raw and messy reality of the mother-daughter relationship as the markers of toddlerhood become the turning points of the film itself. Early mobility, language acquisition and increasing child independence provide an intimate perspective of the motherâ€“child relationship, intentionally blurring where the mother ends and the child begins.

Like the fictional film, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, MOTHERTIME explores the boundaries of time and home to invite the viewer to see the labor of motherhood as neither romanticized nor banal, while it plays in the physical and emotional space between mother and child.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2018 / 60 minutes

THY KINGDOM COME

By Eugene Richards

Thy Kingdom Come - a collaboration between photographer/filmmaker Eugene Richards and actor/producer Javier Bardem - was conceived of following the filming of Terrence Malick's To the Wonder.

As part of that production's "third unit," Richards introduced Bardem, who was portraying a parish priest in Malick's film, to the real-life residents of a small Oklahoma town. What had been intended as brief episodes for inclusion in the feature film grew in scope as the townspeople, wholly aware that he was a fictional priest, chose to share personal details of their lives.

Filmed in a dozen homes, a trailer park, a county jail, and a local nursing facility, Thy Kingdom Come is a revelatory work in which unscripted conversations, shot by Richards in beautiful widescreen, come to reveal the complexity of life in this small oil town.

DVD / 2018 / 42 minutes

ZIVA POSTEC: THE WOMAN WHO EDITED SHOAH

By Catherine Hebert

In 1985, Claude Lanzmann debuted one of the most monumental cinematic works of all time, Shoah, the nine hour documentary on the Holocaust told through interviews with both perpetrators as well as survivors. Ziva Postec, the editor of Shoah, was an indispensable part of the project.

Postec dedicated six years of her life, from 1979 to 1985, working closely with Lanzmann, to construct the right pace and sequence for the 350 hours of footage. In this fascinating documentary, Postec recalls this gargantuan, painful and necessary experience, as well as revealing the the film's profound impact on her personal life.

Supplemented with previously unseen images from the making of Shoah, Ziva Postec is a moving portrait of an artist who for a long time has largely gone unnoticed, eclipsed by the towering presence of her male colleague.

DVD / 2018 / 92 minutes

JEAN ROUCH, THE ADVENTUROUS FILMMAKER

By Laurent Vedrine

Jean Rouch first went to Niger in 1941 as a 24-year-old civil engineer, building roads in the French colony. But unlike other colonists, he came to see Nigeriens as equals, spending much of the next 60 years in West Africa.

Much has been written about how Rouch's films, blending fiction and documentary, road movie and ethnography, influenced the French Nouvelle Vague and the cinema verite movement. But JEAN ROUCH, THE ADVENTUROUS FILMMAKER is unique in its exploration of the less well-known role Rouch and his films played in developing cinema in Niger, from working with local crews, to featuring Nigeriens on camera, to a fascination with telling Nigerien stories that continue to resonate.

It was a meeting with 18-year-old fisherman Damoure Zika that would set Rouch on his future path. With Zika as intermediary, Rouch was allowed to film a ceremony with his grandmother, the conduit for a spirit that would possess her. This sparked his interest in ethnography, a practice he approached with openness and lack of judgment. In contrast with filmmakers of the era who set themselves apart from the "others" they were filming, Rouch collaborated with locals such as Zika-who both co-directs and appears in many films-and screened cuts with his subjects, encouraging them to offer input and make changes.

During the course of his career, Rouch made over 120 films. The excerpts in this documentary capture their astounding range-from the comedy of COCORICO! MONSIEUR POULET to the striking MOI, UN NOIR, which launched the career of great Nigerien director Oumarou Ganda, to the shocking and controversial THE MAD MASTERS, which captured a violent possession ritual that Rouch saw as offering an outlet for the traumas of colonialism. Rouch's work was not without controversy, especially when it comes to his shaping the realities he films, and the accusation that he sometimes sensationalizes through his outsider's gaze, concerns that are addressed here.

JEAN ROUCH, THE ADVENTUROUS FILMMAKER features archival interviews with Rouch, a wealth of excerpts from his films, and interviews with an array of West African commentators: Rouch's longtime collaborator and sound engineer Moussa Hamidou, filmmakers Sani Magori, AÃ¯cha Maky, and Abdoulaye Boka, ethnologist and filmmaker Mariama Hima, teacher and researcher Antoinette Tidjani Alou, and author and illustrator Sani Djibo.

DVD (French, Color, Black and White, With English Subtitles) / 2017 / 55 minutes

CINEMA NOVO

By Eryk Rocha

CINEMA NOVO is a film essay that poetically investigates the eponymous Brazilian film movement, the most prominent in Latin America in the past century, through the analysis of its main auteurs: Nelson Pereira do Santos, Glauber Rocha, Leon Hirszman, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, Ruy Guerra, Caca Diegue, Walter Lima Jr, Paulo Cesar Saraceni, among others.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 90 minutes

MINUTE BODIES: THE INTIMATE WORLD OF F. PERCY SMITH

By Stuart A. Staples Music by tindersticks

This meditative, immersive film by tindersticks' Stuart A. Staples is a tribute to the astonishing work and achievements of naturalist, inventor and pioneering British filmmaker F. Percy Smith (1880-1945).

Based in a studio in north London in the early years of the 20th century, Percy Smith developed the use of time-lapse, animation and micro-photographic techniques to capture nature's secrets in action. He worked in a number of public roles, including the Royal Navy and British Instructional Films, Smith was prolific and driven, often directing several films simultaneously, apparently on a mission to explore and capture nature's hidden terrains.

Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith is an interpretative work that combines Smith's original film footage - preserved within the BFI National Archive - with a new contemporary score by tindersticks with Thomas Belhom and Christine Ott. It creates a hypnotic, alien yet familiar dreamscape that connects us to the sense of wonder Smith must have felt as he peered through his own lenses and saw these micro-worlds for the first time.

DVD (Black and White) / 2016 / 55 minutes

WHAT HAPPENED TO HER

By Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

WHAT HAPPENED TO HER is a forensic exploration of our cultural obsession with images of the dead woman on screen. Interspersing found footage from films and police procedural television shows and one actor's experience of playing the part of a corpse, the film offers a meditative critique on the trope of the dead female body.

The visual narrative of the genre, one reinforced through its intense and pervasive repetition, is revealed as a highly structured pageant. The experience of physical invasion and exploitation voiced by the actor pierce the fabric of the screened fantasy. The result is recurring and magnetic film cliche laid bare. Essential viewing for Pop Culture, Women's and Cinema Studies classes.

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 15 minutes

DYING OF THE LIGHT, THE

Director: Peter Flynn

The Dying of the Light explores the history and craft of motion picture presentation through the lives and stories of the last generation of career projectionists. By turns humorous and melancholic, their candid reflections on life in the booth reveal a world that has largely gone unnoticed and is now at an end. The result is a loving tribute to the art and romance of the movies - and to the unseen people who brought the light to our screens.

DVD / 2015 / 94 minutes

NAZARETH CINEMA LADY

Director: Nurit Jacobs-Yinon

The story of Safaa Dabour, an observant Muslim woman from Nazareth, struggling to take charge of her own fate and freedom and to establish the first and only Arab cinematheque in Israel. She succeeds in taking charge of her own fate and freedom and established and run the cinematheque. A single woman in a man's world, she travels to bring Arab box-office hits from Arab states, and seeks against all odds, to create an island of culture for the society to which she belongs. This is a cinematic profile of a courageous woman whose path to freedom is interwoven with the battle for her own cinematheque.

DVD (Hebrew, Arabic, With English Subtitles) / 2015 / 52 minutes

BEYOND ZERO: 1914-1918

By Bill Morrison Music composed by Aleksandra Vrebalov and performed by Kronos Quartet

Given up as lost for generations, footage from World War I never before seen by modern audiences comes to thrilling new life in BEYOND ZERO: 1914-1918. Auteur director Bill Morrison scoured film archives for rare 35mm nitrate footage shot during the Great War. Now, viewers can see an actual glimpse of a war fought in fields, in trenches, and in the air emerges for the first time.

Through a veil of physical degradation, unstable chemical elements and the bleeding of original film dye, viewers can see soldiers performing training exercises, parades and troop movements. While some of the battle footage was re-enacted for cameras, some is documentary footage of the war itself. All the footage was originally shot on film at the time of the conflict.

A prismatic and cinematic a message in a bottle from a century ago and accompanied by a magnificent score by Aleksandra Vrebalov performed by the Kronos Quartet, BEYOND ZERO: 1914-1918 is a powerful record of wartime past. Out on the same fields with the soldiers 100 years ago, the film is itself both collaborator and survivor.

DVD (Color) / 2014 / 40 minutes

DAVID PERLOV - PORTRAIT

Director: Ruth Walk

The life and art of David Perlov, who is considered to be the most important Israeli documentary filmmaker.

December 13, 2013 marked ten years to the death of artist, filmmaker and teacher David Perlov. In the film, Perlov's apartment on 4 Shaul Hamelech Boulevard in Tel Aviv is once again the studio that it was in his lifetime. Perlov lived in his apartment on the 14th floor for thirty years, filming, editing and screening films. The rooms remain untouched; the walls lined with his sketches, painting and still photos. Friends, students and family members visit the apartment in the film and together form a perspective of the unique character of Perlov â€“ an immigrant from Brazil who became the father of modern Israeli cinema, an artist who widely influences generations of students. The film offers archive materials and rare documents from Sao Paulo and Paris which illuminate the relationship between painting, filmmaking and photography that filled Perlov's life.

DVD (Hebrew, Portuguese, English, French, With English, French Subtitles) / 2014 / 65 minutes

GOLDEN GATE GIRLS

By S. Louisa Wei

In GOLDEN GATE GIRLS author and professor S. Louisa Wei tells the story of filmmaker Esther Eng, the first woman to direct Chinese-language film in the US, and the most prominent woman director in Hong Kong in the 1930's. A San Francisco native and open lesbian, her contribution to film history is sadly overlooked â€“ her 11 feature films mostly lost. After the retirement of director Dorothy Arzner in 1943 and before Ida Lupino began directing in 1949, Eng was the only woman directing feature length films in the US.

Wei's documentary paints a fascinating picture of how Eng's career in filmmaking broke through gender and racial boundaries in Hollywood and Hong Kong, at a time when opportunities for Chinese women in the industry were few and far between. With a captivating archive of newly discovered images and interviews with those who knew her, Wei uncovers a rich chapter of film history that challenges both gender hierarchies and national narratives. Essential viewing for Cinema Studies and Asian American Studies.

DVD (Chinese, Color) / 2014 / 90 minutes

THANHOUSER STUDIO AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN CINEMA

The Thanhouser Company was a trail-blazing studio based in New Rochelle, New York. From 1910 to 1917 it released over 1,000 films that were seen by audiences around the globe.

This 53-minute documentary reconstructs the relatively unknown story of the studio and its founders, technicians, and stars as they entered the nascent motion picture industry to compete with Thomas Edison and the companies aligned with his Motion Pictures Patents Corporation (MPPC).

Ned Thanhouser, grandson of studio founders Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser, narrates this compelling tale, recounting a saga of bold entrepreneurship, financial successes, cinematic innovations, tragic events, the launching of Hollywood careers, and the transition of the movie industry from the East Coast to the West and Hollywood.

DVD / 2014 / 53 minutes

BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD

Director: Rob Kuhns

In 1968 a young college drop-out named George A. Romero directed "Night of the Living Dead," a low budget horror film that shocked the world, became an icon of the counterculture, and spawned a zombie industry worth billions of dollars that continues to this day.

Birth of the Living Dead shows how Romero gathered an unlikely team of Pittsburghers - policemen, iron workers, teachers, ad-men, housewives and a roller-rink owner - to shoot a revolutionary guerrilla style film that went on to become a cinematic landmark, offering a profound insight into how our society worked in a singular time in American history.

DVD / 2013 / 76 minutes

CASTING BY

Director: Tom Donahue

Casting By places the spotlight on one of filmmaking's unsung heroes - casting director Marion Dougherty - and takes us on a journey through 50 years of Hollywood history from an entirely new perspective. Relying of her exquisite taste and gut instincts, Dougherty helped usher in the 'New Hollywood' with movies like Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Bonnie and Clyde, and in the process launched the careers of iconic actors including James Dean, Robert Duvall, Warren Beatty, Christopher Plummer, Glenn Close, John Travolta, Jeff Bridges, Bette Midler and countless others. Breaking away from tradition studio typecasting, Dougherty started the first independent casting agency and quickly became a favorite for directors, producers, and studio chiefs. Over the next 35 years, Dougherty became an indispensable ally to some of the best filmmakers in Hollywood.

In Tom Donahue's entertaining and illuminated documentary, directors and actors including Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Jeff Bridges, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Diane Lane, Jon Voight, Bette Midler and John Travolta reveal insights into their early careers and share fond memories of Doughery, all interwoven with rarely seen clips as well as scenes from classic films The Sting, Goodfellas, Annie Hall, The Great Escape and West Side Story.

DVD / 2013 / 89 minutes

WONDER WOMEN!

By Kristy Guevara-Flanagan

WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES traces the fascinating birth, evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman and introduces audiences to a dynamic group of fictional and real-life superheroines fighting for positive role models for girls, both on screen and off.

From the birth of the 1940s comic book heroine, Wonder Woman, to the blockbusters of today, WONDER WOMEN! looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society's anxieties about strong and healthy women. The film goes behind the scenes with actors Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman) and Lindsay Wagner (the Bionic Woman), comic writers and artists, and real-life superheroines such as feminist icon Gloria Steinem, riot grrrl Kathleen Hanna, and others, who offer an enlightening and entertaining counterpoint to the male-dominated superhero genre.

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2012 / 55 minutes

WALKING DEAD GIRLS, THE

An intriguing rarity for those seeking to study and understand a sub-genre of horror filmmaking, The Walking Dead Girls! is a behind the scenes look into zombie culture in the United States and the obsession with sexy female zombies. What is it about zombie bimbos, or "zimbies", that are starting to gain the world's interest? Why are zombies now in mainstream culture and seen in advertising from JCPenney to Sears?

With interviews with zombie master maker George Romero, cult filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman, scream queen Linnea Quigley and cult movie star Bruce Campbell.

Includes a rare look into the making of a zombie pinup calendar and behind the scenes of "Stripperland", The Walking Dead Girls! is a look into the zombie phenomenon created by Romero that is 40 years in the making.

DVD / 2011 / 90 minutes

SNUFF: A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT KILLING ON CAMERA (SPECIAL EDITION)

The Ultimate Cinema Taboo.

Explore the disturbing, pervasive urban legend of the "snuff" film, an alleged film where someone is purposely murdered on camera. This compelling, educational documentary features interviews with film professionals, FBI profilers and academics who all help examine the myths and evidence of snuff films, and its relationship to cult horror films, serial killers and pornography in our culture.

DVD / 2008 / 76 minutes

http://www.learningemall.com/News/Cinema_202104.html

0 notes

kaywithdanes · 6 years

Photo

CPH: DOX - 10 Days in Documentary Heaven

These past two weeks, one of the biggest documentary festivals in the world occurred in Copenhagen. During this time, I’ve been able to go to screenings, attend Q&A’s with the directors, engage in installations, and on top of that lend a hand as a volunteer. I wanted to share with you the two screenings I attended that had a profound impact on me and I encourage everyone to see when they’re available.

América (Directors: Erick Stoll & Chase Whiteside)

The film follows a trio of grandsons’ love for family as they return to Colima, Mexico to care for their elderly grandmother, América. In the last stages of her life, she has become dependent on the people around her. After an incident which resulted in the incarceration of América’s son, Luis Alvarez Serrano. Filmed over three years, the directors capture the intimacy and reconfiguration of the family unit and what that means for later years. As political filmmakers, the film explores both the family unit but the missteps of the geriatric care system, the corrupt government, and how the most vulnerable are impacted by these powers.

I was struck by the beautiful and powerful cinematography of the film. Stoll contributed the majority of the shots and footage that survived in the final cut and hearing his thought process has changed my whole view of capturing reality while hanging onto the Hollywood classical filmmaking practice of stylists of the past. His motivation for the camera’s focus was physicality. As career performers, the brothers' physical connection to their grandmother as they cared for her explored intimacy to its most basic sense. Also, the camera segments the body often reading into sexual and personal invasiveness yet the emotional beats of the story and the exuberance of our protagonist, Diego. Stoll combines traditional documentary-like angles and staticism by leaving the camera to sit while the individuals move at their own pace. It almost seems easy, but the key is Stoll’s ability to capture the scenes in a multitude of angles and perspectives with stunning clarity. Most poignantly, the final shot has to go down as the most beautiful and heart clenching shot in all the documentaries I’ve seen.

A self-criticism and an acute awareness that the directing duo had their own film was the portrayal of the secondary female individual, Cristina. She is the girlfriend of the eldest brother Rodrigo. They brought up that they felt that her story of domesticity and cleaning was underappreciated in the home by the brothers which they assume influenced their editing in some way. A lot of her cleaning and cooking was less impactful than the brothers fighting - physically and verbally. Furthermore, they argued in a male-dominated physically aggressive home that Cris’s “outsiderness” lent well to Ro’s desire to separate from the family unit and assume independence. Here’s the point where I tell you that the duo are unnecessarily hard on themselves, Cris’ story was less action motivated, but they managed to capture parts of her experience that still spoke to her experience in that family unit and represented her quite well.

All in all, this film gave a graceful lived-in experience of an intimate portrait of care and family. I loved it and I’m excited to see more from these independent filmmakers.

Generation Wealth (Director: Lauren Greenfield)

Lauren Greenfield’s documentary is a personal essay exploring the consumer capitalist culture, the effects it has on youth, the oversexualization and commodification of bodies (particularly female), the philosophy that allowed for the 2008 financial global crisis, and the shift to a value of the material allows in a greater context. With that laundry list of topics, Greenfield combines her photojournalist eye to capture the essence of these subjects and masterfully links philosophy, testimony, and factual evidence to enlighten the viewer on an underlined problem in our society.

As an accompaniment to her photography book, Greenfield scours her 20-year career to make a film that encompasses her life and the drive that makes all of us complicit in our desires. The compilation style of the film (combining her photographic images to the video) worked extremely well to convey the visual overstimulation we constantly experience in popular culture. As a fictional comparison, the film’s humor and awareness likened that to the style of Adam McKay’s The Big Short.

Greenfield’s personal journey on the surface would seem unrelatable and privileged, but she manages to point to the universal characteristic of all individuals which is greed and excess. Manifested in different forms, greed is analyzed and how it affects specific cultures.

A criticism I have of the film is one that Greenfield is aware of which is her narrowed focus on the extremes clouds her to the general. She argues that her methodology allows her to pinpoint the culture of the mainstream. While this is effective and poignant in her photojournalism, it showcases her profound biases when conveying her argument. She’s not afraid to take a stand on the issue which I admire, but it came at the expensive of being hypercritical of the "liberated” woman. It felt that during the film that judgment was being placed on the sex workers, exotic dancers, and pornographic artists she interviewed for their choice of career path and not for merely the culture that created the industry for their work to profit. Our Q & A was cut short, but I would wonder what she would respond because at times it felt she was trying to save the oversexualized young girl, but judging the women that took advantage of the male gaze.

As McKay’s The Big Short, I enjoyed Greenfield’s portrayal of the cultural and high-class elite and the greed culture prevalent on a global scale. Be sure to check this one out because I assume it will land on Amazon Prime Video’s library as it’s produced by Amazon Studio.

#copenhagen #dis copenhagen #cph:dox #cph: dox #documentary #lauren greenfield #generation wealth #américa #erick stolll #chase westside

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ahouseoflies · 4 years

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The Best Films of 2019, Part III

Part I is here. Part II is here.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES

80. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (Martin Scorsese)- Can one put a star rating on Bob Dylan, with renewed purpose, belting out "Isis" in a head and shoulders close-up to New Hampshire teens? What about a naked moment when he and Joan Baez simultaneously realize they should have married each other, and he, for maybe the first time, has nothing to say? As a Dylanologist, I'm glad that this footage from an under-reported period saw the light of day. You can start to think about stars when Martin Scorsese, my other dad, does everything he can to complicate and ultimately undermine that footage with his contributions. I appreciate that he uses his documentaries to experiment and chart his passions, and I think that I get what he's doing with his present-day chicanery, but it does not work for me. Shout-out to when Bob Dylan claims, of one of Scorsese's fake people, "He seemed to need enemies. Even when there weren't any." I felt that.

79. Serenity (Steven Knight) Djimon Honsou: Lawful Good Jeremy Strong as "The Rules": Lawful Neutral Anne Hathaway: Lawful Evil Diane Lane: Chaotic Good The Kid: Chaotic Neutral Jason Clarke: Chaotic Evil The Bartender: Lawful Neutral Matthew McConaughey: True Neutral Me, Believing Almost Sincerely That This Is a Good Movie: Chaotic Neutral

78. Atlantics (Mati Diop)- It's plenty effective as a window into a patriarchal society I wasn't familiar with, but Atlantics doesn't ever match the heights of its exquisite opening. At the risk of getting banned from this website--and I do realize what I'm implying here...not enough happens.

77. Birds of Passage (Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego)- After enjoying the formal invention of Embrace of the Serpent, I was interested to see Guerra and Gallego's spin on a well-worn genre like crime. So I was surprised to see how conventional Birds of Passage was. The indigenous Colombian rituals provide some color and grandeur, but otherwise this is a rise and fall that I've seen before, complete with a hothead character that threatens the whole operation. Perhaps my favorite part of crime movies, the alluring sinful fun that ropes the viewer in and makes him complicit, is nowhere to be found.

76. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Joe Talbot)- I admire Joe Talbot's debut more than I like it. It's straightforward in its ideas of African-American and masculine performance, and it boils its essence down into a really effective scene near the end (on the bus). It does get tedious though. The protagonists' goals keep changing in a way that makes it seem like the film is overcompensating for how simple it actually is.

75. Running with Beto (David Modigliani)- Beto O'Rourke is both inspiring and goofy, able to get me to look to the stars and roll my eyes within the same breath. This movie is pretty standard for its genre, but its greatest strength is getting us to see that all people present those contradictions on an individual level, while most people, if we're talking about blue and red states, are the same collectively.

74. Gemini Man (Ang Lee)- Ang Lee treats Gemini Man like a test reel for 3D high-frame rate presentation, and I think I would have liked the film much less if I hadn't enjoyed the bells and whistles. (Find me in the club and ask me about the HDR--I can go deep.) You could read the film as a comment on Will Smith's Movie Stardom: We're the product of our experiences, and up-and-comers lack some of the character/baggage that Smith brings even if those imitators can approximate his bluster. (The fact that the film is a commercial failure adds another layer. Perhaps the cultural bridge that Smith created is no longer necessary.)

But you'll notice that none of that stuff is dealing with the text, which rarely does the unexpected, especially when it comes to the mustache-twirling Clive Owen character. The film pointedly avoids a romance between Smith and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and that's another absence that I'm pretending is a plus.

73. The Hummingbird Project (Kim Nguyen)- At first, the film has trouble selling itself, almost underplaying how quixotic the characters' plan to beat the stock market is. Once it settles in after a few false starts, it expands into a story about how precious time is in general, an idea that Jesse Eisenberg sells in his sympathetic performance. The other characters don't fare as well. Skarsgard's foil is comparatively static and dull, and a dialed-up Salma Hayek makes this a more external, obvious picture than it should have been. But there are long stretches that I like. 72. Escape Room (Adam Robitel)- I was exhausted in a good way as the movie rocketed through its setup, showing us the backstory of half of its characters while bypassing the rest. I was exhausted in a bad way by its fourth ending. Basically though, this movie does its job. And I'm glad that some of these thrillers are still envelope-pushing PG-13's. 71. Late Night (Nisha Ganatra)- There's a preposterous scene swinging into the third act that I just cannot accept or get behind, and it introduces a wave of Serious Scenes of People Getting Real with Each Other. But I haven't seen such a distilled juxtaposition of second-wave feminism and third-wave feminism before, let alone in a comedy. Some solid jokes. And John Lithgow playing piano while feeling bad about himself! 70. Non-Fiction (Olivier Assayas)- Non-Fiction is a sign that Assayas, always prolific, is entering the Woody Allen Zone. That is, he, a filmmaker capable of great formal beauty, has left behind formal rigor for a moderately funny tale about pseudo-intellectuals having conversations that would have been provocative five or ten years ago. 90% of the film depicts infidelity, but it isn't really about infidelity. Just as every latter-day Allen picture has two or three immaculate jokes or inward moments, Non-Fiction, despite its lack of ambition, has some perfect Assayas inter-textual flourishes. The Selena character bemoans the disposable nature of the TV show she works on, but Assayas drops us into one of the show's wintry, over-exposed shoot-outs as if to capture a genre he'll never fully pursue. He also writes a joke in which Selena, played by Juliette Binoche, claims that she'll try to talk Juliette Binoche into recording an audio book.

69. Crawl (Alexandre Aja)- I guess you could say something negative about this movie, but you would also have to mention that ol' girl lets off a full clip from inside the gator while it is chomping her arm off. So it pretty much has that Academy Awards category sewn up. 68. Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bi Gan)- as Chinese Jerry Seinfeld once said, "Why don't they make the whole movie out of the hour-long unbroken 3D take?"

67. The Art of Self-Defense (Riley Stearns)- The Art of Self-Defense is a film of two halves--in a way that, actually, Riley Stearns's previous film Faults was. For me, those two halves, one being slow and pre-ordained, the other being wild and unpredictable, are too extreme on either end. The vagueness of the setting is a weapon that goes a long way in unifying those parts though. Even if I couldn't get down with the silliness, The Art of Self-Defense is worth checking out for Alessandro Nivola's career-best performance. The movie is about performative masculinity, so he has the challenge of playing a sort of confident monolith while also being totally specific. He's everything you would imagine a karate instructor to be, but he also takes his glasses out of their case in a way I've never seen before.

66. Dolemite Is My Name (Craig Brewer)- Keep in mind that I couldn't make it all the way through Dolemite proper, so I'm not the intended audience for this film's "let's put on a show" awe. The structure is notable: It starts with Rudy Ray Moore as a failure who has tried everything, crests past the shooting of his movie, and uses that completion as a plot point, only to focus on the distribution for the third act. That is, the screenplay breathes new life into the plot right when it needs it. Eddie Murphy's best performances always seem like regretful commentaries on his own relationship with the audience, (I'm picturing the final speech of The Nutty Professor.) and he follows suit here. Even better is an effete Wesley Snipes as the too-cool-for-school D'Urville. Despite all of the talent involved, however, the thing just isn't funny, and it's least funny in the comedy club scenes that are supposed to sell us on Rudy Ray Moore's genius. If it's not supposed to be funny, then why populate the movie with five comedic supporting actors?

65. Harriet (Kasi Lemmons)- History classes could do a lot worse. Like a history class, the film has so much ground to cover that it has to make choices for pacing, and even then it still feels like a greatest hits. It does have a surprising, brazen edge though, and it's more spiritually curious than I was expecting. Kasi Lemmons leans in to the mystical side of the story, using Tubman's spells as conversations with God that give her the confidence that she needs. The device is a double-edged sword though: What distinguishes and others Tubman, what makes her the chosen one, is also kind of passive and out of her control. Speaking of out of control, Joe Alwyn plays the slaveholder who ain't gonna be as nice as his pappy was. "Seems to me things have gotten a little too easy 'round these parts." 64. Motherless Brooklyn (Edward Norton)- Like Edward Norton, Motherless Brooklyn is sincere and smart and shows its work. Also like Edward Norton, it sort of tires you out after a while with how hard it's trying. I respect the ambition--the film tangles itself in race and jazz and urban planning and makeshift families--but by the third or fourth time that the hero blacks out while getting roughed up, the film reveals that it can't quite thread the needle between noir pastiche and noir cliche. It's satisfying enough as a mystery in general.

63. The Two Popes (Fernando Meirelles)- I'm the target audience for 21st century papal fan-fic, and even I started to zone out during the flashbacks. Jonathan Pryce sort of disappears, but I think this is the first Netflix prestige project being judged on a curve.

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