Sunshine Cleaning

I have to say, I have been thinking about this film almost constantly since I watched it last night. Never have I seen a film that I connected with so strongly, but yet felt so ambivalent towards at its conclusion. The characters were deep and flawed and interesting and expertly acted by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt with support from Alan Arkin and Mary Lynn Rajskub. It was quirky and unique and felt very real. Almost every scene completely drew me in. I loved the dark humor. I thought the mother's suicide and her appearance in the made for TV movie was perfectly revealed and used throughout the film. I felt these characters' loss and believed that they would still be so affected by this loss that it shaped everything about who they became as adults.

So why did such a great premise, with dynamic engaging characters, fall flat? I can only guess that all the pieces were there, but that they were just assembled incorrectly. I think editing killed this movie. So many wonderful scenes were missing reflection or aftermath. The characters would go through these touching moments and then nothing. We wouldn't see how this experience affected them. We wouldn't see their response and how they changed from this moment and so, poof, the great scenes just disappeared from my mind. One example was when Emily Blunt's character went trestling with her (unmentioned) girlfriend Mary Lynn Rajskub. Emily Blunt had this great scene of pain and release under the train that was cross-cut with the revelation that her mother committed suicide when she was a child and that her and her sister found her dead in the bathtub. The problem with this scene is that she brings Mary Lynn with her to experience this moment with her, but we never see Mary Lynn again. We don't see her reaction to what Blunt is doing, we miss a great opportunity for them to confront each other and see what this cathartic release has done to Blunt. Has it helped her move on? Has it helped her to open up to a possible connection with Mary Lynn? Nothing. We get nothing. I don't know how to feel about this profound moment because I don't know how it affected the character at all. We don't get any follow up scenes to clue us in either.

I think another big flaw in the structure comes from how the story arcs play out. Amy Adams is definitely meant to be the lead of this film. We are supposed to want her to achieve her dreams and wind up in a better place. It is established pretty quickly that Adams wants a respectable job and a man to truly care about her. Her son's problems at school propel her into the crime scene clean-up profession and she really connects with the job and the people. She gets what she wants well before the film finishes. She builds a successful business, through this she finds the strength to leave the man who is having an affair with her, but will never leave his wife for her, and she has a realization that this job means something to her. She helps people and suddenly is fulfilled. She has achieved her objective. And right then the story takes a turn, Norah burns the house down that she tried to clean without her sister. For the remainder of the film we are much more concerned with Norah (Blunt) and her arc. It is about how she dealt with the loss of her mother and stepping out of her sisters shadow. How she could and could not do things without her sister in her life. Her sister had to take care of her because her mom was gone.

There is a great scene about the sisters coping with the loss of their mother and the responsibility they felt towards each other in the bathroom at her son's birthday party. It is followed by another fantastic scene where they finally see the made for TV movie with their mom, but after these scenes, we again get nothing. We are given absolutely no clues as to how this affects the characters and what they do next. How did this profound moment they have been waiting for all their life change them? I don't have a clue so why did they even put it in the movie? It felt so hacked together at the end. Nothing came together. All these beautiful set-ups with no pay-off. The end was just ambiguous in a completely detrimentally way to the characters and the story. I literally feel robbed. Never have I wanted a director's cut so badly. I desperately searched for some deleted scenes on the DVD and there was nothing.

After doing some research, I learned much of the Blunt/Rajskub storyline was cut. I guess it was a lesbian storyline that they just axed. Typical. But lesbian content aside, I really think Sunshine Cleaning was Norah's story. It became her story and how she overcomes the effect of her mother's suicide and her own irresponsibility that resulted from her always having her over-protective sister look after her. I think the relationship between her and that woman had a lot to do with her arc in her emotional recovery and to exclude it just made the movie feel hacked. We lost her recovery and in this we lost the emotional core of this film. This was almost one of my favorite films. It certainly contains some of my favorite scenes and characters, but in the end, it just fades into ambiguity and from my conscious.

Let the Right One In

This Swedish vampire flick was masterful at using indirection to create imagined horror. Everything about it was muted, from the silent opening titles to the subtle revelations of the vampire mythology. Slow motion falling snow, white-out landscapes lulled you into a quiet haven ripe for blood and horror, lust and love. The depth of field was so shallow, no matter how close or far away the shot, something was always out of focus. It felt claustrophobic, to be always confined within the frame by the focus of the image. People were rarely shown talking, they were either out of focus or off-screen and characters were frequently shown in profile. All these techniques helped us feel as out of place as Oskar (and consequently, the Vampire child).

The 12-year-old boy/girl was mesmerizing in the most disturbing way. You never saw fangs, just blood on the mouth and face, or blood from the eyes when she entered the house without being invited. The attacks took place in long shot and the animal like movements and sound effects were all we had to go on as to the possible power of this child, using its innocence to prey. Half way through the film she flew up the side of a building only to bite and drop out the window her paternal-esque caregiver. She was once a he, but that was hardly the focus of the love story. Disturbing, yet utterly fascinating, it draws you in. So young and so violent, revenge is paralleled with survival, both boy and vampire use murder or thoughts of murder for strength. The end was poetic. Floating underwater we hear muffled sounds, a flash of feet break the surface and skim backward. A severed head and arm plunge into the calm and sink to the bottom. Cut to the biggest, most captivating 12-year-old eyes ever filmed, the smiling, bloody vampire-child to the rescue. Cut to a brief wide shot of the carnage. Our imagination of what happened is so much worse than anything they could have filmed. And now both boy and vampire are on a train and the cycle begins again. This was a perfectly paced, understated vampire film that gives you just enough horror to let your imagination run free.

earth and 17 Again

While Disney's earth turned out to be a disappointing re-edit of the Planet Earth BBC documentary, leaving that did provide the opportunity to see a good chunk of 17 Again. Yeah, I admit, I would direct a tween hit if it got my foot in the door, especially since the highest paid woman director in Hollywood made Twilight, another tween movie that played directly to its MTV dependent audience and nothing more. She didn't have a clue what any of the scenes were about except for the bedroom scene. Anytime it was about to get interesting the camera panned away, but man did those girlies scream for the guy. This movie definitely capitalized on Zac Effron's hotness in similar ways. Although his character was a little off the wall in terms of sometimes getting the reality of how old he was supposed to be and sometimes not, I still found myself laughing at this made up world. It definitely stuck with its absurdest tone and used it to get laughs. Zac Effron having to court someone his mom's age was also hilarious. I think no matter what the genre, a good story, well told can reach just about anyone. I'm not saying this was either, but I don't think tween movies have to be limited to just that audience. Everyone went to high school and universalities can be found anywhere.

Star Trek

After ranting about Wolverine for so long I don't have much let to say about this film that would be any different. It was very pretty and generally an exhilarating space rollercoaster, but I was left with the same feelings I have after riding a rollercoaster, "man, that was a rush," but the feeling fades and you aren't left with anything substantial to hold on to. Having not be very familiar with the original Star Trek series, all the character introductions that took up the majority of the first part of the movie were confusing and fell flat for me. I basically had to start guessing that we were meeting someone important because Kirk was introducing himself for like the 8th time. I didn't really see much of an arc for Kirk because he was always an arrogant asshole, with a little bit of bad-boy charm thrown into the mix. I didn't understand his rebellion and struggle to join Starfleet. That was all resolved too quickly and then he didn't change the rest of the film. Him and Sylar's (aka Spock) relationship didn't have as much of an impact for me because I am not familiar with the original friendship between them so I didn't appreciate their fighting like hardcore fans did (uhumm Dustin). Again for me this film was a lot of action that I wasn't emotionally invested in and the story seemed to be split too much between Spock and Kirk so that I didn't feel that I got a true arc or identification with either of them. Emotions ran shallow for me in this one and arcs looked more like slightly curved lines. So much was on the surface and the world destroying ship was cliche. Winona Ryder as Spock's mom was laugh out loud ridiculous. Otherwise, it was a fun little ride, but I'm not dying to get in line for it again.

I think I'll post some pictures rather than write more because those are fun. Some of the retro 70s throwbacks, like hair and make-up were neat, but women were non-existent in this film unless they were literally giving birth or having sex with the lead male. Boo.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

A perfect example of why women should direct action movies. So much screen time was wasted showing us pointless action sequences that mean nothing at all because we know that both Wolverine and Sabertooth live on to be in the first X-Men movie. So how do you make an action movie interesting when you already know the hero and villain won't be killed? You have to give us some emotional dramatic tension. Give us a freaking reason to care about these people! The opening war montage was ridiculous because we have already seen war footage from all the various wars of the world in tons of other movies. Why do we need to see both these guys run angrily through the battlefield being indestructible? We know they can heal. What we need to see is how they both feel about the fact that they are essentially gods that can't die and have decided to spend their extended lives killing people. Give us these moments of emotional connection when we learn that Sabertooth has let the power of immortality and the ability to take lives make him a crazy killer with a god complex while all the atrocities have made Wolverine completely disgusted with his own power. Let us see how they react to horror and each other. Let us see the love they have for each other so we care when that brotherly love is threatened and finally ripped away.

I was also thinking about the scene when Wolverine gets his adamantium skeleton. All the tension in this scene is based on the fear that he may die from the procedure, but we all know that he won't die so it completely falls flat. What would have really helped this scene was going back to the original origins hinted at in the first movie, that procedure took months and months to complete. That he had to undergo the treatment day in and day out in order to complete it. Let us see Wolverine at his absolute weakest, at his breaking point. He absolutely cannot take anymore pain. The daily procedures are too much for even him to bear and they only thing that keeps him going are his thoughts of Kayla. She comes to him in his dreams and keeps him motivated and bent on revenge. (This could even be questionable, because once we find out she is still alive it could be that she was real, not his imagination, and another construction by Striker to complete the ultimate experiment. Rad.) Also this would have been way more effective if we cared at all about their love story, which also would have been way more effective if we understood more why Wolverine could no longer take the inhumanity of all of his multiple lifetimes of killing. If all he has done is kill for his country than why does he suddenly get a conscious in Africa? I don't get it.

The stunts were neat, but we saw them all in the trailer and I was just as invested in the characters during the trailer as I was during the film, which is not a lot. The high points came when we got to see the other, younger mutants deal with the newness of their powers, like Scott Summers and the Diamond skinned girl, but these moments were far too fleeting. Gambit was also a high point, but his story was a cluster-fuck mess. Why the hell was he fighting Wolverine when Sabertooth, the guy who initially captured him, was right there? Hugh Jackman is usually complicated and captivating as Wolverine, but I only ever saw one note from this guy. Angry and more angry. His angry meter being indicated by how high his eyebrow was arched. I wanted him to be vulnerable and feel and truly fall in love. His memory loss felt very tacked on and Kayla dying when she did was pointless. It would have been waaaaaay better if she had lived. I would have really felt the tragedy of his memory loss if I knew that the love of his life was still out there somewhere and he just didn't remember her. Having her die and he doesn't recognize her was just like meh, whatever. Which pretty much sums up how I felt for the whole movie.

My final conclusion: I think women should direct action films because so many of them lately, Watchmen included, only care about neat action, but I have seen it all before and I am starting to zone out during pretty action scenes lately because I just don't care. Action only works if you are emotionally invested in the consequences of the fight. What will the character lose if they don't win the fight? What will they gain by winning? It all comes back to hopes and fear which can only be expressed if you have those scenes of emotional connection between the characters before the action. Please Hollywood, make me care!

A side note, the comedy completely fell flat and the tone of this movie was all over the place, mostly because Wolverine didn't have a range of emotion. Why not make him charming and quirky and funny so we miss this in the later films when he no longer has a memory? The scene in the bathroom with Wolverine's new claws was really bad CG and completely took me out of it. Yikes, reality and digital effects have not converged this much yet. Give him some real claws.

BSG: Razor

Sweet Jesus, I can't believe it took me so long to watch this film. I never expected some spin-off to be any good, but this movie has completely re-awakened my Battlestar love after that dismal series finally. Yeah, these guys do know what they are doing in this Battlestar world. This film was everything you could want. Centered on strong female characters, it paints them as real people, not just women. They are every bit as interesting, smart, strong and complicated as the men. It really is their story. Admiral Cain as the villain is fantastic. She gets a backstory that explains and justifies her otherwise vile tactics. Her protege, Kendra Shaw, must deal with the consequences of her own terrible acts that she committed while following in Cain's footsteps. Villains aren't just villains, they are people who have histories that drive them to do what they think is best, even if it turns out to be amoral and vicious. Who do you sacrifice for "the greater good?" What is the greater good after all? This is the only way to have a villain and everything I want in my Webseries. Shaw and Starbuck colliding and then reconciling was also great as was the backstory of the tortured 6 being Cain's ex-lover. This spin-off was all about the women and what goes into constructing a believable villain. God they were all just fascinating, fucked up people, where gender wasn't an issue (but it was there), love wasn't an issue (but it was there), and it truly explored where people could go when pushed to the very limits of their humanity. I will be watching this again and soon.

Julie Johnson

I found this odd little film as a trailer on Nina's Heavenly Delights. It was well acted by Courtney Love and Lily Taylor, but for the most part just humdrum. Lily Taylor did rock some ridiculously hideous costumes, ala early 1990s and the computer science aspect also seemed to be early 90s even though the film was released in 2001. Was it a period piece or just behind the times? None of that really mattered though because the film was just about a repressed suburban housewife finally finding the courage to stand up to her dominating husband and go back to school. She was some sort of genius who wanted to finally "make something of herself." The being a lesbian stuff just sort of happened on the side as a result of her close life-long close friendship with Courtney Love. Turns out they were both thinking about being with each other since they were young. This was kind of a nice idea, not to really focus on the lesbian aspect, it just sort of came and went like any sort of heterosexual romance would with the added bonus of some tension built around them having to keep it a secret. They had to imagine affection in public and, although it was sad to have repressed love, I can't say that it wasn't hot. Love's character, of course, runs back to men because it is too hard, but Julie is changed for good. Her love life is never resolved nor his her future college but her desire to know about the world has been awakened and she is driven to learn and this resolution is enough.

In a stock story about a repressed housewife I missed initial impetus that got Julie to finally follow her dreams, but maybe we were just supposed to understand how unbearable it was because we all know being a housewife to a controlling husband sucks. But what, after like 15 years, made her finally leave? In a great parallel, the husband takes the remote away from Julie to watch sports without even seeing her in the opening sequence while later in the film Julie takes the remote away from Love to watch a science program without even seeing her. We know that there looming separation is imminent. This was a particularly effective story telling tool.