Jimmy

I’m looking for something, and I’m losing hope of finding it. I’m talking about the new Friday evening Fox show from self-professed feminist Joss Whedon: Dollhouse (some spoilers from the first several episodes below), and what I’m looking for is the strong, in-control, smart and sexy women we’ve come to expect from Joss in such ground-breaking (and cult-follower gathering) shows as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Buffy, Willow, Faith, Dawn, Anya, Dru, Tara, etc.), Angel (Cordelia, Fred, etc.) and Firefly (who can forget Zoe, River, Kaylee and Inara?)

So far in Dollhouse we’ve seen a great deal of former Faith actress Eliza Dushku being sexy, but not a lot of the other things that Joss’ female characters usually are. Especially in-control. I understand that she begins to become self-aware, and I would be happy to be proved wrong about being disappointed in not seeing ANY strong and/or in-control and/or smart women on the show (OK, the women who runs the “Dollhouse” is probably all of those things, but she’s, well, bad. Where’s our fearless heroine who will save the day in the end?) but my faith is rapidly slipping away that it will happen anytime soon (e.g. in time for it the stick in people’s minds that Joss Whedon has created another show full of strong females). I think I see where the show is going: Echo begins to remember past her mind-wipes and probably takes down the Dollhouse, but…I don’t know. If the show goes the way of Firefly, we’ll never get to see that last part and all we’ll know about the world of Dollhouse is that it was a world where the only moderately strongish females were bad and all the others were helplessly enslaved to their male “handlers,” who show varying levels of concern for their personal well being (ranging from utter disdain to confused pity).

I was hoping I was wrong and that at some point Joss would show exactly why he calls himself (and everyone else calls him to a sometimes sickenly hero-worshiping degree) a feminist. But then I started watching Stage Fright (third episode, I think), in which the visuals were graced with an over-abundance of footage of a very scantily clad pop star performing. This alone did not shock me (anyone who watches CSI or any popular media today is bombarded with such imagery 24/7), no, what annoyed me is that this was coming from the one person I had come to trust wouldn’t do such a thing unless it was really relevant to the story. And I don’t see that in this case it was. It was just sexual objectification of women for the sack of entertainment, and that I don’t think any true feminist can engage in.

I find the Dollhouse story mildly interesting and I intend to probably continue watching the show, but I am very disappointed in Joss and in Eliza. I at times liked Faith better than Buffy while watching BtVS and I think she is one of the most amazingly strong female characters ever to grace our TV sets, and I think Eliza was the perfect actress for the job. What she’s doing playing Echo, I have no idea.

Cheers.

-j

(Spoilers for Quantum of Solace below.)

How do you define passion? I was thinking about this and I was thinking that maybe it’s close to being “highly energetic.” But then I realized that, despite my firm belief in the power of energy, energy is like a backyard pond to passion’s Pacific Ocean.

Wikipedia, that great giver of information that I passionately love, tells us that passion is, among other things, “an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire,” Wikipedia almost informs us that the word passion comes “from the Latin patior, meaning to suffer or to endure.”

I bring this up because the latest James Bond film, Quantum of Solace, seems to me to have the most passion of any Bond film I’ve seen, and certainly of any of the last 10-15 years. If you recall, at the end of Casino Royale Bond finds out that someone he trusts and loves is actually a double agent just before she dies to save him. It’s all very tragic and sad, but it leaves Bond with a dark passion for most of Quantum of Solace that gives the movie a feeling that no other Bond film has matched: Bond seems more human than ever before as we see him writhing in his passion (perhaps “writhing” is the wrong word as the passion is mostly crackling just below the surface and never really shows itself directly) for revenge mixed with his passion for his lost love and passionate hatred of her for betraying him. The man is conflicted and moody and more deadly than ever before.

This is no classic Bond movie. Much of the sexism of the past is gone as James is paired with a women (the “Bond girl,” Camille) similarly seeking revenge for the murder of her family and the two of them are involved in an incredible action scene in which they both “get their man” at the same time in the same place. This pairing, for the first time, puts the “Bond girl” on an equal level with Bond (and the fact that they never sleep together helps this, as well) and I think this adds an interesting symmetry between the two characters that helps to highlight what each of them is going through by pointing out the similarities and differences between their two situations.

Further, I think this is Bond for the 21st Century, and I’m not talking about the technology (although the most cutting edge stuff is on display throughout the entire film even as Q never makes any appearances), but more about the style and culture and whole tone. In the past Bond set out to find one villain, kill said villain and than return home after having sex with whatever “Bond girl” he’s picked up along the way. It was a formula that they tried to mix up as much as possible, but it always pretty much was always the same. Quantum, however, acknowledges that the world we live in today is far more complex than that. It probably always has been, but in the past we’ve been less honest with ourselves about it in our movies, preferring to show a simple story that could have resolution in the end rather than a more complex story that can’t be solved in 90 minutes, but in Quantum that’s all gone: while there’s a very present plot with a beginning, middle and end the end of the movie does not tie up all the loose ends, but it also doesn’t even make you wish it had. Throughout the entire movie the tone, perhaps not so overtly as much as very subtly, is that the world is fucked up and we’re just doing all we can to keep it from going to pot in the next 24 hours. In the beginning of the film Bond and M find out that there’s a huge criminal organization that they didn’t even know about operating right under their noses and in the end of the movie Bond has only dealt with one mid-level member of that organization. No going to the head of the sneak and chopping it off, in part because the organization has as members several high-ranking government officials in the British government. This is the type of complexity that faces any intelligence service in the world on a daily basis these days and it’s nice to see Bond reflecting that: it’s not so easy to fight evil when it signs your paycheck.

To return to passion, I think that the second quote from Wikipedia above pretty much says it all: passion comes from a Latin word meaning “to suffer or to endure.” That is what Bond and Camille are doing throughout this entire movie: they are suffering and enduring this world and all its problems, fucked up people and screwy governments, all without the people they loved by their sides because those people have been ripped from this world by people Bond and Camille have yet to find. In a lot of ways this is one of the darkest Bond films, although that does not detract from it one bit.

5 out of 5. If you even moderately enjoy action, see this movie.

Cheers.

-j

I went and saw the movie Burn After Reading this past weekend, and I absolutely loved it. Now, if you don’t go in for the slightly darker fare, you might not like this movie, but as someone who enjoys a “dark comedy” better than a “light comedy” (also fun, but “lighter” comedies don’t keep me on my toes as much) I have to say that Burn After Reading is a great 96-minute ride.

In a way, it doesn’t seem like a lot happens in the film, even though a very amusing and solid story unfolds throughout the hour and a half. I’m not sure I’m explaining it very well, but I think the best way to describe what I mean is that, in my mind, the mid-June International Teaser Trailer perfectly captured the overall mood of the film in 68 seconds. The teaser doesn’t tell you what the plot is, and it doesn’t matter that much, because it’s just such a riot to watch these amazing case of characters for an hour and a half. Speaking of the characters, I think the casting was brilliant on this. I particularly enjoyed the performances put on by John Malkovich (one of the few roles I’ve actually been able to stand him in: usually I dislike any movie he’s in) and Brad Pitt (a new character for him, but one I think he pulls off really quite well).

All in all, if you like the Coen Brothers, if you like one or more of the main actors in this film (Malkovich, Pitt, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney, Frances McDormand) and if you don’t mind your comedy a little dark or spicy, you’ll probably enjoy this film.

I’ve seen only a few of the Coen Brothers’ other films, but the few I have seen (Raising Arizona and O Brother, Where Art Thou?) I’ve liked a lot, so I think it might be worthwhile to look into some of their others. Hmm.

Anyway. I was lacking for blog content this week (since the tropics went quiet after Ike…) so I thought I’d post this film review. Plus the movie was just that good. Film reviews will probably be a new feature, appearing about Whenever I Feel Like It and/or whenever I can find time in my Very Busy College Student Schedule (and budget) to go see a new movie.

Cheerio!

-jbh