Felt (2014)

Throughout watching Felt, the indie quasi-horror by Jason Baker, a mental image came to mind.  Not of horrifying male oppression through the ages of history, nor of evil ball-breaking women committing their dutiful boyfriends and husbands to the gas chambers of cuckdom.  No, I thought about the cartoon image of those rabbit traps that are just a box held up by a jointed stick connect to rope.

By that, I mean I have no clue how to approach reviewing this film.  Everytime I tried to talk about it, I could feel that rope starting to draw taut.  They knew who I was, what I was.  I am the boogeyman male, potentially about to say something mean and insensitive about women's lives.  But if I praise it, then am I just parroting what the filmmakers were clearly going for, no longer thinking for myself but just trying to get feminist brownie?  No escape, I think, staring at the carrot.  No escape.

 I don't want to make this sound like a bad thing, as I strongly believe that one should expose their jaded critical bodies to constructs that don't comport to the critic's framework of a good thing.  It's the reason I occasionally play twine games even though my brain immediately starts screaming for a super shotgun the first time I click on lesbian vampire.  But it still makes me wonder if this movie was even remotely meant for someone like myself, aside from transforming me into a screencap that a radical feminist posts on their twitter feed.  In my defense, almost every critic seemed to have run into the same conundrum.  Reviews of Felt fall into two categories: "it's brilliant art that cannot be fully appreciated until you have subsumed the psychosexual intricacies of rape culture," or "THIS MOVIE BORING WANT SLEEP."

Felt revolves around the disjointed brain world of Amy (Amy Everson, whose performance, while dangerously twee at time, is probably the only aspect of the movie I can unreservedly recommend), working a dead-end job while hanging out with friends who are fairly problematic in their own right.  Something Bad happened to her prior to the film, and while it's never stated, the fact that a large section of the film's first half is devoted to her wandering around landscapes in costumes that are part whimsical and part inspired by every rapist in a 1980s crime film, complete with giant penis.  Indeed, in the traditional sense nothing at all happens in the first 40 minutes, instead going for that indie standby of people improv mumbling about topics the writers thought would be germane to impoverished hipsters (such as some girls fantasizing about the best ways to kill dudes, i mean that is a fantasy right *ulp*).

nope can't reckon what's gonna happen at the end of this here film

That isn't to say that some of the scenes aren't fun to watch, such as Amy's horrifying OKCupid date with a failed Owen Wilson vat clone that states that "roofies are the bar equivalent of Santa Claus," and her showing up to ruin a bearded hipster's nude photo shoot via grossly exaggerated felt sex organs.  And naturally that's horrible to say that scenes like that are fun to watch when they're essentially exploring the aspect of rape culture but they are funny in their darkness and it's better than watching her walk around the woods as the Penismonster and jesus christ this movie is just closing its jaws around my skull.

Eventually the film hatches a plot when Amy meets the film's One Decent Man, who talks to her like a person and gives comfort hugs without ulterior motives and does elaborate birthday celebrations and if you've ever seen anything like Felt you'll immediately know that the One Decent Man is also not really a good person.  AND if you saw the film's poster on Netflix you'll also immediately know where the plot is going to end up.  Therein sort of lies the film's biggest issue: once the film grants your wishes and moves on from straight mumblecore to something resembling a story, you discover that the story is so depressingly obvious about what the end result is going to be that you yearn for the good old days that were thirty minutes ago, when nothing happened and thus you never had to be hurt.

Films like Felt are why I'm glad I don't have any sort of rating system.  This is a movie that, by conventional standards is an absolute fucking mess, with an 80 minute running length that creates one of those time dilation fields that make it feel ten times as long.  Almost everyone in the film in the film is awful and there's rarely anything pleasing to look at, the film framed so even nudity is unsettling and makes me regret ever getting a boner.  But that's the point of this film, something that some reviewers seem to miss.  Alot of "feminist" horror films, from I Spit on Your Grave to Jennifer's Body to Teeth, are still squarely shot in the male gaze, so that although guys are getting hell of mutilated, you still get to see lady butts square up.  Felt is pretty dedicated to making you suffer for searching "BIG PLUMP ASSES LET ME SEE THEM" on google when you were sixteen.  I'm not entirely sure I agree, but at least it made me think?  Yeah, let's go with that.

can you begin to imagine who got the soundtrack to this fucking movie

also fuck whoever called this a slasher

Scott Pilgrim, World, Etc.

You know what the big fad in Scott Pilgrim reviews are? Giving some sort of a rundown of your nerd cred, or lack thereof. Maybe it's a little unfair that some reviewers are dismissing the film based on the type of eternal heavenly audience that is going to be seeing this movie, but it's not like the movie is welcoming your average moviegoer with open arms. This isn't like your average summer comic book film that at least pretends to pander to your grandmother with a wacky rundown of the plot or having Stan Lee stare around to make you feel safe. Scott Pilgrim kind of hates you, Mom.

That's all I'm going to say regarding some subjective review of the audience FOR NOW. I do think it's important to note that I've read all but the last volume of the printed Scott Pilgrim series, and I haven't read the last one because the Wikipedia summary of it sounded fucking awful (I'm not going to spoil it except to say the strength of the series lay in the cutsey intermeshing of the banal with the fantastical, and in the last volume it looks like O'Malley went FUCK THAT MAKE IT LIKE A REAL VIDEO GAME), so yes.

The strength of the film version of Scott Pilgrim, and its fundamental difference from the print version, is probably that I don't really have to bother explaining the plot of the film. Wright clearly doesn't care about the niceties of the plot, but just wants to fuck with fight scenes and wacky pop-ups that are like a 14-year-old's (who has never been on the internet) introduction to post-modernism. This meshes most closely with the first volume, which clearly had no idea of what was going on but had more fun with a myriad of strange in-jokes and video game references. The movie sort of follows the second and third volumes, "sort of follows" code for "basically just include the fights from those volumes." After that, where the comic gradually disintegrated into a bizarre soap opera of itself, Wright just ignores all that retarded emotional subtext and just has Scott Orgasm a Girl to Death.

(I've seen more than a few posts from nerds saying that it would have been better if the film had been split into two parts, which mystifies me. Honestly, I wish I'd never read the comic and just seen the film, as it's a far better product than the original, and lengthening it by a few hours would have allowed all the stupid emotional shit to drip in. And besides, haven't you people seen Wright's other stuff? I love the man, but he is -terrible- at those kinds of scenes. OH NO MOM NO MOM.)

If anything, the film really is worth seeing just for the cinematic trickery, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm sure there are movies that would have accomplished the feat better with the budget Wright had, but currently I can't think of any movies with the same sort of literal kinetic flair as here. In other words, imagine that Speed Racer abomination if it had been made by someone with an eye for what the kids like besides trenchcoats. Oh yeah, and most of the performers are pretty good and the soundtrack didn't make me want to kill myself!

Did you notice I said "most?" Eh-yes.

Now, I'm not some horrible movie snob. I know that Cera occupies a certain sphere of movie hyperlink that, once implanted, will more likely than not attract a certain folk who otherwise would not see the movie. But Jesus Christ, I am so sick of him. He is a horrible man who while I do not wish ill toward due to his passive luck in Hollywood being happy in him having the same fucking role over and over and OVER, I also hope something happens that stops making him some ersatz indie darling.

The worst part is that there were better choices here, even if you look at obvious actors. Was Jospeh Gordon-Levitt too busy or something? Fuck, even Zac Efron (I WATCHED SEVENTEEN AGAIN AND FUCK YOU IT WAS KIND OF FUNNY) would have been a better Scott substitute. Again, the movie wasn't totally ruined by Cera's perpetual puberty machine, but part of my brain was constantly muttering about how after I read the first volume, I remarked to myself ,"GEE I WONDER IF MICHAEL CERA WILL GET THIS ROLE" I don't want to get all deeply critical about a fucking fake manga, but the Scott in the comic generally had something of a backbone conflicting with his laziness. Cera's Scott is just an enormous whiny pussy, and part of me suspects that certain omissions and changes to the plot were Wright's attempt to rebalance the story around this new re-characterization of the protagonist.

So, yes. I liked the movie, albeit as a distraction from the crushing conga line life, even moreso than the comic.

Other random musings, some vaguely spoilery:

1) HOW IS M. NIGHT STILL ABLE TO GET MOVIES. I also am not understanding that for a movie about a demon on an elevator, he did not call it HELLIVATOR. Oh wait, I do know, M. Night is a humorless prick who still thinks people take him seriously.

2) Am I the only one who was a little unnerved how Wright focused on Wallace's promiscuity? The comics certainly contained their fair share of references, but the movie possibly had more HEY LOOK THE GAY GUY IS KIND OF A SLUTTY SLUT. Still, it's better than how gay people are treated in most movies of this type (that being a magical creature that solves all problems of the heteros).

3) Possibly the only good thing at having Cera as the main character: Ann Veal as the evil lesbian ex-girlfriend.