Polly's Film Reviews

[IMPress Polly]

Due to...semi-popular demand, I've decided to start a permanent thread for my film reviews going forward. This will be periodically updated with new film reviews, in other words. They may be of old movies or new movies. Anyway, first review:

WILD

I have to start with Wild because it's my new favorite movie! (Or at least it is for right now anyway.) Wild is a new movie based on Cheryl Strayed's best-selling memoir of her grueling 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail from California to Washington state in 1996 that cured her compulsion disorder. In other words, a rough approximation of the events you'll see on-screen really happened! I know that may not sound like the most interesting premise, but believe you me, the way it's presented is captivating! Reese Witherspoon delivers the performance of her career as Cheryl Strayed.

Cheryl Strayed is a broken woman. She's lost everything and everyone who was ever near and dear to her heart. From childhood poverty through into adulthood losses of her mother, brother, friends, and others close to her, Cheryl in time watches others give up on her and eventually gives up on herself as well, succumbing to drug addiction and compulsory behaviors that drive even her husband away in order to numb the overwhelming pain that her memories bring her. She tries getting therapy, but it doesn't work because she's not ready for it. She feels that he has to have these fleeting band-aid cures in order to survive...and yet she knows that she can't go on living this way. Eventually it all reaches a boiling point. Since she finds herself unable to fight her problems, she decides to flee them instead in the hopes that doing so will break her down and thus break down the barriers that she's erected to moving forward with her life. She is, in other words, setting out to destroy herself. What she doesn't expect is that, in so doing, she will cure herself. Striving to get as far away from drugs and people as possible, she finds herself by rediscovering others in her mind.

The film's multi-linear narrative presents events from Cheryl's hike in chronological order, with frequent flashbacks to earlier points in her life, featuring her (as a child, teenager, and young adult), her mother and brother, her former husband, and other people she has known. To convey an idea of how effectively this is done, Cheryl keeps recalling moments when she was disrespectful or dismissive of her mother: the sort of slights and disagreements that are easy to forget and don't seem indicative of a larger truth. Eventually, these seemingly random memories echo together in a stark realization for Cheryl about the nature of her mother's life. Epiphanies built into like this drive much of the story and we rediscover Cheryl's mother, for example, many times before the credits roll. It's not a conventional Hollywood story of fighting and winning, but of fleeing and finding. The protagonist is her own antagonist, and it's the successful conveyance of her internal struggle that makes Wild such a deep and compelling film.

I don't deny personal bias in recommending this film so highly, considering how much I can relate to many aspects of the main character's personal history, but it's also an objectively good and thought-provoking movie no matter what angle you approach it from and definitely worth checking out.

Overall Film Score: A+
Gender Score: A+

[Redrose]

You may have a career as a film critic.

[IMPress Polly]

Alright, two movies today:

STUDENT SERVICES

I'm gonna recommend this movie mostly because certain people (we all know who) have been harassing me of late about what it was like to be a prostitute. There are lots and lots of movies with or about "prostitutes", but the vast majority of them give a very inaccurate picture where prostitutes are all happy supermodels who love their jobs or perhaps revolve around how amusing it is that recessions make more sex workers and so forth. If you want a realistic idea of what it's like to be a prostitute, the 2010 French film Student Services is the one I'd most recommend because it's based on the actual experience of one. (Don't worry, the movie has optional English subtitles.)

Student Services follows a poor collegiate named Laura who struggles with an eating disorder and gets her power shut off because of overdue payments, following which (after getting her power back on) she decides to get an additional job. Eventually she ends up on a dubious web site where old men advertise in order to 'get to know women'. She contacts a man named Joe who wants to pay her quite a tidy sum to keep him company. When they meet, she is very nervous and uncomfortable with the whole situation, but he eases her into it, asking her to remove her clothes but not having sex with her. He informs her that he was only about fantasy and that these days everything is for sale, including fantasy fulfillment. The payment is sufficient to pay her power bill, which motivates her to continue in the field, and Joe becomes a regular customer. While Laura gets used to the money, she doesn't get used to what she has to do for it. Clients overstep lines and cheat her out of her money, and finally even Joe starts doing so as well. (Rape, torture, false promises, etc.) The film concludes with Laura having an emotional breakdown. While the credits roll, the filmmakers introduce the viewer to the real Laura, who reveals that she's still financially trapped in the business.

The film's biggest shortcoming is actually it's lopsided focus on Laura's work, which results in something of a failure to more fully develop her as a character.

Overall Film Score: A-
Gender Score: A

JUPITER ASCENDING

I'll be as polite as possible to the Wachowskis' rather disappointing new film: This film is definitely not another Matrix or V for Vendetta, but rather a Japanese RPG turned into a movie with a dose of standard Wachowski-type anti-capitalist commentary. Starring Mila Kunis. (What else do you really need to know?) While I'm no fan of capitalism, the attempt at social commentary here winds up being quite mediocre because the narrative and plot elements are so contrived and arbitrary. Without delving into the ludicrously high-sci-fi world too much for the reader to comprehend, basically the movie is about a working class woman who discovers that (cue worn-out JRPG cliche) she's actually a princess who needs to go on a special religious mission under the protection of the real protagonist who is of course her love interest. She spends basically the whole movie getting baited, tricked, kidnapped, and rescued by the protector guy who is the real star of the movie. That about sums up what I could actually understand of the movie. The rest of it is so nonsensical and arbitrary (think half-wolf hybrid aliens with anti-gravity boots, interplanetary matriarchs running grand conspiracies revolving egg harvesting for a youth serums for elites to achieve a state of Darwinian perfection, etc.) that I couldn't even follow it or become at all emotionally attached to it. There's far too much (attempting) stylization here and not nearly enough substance.

Overall Film Score: F
Gender Score: D

[Peter1469]

I have not heard of those movies. I did finally watch Nymphomaniac. At least the first one.

[GrassrootsConservative]

What dafux is a gender score? Do you really have to view everything with whatever genitals you have, Polly?

[IMPress Polly]

Peter wrote:
I have not heard of those movies. I did finally watch Nymphomaniac. At least the first one.

Well this is a film review thread: What was your opinion of it?

GrassrootsConservative wrote:
What dafux is a gender score? Do you really have to view everything with whatever genitals you have, Polly?

As if you don't. 70% of modern-day Hollywood movies star a male protagonist exclusively and the average cast balance for a given film is two-thirds male. What's more, in about half of all modern movies, 100% of the dialogue revolves around men while, by contrast, women are twice as likely as men to be shown in sexually explicit scenes...i.e. Hollywood basically believes that women are meant to be seen and not heard.

Under such conditions, telling dissenters to shut up about gender roles in the world of film has a certain objective impact: it serves to preserve a discriminatory status quo. Even if you're not consciously aware that that's what you're doing -- viewing the matter through the lens of privilege -- that is nonetheless what you're doing. I raise the issue of sexism on a regular basis to benefit people like you who don't realize what it is and just how omnipresent it is because you can otherwise only view the world from the standpoint of your privileged position. Surely such ignorance is not to be encouraged.

To answer your first question ("What dafux is a gender score?") though, I try to examine the degree to which any given film breaks with the aforementioned rules as well as some others. I set the bar for passing low but the bar for getting an A high. It's inevitably a little subjective. Here though is an example of how it works: Let's consider the newest Star Wars Trilogy: Episodes 1-3, as I think that's a film series that just about everyone is familiar with:

All dialogue in every Star Wars movie, including Episodes 1-3, revolves around men, and thus I cannot justify giving any of them an A on their implicit gender roles. However, beyond that, each of the movies deserves to be evaluated individually. To Episode 1: The Phantom Menace I would give a gender score of B. That's because, while the male-to-female ratio in the film is quite lopsided (much unlike in real life), there are nonetheless two important female characters: a single mother (Anakin Skywalker's mom) and Queen Padme Amidala of the Naboo, the latter of whom organizes and then leads, and directly participates in, a revolution that liberates her planet from an occupying foreign military. I assign bonus points for the inclusion of a notable female action character in particular because that's not traditionally been common.

To Episode 2: Attack of the Clones, however, I would give a gender score of only D. That's in part because Attack of the Clones sees the number of important female characters reduced from two to one, with Anakin's mother featuring in only one brief scene wherein her role is to die, and also in part because Padme's high-profile political role from the previous film is functionally eliminated in Attack of the Clones and replaced with the story of how she falls in love with and marries Anakin. The latter is to say that, in Episode 2, Padme is no longer important on her own terms, but instead more or less purely relative to her relationship with a man. The reason I don't fail Episode 2 outright is because I see some redeeming value in the way Padme is portrayed within the aforementioned relationship. Namely, the film notably makes clear that, between the two parties, Padme is the more rational one and Anakin the more emotion-driven character. This contradicts the usual role assignments, wherein the female party would be cast as the emotion-driven one and the male party as the more logic-oriented character. It's far more common for films, and media more generally, to portray a female character as an emotionally volatile temptress who lures an unsuspecting man into "sin", a la Adam and Eve. In this film, by contrast, Padme is the more resistant and rational party and Anakin the emotionally volatile manipulator. I feel that this challenges traditional role assignments, and therefore stereotypes, on at least some level.

Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith though, despite being my overall favorite within this trilogy for its much smarter and more emotional plot twists and higher production values, nonetheless fails my gender test outright because it further reduces the number of important female characters from one to zero by relegating Padme to the role and status of mere background decoration and victim. Her political role is now gone entirely. She now exists simply to be Anakin's wife and the bearer of his children and is, as such, rarely seen. Two of her only appearances see her casually victimized and killed off respectively for dramatic effect. Her role has now become totally unrecognizable from the one she played in The Phantom Menace. She is an entirely different character with no independence and whom is only central to the plot in a technical sense, as she has almost no actual role in it. And she is given no replacement. I can't excuse that. I feel that the movie overall is still very good, but that it's good in spite of, not because of, its gender roles. Frankly, when it comes to said roles, Revenge of the Sith is the most conventional Hollywood movie of the three, and that's the real problem I see in it. It's the best of the trilogy because it breaks with cliches and predictability in so many other respects. Why not in this area as well then?

So that's just an illustration of how I score films for gender roles. Maybe I should just rename "Gender Score" "Gender Roles" instead because that's what I mean by it.

[Peter1469]

Well this is a film review thread: What was your opinion of it?

It was well done so far as the plot went. An interesting way of telling her story. Kind of sad how she is older than her years and in a bad condition as she revels her younger life to the stranger who took her in. And the way he leads the conversation is interesting. I can't decide if he is just being nice- by making her actions seem reasonable and rational, or if he is just trying to get into her pants. I guess I will find out in Part II.



P.S. Lots of those dudes suck at sex.

[Common]

Polly youre truly impressive, I sit and watch a movie with my wife and a half our later im struggling to remember the title and 2 days later dont ask me What the hell the movie was about and most of the time who was in it You remembering all the details of what you watch shows a far stronger mind

[Peter1469]

Polly youre truly impressive, I sit and watch a movie with my wife and a half our later im struggling to remember the title and 2 days later dont ask me What the hell the movie was about and most of the time who was in it You remembering all the details of what you watch shows a far stronger mind

What if you pick a movie that you are interested in, like Sharknado for instance? j/k, like an action movie or something?

[Common]

What if you pick a movie that you are interested in, like Sharknado for instance? j/k, like an action movie or something?

I like action and hero movies, I hate war movies unless their total fiction and Like a stallone movie or something.

I like action movies, I dont like anything too deep and I watch horror movies because my wife makes me. Yeah I know, im a shallow guy