This is a cross post from a good friend of mine.  It originally appeared at team berlin.  If you are interested in guest or cross posting at feministhemes.com, send a line with your idea to ms.wizzle@feministhemes.com.

Inception was not that good of a movie.  It wasn’t that BAD of a movie either.  Leonardo DiCaprio did a mediocre job with a mediocre movie.  There were two female parts in the entire movie, one of which was an antagonist.  Maybe three if you count the not-so-pretty lady at the bar who steals the wallet, but then turns back into a man immediately afterward.

This was a heist movie.  Yes, the heists may have taken place inside of dreams, but let’s dissect the elements of the movie.  First, it starts out with a theft in process.  Then, the person who was being robbed offers the thief a job…something that’s seemingly impossible.  Then a chunk of the movie is used up setting up a team, including the ever popular outlier that doesn’t really belong.  I will summarize Dane Cook’s description of this.  “The guy that is a last minute replacement and somebody vouches for him.”  Of course, they need to find the guy who they need to pull out of retirement for “one last job.”  Now the movie is done assembling the team, and they begin doing their training, plotting, planning, and preparing.  Is it important?  Yeah.  Does the movie spend too much time on it?  Yes.  If it is necessary to set up some background information on characters, it may be useful to actually spend time on it.  While it is nice to allow the audience to have their own imagination on what has gone on in the past with these characters and their interactions with each other, it is unnecessary if we don’t pay attention to any of the characters or if their roles are overshadowed greatly.  In this case, there’s no point in telling any story on any of the other characters because DiCaprio’s character is the only one who has even the slightest growth during the entire movie, and the only one that has closure at the end.  The actual heist was good.  It had multiple levels with different times going.  It would’ve been interesting for them to show the watches working at different speeds (see: beginning of the movie) just for reference sake or for a cheap gimmick.  A quick note on when they did this at the beginning of the movie: they showed the watch and time difference before explaining it.  That’s fine and dandy.  Then they explained it and never showed it again.  Though they did make it rather obvious that time was moving at different speeds on different levels, so that’s fine.

Was there character development?  A bit, I suppose.  DiCaprio’s character is haunted by his dead wife…and in the end he gets over it.  Otherwise, the other characters are hardly in the movie with active parts to really even tell if they have character developments or not. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago I set out to find an air-conditioned escape from my 90 degree house (hooray for no a/c in the desert!), and lo-and-behold, I ended up at that frigid complex known as “the movie theater.” I faced the daunting decision of choosing a movie I knew little to nothing about in order to eat junk food and not turn into a puddle of sweat on my carpet.  It came down to “Despicable Me” versus “Inception,” and once I took a look at each of the trailers it was clear: Ellen Page for the win.

So there we were: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tommy from 3rd Rock, Juno, and me.  And it was cool, and it was action-y, and it was not overtly disturbing or offensive.  So I walked out cool, happy, and jonesing for an Ellen Page marathon.  This probably doesn’t bode well for the impression that Inception itself made on me, eh?

Read the rest of this entry »

Splice is a sci-fi horrorish film that is in many ways a modern retelling of the story of Frankenstein.  What Splice does differently from most sci-fi horrorish films is to incorporate complex, intelligent female characters and examine (both directly and indirectly) female emotional and sexual development in an extreme situation.  Until it blows it at the end.

Also, I have never seen so many people stand up and exit the theater so quickly when the credits started rolling, but that might be a Utah thing (more on that later).  If anything, the strong reactions of my fellow theater-goers only made me more thoughtful about this unusual movie.

Here’s what you need to know: Clive and Elsa are a couple (literally) of scientists who have been working on splicing together DNA from different animals to create new species in the hopes of developing cures for livestock diseases.  They think it would be a good idea to take this to the next level – the human level – in order to find cures for human diseases, and pretty much just to test their theory about how awesome they are.  They’re told no, but they do it anyway.  What they end up creating is first a creepy slimy thing, which evolves into a cute rabbitish thing, and finally into a human chimera thing.  Although Clive was recently trying to talk Elsa into kids, she wasn’t interested.  Now she has become very attached to their creature, Dren, and he’s the one with serious second thoughts.  Spoilers ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

As an anti-Twilight-ruining-classic-mythology tribute, here are a bunch of my favorite werewolf-respecting videos.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll

TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me

Michael Jackson - Thriller (Ok, so it’s more about zombies, but it’s classic.)

And finally, to remedy the damage done to your brain by Twilight, go watch Ginger Snaps.

I feel better now.  How about you?

LOST has reached its end, and whether it was a fond or a furious farewell for you, here are some other perspectives on the show and its treatment of (in particular) its female and POC characters.  As I (unfortunately) have not yet seen the 2.5 hour finale, none of these links have any finale spoilers, but other season 6 spoilers abound, so be warned if you were waiting until you could binge on the whole season at once now that it’s over.

TelevIsm: The Numbers–Lost and Race and Death Off the Island [bitch]

Portraying marginalized people in the face of a mostly white slate of network television shows is great, but it’s only a start. Painting these lives comes with responsibility: to not play into racist stereotypes, to create new and interesting portrayals and stories, and to build on the promise of a main cast that is only a little over half white.

LOST Has A Mommy Track [the sexist]

Claire’s most interesting story line was having a baby and a boyfriend. Sun’s most interesting storyline is having a husband and a baby. Kate’s most interesting story line is having two potential boyfriends, between whom she cannot choose, and also a baby eventually. Juliet’s most important storyline was that her boyfriend might have thought for 1.5 seconds about liking another girl so she had to fall down a mine shaft and explode three times on screen.

TelevIsm: The Disappointing Case of Kate Austen [bitch]

I really loved her at the beginning of the show. She was so capable yet so compelling, and she totally seemed to have an inner life. And now she’s just useless. She does whatever the dudes do, or quite frequently, whatever they tell her to do. Whenever she manages to form a unique opinion of her own, it pretty much always ends up not really mattering in the end and being overruled.

Farewell, Kate Austen: We Won’t Miss You, And That’s Too Bad [jezebel]

Austen isn’t the only problematic female character on the show; the fates of the majority of the women on the show are tied directly to the male leads, and women who have been left on their own (Ilana, Claire, Danielle, Jacob’s mother) tend to end up either dead or crazy… Penny’s fate is always tied to both Desmond and her father, Alex’s fate is always tied to Ben, Sun’s fate is always tied to Jin’s, and motherhood is always presented in an odd and frightening way and never seems to end well for anyone.

Today our links go out to all the self proclaimed geeks, nerds, and dorks among us.  Be it sci-fi, comics, science, or some combination, peruse the following links and embrace your inner geek.

Representations of Women in (Mostly Superhero) Comics [Threat Quality] via [jezebel]

This is a thing that comes up periodically: what happens is, someone says, “Jesus $&^#, could there be one comic in which all the women don’t have their tits sticking out all the #$^@#%* time?” Inevitably, at least one person responds to these criticisms with the following argument (and occasionally a few supplemental ones):

“Comics have always been an exaggerated ideal, just like in movies and other forms of media, and besides, they exaggerate men and women equally, so it’s not sexist.”

For example:
Disney’s Princesses Reimagined As Comic Book Heroines [io9]

To celebrate this news, check out another take on the Disney princesses, drawn up comic-book style by J. Scott Campbell. In keeping with the “comic book art” style [Note the quotes], they can barely keep their seashells on — oh no wait she’s not wearing any seashells. At least Maleficent looks bad-ass, as usual.

Thinkgeek’s nerdlady tees: Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie [wonderland] via [io9]

Thinkgeek have a new Heroine series, in which they’ve made up two teeshirts celebrating two wonderful ladies: Marie Curie (discovered radioactivity) and Ada Lovelace (invented computer programming).  They’re not only very lovely teeshirts, but the sale of each also donates a dollar to The Girl Effect, an organisation dedicated to helping girls out of the cycle of abuse, poverty and second-class citizenship.

I have finished reviewing the first and last episodes of each of the televised Star Trek incarnations (with the exception of the animated series, which is barely considered canon anyway) and now it is time to finish up this long, involved endeavor by reviewing the recent J.J. Abrams helmed reboot, titled simply Star Trek.

As the movie is so new there is a lot of easily accessible discussion and analysis of the film. Because of this I find it difficult to comment on it without responding to some of those critiques. Thus, I will offer two reviews–my initial response and then a direct response to some of the criticisms.

As Captain Kirk says near the end of the movie, “buckle up!”

Read the rest of this entry »

The adolescent goth kid in me has nothing but love for Christina Ricci after all these years, although I probably haven’t kept up with enough of her films to really be qualified to defend that position.  Memories of Casper and The Adams family mixed with impressions from Prozac Nation and Penelope leave me excitedly awaiting Ricci’s newest film, After.Life, despite only having known about it for a few days (via i09) and not being the biggest fan of the horror genre.  Although I have some hesitations about After.Life, particularly as a feminist, I’m a little excited.

The possible good: Christina Ricci.  Escaping bad dudes.  Some sort of metaphor for being robbed of power and then empowering oneself.

The possible bad: Little red nightie, sexual objectification.  Misogyny, kidnapping, violence against women.  Damsel in distress, dude to the rescue.

So I’m torn.  My feminist conscience is certainly skeptical, but something in me remains curious.  Although I really hate slashers and torture-porn-esque films (a la Saw series and its bretheren), I have an inkling that this is more of a psychological thriller (a la Hide and Seek), which I am actually kind of into.  It could go either way, and I’m certainly willing to give this one a try (even if I can’t entirely justify it to myself), but I’m not holding my breath that it’ll come to my community as it’s not yet scheduled for wide release and our one and only cool little indie theater closed about six months ago.

What are your thoughts on Christina Ricci, After.Life, and the status of women in horror films today?  Anyone seen this film or know more about it?

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland, so of course I was excited to finally get to the theater and see Tim Burton’s new adaptation.  I was a little hesitant – Tim Burton has become rather cliche and tends to just remix his Hot Topic costumes and “eccentric” casts.  However, I was really impressed with the film, an pleasantly so.

The story complements the original well without retelling a familiar tale too redundantly, nor taking artistic license overboard.  Alice fluctuates between her initial childlike-obedience (eating what says “eat me,” drinking what says “drink me,” and following the directions of a vast array of curious creatures) and taking ownership of her behavior (“it’s my dream after all”).  She bravely and cleverly dupes the Red Queen into thinking her a friend, allowing her to rescue her friend and find an important sword that will allow her to fulfill her destiny – Alice is not just a girl on an adventure, she’s a woman champion come to save Underland from the Red Queen’s rule and defeat the dreaded Jabberwocky.

Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter was the least enjoyable part of the film.  Depp remixed all of his other “eccentric” characters and put on a funny wig for this part.  What was even more disturbing was the deep, emotional connection alluded to between the Hatter and Alice.  First of all, it will be hard to top SyFy’s take on that dynamic, and secondly, Depp’s Hatter is too old, too mad, and too creepy for some sort of… whatever with a nineteen year old girl.  Creepy and irritating.

At the very least, however, this film portrays strong female leads, protagonists, and antagonists with little to no emphasis on romance as a plot device.  Alice is clever, strong, and charismatic and rises to the occasion, allowing her newfound courage to launch her into an adventurous career rather than a miserable marriage.  Plus, it was fun, and it looks cool – although maybe not quite as cool as this:

You can read some other great perspectives on the film at Adventures of a Young Feminist, Autostraddle, and Gender Across Borders.

If you’re a sci-fi geek like me, you probably know about io9 (my favorite sci-fi blog) already, but in case you don’t, check out these cool updates on women in the realm of science fiction.

Amanda Seyfried To Get Her Red Hood Symbolically Dirtied Up By A Werewolf [io9]
Amanda Seyfried (whom you probably know for her role as Sarah Hendricks on Big Love or as Needy, the heroine of Jennifer’s Body) is rumored to have landed the lead in a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

We’re not so sure how we feel about our favorite new actress, Amanda Seyfried, taking on a sex-tinged supernatural thriller with original Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. But if the werewolf Red Riding Hood movie delivers a Gothic twist, we’re interested.

Syfy Puts Felicia Day In Her Own Fairy Tale [i09]
First Glimpse Of Felicia Day Fighting Werewolves In Syfy’s “Red” [io9]
In other Little Red Riding Hood news, Felicia Day also has a cool new project in the works.  Between my love for Felicia thanks to Buffy, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible and The Guild (yeah, she’s awesome – and also a babe) and my love for SyFy originals, you can count me in.

Syfy announced today that Day will play “a werewolf-hunting descendant of Little Red Riding Hood” in Red, a Syfy Channel Original Movie scheduled to premiere next year. According to the press release, Day won’t be the only werewolf-hunter in the movie: “In the action-packed Red, Red (Day) brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business – hunting werewolves. He’s skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.”

NBC’s Superhero Soap Wins Over Geek Blog Crowd In One Simple Move [io9]
Another Whedon alumn is in the news: Summer Glau (Firefly and Dollhouse).  I haven’t heard much about this new show The Cape, but might have to check it out eventually.

Glau will play Orwell – dig the subtle reference – a character described as “a cute and intrepid investigative blogger who fearlessly goes after corrupt cops and costumed bad guys” in the NBC pilot that centers around a former cop who becomes a superhero in order to clear his name and win back his estranged son.

Where Is Our Wonder Woman Smallville? [io9]
Smallville never did it for me, but Graeme makes a decent argument for letting Wonder Woman have a shot at a coming-of-age pre-teen CW series.  I’m in favor, but beware the grouchy haters in the comments.

Is the legacy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer so strong that it’s scared the CW off any new genre adventure shows centered around female leads, or is this just laziness (“Hey, Smallville is all about a guy…”) or nerd-stereotyping (“Only men read comic books…”) at work?

Molly Crabapple’s New Comic About Cyborgs In 18th Century France [io9]
Finally, for all the steampunk and/or comic book lovers out there, Molly Crabapple‘s got a new project in the works.

We’ve featured Molly Crabapple’s art on io9 before, so we were excited when Molly wrote and said she’d just inked a deal with DC imprint Zuda to do an alternate history comic book about the cyborgs of Versailles.  Molly, who is doing the comic The Puppet Makers with John Leavitt, describes it as “a Rococo steampunk murder mystery.”

All this news makes me wish I still had cable (or television services at all) so I could get back into the world of science fiction, where women typically have a fighting chance at character development, strength and some level of integrity (which is not to say that there aren’t problems in sci-fi, too).  I’ll have to settle for rewatching those that have made it into my permanent collection, including the fantastic Alice, which has been out on DVD since March 8th (check it out if you haven’t yet!).