Jimmy Hatlo Mutoscope cards - have a laff. Click to enlarge.
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Gevalt
If the idea of "Red River Valley" sung by a guy with a Yiddish accent doesn't provoke automatic giggles, then don't bother going to Big Ten Inch Record for an inspirational collection by Mickey Katz. I myself am currently digging "Mississippi Schmootz".
The World Of Reinaldo Garcia
I've been meaning to post an article about Reinaldo Garcia for some time now but It took me quite a while, as I don't really know how to describe him. Garcia wears many hats - screenwriter, playwright, composer and journalist. It would appear that he is an unsigned musician and songwriter, selling his CDs and literary works through his website and offering for free, full downloads of selected songs.The musicianship and production are quite well done - sometimes soft, sometimes jazzy and contemporary and sometimes a bit of classic rock with some really cool guitar riffs. But it's his lyrics that pull you into his world. Often I had to stop his songs, go back, thinking to myself, "did he just say that?". His CDs have cover art that is intriguing and seemingly autobiographical. With song titles like Raised By Women, That Lonely Military Wife, A Night of Serious Drinking and That Bitch Is Doggin' Me... how could you go wrong!
Reinaldo Garcia brings a unique perspective to our world.
So, my long intro over, here's a couple songs I really like. Also, check out his website for more songs and in-depth interviews about each CD with the man himself.
This is my personal favorite from the CD The Bright Twist Of My Soul
That Bitch Is Doggin' Me
From his newest CD Everything Beautiful Must Be Broken
I Fall in Love (A Hundred Times a Day)
The Other Guys
Directed by Adam McKay
Columbia Pictures
Adam McKay is one of a million: a writer and director who can put together a great trailer. Too bad the feature presentation of The Other Guys is so long and boring that it chokes on its own machismo.
The underwhelming tragedy of The Other Guys is that Saturday Night Live veteran McKay is the same fellow behind the hilarious Funny or Die short The Landlord and Anchorman. Then again, he’s also the guy behind other Will Ferrell flops like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Clearly, the McKay and Ferrell duo is destined to be hit-or-miss.
The Other Guys starts off promising. Two over-the-top cop heroes (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) barrel through New York City chasing teenagers who are in possession of a negligible amount of marijuana. They destroy millions of dollars of property and endanger dozens of lives, but they do it to the soundtrack of their own gunfire and acerbic quips. These two men get the glory—and of course, the trophy sex-with-women that goes along with it. The other dozen New York Police Department detectives—they get the paperwork.
This film is the story of two NYPD “other guys.” Desk-ridden detective partners Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Ferrell) don’t get out from behind their computers much, because one accidentally shot someone and the other craves safety. These two uncover a fishy financial deal, but for reasons completely unexplained (there’s no corruption involved) the police chief and district attorney thwart Hoitz and Gamble’s every move to investigate.
What follows is 107 minutes that will seem like an eternity of you’re-like-a-woman-and-that’s-bad jokes. Because, you see, there are apparently no women in this film’s NYPD (aside from a counselor), and the men basically only insult each other about being effeminate. What defines ladylike in The Other Guys? The way one’s urine sounds hitting a urinal, talking about shooting someone without bragging, and driving a Prius (bonus points for equating environmentalism with emasculation). And what defines manhood? Learning to dance just to make fun of homos, lamenting the fact that your son is bisexual or saying the word bitch ad nauseam. And the thing is, you don’t particularly care if Gamble and Hoitz catch the bad guy (Steve Coogan), because Gamble is an accountant at heart, and Hoitz is just an unrelenting asshole. The bad guy is much more entertaining.
But even if you were following the plot, the barrage of woman-hating language and themes in this film is hugely distracting, although frankly there’s not much to distract from. Aside from the language, there’s the classic (and somehow never not endearing in the world of film) side plot about a girlfriend who went from restraining order to marriage vows in about fifteen minutes since, really, stalking is flattering in romantic courtship.
And then there’s the whole Gamble’s ugly wife jokes. The twist here is that his wife (Eva Mendes) is objectively hot, if you’re into the whole American-beauty-standards ideal. Ferrell’s character spends the whole film lamenting, to her and to others, that she’s an ugly duckling and sucks at cooking. The ways he seems dissatisfied are the things that are traditionally valued in women—beauty and domestic aptitude. Hoitz and the audience wonder throughout the film: What’s the reason for Gamble’s odd point of view? Well, Gamble later confesses that he doesn’t feel he deserves such a wonderful, beautiful wife so he understates her attributes (to say the least) to keep her from leaving him. How sweet, and how unlike real-life domestic violence.
Hands down, the best part of this dud is the credits, which graphically show how a Ponzi scheme works. (I guess all of a sudden this film considers itself to mostly be about finance?) These credits will cool you down from being pissed that you heard the best jokes a month ago when you saw the trailer before Inception. You’ll realize while watching the credits that the inexplicable narration voice you were trying to place is Law & Order’s Ice-T. You’ll also realize you should have lobbied harder to see The Kids Are All Right earlier that evening.
Please, stay away from this drivel. Even the above examples don’t fully capture the constant onslaught of absurd fodder this film gives even the most casual feminist (or person who thinks that women are full humans). Let’s wrap this piece of crap up with a few words of wisdom, courtesy of The Other Guys: “She overreacted… she’s a woman.”
Review by Smalls
Cross-posted at Ladybrain Reviews
Columbia Pictures
Adam McKay is one of a million: a writer and director who can put together a great trailer. Too bad the feature presentation of The Other Guys is so long and boring that it chokes on its own machismo.
The underwhelming tragedy of The Other Guys is that Saturday Night Live veteran McKay is the same fellow behind the hilarious Funny or Die short The Landlord and Anchorman. Then again, he’s also the guy behind other Will Ferrell flops like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Clearly, the McKay and Ferrell duo is destined to be hit-or-miss.
The Other Guys starts off promising. Two over-the-top cop heroes (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) barrel through New York City chasing teenagers who are in possession of a negligible amount of marijuana. They destroy millions of dollars of property and endanger dozens of lives, but they do it to the soundtrack of their own gunfire and acerbic quips. These two men get the glory—and of course, the trophy sex-with-women that goes along with it. The other dozen New York Police Department detectives—they get the paperwork.
This film is the story of two NYPD “other guys.” Desk-ridden detective partners Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Ferrell) don’t get out from behind their computers much, because one accidentally shot someone and the other craves safety. These two uncover a fishy financial deal, but for reasons completely unexplained (there’s no corruption involved) the police chief and district attorney thwart Hoitz and Gamble’s every move to investigate.
What follows is 107 minutes that will seem like an eternity of you’re-like-a-woman-and-that’s-bad jokes. Because, you see, there are apparently no women in this film’s NYPD (aside from a counselor), and the men basically only insult each other about being effeminate. What defines ladylike in The Other Guys? The way one’s urine sounds hitting a urinal, talking about shooting someone without bragging, and driving a Prius (bonus points for equating environmentalism with emasculation). And what defines manhood? Learning to dance just to make fun of homos, lamenting the fact that your son is bisexual or saying the word bitch ad nauseam. And the thing is, you don’t particularly care if Gamble and Hoitz catch the bad guy (Steve Coogan), because Gamble is an accountant at heart, and Hoitz is just an unrelenting asshole. The bad guy is much more entertaining.
But even if you were following the plot, the barrage of woman-hating language and themes in this film is hugely distracting, although frankly there’s not much to distract from. Aside from the language, there’s the classic (and somehow never not endearing in the world of film) side plot about a girlfriend who went from restraining order to marriage vows in about fifteen minutes since, really, stalking is flattering in romantic courtship.
And then there’s the whole Gamble’s ugly wife jokes. The twist here is that his wife (Eva Mendes) is objectively hot, if you’re into the whole American-beauty-standards ideal. Ferrell’s character spends the whole film lamenting, to her and to others, that she’s an ugly duckling and sucks at cooking. The ways he seems dissatisfied are the things that are traditionally valued in women—beauty and domestic aptitude. Hoitz and the audience wonder throughout the film: What’s the reason for Gamble’s odd point of view? Well, Gamble later confesses that he doesn’t feel he deserves such a wonderful, beautiful wife so he understates her attributes (to say the least) to keep her from leaving him. How sweet, and how unlike real-life domestic violence.
Hands down, the best part of this dud is the credits, which graphically show how a Ponzi scheme works. (I guess all of a sudden this film considers itself to mostly be about finance?) These credits will cool you down from being pissed that you heard the best jokes a month ago when you saw the trailer before Inception. You’ll realize while watching the credits that the inexplicable narration voice you were trying to place is Law & Order’s Ice-T. You’ll also realize you should have lobbied harder to see The Kids Are All Right earlier that evening.
Please, stay away from this drivel. Even the above examples don’t fully capture the constant onslaught of absurd fodder this film gives even the most casual feminist (or person who thinks that women are full humans). Let’s wrap this piece of crap up with a few words of wisdom, courtesy of The Other Guys: “She overreacted… she’s a woman.”
Review by Smalls
Cross-posted at Ladybrain Reviews
Dinner for Schmucks
Directed by Jay Roach
Paramount Pictures
In the formulaic plots that have developed in mainstream comedies over the last several years the re-occurring theme seems to be male idiocy. The Will Ferrells and Steve Carrells of the comedy world have delighted in creating man-children characters who don’t exist on the normal plane of human intelligence. They come equipped with stock sex jokes, like not understanding the female anatomy, or overconfidence that their incorrect knowledge of basic vocabulary is accurate. As audience members we then feel forced to laugh at their idiocy as we revel in our own perceived genius.
In the latest formulaic mainstream comedy Dinner for Schmucks the stupid culminates into a festival of idiots. It’s as if a team of Hollywood screenwriters and comedians have been sitting around with these amusing character creations that didn’t fit into any film and they devised a shaky story just to insert them into a film. The plot for Dinner for Schmucks is essentially non-existent featuring moment after moment of nonsensicalness and a finale that leaves the viewer wondering what the exact message was. Despite all of that, the film manages to be hilarious enough to keep any schmuck’s attention.
Paul Rudd stars as Tim, an eager business analyst for a major financial planning corporation who has just come up with the proposal that could give him the promotion he’s been waiting for. His soon-to-be fiancé, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), has just been asked to curate a major art exhibit and things couldn’t be going better for the couple. Tim is asked into the head of his company’s office and told about the proposal that could land him the promotion he deserves–he needs to find an idiot and bring him/her to dinner at his boss’s house so that all the other employees can make fun of him/her.
Enter Steve Carrell as Barry, an IRS agent and mouse taxidermy enthusiast who doesn’t know what “curate” means and is unable to detect sarcasm. Against Julie’s adamant declinations, Tim decides to take Barry to the infamous “Dinner for Winners” and use him as the catalyst for his promotion. Along the way Barry gets intertwined in Tim’s personal life, straining his relationship with Julie and his opportunities to look good at the office causing Tim to question his career choice and his values.
Unlike other mainstream comedies where the stupid characters are ever-present and unbalanced, Dinner for Schmucks creates two teams right from the start–the idiots and the everyday characters. Each time a new character is introduced you find out which side they are on–if they’re quirky and interesting, they’re a schmuck; if they’re plain and undeveloped, they’re probably a “normal” person.
Paul Rudd is his usual sardonic and sensitive protagonist, similar to his roles in I Love You, Man and Role Models. His natural sweetness makes his predicaments with Barry almost unbelievable as he attempts to act like a self-important asshole. Rudd isn’t as natural at that type of role as say Ron Livingston, who ironically has seemed to play nothing but corporate jerks since his breakthrough role in Office Space.
Steve Carrell is only mildly funny in one of his worst performances of his career. Unlike in many of his other comedies, he doesn’t find any layers to give to Barry and even the subplot about his broken heart over his ex-wife is easily forgettable.
The comedic highlights of the film are Zach Galifianakis who plays Barry’s faux-telepathic IRS boss and Jemaine Clement who plays a self-absorbed artist. Galifianakis is the new king of stupid. His humor is better suited for sketch comedy than feature films because of its lack of depth, but he’s so hilarious that it is easy to forgive his misgivings. Clement’s background in improvisation shines through as you sense the other actors trying to hold back laughter with each witty and unpredictable line that he delivers.
The only other commendable performances come from the limited female roles in the film. The drop dead gorgeous Stephanie Szostak has one of her largest feature film roles as Julie and she makes the character easy to fall for. Lucy Punch also has a limited, but hilarious role as the off-the-rails Darla, Tim’s stalker ex-girlfriend who throws a wrench in his plans.
As the film approaches the ending one wonders what the message is as every attempt at meaning or depth was bungled by director Jay Roach and screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman. However, you may just leave the cinema quoting your favorite lines from the ridiculousness that just ensued.
Review by Alex Carlson
Cross-posted from Film Misery
Paramount Pictures
In the formulaic plots that have developed in mainstream comedies over the last several years the re-occurring theme seems to be male idiocy. The Will Ferrells and Steve Carrells of the comedy world have delighted in creating man-children characters who don’t exist on the normal plane of human intelligence. They come equipped with stock sex jokes, like not understanding the female anatomy, or overconfidence that their incorrect knowledge of basic vocabulary is accurate. As audience members we then feel forced to laugh at their idiocy as we revel in our own perceived genius.
In the latest formulaic mainstream comedy Dinner for Schmucks the stupid culminates into a festival of idiots. It’s as if a team of Hollywood screenwriters and comedians have been sitting around with these amusing character creations that didn’t fit into any film and they devised a shaky story just to insert them into a film. The plot for Dinner for Schmucks is essentially non-existent featuring moment after moment of nonsensicalness and a finale that leaves the viewer wondering what the exact message was. Despite all of that, the film manages to be hilarious enough to keep any schmuck’s attention.
Paul Rudd stars as Tim, an eager business analyst for a major financial planning corporation who has just come up with the proposal that could give him the promotion he’s been waiting for. His soon-to-be fiancé, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), has just been asked to curate a major art exhibit and things couldn’t be going better for the couple. Tim is asked into the head of his company’s office and told about the proposal that could land him the promotion he deserves–he needs to find an idiot and bring him/her to dinner at his boss’s house so that all the other employees can make fun of him/her.
Enter Steve Carrell as Barry, an IRS agent and mouse taxidermy enthusiast who doesn’t know what “curate” means and is unable to detect sarcasm. Against Julie’s adamant declinations, Tim decides to take Barry to the infamous “Dinner for Winners” and use him as the catalyst for his promotion. Along the way Barry gets intertwined in Tim’s personal life, straining his relationship with Julie and his opportunities to look good at the office causing Tim to question his career choice and his values.
Unlike other mainstream comedies where the stupid characters are ever-present and unbalanced, Dinner for Schmucks creates two teams right from the start–the idiots and the everyday characters. Each time a new character is introduced you find out which side they are on–if they’re quirky and interesting, they’re a schmuck; if they’re plain and undeveloped, they’re probably a “normal” person.
Paul Rudd is his usual sardonic and sensitive protagonist, similar to his roles in I Love You, Man and Role Models. His natural sweetness makes his predicaments with Barry almost unbelievable as he attempts to act like a self-important asshole. Rudd isn’t as natural at that type of role as say Ron Livingston, who ironically has seemed to play nothing but corporate jerks since his breakthrough role in Office Space.
Steve Carrell is only mildly funny in one of his worst performances of his career. Unlike in many of his other comedies, he doesn’t find any layers to give to Barry and even the subplot about his broken heart over his ex-wife is easily forgettable.
The comedic highlights of the film are Zach Galifianakis who plays Barry’s faux-telepathic IRS boss and Jemaine Clement who plays a self-absorbed artist. Galifianakis is the new king of stupid. His humor is better suited for sketch comedy than feature films because of its lack of depth, but he’s so hilarious that it is easy to forgive his misgivings. Clement’s background in improvisation shines through as you sense the other actors trying to hold back laughter with each witty and unpredictable line that he delivers.
The only other commendable performances come from the limited female roles in the film. The drop dead gorgeous Stephanie Szostak has one of her largest feature film roles as Julie and she makes the character easy to fall for. Lucy Punch also has a limited, but hilarious role as the off-the-rails Darla, Tim’s stalker ex-girlfriend who throws a wrench in his plans.
As the film approaches the ending one wonders what the message is as every attempt at meaning or depth was bungled by director Jay Roach and screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman. However, you may just leave the cinema quoting your favorite lines from the ridiculousness that just ensued.
Review by Alex Carlson
Cross-posted from Film Misery
I Can’t Think Straight
Directed by Shamim Sharif
Enlightenment Films
It’s always a bit tricky to adapt one’s real life experiences to the big screen, but that’s what award-winning filmmaker Shamim Sarif has done in I Can’t Think Straight. Based in London, the film depicts the budding romance between Leyla, an Indian Muslim woman raised in the UK, and Tala, an Arab Christian Palestinian woman who was brought up in a very wealthy family in Jordan. There are several challenges conspiring to keep the two apart such as racial, religious, and cultural discrimination, but the one central struggle in the film is overcoming the families’ homophobic bias.
Both Leyla’s and Tala’s cultural traditions are portrayed as not simply privileging heterosexual couplings, but forcefully pushing marriage to men on daughters. Tala is on her fourth engagement, a situation that brings much embarrassment to the family. She is set to marry Hani, a wealthy and handsome man with no protruding flaw, but whom she does not love passionately. Leyla and her boyfriend Ali are being pressured by Leyla’s mother to take their relationship to the next level, but her sister correctly guesses the reason for Leyla’s reticence. Despite the unexplained insistence that coming out to their families would be impossible, it is the infatuation of the women’s mothers in particular to be the gatekeepers of cultural and religious authenticity. Their siblings, friends, and fathers, however, are proud of Tala and Leyla’s feisty personalities and sufficiently sympathetic to their “Western” desires.
A typical romantic comedy, the myriad issues brought up in the film are never delved into with any amount of depth. More than lesbianism itself, the Israeli-Palestianian conflict receives the most attention in the film’s dialogue, which features several conversations involving anti-Semitism and support of suicide bombings that are, of course, tempered with standard liberal rebuttal. Feminist sentiment abounds as well with moments like Tala shoving food into her mouth after her mother’s reprimand that if she continues to eat she won’t being skinny enough to fit into her wedding dress. If not taken too seriously, I Can’t Think Straight is a fun, fast-paced, slightly campy, B-movie romp about self-determination and laying claim to one’s desires.
Review by Mandy Van Deven
Originally published in Bitch Magazine
Enlightenment Films
It’s always a bit tricky to adapt one’s real life experiences to the big screen, but that’s what award-winning filmmaker Shamim Sarif has done in I Can’t Think Straight. Based in London, the film depicts the budding romance between Leyla, an Indian Muslim woman raised in the UK, and Tala, an Arab Christian Palestinian woman who was brought up in a very wealthy family in Jordan. There are several challenges conspiring to keep the two apart such as racial, religious, and cultural discrimination, but the one central struggle in the film is overcoming the families’ homophobic bias.
Both Leyla’s and Tala’s cultural traditions are portrayed as not simply privileging heterosexual couplings, but forcefully pushing marriage to men on daughters. Tala is on her fourth engagement, a situation that brings much embarrassment to the family. She is set to marry Hani, a wealthy and handsome man with no protruding flaw, but whom she does not love passionately. Leyla and her boyfriend Ali are being pressured by Leyla’s mother to take their relationship to the next level, but her sister correctly guesses the reason for Leyla’s reticence. Despite the unexplained insistence that coming out to their families would be impossible, it is the infatuation of the women’s mothers in particular to be the gatekeepers of cultural and religious authenticity. Their siblings, friends, and fathers, however, are proud of Tala and Leyla’s feisty personalities and sufficiently sympathetic to their “Western” desires.
A typical romantic comedy, the myriad issues brought up in the film are never delved into with any amount of depth. More than lesbianism itself, the Israeli-Palestianian conflict receives the most attention in the film’s dialogue, which features several conversations involving anti-Semitism and support of suicide bombings that are, of course, tempered with standard liberal rebuttal. Feminist sentiment abounds as well with moments like Tala shoving food into her mouth after her mother’s reprimand that if she continues to eat she won’t being skinny enough to fit into her wedding dress. If not taken too seriously, I Can’t Think Straight is a fun, fast-paced, slightly campy, B-movie romp about self-determination and laying claim to one’s desires.
Review by Mandy Van Deven
Originally published in Bitch Magazine
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
Directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg
Break Thru Films
In the previous millennium when I was an idealistic young thing attending Barnard College, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, there was a lot of talk about who before us had walked the hallowed halls: anthropologist Margaret Mead; writers Edna St. Vincent Millay, Zora Neale Thurston, Francine du Plessix Gray, Patricia Highsmith and Ntozake Shange; recent United States ambassador to the U.N. Jeanne Kirkpatrick; musicians Laurie Anderson and Suzanne Vega (whose song “Luka” was then on all the airwaves); NPR’s Susan Stamberg; nationally syndicated columnist Anna Quindlen; choreographer Twyla Tharp; and a pre-Omnimedia Martha Stewart, whose daughter had also recently attended.
We students looked up to these women, our heroes. No trivia about them was too slight to swap and discuss. But I can only remember a couple of times when the name Joan Rivers was mentioned, and then only with a smirk. It seemed unbelievable that someone like her—brash, crass, undignified, disfigured by plastic surgery even then—could have once been part of our very serious undertakings in academia and feminism. Above all, we were earnest, and serious, and she was not.
The truth is that we failed to recognize Rivers for the pioneer she was. Those were the early days of Seinfeld. The backstage world of stand up comedy was still a mystery. There was no Comedy Central. We had no idea how brutal the world was in which she had risen. What a boy’s club. We were feminists, but we still thought we had to be ladies, or at least decorous. We disapproved of Joan Rivers.
Well, what did we know? Martha would go on to rule over all things female: weddings, entertaining, flowers, crafts, cooking. But the surprise is that Joan Rivers, now seventy-five years old, who seemed even then to be on the wane, continues. And the entertaining new documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work shows the incredible scrappiness and determination it has taken her to survive.
Born in 1933, Joan Rivers grew up Joan Molinsky in affluent Larchmont, NY, a dark-haired girl with a big nose. Her mother, as she relates, continually assured her that “looks don’t matter.” Meaning that she was ugly and they all knew it. “No man,” Joan says, at one particularly poignant moment, “has ever told me I looked beautiful. Oh, they say, ‘You look great!’ But never beautiful.” And so the plastic surgeries began—very early, from all appearances. By the time of her first TV appearances, in the mid-1960s, her nose had been transformed into a ski slope, although not yet the snub it is today.
Part of the fascination of the film is the grotesque state of her present face, with eyes slanted to cat-like angles from numerous lifts and lips and cheeks so swollen she can sometimes barely speak. But despite her obsession with her looks, Joan is, in an interesting way, completely without vanity. The film opens with her bare face, shot closer-up than any of us would allow for ourselves. One can see the veins in her eyelids and hints of scar tissue around her eyes and nose. She looks old, unhealthy, fragile, almost dead. Gradually, thick stage makeup is slapped on, in a healthy golden shade that gives no hint of the ashen, ruddy skin beneath. Heavy eye shadows and liners, lip liners and lipstick, until the Joan we know from photos finally emerges. It is a complete transformation. Joan has really let us see the real her underneath.
She even allows the camera to run right after she returns from a session at the dermatologist, where she’s been all “shot up.” Her face is splotchy from the needle, her cheeks puffed up so high it looks as though she’s suffering a horrible allergic reaction. But what Joan needs more than anything, far more than dignity, is attention. If the camera wants to roll, she’s game.
In the same way she is completely open about the ups and downs of her career, her relationships with her husband and daughter, the humiliations, anger, fears and needs that drive her. She even agrees, for the money, to a celebrity roast she finds mean and hurtful. She needs the money to fund her unbelievably lavish lifestyle. She has ridden in only limousines “since 1986.” And she lives in insane palatial comfort. Her manager says it’s like “the Queen of England.” Joan says it’s like “Maria (sic) Antoinette.” Let’s just say poor Bernie Madoff lived like a pauper compared to Joan. But she is also generous to her numerous staff. They are paid well, and Joan takes care of their children’s private school tuitions too. No wonder they are devoted. Good thing. It looks as though her staff are the only ones celebrating her 75th birthday. And one of the saddest moments in the film is when she says she has probably only three friends whom she can call to share a piece of good news.
And so it’s work, work and more work for Joan, who is perhaps just as driven as the legendary Martha. From Florida to Connecticut to the backwoods of Wisconsin, from plane to plane, convention hall to casino to QVC to shill the jewelry that makes her millions, despite the indignities, humiliation and exhaustion, Joan soldiers on.
Joan is all the things we young Barnard women abhorred back in the day: rude, obnoxious, offensive, freakish. But she is also a woman who recognized what she needed and went out to get it. Self-made, self-perpetuating, hard-working and indefatigable, Joan Rivers is a force to be reckoned with, indeed a piece of work.
Review by Grace @ Frothygirlz.com
Break Thru Films
In the previous millennium when I was an idealistic young thing attending Barnard College, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, there was a lot of talk about who before us had walked the hallowed halls: anthropologist Margaret Mead; writers Edna St. Vincent Millay, Zora Neale Thurston, Francine du Plessix Gray, Patricia Highsmith and Ntozake Shange; recent United States ambassador to the U.N. Jeanne Kirkpatrick; musicians Laurie Anderson and Suzanne Vega (whose song “Luka” was then on all the airwaves); NPR’s Susan Stamberg; nationally syndicated columnist Anna Quindlen; choreographer Twyla Tharp; and a pre-Omnimedia Martha Stewart, whose daughter had also recently attended.
We students looked up to these women, our heroes. No trivia about them was too slight to swap and discuss. But I can only remember a couple of times when the name Joan Rivers was mentioned, and then only with a smirk. It seemed unbelievable that someone like her—brash, crass, undignified, disfigured by plastic surgery even then—could have once been part of our very serious undertakings in academia and feminism. Above all, we were earnest, and serious, and she was not.
The truth is that we failed to recognize Rivers for the pioneer she was. Those were the early days of Seinfeld. The backstage world of stand up comedy was still a mystery. There was no Comedy Central. We had no idea how brutal the world was in which she had risen. What a boy’s club. We were feminists, but we still thought we had to be ladies, or at least decorous. We disapproved of Joan Rivers.
Well, what did we know? Martha would go on to rule over all things female: weddings, entertaining, flowers, crafts, cooking. But the surprise is that Joan Rivers, now seventy-five years old, who seemed even then to be on the wane, continues. And the entertaining new documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work shows the incredible scrappiness and determination it has taken her to survive.
Born in 1933, Joan Rivers grew up Joan Molinsky in affluent Larchmont, NY, a dark-haired girl with a big nose. Her mother, as she relates, continually assured her that “looks don’t matter.” Meaning that she was ugly and they all knew it. “No man,” Joan says, at one particularly poignant moment, “has ever told me I looked beautiful. Oh, they say, ‘You look great!’ But never beautiful.” And so the plastic surgeries began—very early, from all appearances. By the time of her first TV appearances, in the mid-1960s, her nose had been transformed into a ski slope, although not yet the snub it is today.
Part of the fascination of the film is the grotesque state of her present face, with eyes slanted to cat-like angles from numerous lifts and lips and cheeks so swollen she can sometimes barely speak. But despite her obsession with her looks, Joan is, in an interesting way, completely without vanity. The film opens with her bare face, shot closer-up than any of us would allow for ourselves. One can see the veins in her eyelids and hints of scar tissue around her eyes and nose. She looks old, unhealthy, fragile, almost dead. Gradually, thick stage makeup is slapped on, in a healthy golden shade that gives no hint of the ashen, ruddy skin beneath. Heavy eye shadows and liners, lip liners and lipstick, until the Joan we know from photos finally emerges. It is a complete transformation. Joan has really let us see the real her underneath.
She even allows the camera to run right after she returns from a session at the dermatologist, where she’s been all “shot up.” Her face is splotchy from the needle, her cheeks puffed up so high it looks as though she’s suffering a horrible allergic reaction. But what Joan needs more than anything, far more than dignity, is attention. If the camera wants to roll, she’s game.
In the same way she is completely open about the ups and downs of her career, her relationships with her husband and daughter, the humiliations, anger, fears and needs that drive her. She even agrees, for the money, to a celebrity roast she finds mean and hurtful. She needs the money to fund her unbelievably lavish lifestyle. She has ridden in only limousines “since 1986.” And she lives in insane palatial comfort. Her manager says it’s like “the Queen of England.” Joan says it’s like “Maria (sic) Antoinette.” Let’s just say poor Bernie Madoff lived like a pauper compared to Joan. But she is also generous to her numerous staff. They are paid well, and Joan takes care of their children’s private school tuitions too. No wonder they are devoted. Good thing. It looks as though her staff are the only ones celebrating her 75th birthday. And one of the saddest moments in the film is when she says she has probably only three friends whom she can call to share a piece of good news.
And so it’s work, work and more work for Joan, who is perhaps just as driven as the legendary Martha. From Florida to Connecticut to the backwoods of Wisconsin, from plane to plane, convention hall to casino to QVC to shill the jewelry that makes her millions, despite the indignities, humiliation and exhaustion, Joan soldiers on.
Joan is all the things we young Barnard women abhorred back in the day: rude, obnoxious, offensive, freakish. But she is also a woman who recognized what she needed and went out to get it. Self-made, self-perpetuating, hard-working and indefatigable, Joan Rivers is a force to be reckoned with, indeed a piece of work.
Review by Grace @ Frothygirlz.com
Soul Kitchen
Directed by Fatih Akın
Corazón International
Soul Kitchen is a lot like cotton candy—sweet but, ultimately, not very satisfying. Like many festival favorites, the plot of this independent German film revolves around a cast of lovably quirky characters who get themselves eye-deep into trouble.
Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos), a German of Greek descent, has a lot of stuff on his plate. He’s the proprietor of Soul Kitchen, a struggling eatery in a rundown section of Hamburg. The tax people, led by Frau Schuster (Catrin Striebeck), are knocking at his door. His ne’er-do-well brother, Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), seeks employment at the restaurant wanting “to go through the motions” of working so that he can make parole. Neumann (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a shady real estate agent, is sniffing around in hopes of acquiring the property. An uninsured Zinos makes the mistake of trying to move a heavy dishwasher by himself and gets a herniated disk for his trouble. On top of all this, Zinos is pining away for his girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan), who has hightailed it to Shanghai.
Attempting to revamp the restaurant’s simple cuisine, he hires the temperamental Shayn (Birol Ünel), a culinary snob who lost his last job for pulling a knife on a paying customer who asked for hot gazpacho. Things start looking up for Zinos when Shayn’s gourmet creations take off with the hip crowd. Eager to reunite with Nadine, Zinos makes plans to move to Shanghai, leaving Illias to manage the place. Illias gambles the restaurant away to Neumann. And poor Zinos discovers that Nadine has been cheating on him and aggravates his back injury on the same day. Zinos burns down his apartment in a fit of painkiller-induced pique. Homeless, loveless, jobless, and broke, Zinos has to figure out a way to get his restaurant back.
The script, co-written by the director and the leading man, is chock full of sly jokes and the dialogue is genuinely inspired. The filmmaker wisely decided not to let the food upstage the story. The problem is that the characters, with the exception of Zinos, are mere stereotypical sketches. Too much of the plot rests on contrivance—the romance between Illias and the surly waitress Lucia (Anna Bederke), for example—and things wrap up a little too neatly at the end. I never could root for the burgeoning relationship between Zinos and Anna (Dorka Gryllus), the physiotherapist who treats his back injury; the two don’t spend enough time onscreen together for me to care.
Full of whimsy, Soul Kitchen is definitely a film I would watch again. I can also see how it won the Special Jury Prize and the Young Cinema Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. It should enjoy a respectable run on the art-house circuit when it’s released in the States later this summer; however, the film is much too flawed to ever make any “best of” list, and it definitely isn’t Fatih Akin’s best work.
Review by Ebony Edwards-Ellis
Corazón International
Soul Kitchen is a lot like cotton candy—sweet but, ultimately, not very satisfying. Like many festival favorites, the plot of this independent German film revolves around a cast of lovably quirky characters who get themselves eye-deep into trouble.
Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos), a German of Greek descent, has a lot of stuff on his plate. He’s the proprietor of Soul Kitchen, a struggling eatery in a rundown section of Hamburg. The tax people, led by Frau Schuster (Catrin Striebeck), are knocking at his door. His ne’er-do-well brother, Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), seeks employment at the restaurant wanting “to go through the motions” of working so that he can make parole. Neumann (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a shady real estate agent, is sniffing around in hopes of acquiring the property. An uninsured Zinos makes the mistake of trying to move a heavy dishwasher by himself and gets a herniated disk for his trouble. On top of all this, Zinos is pining away for his girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan), who has hightailed it to Shanghai.
Attempting to revamp the restaurant’s simple cuisine, he hires the temperamental Shayn (Birol Ünel), a culinary snob who lost his last job for pulling a knife on a paying customer who asked for hot gazpacho. Things start looking up for Zinos when Shayn’s gourmet creations take off with the hip crowd. Eager to reunite with Nadine, Zinos makes plans to move to Shanghai, leaving Illias to manage the place. Illias gambles the restaurant away to Neumann. And poor Zinos discovers that Nadine has been cheating on him and aggravates his back injury on the same day. Zinos burns down his apartment in a fit of painkiller-induced pique. Homeless, loveless, jobless, and broke, Zinos has to figure out a way to get his restaurant back.
The script, co-written by the director and the leading man, is chock full of sly jokes and the dialogue is genuinely inspired. The filmmaker wisely decided not to let the food upstage the story. The problem is that the characters, with the exception of Zinos, are mere stereotypical sketches. Too much of the plot rests on contrivance—the romance between Illias and the surly waitress Lucia (Anna Bederke), for example—and things wrap up a little too neatly at the end. I never could root for the burgeoning relationship between Zinos and Anna (Dorka Gryllus), the physiotherapist who treats his back injury; the two don’t spend enough time onscreen together for me to care.
Full of whimsy, Soul Kitchen is definitely a film I would watch again. I can also see how it won the Special Jury Prize and the Young Cinema Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. It should enjoy a respectable run on the art-house circuit when it’s released in the States later this summer; however, the film is much too flawed to ever make any “best of” list, and it definitely isn’t Fatih Akin’s best work.
Review by Ebony Edwards-Ellis
It's Not That I'm Bitter...: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World
By Gina BarrecaSt. Martin’s Griffin
Challenging the norms of our modern society and how the feminist movement has evolved into a misfire of sorts (a mix of improvements with unexpected setbacks), Gina Barreca wrote her book It’s Not that I’m Bitter... to share her perspective. She covers a wide range of topics, from the beauty-obsessed culture women live in to how the holidays are unnecessarily stressful for women due to misguided expectations to our tendency toward behavior dictated by guilt and fear. Yet, she addresses these topics with a snarky sense of humor, regularly citing, “Not that I’m bitter…”
Immediately tackling being a woman in her fifties surviving in this world defined by body image, despite being a feminist and an intellectual, Gina admits that even she suffers from common women-only setbacks of bathing suit season-induced low self-esteem, and the like. The truth is that men and women are very different, and there are many aspects of being a woman that only other women can understand. Reading It’s Not that I’m Bitter... is like having a long chat with a close girlfriend, where she vents about the pressures and expectations of society, questions her own neurotic behavior in hopes of finding validation, proudly defines her stance, and proclaims judgments while admitting to some self-deprecation in the process. It’s amusing, a bit confusing, but ultimately relatable in a way only a woman would understand.
The title of this book made it sound as if this author had found personal peace with all that ails womankind in our modern world. Apparently not, and I was very disappointed with the ending. It abruptly stops on a note of Gina’s advice and curious questions for the main female figures of the previous presidential election (i.e., Hilary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Cindy McCain). Yes, it was amusing, but I was expecting some grand conclusion, not another random capsule of thought. Conquering the world is apparently still a work in progress for Gina, as it is for the rest of us too. And this helps the author to come off as a pal rather than a patronizing professor.
A mix of feminist perspective, humorous angst about our beauty-obsessed culture, and random (albeit amusing) ramblings make up It’s Not that I’m Bitter.... You won’t find any solutions to the problems you face as a woman (though a man would surely gain insight into women… and probably run screaming), but you will find a comedic look at today’s society, and where women need to stop holding themselves back.
Review by Sarah Eve Nichols-Fulghum
I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man and Dog
By Diana JosephBerkley Books
Diana Joseph has weekly breakfast dates with her Satanist neighbor, a dog that tirelessly humps everything (including her petrified son), terrible relationships with men (including one that produced the previously mentioned son), and issues with her brothers. Save for the Satanist neighbor and humping dog—perhaps—most of those topics are standard fare for memoirs, and in the first seventy pages of I’m Sorry You Feel That Way, Joseph does not do much to set herself apart from other memoir writers.
The stories Joseph is telling are obviously her own, but she writes with a disinterested tone that is slightly unsettling and boring to read. Then she makes this statement, referring to her battle with OCD and subsequent refusal to continue taking Paxil: “I don’t think it’s ever going to completely go away. I’m not sure I want it to. Because then who would I be? What would I think about? How would I spend my time?” This marks a shift in her writing. She still maintains her dry wit and keeps a slight distance from what she is writing about, but she has a distinct talent for weaving in moments of vulnerability that—because of the straightforward voice she otherwise employs—never feel forced or exploitative.
“It’s Me. It’s Him. It’s Them.” is Joseph’s finest piece in this series of stories. It shows off her ability to not only write vulnerably, but also to write pointedly. She tells the story of her “perverted” friend Andrew, and why she’s not quite sure she can call him a pervert. The story steers away from Andrew and hones in on her discomfort with her buxom figure, and men’s opinion of it, which culminates in this self-exchange:
Do I hide my body under sweaters and sweatshirts and jackets or do I let the world know I’m female and as a female, I have breasts? Why do I feel so self-conscious anytime I wear a color other than black? Do I want to be looked at or not? I don’t know.And that’s that. She doesn’t know. She offers readers a look into the battle that she fights with her body and doesn’t announce a winner. Because if she were to have some kind of cathartic answer to all of those questions besides “I don’t know,” she would no longer be a non-fiction writer.
It’s that baldfaced honesty that serves Joseph well throughout I’m Sorry You Feel That Way. While I’m curious to see what would happen if she were to bring herself closer to the stories she’s penned, perhaps those moments of honesty and glimpses of vulnerability wouldn’t otherwise be so rewarding to read.
Review by Alyssa Vincent
The Last Days of Emma Blank
Directed by Alex van Warmerdam
Fortissimo Films
Emma Blank believes death is eminent. Surrounded by a sulky if compliant staff in her large home near the Dutch dunes, she shouts absurd orders in between bemoaning her fate. “Don’t worry,” she assures her impatient employees. “Before winter, I’ll be dead.”
Emma’s character is frustratingly distempered. Seemingly with no idea what is good for her, she demands an eel for breakfast, then violently vomits while her staff stands around shaking their heads with annoyance. It’s clear no one in the house has any sympathy for her condition, whatever mysterious ailment it may be. Meijer, the houseboy, expresses his hatred by mowing a swastika into the front yard. In cyclical fashion, Emma returns their collective disdain, at one point exclaiming, “It’s as if I’m surrounded by a bunch of toddlers with brain damage! Do your work with devotion, with a smile. Is that too much to ask?”
For much of the film, it is difficult to discern the relationship between Emma and her staff. Gonnie could be her daughter, or it could be a case of Emma’s misplaced affection. Meijer could be Gonnie’s cousin, or her boyfriend. In the beginning, Haneveld appears to be Emma’s husband, lying beside her in bed when she requests and adhering a fake moustache to his upper lip when she demands that he do so. Yet Bella, who appears to be the head of the waitstaff, also makes snide comments to Haneveld. “I’m not giving you another hand job for a while,” she threatens. Are they having an affair? What’s really going on here? How do these people know each other, and what the hell does it all mean?
Most alarming and the one truly humorous aspect of the film, Theo (played by director van Warmerdam), a fully-grown man, acts the part of the household dog, alternately bringing in dead peasants, humping Emma’s chair, and shitting in the yard. Does he think he’s a dog? Is this poor casting? Is it some sort of allegory about the plight of enslaved humans?
The central plot device—if, like me, you are unable to decipher what’s happening before it is actually revealed—happens roughly an hour into the film. With less than thirty minutes left to tie up loose ends, including Emma’s inevitable demise, the film rushes to an end and leaves several major storylines intentionally up in the air. Will the hired help inherit the house? Will their relationships survive in the wake of their time with their she-devil employer?
In Dutch with English subtitles, this truly bizarre, dark, situational comedy isn’t for everyone; frankly, I find it a stretch to label The Last Days of Emma Blank a comedy at all. But if you like feeling ill at ease, a bit discombobulated, or even thoroughly annoyed by what people will do for money, this bewilderingly strange film is for you.
Review by Brittany Shoot
Fortissimo Films
Emma Blank believes death is eminent. Surrounded by a sulky if compliant staff in her large home near the Dutch dunes, she shouts absurd orders in between bemoaning her fate. “Don’t worry,” she assures her impatient employees. “Before winter, I’ll be dead.”
Emma’s character is frustratingly distempered. Seemingly with no idea what is good for her, she demands an eel for breakfast, then violently vomits while her staff stands around shaking their heads with annoyance. It’s clear no one in the house has any sympathy for her condition, whatever mysterious ailment it may be. Meijer, the houseboy, expresses his hatred by mowing a swastika into the front yard. In cyclical fashion, Emma returns their collective disdain, at one point exclaiming, “It’s as if I’m surrounded by a bunch of toddlers with brain damage! Do your work with devotion, with a smile. Is that too much to ask?”
For much of the film, it is difficult to discern the relationship between Emma and her staff. Gonnie could be her daughter, or it could be a case of Emma’s misplaced affection. Meijer could be Gonnie’s cousin, or her boyfriend. In the beginning, Haneveld appears to be Emma’s husband, lying beside her in bed when she requests and adhering a fake moustache to his upper lip when she demands that he do so. Yet Bella, who appears to be the head of the waitstaff, also makes snide comments to Haneveld. “I’m not giving you another hand job for a while,” she threatens. Are they having an affair? What’s really going on here? How do these people know each other, and what the hell does it all mean?
Most alarming and the one truly humorous aspect of the film, Theo (played by director van Warmerdam), a fully-grown man, acts the part of the household dog, alternately bringing in dead peasants, humping Emma’s chair, and shitting in the yard. Does he think he’s a dog? Is this poor casting? Is it some sort of allegory about the plight of enslaved humans?
The central plot device—if, like me, you are unable to decipher what’s happening before it is actually revealed—happens roughly an hour into the film. With less than thirty minutes left to tie up loose ends, including Emma’s inevitable demise, the film rushes to an end and leaves several major storylines intentionally up in the air. Will the hired help inherit the house? Will their relationships survive in the wake of their time with their she-devil employer?
In Dutch with English subtitles, this truly bizarre, dark, situational comedy isn’t for everyone; frankly, I find it a stretch to label The Last Days of Emma Blank a comedy at all. But if you like feeling ill at ease, a bit discombobulated, or even thoroughly annoyed by what people will do for money, this bewilderingly strange film is for you.
Review by Brittany Shoot
A Parallelogram - Steppenwolf Theater: Chicago, IL (7/1/2010)
Directed by Anna D. ShapiroIn Euclidean geometry, parallel lines never intersect. In post-Euclidean geometry, all parallel lines under specific conditions—for example, placed on a globe—will converge. In Bruce Norris’ new play, A Parallelogram, parallelogram is the term used to describe a window of sorts in space and time. The protagonist’s future self visits her through such a passage and discloses details of her life and the world to come. The intersecting lives—that of Bee, her boyfriend Jay, and the garden worker J.J.—are sharply critiqued by future Bee (henceforth referred to as “Bee 2”) to comic effect. The relentless quality and sharpness of the playwright’s words counterbalance the poignancy of Bee’s predicament: informed of the future, she rallies her will to intervene, with results that are futile at best.
Marylouise Burke plays Bee 2 and wins the audience over with her depiction of the idealistic young woman transformed into a bespectacled, chain-smoking, oreo-gobbling, sweatsuit clad pile of cynical resignation. The primary benefit of aging, she confidently yet conspiratorially announces, is no longer giving a shit. Younger Bee (Kate Arrington) becomes an increasingly engaging character, moving from annoying to genuinely concerned and of concern as the origin of her conundrum emerges and is further complicated by Bee 2’s interventions. Tom Irwin plays Bee’s boyfriend Jay, a man buffeted by his personal relationships who breaks off the relationship under the weight of Bee’s apparent insanity. J.J.—the sincere and ultimately unassuming lawnboy—is portrayed by Tim Bickel.
Big ideas are bluntly addressed—Is there free will? Is love real? Does life hold any meaning whatsoever?—but the play’s most engaging moments lie in its precise comic timing and repartee. Norris shares explications of men falling in love with folding chairs, or individuals saved by parrot’s bites, and these specific sights brace the sides of this quadrilateral form. Anna D. Shapiro’s direction deftly renders repeated scenes gripping instead of tedious, and keeps baldly comic elements fresh. Todd Rosenthal designed a splendid set, a standard middle class condominium that spins to show a hospital room and back again. The quandary of the play is presented on its programs: "If someone could tell you in advance exactly what was going to happen in your life, and how everything was going to turn out, and if you knew you couldn’t do anything to change it, would you still want to go on with your life?" If my reiterated existence included another outing to the Steppenwolf to see A Parallelogram, I would.
Review by Erika Mikkalo
A Parallelogram is playing at the Steppenwolf through August 29.
Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World
By Rita Golden GelmanThree Rivers Press
I love reading essay collections. For a voracious reader without much free time, the ability to pick up a book, read a few self-contained pages that pack a punch, and go on to the next task is so rewarding. And unlike reading blog posts, I don’t feel the need to comment or otherwise let the author know that I was there.
Female Nomad and Friends is an absolute treat for women who love to travel and connect with new people. Even for those who simply dream about it, but don’t have the means or the fearlessness to travel to exotic places, this book offers funny stories, unbelievable adventures, and... recipes.
Rita Golden Gelman received such tremendous feedback from her book of travel stories, Tales of a Female Nomad, that she decided to collect some of her favorite fan responses and publish them. Another friend suggested she add recipes and, voila, the book was born.
The essays are organized into different themes: Connecting, Language, Food, Passion, etc. and give the reader a colorful array of experiences that span the globe. The women who contributed stories to the book had predictably unpredictable mishaps, some titillating moments, a few frightening culinary experiences, and ultimately learned some universal truths about people and themselves along the way. In the past few decades, the world has gotten smaller and it is easy to take for granted how easily we can glean facts about life halfway across the world. Thanks to this book, we are reminded that there is just no substitute for face-to-face contact. Reading about personal interactions between people who don’t share languages or cultural norms but who nonetheless show kindness and respect for each other is both heartwarming and hilarious.
I must admit I’ve dog-eared a few recipes to go back and try once I get some free time in the kitchen. There is just something special about re-creating something you first experienced abroad, especially if it is a time honored tradition in someone else’s kitchen. Many of my favorite discussions have occurred in the kitchen, hanging out with a group of women, working away, everyone doing their part to create something magical and special for their families and friends. The travel stories and recipes go hand-in-hand as they create a wonderful tapestry of travel images for the reader.
Review by Kari O’Driscoll
Grown-Ups
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Columbia Pictures
Every year, one of my nieces comes to visit my husband and I for a week over the summer. This year we took her to a couple of art museums, a jazz concert, and her first comic book store. We also did fun things at home like painting our nails and playing video games. On the last day of our visit, we decided to see a movie, and she wanted to see Grown-Ups. I did too, as a matter of fact.
I’m happy to report that I genuinely liked the movie. Though it has some foibles, that we’ll get to in a moment, the film is genuinely family friendly. Not only that, but it’s also family-centric. It’s enjoyable to see these guys, who are obviously friends in real life, working together on screen. On top of that, this is honestly the perfect summer movie. There’s a lake, a lake house, a rope swing, a picnic, and a vacation vibe that makes it the perfect movie for the upcoming Fourth of July weekend.
In Adam Sandler movies from years past, women were typically just there to serve beer in a bikini or reward him with sexual activity for academic or sports-related progress; here they get to be actual people with a more three-dimensional and emotional story. Though Grown-Ups is definitely a movie written by and made for men (nothing wrong with that), one senses that Sandler and company are genuinely trying to be more respectful and inclusive of their female characters. They don’t always hit the mark with that intended change, but their effort seems sincere.
We do get some of the stereotypical “nag” jokes, but hey…those are funny in small doses. I'm not one of those feminists who thinks you can't make any jokes out of female characters at all. I'm more in the Tina Fey school of "anyone is fair game," along with any subject matter as long as there's a level playing field of mockery. The men in the film seem to be at a time in their lives when they are feeling emasculated, but their problems stem from their own lack of action, not from the action of their wives. Though the story teeters around blaming the women for the men's problems, hallelujah, it never really does. I had characters to identify with that weren’t simply present to be pleasing to the male gaze, and filmmakers take note: non-sexist plots will make you more money at the box office.
Okay, so there was one slow-mo cheerleaders running scene, but it was of the wives cheering on their husbands, and quite frankly, I'd rather see the camera trained on the wife characters as being the visually appealing ones than some random girl bending over a car. (See the next paragraph.) In fact, there was almost a sweetness to this scene, although my fellow feminists may hunt me down for saying so. Part of any healthy relationship is finding your partner attractive, and I don't want there to be such a feminist backlash where we say any woman who wants to be attractive, or is, is a traitor. That just doesn't seem fair.
In all fairness, there were still several parts of the film that made me wince, especially with my 14-year-old niece by my side. In one sequence, you’ve seen it in the preview, a clearly under-aged girl, dressed far too scantily, leans over a car in a highly suggestive manner so that the older, married men can gawk at her. Kind of gross and definitely not realistic. We’re not stupid. We really don’t care to get hot oil or steam burns all over ourselves while tinkering with our cars, and we don’t lick our lips and make come-hither eyes at an engine. Oddly, I found myself forgiving these clearly exploitative moments, and my niece simply got through it by looking at me and rolling her eyes.
If you have a young daughter, the film might be a good gateway to discussing the portrayal of women on film. After all, if we censored what our kids watched based on sexism alone, they wouldn’t see much of anything at all. Better to watch it with them and talk about it. And this film is a great introduction to talking about lots of things: texting, video games, playing outside, marriage. In fact, I'd like to see a sequel since the cast had such genuine chemistry. If you can’t get your inner critic to shut up, Grown-Ups might be just the thing.
Review by Audrey M. Brown
Excerpted from Born for Geekdom
Columbia Pictures
Every year, one of my nieces comes to visit my husband and I for a week over the summer. This year we took her to a couple of art museums, a jazz concert, and her first comic book store. We also did fun things at home like painting our nails and playing video games. On the last day of our visit, we decided to see a movie, and she wanted to see Grown-Ups. I did too, as a matter of fact.
I’m happy to report that I genuinely liked the movie. Though it has some foibles, that we’ll get to in a moment, the film is genuinely family friendly. Not only that, but it’s also family-centric. It’s enjoyable to see these guys, who are obviously friends in real life, working together on screen. On top of that, this is honestly the perfect summer movie. There’s a lake, a lake house, a rope swing, a picnic, and a vacation vibe that makes it the perfect movie for the upcoming Fourth of July weekend.
In Adam Sandler movies from years past, women were typically just there to serve beer in a bikini or reward him with sexual activity for academic or sports-related progress; here they get to be actual people with a more three-dimensional and emotional story. Though Grown-Ups is definitely a movie written by and made for men (nothing wrong with that), one senses that Sandler and company are genuinely trying to be more respectful and inclusive of their female characters. They don’t always hit the mark with that intended change, but their effort seems sincere.
We do get some of the stereotypical “nag” jokes, but hey…those are funny in small doses. I'm not one of those feminists who thinks you can't make any jokes out of female characters at all. I'm more in the Tina Fey school of "anyone is fair game," along with any subject matter as long as there's a level playing field of mockery. The men in the film seem to be at a time in their lives when they are feeling emasculated, but their problems stem from their own lack of action, not from the action of their wives. Though the story teeters around blaming the women for the men's problems, hallelujah, it never really does. I had characters to identify with that weren’t simply present to be pleasing to the male gaze, and filmmakers take note: non-sexist plots will make you more money at the box office.
Okay, so there was one slow-mo cheerleaders running scene, but it was of the wives cheering on their husbands, and quite frankly, I'd rather see the camera trained on the wife characters as being the visually appealing ones than some random girl bending over a car. (See the next paragraph.) In fact, there was almost a sweetness to this scene, although my fellow feminists may hunt me down for saying so. Part of any healthy relationship is finding your partner attractive, and I don't want there to be such a feminist backlash where we say any woman who wants to be attractive, or is, is a traitor. That just doesn't seem fair.
In all fairness, there were still several parts of the film that made me wince, especially with my 14-year-old niece by my side. In one sequence, you’ve seen it in the preview, a clearly under-aged girl, dressed far too scantily, leans over a car in a highly suggestive manner so that the older, married men can gawk at her. Kind of gross and definitely not realistic. We’re not stupid. We really don’t care to get hot oil or steam burns all over ourselves while tinkering with our cars, and we don’t lick our lips and make come-hither eyes at an engine. Oddly, I found myself forgiving these clearly exploitative moments, and my niece simply got through it by looking at me and rolling her eyes.
If you have a young daughter, the film might be a good gateway to discussing the portrayal of women on film. After all, if we censored what our kids watched based on sexism alone, they wouldn’t see much of anything at all. Better to watch it with them and talk about it. And this film is a great introduction to talking about lots of things: texting, video games, playing outside, marriage. In fact, I'd like to see a sequel since the cast had such genuine chemistry. If you can’t get your inner critic to shut up, Grown-Ups might be just the thing.
Review by Audrey M. Brown
Excerpted from Born for Geekdom
Lizzy the Lezzy
To celebrate Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, the Sundance Channel has released five digitally animated Lizzy the Lezzy short films featuring the irreverent stand up comedy and musical humor of their title character. Who is this Lizzy the Lezzy – besides an Internet and television phenom who’s been featured on AfterEllen.com and Logo TV’s Alien Boot Camp? Well, as she puts it: "I’m Lizzy the Lezzy and I am a dyke." (I guess it’s okay when she says it.)
For your information, she also goes by “muff munching freak,” among other deceptively self-deprecating labels. In reality, lesbian pride is her thing. If you’re not shy about lesbian, gay, or heterosexuality, you’ll want to check out Lizzy’s films as soon as possible for a good laugh or two…or nine (I counted). Even though Lizzy uses these often disparaging labels to identify herself, she quickly dispenses with the formalities and basks in happy banter about the joys of being a lesbian, and the joys of sexual intercourse between all people: "Love is bi. Love is queer. Love is shoving things in your lover’s rear." But also: "Love is for all wherever you are."
Whether she’s lamenting the fact that women aren’t allowed to walk around with bare breasts exposed in most industrialized parts of the world—something people of both sexes and most sexual orientations might complain about too—or the unfortunate smallness of the out and proud lesbian community, Lizzy is a cute, singsong-y presence of simple animation who makes for a good few minutes of enlightenment here and there. Accept her humor or don’t: it’s unapologetic and refreshingly matter of fact, even if it doesn’t cover any new turf. Though Lizzy has a tendency to sexually objectify women—admittedly so—she also professes to love women in their natural glory; some of her comic stints are as much celebrations of womanhood as they are lesbian identity.
Two things that might alarm some viewers are Lizzy’s high-pitched voice and childlike appearance; she somewhat resembles an extra from an episode of South Park. This demeanor aligns nicely with the open-minded awe and wonder Lizzy employs to examine the world around her, and allows for her witty stand up to seem fresh. She’s not a child, though she is somewhat babyish, and those who find the likes of South Park difficult to stomach are hereby cautioned to stay away.
Fans of The L Word will want to seek out Lizzy’s shorts that critique and celebrate the show and its characters. Even though she can’t remember all the lyrics to the show’s theme song, it’s fun hearing her take on its mainstream, Hollywood-packaged lesbian ideals. The Lizzy the Lezzy digital shorts were created by Ruth Selwyn and can currently be viewed online at SundanceChannel.com and LizzytheLezzy.com.
Review by Rachel Moehl
Get Him to the Greek
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Universal Pictures
Aldous Snow (Russell Brand)—the uber-sexual, tongue-in-cheek (and anywhere else you’ll let him stick it) Brit-rocker introduced to audiences in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall—is back in the latest film from yet another member of the Apatow Film Club for Boys. Based on characters created by Jason Segel, and written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, Get Him to the Greek is an often-comical, always offensive satire of the music industry, rock ‘n’ roll culture, and America’s reverence for all things celebrity.
Capitalizing on the fervor ignited by Brand, Get Him to the Greek succeeds in blurring the line between reality and fiction through inclusion of an original soundtrack and videos (performed by Brand and co-star Rose Byrne) and cameos by more than one recognizable pop artist and media outlet. Brand is refreshingly genuine as a privileged star struggling to gain control of his life, while Byrne offers hilarious support as Snow’s ex-wife and musical partner, Jackie Q. Effortlessly, she rivals Brand with her own sincere wit as she admits on Showbiz Tonight how bored she is with her husband’s sobriety.
I expected to like this film, and I did. Stoller bravely explores intimacy among men and, similar to I Love You, Man, his manuscript explores the complex dynamics of male relationships by offering glimpses of sincerity, vulnerability, and affection, elements often ignored in favor of more acceptably masculine attributes. However, as is often the case in Hollywood, without being well-versed in feminist values, what is meant to be ironic instead reinforces stereotypes and makes it that much harder for girls to be in on the joke.
Some attempts at humor are more problematic than others. While attempting to wrangle Snow in Vegan and escort him to New York City, music intern Aaron (Jonah Hill) is ordered by his boss Sergio (Sean “P Diddy” Combs) to have sex with a woman he’s just met, Destiny. Actually, Sergio commands Destiny to “[t]ake this man into the bedroom and have sex with him," and she readily complies. What follows is a pointless scene in which the petite Destiny forces the hefty Aaron to have sex with her. He says, “No.” He “protests.” (In reality, he could have easily tossed her off him.) Finally, he returns to his friends and announces, “I think I was just raped.” They laugh, and so does the audience. Gross.
In a perfect world, we can laugh about anything. Considering the world we live in, however, perhaps the more appropriate question is "who is allowed to laugh about rape?" When victims speak out with humor about their own lived experience, they are ridiculed or shamed, but when white men in Hollywood poke fun, its satire. Satire, by definition, is an exaggeration that is so far from reality that it is ridiculous to even consider. (The punchline to this joke being how ridiculous and non-threatening rape is for men – that men can’t be raped.) Unfortunately, this moment in Get Him to the Greek reinforces cultural myths surrounding the acceptance of rape. Instead of calling attention to the cultural, systemic, powerful epidemic of sexual violence, the "joke" nullifies its severity by applying it to the most powerful social group (white men).
The film industry is a site where creative potential can be harnessed to provoke meaningful change, and this band of brothers has the ability to lead the way for other Freaks and Geeks. But if we don’t start getting some feminist minds in on the action, these bright men are headed straight for the John Mayer Celebrity School of Shame.
Review by Alicia Sowisdral
Universal Pictures
Aldous Snow (Russell Brand)—the uber-sexual, tongue-in-cheek (and anywhere else you’ll let him stick it) Brit-rocker introduced to audiences in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall—is back in the latest film from yet another member of the Apatow Film Club for Boys. Based on characters created by Jason Segel, and written and directed by Nicholas Stoller, Get Him to the Greek is an often-comical, always offensive satire of the music industry, rock ‘n’ roll culture, and America’s reverence for all things celebrity.
Capitalizing on the fervor ignited by Brand, Get Him to the Greek succeeds in blurring the line between reality and fiction through inclusion of an original soundtrack and videos (performed by Brand and co-star Rose Byrne) and cameos by more than one recognizable pop artist and media outlet. Brand is refreshingly genuine as a privileged star struggling to gain control of his life, while Byrne offers hilarious support as Snow’s ex-wife and musical partner, Jackie Q. Effortlessly, she rivals Brand with her own sincere wit as she admits on Showbiz Tonight how bored she is with her husband’s sobriety.
I expected to like this film, and I did. Stoller bravely explores intimacy among men and, similar to I Love You, Man, his manuscript explores the complex dynamics of male relationships by offering glimpses of sincerity, vulnerability, and affection, elements often ignored in favor of more acceptably masculine attributes. However, as is often the case in Hollywood, without being well-versed in feminist values, what is meant to be ironic instead reinforces stereotypes and makes it that much harder for girls to be in on the joke.
Some attempts at humor are more problematic than others. While attempting to wrangle Snow in Vegan and escort him to New York City, music intern Aaron (Jonah Hill) is ordered by his boss Sergio (Sean “P Diddy” Combs) to have sex with a woman he’s just met, Destiny. Actually, Sergio commands Destiny to “[t]ake this man into the bedroom and have sex with him," and she readily complies. What follows is a pointless scene in which the petite Destiny forces the hefty Aaron to have sex with her. He says, “No.” He “protests.” (In reality, he could have easily tossed her off him.) Finally, he returns to his friends and announces, “I think I was just raped.” They laugh, and so does the audience. Gross.
In a perfect world, we can laugh about anything. Considering the world we live in, however, perhaps the more appropriate question is "who is allowed to laugh about rape?" When victims speak out with humor about their own lived experience, they are ridiculed or shamed, but when white men in Hollywood poke fun, its satire. Satire, by definition, is an exaggeration that is so far from reality that it is ridiculous to even consider. (The punchline to this joke being how ridiculous and non-threatening rape is for men – that men can’t be raped.) Unfortunately, this moment in Get Him to the Greek reinforces cultural myths surrounding the acceptance of rape. Instead of calling attention to the cultural, systemic, powerful epidemic of sexual violence, the "joke" nullifies its severity by applying it to the most powerful social group (white men).
The film industry is a site where creative potential can be harnessed to provoke meaningful change, and this band of brothers has the ability to lead the way for other Freaks and Geeks. But if we don’t start getting some feminist minds in on the action, these bright men are headed straight for the John Mayer Celebrity School of Shame.
Review by Alicia Sowisdral
Just Don't Call Me Ma'am: How I Ditched the South, Forgot My Manners, and Managed to Survive My Twenties with (Most of) My Dignity Still Intact
By Anna MitchaelSeal Press
Who better, I ask you, than a Yankee like me who moved to Texas to review Just Don't Call Me Ma'am, a book by a Texas-girl who moved to the East? Considering how absolutely dead-on hysterical this “survival story” was, I couldn’t be happier about how fate brought us together.
The one thing Anna Mitchael didn’t like was people calling her "ma’am." Ma’am is reserved for your grandmother – or an elderly lady that a twenty-something man is holding the door for. But ma’am is unacceptable when aimed at a woman who swears (even though the crow’s feet might say differently) that she is a spring chicken in the prime of her life.
This wonderfully humorous romp begins with Anna making her way through a myriad of places before settling in Brooklyn. Now, New York City to a Texas woman is something of a high-fashion, fast-moving, cement and glass world of cynicism, and as the author states, it wasn’t a full-on romance for her right away. NYC was an acquired taste.
From a breakup, Anna brings us back to the first time love bloomed; she was twelve years old, gazing at the neighborhood boy with the bright blue eyes who was bound to be the next All-American quarterback playing at Texas stadium. All the girls were massively in love with the young man and wanted to spend the summer trying to get him to notice them. But Anna was tempted by the one person she loved more than life to leave town that one fateful summer…her Grandma.
Grandmothers always know the right bribe to dangle, in order to get their grandchildren to come for a visit, and Anna’s was no different. She bribed her granddaughter with the soap operas that she’d taped all year long, and Anna salivated at knowing that she could spend a couple of weeks in front of the television learning all about high-fashion makeup hounds who spoke with a hoity-toity accent and slept, well, with pretty much anybody, anywhere. Unfortunately, when the two week excursion of sin was over, Anna got a call from her friend to let her know that the guy had found himself a girlfriend. Life lesson learned.
From there, the author takes us on many journeys, offering knowledge about her Southern background, such as how the summers in Texas can actually kill; Southern desserts that Yankees just don’t understand, like bourbon balls; and, being a bridesmaid two hundred times and having to wrap yourself like a horrible Christmas package in pink taffeta and pretend to cry at the “I do” part. She lets us know that you can’t spit in Texas without hitting four hundred churches, and that vegetarianism is a much frowned-upon activity in the world of meat, poultry, and that white gravy. She brings us with her as she tries to adapt to mysteries like Brazilian waxing (which is so painful that I’m sure Hitler used this on his enemies at one time); trips to Las Vegas with the girls; and other topics I met head-on when words went from “get” to “git.”
I laughed out loud as she put a Southerner in Yankee-ville. It took me back to the times when a Texan smiled at me like I was a complete moron when I said “you guys” instead of “y’all.” And when I had, without thinking, told a Southern lady that I was from New England and her response was, “Really? You don’t sound British.”
What I realized while reading Just Don't Call Me Ma'am was that the accent that may frame our words, or whether our grandmothers cooked grits or mashed potatoes, simply doesn’t matter. In the end, we’re all people who are making our way through life the best way we can—whether in the backyard of our own upbringing or setting a course for adventure and moving into an unknown world.
I applaud Mitchael and hope that, like the great Erma Bombeck, she continues her foray into the wonderful – true – world of life’s humor. And, a special note to her, my Grandma was absolutely fantastic, too. It was so nice to read a story about one of the really great ladies the world had to offer. We become much better people when we are lucky enough to have those wonderful women in our past.
Review by Amy Lignor
Cross-posted at Book Pleasures
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