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talkingsoupWell first of all, gotta report on something I've been wanting to report on for awhile now, since before break.
That being Ouran High School Host Club.
This being an anime, obviously. The premise of the show is, this tomboy, Haruhi, is a scholarship student at the extravagantly rich Ouran Academy. She walks into a room one day and meets the Host Club, a group of guys who are pretty much...escorts without the sex, catering to the girls of the high school. They initially mistake Haruhi for a boy, and when she breaks an 8 million yen vase they turn her into a host to pay it off. Once they realize she's actually a girl the hijinks ensue.
It's probably the most adorable anime ever, and I say that having seen Gravitation and Honey and Clover. H&C still tops the charts, of course, but Ouran is pure love. And much like the aforementioned, it's not all cuteness--it's got some real story behind it, good story, with good characters.
The best part of the show is that it's fanservice and knows it. The entire point of the Host Club itself is to provide fanservice for the high school fangirls. They even cater to all the classic drool-inducing bishounen types the fangirls love (and what's better is the characters actually refer to themselves as those "types"). Kyouya, the cool guy with glasses, Honey, the high schooler who looks like a kid and appeals to the shota/cuteness fangirls, Mori, the tall-dark-handsome-silent one, Kaoru and Hikaru the twins who of course play up the twincest-yaoi thing (and you can tell they absolutely love the act, though in reality it really is an act), and Tamaki the Prince Charming, over-the-top, adorable and protective leader of the Hosts who of course creates the UST with him and Haruhi.
The show is utterly brilliant, in case I haven't stressed that enough. I just really love how they do the relationships in it--very realistic and subtle and deep. I love the portrayal of Hikaru and Kaoru's relationship, and Kyouya and Tamaki, and Honey and Mori, and Hikaru and Haruhi, and Haruhi and Tamaki. So. Effing. Brilliant.
Watch it for the cuteness and the characters and the story.
So yes! Spring Break. Julie and I spent it with my relatives in NYC, Uncle Craig who's a reverend and Aunt Cathy who's a teacher. Julie got really sick right before we went and I was already sick and got even sicker halfway through the week. So we ended up not doing half of what we wanted to do. It was still a lot of fun, though. I got to see the NYC family, which was awesome, since they're awesome. We went to the Museum of Natural History which was fucking brilliant since I finally found the name for Deinocherius, the ginormous dinosaur of which they only found the arms (holy FUCK they're huge--guy musta been a motherfucker of a dino), and since I got to see Dunkleostolus who is made of primordial awesome, and Archaepoteryx, and an Easter Island head, and lots of gold. I love museums.
Also went to a bookstore up in Manhattan called Books of Wonder, which was cool, though I wasn't expecting it to be all a children's store. Though I found some Edward Gorey books I'd hitherto not known of (woot!) and the place is joined with a fucking cupcake shop, and have I mentioned that I love New York Cities? They just, like, have stores that just, sell cupcakes, how fucking awesome is that?? It was also across the street from a really neato paper store and I bought a few journals. We also walked to a more local bookstore (my people live in Brooklyn) which was really awesome, though it didn't have any of the Harry Dresden series, so we sold out and walked up the street to a lovely two story B&N. Which I felt badly about, but I just love the books.
Which leads me to the topic of Harry Dresden, the Dresden Files that is. Which has of late become a TV show that is apparently crappy. Anyway, after finishing Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce (fourth and BEST of the Kel books, aka, The Protector of the Small. By the way, I love the little seer girl and I want to see more of her. And who is the Whisper Man? Yay mystery!) Julie told me I had to get started on the Dresden Files (she was on the fourth book by then, I think). So I read the first one on the bus ride down to NYC. And yeah, the writing could have been stronger, but the book was brilliant. First person, which I've only seen so much of in fantasy, and which I really appreciate when well-executed. Plus Harry Dresden is a fucking awesome character, so brilliantly human and flawed and yet awesome as well since he can blow you up and all. It also takes a really realistic approach to magic--as in, no blowing things up at close range since you can also kill yourself. You know, actual backlash. And when people get injured, they don't get up and run around, they fall down and have to sleep it off some (and then fight demons, but that's just poor Harry's bad luck).
I'm on the second one now, and it's good stuff. I'm much loving this series right now. Pat! You might like this to, so ask and I shall lend.
Caught up on most of my manga series while down there as well, Black Cat, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist and Naruto.
Also in NYC, we watched movies. Never made it to a movie theater, though the idea of 300 on IMAX still leaves me half-terrified and half-drooling (I want to seeeee it! Spartans! Spartans!), but I got to see two movies I hadn't seen. The first being Batman Begins, finally, the second being The Departed.
Which means--movie reviews!
Batman Begins
Okay, there are five simple words to describe this movie.
Best comic book movie ever.
Much as I liked Sin City for the pretty and Spiderman and X-Men for the cool-factor, Batman Begins had something that was missing from EVERY comic book movie (except perhaps for Spiderman, and to some degree X-Men)--which was the realness, the raw humanity of the superhero. I'm not a comic book reader, so I don't know how accurate the movie was to the original comic or the show, but it was so fucking well done that I don't all that much care. You get a deep and personal look into Bruce Wayne's past, his family, and what drove him to become Batman. That's what the title's all about anyway (and I just caught the fact that I was actually typing "Batman Beyond" instead of "Batman Begins". Doi!). I always did like Batman because he didn't really have any superpowers, much as I liked Peter Parker because he was an Average Joe before the radioactive spider--a normal guy. Bruce is unique because he uses tools and cunning, which is very cool just in general. It makes him more human and more relatable that way--he's not a "freak," just a guy in a cape with mad skillz who makes Gotham City a better place. I think that's why they played up his human side in this movie, which made it so incredibly good.
Oh, and also? The minor point that Batman is a fucking ninja.
Yeah, dude, okay, that was so fucking awesome. Again, don't know if that's accurate to the comic, but who cares?! Batman is a fucking ninja! A ninja who can literally fly! It really doesn't get any cooler than that.
I liked how they didn't just slap it on him, either--he ends up in some prison in, like, Tibet or something, and gets taken in by a ninja tribe and trained in the ninja arts. Holy fuck I loved typing that.
And not only do they have Christian Bale playing Batman who is a ninja, they've also got Liam Neeson who is also a ninja. That's a fangirl headsplode right there. *dies*
The reason for specifically becoming a "bat" man was also brilliant, putting in the childhood trauma. I liked how he took an object of fear and used it to his purposes. Which is also so ninja. Woot.
And visually? Not on the same level as Sin City, which as far as I know is impossible, but at the same time it was visually perfect considering the setting. Gotham City was exactly as I pictured it and saw it in the show when I watched it, and the movie overall was shot with dark, somber tones which lent to the angsty atmosphere. This was another one of those movies where every element plays an active role in telling the story, much like Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth.
So yes, if you haven't seen it yet, see it, because it's wonderful and there are ninjas.
Score: 9.5 out of 10
And,
The Departed
I don't think I've actually seen a Martin Scorsese film, but this movie definitely felt like a Scorsese film, which I guess is a mark of good directing (or did Scorsese do Mystic River? That one had the same sort of feel and was also very well done). This movie has a definite vibe, an atmosphere to it.
And that vibe is purely masculine. Purely.
It's also very Irish--very "deal with it yourself," very "honor," very "take care of your own business" sorta thing.
I don't like to think that things are inaccessible to certain people, I mean in terms of art. But that's kind of how it goes. Guys can't really understand how certain chick flicks--and I mean very certain chick flicks, I ain't no chick flick girl--can be extraordinary and also moving and emotional. Whites can't entirely understand black films. So maybe it's my being a girl that I felt...sort of just out of this movie.
That's not to say it's not really good, because I know good film making when I see it. Scorsese isn't a household name for nothing. The language, the script, the characters, the acting, the cinematography were all incredibly well done. I was pleasantly surprised by Leonardo DiCaprio, since I haven't paid him much attention since Titanic. The acting was completely brilliant.
The premise of the movie is a bit hard to understand off the bat since it kind of jumps right in, but Matt Damon is a dirty cop in since childhood with a Boston crimelord, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson, also brilliant) and acting as an informant within the police force. Leonardo DiCaprio is a good cop who is sent deep undercover into Costello's crime ring, and the two cops end up playing against each other. It's tough, gritty, violent, and very masculine, like I said.
But I can forgive overt masculinity. I think that's what gave this movie a lot of its brilliance, the way the same thing did for The Godfather. But you can have overt masculinity and still have a good feminine aspect--as in, strong female characters. And that's what I can't really forgive about this movie--that it was completely lacking for anything even remotely good and feminine. The movie is sexist, almost blatantly so.
I'm no femme-Nazi, you guys should know by now. I don't cry sexism unless it really bothers me, and this movie does. There are, literally I think, about four women "types" in this movie. The whole movie circulates around the police, and yet there are no female police officers. Okay, no. Now, the movie didn't specify the time period, but it certainly felt like today (also, the whole of the Boston PD isn't so obviously Irish, but that's another argument), which means there is absolutely no reason for there to be no female cops. There is one female police officer, I think, and she has one line in the movie and no name--toward the middle-end, she goes up to Matt Damon's character after he has thanked everyone for applauding him, and she says "No--thank you."
Now, for one thing, this is absolutely dripping with sexism. It's pure damsel-in-distress. Implied in the woman's voice, body language and the words themselves is the sense that she, of course (and the rest of the police force as well, to be fair) couldn't do anything about the situation, and therefore had to let Matt Damon's character handle it. For another thing, no, no, no, I have watched enough cop shows to know they don't talk like that. Cops don't thank each other for bringing down criminals, they congratulate them. They thank each other for favors, for saving their lives, stuff like that, but not for doing their jobs. The police are their own cult with their own rules, and to say "Thank you" like that is to pretty much say "thank you for doing your job," which is downright insulting.
The two other minor female "types" in the movie are the "whore" and the "victim." Both of these are represented literally. To be fair, they were mostly devices to show the extent of Frank Costello's criminal enterprise. The hooker is there to show the sexual side of organized crime, and to show that Frank Costello really is an asshole. The victim--literally just some woman who's there for one scene to get executed--is just there to die. Both are devices to show the level of criminality. There isn't much you can do with the victim, to be sure, since the nature of the scene she was in didn't allow for it to be longer (one thing I will say, this movie was edited brilliantly), but maybe they could have done something more with the hooker? Mostly she just stood in the background. I think she had about two lines in the movie. Or at the very least, have another woman somewhere who isn't all sex or all victim.
Now maybe Madolyn, who becomes the third point on the love triangle and the connection between Sullivan (Damon) and Costigan (Leo) could have had more to her. But no. She's an empty character, another device who is purely one-dimensional. She's a psychologist for the police, and Costigan is talking to her this one time and totally bitches her out, which leads her to recommend he be transferred to another psychologist. He then immediately asks her out for coffee. Now, it turns out he bitched her out in order to ask her out, so there'd be no "don't date co-workers" thing, but what the hell kind of a woman would seriously go out with him after he has been such a fucking asshole? If he had asked me out for coffee I'd have literally bitch slapped him. Now, they could have done something more with Madolyn, made her the kind of personality type who actually welcomes a domineering and verbally abusive partner, but they didn't go anywhere with her. She's a device to provide sexual tension and to up the anty between Sullivan and Costigan. She's got no backbone, either. She's not an idiot, I'll give her that--she notices that Sullivan is up to something illegal, but she doesn't even try to report him, not even after she gets hard evidence right in her hands that the asshole is doing something against the law. Okay, no.
This post is running long, so I'll have to cut it off right here. In any case, I want to stress that I did rather like this movie, and I thought it was brilliantly done, as movies go. I just hate the sexism. It's one thing to have sexism from the characters or the world they live in, it's another to have sexism coming from the movie itself. They could have done so much more with Madolyn, but they chose not to.
Score: 6 out of 10.
Long post! I have much else to report on, but I shall have to report tomorrow.
That being Ouran High School Host Club.
This being an anime, obviously. The premise of the show is, this tomboy, Haruhi, is a scholarship student at the extravagantly rich Ouran Academy. She walks into a room one day and meets the Host Club, a group of guys who are pretty much...escorts without the sex, catering to the girls of the high school. They initially mistake Haruhi for a boy, and when she breaks an 8 million yen vase they turn her into a host to pay it off. Once they realize she's actually a girl the hijinks ensue.
It's probably the most adorable anime ever, and I say that having seen Gravitation and Honey and Clover. H&C still tops the charts, of course, but Ouran is pure love. And much like the aforementioned, it's not all cuteness--it's got some real story behind it, good story, with good characters.
The best part of the show is that it's fanservice and knows it. The entire point of the Host Club itself is to provide fanservice for the high school fangirls. They even cater to all the classic drool-inducing bishounen types the fangirls love (and what's better is the characters actually refer to themselves as those "types"). Kyouya, the cool guy with glasses, Honey, the high schooler who looks like a kid and appeals to the shota/cuteness fangirls, Mori, the tall-dark-handsome-silent one, Kaoru and Hikaru the twins who of course play up the twincest-yaoi thing (and you can tell they absolutely love the act, though in reality it really is an act), and Tamaki the Prince Charming, over-the-top, adorable and protective leader of the Hosts who of course creates the UST with him and Haruhi.
The show is utterly brilliant, in case I haven't stressed that enough. I just really love how they do the relationships in it--very realistic and subtle and deep. I love the portrayal of Hikaru and Kaoru's relationship, and Kyouya and Tamaki, and Honey and Mori, and Hikaru and Haruhi, and Haruhi and Tamaki. So. Effing. Brilliant.
Watch it for the cuteness and the characters and the story.
So yes! Spring Break. Julie and I spent it with my relatives in NYC, Uncle Craig who's a reverend and Aunt Cathy who's a teacher. Julie got really sick right before we went and I was already sick and got even sicker halfway through the week. So we ended up not doing half of what we wanted to do. It was still a lot of fun, though. I got to see the NYC family, which was awesome, since they're awesome. We went to the Museum of Natural History which was fucking brilliant since I finally found the name for Deinocherius, the ginormous dinosaur of which they only found the arms (holy FUCK they're huge--guy musta been a motherfucker of a dino), and since I got to see Dunkleostolus who is made of primordial awesome, and Archaepoteryx, and an Easter Island head, and lots of gold. I love museums.
Also went to a bookstore up in Manhattan called Books of Wonder, which was cool, though I wasn't expecting it to be all a children's store. Though I found some Edward Gorey books I'd hitherto not known of (woot!) and the place is joined with a fucking cupcake shop, and have I mentioned that I love New York Cities? They just, like, have stores that just, sell cupcakes, how fucking awesome is that?? It was also across the street from a really neato paper store and I bought a few journals. We also walked to a more local bookstore (my people live in Brooklyn) which was really awesome, though it didn't have any of the Harry Dresden series, so we sold out and walked up the street to a lovely two story B&N. Which I felt badly about, but I just love the books.
Which leads me to the topic of Harry Dresden, the Dresden Files that is. Which has of late become a TV show that is apparently crappy. Anyway, after finishing Lady Knight by Tamora Pierce (fourth and BEST of the Kel books, aka, The Protector of the Small. By the way, I love the little seer girl and I want to see more of her. And who is the Whisper Man? Yay mystery!) Julie told me I had to get started on the Dresden Files (she was on the fourth book by then, I think). So I read the first one on the bus ride down to NYC. And yeah, the writing could have been stronger, but the book was brilliant. First person, which I've only seen so much of in fantasy, and which I really appreciate when well-executed. Plus Harry Dresden is a fucking awesome character, so brilliantly human and flawed and yet awesome as well since he can blow you up and all. It also takes a really realistic approach to magic--as in, no blowing things up at close range since you can also kill yourself. You know, actual backlash. And when people get injured, they don't get up and run around, they fall down and have to sleep it off some (and then fight demons, but that's just poor Harry's bad luck).
I'm on the second one now, and it's good stuff. I'm much loving this series right now. Pat! You might like this to, so ask and I shall lend.
Caught up on most of my manga series while down there as well, Black Cat, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist and Naruto.
Also in NYC, we watched movies. Never made it to a movie theater, though the idea of 300 on IMAX still leaves me half-terrified and half-drooling (I want to seeeee it! Spartans! Spartans!), but I got to see two movies I hadn't seen. The first being Batman Begins, finally, the second being The Departed.
Which means--movie reviews!
Batman Begins
Okay, there are five simple words to describe this movie.
Best comic book movie ever.
Much as I liked Sin City for the pretty and Spiderman and X-Men for the cool-factor, Batman Begins had something that was missing from EVERY comic book movie (except perhaps for Spiderman, and to some degree X-Men)--which was the realness, the raw humanity of the superhero. I'm not a comic book reader, so I don't know how accurate the movie was to the original comic or the show, but it was so fucking well done that I don't all that much care. You get a deep and personal look into Bruce Wayne's past, his family, and what drove him to become Batman. That's what the title's all about anyway (and I just caught the fact that I was actually typing "Batman Beyond" instead of "Batman Begins". Doi!). I always did like Batman because he didn't really have any superpowers, much as I liked Peter Parker because he was an Average Joe before the radioactive spider--a normal guy. Bruce is unique because he uses tools and cunning, which is very cool just in general. It makes him more human and more relatable that way--he's not a "freak," just a guy in a cape with mad skillz who makes Gotham City a better place. I think that's why they played up his human side in this movie, which made it so incredibly good.
Oh, and also? The minor point that Batman is a fucking ninja.
Yeah, dude, okay, that was so fucking awesome. Again, don't know if that's accurate to the comic, but who cares?! Batman is a fucking ninja! A ninja who can literally fly! It really doesn't get any cooler than that.
I liked how they didn't just slap it on him, either--he ends up in some prison in, like, Tibet or something, and gets taken in by a ninja tribe and trained in the ninja arts. Holy fuck I loved typing that.
And not only do they have Christian Bale playing Batman who is a ninja, they've also got Liam Neeson who is also a ninja. That's a fangirl headsplode right there. *dies*
The reason for specifically becoming a "bat" man was also brilliant, putting in the childhood trauma. I liked how he took an object of fear and used it to his purposes. Which is also so ninja. Woot.
And visually? Not on the same level as Sin City, which as far as I know is impossible, but at the same time it was visually perfect considering the setting. Gotham City was exactly as I pictured it and saw it in the show when I watched it, and the movie overall was shot with dark, somber tones which lent to the angsty atmosphere. This was another one of those movies where every element plays an active role in telling the story, much like Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth.
So yes, if you haven't seen it yet, see it, because it's wonderful and there are ninjas.
Score: 9.5 out of 10
And,
The Departed
I don't think I've actually seen a Martin Scorsese film, but this movie definitely felt like a Scorsese film, which I guess is a mark of good directing (or did Scorsese do Mystic River? That one had the same sort of feel and was also very well done). This movie has a definite vibe, an atmosphere to it.
And that vibe is purely masculine. Purely.
It's also very Irish--very "deal with it yourself," very "honor," very "take care of your own business" sorta thing.
I don't like to think that things are inaccessible to certain people, I mean in terms of art. But that's kind of how it goes. Guys can't really understand how certain chick flicks--and I mean very certain chick flicks, I ain't no chick flick girl--can be extraordinary and also moving and emotional. Whites can't entirely understand black films. So maybe it's my being a girl that I felt...sort of just out of this movie.
That's not to say it's not really good, because I know good film making when I see it. Scorsese isn't a household name for nothing. The language, the script, the characters, the acting, the cinematography were all incredibly well done. I was pleasantly surprised by Leonardo DiCaprio, since I haven't paid him much attention since Titanic. The acting was completely brilliant.
The premise of the movie is a bit hard to understand off the bat since it kind of jumps right in, but Matt Damon is a dirty cop in since childhood with a Boston crimelord, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson, also brilliant) and acting as an informant within the police force. Leonardo DiCaprio is a good cop who is sent deep undercover into Costello's crime ring, and the two cops end up playing against each other. It's tough, gritty, violent, and very masculine, like I said.
But I can forgive overt masculinity. I think that's what gave this movie a lot of its brilliance, the way the same thing did for The Godfather. But you can have overt masculinity and still have a good feminine aspect--as in, strong female characters. And that's what I can't really forgive about this movie--that it was completely lacking for anything even remotely good and feminine. The movie is sexist, almost blatantly so.
I'm no femme-Nazi, you guys should know by now. I don't cry sexism unless it really bothers me, and this movie does. There are, literally I think, about four women "types" in this movie. The whole movie circulates around the police, and yet there are no female police officers. Okay, no. Now, the movie didn't specify the time period, but it certainly felt like today (also, the whole of the Boston PD isn't so obviously Irish, but that's another argument), which means there is absolutely no reason for there to be no female cops. There is one female police officer, I think, and she has one line in the movie and no name--toward the middle-end, she goes up to Matt Damon's character after he has thanked everyone for applauding him, and she says "No--thank you."
Now, for one thing, this is absolutely dripping with sexism. It's pure damsel-in-distress. Implied in the woman's voice, body language and the words themselves is the sense that she, of course (and the rest of the police force as well, to be fair) couldn't do anything about the situation, and therefore had to let Matt Damon's character handle it. For another thing, no, no, no, I have watched enough cop shows to know they don't talk like that. Cops don't thank each other for bringing down criminals, they congratulate them. They thank each other for favors, for saving their lives, stuff like that, but not for doing their jobs. The police are their own cult with their own rules, and to say "Thank you" like that is to pretty much say "thank you for doing your job," which is downright insulting.
The two other minor female "types" in the movie are the "whore" and the "victim." Both of these are represented literally. To be fair, they were mostly devices to show the extent of Frank Costello's criminal enterprise. The hooker is there to show the sexual side of organized crime, and to show that Frank Costello really is an asshole. The victim--literally just some woman who's there for one scene to get executed--is just there to die. Both are devices to show the level of criminality. There isn't much you can do with the victim, to be sure, since the nature of the scene she was in didn't allow for it to be longer (one thing I will say, this movie was edited brilliantly), but maybe they could have done something more with the hooker? Mostly she just stood in the background. I think she had about two lines in the movie. Or at the very least, have another woman somewhere who isn't all sex or all victim.
Now maybe Madolyn, who becomes the third point on the love triangle and the connection between Sullivan (Damon) and Costigan (Leo) could have had more to her. But no. She's an empty character, another device who is purely one-dimensional. She's a psychologist for the police, and Costigan is talking to her this one time and totally bitches her out, which leads her to recommend he be transferred to another psychologist. He then immediately asks her out for coffee. Now, it turns out he bitched her out in order to ask her out, so there'd be no "don't date co-workers" thing, but what the hell kind of a woman would seriously go out with him after he has been such a fucking asshole? If he had asked me out for coffee I'd have literally bitch slapped him. Now, they could have done something more with Madolyn, made her the kind of personality type who actually welcomes a domineering and verbally abusive partner, but they didn't go anywhere with her. She's a device to provide sexual tension and to up the anty between Sullivan and Costigan. She's got no backbone, either. She's not an idiot, I'll give her that--she notices that Sullivan is up to something illegal, but she doesn't even try to report him, not even after she gets hard evidence right in her hands that the asshole is doing something against the law. Okay, no.
This post is running long, so I'll have to cut it off right here. In any case, I want to stress that I did rather like this movie, and I thought it was brilliantly done, as movies go. I just hate the sexism. It's one thing to have sexism from the characters or the world they live in, it's another to have sexism coming from the movie itself. They could have done so much more with Madolyn, but they chose not to.
Score: 6 out of 10.
Long post! I have much else to report on, but I shall have to report tomorrow.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-19 04:53 pm (UTC)I might be interested in reading The Dresden Files. How long is it?
I can take you to go see "The 300" some time. Not this Friday unfortunately, but hopefully soon.
"Batman Begins" is the shit. It really is one of my favorite comic book movies and I very much look forward to the sequel, "The Dark Knight". I geeked out just as much over him and Liam Neeson being ninja. My only problem with the movie was Katie Holmes. Bleck. My other slight problem with the movie is that while Christian Bale is a great Bruce Wayne and a great Batman, I have trouble imagining THAT Bruce Wayne as THAT Batman. It's hard for me to explain, but it's a problem nontheless.
A lot of what you said about "The Departed" is true. I hadn't thought of the inherent sexism, actually, but it's unsurprising since it's based on a Hong Kong thriller. Also, it's what these characters are like. They're mean, horrible people and most of them die by the end of the movie. I still love the movie though. Oh, and "Mystic River" was made by Clint Eastwood.
You really like the word "brilliant", don't you?
no subject
Date: 2007-03-20 01:59 am (UTC)Oh, not long. Each book is small paperback form and only about 340ish.
Woot!
Fuck yes, but I actually like Katie Holmes. Or, not necessarily like her, but I don't dislike her really. I thought she was excellent in Pieces of April.
Ah, well that makes a little more sense. And in any case, it wasn't the characters' sexism that bothered me, because that's just characterization--but the movie itself was sexist.
Yes, brilliantly ^.^
no subject
Date: 2007-03-20 04:58 am (UTC)Ehhh... Maybe eventually. Like I said, I'm not much of a reader unless the book grabs me and/or I have another reason for reading it (school or criticism).
Indeed!
It's not that I dislike Katie Holmes, I just don't think she adds anything to the movie. Batman doesn't need a romance.
I wouldn't say the movie is sexist. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of Massachusetts Staties are men. I'd be willing to bet that the department is sexist and they were just playing to that. Boston cops are assholes. Trust me. I will concede that the supporting female character is a bit weak, but at the same time, she has some good moments (the therapy sessions were good). Oh and have you seen "The Aviator"? That's a really good Martin Scorsese film. It should have beaten the crap out of "Million Dollar Baby".
Brilliant!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-20 05:29 pm (UTC)Lol, it's all good. I think you'd like them, though.
Actually you're right. I don't remember there ever really being a love interest for Batman. Although he is a red blooded human male, so...
Which is why I thought the movie was really good, because it's so accurate a portrayal of those kinds of people. But that's not really what bothered me, just that the women who were there could have been a lot stronger character-wise. They just didn't get enough development, and they didn't act like normal women would act. The idea that Madolyn would go out with Costigan after he bitches her out--I mean, no woman would put up with someone being such an asshole and then go out with him. She was okay, but she was a device and nothing more--the "love interest." There was nothing more to her--she's the background, part of the scenery. She wasn't realistic, whereas everyone else in the movie totally was.
Guiness in a bottle? Brilliant!