Search Results for: eva green

When is This Movie Going to End? or, Extended Adolescence and Meta Moments in ‘Freddy Got Fingered’

I know the nineties are over, but I’m still a fan of Tom Green and his eccentric brand of humor. When critics and filmgoers dismiss ‘Freddie Got Fingered,’ I feel it’s for the wrong reasons; to pass the movie off as a cinematic abortion of sorts is narrow thinking. People probably still wonder, “Who gave Tom Green money to make a movie?” I know, it’s like writing a kid a blank check and sending him into a candy store. However, if we’re not receptive enough to uncover the ideas and themes Green presents, and to assess their relevance to Hollywood ideals, celebrity status, and family politics, we need to re-evaluate how we watch film. There’s good stuff to be found in ‘Freddy.’

‘Mannequin’: A Dummy’s Guide to True and Everlasting Love

By any regular standards, even the 1980s, ‘Mannequin’ is a TERRIBLE movie. It never should have been green lit, let alone hit wide release. It’s often lumped in with other Brat Pack pics, thanks to the presence of Andrew McCarthy and James Spader, but it really should be categorized separately, as a romcom gone wrong. Showroom dummies that come to life after hours should be the stuff of horror movies, or episodes of ‘Doctor Who,’ not fluffy fantasies starring a nearly naked Kim Cattrall. John Hughes wouldn’t have touched this material with a ten-foot pole.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’: Almost as Weird as a Movie About Women

‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ is flat-out aggressively weird (up to and including its gigantic EFF YOU of a post-credits scene reminding us of the grand history of weird comic book adaptations). It has capitalized perfectly on this moment of comic book blockbusters and consumers’ particular faith in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a super-dork who loves her some space cowboys and space cowgirls and space nonbinary cow-wranglers, I just want to issue my most sincere and grateful slow clap. Way to take your moment, movie.

Creating the Mythology of Beatrix Kiddo Through Music

Tarantino’s vast knowledge of music is clear from the very beginning with ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ However, it isn’t until the ‘Kill Bill’ series when his soundtracks begin to drift away from pop and instead embrace more orchestral sounds like that of Ennio Morricone. Viewers need no knowledge of the genre to instantly recognize that spaghetti western feel. It’s that famous mix of Spanish guitar, orchestra, whistles, cracking whips, trumpet, flute and sometimes chorus that recalls images of Clint Eastwood clad in a green poncho and cowboy hat as the iconic Man with No Name.

The Layered Danish Pastry Called ‘Borgen’

A subtitled Danish drama about Danish coalition politics sounds rather elitist (if not absurdly boring) and one that, at best, would appeal to a niche audience. However headlines such as “Stop what you are doing and go watch ‘Borgen,’” “Why Danish Political drama ‘Borgen’ is Everything” and “Why the World fell for ‘Borgen’” from sources ranging from ‘The Telegraph’ to the ‘Buzzfeed’ may make you reconsider that initial assumption.

‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’: A Three-Hour Explosion of Contempt for You and Your Family

You don’t have to be an intellectual elitist to hate ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction.’ It is a terrible movie for reasons that have nothing to do with a lack of originality and everything to do with an abundance of vulgarity, violence, misogyny, and racism.

Children’s Television: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts for our Children’s Television Theme Week here.

‘Uncertain Terms’: A Pregnant Teenager and a So-Called “Nice Guy”

The obsession of glossy celebrity magazines with “baby bumps” and “post baby bodies” (both of which were completely absent in the 80s from People and Us– and made them a lot more interesting to read) doesn’t extend into actresses playing complex protagonists who are visibly pregnant for most if not all of the action. There’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘Juno’ and… ? Full-term pregnancy for most women is a big fork in the road, with life changes that extend beyond bikinis and maternity wear, but in films it’s more like a plot device, so we can hear and see how the male protagonist feels about the pregnancy (as in ‘Knocked Up’ or the recent ‘Locke’), as if we don’t already have more than enough films in which men let us know what they think about women’s experiences.

‘Obvious Child’: Allowing Women To Be Funny

Women in comedy are often held to a double standard that’s rarely talked about, even in the tiresome and wrongheaded “Are Women Funny?” debates. A better question might be “Are women allowed to be funny?” Because while male comedians famously defend their right to make jokes about any topic they want to women who draw on their own outrage, experience and even their own bodies receive an extra layer of censorship.

Cowboy Justice: Rape Revenge in Mainstream Cinema and TV

So maybe what had looked like a trend toward marginalizing rape survivors was actually a move toward bringing them into the fold of the American action hero? This is a move that discloses a terrible truth about the handling of rape cases in our legal system, but can be viewed as a genuine attempt to find a way to make the cowboy narrative, and the catharsis that comes with it, available and relevant to survivors of rape.

Domestic Violence in ‘The Long Goodbye’

During the late 70s and early 80s, the one place on television I did see a serious and unflinching depiction of domestic violence was when the UHF station (that had a “Creature Double Feature” on Saturday afternoons) showed, on a school night, Robert Altman’s 1973 masterpiece ‘The Long Goodbye’ (now streaming on Netflix) based on the novel by Raymond Chandler (also the author of the book adapted into the Humphrey Bogart/ Lauren Bacall vehicle ‘The Big Sleep’). Unlike the film adaptation of ‘Farewell My Lovely,’ another Chandler novel brought to the screen in the 70s (this time with Robert Mitchum in the lead), ‘Goodbye’ wasn’t a period piece but updated to “Me” generation Los Angeles with a slightly scruffy Elliott Gould (who had previously co-starred in Altman’s ‘M*A*S*H’ as Trapper John) playing Phillip Marlowe, the same private detective character Mitchum played in ‘Lovely’ and whom Bogart made famous. The film also shares the same screenwriter with ‘Sleep,’ Leigh Brackett. In the forties as well as the seventies she was one of the few women whose screenplays were actually produced. Brackett also wrote for the series ‘The Rockford Files’ which has the same smart-ass, 70s sensibility and southern California setting.