Tag: Comedy

Movie Review: Pirate Radio

*This guest post also appears at Shakesville.

I saw Pirate Radio last night, and had one of those experiences where you can only really enjoy yourself if you turn half your brain off and pretend you’re not getting the messages that are clearly being sent.
Early in Pirate Radio, just as I idly wondered where all of the women were, one of the characters refers to the only woman present with surprise. “I thought there were no women allowed on board…” And it is explained to him that an excuse is made for the cook, because she is a lesbian.
That is all the explanation deemed necessary for the total exclusion of women from the world of Pirate Radio, except as sex partners, mothers, food preparers, or avid audience-members. I have no trouble believing that the world of Pirate Radio in the sixties largely excluded women, but I didn’t expect to find a movie so gleeful about the wonderland of boy bonding and camaraderie that, the movie posits, is only possible in a world where women are only allowed on board every other Saturday in order to provide sex.
The movie veers into an early scene of near-rape played for laughs as well. One of the successful DJs, feeling sympathetic toward a younger man because of his virginity, tries to trick his date for the night into having sex with the other man while the lights are turned off. He hopes that she won’t notice the switch, in spite of a huge size differential between the two men. The scene is played entirely from their perspective, and while the younger man doesn’t get near enough to the woman to touch her, there is a “ho ho ho, so funny my sides might split” scene in which the lights unexpectedly go on, and she screams as she finds herself alone in a room with a naked stranger. I was left with a queasy feeling at the end of that scene, wondering if this was what the whole movie would be.

While the movie doesn’t play rape for laughs again, the only other two love interest characters who appear are betrayers and interlopers in boyland. One woman, while waiting for a man to find a condom, ends up sleeping with someone more famous because she finds him impressive. Another comes onboard to marry one DJ, without telling him that she’s only doing it in order to sleep with someone else on the ship. I can imagine the first case happening in real life: When women have sexual agency they will sometimes decide to sleep with someone other than the person they start out an evening with. I can’t imagine a context for the inexplicable cruelty of the second case though, and since she represents roughly one quarter of all women in this film, it is easy to assume that the film is endorsing the idea that all relationships with women are suspect, and only relationships between men are noble and pure.

More than anything, I wonder why the film felt it necessary to revel in the sexism of the world that it depicts. These men are not actually great rebels if they really expect women to be content providing sex and food. There may have been many great things about sixties Pirate Radio, but the exclusion of women was not one of those things, and the film would have been more effective if it had taken pains to include women rather than shrugging its shoulders early on and trying to opt out of the subject.
I had a discussion with my husband after the film, and pointed out that most women perceive themselves as the protagonists of their own lives, not as an avid audience for men as they play out their stories. My experience throughout my life when watching movies like this has been to desperately try to find a place for myself among the male characters. How can I be Phillip Seymour Hoffman? There is no space for women in this movie, so how do I rewrite the movie so I can fit myself in? I’ve been doing it for so long that it is almost natural to me, but I think it’s time that it stopped.

The sad thing about this film is that I could have really enjoyed it otherwise. As I was watching it I wondered why I was feeling so fatigued, and I realized it was because it was yet another time that I was expected to happily stand in the sidelines and watch boys have lots of fun. That’s such a bummer to me nowadays that I can’t even pretend to be enthused anymore.

It wouldn’t have been difficult for filmmakers to do a better job than this. One can acknowledge the sexism of an age while still admitting the personhood, value, and contributions of women. Beyond just their ability to cook up a tasty meal, I mean. My gleeful exclusion from this film turned what should have been a charming experience into another bitter pill. It’s not 1967 anymore. I’m ready to throw those pills away.

Eileen Hunter has an MA in English and is working on an MLIS. She lives in California with her cat, husband, and daughter.

Ripley’s Pick: Season One of Pulling


Pulling is a British comedy series written by Sharon Horgan (who co-stars) and Dennis Kelly. It aired on BBC3 for two seasons (of six episodes), starting in 2006, and an hour-long farewell special aired this May.

After breaking off her engagement, Donna (Horgan) moves in with two of her best friends, Louise (Rebekah Staton) and Karen (Tanya Franks). What follows is a hilarious, raunchy, irreverent take on life as a thirty-something woman.

Things I Love About Pulling

  1. Women behave badly, too. While something like 99% of television and movies allow men to behave badly and enjoy themselves, when women behave similarly they’re slut-shamed and made to feel guilty for thinking about anyone but everyone else. A woman has a one-night stand in most movies, and she’s punished with a pregnancy (and, yes, in comedies pregnancy typically is a punishment, meant to teach a woman she needs to change her selfish, uppity ways and start living for someone else). See Knocked Up, Juno, and just about every other American comedy.

  2. Successful dark comedy. While American dark comedy typically consists of some pretty awful misogyny, or at least humor at the expense of others, Pulling manages to be funny and edgy without displaying hatred for any group of marginalized people. Even a tirade against a man who gave a less-than-stellar performance in the bedroom has a tone of lightness and regard for the man, who looks adorably helpless standing by the kitchen table as Karen goes off. The viewer isn’t supposed to hate that man; the viewer feels sympathy for him.

  3. No interest in babies, marriage, children, or shopping. Donna decides she doesn’t want to marry Karl, despite caring for–even loving–him. Although Karen is a teacher, the one moment when she gets all sappy about children–with their tiny fingernails–being the future is played for laughs. And the only moment in the first season that approaches interest in clothes involves Karen verbally assaulting her dry cleaner for not being able to deliver same-day repair service for a torn dress, despite the fact that she had a completely bullshit suck-up conversation with him.

  4. The show is smarter than its characters. So many so-called smart shows have characters who are successful professionals–doctors, lawyers, businesspeople–and who do sophisticated things. Not this one. These women go to the pub–a lot. They have working-class jobs (waitress, teacher, personal assistant). They don’t feel guilty about being working-class women. They work. Lousy jobs. They lose lousy jobs. They don’t enjoy gallery openings.

  5. Despite the drinking, sleeping around, and general screwing up, the show still has a moral center. When the characters do something reprehensible, they know it. When Louise’s mother comes to visit, it’s clear that her behavior (which I won’t give away here) crosses a line that her daughter’s (and the roommates) don’t cross.

From a subjective viewpoint, these three women are my age and their lives are disasters. Their lives are, in fact, closer to most people I know than anything else represented in film and television. If I’m to believe media, the things I really concern myself with are marrying, having babies, buying a house, driving a newer car than I do, using the best hair/skin/cellulite-diminishing products, and obsessing over my investments. If I’m to believe my regular life, no one knows what the fuck they’re doing.

Pulling is a show starring women, but it’s not all about female empowerment and becoming a better person and sisterhood and all that. I’m all for female empowerment, but sometimes I just want to laugh. Pulling delivers, and it’s a shame the show lasted only two seasons. Those two seasons are, however, available on Netflix. If you haven’t seen Pulling, I suggest you immediately add it to your queue.

The Ugly Truth Roundup


Despite a “rotten” rating of 16%, The Ugly Truth raked in another $7 million at the box office this past weekend (to compare, the by-all-accounts stellar Julie & Julia brought in just over $20 million), remaining in the top 10 two weeks after its release. The real ugly truth is that this kind of tripe continues to sell.

In our last Roundup, we collected discussions of a film that was controversial due, in part, to its played-for-laughs date rape. In this one, we have a romantic comedy, sold to women and packaged as a date movie/chick-flick, that rests on the age-old premise that women love with their minds, and men love with their dicks. Oh, and that successful career women need to be taken down a notch or two–preferably by a lowest-common-denominator-type buffoon–in order to be happy.

Is this just another crappy Rom-Com? Or is it something more? What about the fact that it was written and produced by women?

Here are some things other people are saying:

  • Women’s Glib might give Katherine Heigl a little too much credit, calling her a “part-time feminist,” but they do remind us that this kind of movie ought to be seen as just as offensive to men as it is to women.

And, in the What Were They Thinking? department:

In a shockingly unaware moment, Ruth McCann exemplifies what’s wrong with post-feminism: “But when Mike advises Abby to be ‘the saint and the sinner, the librarian and the stripper,’ how can the hardened, rom-com-hating Thinking Woman not bark a gruff and hearty ‘Ha!’?”

Um, really?

Leave your links & thoughts in the comments section.

Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer, Take 1

500 Days of Summer. Starring Zooey Deschanel, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Geoffrey Arend, Chloe Moretz, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Clark Gregg. Written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. Directed by Marc Webb.Within the past few years especially, independent films have developed a certain easily identifiable “indie charm,” and 500 Days of Summer most definitely fulfills the criteria. These films used to be termed “independent” due to budget constraints, but just like the big studio films, indie movies have essentially become marketable, targeting a very specific audience to the point that indie elements have basically become indie clichés:

—amazing alterna-soundtrack? check.
(see also: Juno, Garden State, Away We Go)

—strangely cartoonish, bubbly-lettered and/or pencil-sketched movie poster? check.
(see also: Juno, Away We Go, Wes Anderson movies, Napoleon Dynamite)

—quirky female lead? check.
(see also: Juno, Garden State, The Royal Tenenbaums, Reality Bites, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)

—at least one scene that occurs in a ridiculous location? check.
(see also: Juno [furniture on the lawn scenes], Away We Go [department store bathtub scene, trampoline scene, stripper pole scene], Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [most of the scenes])

—tortured love, tortured souls, tortured existences? check.
(see also: every indie film ever made)


For interesting reading about independent film clichés, coupled with a good review of Away We Go, read this.

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Despite the fact that 500 Days of Summer is pretty much guilty of perpetuating all of the above indie clichés, I really liked it. Despite the completely conservative ending, I really liked it. Despite my two-week long depressive episode following my viewing of this film, alone, in a theater in Times Square, in the middle of the day, alone, I really liked it. And, for whatever reason, despite my initial ambivalence after leaving the theater, this movie managed to linger with me. Why?

Well, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, for starters. The distilled plot: he falls in love with a woman who doesn’t believe in love, which leads to his inevitable heartbreak. I hated watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt get his heart stomped on by [insert quirky hipster female love interest] Zooey Deschanel! Joseph Gordon-Levitt starred in Mysterious Skin! And Brick! And Third Rock from the Sun!

We love him!

The truth is, though, while I enjoyed watching a romantic comedy that changed-up the genre by turning the leading man into a mushy, self-loathing disaster who attempts to accept the reality of unrequited love, I hated how much the film still turned the female lead into a sidekick. In traditional romantic comedies, problematic as they are, the films at the very least focus on the couple, and you get to know the characters individually (The Break-Up, Eternal Sunshine, etc) by watching their interactions and conflicts as a couple.

But in 500 Days of Summer, the plot unfolds exclusively through the perspective of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Tom. Zooey Deschanel’s character, Summer, (haha, get it?) exists merely as a vehicle to further the audience’s identification with Tom. We never learn much about her. She likes Ringo Starr. She likes The Smiths. She likes karaoke. She doesn’t believe in true love.

Thankfully, we also know that she identifies as an independent woman who refuses to be tied down. She might even identify as a feminist, though she never explicitly states that.

I loved one scene in particular where she gets angry with Tom because of some performative alpha-male attempt to “defend her honor” in a bar fight. He might be defending himself a little too; after all, the initial punch happens after the other man says to Summer, “I can’t believe this guy is your boyfriend.” Harsh. But I would’ve loved the scene even more if it hadn’t been undercut by Summer showing up at Tom’s apartment later, soaking wet from the rain, to apologize for getting angry with him.

In fact, the biggest issue I take with this film is how often it undercuts Summer’s independence. The conclusion, which I won’t give away here, completely disappoints in that regard. Not only is it an easy, throwaway ending, but it doesn’t do justice to Summer’s independent-woman persona, and instead (and again), exists only as a plot point that encourages the audience to sympathize with Tom.

We barely know Summer, but why does the little bit we do know about her have to get unnecessarily lost in the end?

There are also no other important women characters. Tom occasionally solicits advice from his younger sister, who’s like, twelve, and I found it appropriately cute and indie-funny. And he goes on a blind date once, where he spends the entire time complaining to his date about Summer. (To the film’s credit, the woman he’s on the date with defends the shit out of Summer, rather than veering off into traditional rom-com female competitive-jealous territory.) Other than those few women though, it’s all about Tom.

However, if this movie can claim anything, it can claim inclusion of some seriously awesome meta shit. Movies within movies within movies, oh my! We get clips and parodies of The Graduate, Persona, and some other French films I didn’t recognize. And one can’t ignore the hilarious bursting-into-song scene, complete with full group-dance sequence and cartoon birds. The film also uses a style of storytelling that moves back-and-forth within time, and that works too, keeping the viewer slightly off-kilter and in the same headspace as its hero.

With all this film fun, you ask, then what’s my problem?

I think it has much to do with what I wanted for Summer. For her to go on being her quirky, independent-hipster self, unabashed and unapologetic. For her to never come across as potentially manipulative or dishonest, because she isn’t either of those things. And for the writers and/or director to have taken as much care in creating a 3-dimensional female lead as they did in creating a fully fleshed-out male lead who picks himself up, dusts himself off, and goes out and accomplishes shit.

They’re calling it a romantic comedy, after all. Even in the traditional “girl meets boy” then “boy breaks girl’s heart” then “boy realizes he really loves girl” then “boy and girl live happily ever after” bullshit, and its pointless variations, the male and female characters get mostly equal screen time. In cases where that might not happen, the audience at least comes to understand each of the characters’ motivations at some point.

(I’m by no means defending the rom-com, but at least in most female-driven rom-coms, like Pretty Woman and He’s Just Not That Into You, I know that I’ll have the pleasure of watching both of the characters one-dimensionally participate in a recreation of 1950s gender roles, ha.)

But in 500 Days of Summer—the female love interest exists, but she exists in the background as a supporting character, her main purpose being to help flesh out the hero. In turn, she becomes nothing more than an extension of him, just a quirky after-thought, another one of his personality traits.

500 Days of Summer could’ve (and should’ve) found a way to avoid that.

Yet at the end of the day, despite its shortcomings, I couldn’t help but really like this “story about love.” It felt authentic, at least in its illustration of relationship conflicts, from the initial courtship phase to the inevitable dissolution. Deschanel maintains her complete adorability and Gordon-Levitt, well, we love him! Their on-screen chemistry, intermingled with all kinds of mopiness and feel-goodness and splashes of The Smiths and Regina Spektor … look, who cares about my criticisms? You should probably just go see this.

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Check out some insightful reviews here, here, here, and here.


Ripley’s Pick: ‘Smiley Face’

Anna Faris in Smiley Face
Anna Faris in Smiley Face

 

Written by Amber Leab.

Contrary to popular belief, you need not be stoned to enjoy a stoner comedy. You just need to be a dude.

Or so I thought, when I came upon Smiley Face, starring Anna Faris as a stoner who happens to be female, starring in a movie that offers mindless entertainment but still manages to be smart.

Faris eating pot cupcakes
Jane eating pot cupcakes

 

The plot is typical stoner-flick, road-movie material: character has a destination/goal and encounters obstacles on the way there, which are funny and at times poignant. Jane F. (Faris), a twenty-something wannabe actress/pothead, has a busy day ahead of her: she needs to pay the electric bill to avoid the power being shut off, and go to an audition–all while not eating her roommate’s plateful of cupcakes in the fridge marked “These cupcakes are RESERVED for SCI-FI EXTRAVAGANZA-CON!!! Do NOT eat! That means YOU Jane.” In a fit of mid-morning munchies, she eats said cupcakes, and you can probably guess why Steve wrote such an enthusiastic note about them.

Why do I love this movie? Jane graduated summa cum laude with a degree in economics, yet she’s half-heartedly trying to be an actress, though her only experience seems to be a regional root beer commercial. In other words, she’s not lazy or stupid, just a slacker. We have so many twenty- and thirty-something male slackers in film, and we’re all supposed to just adore them. (Boys being boys! Slobs in need of feminine domestication!) Female slackers are a rarity. Women in movies are supposed to be highly functioning and successful. They fall in love with slackers (who then save them from their uptight, bitchy selves). Jane isn’t interested in love, or romance, or success. She’s interested in saving her thousand-dollar mattress from the dealer who threatens to take it if she doesn’t pay her debt.

Jane getting high
Jane getting high

 

There are major differences between this and other stoner movies I’ve seen. First, and most obvious, is that we’ve never had a female protagonist. Sure, there have been stoned girlfriends and minor lady players, but never have I seen the main character of a stoner comedy be a woman. Second, and just as important, Jane does not have buddies who get stoned with her. She’s all alone (after a brief debate with her dealer about the state of marijuana as a black market item in a “laissez-faire paradigm, or whatever”), stoned and entirely alienated from the world around her. Her interactions are all with people who are sober and generally hostile toward her, from a casting agent to a manager in a pork processing plant, to the guy (Krasinski) she uses for a ride to Venice, who happens to be madly in love with her. Her utter alienation allows viewers to solely identify with her, regardless of the viewer’s gender. That’s pretty cool.

Jane freaking out
Jane freaking out

 

Alienation might just be the theme of the whole movie. Jane might have lost her friends by failing to repay the money she borrowed from them, but she’s also a woman walking around in a male genre. It’s no coincidence that the book accompanying her on the journey through L.A. declared alienation a necessary requirement for the functioning of capitalism (I’ll leave it up to you to analyze that final, wonderful scene with the manuscript). Jane is alone and lost in a world that seems to be suspicious of her every (paranoid, high) move, but with a few strange helper characters, she might get where she’s going.

Or not.

Business Trip Wishes

According to several entertainment sources, a new comedy called Business Trip has been picked up by Universal Pictures. Written by Stacey Harman, the film focuses on four women who take a business trip together and, instead of getting any real business-oriented work done, shenanigans ensue. Apparently, it’s being produced by the same people involved with The Hangover, so I speculate that Business Trip will contain similar comedic elements, but from a female perspective.

How do I feel about this? It’s hard to say. I’ve longed to see a film that focuses on what women actually do when they’re screwing off together. I’m pretty sure they get high sometimes. They might even sleep until noon and not have jobs and live in their parents’ basement at the age of 34 (although probably not in a film about women in corporate America). I guess I’ll at least experience some satisfaction if the filmmakers manage to stick to a few basic rules.

Dear Business Trip filmmakers,

As you work toward developing this film, and if you’re at all interested in breaking some new ground by portraying real women on-screen (rather than the conventional stereotypes of women we’ve gotten so used to seeing) please be advised of the following:

1. Do not cast Jessica Alba, Megan Fox, Katherine Heigl, and Anna Faris, and then parade them around in giant heels, wearing some semblance of revealing business suit-esque attire, probably involving excessive cleavage and certainly showcasing thirty gratuitous inches of bare leg.

2. Do not institute a plot point that involves one of the lead actresses finally feeling complete because she finds a man who rescues her from her horrible life as a lonely, over-achieving corporate executive i.e. childless, feminist spinster.

3. Do not include a scene where one or two or all of these women make out, possibly in a hot tub, but definitely in front of a man, just for the sole purpose of performing some lightweight pornographic male fantasy.

4. Do not kill one of them off with a melodramatic deadly-illness twist.

5. Do not include a scene where one or two or all of these women get depressed about a man, and as a result, gorge themselves on any carbohydrate-infused junk food within reach, while simultaneously sobbing (for extra comedic effect).

6. Do not ever allow any character to utter the phrase “cat-fight” … ever.

7. Do not script any of the following: klutzy falling scenes, food fights, cake-decorating, aerobics classes, weepy arguments with Mom, random bursting into song, lip-synching and/or dancing around in pajamas to 60s music, a wedding, an ice-queen who can’t feel, an infantilized, codependent ditz, group slut-shaming, or group competition for a man.

8. Do not even go near “scheming-vindictive-bitch” territory; we get enough of that in the male-dominated comedies of the Apatowverse.

9. Do not try to balance out the characters’ personalities by making one a good, sweet, virginal Madonna and another a fucked-ten-men-in-one-night, “crazy party girl” who dances topless on bar tables with a cigarette in one hand and a tequila shot in the other.

10. Do not make one or more of the characters “baby-crazy” and/or desperate to be inseminated by a gay best friend.

11. Do not turn this into Sex and the City Takes a Business Trip, even though that’s undoubtedly what everyone will encourage you to do.

Good luck!

Love,
Bitch Flicks

Movie Review: Sunshine Cleaning


Sunshine Cleaning: Ripley’s Pick or Ripley’s Rebuke?

This is a film I wanted to love. It’s directed by a woman (Christine Jeffs). It’s written by a woman (Megan Holley). It stars two brilliant actors (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt), not to mention one of my favorite indie-actors, who co-stars (Mary Lynn Rajskub). And for the most part, I liked it. For the most part.

Amy Adams plays Rose, a single mother with a troubled son who gets expelled from his elementary school. In order to send him to private school, she realizes her job cleaning houses won’t come close to covering the cost, so she gets the idea from Mac, the cop she’s having an affair with (her ex-boyfriend from high school, played by Steve Zahn) to start a biohazard crime-scene cleaning service. Her younger sister Norah (Emily Blunt), a darker, edgier, gothier version of Rose, goes into business with Rose after getting fired from her job as a server at a diner. Hilarity ensues. Sort of.

It’s a comedy in the sense that funny things happen, lots of bloody, yucky grossness, some witty quips from the girls’ father Joe (Alan Arkin), as well as the smile-inducing precociousness of Rose’s son Oscar (Jason Spevack). But we quickly learn there’s some serious darkness underlying the played-for-laughs desperation: Norah and Rose’s mother committed suicide when they were young girls. That added dynamic always keeps things from veering too far into clever-indie-comedy territory but sometimes forces it a little too far into brooding-melodramatic-indie-drama territory (with a little splash of Hollywood thrown in).

So it goes like this: two sisters love and support each other in typical love-hate siblinghood-rivalry interactions, with the older sister taking on the grown-up role (however superficial it actually is—she repeats daily affirmations in her bathroom mirror for god’s sake) and the younger sister taking on the needy, irresponsible, screws-everything-up role. I enjoyed watching a movie about two insecure women with mother issues; as much as I see films and TV shows and music videos and bar brawls and daytime talk show interviews about insecure men with father issues, this was a much needed change.

The best things about this movie revolve around that sibling bond and how they managed to make it through their childhoods without a mother by doing their best to take care of each other. But the whole “our mom died and ruined our lives and now we literally clean up the messes made by dead people” metaphor got slightly heavy-handed after awhile. And, as much as I hate to say it, I didn’t necessarily like that Rose’s motivation to change her life was spurred by her motherly duty to get her son a darn good education. (I’m an asshole.) About halfway through, I began to question if this movie even liked women.

One scene in particular bothered me. Rose happens to run into Mac’s wife at a gas station, and even though Rose tries to avoid her, his wife confronts her anyway, making it very clear that she knows about Rose’s affair with Mac. She says something along the lines of, “I know what you’re doing.” And then, “He chose me.” It isn’t lost on the viewer that Mac’s wife is pregnant, and for a moment, as much as I had admired Rose and her determination in the beginning, I suddenly despised her.

I wanted this movie to not play into that stereotype, you know, the one about women always competing with one another for men and getting all vicious with their “keep your hands off my man” talk and never dealing with the real issue: the fact that it’s their man who’s fucking other women in the first place. (This stereotype is yet another, more subtle example of the man-child in film; by women placing blame solely on other women for their partner’s infidelity, it plays into the “boys will be boys” mode of thinking—he can’t help it, because he’s a man and therefore can’t control himself poor thing, but you, as a woman, and consequently the entire world’s moral compass, should know better.)

On the other hand, I admire the film for acknowledging how horribly women can sometimes act toward one another. I’d almost say it’s one of the movie’s themes. The only time Rose feels the need to apologize for how her life turned out, for secretly fucking her married ex-high-school-quarterback-boyfriend, for being a single mother, for cleaning other people’s houses for a living, occurs when she fears being judged by other women, most notably when an old high school friend invites her to a baby shower, where she’ll undoubtedly see many of the women who knew her in high school as the gorgeous, envy-inducing captain of the cheerleading squad.

However, I can’t figure out if the film is deliberate in its portrayal of female interactions, and attempting to make a statement about society’s ridiculous portrayal of them (think faux-Angelina Jolie/Jen Aniston rivalry and, more recently, faux-Kara DioGuardi/Paula Abdul rivalry), or if it’s merely validating the dominant ideology that there isn’t much female sisterhood or solidarity outside of actual sibling relationships. As a feminist, I know that not to be the case, but as a feminist critiquing this film, I ultimately left the theater feeling disappointed.

I expected more from a film about women’s experiences, especially when that film is written and directed by women. I know from reading other reviews of Sunshine Cleaning that many feminist women adored the movie, if only for the fact that it’s women-centered, which is something we certainly don’t see enough of in mainstream (and even indie) cinema. And we should definitely do as much as we can to support women filmmakers, given how few of them exist. But I don’t feel content leaving it at that. It was a decent movie. We can do better.

Observe and Report Roundup

April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

An odd coincidence is that Jody Hill’s Observe and Report is currently in theaters, and getting all kinds of attention for a rape scene that’s played as comedy. Worst of all, many out there are defending the movie as an edgy, dark comedy, and arguing that the scene doesn’t depict rape at all.

I’ve hesitated writing about the film; movies this noxious don’t deserve whatever free press a site like ours provides (assuming that all press is, in some way, good press). With no plans to ever see OaR, I don’t know that I could contribute a whole lot to the discussion personally, but thought I’d compile a list of what other smart people are saying, and give you a glimpse of the R-rated trailer–with hopes that it shows you as much of the movie as you’ll ever want to see.

A lot of the discussions center around the question of whether or not the sexual encounter shown in the final seconds of the trailer is actually rape. Stupid question; yes, it is. Period. The more interesting debate, which not many are taking up (according to my reading) is why a film like this is being made at this time. I’m all for dark comedy, though this doesn’t really seem like one (MaryAnn Johanson asks whether the movie is a comedy at all in her weekly column at AWFJ), and what worries me is the kind of cultural work being done. All those people who like to shout about how movies are just entertainment and say people like us have no sense of humor, or take things too seriously, are underestimating the power of representation–of the arts in general, film-making included. Although the movie has an R rating, we must ask who the intended audience of such a movie is. Clearly, it’s male, and the movie has a ring of adolescence about it (an epidemic of our time), with its “jokes” about sex, drug use, alcoholism, violence, and whatever else I’ll miss by refusing to see it, which clues us into the fact that it is for people who are still in a phase of their lives when they figure out their own values.

People are seeing OaR, too. It finished fourth in the holiday weekend box office, selling over $11 million worth of tickets. There’s a desire for this sort of thing, and the interesting question is: Why?

Here are some highlights (and lowlights) from the blogosphere:

And some mainstream reviews:

  • Observe and Report by Michael Phillips @ The Chicago Tribune (In a review that otherwise seems fair, writer Micheal Phillips seriously drops the ball–to say the least–when he claims: “The best, riskiest bit in Observe and Report involves Faris, with wee vomitous spillage drying on the pillow by her slack jaw, underneath Rogen, who cannot believe the dolt of his fondest desires is trashed enough to give him a toss.”)
  • Mall Crisis? Call Security. Then Again, Maybe Not by Manhola Darghis for The New York Times (Darghis can be counted on as a female voice in the NYT, but she often–and this is no exception–offers more respect than is due.)
  • Observe and Report by Peter Travers for Rolling Stone (The most appalling of all the “official” reviews I’ve read, which should be no great surprise, considering the source. Here’s a sample: “Props to Hill and Rogen for believing you can play anything for a hoot, including R-rated sex and violence.” Yeah–props. That’s what I was going to say.)

Other sickery:

  • Writer Jody Hill describes his latest movie as “a dark, crazy, awesome journey” in “An Auteur of Awkward Strikes Again” in the NYT
  • An apologist for the rape scene, in a column from New York Magazine, says:


But, given all the horrible things Ronnie does later in the movie — out of spite, or stupidity, or flat-out psychosis — this scene winds up seeming a lot less awful as the movie goes on. For one thing, as horribly misdirected as it becomes, his “courtship” of Brandi is the only thing in Ronnie’s life that comes partly from a place of sweetness rather than entirely from a place of darkness.

Audiences are happy when Ronnie ends up with shy coffee girl Nell, someone who he’s built up a narrative-long relationship of openness and trust. When Brandi tries to get back in his good graces, Ronnie gives her a public kiss-off that centers on her sleeping around.

and, best of all

So which is it? Rape, or the reality of dating circa 2009? As with anything Hill has to say, the meaning is not clear. Feminists have the right to be angry, especially when a mainstream Hollywood movie offers such a backward vision of male/female fornication. But is Observe and Report really saying anything new? In this Girls Gone Wild dynamic of brazen openness and complete lack of shame, should a drunken slut bear any of the blame? It’s not a question of that horrid old excuse “she had it coming.” It’s more of a mirror on where society has sunk since women were empowered to ‘take back the night.’ Clearly, had Hill meant the scene to be something akin to pure sexual assault, Brandi would have been treated like a piece of dead meat.

Ripley’s Pick: Happy-Go-Lucky


Happy-Go-Lucky. Starring Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Kate O’Flynn, Sarah Niles, and Eddie Marsan. Written and directed by Mike Leigh.

Poppy Cross (Hawkins, who won a Golden Globe for her performance) is a 30-year-old primary school teacher in London. She shares her flat with her roommate of ten years and lives a life filled with happiness. What feels at first like an innocent, fluff-filled movie is actually an examination of the difficulty of living life with a goal of happiness.

Time after time, Poppy’s optimistic outlook on life is tested. A rude worker in a bookshop doesn’t respond to her small talk, someone steals her bicycle, she injures her back, and her new driving instructor (Marsan) has what you could call a serious dark streak. Instead of reacting cynically, Poppy struggles to stay positive and, what’s more, create moments of happiness in the lives of others.

Effective teaching is a major theme of the film. Scott (her driving instructor) talks about the necessity of repetition in teaching, we see multiple scenes of Poppy and Zoe interacting with their young students, and we see a fantastic scene with a flamenco instructor who channels her heartbreak into passionate instruction. If ever there was a profession that requires optimism, Poppy—with her bold, confident, and fearless personality—makes a great spokesperson.

Perhaps the greatest struggle Poppy faces is the force of the status quo. Her outlook on life, which she shares with her friends and one sister, is summed up nicely by friend and coworker Tash (Niles), who relates what she tells her prodding aunts:

“No, I haven’t got a boyfriend. No, I won’t be getting married soon, and, no, I won’t be investing in a property with a mortgage in the near future, thank you very much.”

Amen, sister. The movie actually spends little time on social forces driving women, particularly, to settle down (except for one visit to the ‘burbs), though this always lurks in the background. The bigger struggles are the everyday events that drag us down, which makes this a nice little slice-of-life movie, with a minimal plot, and a major focus on character. Female friendship is at its heart, without the stock shopping and food footage that most films use to represent how women bond. As we know, bonding over consumption of material objects (whether they be chocolate, sexual conquests, or clothing) forms the most shallow of relationships. Happy-Go-Lucky is a film that realizes this fact.

Once you adjust to Poppy’s infectious (or, I found, slightly grating) personality, you’ll see a female-centered movie that just leaves you feeling good. Oh, and you’ll forever have Enraha. You’ll understand if you’ve seen it; that one sticks with you.

Movies We Won’t Review: Miss March and I Love You, Man

It’s not that we have anything against male-centered movies, it’s just that we have better things to do. These two, in particular, inspire staying home and saving our money. Check out what other female critics have to say.

I Love You, Man

MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilosopher: Conform, Man, Conform

Renee Scolaro Mora of PopMatters: Man dating.

Betsy Sharkey of L.A. Times: Paul Rudd and Jason Segel star in a bromantic comedy that leaves behind any hope for some heart.

Miss March

Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com: The comedians behind “The Whitest Kids U’ Know” cram their film debut with boobs and poo jokes — but end up with a serious stinker.

MaryAnn Johanson of FlickFilosopher (again): Virgin/Whore: The Movie

Rachel Saltz of The New York Times: Centerfold Sentiments

Heigl’s in a RomCom?

Check out Shakesville for a discussion of the increasing number of embarrassing romantic comedies that continue to rehash the same stereotypical anti-woman crap Hollywood’s been dishing out for … ever?

This film would have us believe “the ugly truth” is that women love with their crazy little emotional centers and men love with their rascally cocks. But the real ugly truth is that there are people who treat that shit as actual fact—and the even uglier truth is that there are people who will pay good money to see this film because they find it “so true!”

Elizabeth Banks on a Porno

The number two movie at the box office this past weekend was Kevin Smith’s comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Classically-trained actress, Elizabeth Banks, calls the role the best she’s ever played, and enthuses that director Kevin Smith “actually put a woman’s name in the title of a movie.”

Yeah, but he also put the word “porno” as the title’s direct object.

Read the LA Times interview with Banks, titled “Actress Elizabeth Banks is as versatile as they’ll let her be.”

About Banks, Smith says “She’s got that ‘guy’s girl’ thing going for her, so she can roll with dudes and be funny, but scrape that away and you realize this chick is way better than an R-rated comedy.”

I’ve heard the movie is funny and sweet, but I can’t help but to be skeptical of a celebration of this role, particularly with the bizarre and sexist statements that pop up in the very positive article.

Banks, like many actors in Hollywood, struggles with her desire to be taken seriously and do important work, but to be successful, too.

“You can go be in a female-driven indie and make two cents and maybe get an Independent Spirit Award, but then you can’t pay your car lease,” she says. “So Vince Vaughn makes movies, he needs a girl to be in it with him, it might be me.”