Well, its March, and Spring Break is on Friday.  I’m on a 7:30 AM flight out of here! I don’t really need to get away, but I am excited to see a friend I haven’t seen in almost a year…wah!

Spring break is only one week which is a bummer, since when I was in undergrad it was TWO whole weeks!  A week to go somewhere and then a week to get something done.

Some links:

An excellent interview with the cast of Big Love. I didn’t get to watch last Sunday’s episode until Friday night.  OK, that episode was written for me!  I loved how it just focused on family dynamics and they did the Mormon trail in reverse!  I want to do that trip.

I did have issue with one section. At one point, Bill refers to a book about Mormonism by a historian. He tells this one guy to go read it. However, Bill, as a Mormon follower, wouldn’t have thought that book held value since it questioned his faith.  I have to rewatch the episode to see if I get that right.

Can’t wait for tonight’s show!

DOUBT Now, we don’t get as many movies here in the Midwest like one does in NYC/LA. I finally saw this and liked it a lot.  And I want to watch it again to make sure I picked up on everything.

Meryl Streep does a MEAN Bronx accent!

Whenever I go to the movies lately, I have to sit through this trailer. This movie looks horrible not only due to lack of plot but the sexism that abounds. It looks like a VERY watered down Legally Blonde. So basically Playboy Bunny gets fired because she’s too old (ageist.) She turns to working in a sorority of “lame” girls who are convinced they need an ex playboy bunny to learn how to be cool. This is what I’m learning from this movie: it’s cool to look like a slut and not like a smart nerd. Except Playboy Bunny learns its sometimes OK to look smart because some guys in college like smart girls.

What was Anna Faris thinking? She isn’t do anyone any favors by starring in this film. According to the wikipedia page, Faris even shopped the film around and produced it.  Wasn’t that her parading around on Entourage last summer saying she wanted to be taken seriously? I know that’s a parody but c’mon.

This movie LOOKS LAME!

* An email from a friend reminded me why I wanted to write this. Otherwise, I may not have gotten around to it.

SPOILER ALERT: don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled!

I’m a huge Sex and the City fan but something about seeing it in a movie theatre felt odd. Then my friend figured it out for me; we’re used to watching it in the privacy of our own homes whether it be alone or with guests. When I went to see the movie, I went alone and snuck into the theatre after the lights went down. I rushed out before the credits started because I didn’t want to see anyone. I wanted to see it and enjoy it alone.

After I saw the film, I finally started to read the reviews. There were the criticism I agreed with and expected: too long, where were the men’s voices, the point of the Louise character, and it was made for the fans. There were the good parts: the dramatic wedding scene, Carrie and Big doing anything, Carrie and Miranda hanging out, and other hijinks.

There was some interesting commentary about how the SATC ladies seemed to have made it financially. Carrie doesn’t have to worry about money anymore. Samantha, who never did worry about money, hits it big in Hollywood. Charlotte continues to spend, spend, spend. Miranda doesn’t consider the monetary complications of leaving her husband. Even the new character, Louise, while hints at not having much money and renting designer bags, never complains about how much $$ it takes to look stylish in the Big Apple. IS the SATC film mostly about class not relationships, sex, romance, or friendship? No but it certainly paints us a picture that everyone in NYC has the big bucks and if they don’t they are on their way to getting them.

I have a few complaints. (1) Where was Charlotte’s storyline? All she had to quibble with was how she was worried about running during her pregnancy! The audience didn’t even get to see Charlotte tell Harry that they were having a baby the old fashioned way. And why did she have to get pregnant? It didn’t seem necessary. (2) Miranda’s storyline was pretty stale and predictable. Steve cheats then she forgives him. That was it. It revealed nothing about her character except that she is bitter. (3) I did understand the BIG/Carrie storyline but in a way it felt like more of the same…what if she was the one “who couldn’t do it.” (4) The Louise character. Now I wasn’t expecting a big diatribe on race as a lot of other people wanted. BUT why would she come to the city to find romance just to move home once her ex came begging for her back? The whole point of the series was how much Carrie and her ladies loved NYC. They don’t compromise anything for their city. So why expect anything less of Louise?

But I did love most of it. It was only a movie after all but it was fun to see the outrageous clothes, money spent without thought, going out on the town. Miranda has the two most revealing sex scenes, and Samantha had none. I did thoroughly appreciate Samantha’s speech to Smith about how she loved herself more even though it wasn’t the “right” thing to say. That is the SATC I love, the one that questions how romance does work with a woman’s identity. I don’t think that SATC is a feminist show but I don’t think it is anti-feminist either.

Well, of course, all the ladies got their happy endings or variations of. It was well worth seeing it, but I don’t know what I think of another one. One just may be enough.

So I FINALLY made it to Bay Ridge on Sunday.  My number two on “Things to do before I leave NYC List.”

Well, it was everything a girl could hope for, and I must admit I had the song “How Deep is Your Love” playing on  repeat in my mind. Ah I love the BeeGee’s!

View after getting off the subway

Now I’ve been to 100th street in Brooklyn and Queens!

There s/he is. (What gender is a bridge?) My mom told me she wanted to drive me there when I was a kid (after I became obsessed with Saturday Night Fever.) Unfortunately, we never got around to it. I told her last night, I finally went and she said “Why?” Guess the dream was more mine than hers! Duh!

It was very interesting to be in Brooklyn and have the closest borough be Staten Island.  I think the husband and I sat possibly, maybe where Tony Manero (aka John Travolta) sat with his lady friend in the movie. Or I could be horribly wrong. But visiting this site made me think back on the symbolism behind this bridge in the film. During the film, it is easy to make the assumption that the bridge leads to Manhattan…it does not. For years I thought that this bridge led to Manhattan then I got my hand on a map.

I think ultimately the bridge symbolized Tony’s desire to get out of Bay Ridge but also worked as a tie to his past, family, and tradition. Perhaps, this has been written up before, but I’ve never thought about the film I loved as a 13 year old in my 26 year old eyes. And I am also horribly unnerved by the “was it rape” scene.  Ugh. I don’t like how Tony wasn’t punished for that but then I guess it exists to make him more complex. Whatever. That film would have been made much more differently today.

I think my next stop is Wave Hill in the Bronx.

over the weekend.  The book was solid Krakauer and the movie adaptation was good if not a little long.  Both Krakauer in the book and Sean Penn, who directed the movie, approach both projects as though they have personal stake in it. Both seem to personally identify with Christopher McCandless, aka Alex Supertramp.  The story falls into the usual rugged individualism storyline and both writer and director seem defensive of their main subject/hero.

The book and movie also got me thinking about how the storyteller situates its relationship to the content and subject of the story and how important it is to make the connection clear or unknown altogether. For example, is it necessary to know that Krakauer spent several weeks in Alaskan wilderness and considers himself to be a headstrong youngster like McCandless?  Or is that too suggestive?  Sean Penn doesn’t necessarily insert himself into the film but if one knows anything about his personality, it is safe to see why he chose to make the film.  Rejecting the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, Penn chose to live in a simple trailer (that burnt down in the recent fires last fall) outside of Hollywood.  Long known for opposing conservative tradition, Penn has orchestrated sometimes outlandish demonstrations against current politics. His narrative is not too far off from McCandless’s own outsider tendencies.

I don’t have a concrete answer for how I feel about Krakauer and Penn’s involvement in both narratives.  Krakauer does state from the beginning of the book that he does try to maintain outsider status from the story but cannot help but disperse some of his own experience throughout. I don’t know Penn’s direct stance on this, but after watching the movie and reading the book it is easier to see how Penn was influenced by Krakauer’s stories.

It would be interesting to see what others though about this angle.

I saw I am Legend last weekend and really enjoyed it.  I was pleasantly surprised. Being the gender scholar that I am, I always looking for how gender is being represented. And I thought with the film being about the absence of humanity that well, gender stereotypes wouldn’t come into play as much as say with a film like Juno.  Well, the filmmaker’s sneaked one by the audience. (NOTE: the rest of this is written delicately as to not ruin ESSENTIAL  plot points.)

Will Smith’s character has one companion left with him as the end of the world/humanity spirals near and that is a dog. Yes “man’s” best friend.  The dog is given a semi gender neutral nick name (some may argue it is not so neutral but it is) and assumptions are made about the sex of the dog by audience members. Then in one pivotal scene Will Smith says the dog’s full name thus revealing the dog’s true sex and the audience reacts to that revelation in a way that is typical of when a doctor pronounces if the baby is a boy or girl.

Of course, I didn’t read the book so I don’t know who introduced this interesting development.

Tonight to celebrate Halloween, the husband and I stayed in and watched Carrie. Ironically, it isn’t that scary until the very end.  I read the novel in high school and loved the movie.  It seemed like the right kind of  creepy film to watch to mark a lowkey Halloween this year.

There is a LOT of interesting religious gender representation going on in this film!

For now, I’ll leave you with…

SCARY! PIGS BLOOD!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! 

It’s been a year since I first started blogging here. I thought about doing a recap of the last year but I think I’ll save that for another time.

Instead, I want to write about a movie I saw this weekend, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. From the beginning of this film, I started tot think about the representations of female super heroes we have in Western culture. There is Super Woman, Bat Woman, Wonder Woman, Shera Princess of Power and a few others. All of these super hero(ines) are seen in short skirts and high-heeled boots.

While these images are not realistic, neither is the idea of a super hero. My Super Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t disappoint in the unrealistic department. The film was funny in moments but what I found disturbing was the story behind the transformation of a normal adolescent to a super powered heroine. Uma Thurman plays G-Girl, a young woman who gained super powers when an asteroid hit the Earth. During the flashback of G-Girl gaining her power, she goes from thin, ungainly brunette to a busty, curvy blonde. That’s right as soon as you become a super hero, you get a sexier body. Or at least “sexy” as defined by Western traditions.

My first thought was how “sexist and typical” but then I started to think about how many young women go through that alteration every day by changing their looks through a bottle of dye or surgery. There are a lot of TV shows that revolve around these sorts of transformations. Are they sexist? Probably. But is also natural to doubt one’s appearance and wish to change it. It seems to be the means one goes through to change one’s appearance that defines whether the change is extreme. Is there a major distinction between a young woman getting highlights or getting a new set of breasts? Yes, I believe there is but I don’t think the thinking process behind the action is that different.

In the movie, Uma Thurman plays a neurotic woman looking to hold on to her man. What is funny about this film is that it abandons past stereotypes about super heroes being pillars of the society and using their powers for good only. Unfortunately, G-Girl uses her powers to scare her ex boyfriend after he broke up with her. She is also written as a crazy sex fiend who likes to use her super powers in the bedroom which in turn emasculates her boyfriend. This emasculation is, of course, used for laughs in the film. But it gets old when once the viewer realizes it’s a plot device that been used before.

As far as your average Luke Wilson romantic comedy, My Super Ex-Girlfriend is standard. What I don’t get is why Uma Thurman would agree to be in this. She usually makes pretty smart movies. It does bring up some valid issues about the unfortunate ways women and their desires are portrayed.

I hope the next film that features a super heroine is more intelligent and does not rely on old tricks and gender conventions and stereotypes to tell its story.

This weekend I saw Eastern Promises and Elizabeth, The Golden Age.

Eastern Promises was beyond violent. I thought I was accustomed to violence on the big screen. WRONG! I have never seen such graphic displays of violence…against men. And a baby came thisclose to being killed but she was saved at the last minute. I am not calling for violence against women in film, TV or any other sort of media BUT it is unrealistic to have no violence against women. I am obliged to mention that a rape involving several of the characters occurred before the actual film took place, but that doesn’t count in my eyes.

The acting was superb as usual with this bunch (Viggo et al.). But the film did play into the whole good girl/bad girl dynamic. Prostitute dies because she’s a prostitute. Blonde, virginal looking woman lives despite hanging out with the Russian mob. And the whole Virgin Birth idea plays out when the blonde gets to raise the dead prostitute’s baby. Oh how I love a happy Hollywood ending.

The audience during this film was oh so pleasant! There was a woman in the front row who kept chatting on her cell phone at top volume. Two other audience members actually got up out of their rows, walked down to her and told her to shut up. This happened two seperate times. Then there were the ladies behind me who cooed loudly whenever the baby was on screen. Like they’ve never seen a baby before.

And speaking of virgins…I saw Elizabeth, The Golden Age. Senior year of high school, I was obsessed with the first movie and Joseph Fiennes. I tortured my college roomates with a poster of Joseph Fiennes from the Elizabeth film, with the word

LOVER in huge capital letters, above or below his face. One of roomates said it bothered her. She later moved out of our room leaving our other roomate and I to our shenanigans.

Not the poster I had, but a pic none the less.

OK OFF TOPIC! I loved everything about this film except the ending which involved another baby. All the reviews said it was over the top, but wasn’t the first one? I also did feel as though the filmakers were trying to show a cautionary tale of what happens when one has too much power. Of course, our heroine does everything right in the end and atones for all of her prior mistakes. Cate Blanchett rocks!

We did have a lovely couple next to us and who spent the whole film mucning loudly on their popcorn. Halfway through the film, I thought about asking if I could have any but I didn’t. Because I’m polite like that.

In anticipation of the light to nonexistent blogging I’ll be doing next week, here is yet another long over due post. And it also has to do with that other September 11th.

My review of September Dawn:

The Mountain Meadow Massacre happened on September 11, 1857. Since 9-11-01, there have been many comparisons between the two tragedies. If you want to read about the Massacre, please go here, here or just go to google and put the term in.

So the big drama is over whether the LDS church was responsible, and in turn Brigham Young, for what occurred or not. The LDS church maintains Young was NOT involved but rather evasively state that the Massacre was a blot on the regions history. Read full statement here.

Its just not the 150th anniversary of this event that is stirring up media but so is the film, September Dawn, starring John Voight. The film places the blame squarely on the shoulders of Young and the Mormons.

Let me get this out of the way, the film is pretty much lame. There is no real character development, shotty acting and dialogue, a cutesy romance story thrown in for the ladies(?) and bunch of historical inaccuracies. When the film opens, we meet the nice traveling wagons of immigrants from Arkansas and Missouri. They’re good Christians even though they support gambling. In come the scary Mormons in their dark clothing and on their inadequate horses. Our protagonist, Jonathan, is the son of a fictional LDS leader. Jonathan falls in love with one of the traveling women and vows to abandon his religion for her and join her on her trip West.

Umm what! OK, first of all, if Jonathan is a true Mormon believer, he believes that he has to marry another Mormon (and a few more) to get into Heaven. I felt like the dialogue could have been straight of the 21st century show Big Love, not the 19th century. Sure, Jonathan is doubting his religion but it would have been more believable if his lady love decided to become a Mormon, abandoned her family and then real drama ensues. But thats just me.

The biggest problem I had was when Jonathan starts yelling at his father and fellow Mormons that Utah is in the United States. Now if anyone did their homework, they would have realized that the Mormons fled to Utah to AVOID the United States. AND even if Utah was technically a part of the States, no Mormon was going to treat that as any sort of authority over their prophet and their heavenly father. (Side note, the infamous Utah War occurred during 1857-8 when federal government and Mormons fought for control of Utah.)

But I did enjoy going to see the movie because I do love anything to do with Mormonism particularly pop culture portrayals.