The Movie Post, part 2

[ivyfic]

Lost in Translation
This is another movie that didn't quite gel for me. It captured the collision of cultures in a way I've never seen done as effectively before. I've never been to Japan, but I have been to Brazil, which, unlike most places Americans travel, is completely alien—no one speaks English, everything is different. This film really got that. It used Japanese culture as a source of comedy, but in a way that wasn't ridiculing it, but showing that if you don't understand what's going on, these people look like madmen.

That being said, the movie was postcards. Just moments. It would set up a situation, then fade out in the middle instead of following through. I think this is a problem a lot of comedies have (though I wouldn't necessarily classify this as a comedy). I loved that they used the romantic structure but didn't bring it to fruition. I needed that relationship to remain innocent. As Bill Murray said in an interview, most romances de-emphasize the lives of the characters outside of the movie: no other relationship can be as important as the relationship on the screen. But at that moment in this film, they talk about their marriages, their families, and how important those things are. For Murray's character, talking about that reaffirmed how much he cares for his wife and kids.

However, Murray still cheated on his wife. I talked about this at lunch the other day, but I have a real hang-up about cheaters on film. I can not like a character who commits adultery. I can be sympathetic, I can understand it, I can find them fascinating or intriguing, I can be engaged by the drama, but the moment a character crosses that line, I can't like them. I think this film depends on the audience liking Murray's character, so, for all that it was intelligently handled, made perfect sense for the character and the film, that burst the bubble for me.

I was also left wondering why Bill Murray is the star of this film. I thought it was as much about Scarlett Johansson as Murray. Hell, the first shot is of her ass. This is the first film I've ever not been annoyed by her in—I actually really liked her. She played that vulnerability so well, the lost-ness that comes from asking someone else to define you. The film is about both of them. So why'd it get Murray an Oscar and Johansson nothing?

Making Love
This is the cheesiest, most melodramatic, overly process-y film I've ever seen. Lifetime films don't navel-gaze this much. The premise is that Michael Ontkean (remember him? He's Sherrif Truman in Twin Peaks) is happily married until one day, like a bolt out of the blue, he realizes he's gay. He has an affair with a man and divorces his wife. The only things this has going for it are:
- It pays a lot of attention to the wife—how this affects her is the center of the film, not his sexual awakening. Given the constant discussion of the marginalization of women in slash, this was refreshing.
- The (incredibly non-explicit) gay sex is of the vaseline on lens, soft focus variety. Why is this a plus? Given that this came out in 1980, it was an unusual and positive thing, I think, to show two men "making love" as the title says, instead of just having sex. It validates it to portray gay sex with the same romantic haze as straight sex is often given on screen.
- And, of course, the fact that this film was made at all. In the documentary The Celluloid Closet, the creator of this film talked about how audiences started booing when the men kissed. I'd like to think they were just booing the writing… But it was a brave and unusual thing to make a film about, and I'd attribute 90% of the painful earnestness of the movie to that alone. I mean, the theatrical trailer has a full minute of disclaimers in front of it, making it the worst trailer I've ever seen.

The film's an interesting cultural artifact, but really not worth it.

Blade
I can't help but think of this film as one year pre-Matrix. It's slick, and the action is awesome, and Wesley Snipes looks cool, but in the context of the action film just around the corner, I end up feeling like this is a middle of the pack genre film. And there's nothing like seeing ten-year-old CGI to remind you how good even stuff on tv looks now. Yeeargh. Some of those effects were atrocious.

I spent most of the film thinking about how unusual it was to have a black man be the lead in a comic book film, but for the most part, the role could have been played by a white guy without changing how the material was handled. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but the race of the main character didn't seem to have any great effect on the subject matter. Of course, they tried to make it all about pure bloods versus half breeds (how can you be born a vampire, by the way?), but I think the point was undercut by casting a white guy as the villain (and with the most annoying haircut in the world, too).

Whatever. Mindless fun. I'm sure trinityvixen will tell me how wrong I am. :)

Up next, Gremlins. No, I've never seen it, even though my grandmother reccomended it to me.

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

(how can you be born a vampire, by the way?)

If a mommy and a daddy really really love each other, and the daddy happens to be a bloodsucking fiend, then the stork will plant a diamond in the cabbage patch...

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

You suck. eeheeheeheehee

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I liked Blade II better, actually. My problem with Blade was that it was too gross. I know, I know, "Who is this person and what has she done with trinityvixen?" But really, it was. The giant fat vampire being roasted to death (who was just gross to begin with); the vampire who was all burnt up and got up and ran away; the vampire who lost his hand; all the vampires turning red, bubbly and EXPLODING everywhere...ugh. It just shocked me how disgusting it was when everything about the central character was smooth and stylized.

Blade II, which put out uber-ghoulish vampires was gross, but I was sorta able to handle it better as they were really only zombies of a vampire-bent. I don't think the way the vampire-zombies worked was that much less gross, but the whole movie had more of a horror-flick vibe to it that somehow excused it (perhaps because we were introduced to our stock and trade characters that only existed to get 'et).

Story-wise, Blade, Blade II, and Blade Trinity are dragged down by the fact that Wesley Snipes is the star. His narcissism carries across. Everything is about Blade. That's fantastic. It's also completely boring. OMG he is a vampire! Will he succumb!? OMG! OMG! Bor-ing. The villains are what make it interesting for me, which is another reason I liked II better. The crazy corporate vampires are a more believably threatening and ominous evil to fight that Stephen Dorff's loner-kid rebellious teen vampire shtick. Dorff was rebelling against a soulless cabal we didn't care about and was also a prick. Yippee. Blade II had the Blood Pack (the aforementioned stock solider characters), which included Ron Perlman who always manages to be interesting and make things better than they should be (this is the man who elevated his role as angry grunt in Alien Resurrection through the use of perfect grammar--"I am not the man with whom to fuck!"). Hell, Dracula was boring as hell in Blade Trinity, but who cared when Parker Posey was there to flirt with Callum Keith Rennie (who was playing her brother)?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

As for the issue of treating Blade the same whether he's black or white, that's always been a problem, far as I've seen. Blade was always black, but I'm almost positive that, given the demographic of the guys drawing comics when he was created, he was written by white guys. Credit where it's due, Wesley Snipes' interest in the character may have given the film version more connection to his skin-color identity. But is it still lacking? Of course. The character was made black to make him bad-ass, just like some writers throw in East Asian artifacts in their work to make things seem "foreign" (I love it, but Firefly is SO guilty of this).

The color blindness is a form of prejudice in itself--it presupposes that treating all men and women equal mens treating them as if they are the same. They're not. Whether or not the writer is colorblind, the other people in Blade's world would not be. A redneck hick like Whistler ought to have a more contentious relationship, you'd think, with a black street-wise kid (okay, that's stereotyping, and, hey, vampirism changes EVERYTHING, but still). I dunno how to fix it--how to write Blade as "blacker"--but I can see what you're getting at.

This is also a case of the problematic, unfortunately termed "magical negro." It's like Morpheus in The Matrix (which you reminded me of). By virtue of being an other of some variety, in this case skin color, the black character is both elevated and relegated to otherness. Sure, he's more learned/savvy/strong/magical than the white guy, but the point of the story is usually that the white guy will catch up. Unfortunately, in Blade Trinity, that came true with Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds holding their own against vampires as normal humans. If Blade had been a white character, would he have been saddled with a plot line that required the help of young white kids? I doubt it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Vampire puns. You should be ashamed.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Also, the "real" answer is...um, never explained. Vampires are capable of giving birth to other vampires or turning humans into them. It is also possible to fix vampires and turn them human again. What I'd like to know is if you maim a vampire and he heals and then you make him human again, does he suffer the wound anew? Or can you just wait till he heals and is all betters then?

(I guess--and I can't believe I'm phrasing it this way--I want to know what the "Meg" effect is on the human body post-vampirism.)

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Well, if they don't regain the wound, wouldn't vamping someone then curing them be the magic bullet? You'd have a vamp in every hospital to heal the terminal patients. God--it would be awesome. Like, maybe you only get vamped and magically healed if you're about to die, so people with disfiguring non-lethal injuries hurt themselves further hoping they'll get vamped... I digress.

[gryphonrose.livejournal.com]

I liked Lost in Translation, but we discussed that. I do agree about the cheating, though. And I think he got the Oscar nod and she didn't because the Academy is all about friendships and such and he's been around a long time. She's still new enough that she'll get plenty of shots at winning an Oscar herself.

I personally don't much like Blade. I think the opening rave scene is fantastic, but after that the movie, well, sucks. :) Snipes is sleepwalking through it, and it shows. And the plot is idiotic. And sunglasses? Don't get me started.

I haven't seen Blade Trinity but Blade II was a better movie than Blade in pretty much every way imaginable.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

This is why the second season of Heroes got bad. Because they opened this exact can of worms.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

My problem with Blade was that it was too gross.
It really was. I was constantly reaffirming my decision to not watch it when it came out. I assessed as a 17-year-old that I would not have been able to watch that, and I was right. And it really is a clash in styles--sort of the way I felt about all the slime in Hellboy and Van Helsing.

loner-kid rebellious teen vampire shtick
Exactly. What a boring, overdone villain. I kept thinking about season 2 Buffy and Spike's whole "I like the world, it has food and sex in it, why would I want to end it?" speech and wishing that the villain in this film had that sort of characterization, rather than just being "I'm evil! I end world now!"

Callum Keith Rennie? There's Callum Keith Rennie? *adds to queue*

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I felt about all the slime in Hellboy and Van Helsing.
Interesting. Hadn't thought about that being the reason why Hellboy was such a turn-off. Hrmm.

wishing that the villain in this film had that sort of characterization, rather than just being "I'm evil! I end world now!"
This is why Ghostbusters is still the most relevant movie to all horror/sci-fi/fantasy ever. Because Bill Murray got to question clairvoyants about knowing when the end of the world was coming and how impractical that was for everyone. The Mummy Returns had a pretty good riff on this, too: "Ah, the old 'end of the world' ploy."

Callum Keith Rennie? There's Callum Keith Rennie? *adds to queue*
I'd offer to loan you my copy of Blade Trinity but I don't think viridian has given it back to me. I'll check. For a moment there, I was like, "Wait a tic, she knows CKR is in Trinity. I'm sure I told her." I'd mixed up my CKR fangirls.

He's not in it for much, but he's in it enough to be fun. If you listen to the commentary (which is hilarious and not just because they make very sure not to talk about the star of the movie at all), you'll be glad to hear that at least Ryan Reynolds is in awe of CKR's fame and thinks it's a shame he wasn't used much in the film.

Parkey Posey is the most fun thing in that movie. Ryan Reynolds is funnier, punchline-wise, but she has all these fussy little mannerisms and cutesyness contrasted with violence and vulgarity. She's the complete package.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

They really do write Blade just the same as if he were white. And making him black purely because they want the physical menace of a black man--wow, that's...that's really problematic. It's like that whole SGA argument I had where people were saying limiting Ronon's positive attributes to the physical was a compliment and has nothing at all to do with the noble savage archetype or the fact that they give worth to the mental attributes of only the white characters...

I don't want him to be a black caricature, that would be bad too, but his race does need to inform his character. I do like a little reminder that black culture and white culture are not always the same thing. This portrayal seems completely oblivious of any racial subtext at all.

Ah, yes, the magical negro. I've had such arguments with people over this. "But he's a powerful good guy! So it's not racist!" "But ascribing to him mystical abilities because he's a primitive black man, and then using him to serve the white guy's quest--don't you see the problem with that?" "You'd be upset if the black guy had no power too! You just expect too much!" "RARGH!!!!"

In Blade, he's not a magical negro. He is the hero, it's his quest (though the story is really about the girl--but since she's black too, that doesn't add any racial subtext). I'd have to watch Blade: Trinity to see, but there are plenty of sequels of sequels where the original hero is relegated to an Obi-Wan role cause he's too dang old (see Die Hard, Indiana Jones (presumably), Highlander (stab me with a fork), Terminator...). I don't think you can blame that on his race, per se, but it's one of those greater cultural context things that I wish producers wouldn't be so oblivious about.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

And making him black purely because they want the physical menace of a black man--wow, that's...that's really problematic.

That's pretty much it, yeah. In fact, before people got a skosh more PC, Blade didn't have any vampire abilities. He was just a human who hunted vampires. So in the comics this exact sentiment was pretty much entirely the argument for why Blade is so suited to hunting vampires. Big + black = dangerous!

This portrayal seems completely oblivious of any racial subtext at all.

Uh, especially the part where the white guy is his vampire sire (aka father)? A white guy basically forced a vampire child on a pregnant black woman and then kept the vampirized woman in his pleasure den while the baby was chucked out. Wow.

Re: the magical negro--That comment was really directed at the comics, vis a vis the only person able to destroy supernatural creatures is some big badass other (aka a black guy). No, the movies aren't exactly as bad, but I'm not entirely forgiving them either. The best they can claim is that the scientist in the first movie was also black. Holy shit, black people can use SCIENCE to cure diseases!?! Who knew!?

I can has subtext?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I forgot about the rave scene. That was pretty fabulous. And I agree that Blade II was better. The coolness quotient wasn't as important as the horror stuff and the humor, both of which made the thing less depressingly serious all the goddamned time.

[tirtzah.livejournal.com]

Lost in Translation is the first thing I saw Scarlett Johanson in, so I was inclined to like her other work more from this movie. The reason it's Bill Murray starring in this movie is because Sofia Coppola specifically wrote the role with him in mind. Frankly I enjoyed his performance in this much more than many of his broader comedies.

The movie was fairly accurate depicting Japan IMO. The Japanese have a very wacky, over the top sense of humor. I remember when the film came out it got some flack from some (clearly uninformed) critics about it's portrayal of Japanese culture. But it's really pretty dead-on. Which is not to say Japanese culture does not have it's subtleties. I would say that the tone and some of the motifs in LiT are specifically inspired by Japanese culture.

Btw if you look on YouTube you can find a video where someone took the last scene in the movie and enhanced the sound so you can hear what he says to her at the end. Questionable as to whether you'd want to. For me it had been so long since I'd seen the original movie that it didn't affect my experience of it.

Oh and Sofia Coppola's other movie The Virgin Suicides is also really awesome.

[moonlightalice.livejournal.com]

I hated Virgin Suicides!

I liked Lost in Translation. I thought it was poignant, and good, but I don't think I'd watch it again. I liked the way it treated its characters tenderly, as delicate things caught up in the crazy spiral of life without a sort of solid center. It's the perfect visual representation of alienation. That being said, it's a better art piece than film and it got, well, boring sometimes.