"Strong Female Leads"

When I browse the film selection on Netflix, the site offers me the following categories to "mix and match": Comedies, Crime, Dark, Dramas, Emotional, Independent, Romantic, Showbiz, Strong Female Leads, TV Dramas, TV shows. This list is based on the "Taste Preferences" I set for myself. Recently, I've been getting a lot of suggestions from the "Strong Female Leads" category, which got me thinking. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. I mean, I do prefer films with strong female leads. But this category seems problematic to me. It suggests that a film with a strong female lead is distinctive from other films with female leads because of her strength. Strong as opposed to... weak? They don't give you the option to prefer "Weak Female Leads." If the "Strong Female Lead" category is seen as a subset of the "Female Lead" category, the implication is that the majority of cinematic female leads are not strong. Not to mention that since this is a "preference" option, it means that people can decide, No, I don't prefer films with "Strong Female Leads." I prefer all the other films, you know, with the normal, non-strong women in them.

This probably wouldn't bother me if they gave you the option of a "Strong Male Leads" preference. Why isn't there a "Strong Male Leads" category, and what does its absence mean? I see only one option, really: male leads are strong. It's as if to say, "Strong Male Leads!? Isn't that repetitive?" This isn't actually true. I can think of plenty (plenty) of films with weak male leads. Of course, these films tend to be about said male's transformation into a stronger male (sometimes with the help of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and sometimes with the help of sports montages.)

It's also worth mentioning that if you take a look at the "Strong Female Leads" category, there are some films in there that sort of make you go, Huh? Like, Twilight. No. I'm totally serious. Twilight. Films like The Nanny Diaries, My Best Friend's Wedding, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days seem to mock the more appropriate inclusions. These are strong female leads? The inclusion of other films like, Monster, Grey Gardens, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? make me wonder if "Strong Female Lead" = "Insane Female Lead." Which is even more alarming. Sure, Aileen Wuornos was a memorable woman in history, but I wouldn't house her under the same umbrella with, like, Queen Elizabeth. That seems to imply that any woman who doesn't stay in some kind of 1950s conception of the normative female gender role belongs in the same category, whether she was a serial killer or the Queen of England. Bella Swan = Erin Brokovich. I kind of want to meet whoever is in charge of the "Strong Female Leads" category. I am really, really curious at this point. I mean, 27 Dresses is in there with The Silence of the Lambs. It is sacrilegious.

Doesn't it just make you hurt? This whole thing sort of makes me hurt. I think it is positive to support and encourage cinema that depicts women as strong, but I don't think Netflix's "Strong Female Leads" category is helping us out. It's really just symptomatic of the popularity of destructive depictions of women in film (specifically in film marketed to women.) So what combative strategies are there? I think the best thing to do is to celebrate film made by, for, and about strong women, and hope that this industry won't continue to profit by depicting women as weak.

Speaking of depressing, has anyone seen the trailer for ABC Family's made for TV movie starring Hillary Duff, entitled, Beauty and the Briefcase? Fuck you ABC Family. Fuck you very much.

Vampires, Werewolves, and Abstinence. Oh my!

I love me some vampires. Buffy? Yes. True Blood? Hell yes. Most anything involving vampires made in the last decade? I've probably at least sampled. I think vampires are just great. They are the fodder of some really dramatic, oft-sexy, intentionally hilarious film and television. And then, there's Twilight. Thankfully, I think vampires are too broad and enduring a cultural fetish to be Donnie-Darkoed into the much-hated land of things that teens obsess over. But God bless Stephanie Meyer, she is trying her darnedest isn't she? Luckily, I think True Blood pretty effectively negated the devastating effect Twilight and its twee, self-hating minions could have wrought on my brain in 2008 (thank you, Alan Ball). The best antidote for Mormon vampire abstinence porn? Southern gothic vampire actual porn. But sadly, Twilight is to everywhere to ignore. According to a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about, Twilight is the twisted, malformed harbinger or some kind of mainstream vampire media Renaissance. And sadly, in the years since Ms. Meyers bestowed her bastardized vampire lore upon a hoard of desperately repressed thirteen year old sadomasochists, vampires have indeed been all up in everyone's business. Vampires who are unaffected by sunshine. Vampires who sparkle like the frickin' Heart of the frickin' Ocean/a disco ball at your skeevy local bowling alley.

But, as I have long discussed with my co-conspirator/life partner, Miss Hannah Gelb, the affront is not so much that Twilight exists, or is popular, or generally sucks. No. The true tragedy of the whole sad enterprise is that Twilight takes a whole bunch of totally promising elements and nearly completely saps them of all appeal, whether that appeal be pulp, ironic, or literal. It's like taking Fromager D'Affinois, kalamata olives, a good ciabatta, and a Grigich Hills Chardonnay and covering it all in Cheez Wiz. It's like sprinkling your shaved truffles with manure.

And, AND, the whole thing could be so easily improved what with a few relatively simple revisions. I am talking about the film adaptations solely, as I have not read the "novels." There comes a point when you are just too old/proud to be seen with a series of young adult vampire books in your possession. Film adaptations, I think, should almost never be totally faithful to their source material. This usually ends badly (see: The Da Vinci Code, or as I like to call it Boring). So, now, revisions. I tried to stay away from major changes to the plot at the heart of the great seething pile of warm goo and angst that is The Twilight Saga.

8 Minor Changes that Could Maybe Make Twilight Not Suck So Hard:

1. Give Bella a basis in reality as a character before surrounding her with fantastical gothic otherworldliness. This is really very important and basic. Almost all classic fairy tales establish a normal world and character that the fantasy world changes, or is a departure from. Until fairies/elves/wicked witches show up, Dorothy is a bored Kansan, Cinderella is a verbally abused housemaid, and Ariel is... well... a teenage mermaid (but really, she's more of a very literal representation of female virginity). Because Twilight barely affords us an opportunity to meet Bella before her whole life is thrown into upheaval (move to Forks, ensuing vampire love story). We have no concept of her or her world before things get all shaken up, and no impression of her as a consistent character, with a recognizable personality or context. She's just a plot device who shit happens to.

2. Introduce a little teensy weensy bit of levity (maybe even some self awareness). No, unfunny Asian dude does not count. I mean, vampires and werewolves and frickin' Kristen Stewart feature prominently in this. It is not King Lear. We are supposed to enjoy these movies, right? No?

3. Eliminate ALL dialogue that does not either further the plot in a detectable way or help to develop characters. The following is an example that does neither or these things, and seems to exist in the movie for no other reason than to get Bella and Eddie on screen together. Do we learn anything about either of them? No. Does it further their relationship? Really, no. Does it move the plot at all? Hell no.

Bella: You were gone.

Ed: Yeah, um, I was out of town for a couple of days, personal reasons.

Bella: [pushes microscope to Ed] Uh, prophase.

Ed: Do you mind it I uh, look?

[Bella morosely shakes her stupid head]

Ed: It's prophase.

Bella: Like I said.

Ed: So you enjoying the rain?

[Bella attempts something like human laughter]

Ed: What?

Bella: You're asking me about the weather?

Ed: Yeah, I-I guess I am.

Bella: Well I don't really like the rain. Any cold wet thing I don't really...

Ed: [makes a sound that is supposed to be laughter but comes out more like a nauseous moan]

Bella: What?

Ed: Nothing, uh. It's uh, anaphase.

Bella: You mind if I check?

Ed: Sure.

Bella: Anaphase.

Ed: Like I said.

4. Introduce villains before third fucking act, and make said villain intimidating enough that we care at all. Actually, it doesn't even matter when he shows. Just make us care at all. This is particularly relevant in the first film (though still a continuing problem in the second), which muddles around for a bajillion hours before we even get a look at the aggressor, and when we do, he looks like he's an extra who wandered off the set of, like, the 1995 "Hercules" mini-series. Oh, and when he does get all "scary" he sort of just half-crouches and holds his hands out in front of him like eight-year-old-me doing my best velociraptor impression. Hiss! Hiss! Rar!

5. Depict the actual passage of time in a way that makes us, as an audience, aware that time is passing rather than relying on ineffective sped-up/slow motions montages. As much as montages are super fun and classy, there are other ways to make the audience understand that time has passed. But I guess that would require some acting or cleverness. For the record, the whole "September... November... [Bella sits on her stupid bed morosely staring out her stupid window at a never-changing landscape that I don't remember being there earlier]" sequence in New Moon did not work, and does not count as either acting or clever. The complete lack of temporal context kills any level of suspense that could have existed in the script. In Twilight Bella run like hell from Forks to the Southwest trying to escape the non-scary villain guy, and this takes about five minutes. In New Moon Bella finds out that Edward's gonna, like, out himself in Italy or whatever and travels from Forks to the scene of said Sparkle Motion in about five minutes. This gives the audience no chance to get anxious whatsoever about Ed or Bella's respective impending dooms.

6. Shot reverse shot, people. It's not rocket science, and these films aren't directed by Ingmar Bergman. Though this improved slightly in the latter of the films, in Twilight the poor cameramen appeared to be constantly running in dizzying, tilting circles around the action (lack of action), the better to look at the back of everyone's heads. Because that's what we want to see, obviously.

7. Remove respective sticks from Kristen Stewart/R-Patzzz's bottoms. At this point, watching them act onscreen together makes me physically uncomfortable, which the tweens may mistake as sexual arousal, but us grown-ups can hopefully identify as nauseous boredom. This isn't just the fault of the script; there is something really weird happening between the leads that makes it totally unpleasant to see them talk to each other at all. The second film was a lot better than the first just for the fact that Edward was barely in it, meaning we didn't have to suffer through their scenes, which inspire the same feelings in my as watching Josie Grossie in Never Been Kissed, or "Everybody Loves Raymond."

8. Resist the urge to subject your actors to the stupidest possible costume/makeup work available. Jean short cut-offs? Really? Awkwardly pristine baseball uniforms with matching caps? Gahh. Maybe practice a little critical restraint and spend money where it could do some good. You're certainly going to be making enough money to pay of the monumental debt sustained while buying some lipstick that doesn't make Edward Cullen's lips look like something out of Cabaret. Spend the money to have wigs made that don't so much resemble wigs from the 1964 television series "The Addams Family."

There you have it. It might be just that easy. Now, it won't make it good. But it can make it not so much suck, maybe. And now, lastly, a change that is not so minor, but simply cannot go unsaid:

Fuckin' just adhere to the generally accepted vampire lore. Please? Vampires do not sparkle. Vampires do not survive in sunlight/lowlight/partially cloudy skies, chance of light showers. Vampires do not appear in photographs or mirrors. Vampires do not get jiggy with crosses or silver or garlic. Vampires would never say anything so stupid as "Think of us as vegetarians. Nom nom nom helpless Bambi." OR, if you must completely ignore the entire fabulous mythology of the paranormal being you've inexplicably chosen to write about, consider just calling them something else. Cold Ones. Whatever. Pacific Northwestern tree moncheechees. Sure. Hella-gay-immortal-manifestations-of-some-perverse-abstinence-myth/rape-fantasy-purported-by-sexually-repressed-middle-aged-people. Be my guest. R-Patzzzies and Jacobsies. Sounds about right.

Movie-vision

I am currently watching Step Up (Anne Fletcher, 2006) on ABC Family. Why? you may ask. You may even ask, Why, in God's name why?! The answer to both questions, as is my answer concerning most films that I watch on basic cable, is, Why not?

Step Up is basically Good Will Hunting, but with dance instead of math and Channing Tatum instead of Matt Damon. Down on his luck, rough around the edges janitor’s secret ______ genius is revealed while he’s mopping floors at a swank ______ school, changing his life, and the lives of the people who believe in him! Apparently, Channing Tatum is the inexplicable draw of this film, despite being once accurately described by one reviewer as “a violently unappealing mongoloid.” (I love you, Pajiba.) Channing Tatum, whose name sounds like a kind of heavy machinery, plays a character who is basically just that. His sole purpose in this film seems to be lifting a small, unappealing person in the air repeatedly, like a big dumb cherry picker. Tatum also has the habit of not so much saying his lines as muttering them at inexplicable speeds and pitches, though I don’t know that it does much damage to the film’s script. Somehow he emerged from this film with a legitimate film career, as evidenced by the recent success of Dear John, a movie whose title alone can make me feel like I’m about to wretch.

This is all brings me to my larger topic: watching films on television. Let’s call it, movie-vision. Movie-vision is like a free pass to behave badly, and to secretly consume cinematic fare you would never be willing to openly slide across a Blockbuster counter and pay for. I’m not talking about films made for television, since they are made with commercial interruption/etc. in mind. And they are consistently awful. Watching actual film on television is strange because it is the forcing of one media into another, whether or not it works. Film bends to television’s will, accepting multiple interruptions and heavy-handed editing/dubbing. Some films work better for television than others, and can be pretty reliably encountered on television every few weeks or so. Examples? Bring it On, Goodfellas, Gone in 60 Seconds. They never really seem to have much in common except for their broad appeal. Sometimes weird, unexpected films end up in repeated television circulation, like The Shawshank Redemption. Baffling, as that's like a five and half hour commitment via movie-vision. But maybe that’s the thing about movie-vision: most of the time people don’t actually sit through the whole thing. The film is like a network placeholder. Hm, what are we going to show between the hours of blah and blah? How about American Pie! Movievision films also tend to be things that people have seen; they aren’t often rare or long-forgotten films. They’re ones that you kind of remember seeing in theaters and sort of remember not minding and hey it has so-and-so in it and you’ve always sort of liked him and why not? Nicolas Cage features prominently in a lot of movie-vision. This probably has something to do with his role-choices, and his inexplicable appeal to American audiences. I mean, not to knock his acting ability. I have been known to enjoy me some Nic Cage from time to time (Moonstruck, Wild at Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Adapatation) but he has starred in some really, really, really unforgivably embarassing fare in the last decade—enough to make people forget that he was ever a lead in a David Lynch film.

Side note: Nicolas Cage has the best character name in every single awful or good movie he stars in, leading me to believe that that might be his criteria for choosing roles. Sorry Nic, I’m onto you. Let’s look at a random sampling from his career: Cameron Poe, Dr. Stanley Godspeed, Smokey, Sailor Ripley, Castor Troy, Speckles, Fu Manchu, H.I. McDunnough, Sergeant Joe Enders, Zoc, Johnny Blaze, and (my personal favorite) Memphis Raines.

Okay, Step Up was getting too painful. The joy of movie-vision: the complete and utter lack of any feelings of commitment or obligation. CLICK, and goodbye, Channing Tatum. I’m sure I’ll be seeing your obnoxiously vanilla, dead-eyed face occupying a square-shaped space on my silver screen soon enough. I’ve been having a good run of movie-vision in the last few weeks, even before I got HBO for myself for Valentine’s Day. Major upgrade here at the Nowhere Nickelodeon, people. I am excited. Lately, the TV networks seemed to have understood my deepest, darkest desires and filled the airwaves with films, both good and bad, that I am always pleased to partake of via the wonder of television. Because, of course, we all have our specific movie-vision favorites—the movies you will watch, piece by piece, time and again every time it magically appears on the TV in front of you, like a gift from the network gods. Some you can proudly claim to enjoy, even watching them in front of other people (Goodfellas, When Harry Met Sally, anything black and white) but some you would probably never admit to watching, even on movie-vision (City of Angels, Hook, Six Days Seven Nights, Con Air). Yes, I just admitted to watching all four of those films, and more than once. I am a secret City of Angels repeat offender. Damn you, Nicolas Cage!

But, more seriously, movie-vision is something of a weird gift, in my eyes. I have affection for it, even if I usually abuse it in order to watch something that I most likely should not be wasting the precious hours of my young life watching. I have affection for it because once in a blue moon I idly start watching something on television and it is amazing, and possibly more so because it came to me by pure chance and happenstance. Such was the case with Wings of Desire, or Dancer in the Dark, or The Station Agent. These films were very possibly the reasons I became interested in film as more than a dalliance, or an entertainment, and I saw them all, or even just a piece of them, for the first time on television. I suppose what I am trying to say is that there are worse things than channel surfing and landing on a film, new or old, and watching for a little while. You might be surprised what you might find out there, brave television voyagers. And should you find only Step Up, despair not. No one ever has to know.

Adventureland

I will never understand some of the marketing decisions made in the film industry. It’s truly incredible how a bad pitch can color a movie’s entire box office performance (see: Jennifer’s Body, or Jarhead). Admittedly, it is more often than not deserved. The film is awful, and its marketing is duly awful. However, given the crazy success of a lot of really, really awful films in this country, it doesn’t really make sense. Unless the film is pitched at entirely the wrong demographic, or misrepresented in a way that makes it unappealing even to the idiots who actually get excited about the Transformers franchise, there is no reason that shitty movie by that shitty director can’t make tons of money. I mean, G-Force people. G-FORCE. Turning a children’s film about ninja guinea pigs into box office gold. Nothing is impossible.

I like watching trailers. Even more, I like watching films and then watching the trailers for said films after experiencing the real thing. The packaging becomes so much more interesting when you can recognize what it is purposefully misconstruing. But when you see a trailer and go, meh, and then see the film and go ?! I am always left baffled. Why make a good film look stupid? After recently watching Adventureland I asked myself, Why didn’t I see this in theaters? I had access. I wouldn’t have had to pay for it or the delicious popcorn I would have consumed whilst watching it. And I was bored a lot around the time this came out, and I remember seeing some pretty bad films in theaters just to stave off this boredom. So why did I almost actively avoid Adventureland? Then I rewatched the trailer and made this sound: Oooooooooh. I understood, suddenly, why I had put it in the “maybe-rent” section of my film-brain. Because, based on the trailer, I had seen it already. It was called Superbad. Michael Cera look-alike? Check. SNL cast members playing supporting roles? Check. Snappy, culturally referential dialogue (sometimes I call this “Gilmore Girl Speak”)? Check. Lots of pseudo retro merchandise/costuming? Check. House parties? Check. Embarrassing situations involving boners and y-fronts? Check. And the things that made it look different from Superbad really didn’t seem like good enough incentives to justify me seeing the same movie over again. Ryan Reynolds? I don’t really understand the film-geek obsession with the guy. I mean, yes, very pretty to look at. Married to Scarlett Johansson. Delivers lines like a yankee Mathew McCaughnoehydhsudevufbay on speed. Next, Kristen Stewart. Really, marketing guys? If you wanted to give me a reason to see this movie, showing lots of Kristen Stewart in your trailer is not the way to go. I have compared watching her act to watching a box of rocks. The success of Twilight? Just a hint, marketing execs: tt has nothing to do with her. In fact, the casting directors really did a good job casting her, because she’s so boring and forgettable that the Edward Cullen obsessed tweens out there can completely pretend she isn’t there. It’s the same tactic they use in romance novels. And porn. What else? Oh, the whole “I just graduated from college and am now next to useless in the real world!” angle. Yeah. This may have been the real reason. I don’t need to watch a movie about post college malaise. I can just wake up in the morning.

For whatever reason, on this week’s trip to the nearest Blockbuster (45 minutes away, has a “Western” section, no foreign film section) I picked up the Adventureland DVD, shrugging and making non-committal sounds. I didn’t watch the film for a full 24 hours after renting it. Finally, it had me cornered. I had nothing else to do. I even cleaned the bathroom. The time had come.

And of course, it was great. The Michael Cera knock off guy was actually less Michael Cera like than the trailer would have had me believe. The script was honest and actually kind of gimmick-free. The supporting cast was great and funny, but never felt like it was there for the sole purpose of providing comic relief. In fact, some of the supporting cast was given its own storyline! I know! Multiple story lines? Fancy. Ryan Reynolds was perfect as that attractive but pathetic dude who never left his hometown and now fills the empty void left by his unfulfilled potential with barely legal tail (man, I can’t wait for my high school reunion). And get this, world. Kristen Stewart did not suck. I mean, she was no Meryl. She was not transcendent. But nor was she a place-filler for adolescent-female-vampire-porn-vixen. She carried her weight and interacted believably with the other characters; she even emoted, and no, I don’t mean just biting her bottom lip. And the film as a whole? The script was great, and the film’s feel managed to remind me really strongly of American Graffiti, which isn’t easily done. I mean, that film’s director can’t even halfway recreate that kind of brilliance (Lucas, man, what happened?). It also reminded me of The Graduate in the way it approached the post-college world. Adventureland’s post college ether, effectively manifest in the theme park itself, was a large part of the story, but it wasn’t the whole story (see: Post Grad.) Instead, the college limbo land that our main character lands in is just the lens through which we get to look at his whole life, past and present. He isn’t just a post graduate, and neither are the other characters which inhabit the limbo with him. I also thought the film was timely, given the number of college graduates who are falling off the end of the conveyer belt as we speak, trading in their philosophy and modern literature degrees for jobs at Starbucks and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. I guess I am saying that Adventureland took a topic that is sometimes reduced to gimmick and sideshow in a lot of films and looked at it honestly, taking advantage of the surrealism that is post-graduate life to tell a really realistic story. And my question is, why did the marketing team for this film do everything it could to convince you that this movie was not that movie—that it was gimmick and comic relief and boner jokes? Thanks marketing team, but if I wanted to see a movie about bad corndogs… well. No. Why would I want to see a movie about that? The mind reels.

Fur

I am a compulsive movie re-watcher. It usually happens accidentally, or at least unexpectedly. I watch a movie, wander off, usually unimpressed, and months later suddenly think of it, and find myself thinking of it more and more. “Huh, (insert random film title here), interesting.” I ignore this. Then some time later, it happens again, but instead of a Huh it’s more like a ? and I really just can’t say no to a ?. Historically, this has resulted in midnight trips to the nearest video rental place. Here, at the Nowhere Nickelodeon, it is more difficult. Always, always, the film is unavailable via Netflix streaming. Or, even in the rare event it is, the internet has decided to do its best 90’s dial-up impersonation, rendering Netflix’s streaming capabilities impotent and embarrassed. Error messages abound, each more ashamed than the last. Finally, I relent. I visit my Netflix mail-order queue. For those who are curious, my Netflix queue is 363 films long, as of this very moment. Sometimes I view this queue with despair; how will I ever watch all of these films? When, if ever, will the mood strike me to bump the Orphic Trilogy or Julien Donkey-Boy to the number one spot? According to my Netflix account, I have seen at least 2,160 films. I look at that number and think, bah, not so many, but then I really start to attempt to calculate, according to standard movie length, the amount of time I have spent as a cinematic voyeur and I balk, and not only because I loathe math and lost my calculator.

So, understand me when I say that I have 363 films on my queue, 2,160 in the bank, and I sometimes watch the same film twice. Nay, more, if it is a true re-watch. It has to be a wake-me-in-the-night, can’t-rest-until-I’ve-seen-it-again type of urge. A few days ago I had that urge. As ever, its object was an unexpected one—a film that seemingly had no staying power upon its initial viewing. In fact, I may have disliked it the first time around. Even been bored by it (though given this particular film, that’s hard to believe.) And suddenly, last week, my brain said to me, unbidden and ever-stubborn: Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. Odd choice, brain. I rented the film via random video rental store for the first time shortly after its initial DVD release. I had seen the trailer and been intrigued; my father had given me a large book of Diane Arbus’ photography as a birthday present some years earlier, eliciting hours of fascination and horror. The film’s subject was, thus, intriguing, and its premise even more so: an “imaginary portrait?” I was immediately taken with this upending of the traditional biopic. Rather than the usual, a The Blind Side-esque claim of “based on a true story” this film was rejecting that entirely, favoring instead an openly fictional interpretation of a real person’s life. This I liked, particularly given its subject matter. If anyone was destined for a macabre film representation, it was Diane Arbus. And then there was the director. Steven Shainberg, whose resume still fell rather short on imdb. However, one of the few films he had directed was Secretary (2002). I adored Secretary. It was exactly the kind of film you could recommend to prudish romantic-comedy loving Meg Ryan’s, cackling to yourself. I remember offering it to a particularly straight-and-narrow college acquaintance, relishing the experience as one might watching your homophobic in-law watch Brokeback Mountain.

Anyway, Secretary was fabulous. So, when I saw this intriguing trailer, populated by a cast of interesting enough talent (Robert Downey Jr., Nicole Kidman) I was filled with glee. The kind of glee that film majors get over Quentin Tarantino, but better-deserved. On a side note, fuck Quentin Tarantino, and all the male films majors who worship him. Also, fuck Memento. Not because it wasn’t entertaining or vaguely innovative, but because the word was something like a mantra to the same previously mentioned male film majors. Say it three times fast. Memento Memento Memento. Tarantino Tarantino Tarantino. Congratulations. You now have a B.A. in Film and Digital Media.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. I expected great things. This expectation was dampened by the somewhat lackluster, confusing reviews it received from film-criticism-publications I usually trusted and admired. If my bizarre, compulsive urges to re-watch certain, peculiar and seemingly unrelated films have come to teach me anything, it’s that I should really stop reading or trusting film critics at all. Inevitably, it turns out that the film I once looked forward to, then was disappointed by, and then woke in the night desperately needing to see again was one maligned by critics, and usually for no apparent reason. Often they are the films that garnered a rare bipolarity in film criticism: half loved it, half loathed it. Examples? Dancer in the Dark. The New World. Both films that I had a rather so-so reaction to until later, when frickin’ Björk haunted my frickin’ dreams.

Fur is a completely off-kilter piece of film. Its production values make it almost seem mainstream, but its subject matter feels more John Waters than Jerry Bruckenheimer. It takes a loose biography of Diane Arbus’ life and fills in all the blanks. How did a beautiful, upper-middle class white woman come to be the photographic autobiographer of the American freak? That the films immediately embraces its own make-believe is genius; its storytellers assert that the most honest way to tell the story is to fictionalize it. What results is an oft-gothic, pleasantly disconcerting film. It takes the apparent mental epiphany/breakdown Diane Arbus must have had before endeavoring to capture what would become her disturbing body of work and externalizes it, personifying revelation as a fur-covered circus freak living just through the ceiling of Diane’s austere 1950s home. It is all very Blue Velvet and very Secretary and very, very Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bete all at once, which is no mean feat. Think Beauty and the Beast meets sex, lies, and videotape (another now-beloved re-watch-film). Bipolar critical reception is all you can really expect of a film that marries Disney to Soderbergh. Downey is divine all covered with fur, and Nicole Kidman’s oddly manic-mannequin-like face really lends itself to her character. And the weird part is that it all really makes some kind of crizational sense, given Arbus’ work and life. It’s as if someone read her actual biography and was like, Ahem, I think not. I hope to live a life so absurd that someday someone is forced to fictionalize my entire biopic in order for the events within to make any sort of psychological sense. So, take that film critics. Take that, Walk the Line/Selena/The Aviator/Ray/etc. We don’t need your lip-synched musical numbers to appreciate the lives of our nation's mad geniuses! Nay, kind film-makers! Give us Robert Downey Jr. in a bear suit. Yes, please.

Neanderthals

Let us take a moment to consider 2010's Academy Award Nominations. It is the hip thing to do. First off, know that I am a shameless whore for the Oscars. I love the Academy Awards. Many film majors will not admit to this. Why? I do not know. I watch them every year, usually whilst drunk and eating copious amounts of Thai food. By the Best Director announcements, I am shouting obscenities at the television. I was raised watching the whole ceremony, and have very specific memories based on the experience. I could probably recite Julia Robert's Oscar acceptance speech. Some may remember my rabid tirades following Children of Men's cinematography snub at the 79th Academy Awards (2007), or my projectile vomiting following Crash's best picture win at the 78th. I suppose I was raised to believe in the Oscars the same way some kids were raised to believe in God, and every time someone shows me a absolute fucking Oscar flub i tend to react the same way the Christian Right does when you show them a Neanderthal skeleton. The Passion of the Christ nominated for three Oscars? No! NO! It can't be true! How dare you?! It's faked! It's all faked!

Nowadays I consider myself Oscar-agnostic. I am not yet ready to accuse it of complete meaninglessness, because it still obviously means a lot to a lot of people who work in the industry. This might have to do with the box office cash prize and the place on the movie rental shelf of history. Or it may just be, to this day, the most reverently spoken of award given Hollywood nonsense. The Oscars. This being said, given all of the Neanderthal skeletons I've been shown in the last decade, I can't believe that the Academy is all-knowing, all-correct, or all-good. I accept that it is a political and industry-savvy award's show, motivated to award prizes by more than just the pure artistic accomplishment of film-makers and actors. Heaven forbid such a thing exist. There is also the Razzies to be considered, which may be the best thing about the Academy Awards. I don't watch them, but their presence makes me believe that somewhere in the heart of hearts of the Academy members, there lies a little speck of truly bitter, snobbish, film-y criticism and vindictiveness, and that fills me with hope. Maybe they aren't as bought out and skid-greased as we in the film studies arena sometimes accuse them of being. Or they are, and the Razzies are a twisted little consolation prize to all the Paul Thomas Anderson shippers out there.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that I care despite myself. The Oscars is the film community what the Superbowl is to football fans, whether we like it or not. We huddle around our television sets, mocking and fuming, secretly relishing the thought that someday, someday, we could be that awkward Japanese kid saying, "Domo arigato Mr. Roboto" to millions of anonymous voyeurs. So understand me when I say that this year's Academy Awards are the Darwin to our Bible. Is it all over? It might be. I submit, for your consideration, one of the ten (ten) Academy Award nominees for Best Picture of 2009:

What. The. Fuck. Yes, I said this was the Superbowl of the film world. BUT. BUT. It was meant as a analogy. I was being cute and comparison-y. I was not intending it to mean that the Superbowl and the Academy Awards should come together to form some kind of mutilated television abomination meant to please both football fans and Michel Gondry fans. No. That is not what I meant. To be clear, I don't care if Sandra Bullock was nominated for Best Actress. That's fine. Sometimes good actors and actresses get lost on film lots, wander into the wrong sound stages, and accidentally turn out great performances in bad movies. They should be rewarded for managing to keep it together while delivering lines that would turn most performers in Hayden Christensen.

Example: "You love me? I thought we had decided not to fall in love. That we'd be forced to live a lie and it would destroy our lives."

Example 2 (for good measure): "One day I will be the greatest Jedi EVER. I will even learn how to stop people from dying!"

Okay, so that was mostly an excuse to revel in the awesome badness of George Lucas' screenwriting. If Hayden had pulled off those lines, I would have personally handed him an Oscar. And then slapped him. Anyway. The Blind Side. This is a movie about white people who learn how to be better white people by adopting an emotionally traumatized, physically abused black kid. It is not about the black kid, or what he has been through. It is a movie about white people. He is the magical dog/retarded child/dolphin who teaches bored, emotionally stifled white people how to love. Yes, people. The artistic equivalent to Marley and Me is up for a best picture Oscar. It's Simple Jack starring Sandra Bullock. It's frickin' Pumpkin. It's Crash, but with football. Are we surprised? Probably not. It's the missing link, and Christianity is fucked.

No Man's Nickelodeon

To begin, let me say, I have been accused of film snobbery. I’m sure most of the people who have sat in a movie theater with me while I silently scoffed, lamented, and finally died would agree with this. May I then preface this blog, in which I intend to write about film, by saying that I am not a film snob. I do not watch one kind of movie, nor do I base my opinions of the movies I do see on some elitist criteria. I know what I like and I know what I don’t like, and if most of what the film industry annually churns out falls into the latter category, boo on the film industry. Boo on the incredible earning power of film, a quality often prized above its ability to tell story or capture image or delight its audiences. I scoff, lament, and finally die because so much of what is pedaled in multiplex cinemas is such a waste of money and time and talent. I am discerning because I love film.

Let us, for the sake of kitsch, call this blog The Nowhere Nickelodeon. Setup: a recent alum of a California undergraduate film program moves to an island in rural Virginia. The closest movie theater is in the next county, and is basically a shack with projection quality akin to that of a babysitter equipped with a fluorescent light and a cotton sheet making animal head shapes with her hands. The internet connection is so slow and weather-dependent that video streaming is a near impossibility. TBS showings of Bring it On or Coyote Ugly and Netflix deliveries are the only feasible options. Welcome to the Nowhere Nickelodeon.

Every morning I get on my rusty bicycle and ride a mile and a quarter to the tiny island post office, where my mail is delivered. I have a mail key and a tiny mailbox just big enough for about 75% of my Netflix to survive being crammed into. The other 25% emerge snapped in half. Whether this is actually the fault of the postmistress or the fact that mail isn’t delivered to the island in a mail truck so much as a jeep with a flashing light bungee-corded to its hood, I do not know. Of course, there are benefits to living here rather than Santa Cruz, where I studied film and creative writing. It is remarkably beautiful, and I have never found people sleeping (or having sex) in my yard. College students don’t attempt to pee in the alley under my bedroom window. Wildlife here is actually wild. The deer do not stare blankly at me as I amble by; they actually run away, like real deer. That may be because people actively hunt here, but I like to think it’s some sign that the natural world may actually still be natural on the island. I spend a lot of time in Long Virginia Sleep discussing island life, and my outlook. Those who know we can attest that film is one of my favorite topics of endless conversation, but it has occurred to me that not everyone I know enjoys my hour long rants on the rampant homophobia of X-men 3 or wants to be victim to my diatribes about the pervasive, un-checked trend towards blatant misogyny in the UCSC production concentration. Shocking, I know. My comrades in the mostly-male film department weren’t always so thrilled either.

Anyway, this is not intended to be a place of torment. Rather, I’d like to use it as a space to offer my opinions and reflections on the many (many) films I consume weekly. I have no real structure in mind yet. It will surely develop as I go. The films will be a combination of new films, old films, favorite films, and the occasional film that lures me a county over to an actual movie theater. These are likely to be hated films.