Happy Valentines Day!--and the evils of the established relationship

As is normally the case with my seasonal blogs, I should absolutely not be writing this right now. I cannot even tell you how many anti establishment compositions I need to be working on right now. My little town is in crisis, and I also picked this week (for some reason?) to create major projects criticizing FIRST Robotics and CollegeBoard.

But you can't be an activist all the time...

I've been planning on writing this since November but saved it specially for today...

Ah well, here it goes!

I can watch slasher movie after slasher movie, watch group after stereotypical group of teenaged characters snuffed off in the prime of their lives, and never does it bother me emotionally. I am able enough, I suppose, to separate myself from them that I don't associate them with myself or my friends at all. It simply doesn't get to me, the characters are too fake and too annoying, the special effects in the deaths are just too interesting for me to be preoccupied with who is actually getting killed and how it will affect the plot.

But sit me down in front of a romantic comedy, and I'm a mess. I constantly vicariously fall for the quirky friend, the inevitable formulaic fight or break up always has me in tears. You can have the most stereotypical characters in the world; if that boyfriend dies, I'm sobbing and sending unnecessarily sappy text messages to my own. 

I've psychoanalyzed myself a lot over this one, because I think it's wicked stupid, but I can't figure it out--I'm in a wonderful relationship. Perhaps it is because relationships are like squirrels, and though I've only been in approximately one and a half relationships, I've basically been in all relationships, so I can't help relate to the characters in romantic movies....? No, that's nonsense. Maybe because I have so many guy friends, they cover all the archetypes, so any character I subconsciously relate to one of them, and their sadness makes me sad? Also stupid. 

Regardless, for this reason, I don't watch a ton of movies with a ton of romance. But I have noticed a serious trend. I could be wrong...but I'm not. No I'm not. 

(Name that anti-love song!)

The trend is, to be in a relationship, you must face each other and form a diagonal line across the screen from left to right.

The established relationship is never good. The established boyfriend, or girlfriend, is always, always the bad guy, whether they are bad or not.

Innumerable movies have used this trick. When Harry Met Sally is the prime example of this, with Harry's girlfriend being kind of trashy in the beginning, his wife (?) leaving him unfairly, Sally's fiancee leaving her...all very tragic. Enchanted is the second movie that comes to mind, since I watched it last week--Patrick Demsey's fiancee at the beginning of this movie is played as an antagonist throughout the film. Legally Blonde--same situation, or should I say "sitch," while I'm talking about painfully sororitorial (made up that word) movies. Reese Witherspoon's fiancee at the beginning of the movie is, again, played as a bad guy. The Exploding Girl (which I've only watched the first fifteen minutes of, the friends becoming romantically inclined situation was so overwhelming,) is based around it entirely. They use it in Over Her Dead Body, which, I have, shamefully watched. Life Without Dick, a fantastic comedy that I highly recommend, has the fiancée-to-be as a less moral character than the mobster who Sarah Jessica Parker falls in love with. Mean Girls does it. Last week I watched The Postman Always Rings Twice (bonus points to whoever can explain that movie to me,) where the husband is controlling and repressive, the only thing keeping the gorgouses Lara Turner and John Garfield apart. You Can Count On Me uses it as a sub plot. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World uses it. Even my very favorite movie besides Behind the Mask, But I'm a Cheerleader, uses it by having the main character's boyfriends be one of the things holding her back from discovering her sexuality (but that one's a little different.) Horror movies use it a lot, but mainly to different ends and lesser degrees: House of Wax, Grace, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010,) and, most notably, Scream. "There's always some stupid bullsh*t reason to kill your girlfriend."

The diagonal line can start at any point on the screen, as long as it moves down and to the right

Books do it too--last week I read The Great Gatsby, with the villian as the main girl's husband. They use it on TV, in horribly written and painfully acted sitcoms and soap operas  like Full House (DJ/Nelson/Viper love triangle,) Saved By the Bell (the costume party episode that I've only seen the last fifteen minutes of,) Secret Life of the American Teenager, (every season, every episode,) Greek, Eight Simple Rules, One Tree Hill, Family Matters, as well as fantastic, stand out shows like The Office, Gilmore Girls, Soap, Party Down, Arrested Development, Parks and Recreation, Dexter, That 70's Show House, Scrubs...the list goes on. I haven't got around to watching every sitcom. There are probably, at the very least, over a hundred examples. There are also a lot of movies I haven't seen that I know use it--Leap Day, Sex and the City Two, Made of Honor, The Truth About Love....

It's pretty obvious as to why this is such a common formula. Change is sexy. Your life is boring. People are going to want to watch two people overcome a stifling relationship to get together than just get together. People don't want to see a happy couple stay happy, or overcome some challenges then get happy again. Boooooring. Stuff like that  happens in real life, why should we care if it happens in movies? It's not like fiction reflects life, or anything like that...

If the relationship is more light, you may stand a maximum of four feet apart, providing you still form the diagonal line

I think it's pretty detrimental to our society's perception of relationships in a lot of ways. First, look at the descriptions of those movies up there--and look at how many of them have the established significant other engaged to the main character. Engagement is no small potatoes. When you're engaged, it's not a good thing, it's not romantic to suddenly re-meet your high school fling or flirt with your co-workers to the point that you're madly in love with them instead. 

To make this acceptable, movies have to turn the established fiancee into a bad guy, usually by taking normal traits that come from a personality in a long term relationship and blowing them out of proportion or putting them in a negative light. They are practical and safe, (boring, unadventurous, dull,) they are protective (controlling, jealous, overprotective,) they are relaxed and comfortable in the relationship, (they no longer care enough to shave their legs or give constant compliments.) They are normal. You are used to them. They are easy and accessible--we only want what we can't have. And, of course, they're usually perfect for your best friend.

Alternatively, standing far apart could add more dramatic sexual tension

By doing this, I believe that movies and other media give people the idea that when they see these traits in their significant others, they are bad. I don't think that's true at all, even though I fall for their trickery myself all the time. I've recognized that it is, indeed, trickery, so I can see it coming and not fight with my boyfriend when he wants more attention from me than the random hot girl in one of my classes who I don't know, or he tries less hard to impress me than someone who I'm not dating who may think I'm cute. But do those of us who don't analyze the effects of media on society and societal expectations avoid this successfully? The world may never know. 

Unless it listens to me. I don't think they do. 

Not to mention, the time that movies usually aim at--the engagement--is, (source needed,) usually the most vulnerable part of a long term relationship, I'd imagine. People get doubts and cold feet, and it's kind of terrible for this plot formula to reinforce it. Heck, I'd be willing to say that people get doubts and cold feet at least in part because of stories like this. Romantic comedy says that by proposing, your boyfriend forced you into marriage before you were ready; they say the fact that your fiancee is a little neurotic about wedding planning means she's too up tight for you; they say that it is okay to kiss that guy in the coffee shop, because your evil fiancee exists to keep you away from his pretty eyes.

If the colors on opposite sides of the screen contrast, you get bonus points

That is the next way I think these movies negatively impact our perception of relationships--it emphasizes our societal expectation that men and women can't be friends. I'm not making this up, even--I just read an article from Psychology Today not an two hours ago saying that When Harry Met Sally was one of the major setbacks in the societal acceptance of cross-sex relationships in our society. Movies that use this formula really emphasize the fact that men and women can only have sexual relationships, and that is something I just don't agree with at all. Harry met Sally is obviously the most important example of this, (I think it's just the most important romantic comedy,) but almost everybody does it--Legally Blonde, Life Without Dick, You Can Count On Me, Secret Life of the American Teenager, The Office, Party Down, Parks and Recreation, Scrubs, House, and That 70's Show (Eric is in a long term relationship--Jackie Berkheart dates every single male main character by the end of the series. [yes I do watch that much 70's show don't judge me.]) In the movieverse, attractive men and attractive women must always have sex, always. Also in the movieverse, you cannot date someone, break up, and then "Just be friends." Which makes you wonder what happens after the movie ends--once the girl breaks things off with her husband-to-be and settles in to a relationship with new pretty eyes...does the original long term relationship just end entirely? Is a friendship that lasted, presumably, months or years simply over forever and ever? Or does the movie simply replay it self in reverse once pretty eyes starts leaving the cap off the toothpaste and original established relationship starts trying to woo again? 

These are some of my favorite movies and tv shows, but come on guys--really? Have you never had a friend of the opposite gender?

In rare situations, if you are in a clever indie movie, the girl may be on the higher end of the diagonal line

In my very limited relationship experience, which I don't entirely want to explain, I have proved and disproved many of these movieverse concepts.The fact that I know that says a lot about how much these formulas reflect our perceptions of relationship. As I mentioned, I often fall victim to seeing good, normal traits in my long-term boyfriend as negative traits. However, I also have a plethora of good looking and sensitive male friends who I have no desire to have any sort of romantic relationship with. 

On the other hand, my first boyfriend or...whatever was a close friend of mine who I swore, from as early as first grade (that is how far down in age these concepts permeate,) that I would never date or like like because not all girls and boys had to like like each other just to normally like each other. Just to prove another movieverse concept, in our short relationship I managed to coincidentally meet another guy who I started dating immediately after my first boyfriend or...whatever and I broke up. 

However, I have now managed to escape the wiliness of the romantic comedy concept. My friend and I have recovered from our small, weird stint as boyfriend and girlfriend, and now have a lovely, non awkward relationship that would probably make for a really terrible movie. My current boyfriend and I are celebrating our third valentines day together (except we don't ever celebrate valentines day because it's stupid, like formulaic plots,) and our only place in mass media would be as Donna and Eric on 70's Show. Except without pot and with more legos. But I do have to consciously avoid thinking I'm in a romantic comedy: no, just because that girl asked you for help on her math homework doesn't mean she likes you; no, your boyfriend is not preventing you from doing whatever you want to, you just made up that entire conversation; no, you are not falling in love at minute seven of the movie you aren't in just because that guy has some quirky thing in common with you.

If you REALLY want to be out there, the line may go THE OTHER DIRECTION!

 The screenwriter of some terrible romcom is in my brain, and if you're a seventeen-year-old eighteen-year-old girl who's been exposed to any pop culture, I bet there's one in your brain, too.

Gracious, with this and the Twilight principle, our generation is pretty ruined on relationships.....

Happy Valentines Day!

<3<3<3<3

Disney does Communism

Ok, false. Don Bluth does communism. But it's almost Disney. People pretend that it's Disney a lot.

For those of you who aren't scholars of nineties animation ( or don't watch Nostalgia Chick obsessively,) I'm talking about Anastasia, a wonderful animated film. It is wonderful both in the sense that it's weird and hilarious, but also that it's really well done and touching at spots.

The concept of the setting is really interesting, and it makes me wonder--why does Disney and Bluth/Fox choose to take on these historical events that are not kid friendly, and make them into kids movies?

Pochahontas, for instance. The Europeans invading America was in no way something you want to portray to little kids--the real story of Pochahontas is even less kid friendly than say, the story of the pilgrims in New England. Everything was very violent, very nasty, and very unpleasant.

 Same with the Bolshevik Revolution. In kids movies, there has to be a good guy and a bad guy. In the Bolshevik Revolution, there was no good guy or bad guy, it totally depends on who you ask. Now, obviously, in America, we see the communists as bad guys, because of that whole Cold War thing that was the twentieth century. Therefore, portraying the revolutionaries as the good guys in a kids movie about the Russian revolution is out. However, the Romanov's were in no way the good guys either--just like Marie Antoinette wasn't the good guy in the French revolution.

In any case, they made the decision to portray the Romanov's as the good guys in this movie, mostly because they've got the princess, and princesses sell. The movie opens up with a nice little bit about how happy and luxurious it used to be, before all those silly poor people were starving to death in the snow and had to rebel...

The historically accurate shot to have after this would have been some children dead from malnutrition and hypothermia

And, I guess, to keep it more neutral and kid friendly, they didn't talk much about the communist party either. It is portrayed in a negative light, with images of the beautiful city of St. Petersburg full of unhappy people and pollution, and one of the main characters saying "That's what I hate about this government; everything's in red!" but it never says that the communists were responsible for all the Romanovs getting killed. 

Their solution is to sort of synthesis of all evil or communist things, or anything that motivated the Bolshevik revolution, into one superhuman villain. He's sort of a mixture of Faustus, the real Rasputin, and American views of Communists, all-in-one.

I believe it. 

Obviously the historical inaccuracy of this is off the wall. IRL, Rasputin was a crazy enough character--he was a healer and a monk, (it is mentioned that he used to be a man of god in the movie, before he went insane,) and was a close friend of the Romanovs because he fixed up their sons hemophilia. When they tried to kill him, he would not die, leading to his portrayal in this movie as a perpetual near-corpse that never actually dies, even though he should. (source)Cute, right? Hyperbolic interpretation for kids is fun!

Not cute. This movie is like weird propaganda for the Romanov family.  Just like they were actually pretty terrible to their subjects that rebelled against them and killed them, they were pretty terrible to Rasputin too, and killed him for a kind of arbitrary reason after he saved their sons life who knows how many times and became one of the Tsar's best buddies. You can spin a story any way you want, but really, the Romanovs were wrong in this situation. 

It's very strange that they made the Romanovs seem like such good guys in this movie, even though that is almost the opposite of historical truth. Obviously America is anti-communist, but does that make all of our media immediately pro-imperialism? Kids grow up--I grew up--with all this input that princesses, in any context, were good, and it was all fun and games to be royalty. Sure, there were evil step mothers, but they were pretty easy to deal with. Again, spinning this story in the other direction and having some romance between some revolutionaries is out of the question, since if Don Bluth did that HUAC would probably be reborn and they'd eat him right up, but when there's no good guy...why would you make a happy Disney style movie out of it? 

I guess they had to portray the Romanovs in a good light to lead into the rest of the film, which is also based on a true story, about what kind of really did happen. It's less of an inaccuracy at this point and more of a re-imagining of what would have happened if Anna Anderson (cruel, cruel parents,) was actually Anastasia Romanov. That's actually a totally ok thing to do, in literature. I'm cool with that. 

But come on, guys. Anti commuist propaganda? It's 1997, not the eighties. 

Another thing that's a little bit off about this movie is that it came out in a time where CGI existed, and wasn't terrible, but wasn't advanced enough to make a whole film out of for the kind of budget that Bluth must have had. The result? Random chunks of this movie are done in CGI. And its weird. 

Maybe if we put this shot right at the beginning, they'll be tricked into thinking the whole movie looked this real

Hey Anastasia! Welcome to the future! Too bad you're still animated like it's '96!

Wait, is that real fire in our animated world?

Yup, that's definitely real fire...

And as distracting as that is, they do do some really cool stuff visually. The movie doesn't pledge itself to realism, so besides the normal cartoon gags, there are some really cool surrealist scenes. Which is appropriate for the time it takes place in. For instance, Anastasia has some pretty hallucinations:

 And Rasputin lives in this nifty underground...planet...

And my favorite--they do an entire song about Paris around 1920 (do you know how much I want to live in Paris in the 1920's? Probably a ton.) and they do a lot of the backgrounds like Van Gogh's "Starry Night.

It's really a beautiful piece of animation, and it captures the spirit of the 20's really really well in a couple of shots (not that I was there...) Plus, a nod to Van Gogh? And there are other allusions to twenties culture, my favorite being "Where not even Freud knows the cure." Who watching this movie would understand those?

The person I originally saw this movie with, actually, my best friend's grandfather, probably would have understood it, but we left the theater halfway through. (We were four at the time.) Our leaving was a result of the fact that this movie is actually terrifying--as a result of these guys:

"AHHHH!!!"-any four year old who sees this movie

They're really conceptual things, but I guess they're sort of goonie demons that come from a little stick full of green fluid that Rasputin gets his power from (speaking of Freud...) In any case, they're horrifying, and they attack the train, and it's probably the scariest thing ever. 

"Ohh no puppy!! AHH!!"-four year old 

I was legitimately entertained by this movie, both back in the day and now, as an (almost) adult. The characters and relationships are quite fun and a little bit complex. Anastasia is suffering from some serious post-traumatic stress and repression (more Frued!) and throughout the film her memory returns, and as it does, Demitri, the con man bringing her to the dowager princess of Russia in the guise of the real princess, realizes as well that she may be the Anastasia he knew as a child working in the kitchen of the palace. The two of them have a Harry and Sally sort of relationship, (which is hilarious, because Meg Ryan is the voice of Anastasia,) and in the end Anastasia has to choose between being with him or taking her place as the new duchess of Russia (which is now under Communist control, so it's really just a title...) His being uncomfortable being in love with her once he realizes she is the princess, since he is a kitchen worker/con man, is the only time caste is mentioned in the movie. 

So, fun for its historical inaccuracy, fun for both it's weird and beautiful visuals, and fun for it's plot and plot holes. 

BUT WAIT! Something I reccomend even more is this, the Nostalgia Chick review of the movie. I watched this a long time ago, and honestly didn't remember that she said so much stuff that I said here. But! She says it even better and with more hilarity. Watch it.  Now. 

Black Swan, etc, etc...

Yes, yes: as promised, and as should be expected from every movie blogger, a little chat about Black Swan.

The really interesting phenomenon that this film is at the center of is this seemingly new theme where the movies that are the most popular are also the movies that "high brow" film audiences like the best. The Golden Globe nominees weren't the subtle, almost indie or entirely indie films that you didn't even notice were in theaters, but  the movies that people were talking about--Black Swan, The Social Network, The King's Speech, etc.

With that in mind, I went into the first showing of Black Swan that I saw with a question: Why is this film so popular but also so praised by critics and "high brow" film audiences?

The answer became very clear very quickly, and it is my only criticism (and, apparently the only criticism, considering the incredible reviews it got.) The film lacks a lot of subtlety in plot and symbolism. The conflict, though very deep and thought-provoking, is also straightforward--it is an inner conflict, but it is still white vs. black, good vs. evil. This was reinforced, of course, by the gorgeous but obvious visuals in the film--Nina wears light, soft colors, Lily, Beth, and the mother wear all black. Everything the director, Thomas, owns, is black and white. Reflections are used almost obsessively, (but well,) to, again, reinforce the conflict--mirrors and reflections have been used in film for many, many decades to represent the two sides of a character, and this movie isn't always so adept with it--for instance, when Thomas is explaining the role of the swan queen, the camera cuts decidedly from a medium shot of him in the studio to a shot of his reflection in the dance mirrors.

There are other moments and things that could have been more subtle. Nina has a weird rash on her shoulder blade--and by some coincidence, it is exactly where a wing would grow were that to happen. A shot of the ballerina in her music box, with head and leg broken off, is shown after her legs break and she hits her head. She puts on a black shirt when she goes out with Lily. The list goes on.

Woah guys it's a mirror!!

However, this is why, in my opinion, it was so accessible to a mainstream audience and critics (as well as the fact that it's all daring and stuff with the various sex scenes which aren't often shown on screen--more on that later.) The symbolism was there, the mise-en-scene and cinematography reflected the intent of the story perfectly, but in a way that you didn't really have to think about--this way, the mainstream audience (who, presumably, don't pick apart visual symbolism while watching movies,) and the critics, (who potentially do? I will when I'm a film critic?) could both enjoy it and understand it's full value.

Oh my gosh. Another mirror. 

When I saw this movie with my film appreciating friends, they saw that problem with it, too, (as well as the problem with the lack of gay male dancers...) but my dancer friend, who spends less time than we do analyzing movies, thought the symbolism was very clever (although she also saw the problem with the lack of gay dancers...) So, case in point.

I loved a lot about this movie though, including the visuals. Last year, my school put on the musical Curtains in the winter, and one of my favorite things that the director and costumer did was to make all the backstage scenes, with the dancers in their dance clothes, in grays, whites, and blacks, with red accents. I adored those costumes, and knitting some legwarmers to go with them, just like I adored the costumes and colors in this movie. The soft grays, pinks, creams, and blacks were so gorgeous together and invoked very well the idea that Nina was still locked in a childhood dream to be a ballerina, and that she still saw it as beautiful, gentle, and feminine, while the other dancers (who all wore black,) saw it as competitive and vicious.

Also, all of Nina's costumes looked sooo cozy. I wish I were a dancer, because I want to wear various knitted tubes on my legs and arms all the time. Some of the knitted things were so unnecessary seeming but soo beautiful--for instance, the lacy gray top that was knit probably with lace weight yarn and size twenty needles that she wore in her last practice scene, where the piano player leaves her in the dark and she really begins hallucinating. Why was she wearing that? I don't care, it was awesome. She always has one leg warmer or one arm warmer--why? I don't care, they look so comfortable. Amazing knitwear in this movie. Amy Wescott, the costume designer (famous for such films such as The Twelve Dogs of Christmas and Porn n' Chicken....hopefully this is her big break, she deserves it,) is a lady after my own heart and must have had a great time knitting up all sorts of amazing things.

The knitwear, though, along with the soft colors and the gray brick walls that were the backdrop for most of the scenes, perfectly captured the atmosphere of New York in the winter, (have I ever been to New York in the winter? Nope.) and made the whole movie feel very cold and raw, which made the scenes in her bedroom appear that much more warm. Very skillful.

The second thing I loved about this movie is also what I think makes it so scary--it is entirely first person. In most movies, we get at least two points of view--usually one a third person or third person omniscient--but in this movie, we know only what Nina knows and see only what she sees. This, of course, leads to some serious confusion when she starts hallucinating, and at only one point--the long shot of her on stage as a human instead of a swan after her solo as the black swan--do we see what we can know is really happening. This point of view makes every surprise, from the shocking notice of her mother while she is masturbating, to the simple event of her walking into a nurse at the hospital, just as surprising for the audience as they are for her.

I also loved how the various aspects of the black swan--the things she needed to be "perfect," were displayed in the other female characters, particularly Beth. I think Beth is the most undervalued character in the movie, because though she's on screen less than ten times, she's as important as Lily in representing the black swan. Nina's transformation to the black swan is also her transformation into Beth, as embodied by her jealousy of Thomas being with other girls, her paranoia that Lily is trying to steal her part, her destructiveness, and her...taking over Beth's dressing room and stealing all her stuff. More subtlety.

This is actually awesome--the framing makes it look like a mirror. 

Thomas says that Beth's "dark impulse" was what made her so "thrilling to watch...perfect at times, but also so god damned destructive." At that point, Nina begins letting her own destructive tendencies and ticks--her habit of scratching and biting her cuticles, and her bulimia, overcome her much more, presumably trying to be more like Beth. The first move she makes as the black swan, asking Thomas for the role and then biting him when he kisses her, is done wearing Beth's blood red lipstick. The major shifts in the movie--her getting the role, her becoming entirely consumed by hallucination, her "claiming her position," as it were, as the lead girl in the company and taking over the dressing room, all happen after an encounter with Beth.

I was also super impressed by how they used the Swan Lake music. Tchaikovsky has been my favorite since I was a tiny tiny child, and they used it very very effectively in the movie.

And the last bit that I'm going to rant about is the presence of sex scenes. Not the scenes themselves, but the fact that they made it onto the big screen. This shows a major change of standards in the rating system, one that I consider to be for the better.

A while ago, I watched a documentary released in 2006 called This Film is not yet Rated. It detailed (with a lot of bias,) the process of rating films, and how and why some films get an NC-17 rating and can't be released in theaters. The director of one of my favorite movies, But I'm a Cheerleader, was interviewed, and talked about how her movie couldn't be released by a major company because of its rating--a rating that came from a lesbian sex scene with no nudity shown, an girl masturbating over her clothes, and a maybe three second long shot, in the dark, of two men laying on top of each other, also fully clothed. Obviously we've crossed some major bridges in how okay we are with seeing homosexual sex on screen, and I think that's fantastic. How much of the film's audience saw the movie only for the sex scene? What was the intention of the director? I'm not sure, but I think it's a big statement for the progression of film that it's in there.

The entire movie, really, is a pretty positive statement for the state of film right now--even thought the symbolism was forced, it was there. The plot was accessible and somewhat easy to follow, but still scary and complex. And, of course, just the fact that such a terrifying movie made it into the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and the hearts of film audiences makes me very, very happy.

When did this become a blog entirely about babies?: A Lifetime Movie Review and Analysis

I'm sorry guys. This is getting ridiculous.

Apparently I'm horrified of babies, because I keep watching movies about them.

With that being said, I have a confession to make: I am currently watching a Lifetime movie called The Pregnancy Pact.


And with that being said, I'm actually really impressed.

During the summer, I regularly watch The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and it is ridiculous. I won't get into it right now, except to say that it's incredibly unrealistic, god-pushing, and badly done, right from the 2 million some-odd dollar houses in Southern California that middle class families live in, to the church that saves the day when the girl can't pay to take care of her kid, to the fact that somebody gets pregnant every season, to the bad product placement. Going into this movie, I was expecting sort of the same thing.

Use this product. Then do something with you're life, stupid lazy slut!

I am being pleasantly surprised. Mostly because the movie is 50% about teenage pregnancy and peer pressure, and 50% about how we can be affected by media, particularly how small towns can be affected by media, which is one of my pet...issues.

Considering it's Lifetime, a network I have very little respect for, they made some good artistic and plot choices. The emphasis in this movie is definitely is on the girls' delusion that it's a good thing to be pregnant, and that pregnancy as a teenager is, by default, a bad thing.

They made the choice to have the main character look like she's about ten years old, which is very, very significant. It makes it much more sad that she is going to have a baby, and it makes her naivety much more believable. Unfortunately, she acts about as well as I do, (she smiles constantly,) and her total lack of skill is pretty distracting.

Otherwise, though, they made mostly good decisions. The real main character is this crazy, wonderful journalist girl, who comes back from New York City to Gloucester (like down the road from me, and apparently just like my hometown but an island and more Catholic...) to find out whats going on with the bunches and bunches of teenaged girls who are getting pregnant. She is pro-choice, pro-contraceptives, and pro-truth, which is so refreshing in a program like this, especially since it's pretty clear that she is the good guy.

Which opinion is correct, though, is a little ambiguous--or, at the very least, there's wiggle room. Main pregnant girls' mom is head of the abstinence committee (three double letters in that word! woah!) in the town, and she is strongly opposed to the school nurse's idea to hand out contraceptives in school because of that whole, inviting-kids-to-have-sex or whatever argument, and she very much believes in abstinence before marriage. The nurse argues that the kids are having sex regardless, and nearly dozens of girls are getting pregnant. The (principal? vice principal? I forget,) argues that the girls want to get pregnant so contraceptives don't help.

And thats where the media, and the plot, comes in. The journalist is in town to find out what is going on, and it turns out (spoiler alert!) that the girls decided to make a pact to get pregnant on purpose after one of their friends did by accident. The motivation is the usual: "babies are cute! our babies can play together! babies are beautiful and certainly don't poop and throw up on everything! Gloucester (that's pronounced glow-ster for all the Russian and Canadian readers out there,) is utopia and we can just stay here and be moms and be happy forever!"

There are a few results of this--one, the media freaks out. In small towns, the media is a horrifying, horrifying thing. Because I live in one, one where a few newsworthy things have happened in the past few years, I have seen this firsthand--things get blown out of proportion. People are hurt because everybody knows everybody else, and even though that kid did something wrong, he's your librarian's son and the strangers on the news just can't talk about that. Rumors get spread. People get run out of town because of small crimes that didn't necessarily happen. It's rough stuff.

In this movie, once Time gets a hold of the story that there is a pact, every media team in Massachusetts goes to Gloucester to figure out what is going on and generally just be gossip-column story hungry. The battle between the townsfolk and the media gets more and more heated, to the point where the main pregnant girls father and boyfriend actually get into a physical fight with a news anchor and his crew. The entire town ends up in conflict over these girls, with the mayor blaming the principal, the abstinence committee turning against their president, the families of the fathers turning against the families of the mothers. The media becomes a grotesque monster (which they could have showed more artistically, but I get what they're going for,) with a voice from one mob attacking the pregnant girls yelling "can I at least get footage of her stomach?" and the girl in question following it by saying, "Now I know what it feels like to be Jamie Lynn Spears!"

Wooaahh. It's at that point, I think, that it really hits home that the movie is not only about how the media can feed off other people's misery, but how we feed off it in turn. Really, the whole reason that the girls are so eager to be pregnant is, besides peer pressure, the depiction of motherhood and babies in the media and in our cultural ideal. The conflict between the main girl and her boyfriend centers around the fact that he wants to marry her, but in California, after they go to college, and all she wants is to stay in Glowster and marry him now and have kids, and be a stay at home mom forever and be happy, which is a slightly hyperbolic but also true reflection of the sort of expectation that there is of what it means to be happy--not career, not adventure, but motherhood and love.

Not to mention the way teen pregnancy is normally depicted in the media--I'm looking at you 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, Secret Life of the American Teenager, and even Juno. And Twlight. Getting married at eighteen doesn't make getting pregnant at eighteen not subject to the normal issues of teen pregnancy. And Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears. A big issue presented in the film is that the girls don't know what is going to, realistically, happen to the once they have the babies--they don't know how much going through labor sucks, and are very surprised when the first girl to give birth does so to a premature baby the size of a newborn Panda and gets violently injured in the process, and then has implied post partum depression. The main girls' boyfriend leaves her because she's crazy and intentionally got pregnant and ruined his life. All the babies, in the off-screen future, probably have fetal alcohol syndrome because all the girls went to a crazy party and got extremely drunk. (So much more realistic than Secret Life! Yay Lifetime!)
 There is no "oo dressing up in matching outfits!"

They didn't do a terribly fantastic job wrapping up the movie, just like I'm not doing a terribly fantastic job wrapping up this nonsense blog post. The moral ends up being that teen pregnancy is complicated and personal and there's no one right way to deal with it, and all options are viable. (There are no abortions, but it's implied that they're acceptable early on.) Unfortunately, cool journalist from the city basically says, "I have learned that teen pregnancy is complicated and there's no one right way to deal with it," so even though I think the moral is a good one, they're still pushing it on us pretty hard and not veiling it in any way.

Even though I liked this movie, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone, unless you're particularly interested in studying how the media deals with small-town scandals and teen pregnancy. Or you're really into Lifetime movies, in which case you've probably all ready seen this. It's a watchable film, and there's a lot more going on than I expected--a lot of latent content. But that doesn't mean you should run to onDemand right now and watch it.

Oh, and apparently today is the ...38th (?) anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. Yay babies!

I promise soon I'll write a real review of a real movie. American Psycho or Black Swan. It'll be fun stuff. I promise.

  

Moar babies, chick flicks, and cannibalism

I am a bad, bad child. The very last thing in the world I should be doing right now is blogging. I have a paper to write for Friday, scales to practice for tomorrow, laundry to do, and on top of everything my wrists have been bothering me so much that I haven't been able to type for two days.

But there is much to discuss. We make sacrifices.

I just finished watching Grace, a movie that came out a little while ago (2009,) when I frequented bloodydisgusting.com, and there was quite a bit of hype in the horror community about it, if I remember correctly. It's been in my instant queue for a long time, but I just got up the courage to watch it today.

I highly, highly recommend this movie. Unless you are a male. Or know any males. Or have a baby. Or know anyone that has a baby or lost a baby or you were a baby yourself once.

Of course, that sounds like I don't watch anyone to watch this movie, I suppose, but that isn't what I mean. It really is a brilliant film, but it is a chick flick. An extreme chick flick. If you're driving on the road of chick flicks, drive past The Notebook and When Harry Met Sally, take a left at The Devil Wears Prada and then drive for a long time, past Ms. 45 and I Spit on your Grave, then maybe you would get to this movie.

I say "chick flick," meaning that this movie literally is almost entirely made up of females, and there is a lot of imagery in it that men, I'm sorry, are just not strong enough to handle. A lot of women probably aren't, either. There's a lot of menstrual symbolism, and a lot of very very nonsexy images of breasts, and a looot of babies.

The feminist message is very strong in this film, with a mother going to every extent to save her child. Even though the baby supposedly dies in utero at eight months, Madison, the heroine protagonist main character insists on carrying it full term and delivering it naturally. Luckily, the baby comes back to life when it is born (but it's dead for a long time, which is horrific and sad,) but isn't a normal baby--it has a thirst for human blood.

This baby wants some meat

Best. Baby. Ever.

The main themes in this movie are pretty intense, and pretty obvious. Madison, like I said, goes to extreme extents to keep her child well. Equally strong is the theme of white science vs. black magic, with white science being the masculine and black magic the feminine.

Carol Clover, one of my very favorite film theorists/professors of comparative Scandanavian literature (?) who wrote one of my favorite books ever, talks about this a lot. It's a very common or even unavoidable theme in possession films, and this movie borrows a lot from possession films. The influence of Rosemary's Baby is particularly evident, (as it should be in any movie with a demon infant,) particularly in the scenes where Madison decides its time to go buy some raw meat, and in the opening scene, where her husband makes passionate love to her while she just kinda lays there and stares at the ceiling.

Black magic, in possesion films, represents the "spiritual," earthy-crunchy superstitious voodoo priest, native American shaman, or, in this case, midwife that is the essence of all things feminine and natural, and is often on the side of the wife. Take, for instance, Poltergiest II, which I haven't seen but Carol Clover told me about. Or, if I'm remembering correctly, The Exorcist, where there is conflict between doctor and priest. Another one: The Serpent and the Rainbow. The closest example to my mind right now is actually from way way back, in Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors--when the main character's wife thinks he is crazy, she and her sister bring in Dr. Pinch, a crazy exorcist, to rid him of the spirits. The black magic team is often represented by a team of people against one man, the man of white science.

This movie, like Rosemary's baby, is a little different, and I really like that. We don't know in the end if we should be spiritual yoga vegans or high-class doctors.

Madison's veganism is heavily criticized, both by her husband, her mother in law, and the family doctor--the characters that represent white science. Spoiler alert--all of these characters die. We do get the feeling that Black Magic wins out here, because it is the midwife, Patricia, who ends up saving the day for the most part. However, even at the end of the movie it is implied that the reason the baby needs blood is that Madison's breastmilk is not sufficient due to the lack of meat.

"Black Magic" is also sort of played down here, or at least to be a good thing, besides the ambiguity of Madison's veganism. Patricia the midwife is made out to be very, very smart and down-to-earth, and suggests many times that Madison go to the hospital. Upsetting images of animal slaughter are played on the TV in the background of the kitchen (a little forced...) and much of the background music can only be described as if Enya worked with Bernard Herman or Wes Craven. Also, the fact that every representative and 2/3 of the males in the movie (there are three males in the movie,) die is a pretty strong indicator that women win. There's quite a bit of implied lesbianism too, but we shan't get into that this evening.

Here's the catch though, you guys--prepare to have your mind blown. I just found out that this movie was written and directed by a dude. A MAN. Whaat? I am so impressed with this guy. His name is Paul Solet, and his IMDB biography says that he majored in film and psychology at Emerson (<3!) and then got his masters in screenwriting. Then! Worked on some movies with his menor Eli Roth!! (<3<3swoon!!). This guy is either gay or has a seriously seriously strong stomach. Some of the images in this film are really really brutal, with a lot of bleeding from the breasts, and I honestly didn't think a guy would be able to handle it let alone direct it.

I'm scanning his bio more, and my point is proven. Look at this: "Since its (Grace's)premiere at Sundance 2009, where two men in the audience passed out from the intensity of the film..." 


Obviously this guys amazing, then, if he, as a man, could create feminine images so horrifying as to bring men to faint. It sort of goes back to Steven King and Carrie, (the book,) which really makes you wonder how a guy can put out a piece of literature that is so incredibly...well, girly. And girly in the sense that it's so girly girls probably can't stand to read or watch it. I was also thinking about this whole situation in light of American Psycho, (which I watched at 12:00 Monday morning--easily one of my top ten favorites.) With that movie, it's reversed--though a man wrote the book it was based off, two women directed it, which sort of nullifies all of those cries that it's one of the most misogynist movies of the last decade, in it's parody of men. However, Grace and Carrie (all right boys, good job on the stories but get some more creative titles pleaase,) were created by men but were not at all parodying women, but celebrating them, perhaps a bit in fear and respect of their awesome power to have babies and bleed all over stuff. 
Most slasher movies, though considered masculine and misogynist, are very feminist indeed, probably due to the rise of feminism that went along with the rise of film and later, horror. I'm going to start rambling very soon, so I'm cutting myself off on this topic for now. Go read Men, Women, and Chainsaws.

In closing, I'd like to share with you this article that I found the other day (on somebody else's blog--. It's very disturbing, but brings up some interesting questions. I think about cannibalism a lot, and obviously this movie deals with some sort of innate cannibalism that this baby girl has. So, with that--Is cannibalism innate?

I found that on a blog called "And Now The Screaming Starts."  No promises on the up there.

Ohwait.
Real conclusion to a movie review.

I loved this movie. The cinematography is artistic and amazing, (which I didn't get into,) the imagery is disturbing and powerful, the plot is fast-moving and suspenseful, the themes presented are thought provoking, I'm going to marry Paul Solet if he isn't gay.

Good movie. Netflix it up if you aren't too scared of bleeding girl parts and zombie babies.

From the past

I have just reached a goal I have been (occasionally) striving for since I started this blog!
Finally, I have managed to hack into my old myspace page and find the very first pieces of writing I did on horror movies. My birthday is coming up, so it seems a good time for reflecting--shall we take a look?

February 27, 2007--while watching house of wax

scarry mooviee!!

Current mood:scared

  (look at  how hilarious these smiley faces are!!)

scary movies. quite an interesting topic, no? some people must enjoy being scared out of their minds, and believe me, i like to be a little bit frihgtened (woo spelling!) as much as the next guy or girl, but eriously (spelling is fun!). come on. i like scary movies that are only scary while your watching it. like House of Wax. I've watched that at least three times and am no more afraid of things than i ever was before, except of course huge mansions made completely of wax and wax faced people with really sharp swords and creepy mechanics. the only way anything like that could happen to me is if i went to a small mechanical town on a camping trip and was stupid enough to take advice from a creepy mechanic.(it took me a minute to figure out what mechanical town meant. Everyone in the town in that movie is a robot.) plus, the town was burnt down at the end of the movie, so i pretty much need not worry about that ever happening to me. but some movies, like when a stranger calls and others liek (hooray spelling!) that, leave the ending wide open. it is perfectly possible that a creepy stalker could come and terrorize me and kill all my friends when i was babysitting at a large mansion.or this one im watching right now, The Hills have Eyes. now im going to be petrified of drivnig through the desert and accidnetly trapping myself in an atomic testing zone. i mean. i could just put on my tinkerbad (tinkerbad was a character i made for myself to channel all my socially inappropriate urges, like watching slasher movies and being devious and...talking to boys, perhaps?) face and sit numbly through the whole thing (ok, so tinkerbad isnt completely numb, but you get it,)(what. what. what.) but afterwards i would still be scared of atomic testing zones...not like i wasnt in the first place. but moreso.

"didnt she die?"

"oh yeah! she got the pole stuck through her head.!"

"but what about the other guy, is he dead?"

"sort of..."

(that's a conversation that my brother and I had while watching House of Wax, the first horror movie I really saw.) 

I sort of agree with myself in the past, I suppose, about a lot of this. The movies that are really situational--House of Wax--are much less scary in the long term than those that can happen to anyone--that is, of course, the brilliance of teen slasher films. Nightmare on Elm Street, for instance, could easily happen to me--I've got a boyfriend, i have friends, my parents leave town sometimes, our elementary school janitor was a child molester (?). But Burnt Offerings, which I'm about to watch, is about fear in a very specific situation. I constantly fear (in a non-serious, analytical way,) that when I'm with my friends we'll end up in a slasher movie, but I don't really think about the spirit of a vacation house that I stay in with my family driving me crazy. 

So those were my first ever thoughts on scary movies that I felt were worth sharing. I wish my spelling was better--what was that? I totally one the in-class spelling bee in eighth grade too, what is up with that nonsense? 

Here's the second one, an hour and a half later that day--much less articulate, much less true

HOW TO SURVIVE A SCARY MOVIE

HA! This is fun! pshycology of scary movies.

(yes! go little me! even though you can't spell psychology this is true! if only you knew then that this realization would be such a defining moment in your life, maybe you would have spelled it correctly.)

HOW TO SURVIVE A SCARY MOVIE

gotta say, I am proud of myself for intuiting the formulaic nature of slasher movies after watching...one of them...)

1, at the beginnign (spelins are phun) of the movie, dont be cool. be lame. be super jerky and you'll probably survive. (Obviously this isn't true. I was basing it off of Chad Micheal Murray's character in House of Wax, who was kind of a loser and survived, and this character in The Hills Have Eyes who wasn't really a jerk, but smoked cigarretes, and also survived because of his action movie hero attributes, if I remember correctly. At the time I was very misguided and though that Jarad Padalecki was cuter and a nicer guy than Chad Micheal Murray. Cool guys do usually get killed though. )

2. little cute kids usualy live. if your a cute little kid, your in luck. the scary movie industry has a soft spot for you. (false. This is true in Hills, but not really in any other movies I can think of off the top of my head. The way movies tend to deal with children is to make them as creepy as possible. I haven't seen a lot of family horror though, so I could be wrong. Poltergeist is in my instant queue. Also, this is hilarious, because I was a cute little kid when i wrote this. 

On second though, maybe that's really disturbing.)

3. keep your shirt on. it sounds weird, but its true. if ever a mutated villain is going to come and chase you to who knows where, it will be when your wearing the least amout of clothes possible with still being in your rating zone. the best way to avoid this is to wear clothes at all times, especially if you happen to be tall and blonde, or Perez Hilton. (go eighth grade me!! so right!)

4.dotn fall in love. if you fall in love, the person you fall for or yourself is sure to get massacred. (I was a very cynical fourteen year old. But true. Based on both Hills and House of Wax, but it applies pretty well to some classics. Could we get into a debate here about whether or not the type of people in slasher movies have the capacity to be in love? Let's not.) 

5.if you have blood on you, dont panic. it may just mean that the people around you are bleeding, so dont worry that you will bleed to death. if your going to die, it will be very violent. (This is a big one. I applied this two years later in Getting in Trouble. It's very true.)

6.understand the misunderstood. there is usually an underhanded evil villain, but they're usually just using a misunderstood mutant to kill people for them. if you try to convince the mutant that they dont need to kill you, you might get lucky. maybe. (ok, so maybe there was only a really underanded villian in charge in House of Wax, but it is kind of a common theme. The argument could be easily made that Jason is the mutant under control of his manipulative mother--same with Norman Bates, even. So close, but not quite.)

7.it is very risky to be a damsel in distress. sometimes damsels in distress will live, sometimes not. especialy, obviously pretty onew who tend to flaunt their helplessness and need for the opposite gender will almost always die, while damsels who are just understatedly pretty who are sweet but not helpless or needing of a boyfriend in any way usually survive. (the first time i noticed survivor girls! and the first time i judged promiscuous girls!) 

8. always keep a full service cell phone handy. dont drop it, dont have a phone that has any less than 100% full service all over the universe. thats your best bet. (true stuff. only an issue in post-'95 horror, which is what I started watching. It's a mystery that I enjoyed horror after only watching post '95 stuff.)

9.watch your back, and your fingers. in a scary movie, theres almost always somebody who gets a pole stuck through their skull, and theres almsot always somebody who gets at least one finger sliced off. (correction, in House of Wax, 50% of the horror movies I've seen at this point, somebody gets a pole stuck through their skull an somebody else who gets one finger cut off, which were both really strong moments in an otherwise horrible film with few redeeming qualities. However, still a good rule. You need your skull to get through the rest of the movie, and if the killers got a pole, he's gonna use it.) 

Oh, little Krista from four years ago. What a crazy character. Whatever weird identity crisis I had freshman year interrupted my new fangirling for slashers, but by April I watched Going to Pieces and I was hooked forever. 

And now we are here. 

Also, here's a picture I found on my myspace. One year, we did this photo contest around Halloween with our severed limbs (....) where everyone got a turn with the camera and the limbs and put them in various places around my house. This was one of mine...

The caption under this on my myspace page was my abbreviation for "Don't question the madness!!!"

Remember, it was the adults' idea. It is their fault I am this way. 

I should probably thank them.