Feminsim and Snow White

Reading that there is a new Snow White movie in the works (not to be confused with about four other Snow White projects going on right now), I found myself excited.   
What intrigues me most about this project is that there have been significant additions to the main character.  In this version, she apparently will be actively fighting to regain her kingdom and will wear armor.
Like a lot of other women, as a girl I went through my princess phrase.  And one of the plots that I always found the most fascinating to read about concerned young women who were stripped of their rightful inheritance and often exiled or locked up.  (It should also be noted that sometimes these things happened because they were women and their social status was inherently limited.)  The young women struggled to take back what was their's.  This occurred historically with princesses like Cleopatra, who spent two years in Rome or fictionally with characters like Rapunzel, who was locked up for reasons various authors have imagined.  Unfortunately, these princess tales of going out and getting what you want are few and far between, usually focusing on a passive woman who has to be rescued by a man, and often featuring other, older, unmarried women who are evil. 
I can't wait to see where these people take this movie.  I'm hoping it will be feminist in the sense that it will empower young women to seek out reclaiming their own "kingdoms." 

Historical Film Costumes

Enchanted Serenity has this intense gallery of costumes that have been used in various movies and are about to be auctioned off.
Where to even begin with how lovely some of these dresses are?  So many of them look like they are in decent condition, despite being used in old movies like The Virgin Queen, Marie Antoinette, and Pride and Prejudice.  I love so many of these dresses.  Too bad they don't have patterns and other information to help make them. 

The Great Gatsby in 3D

So finally, The Great Gatsby will be adapted, again, into a movie. As a literary nerd, I'm sure everyone's expecting me to be excited for it, and I would be, if I particularly liked the book. As a feminist, the book just strikes me as another rich white man writing a book that ignores anyone not white (rich, able, straight, etc.) and then vilifies women, because really, how dare Daisy spur Jay on for so long and then, once she does return his affections, how dare she cheat on Tom?

My other annoyance is that this novel is being adapted over other novels. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925. That same year, writers like Willa Cather, Dorothy Scarsborough, Sigrid Undset, Virginia Woolf, Zora Neale Hurston, and Gertrude Stein were publishing novels, and their works are so frequently ignored by the general public. (Academics still read some of these writers, but are mostly ignored by the general public. Most Americans have heard of The Great Gatsby; how many have heard of The Professor's House?) Moreover, there are other great writers from the same time period who were writing about the forgotten or were part of marginalized groups, like Kafka or Proust. Once again, a story of someone with immense privilege is given way more attention than the stories that in many ways deal with the lives of more than just a small few.

The Adjustment

I hate to admit it, but seeing the posters for this movie on my commute to work got me all got me all excited.


I almost wish this was not a romance, just because this has the potential to be about so much more than just romance. At the same time, how many sci-fi romance are out there (Happy Accident is the only one I could think of off the top of my head)? So hopefully this will be good.

Good Going, Einstein

Enchanted Serenity is reporting that a movie on Einstein is in the works. 
As much as people love and admire Einstein, I am more interested in his wife, who some scholars think was actually behind his theories.  The post mentions that his relationship with women will be covered, so I think it's safe to say that the wife will be there, though probably in a small capacity in comparison with other issues.   

The Criterion Collection

Antonio Esposito and I have been talking about Hulu and if they can manage to hang on. I'm calling it: Hulu will survive, by providing content that others cannot or do not. I say this because Hulu recently acquired the Criterion Collection, which is famed for their interesting, wonderful, often-foreign indie films. This is probably the best move Hulu could have made, since otherwise Netflix will probably outcompete with their free and fast streaming of so much content.
Hulu's best move is to add other exclusive content, especially niche things (more Korean soap opera, British sitcoms and dramas, Swedish movies, Canadian teen dramas, Indian musicals.)

Any Human Heart Actors

Most people know that, as an English nerd, I have a certain fondness for Masterpiece Theater. For those of you lucky enough not to be obsessed Britian, right now they're showing Any Human Heart. Many of the actors in the miniseries are also from various Jane Austen adaptations, as this brief rundown explains. I found myself, being a ridiculous anglophile, wanting to add notes to it, like mentioning that Atwell also was in The Duchess and Broadbent was in some of the Harry Potter movies and The Young Victoria and Hollander was in (with Broadbent) Bridget Jones's Diary and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. See what I mean? I could play six degrees of separation if it was with British actors.

Angels and Airwaves

This is a really fascinating trailer for a new science fiction movie called Angels and Airwaves. At first, it is just some astronauts in space. Okay. Then the power appears to go out on Earth. Oh. That could be really ugly. And terrifying, not just on Earth, but for those in the spaceship. This is going to be a thriller right? The kind where people sit around and get all jittery because their space station is probably the last refuge where people have some power?
And then the Civil War shows up. (Don't you wish you said that everyday? And then the Civil War shows up...) Let me tell you, as someone who spent a lot of childhood time around space-nuts: they are also almost always love the Civil War (also NASCAR, but that's another story altogether). At this point, this looks like the fantasy of certain male schoolmates of mine.
The last line "Does it bother you that we're not real?" is sort of great, and hopefully, an acknowledgement that this movie is taking place in character's minds.

Elle's White Christmas

There's a great petition going around asking the magazine Elle to apologize for clearly making actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan look whiter than she is.  Seeing the cover, I was shocked just how white she looked.  If I wasn't familiar with her work (I saw her in Bride and Prejudice), I might have mistakenly assumed she was white.
This is not to say that Ms. Rai Bachchan is the only one this has happened to.  I notice that Beyonce always looks almost white, and while riding the subway yesterday evening I noted that the promo poster for the U.S. version of Skins has the actors and actresses, who come from a surprisingly large racial mix, look almost all white or at least light.
The other sad thing to consider is that the actors and actresses of color who do tend to "make it" are lighter.  I so rarely see someone darker on tv or in the movies.

Back Home in Indiana

Sometimes, when we're feeling something in particular, we need a bit of art (a song, a movie, a book), to go along with that moment. Since it's Thanksgiving, I'm sure most of you have found yourself a little nostalgic, and a little sad. I have a piece for you to commiserate with: "Back Home in Indiana."
It's a nice essay from a woman who is clearly missing home, but struggling to define exactly what part of home she misses and how to go about fixing it. She mentions trying to get her kids to spend their summers in Indiana. My parents did this, though it was with Portland, Oregon. I still love Portland. I consider it a home, much like my actual hometown.
So, where ever you are this holiday, have a moment to remember your home(s). And realize there are new homes waiting to be made.

Jane Eyre: The Movie

Jane Eyre is apparently been made into another movie, which was news to me. Watching this trailer, I have a lot of thoughts. The moment it started with the dramatic music, I immediately thought of overly dramatic trailers and I got worried. People have been commenting that it looks like a horror film, and it really does, but I almost like it this way. Mr. Rochester is, if you think about it, absolutely horrifying. After all, he is a brutish, cruel, manipulative man; I can think of few less horrifying things (especially for a young woman. I feel bad for Jane, ending up with him.)
I can't help compare it the miniseries that was done some years ago. The guy for Rochester and young Jane seem all wrong to me. Judi Dench, is, as ever, perfect, even when she's barely in the trailer. I find it interesting that they cast her in that particular role. I always imagined the nurse as being close in age to Rochester, which explains her infatuation with him.
Obviously, I'm not a fan of the characters. I do sort of like the story, but mostly because I think it's wonderfully ambiguous and you can interpret the storyline in multiple ways. An ambiguous text is ideal for analyzing because there's always more to say. Which is probably why I'll end up seeing this.

Get This Now

I love albums.  I love it when an album comes together perfectly, each song awesome but each of them fitting together well to make one cohesive work.  This is no way a full list, but simply some suggestions of great albums that aren't meant to be listen to as single songs but as great, full works. 

Don't let Fiona Apple's When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king/What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight/And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring/There's no body to batter when your mind is your might/So when you go solo, you hold your own hand/And remember that depth is the greatest of heights/And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land/And if you fall it won't matter, cuz you'll know that you're right title scare you into think this is some pretentious work.  It's a simmering rage of an album, every awful thing ever to happen in a relationship boiled down into the most clear moments of anger.  Apple can sing through every emotion of a breakup, which is why the next time you get dumped, you're going to be reaching for this. 
I've already mentioned multiple times on this blog my love of The Hard Lessons, but I'm going to rave about them again: you really need this band.  You really need to see them live.  But if you can't do that, then you want their debut album, Gasoline, which, despite being relatively old (in music years), stands up surprisingly well.  It's the best hodge-podge of rock, soul, country and indie out there, and considering how different most of these songs are, the fact that this album still stands as one solid work is all the more impressive.  (And if you're really cheap, try their Wise Up!, which is also perfect.)
Jean-Yves Thibaudet's Pride and Prejudice.  There are a lot of amazing soundtracks out there, and I could probably write a list just about that.  Few soundtracks could have probably been created without a movie and still be completely listenable.

Korn's Issues.  Considering the above answers, this seems totally unexpected, but I've found that when the mood is right (which is to say, really wrong...), this album is totally necessary.  Critics rightly talk about how Nirvana's mastered the quiet/loud dynamic that The Pixies famously started, but Korn takes it to it's inevitable conclusion.

And if you're into bands like Korn, then maybe it's time you discovered Planetstruck and their Mild Chronic Inflammation.  Especially if you miss Kurt Cobain. 
Paul McCartney is always going to be the cute Beatle, but for only being the cute one, he still puts out some fabulous stuff.  Chaos and Creation in the Backyard is one of those albums.  It sounds exactly how you'd expect a McCartney album to sound, but in no way is that a bad thing. 
I've never met anyone who's heard of Sandor Lakatos, but after hearing Budapest at Night, an album of violin-dominated Hungarian folk music, I really didn't care.  It's waltzing music, but there's something slightly dangerous about it. 
Every once and a while Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings pop up on a commercial or a tv show.  Their Dap-Dippin' is soulful and fun and retro in the best way possible. 
Spoon has several flawless albums.  Gimme Fiction is one of them.  Few things are like this album on a rainy night. 

The Social Network

I came upon this great little review of The Social Network.  Although I haven't seen the movie yet, I've been reluctant to do so, since the trailer showed very few women and, as usual, in the service of men.  Yawn.  If I wanted to see stuff like that, I could just watch almost every mainstream movie, thanks.

At the end of the review, the author, Rebecca Davis O'Brien mentions that The Social Network probably only defines half of the generation.  As someone who is loathe to admit that she's part of this generation, I find myself wondering the same thing: when is someone going to tell the story of my generation and my gender, since apparently we can't expect most stories to do both?
And then I find myself pondering other questions, most important this one: what is that story?  Perhaps it is good for me to be thinking that women have such a wide variety of experiences that there is no good way to tell a story that is inclusive of all women in this age group.  And maybe that's why I have a problem with The Social Network being hailed as the story of our generation in the first place: our experiences are too varied to be defined so narrowly, even if we pretend as if gender isn't a factor.  (Or all the other things that are factors: race, sexuality, religion, etc.)  Or this is just another round-about way of me saying that I am sick of movies that focus on privileged men and then hearing about how they somehow represent everyone, even though the world is made up of much more than just these men.  

Metropolis

One of the great things I got to do this weekend was see Metropolis down at the Detroit Film Theatre, as I mentioned in a post a few weeks back.
I've actually seen a shorter version of this film, but like most people, this was the first time I got to see this new complete version, which is almost identical to the original film. It was amazing and breathtaking and extraordinary. Even as the music was coming up, I could hear my heart start to pound. Most of the images were beautifully restored, so most of the movie is absolutely gorgeous, which the black and white and grays all stark looking. It's so clear in places you can see the white face paint of Freder's face. Some of the prints are still battered, and there are sections of the movie where there are lines running through the images, but most of the movie looks great, like it was filmed recently, not in Germany pre-Nazis. The set and music to this movie are amazing. I love this movie, especially the ending.
So, some of the changes from the version I saw several years ago involved a few subplots. One was of how 11811 switched places with Freder, the main character, so that he could throw the Thin Man off. There was also an action scene where the Thin Man beat up on poor, long suffering Josephat. And we discovered that Rotwang and Joh loved and fought over the same woman, Hel. Rotwang had this really creepy statue of Hel in his nefarious house and laboratory, making me think of the shrine to Arnold that Helga has in Hey Arnold! They also establish more religious themes in the movie. When I first saw this movie, the burning of the witch, Evil Robot Maria, took place in front of this building that I had never seen. At the end, I thought it looked like a church, but I couldn't figure out why we were there. Turns out there was a church in the earlier part of the film, and Freder goes there to hear a sermon, that is sadly, one of the two scenes that is still lost. The church also had these cool human personifications of the seven deadly sins and Death. The Death costume was particularly cool, since he had these intricate finger bones on and played a bone piccolo. It's the most scary and absorbing Death I've ever seen. You want to look away, but you can't.
I also learned a lot about this film through an essay they had for you to read. Apparently, part of the reason they cut out Hel was because censors feared that audiences wouldn't understand this was a name and not Hell. (Though I thought it was cool and possibly important that it so closely resembled Hell. Like maybe the scientist and the capitalist were fighting over the right to own Hell, which is what Metropolis has become.)
I was thinking of writing about this film in terms of race and gender. Women have a small role in this film, and it might be interesting to break down what that role is, especially if I allow for differences in class. There was also a brief moment in the film where Bad Robot Maria, imitating the Whore of Babylon, was being carried around by Black men, and I thought it would be interesting to see what the film was saying about that, especially if I mull it over and pull it apart like I do with so many of my interpretations.
Totally go see this. It will change everything you know about film and storytelling. The story will stay with you, especially how creepy the Thin Man is, how silly Rotwang and Evil Robot Maria are, and how sweet Good Maria and Freder are.

DFT Summer Schedule

The Detroit Film Theatre has just sent me their list of movies this summer. As always, they make me sad that I'm probably not going to get to see everything I want to see.
This weekend and the next weekends afterward they're showing "The Complete Metropolis." I saw a version of the movie several years ago and loved it. It was a visually stunning work, plus it had a really fascinating storyline. Apparently, this is the most complete version of the film that they have found so far, meaning I really want to go and see the this one since it is closest to what the filmmaker intended. They also have a restored version of another sci-fi/horror favorite, the Spanish Dracula, which often gets toted as better than the American version shot at the same time.
They're also showing some opera stuff, including Aida. That show is near and dear to my heart, since I worked on a high school production of it.
They're even showing an action film, The Warlords, which stars Jet Li. (Yes, that Jet Li, right over there.) I'm a sucker for period films, and I've always wished I could see more films that weren't about American or European history.
There are some more "traditional" art house films showing, including The Father of my Children, about a filmmaker, which I hear is really good. Also from Europe, they're showing Breathless, which a film critic told me that I must see. And they have Nora's Will, a comedy involving an attempted suicide. (So I'm assuming it's a black comedy.) They're also showing a series of films done by the amazing Ousmane Sembene, including Black Girl and Moolaade. The first film is especially important because it marks the beginning of African cinema.
And, as always, no art theatre would be complete without some documentaries. They have one called Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. When I first heard that title, I thought it was going to be some hilarious Japanese monster flick done in the 50's a la Gamera, but it's actually a film on people who collect bugs.
This is the problem with me getting stuff like this in the mail: all I want to do now is to go see these things.

Essays on Horror

Today, I happen to catch a bit of Underworld on tv today. Although there are vampire movies I prefer (Interview with a Vampire, Queen of the Damned, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blade, The Last Man on Earth, Black Sunday…), I actually like a lot in this movie. It gets a little boring at the end, but it’s mostly solid.
As I was watching it, it occurred to me that it might be easy to interpret the film in terms of race, class and gender. The werewolves are so clearly like slaves, and the vampires, with their pseudo-English pedigree are like former plantation owners.
I often find myself with these kinds of thoughts about horror movies. I have a list of academic papers I’d like to write about Jennifer’s Body, and I often find myself wanting to work on other films, like Splice, House on Haunted Hill, and Black Sabbath. If I ever end up working in academia maybe that can be the basis of my first book: Essays on Horror.

The Last Days of Disco

Jerry Bruckheimer would have you believe that movies are big things: big explosions, big guns, big stars, girls with big...well, you know. Unfortunately for Bruckheimer and sometimes for an audience, movies are very much about characters and how likable they are. This is probably the biggest problem with much of The Last Days of Disco: none of the characters are particularly likable.
The movie follows a group of upper-class twentysomethings in the early eighties as disco music goes out of style. If you were thinking, based on the title, that the movie would follow the music in some way, you're wrong. It kind of follows club life, but it would be easy to lift these characters and their story lines, and place them in other places. They could easily be transported to Regency England or a futuristic colony on Pluto. The movie feels like an overdrawn play, similar to Closer.
And they are incredibly grating characters. When they're not being proto-yuppies, they're simply self-involved. Charlotte, played by Kate Beckinsale, is a frenemy in training, who clearly has few things going for her beyond controlling her friend Alice, played by Chole Sevigny. Des, played by Chris Eigeman, is a womanizer, pretending to come out as gay to women when he loses interest in them. Tom, played by Robert Sean Leonard, gives Alice two STDs their one and only night together. Naturally, Charlotte and Des end up together, and on some level are perfect for one another, because they're both awful people. Characters on CW shows are less painfully to watch. The only exception to this is Alice, who, as the film progresses, becomes a more assertive character. Watching her bloom is a real treat, but for the most part, the characters are as shallow as the plot, which is mostly about the hookups and nightlife of Charlotte and Alice.
Interestingly enough, the soundtrack is spellbinding, which features, you guessed it, disco music.

It! Terror from Beyond Space

Some movies only leave great questions. With It! Terror from Beyond Space, the burning question is why would NASA give its astronauts so many grenades but only one bazooka?
I joke, sort of. It’s true that this group of astronauts, coming back from a mission to Mars and finding that they have an uninvited and violent guest aboard their space ship, try various schemes to kill the monster, including the aforementioned grenades and a bazooka. It’s a typical “confined in a small space” story, reminiscent of last year’s “The Waters of Mars” on Doctor Who. The astronauts are generally stupid, droll, or in one case, vaguely bro-like. The only delightful thing is the monster. Even though he’s in a full suit, you can feel how much the actor playing him is enjoying it. Villains are at their best when their depictions are infused with child-like joy, and this monster is the proverbial kid in the candy store.
One of the saddest thing about this movie is the women. Having female astronauts at a time when all astronauts were male would appear revolutionary. However, in this movie’s vision of female astronauts, they both serve as the mothers of the spaceship, making the boys sandwiches and comforting them when they are disappointed. Plus, we all know that these female astronauts, dressed in the kind of skimpy uniforms that would make the Star Trek franchise proud, are there for the male gaze. So it’s still ultimately a fail.
This is one of those movies only hardcore film nerds and science-fiction fans could appreciate, because it mostly lacks anything else going on.

Book Haul

So, apparently, haul videos are really big. I'm not much for clothes, but instead, I decided to write about the book haul I got at the book sale today. So here goes, in no particular order:
1. Chinese Handcuffs by Chris Crutcher
I'm a huge fan of Young Adult Literature, even though I'm no longer a young adult. I've actually read Crutcher's Ironman, and this looks like a similar story: a young athlete with family troubles, who struggles to watch other people in his life suffer through abuse and who falls in love with a broken, but still fighting, young woman.
2. Londonstani by Gautam Malkani
I once read an essay by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers discussing how you should buy albums every once and a while based on their covers. I've decided to adopt that same approach to books, since it has lead me to some great music. The cover looks like the kind of scribbles you'd expect to see in a teenager's notebook. It's apparently about a group of southeast Asian teenagers living in London. I'm also interested in postcolonialism, and this book looks like a teen version of that. Like other teen classics The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, it looks like different sections are narrated by different characters. Flipping through the book, I see there are mentions of Rude Boys, which bodes well. The book has a slight crease in the backcover, but basically, it looks like I bought it in a bookstore.
3. I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolf
I saw a Jon Stewart once interview Tom Wolf about this book, which is why I picked it up. It's apparently about college girls. Back when I saw the interview, I was still in high school and it sounded fascinating, especially since I was heading to college myself. The diaries and hearing Wolf saying "Wu Tang clan" were enough to make me remember the interview. The book is flawless, like I did actually buy it out of a bookstore.
4. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
I saw the Gillian Anderson movie some years ago, and I always feel bad about seeing movies based on books I haven't read. (I recently fixed this with the book Jane Eyre.) I loved the movie, especially since it seemed so quotable and witty and the ending was ironic, tragic and thought-provoking. I'm hoping this will be the same.
5. Dead Ex by Harley Jane Kozak
I love mystery novels, and since this book's cover had one of those dead body outlines, I knew I had to try to. When reading the back, I discovered it's also about soap operas and the drama behind them. This has to be one of the most delightful combination I've seen: murder and cheese. It appears that I picked up an early copy of the novel, so this is a total score from a collecting point of view.
6. A Concise History of South Africa by Robert Ross
Don't worry: this is the only textbook I picked up. My second major is in history. I'm taking an African history class, and we spent a month on South Africa, which was fascinating. I'm hoping to learn a little more about the place through this book.
7. Three by Flannery O'Connor
My friend Christine suggested O'Connor to me last year, and since this particular book was only 50 cents, I've decided to give it a whirl. This is definitely an older book, since the pages are yellow.
8. A Heinlein Trio by Robert A. Heinlein
I've always wanted to read Heinlein, since he's a science fiction master. The cover of this book is really cool is a psychedelic way. I'd actually like a poster of this original design.
So, that's it everyone. I managed to get eight books for 7.50. (For those of you not inclined mathematically, that's about 94 cents per book.) I'm excited to read these new books (if I ever find the free time to do so), and I feel good about spending my money at the book sale, since it supports the Red Cedar Review, which has been a wonderful organization. I'm so proud to be part of them.