I think it says alot for the backbiting, empty world of criticism that virtually every critic that watched Splinter, an enjoyable little indie creature feature, described the monster as AHHHH KILLER PORCUPINE LOL. Granted, most critics seemed to like the film, and those that didn't, such as this embarrassing review from the slackjawed paradise known as the AV Club completely missed the point.
I really don't get the whole porcupine thing. If anything, Splinter should really be called "what happens when a screenwriter watches that one clip of the parasitic fungus on youtube and thinks 'hey, what if that was really fast and bigger?'" Thankfully, the film that resulted was smart enough to keep the focus entirely on the creature. Sure, there's actual humans, consisting of two couples, one being a mid-20s nerdy indie dreamboat, the other being convicts who carjack the former couple, but the movie is pretty quick about dispensing with the character backgrounds and interactions, shuttling them to an abandoned gas station that will be the rest of the movie. They're quickly assaulted by the monster, which is/are spiky parasites that take over a host's body in search of delicious blood, and the 80 minute runtime just slips by.
Kudos really need to come out for the excellent use of low budget in handling the monsters. You see enough of them, including their unsettling habit of making the bodies move in ways they are not designed to move, but not enough that you're forced to conclude that their prosthetics were bought in a bargain costume shop. The film also wisely invested in top-notch, visceral sound effects that tap on your power of suggestion, a mix between your average outdoors ambiance with something that should not be.
There are problems, of course. The third act, like almost all creature features, has the typical lame "eureka!" moment that you probably figured out already, though (spoilers) to the film's credit, the ensuing solution actually goes terribly wrong.. Still, it's not a big hassle, since the movie also features genuinely rational human behavior in the face of terrifying menace, as opposed to the usual extremes of people either not SHUTTING THE FUCK UP or acting like Deep Blue pondering chess pieces covered with psychic ants. One particular character revelation was fairly groan-worthy. But overall, Splinter is a really likeable little throwback to those kinetic, cheesy 80's horror films like Night of the Creeps or Critters.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
I don't think I can call myself a nerd anymore.
The internet is really doing its best to alienate me from what should be my people.
I'd like to say the immediate impetus was the whole Penny Arcade bullshit. The worst part has really been the reactions of the Baron Fatterson that draws himself as a black haired stud. It'd still be really awful if he was just some unrepentant /b/tard going "FUCK YOU RAPE CULTURE EVERY SHIRT IN MY STORE IS NOW RAPE SHIRT." He'd still be lower than a piss-submarine, but at least there'd be some sort of missplaced backbone in the whole thing. But instead, he's trying to play both sides of the thing, trying to minimize the hurt feelings while clearly being a total bitchbaby. As the handy debacle timeline has noted, Fatlord Maximus has on one hand clearly inflamed the hordes of his followers who are too scared to venture beyond comics pointing out that HEY SOMETIMES REAL LIFE CONFLICTS WITH HOW VIDEO GAMES PRESENT THINGS (oh that's unfair sometimes they do stuff like showcase their sub-image comics artwork) with his "I am closing this because all these haters oh also here's more rape jokes." Meanwhile, he's carefully trying to control the same stupid people now he's apparently realized that this whole getting them to bombard the primary feminists with death threats may offend Penny Arcade's carefully groomed inclusive image!
Gut Master X, despite being what, forty, is doing that weird gamer thing where, despite operating in a culture that began with your mother giving you cookies whenever your fat mouth bleated and is currently residing in the ultimate hugbox, absolutely flips out when someone dares to call out some wrong-headed bullshit. The weirdest part, of course, is that the comic in question was actually fairly tame compared to how most nerd comics (and nerd attitudes towards real life women) go. I mean, looks at goddamned Shredded Moose. But when they were confronted with angry feminists, instead of going "hm well it just seemed like a dumb gag to us but we'll think about it maybe we can come to a hilarious understanding" like a normal human, the reaction of nerds is clearly "HUMOR IS FREEDOM PRINTING SHIRTS NAO FTW LOFFL."
So yeah. The thing that makes me feel guilty is that my initial reaction to the Kirbyfloffel or whatever was "yeah the comic was pretty gross but this is a little overboard." And then, like avenging angels, tons of horrible children suddenly show me that, no, this is not a little overboard, you are dealing with sheltered babies who think that creating a carbon footprint the size of an Xbox controller (LOL) is rectified by spending ten dollars so a dying kid can finally experience the joys of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 before shuffling off this mortal coil.
Before I move on to the next part, I want to say one more thing. Tim Rogers, I still think you're an awful writer contributing to the delinquent education of gamers, but thanks for at least being smart enough to recognize the whole thing here as pretty creepy and not going the Leigh Alexander route and equivocating "well it wasn't that bad but respect feelings but Penny Arcade STILL PRETTY FUNNY."
(and yeah I know that the last third of the Kotaku triumvirate hasn't responded can't imagine why)
What's really gotten to me is the whole My Little Pony bullshit. I saw the pictures. Read a synopsis. Then saw an episode. And now I'm hooked.
haha got you
No I did not enjoy the show. In fact, the opposite occurred: I can't watch this stupid bullshit anymore. I just tried to watch some clip of Adventure Time, and my system went insane, like when Kurt Russell put the alien blood in a fire. Suddenly I was aware that I was watching stupid nerd bullshit made for obnoxious babymen like me with just enough clever references that I would be placated like a cow as more pictures came. My girlfriend burnt some eggs really badly at the end of summer and still refuses to eat them because of some subconscious physiological reaction, and now I know exactly what she's going through.
This isn't to say that I've somehow transcended stupid nerd hobbies. I watched an episode of Bob's Burgers and was pretty tickled. I always hated most anime, but I still enjoy the same two sub-categories I've always gone for: terrible ultra-violent 90's OAVs and things that would be thought provoking even if not animated (see also: Masaaki Yuasa and Satoshi Kon). So I guess it is to say that I'm kind of over the dumb American bullshit designed to "appeal to child and manchild alike." I've actually been reading and writing again (though writing is just dumb zombie bullshit, what you know, etc.), and working out. I'm still doing dumb video game bullshit, though it's mostly just been limited to Persona 3 because despite Persona 2 and Devil Survivor, I still can't get enough of the whole SUMMON WEIRD MYTHOLOGY angle.
It's all about moderation. I know I'll be playing dumb games for a long time, but I also think I've gotten kind of tired of just passively whittling time away with shit that will have absolutely no effect on myself. I'm not comparing, but holy shit look what's happening in Egypt. That's insane, and meanwhile some nerd on justin.tv is doing a no-equipment run of Breath of Fire, which literally blows me away in its utter uselessness. HAY MAYBE OBAMA SHOULD BE ON JUSTIN.TV TOO high five me here.
We'll see! *takes last drag of cigarette, flicks into shadows, walks slowly down alleyway until gone from view*
next time castlevania: circle of the moon
I'd like to say the immediate impetus was the whole Penny Arcade bullshit. The worst part has really been the reactions of the Baron Fatterson that draws himself as a black haired stud. It'd still be really awful if he was just some unrepentant /b/tard going "FUCK YOU RAPE CULTURE EVERY SHIRT IN MY STORE IS NOW RAPE SHIRT." He'd still be lower than a piss-submarine, but at least there'd be some sort of missplaced backbone in the whole thing. But instead, he's trying to play both sides of the thing, trying to minimize the hurt feelings while clearly being a total bitchbaby. As the handy debacle timeline has noted, Fatlord Maximus has on one hand clearly inflamed the hordes of his followers who are too scared to venture beyond comics pointing out that HEY SOMETIMES REAL LIFE CONFLICTS WITH HOW VIDEO GAMES PRESENT THINGS (oh that's unfair sometimes they do stuff like showcase their sub-image comics artwork) with his "I am closing this because all these haters oh also here's more rape jokes." Meanwhile, he's carefully trying to control the same stupid people now he's apparently realized that this whole getting them to bombard the primary feminists with death threats may offend Penny Arcade's carefully groomed inclusive image!
Gut Master X, despite being what, forty, is doing that weird gamer thing where, despite operating in a culture that began with your mother giving you cookies whenever your fat mouth bleated and is currently residing in the ultimate hugbox, absolutely flips out when someone dares to call out some wrong-headed bullshit. The weirdest part, of course, is that the comic in question was actually fairly tame compared to how most nerd comics (and nerd attitudes towards real life women) go. I mean, looks at goddamned Shredded Moose. But when they were confronted with angry feminists, instead of going "hm well it just seemed like a dumb gag to us but we'll think about it maybe we can come to a hilarious understanding" like a normal human, the reaction of nerds is clearly "HUMOR IS FREEDOM PRINTING SHIRTS NAO FTW LOFFL."
So yeah. The thing that makes me feel guilty is that my initial reaction to the Kirbyfloffel or whatever was "yeah the comic was pretty gross but this is a little overboard." And then, like avenging angels, tons of horrible children suddenly show me that, no, this is not a little overboard, you are dealing with sheltered babies who think that creating a carbon footprint the size of an Xbox controller (LOL) is rectified by spending ten dollars so a dying kid can finally experience the joys of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 before shuffling off this mortal coil.
Before I move on to the next part, I want to say one more thing. Tim Rogers, I still think you're an awful writer contributing to the delinquent education of gamers, but thanks for at least being smart enough to recognize the whole thing here as pretty creepy and not going the Leigh Alexander route and equivocating "well it wasn't that bad but respect feelings but Penny Arcade STILL PRETTY FUNNY."
(and yeah I know that the last third of the Kotaku triumvirate hasn't responded can't imagine why)
What's really gotten to me is the whole My Little Pony bullshit. I saw the pictures. Read a synopsis. Then saw an episode. And now I'm hooked.
haha got you
No I did not enjoy the show. In fact, the opposite occurred: I can't watch this stupid bullshit anymore. I just tried to watch some clip of Adventure Time, and my system went insane, like when Kurt Russell put the alien blood in a fire. Suddenly I was aware that I was watching stupid nerd bullshit made for obnoxious babymen like me with just enough clever references that I would be placated like a cow as more pictures came. My girlfriend burnt some eggs really badly at the end of summer and still refuses to eat them because of some subconscious physiological reaction, and now I know exactly what she's going through.
This isn't to say that I've somehow transcended stupid nerd hobbies. I watched an episode of Bob's Burgers and was pretty tickled. I always hated most anime, but I still enjoy the same two sub-categories I've always gone for: terrible ultra-violent 90's OAVs and things that would be thought provoking even if not animated (see also: Masaaki Yuasa and Satoshi Kon). So I guess it is to say that I'm kind of over the dumb American bullshit designed to "appeal to child and manchild alike." I've actually been reading and writing again (though writing is just dumb zombie bullshit, what you know, etc.), and working out. I'm still doing dumb video game bullshit, though it's mostly just been limited to Persona 3 because despite Persona 2 and Devil Survivor, I still can't get enough of the whole SUMMON WEIRD MYTHOLOGY angle.
It's all about moderation. I know I'll be playing dumb games for a long time, but I also think I've gotten kind of tired of just passively whittling time away with shit that will have absolutely no effect on myself. I'm not comparing, but holy shit look what's happening in Egypt. That's insane, and meanwhile some nerd on justin.tv is doing a no-equipment run of Breath of Fire, which literally blows me away in its utter uselessness. HAY MAYBE OBAMA SHOULD BE ON JUSTIN.TV TOO high five me here.
We'll see! *takes last drag of cigarette, flicks into shadows, walks slowly down alleyway until gone from view*
next time castlevania: circle of the moon
gaming journalism pop quiz
#45: Which piece of media presents a more biting cultural sentiment about the nature of violence:
A) Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch."
B) Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
#46: Which piece of critical media amplifies and examines previous conceptions of violence:
A) action button's review of Kane & Lynch 2
B) That scene in Chopping Mall, a movie about 2-foot killer robots in a mall, where the characters run across a store named "Peckinpah's Guns"
A) Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch."
B) Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
#46: Which piece of critical media amplifies and examines previous conceptions of violence:
A) action button's review of Kane & Lynch 2
B) That scene in Chopping Mall, a movie about 2-foot killer robots in a mall, where the characters run across a store named "Peckinpah's Guns"
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
last lisa foiles post for awhile I promise
When you post a top 5 list of the best licensed music in video games, and you do include some shitty singer-songwriter who did a thing for Alan Wake (seriously I can't believe people actually cared about Alan Wake considering that Deadly Premonitions came out at the same time and basically made all future survival horrors unncessary), and don't include even a mention of the Jet Set Radio series, I don't give a fuck if you included some wacky "for the haters" intro pointing out that "oh I haven't played many games and these lists are just for fun" YOU CANNOT IRONICALLY POINT OUT THAT YOU'RE NOT REALLY A GAMER IF YOU'RE ACTUALLY NOT REALLY A GAMER YOU RACCOON MASCARA CLOWN GHOST
But maybe I'm just overreacting, and you're just writing at the level of your audience, since in 200+ comments not a single person mentioned the Jet Set series and instead argued what the best song in the Black Ops game was.
:(
But then again, I've gotten like fifteen hits to this blog under the search terms revolving around "lisa foiles xxx," so maybe it's all for the best after all.
:3
HEY LOOK LISA IT'S GUITAR VADER PLAYING MUSIC THAT CAN LIFT ONE'S SOUL FROM THE BLACKEST DEPTH BUT THE BROTHER TO POE WROTE HOUSE OF LEAVES THAT WAS PRETTY COOL TO READ FRESHMAN YEAR OF COLLEGE LOL
But maybe I'm just overreacting, and you're just writing at the level of your audience, since in 200+ comments not a single person mentioned the Jet Set series and instead argued what the best song in the Black Ops game was.
:(
But then again, I've gotten like fifteen hits to this blog under the search terms revolving around "lisa foiles xxx," so maybe it's all for the best after all.
:3
Monday, December 27, 2010
Grace (2009)
Well, it took a decade, but I've finally found a horror movie with a worse climatic breakdown than American Werewolf in London!
Okay, let's back up. As I've noted waaaaaay before, I have a love for movies about the evil children, so I've been looking forward to Grace for some time. The trailer was creepy as shit, there was tons of buzz at the festivals, and look at that fucking poster! I had waited to watch this movie with my mom, as she's a OB/RN and breastfeeding consultant, so I also got the inside scoop on what this movie got right. (fun fact: despite what is said near the end of the film, olden time breastpumps made out of brass and glass do not work as well as a modern Medela electric!)
(minor spoilers ahead in this paragraph) Grace involves a pregnant, vegan lady who decides to get a delivery via weird New Age midwife (who is, unusually, also a doctor from Columbia). Unfortunately, things rapidly go wrong, as she and her husband are in an accident that kills the latter. It seems clear that the baby is also dead, but the wife decides to continue waiting a few weeks for a delivery to occur, and glory be, the babby is alive. Except not really. Oh yeah, and it also doesn't really like milk. Can you, intelligent reader, determine what is going to happen? Hint: there's also a subplot about the dead husband's mother and her doctor meddling around.
There's alot that works really well. Jordan Ladd nails the weird mix of grief, postpartum depression, and blinding exhilaration over the miracle birth. Most of the artsy shots aren't too awful, especially the gradual degeneration of the marital home and flypaper surrounding the crib, though by the third shot of the mother doing something while the television played some slaughterhouse documentary, I felt a little ridiculous. Up until the final sequence of events, the movie manages to juggle the various subplots, all basically dealing with how crazy bitches are, fairly well. I was also pleased that (minor spoilers I guess) the aforementioned "Grace" isn't some evil demon baby, but instead the movie draws its horror from the extremes of the parent/child relationship.
And there's the effects. One gets the impression that the director saw Dead Ringers about a gazillion times, as while the gore is gross, it's gross neither in the lurid cartoony 80's slasher way nor the emotionally manipulative torture horror way, but in the "oh god this is boring right into the lizard center of my brain" way. All is very unsettling and uncanny as the best domestic horror pictures seem to do, and right to the end I was pretty much pumping my fist at the movie as it slowly rounded the track, never letting up until holy shit what the fuck happened.
Grace was originally a short film, and it really explains the utter abortion (hurr) of the ending. Everything about the movie, in retrospect, shows a great idea that could only be sustained until it came time to close the whole thing up. Then, the movie suddenly warps from a creepy study of motherly instincts to a tone of wackiness more at home in a classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel. I get the unfortunate feeling that the filmmaker recognized the dissonance of tone, and inserted in there as some easy attempt to broadcast a message about something, but FUCK THAT.
Okay, let's back up. As I've noted waaaaaay before, I have a love for movies about the evil children, so I've been looking forward to Grace for some time. The trailer was creepy as shit, there was tons of buzz at the festivals, and look at that fucking poster! I had waited to watch this movie with my mom, as she's a OB/RN and breastfeeding consultant, so I also got the inside scoop on what this movie got right. (fun fact: despite what is said near the end of the film, olden time breastpumps made out of brass and glass do not work as well as a modern Medela electric!)
(minor spoilers ahead in this paragraph) Grace involves a pregnant, vegan lady who decides to get a delivery via weird New Age midwife (who is, unusually, also a doctor from Columbia). Unfortunately, things rapidly go wrong, as she and her husband are in an accident that kills the latter. It seems clear that the baby is also dead, but the wife decides to continue waiting a few weeks for a delivery to occur, and glory be, the babby is alive. Except not really. Oh yeah, and it also doesn't really like milk. Can you, intelligent reader, determine what is going to happen? Hint: there's also a subplot about the dead husband's mother and her doctor meddling around.
There's alot that works really well. Jordan Ladd nails the weird mix of grief, postpartum depression, and blinding exhilaration over the miracle birth. Most of the artsy shots aren't too awful, especially the gradual degeneration of the marital home and flypaper surrounding the crib, though by the third shot of the mother doing something while the television played some slaughterhouse documentary, I felt a little ridiculous. Up until the final sequence of events, the movie manages to juggle the various subplots, all basically dealing with how crazy bitches are, fairly well. I was also pleased that (minor spoilers I guess) the aforementioned "Grace" isn't some evil demon baby, but instead the movie draws its horror from the extremes of the parent/child relationship.
And there's the effects. One gets the impression that the director saw Dead Ringers about a gazillion times, as while the gore is gross, it's gross neither in the lurid cartoony 80's slasher way nor the emotionally manipulative torture horror way, but in the "oh god this is boring right into the lizard center of my brain" way. All is very unsettling and uncanny as the best domestic horror pictures seem to do, and right to the end I was pretty much pumping my fist at the movie as it slowly rounded the track, never letting up until holy shit what the fuck happened.
Grace was originally a short film, and it really explains the utter abortion (hurr) of the ending. Everything about the movie, in retrospect, shows a great idea that could only be sustained until it came time to close the whole thing up. Then, the movie suddenly warps from a creepy study of motherly instincts to a tone of wackiness more at home in a classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre sequel. I get the unfortunate feeling that the filmmaker recognized the dissonance of tone, and inserted in there as some easy attempt to broadcast a message about something, but FUCK THAT.
Gasland (2010) v. Winter's Bone (2010)
Indie films love to portray poor white people. They allow us, the privileged audience, to get equal parts pity and superiority at those people who would smoke meth and still make jokes about the Wii into 2011. Generally, the strokes are broad and stereotypcal, a pastiche of the butt-raping mutants from Deliverance with maybe some idiot god character like the guy from Sling Blade. It's easy to write, and you don't have to worry about offending actual hicks, since even they can laugh at the gross parody of their lives, and even if there's some uncomfortable truth, they're used to/levelheaded enough not to worry about how a movie that no one important is going to watch represents them.
Gasland, a documentary about the effects of natural gas mining in rural America, and Winter's Bone, a sort of film noir set in the backwoods Ozarks, present two diversions from the usual portrayal. Gasland does its damnedest to show its subjects as JUST ORDINARY PEOPLE and fails pretty miserably, but Winter's Bone, in being willing to show the actual ugliness of those people were know crouch in rural lands, but don't like to think about, humanizes them incredibly well.
To be fair, I think people should watch Gasland. I have trouble believing the full extent of the film's thesis that natural gas drilling is probably about to kill America, but the truth is probably far closer to that end of the spectrum than the gas company's bordering on parody advertisements implying that natural gas is SO FUCKING GOOD LOOK AT THE JOBS AND HELPING ENVIRONMENT. Having the family home on the Fayetteville Shale means we've been assaulted by print and television ads by Chesapeake Energy for years, and it's pretty depressing how most neighbors literally had no trouble believing that gas drilling would have no ramifications. I'd be lying if I wasn't amused by the fact that the same racist WHITE MAN IS THE SMARTEST GENETIC KING subsection of people are basically modern Indians staring gap-mouthed at shiny baubles courtesy of our energy kings.
While I enjoyed the message of Gasland, especially since it's so far the only film actually looking at what's a fairly important environmental problem (while at the same time we're probably at our twentieth documentary about Wal-Mart good job there you stupid fucks), there are some significant problems, and they can all be traced to this guy:
Meet Josh Fox, the writer/director/host of the film. The initial problem is right at the start of the film, where he tries to portray himself as some sort of man of the country, giving a backstory about being born to hippie parents who built some magical house in the New York/Pennsylvania countryside. The impetus for the film, he claims, is that the gas companies offered Josh a huge amount for leasing the mineral rights on this home (for those unversed in gas, essentially the rights to drill in your land). Although the film never says he lives in the house, there's enough shots of him walking through the HALLOWED HALLS to imply this is the case. Of course, a quick google reveals that Josh actually lives in NYC as the manager of some theater
Of course, there's nothing really wrong with that. I'm smart enough to know that documentaries manipulate the audience's emotion through subtle background changes as much as any film. What is the problem is that this discrepancy is merely the start of Josh Fox doing his fucking best to convince us that he has some sort of connection to the rural instead of being some PoMo, Franzen reading dickurbanite. Josh, on the behalf of someone who has lived in rural Arkansas for almost all of his life, let me state that while you may fool your fellow cityfolk, you are not fooling anyone who regularly passes by overgrown yards with five or more broken down cars in front. In addition to being at one with the Earth and guys unironically wearing cowboy hats, he also does a fair share of wacky documentary filmmaking shots designed to tickle critics' bellies. You could probably have a drinking game/suicide pact based on taking a shot every time Fox shows some scene of environmental devastation mixed in with some calming, incongruous music track.
What bothered me more about the film is that general lack of interest in studying the science of things, and more in sensationalizing the problem. Literally the first two-third of the film are just Fox traveling to different people's houses, where they show him wellwater that is killing livestock or tap water that can be set on fire. It's striking stuff, but it goes on far longer than it needs to and doesn't really explain the at-large problems of gas drilling. And while this is the first large-scale film about the problem, it's not like there haven't been studies done about gas drilling, but the interviews Fox has with professionals rarely seem to disseminate any useful information. I guess we didn't really need you to continue that interview with the college scientist from San Antonio about how emissions from natural gas are worse than automobile emissions in the same area, Mr. Fox. I understand things had to be cut so you could show a scene where you play a banjo in front of a holding tank while wearing a gas mask. Priorities.
The movie really hits bottom when he tries to deal with people aligned with the gas interests. He's literally ignored by the actual companies. In one interview, the person eventually shrugs and leaves when Fox tries to push his luck and get to the tough questions. When he actually does get to spar with someone (the head of some western state's environment agency), Fox seems utterly blindsided by the interviewee's doublespeak. Every question leaves giant holes that the politician gleefully flies through. Eventually, in a pretty facile attempt to imitate Moore, Fox holds out a bottle of contaminated well water and goes WILL YOU DRINK THIS THE GAS COMPANIES SAID IT WAS SAFE TO DRINK, to which the interviewee metaphorically pats Fox on the head and sends him back to his seat. Shortly after this the movie ends with some New York state politicians asking genuinely tough and difficult questions to gas interests, which makes me wonder if Fox actually thought his own interview went well enough that he could compare it to the ending.
Let me repeat: you should watch Gasland. Even if you already know that fracking is a dangerous game, it's still worth watching just to see the interplay between the hipster and the rural man. The rural people featured plainly recognize Fox's origins, and play the same game with him as any group of economically challenged people do when dealing with a wealthy or influential stranger who believe that he/she is the only one that's able to help them. That's not to imply that any of the people in the film are exactly lying about their problems, but as someone who's spent alot of time in legal aid work, the worst attitude to give to disadvantaged people, and the one John Fox portrays, is the guileless "I'm helping these simple people because no one else can save them from their plight." It insults them in the presupposition that they're helpless, and there is no group more manipulative than those you presume to be powerless. You can almost hear the snickering when mystery families call Fox on his walkie talkies for super sekrit midnight meetings. Fox portrays his subjects as just good country people, and in reducing them to two-dimensional martyrs, ironically damages the power of his film.
Compare this to Winter's Bone, which is essentially Ozark Noir. Winter's Bone tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who is in charge of two younger siblings, a helplessly addled mother, and a living situation rapidly turning towards destitute. The girl finds that her father has skipped on his bail for meth production, and that what was used to pay off the bail was the family's property. What follows, like any other good noir, is a gradual journey of partial, though not total, discovery and an assorted cast of disreputable characters.
Like most of my positive reviews, it's hard to say much stuff about it, especially as it has been reviewed on the same positive points by much better critics. There were some negative reviews on rottentomatoes, largely focused on the dual tones that it was somehow exploitative against poor rural people (I'm assuming these are the same people that got huge boners for when Fox went to shots of some rancher staring into the distance of his sad natural gas habitat), and that it was just grim for grimness's sake. This is kind of a surprising accusation, since considering the subject matter, the movie is actually fairly restrained in how it handles the various aspects of backwoods ugliness.
If I have any real problems with the movie, it's that the movie slightly bungles the method to which it handles the increasing revelations. Without spoiling anything, the second half of the movies features just one too many scenes where the heroine learns things by people just visiting her and showing her what's going on. While noirs are supposed to have an aspect of events being beyond the protagonist's controls, it's a little off-putting when the reveals are literally just a series of facts placed in our lap. Granted, the heroine investigated in the first half in the movie, and there's a decent explanation for the change of tone, but it's still slightly annoying. To spoil from The Third Man, it would be as if the hero just spent the second half of the film sitting at a police station and at the end was told "oh hey we found Cotton in a sewer and shot him you can go now" CREDITS.
But don't let my stupid complaint stop you. Winter's Bone is seriously fucking excellent, and as noted above, really seems to understand the mindset of its subjects and the desolately beautiful setting that everyone is trapped in. I tried watching The Road with my mom a few days later, and just gave up halfway through to catch the last movie in Lifetime's Perfect Sunday Marathon (a literal series of movies about crazy clingy bitches going after perfect males) as all the ridiculous overt emotional manipulation that that film attempted was just worsened by remembering how genuinely affected I was by the end of Winter's Bone, and how that movie didn't have to show people crying or STARIN' HARD every five minutes to remind me I'm a human being.
(seriously, I'm not going to review The Road because I couldn't finish it, but I'm not sure if I hated it because I didn't like the book but I thought I didn't like the book because of the stupid writing style not the subject matter but now I just don't know because the biggest emotion I felt during the film was worry that this was directed by the Coen Brothers but whew it was just a crappy rip-off of their style)
Gasland, a documentary about the effects of natural gas mining in rural America, and Winter's Bone, a sort of film noir set in the backwoods Ozarks, present two diversions from the usual portrayal. Gasland does its damnedest to show its subjects as JUST ORDINARY PEOPLE and fails pretty miserably, but Winter's Bone, in being willing to show the actual ugliness of those people were know crouch in rural lands, but don't like to think about, humanizes them incredibly well.
To be fair, I think people should watch Gasland. I have trouble believing the full extent of the film's thesis that natural gas drilling is probably about to kill America, but the truth is probably far closer to that end of the spectrum than the gas company's bordering on parody advertisements implying that natural gas is SO FUCKING GOOD LOOK AT THE JOBS AND HELPING ENVIRONMENT. Having the family home on the Fayetteville Shale means we've been assaulted by print and television ads by Chesapeake Energy for years, and it's pretty depressing how most neighbors literally had no trouble believing that gas drilling would have no ramifications. I'd be lying if I wasn't amused by the fact that the same racist WHITE MAN IS THE SMARTEST GENETIC KING subsection of people are basically modern Indians staring gap-mouthed at shiny baubles courtesy of our energy kings.
While I enjoyed the message of Gasland, especially since it's so far the only film actually looking at what's a fairly important environmental problem (while at the same time we're probably at our twentieth documentary about Wal-Mart good job there you stupid fucks), there are some significant problems, and they can all be traced to this guy:
Of course, there's nothing really wrong with that. I'm smart enough to know that documentaries manipulate the audience's emotion through subtle background changes as much as any film. What is the problem is that this discrepancy is merely the start of Josh Fox doing his fucking best to convince us that he has some sort of connection to the rural instead of being some PoMo, Franzen reading dickurbanite. Josh, on the behalf of someone who has lived in rural Arkansas for almost all of his life, let me state that while you may fool your fellow cityfolk, you are not fooling anyone who regularly passes by overgrown yards with five or more broken down cars in front. In addition to being at one with the Earth and guys unironically wearing cowboy hats, he also does a fair share of wacky documentary filmmaking shots designed to tickle critics' bellies. You could probably have a drinking game/suicide pact based on taking a shot every time Fox shows some scene of environmental devastation mixed in with some calming, incongruous music track.
What bothered me more about the film is that general lack of interest in studying the science of things, and more in sensationalizing the problem. Literally the first two-third of the film are just Fox traveling to different people's houses, where they show him wellwater that is killing livestock or tap water that can be set on fire. It's striking stuff, but it goes on far longer than it needs to and doesn't really explain the at-large problems of gas drilling. And while this is the first large-scale film about the problem, it's not like there haven't been studies done about gas drilling, but the interviews Fox has with professionals rarely seem to disseminate any useful information. I guess we didn't really need you to continue that interview with the college scientist from San Antonio about how emissions from natural gas are worse than automobile emissions in the same area, Mr. Fox. I understand things had to be cut so you could show a scene where you play a banjo in front of a holding tank while wearing a gas mask. Priorities.
The movie really hits bottom when he tries to deal with people aligned with the gas interests. He's literally ignored by the actual companies. In one interview, the person eventually shrugs and leaves when Fox tries to push his luck and get to the tough questions. When he actually does get to spar with someone (the head of some western state's environment agency), Fox seems utterly blindsided by the interviewee's doublespeak. Every question leaves giant holes that the politician gleefully flies through. Eventually, in a pretty facile attempt to imitate Moore, Fox holds out a bottle of contaminated well water and goes WILL YOU DRINK THIS THE GAS COMPANIES SAID IT WAS SAFE TO DRINK, to which the interviewee metaphorically pats Fox on the head and sends him back to his seat. Shortly after this the movie ends with some New York state politicians asking genuinely tough and difficult questions to gas interests, which makes me wonder if Fox actually thought his own interview went well enough that he could compare it to the ending.
Let me repeat: you should watch Gasland. Even if you already know that fracking is a dangerous game, it's still worth watching just to see the interplay between the hipster and the rural man. The rural people featured plainly recognize Fox's origins, and play the same game with him as any group of economically challenged people do when dealing with a wealthy or influential stranger who believe that he/she is the only one that's able to help them. That's not to imply that any of the people in the film are exactly lying about their problems, but as someone who's spent alot of time in legal aid work, the worst attitude to give to disadvantaged people, and the one John Fox portrays, is the guileless "I'm helping these simple people because no one else can save them from their plight." It insults them in the presupposition that they're helpless, and there is no group more manipulative than those you presume to be powerless. You can almost hear the snickering when mystery families call Fox on his walkie talkies for super sekrit midnight meetings. Fox portrays his subjects as just good country people, and in reducing them to two-dimensional martyrs, ironically damages the power of his film.
Compare this to Winter's Bone, which is essentially Ozark Noir. Winter's Bone tells the story of a 17-year-old girl who is in charge of two younger siblings, a helplessly addled mother, and a living situation rapidly turning towards destitute. The girl finds that her father has skipped on his bail for meth production, and that what was used to pay off the bail was the family's property. What follows, like any other good noir, is a gradual journey of partial, though not total, discovery and an assorted cast of disreputable characters.
Like most of my positive reviews, it's hard to say much stuff about it, especially as it has been reviewed on the same positive points by much better critics. There were some negative reviews on rottentomatoes, largely focused on the dual tones that it was somehow exploitative against poor rural people (I'm assuming these are the same people that got huge boners for when Fox went to shots of some rancher staring into the distance of his sad natural gas habitat), and that it was just grim for grimness's sake. This is kind of a surprising accusation, since considering the subject matter, the movie is actually fairly restrained in how it handles the various aspects of backwoods ugliness.
If I have any real problems with the movie, it's that the movie slightly bungles the method to which it handles the increasing revelations. Without spoiling anything, the second half of the movies features just one too many scenes where the heroine learns things by people just visiting her and showing her what's going on. While noirs are supposed to have an aspect of events being beyond the protagonist's controls, it's a little off-putting when the reveals are literally just a series of facts placed in our lap. Granted, the heroine investigated in the first half in the movie, and there's a decent explanation for the change of tone, but it's still slightly annoying. To spoil from The Third Man, it would be as if the hero just spent the second half of the film sitting at a police station and at the end was told "oh hey we found Cotton in a sewer and shot him you can go now" CREDITS.
But don't let my stupid complaint stop you. Winter's Bone is seriously fucking excellent, and as noted above, really seems to understand the mindset of its subjects and the desolately beautiful setting that everyone is trapped in. I tried watching The Road with my mom a few days later, and just gave up halfway through to catch the last movie in Lifetime's Perfect Sunday Marathon (a literal series of movies about crazy clingy bitches going after perfect males) as all the ridiculous overt emotional manipulation that that film attempted was just worsened by remembering how genuinely affected I was by the end of Winter's Bone, and how that movie didn't have to show people crying or STARIN' HARD every five minutes to remind me I'm a human being.
(seriously, I'm not going to review The Road because I couldn't finish it, but I'm not sure if I hated it because I didn't like the book but I thought I didn't like the book because of the stupid writing style not the subject matter but now I just don't know because the biggest emotion I felt during the film was worry that this was directed by the Coen Brothers but whew it was just a crappy rip-off of their style)
Friday, December 24, 2010
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