This was really distasteful, all in all. Just... ick.
CW: sexual assault
All right, plot: three friends work at a downward trending amusement park. After borrowing an evil book from the fortune teller, they jokingly make a blood oath on it, only to have the friend who reneges on it (by not giving a mint to the other upon request) get dragged into hell, with the other two in tow. The oath-violating friend is kidnapped, and the other two set out in a bumbling manner to rescue him. Subplots include the Devil being in love with an angel and trying to trap the other two to pass off to her, and a half-devil, half-demon woman searching for her long absent father, Orpheus (AKA, an expert in getting people out of hell). The whole thing is an a semi-claymation style that should be more endearing than it is.
Ok, so not a great premise, though in general, I'm always willing to give the "deal with the devil" archetypal plot a go. But the voice cast is an excellent array of some top level comedians: Bob Odenkirk as the devil, T. J. Miller as Augie, one of the two friends (Nick Swardson plays the other; I don't know him, but his performance was good enough); Rob Riggle as Curt, the friend whose soul is in trouble; Susan Sarandon as an angel; Danny McBride as Orpheus; and supporting roles from Maria Bamford, H. Jon Benjamin, Jennifer Coolridge, Kumail Nankiana, Brian Posehn, Paul Scheer, Greg Proops, Dana Snyder, and Paul F. Tompkins, and, while not exactly a comedian, Mila Kunis as Deema the female devil . It was basically that cast list that convinced me to try the film, despite its low Amazon rating.
Nope. In terms of plot, it doesn't work because of the sheer number of times a character acts without any particular reason, or changes their mind on a dime. Every character in the movie is kind of gross, with the exception of Deema. How much you care about the outcome depends on wanting the leads to get out of hell and rescue Curt, and I was actively rooting for failure at points. It's demeaning to all its female characters--of the four significant ones, two are supposed to be comical because of their grotesque bodies (fatness and age), and the other are ridiculously sexualized. The male characters in regards to the women are either "Good Guys," horndogs, or alternate randomly between the two. And Orpheus' backstory and the movie's climax hinge directly around tree rape.(The worst thing that can ever be leveled at the Evil Dead series is that it popularized tree rape as a comedy trope.)
Let's unpack that last one. By far the most interesting idea the film has is that Orpheus is an action hero/smuggler type, but in person, he's also a self-important asshole. Danny McBride in general is hit or miss for me, but I think he does pretty well in the role. But it's heavily implied that the reason for his behaviour is a tree molestation. And at the end of the story, our heroes lead the devil into a tree rape ambush. It's all gross, and doesn't improve with repetition.
A frequent debate in comedy is what, if anything, should be off limits. On the one side, you have people arguing that comedy that's racist or misogynist or turns rape into a punchline trivializes and normalizes certain modes of thought. On the other hand, you have basically the free speech argument, that comedians should be free to say what they want, and that humour can be a useful tool for critiquing social issues.
In virtually any circumstances, I'd defer to the former argument, and absolutely understand anyone who refused flat out to tolerate jokes on one of these subjects. For me personally, my response to the second argument is that yes, you're free to say that--but being free to say something doesn't also free you from the consequences of saying it. And yes, humour can be a useful tool, but in that case, message, execution, and audience come into play.
For example, let's compare this movie to Amy Schumer's "Friday Night Lights" sketch in 2015. (And yes, there are a lot of valid arguments that can be leveled against Schumer too, but for the argument at hand, the focus is the sketch.) It's a sketch about the prevalence of rape culture in sports, and it works for me. The humor makes a statement about the connection between rape culture and sports, by exaggerating the players' sense of sexual entitlement. In Hell and Back, it gets a decent amount of humor around Orpheus, through the juxtaposition of our notion of an ancient Greek hero known for his devotion to love against his actual character as a jackass fratboy. But the tree rape doesn't have that humour. Basically, it seems to be playing on three ideas:
a) it's funny because it's a reference to Evil Dead
b) it's funny because men being raped is inherently funny
c) it's funny because powerful men being raped by trees is inherently funny
a) is really more a substitute for humor rather than actual humor. b) and c) are basically just ways of trivializing rape against men, which just perpetuates really awful notions about masculinity. It's gross, and I think a lot less of the film for including it, and a little less of the people associated with the film.
Incidentally, my favorite gag of the film is a repeated gag where Paul F. Thompson voices a soul undergoing very small amounts of hellish torments.
Demon: "Welcome to Pizza Hut Taco Bell. What'll you have?"
PFT: "I think I'll have a medium pizza with pepperoni."
Demon: "All out! Only tacos! Because you're in hell!"
PFT: "Oh, I see."
Demon: "Now ask for a cheese pizza."
PFT: "All right. Could I get a---"
Demon: "No! Welcome to hell! Order again!"
PFT: "You know, I think I see where this is going."
More of that. Less tree rape.
Later Days.
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie review. Show all posts
Saturday, January 21, 2017
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A Prawn Too Far; District 9 Movie Review
So originally I was going to go to a burlesque show last night (Hi Mom!), and in preparation for that experience I was already mentally composing my blog entry. It would have been about my ambiguity on the subject: on the one hand, it is attractive women dancing, which I understand has a certain appeal to many, and people should be free to express their bodies. On the other hand, a small part of me still feels that "burlesque" is a fancy way of saying 'stripping.' Not that there's anything wrong with stripping, per se. Actually, according to my home province Saskatchewan, there is something wrong with it, which is why it's illegal there to serve alcohol in a strip club. So there would have been a tour de force of conflicting emotion and ethical conundrum, and at some point, I'd talk about actually seeing the show.
But a few guys were out of town, a few were busy, and the few remaining were also ambiguous about the whole thing.
So we went to see Quentin Tarintino's Inglorious Basterds instead. I'm not a big fan of Tarintino. Don't get me wrong; I like all out to the point of ridiculous action flicks--Shoot 'Em Up, the movie where there's a birth delivery/gun fight, is a favorite of mine. What I don't like in Tarintino's movies is that they try to have it both ways; they try to be big important art films and ridiculous action movies at the same time. Exhibit A: the Kill Bill series. Although I'll admit, those are the only two Tarintino movies I've actually seen, and I honestly do believe that a film can be a ridiculous action movie and important artistically. So that blog post would have been a tour de force of conflicting emotion and ethical conundrum, and at some point, I'd talk about actually seeing the movie.
But it was sold out when we got there, and the only other choices were GI Joe and District 9, so we went to see District 9.
(I'm reaching new levels of non sequitor preambles here. Laurence Sterne would be proud.)
District 9 is a sci-fi film about how people interact with aliens. Its plot isn't entirely original for science fiction in general, but it somewhat of a novelty for the big screen. An alien ship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. And in case you missed the significance of the location, the characters remind you: this isn't an alien encounter in New York, or Washington, but at the heart of former apartheid Africa. After a year or so of communication silence, a joint government initiative forces their way into the spacecraft, and finds a million or so aliens, slowly starving to death. The giant, chittering creatures--soon derogatorily nicknamed 'prawns' for their appearance--are relocated to District 9 just outside of Johannesburg. The district quickly descends into a slum, and the prawn live in complete squalor. Xenophobia in Johannesburg rises to a breaking point, and Multi-National United, the agency that has been contracted to monitor the prawn, decides to forcibly relocate the prawn to another area further from the city.
Enter MNU official Wikus van der Merwe, the man in charge of informing the prawn of their relocation. Originally, Wikus comes off as a slightly annoying bereaucrat; imagine a toned-down Michael Scott (more the British version than the American) and you're not far off. But over the course of the day, we see a more complete picture: he's somewhat cowardly when dealing with the military side of MNU, somewhat incompetent, since he got his job because of his father-in-law, and just as xenophobic and racist as anyone else. His sole redeeming virtue is his devotion to his wife, a fairly stunning Dutch woman. As an example of the kind of man Wikus is, before moving the prawns, by UN law MNU needs them to sign documents saying they've received 24 hour notice of eviction. Usually, Wikus bribes them into signing with cans of cat food. When one of the prawn objects to the legality of the eviction, Wikus plays hard ball: realizing that the younger prawn nearby is the first's son, he tells the prawn that the child is living in squalor, and thus Wikus has to take the child away--unless, of course, the prawn would like to just sign, and forget the whole thing. Charming. He's far more concerned with getting a good performance review than helping the first alien race humanity has come across.
Unfortunately for him, he doesn't seem likely to get either. Due to a series of mishaps, Wikus soon finds himself a fugitive from the MNU. The movie can be roughly divided into three parts: an early documentary mode that describes the aliens' arrival up to the early stages of the eviction; Wikus' fugitive run, and a confrontation at District 9. Personally, despite its slowness, I preferred the early documentary part, although the whole film was entertaining. You might guess from what I've described that the film essentially depicts the prawn as refugees, and the film definitely has a sharp postcolonial point. It's too bad I already did a postcolonial paper on aliens, because after this movie, I want to do another one. The prawn are so alien it's easy to justify the subhuman conditions they are treated to--which, of course, is the point.
The film strikes an interesting balance between being an anti-alien-based blockbuster summer flick, and, well, being an alien-based blockbuster summer flick. Originally, no one in the film is at all likeable; our main character, Wikus, is pretty contemptible. MNU in general seems composed of petty beareaucrats, militia men working out their aggression on the aliens, and businessmen obsessed with figuring out how to profit off the prawn and their alien weaponry. The native Africaners are represented by those running a black market district for the aliens, occasionally killing one and eating it to gain their strength (which, frankly, went a step too far, but whatever). Even the prawn, with one exception, are constantly seen as too bestial, too ugly, too inhuman to sympathize with. (The sole exception is the smarter prawn mentioned earlier, assigned the human name Christopher Johnson.)In most alien films like this the aliens are portrayed as remote and evil (Think Independence Day), but putting the aliens at the humans' mercy really turns the tables. This is the state of the film for about half of its running time; then it flips, and becomes, bluntly, a balls-out action film. It's very well done action, but all the previous ambiguities are thrust aside. It's like someone saw the film and said, "yeah, that's deep, but howzabout we rewrite the ending so it's... you know, profitable?"
It should also be noted that this is not the movie to take young children to, regardless of its superior depth over most alien-based blockbusters. There's some pretty gory moments in those action scenes, and Wikus has a tendency to drop the f-bomb a lot when he's under stress--and as far as his character's concerned, this film is a pressure cooker.
Again, both halves of the movie are well done; the story is compelling, the execution works fine, and the special effects are superb, especially for the prawn themselves. But it feels like the film is a compromise, and I left the theatre wondering what the original movie was meant to be.
Later Days.
But a few guys were out of town, a few were busy, and the few remaining were also ambiguous about the whole thing.
So we went to see Quentin Tarintino's Inglorious Basterds instead. I'm not a big fan of Tarintino. Don't get me wrong; I like all out to the point of ridiculous action flicks--Shoot 'Em Up, the movie where there's a birth delivery/gun fight, is a favorite of mine. What I don't like in Tarintino's movies is that they try to have it both ways; they try to be big important art films and ridiculous action movies at the same time. Exhibit A: the Kill Bill series. Although I'll admit, those are the only two Tarintino movies I've actually seen, and I honestly do believe that a film can be a ridiculous action movie and important artistically. So that blog post would have been a tour de force of conflicting emotion and ethical conundrum, and at some point, I'd talk about actually seeing the movie.
But it was sold out when we got there, and the only other choices were GI Joe and District 9, so we went to see District 9.
(I'm reaching new levels of non sequitor preambles here. Laurence Sterne would be proud.)
District 9 is a sci-fi film about how people interact with aliens. Its plot isn't entirely original for science fiction in general, but it somewhat of a novelty for the big screen. An alien ship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. And in case you missed the significance of the location, the characters remind you: this isn't an alien encounter in New York, or Washington, but at the heart of former apartheid Africa. After a year or so of communication silence, a joint government initiative forces their way into the spacecraft, and finds a million or so aliens, slowly starving to death. The giant, chittering creatures--soon derogatorily nicknamed 'prawns' for their appearance--are relocated to District 9 just outside of Johannesburg. The district quickly descends into a slum, and the prawn live in complete squalor. Xenophobia in Johannesburg rises to a breaking point, and Multi-National United, the agency that has been contracted to monitor the prawn, decides to forcibly relocate the prawn to another area further from the city.
Enter MNU official Wikus van der Merwe, the man in charge of informing the prawn of their relocation. Originally, Wikus comes off as a slightly annoying bereaucrat; imagine a toned-down Michael Scott (more the British version than the American) and you're not far off. But over the course of the day, we see a more complete picture: he's somewhat cowardly when dealing with the military side of MNU, somewhat incompetent, since he got his job because of his father-in-law, and just as xenophobic and racist as anyone else. His sole redeeming virtue is his devotion to his wife, a fairly stunning Dutch woman. As an example of the kind of man Wikus is, before moving the prawns, by UN law MNU needs them to sign documents saying they've received 24 hour notice of eviction. Usually, Wikus bribes them into signing with cans of cat food. When one of the prawn objects to the legality of the eviction, Wikus plays hard ball: realizing that the younger prawn nearby is the first's son, he tells the prawn that the child is living in squalor, and thus Wikus has to take the child away--unless, of course, the prawn would like to just sign, and forget the whole thing. Charming. He's far more concerned with getting a good performance review than helping the first alien race humanity has come across.
Unfortunately for him, he doesn't seem likely to get either. Due to a series of mishaps, Wikus soon finds himself a fugitive from the MNU. The movie can be roughly divided into three parts: an early documentary mode that describes the aliens' arrival up to the early stages of the eviction; Wikus' fugitive run, and a confrontation at District 9. Personally, despite its slowness, I preferred the early documentary part, although the whole film was entertaining. You might guess from what I've described that the film essentially depicts the prawn as refugees, and the film definitely has a sharp postcolonial point. It's too bad I already did a postcolonial paper on aliens, because after this movie, I want to do another one. The prawn are so alien it's easy to justify the subhuman conditions they are treated to--which, of course, is the point.
The film strikes an interesting balance between being an anti-alien-based blockbuster summer flick, and, well, being an alien-based blockbuster summer flick. Originally, no one in the film is at all likeable; our main character, Wikus, is pretty contemptible. MNU in general seems composed of petty beareaucrats, militia men working out their aggression on the aliens, and businessmen obsessed with figuring out how to profit off the prawn and their alien weaponry. The native Africaners are represented by those running a black market district for the aliens, occasionally killing one and eating it to gain their strength (which, frankly, went a step too far, but whatever). Even the prawn, with one exception, are constantly seen as too bestial, too ugly, too inhuman to sympathize with. (The sole exception is the smarter prawn mentioned earlier, assigned the human name Christopher Johnson.)In most alien films like this the aliens are portrayed as remote and evil (Think Independence Day), but putting the aliens at the humans' mercy really turns the tables. This is the state of the film for about half of its running time; then it flips, and becomes, bluntly, a balls-out action film. It's very well done action, but all the previous ambiguities are thrust aside. It's like someone saw the film and said, "yeah, that's deep, but howzabout we rewrite the ending so it's... you know, profitable?"
It should also be noted that this is not the movie to take young children to, regardless of its superior depth over most alien-based blockbusters. There's some pretty gory moments in those action scenes, and Wikus has a tendency to drop the f-bomb a lot when he's under stress--and as far as his character's concerned, this film is a pressure cooker.
Again, both halves of the movie are well done; the story is compelling, the execution works fine, and the special effects are superb, especially for the prawn themselves. But it feels like the film is a compromise, and I left the theatre wondering what the original movie was meant to be.
Later Days.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
It's PROBABLY the most male genetalia you'll see in a superhero movie: A Spoiler-Laden review of "Watchmen"
I went to see the Watchmen film earlier today. For those unaware of the film, the bare-bones plot is that the Comedian, a gun-toting, government-sponsored superhero is found dead in his apartment, and the superhero group "The Watchmen" slowly band together to find out the truth. But it's much more than just a whodunit story with capes; it's a deconstruction of the superhero genre, a reimagining of the world under the existence of super-heroes, and a period-piece of the mid-eighties cold war mentality.
In fact, it's such a product of its time that I've heard people criticize it on that level. The original series by Alan Moore came out in the mid-eighties, and relies heavily on the fear of global destruction and mutual annihilation. The movie's set in the same period, and I've heard complaints that the movie lacks the same impact the comics did, because we're no longer in the same place in history. I suppose the alternative is to either modernize the entire plot (which would have ended very, very badly), or not do the movie at all.
There's actually a lot going on behind the "do we need a Watchmen movie?" argument. I think there's a bit of a nostalgia element at work--for a lot of people, the Watchmen is the first truly great comic series they ever read, so any adaptation pales by comparison. And this adaptation is so faithful that there's not really anything terribly new if you've already read the comics--as comic blogger Rachelle Gougen says, the reason for fans to see the movie is to watch the story come to life. And, of course, there is also the issue that Watchmen creator really, really doesn't like comic book movies. (Feel free to read to page 4, in which he states that the reason Americans like superheroes is "America has an inordinate fondness for the unfair fight." Gee, why didn't they use him for promoting the film?)
And one should always, always take into account what Alan Moore feels about a subject, because
he is
the scariest comic book writer
ever to walk the earth.
In fact, it's such a product of its time that I've heard people criticize it on that level. The original series by Alan Moore came out in the mid-eighties, and relies heavily on the fear of global destruction and mutual annihilation. The movie's set in the same period, and I've heard complaints that the movie lacks the same impact the comics did, because we're no longer in the same place in history. I suppose the alternative is to either modernize the entire plot (which would have ended very, very badly), or not do the movie at all.
There's actually a lot going on behind the "do we need a Watchmen movie?" argument. I think there's a bit of a nostalgia element at work--for a lot of people, the Watchmen is the first truly great comic series they ever read, so any adaptation pales by comparison. And this adaptation is so faithful that there's not really anything terribly new if you've already read the comics--as comic blogger Rachelle Gougen says, the reason for fans to see the movie is to watch the story come to life. And, of course, there is also the issue that Watchmen creator really, really doesn't like comic book movies. (Feel free to read to page 4, in which he states that the reason Americans like superheroes is "America has an inordinate fondness for the unfair fight." Gee, why didn't they use him for promoting the film?)
And one should always, always take into account what Alan Moore feels about a subject, because
he is
the scariest comic book writer
ever to walk the earth.Anyway, this movie is probably the best movie based on an Alan Moore comic ever to come out, and after V for Vendetta, that's actually a positive thing. It's got a lot of harsh language, graphic nudity, both male and female, and really, really graphic violence. If you don't mind any of this, then you're going to have a very enjoyable experience. Also, Rorschach's inner monologue is every bit as hilarious spoken aloud as I thought it would be. It's like Batman, if he accidently wandered from Gotham to Sin City.
Later Days.
Later Days.
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