Film Flam

[Faust]

There has been a lot of talk about Rape and gender issues around the place in the last while and it reminded me of a film I saw recently called The Skin I live in. It's based off of a book called tarantula which I haven't read so if anyone has I would be interested on how it handled the issues portrayed in the film.

In case anyone is interested in watching this I would suggest not to read any more because it is very good but has spoilers for what is a twisty movie.

The film opens on a women held captive in a doctors house. We are unsure if he has kidnapped her, if she is mentally ill or suicidal and needs to be locked up or if she is sick and needs isolation. The first fifteen minutes or so of the film portray a bizarre and upsetting home invasion and rape of this girl which ends in a climax of the doctor killing the invader and making love to the imprisoned girl.

The scenes are designed to anger the viewer and trigger the protective reflex for the girl and portray the doctor as a violent alpha male character with at best a sexual relationship with a mentally ill girl and at worst, a sexual relationship with a victim of Stockholm syndrome.

The movie shifts back and there is a great deal of history portrayed on the doctor all central to the women in his life, through a car accident which left his wife a recluse and his daughters mental instability.

If anyone is still planning on watching the film I wouldn't suggest reading on until you have.

The ultimate revelation of the prisoner girl in the doctors house gets explained in a way that recontexualises the first twenty minutes in a nasty way.

Effectively the doctor believes his daughter is raped by a boy at a party which ultimately leads to her committing suicide. What follows is a skin crawling montage where the doctor imprisons her rapist in his home and begins a gradual transformation on him which ultimately leads into the start of the film.

I found the protective instinct from the start of the film was hard to shake, that it was actually reinforced by the harshness of what happened to the guy.
I'd be interested in what people thought of the the shifting motivations of the characters in the film because I couldn't make head nor tail of them.

[Reeducation]

I just (yesterday) watched The Rules of the Game (1939).

It's a french movie about rich and not so rich people who are, in short, somewhat fucked-up.
I'm not sure if it was just that I was tired or something, but damn there was stuff going on in almost every scene, non-stop.
The movie starts slowly, but when it gets going, you'll be like "wtf is going on?" and then there is screaming and oh, the movie ends.
I liked it a lot!

But yeah, I should watch it again soon, because I was VERY tired when I watched it.
(There is a possibility that some parts of the movie, that I remember seeing, were not actually happening at all.)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

There has been a lot of talk about Rape and gender issues around the place in the last while and it reminded me of a film I saw recently called The Skin I live in. It's based off of a book called tarantula which I haven't read so if anyone has I would be interested on how it handled the issues portrayed in the film.

In case anyone is interested in watching this I would suggest not to read any more because it is very good but has spoilers for what is a twisty movie.

The film opens on a women held captive in a doctors house. We are unsure if he has kidnapped her, if she is mentally ill or suicidal and needs to be locked up or if she is sick and needs isolation. The first fifteen minutes or so of the film portray a bizarre and upsetting home invasion and rape of this girl which ends in a climax of the doctor killing the invader and making love to the imprisoned girl.

The scenes are designed to anger the viewer and trigger the protective reflex for the girl and portray the doctor as a violent alpha male character with at best a sexual relationship with a mentally ill girl and at worst, a sexual relationship with a victim of Stockholm syndrome.

The movie shifts back and there is a great deal of history portrayed on the doctor all central to the women in his life, through a car accident which left his wife a recluse and his daughters mental instability.

If anyone is still planning on watching the film I wouldn't suggest reading on until you have.

The ultimate revelation of the prisoner girl in the doctors house gets explained in a way that recontexualises the first twenty minutes in a nasty way.

Effectively the doctor believes his daughter is raped by a boy at a party which ultimately leads to her committing suicide. What follows is a skin crawling montage where the doctor imprisons her rapist in his home and begins a gradual transformation on him which ultimately leads into the start of the film.

I found the protective instinct from the start of the film was hard to shake, that it was actually reinforced by the harshness of what happened to the guy.
I'd be interested in what people thought of the the shifting motivations of the characters in the film because I couldn't make head nor tail of them.

that sounds really interesting and really disturbing!

[Salty]

I saw The Avengers. It could be that I've never read much of those comics, or it could be the more ham-fisted bits of dialogue, or perhaps even the Tangerine Dreamieness (every major color scheme is either orange or teal, like so many movies these days) but I found myself hating it as much as I found it entertaining. I'm not too snobbish to enjoy entertaining action movies with little substance, it's just that I wouldn't watch this particular one again.

[Salty]

I also just watched The Warriors, which Dr. Fiancé loved in her childhood but hadn't seen in quite some time. She was almost too embarrassed in her own gone-by taste to finish it, I insisted. Mainly so I can force her to watch something equally horrible.

Dexter's dad (James Remar, it turns out) is in it and was a total dreamboat, quite aside from his role as a potential rapist.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I also just watched The Warriors, which Dr. Fiancé loved in her childhood but hadn't seen in quite some time. She was almost too embarrassed in her own gone-by taste to finish it, I insisted. Mainly so I can force her to watch something equally horrible.

Dexter's dad (James Remar, it turns out) is in it and was a total dreamboat, quite aside from his role as a potential rapist.

Damn, those people got old. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YneQ6DDN1M4&feature=related

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Cowboy & Ninja took me out to a matinee of ParaNorman, which was AWESOME! I laughed multiple times despite my best efforts. The fucking chips bag got me.

Also I was scared and I cried and I was impressed by the animation, all at the same time. it was SUPER cool.

[Lenin McCarthy]

Just watched Flukt.

Thin plot. Nice scenery. Set in 1363. Involves Gaahl. 6/10.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I have heard from several people now that Looper is superb.

I am skeptical.

[Cain]

The trailer looks good, but then trailers always look good.  I might see it next week, I haven't decided yet.

Edit: currently ranked 8.4 out of 10 on IMDB.  With enough reviews, they're usually a decent judge of quality.  Yeah, definitely try to catch it next week sometime.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Let me know what you think of it!

[Faust]

The movie is good but deals with two aspects.

The time travel loop one is good.

The other (which is a spoiler) is the very old and very boring morality question of if you could kill hitler when he was a child would you.

The movie doesn't deal with the morality side it proposes, it just stays as an action movie. Excellent action movie though and the background sci fi details are cool.

[Cain]

I kinda guessed at the second one from the trailer.

I suppose in some ways it is better it remains a slick sci-fi/action film rather than delving too deeply into the morality aspect of it.  While Bruce Willis could probably handle that, I have my doubts about the rest of the cast, and the only thing more annoying than a completely brainless action film is one which tries too hard and overestimates the skill of its actors.

[LMNO]

Saw the latest Lars Von Trier film, "Melancholia".  Gorgeously shot, odd plot, and surprisingly (for a Lars Von Trier flick, at least) it did not rip my heart out of my chest and toss it in the gutter to rot.

To speak of the story at all would be majory spoilage.  It did however sum up his ethos in a single line: "Life is Evil."

Also, Kirsten Dunst naked.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Saw the latest Lars Von Trier film, "Melancholia".  Gorgeously shot, odd plot, and surprisingly (for a Lars Von Trier flick, at least) it did not rip my heart out of my chest and toss it in the gutter to rot.

To speak of the story at all would be majory spoilage.  It did however sum up his ethos in a single line: "Life is Evil."

Also, Kirsten Dunst naked.

I loathe Lars von Trier because I think he's a spoiled misery voyeur who packages human meanness and suffering for sale to those who don't have enough of it already in their lives, but I might be willing to tolerate his bullshit for a naked Kirsten Dunst.