From the redbox, we rented never-released-to-theaters, Ben Stiller starring The Marc Pease Experience.  Those two descriptors together are less that encouraging, but despite my pulling for Animal Planet: Puppy Party, we rented it anyway.  Directed by Todd Louiso (Love Liza) and co-starring Jason Schwartzman and Anna “Up in the Fucking Air” Kendrick, this little indie-ish high school theater comedy was a steaming pile of WTF.  Schwartzman is the eponymous character who still maintains his high school a cappella group, with whom he dreams of making a demo, lives in his dead grandmother’s condo, and is still traumatized by a failed performance of The Wiz from 8 years earlier.  He is dating Meg (Kendrick) who is a senior at his alma mater (though they make sure to mention she is 18).  His hero is the music teacher, Jon Gribble (Stiller), who promised to produce his a cappella album — but that was when he was in high school and he actually is just a smarmy loser asshole.  Also, he is fucking Meg which is completely gross and entirely disturbing.

I can sum up my feelings about The Marc Pease Experience is one simple phrase: I don’t get it.  It seems like it wants to be a parody of high school drama and music (I think this is what Glee is?) but Stiller’s character isn’t over the top.  He’s actually under the top.  That is, I think we’ve all encountered high school drama teachers (or whatever kind of teacher, like my world history teach who would absolutely FLIP if you called him “Mister” instead of “Doctor.”  I kind of had the hots for him, but again, another issue) who take themselves wayyy too seriously and completely get off on the fact that a bunch of high school kids think they are awesome because other adults realize what complete losers they are.  That idea is a little bit funny and is played to maximum ridonkulousness (with mixed results) in Hamlet 2, but here, Stiller is so subdued that it’s not funny, it’s just uncomfortable and a little bit sad.

There are a lot of things going on in Schwatzman’s character too with his delusional ideals about his a cappella group, the fact that he’s dating a high schooler (who is kind of a bitch to him) and has no family and is pathetic and sad but it’s all over the place.  Is it funny?  Is it sad?  Who the fuck is this guy?  And why is the movie named after him?  Huh??

Finally there is Meg about whom we know even less apart from the fact that she likes to sing and fuck older guys (change “sing” to “drink” and that’s a pretty apt description of…nevermind).  The fact that she’s dating Marc is one thing, he’s obviously sweet if lame.  The fact that she’s fucking her music teacher – and clearly isn’t all that into it – is so weird and gross.  But those feelings are never validated by anything that happens in the movie.  Gribble doesn’t get any comeuppance and Meg doesn’t have any epiphanies about self-esteem or fall in love with some cute high school boy.  It’s disturbing.  I was genuinely disturbed and grossed out.

The direction and editing are also completely confusing.  You’ll just be going along, all normal movie like, and then there will be an extreme close up of Marc Pease buttering his toast for 25 seconds.  I wish I were exaggerating.  I don’t…I just…WTF?  There is no reason for this shot to exist.  The toast doesn’t come back to play an important part in the story.  I do not understand.  Come to think of it, there is no reason for this movie to exist.

Anyway, I saw it.  Naturally.  Me and my $18.50 saw in the Cinerama dome, actually.  Before I went to a Christmas party with Kevin Sorbo but that is a totally different story.  My opinion on it?  Meh.  Yawn.  Oh, that was pretty but man was that story lame and isn’t it time to start drinking yet?

Over at iO9, they’re asking “When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like “Avatar”?” where “like Avatar” means “white guilt fantasies.”  It’s a rhetorical question (hopefully) since the answer is obviously never.  And after $1,000,000,000, it really wouldn’t make sense to stop.  Though the racial aspects of Avatar were certainly…weird (are these Na’vi people analogies for Native Americans?  are they African?  They seem kind of African…) the gender implications are also necessarily complex.

Our protagonist (”hero” if you must) is Jake Sully, a former Marine who is paralyzed from the waist down.  When his goody two shoes twin brother is killed, he takes his place solely on the virtue of his DNA, on a highly skilled mission to the remote planet of Pandora with the hopes of using avatar surrogate body technology to infiltrate and study the native people there: the Na’vi.  All of this takes place within probably the first 3 minutes of the movie.

Once on Pandora, Sully meets up with Dr. Grace Augustine (Siguorney Weaver) who has spent years studying the Na’vi via avatar but whom they have never truly accepted.  Boy does Sully show her!  The first night he’s there he ends up trapped alone in the jungle and is saved by a hot Na’vi chick.  She’s tentative but he convinces herbto teach him the ways of the Na’vi.  Take that science!  Take that woman who has given up her best years to study this culture!  In your face!  Um, yeah.

So then, Sully goes on to accomplish everything that Grace never could.  She actually ends up dying for the cause, but he has his soul transferred to his avatar (a process that is much faster than backing up my work computer to the server) and lives happily ever after as a totally kickass member of of the Na’vi with the hottest wife around.  Which just goes to show, white men can do anything they set their minds to as long as they are not crippled!

I get that it’s a fantasy, a technological touchstone, visual spectacle at its finest.  But, like it or not, messages matter.  I don’t like to be that person, I really don’t.  That “I am woman” “male gaze” “otherness” spouting person.  But really?  We can’t do any better than this?  “Escapism” doesn’t mean that we forget or ignore the fact that words and stories and movies — especially movies that make a billion dollars — have MEANING that we pay attention to and learn from, whether we want to or not.

The opening of The Burning Plain is similarly uncomfortable with a haggard and naked Sylvia (Charlize Theron) sucking deeply on a cigarette and kicking John (John Corbett) out of her room in the small hours of the morning.  Frigid and blank, Sylvia’s character is no mystery and when we shortly find out that her lover is also her employee at an upscale restaurant in addition to being married to another woman, Sylvia’s unfeeling attitude towards him is not a surprise.  But just as the drama is ramping up in this dreary Portland debauchery, we’re transported to New Mexico where an adulterous couple has been burned alive in a mobile home, leaving their children to pick up the pieces.  Without giving anything away, these two stories eventually catch up to each other and weave together.  

Actually, the way in which they weave together, and the way in which I feel compelled to not give anything away, is one of the most irritating things about the film.  It seems to set itself up to be some sort of mystery, when to me the atmosphere, characters and storyline were much more those of a penetrating drama.  In this instance, the details being unnecessarily confusing becomes frustrating rather than rewarding.  When things are finally revealed and connections made, it feels like the filmmaker is looking directly at you and asking “Bet you didn’t see THAT ONE coming!” when, if you’ve ever, you know, seen a movie before, you most definitely DID see it coming. 

As a for instance, oh that’s so weird that she doesn’t want him to touch her boob I bet she had cancer and then 30 minutes later “I had cancer” comes out or her mouth and you wish you were the one who had cancer because if you were in the hospital at least you probably wouldn’t have to watch this movie because it isn’t even out yet and I assume in the hospital you have to settle for DVDs.* Arriaga is preoccupied with the complications of his characters, but rather than explore them, he seeks to disguise them in the complications of the story lines that don’t even end up being all that complicated,  just annoying.

The specifics of his characters’ problems could also be revealed in more subtle and organic ways.  When Sylvia (do you ever hear this name and not think of Sylvia Plath?  I personally don’t, and I think this is what Arriaga is banking on) walks up to the edge of a cliff, looking depressed and contemplates jumping over (we have to assume) it seems heavy handed and forced.  When the young girl, Mariana (Jennifer Lawrence), who has watched her mother burn to death, burns herself without pain in that way that freaky chicks do,  it is much too neat and matter of fact and parallel.  It doesn’t seems real and therefore isn’t compelling.

What I really want to latch onto in The Burning Plain is the complicated mother/daughter dynamic, particularly the climax that this conflict often reaches when the daughter is an adolescent.  This is a universal struggle and I love the idea of it being explored.  I could embrace this theme if only there weren’t so much filler packed in around it and a general feeling of hostility and disappointment towards all the female characters.  Sylvia has numbed herself to pain and pleasure and has sex simply to feel anything.  She never seems sympathetic in her neutral colored J. .Crew outfits with her unemotional sexuality.  Even as her secrets are revealed, her redemption is too tentative to truly bring relief.  Mariana, the teenager, is similarly cold and unforgiving while her mother, Gina (Kim Basinger) is an adulteress, abandoning her children to meet her Latin lover in a trailer.  She dies without any redemption.  Even the wife of her lover, Nick (Joaquim de Almeida), is portrayed as somewhat heartless and not present for her children when their father dies.  For a story that tries to explore the complexities of women, it uncovers nothing but their faults and even goes so far as to exalt the father characters as affectionate protectors and providers while their female counterparts are only philandering and selfish.  It’s difficult to appreciate characters when it seems that the filmmaker himself has such contempt for them.  

There were some standout performances in the movie that served as pleasant distractions.  Joaquim de Almeida as Kim Basinger’s lover is penetrating and passionate, even pit against Basinger’s all too familiar meek and unhappy mother character.  The young actors were also breaths of fresh air, particularly Jennifer Lawrence as Mariana.  Though saddled with obnoxiously corny dialogue at times, she is bright eyed and sad.  

It wasn’t surprising to me to hear that Arriaga had spent over a decade working on the script for The Burning Plain.  It felt like it had been steeped in that kind of self-indulgence and that makes for an uncomfortable and unsatisfying viewing experience.  A film like this doesn’t have to redeem the human race, or even all of its characters, but when we’re forced to swallow a happy ending (ew) with no cogent explanation, what’s the point?

*can you get Netflix delievered to a hospital?

Eisenberg plays James Brennan who comes home to live with his parents after he graduates from Oberlin.  With a liberal arts degree (hey, I’ve got one of those!) he find himself either under or overqualified for anything that might resemble gainful employment and ends up getting a job at the local eponymous carnival.  Rather than zany, the cast of characters James encounters at Adventureland are for the most part morose and malcontent.  He quickly befriends his coworker, Joel (Martin Starr) who has a degree in Russian literature and develops an immediate crush on Em (Kristin Stewart), a beautiful, sharp and troubled NYU student who took a job at the carnival to escape a tumultuous home life. 

Upon reflection, these characters are easy to peg, but the way the story develops wasn’t what I expected and I found it moving in a way that the vast majority of movies, whether they are meant to target me as a demographic, are not.  The summer progresses typically, the carnys (sp?) falling in and out of love, drinking excessively, smoking a lot of marijuana and generally just trying to figure out life.  Oh god, I think I have been pandered to.

SNL’s Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are hilarious as the couple that runs the carnival.  Their straightfaced enthusiasm and confusion is priceless.  Martin Starr, who was unknown to me before, was also notable in his performance as the geeky but sweet friend and Matt Bush as the asshole friend leftover from grade school was iconically funny.  If this movie were to see the same kind of success as something like Napoleon Dynamite (I’m sure it won’t, though I would be shocked to learn the comparison wasn’t tossed around at any point) then it would be Bush’s ball punching, sweatband wearing Tommy Frigo that people would undoubtedly latch on to.

I was planning on including a paragraph here about how the female characters were all somewhat detestable, but that really wasn’t the case, I think I just want it to be.  Actually, Em is probably the most complex character in the film and even though she does make poor choices and behave irrationally at moments, that is easily attributable to the fact that she is human, not that she is a woman.  This can often be a problem with feminist theorizing: it can backfire and have you (me) end up demonizing women instead of…you know, not doing that which is the whole point.

There were points where I felt like Adventureland was trying a little too hard and the peripheral characters were a little cliche, from Ryan Reynolds’ philandering maintenance man to Lisa P, the super-hot chick who is also super-Christian but there was something truthful and flawed about the way that James and Em negotiate their summer and each other that is touching and sweet.   The poster and the trailer are very misleading — this isn’t a zany summer stoner comedy, though there are moments of that.  It’s much more angsty and dark than that, but that’s a good thing.

They fall in love and he gives her  her first orgasm on a couch.

WTF?

Ok, but at the very least, surely this shockingly blunt,  poorly acted, practically humorless teenage rom/com had some lessons thrown in there somewhere.  Let’s have a look.

Lessons Learned

1. It is A-OK to get completely shitfaced in NYC, barf in the Port Authority bathroom, and make out with strangers.  As a matter of fact, it is completely necessary if you want your best friend to fall in love.
2. It is A-OK to just drive away while your slutty ex-girlfriend does a striptease for you by the East River, leaving her stranded.
3. It is unacceptable to not have had an orgasm by the age of 17 if you are a female.  Everyone will know about it and publicly (pubicly?) shame you.
4. It is really easy to get cameos from John Cho, Andy Samberg, Seth Myers, Devendra Banhart and Bishop Allen for your movie no matter how much it sucks.  Filmmakers take note.
5. “Finger bang” is the unanimously preferred parlance for what Michael Cera does to Kat Dennings at the end.
6. Teenagers today have no parents.

It’s funny, last year I probably saw more movies at the theatre than in any other year of my life.  For only the second time in my life (the first time being last year), I’ve see all of the Best Picture nominees well before the ceremony.  The result of all this?  I really truly do not care who wins Oscars.  Not at all.  Not in the least.  I plan to watch the show, and I’ll give you my opinions, but the fact that some of these trainwrecks masquerading as movies even got nominations boggles my mind  and…well, I plan on formulating or appropriating an Oscar night drinking game to drown my disappointment.  So, check out my picks after the jump.

The should wins are in bold, the will wins are italic, the winners are *d.  It’s only a “win” for me if the “will win” is right.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor”
• Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon”
• *Sean Penn in “Milk”
• Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Josh Brolin in “Milk” (Focus Features)
• Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder”
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt”
• *Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”
• Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road”

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married”
• Angelina Jolie in “Changeling”
• Melissa Leo in “Frozen River”
• Meryl Streep in “Doubt”
• *Kate Winslet in “The Reader”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Amy Adams in “Doubt”
• *Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
• Viola Davis in “Doubt”
• Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler”

Best animated feature film of the year

• “Bolt”
• “Kung Fu Panda”
• *”WALL-E”

Achievement in art direction

• “Changeling”
• *”The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “The Dark Knight”
• “The Duchess”
• “Revolutionary Road”

Achievement in cinematography

• “Changeling”
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “The Dark Knight”
• “The Reader”
• *”Slumdog Millionaire”

Achievement in costume design

• “Australia”
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• *”The Duchess”
• “Milk”
• “Revolutionary Road”

Achievement in directing

• David Fincher for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• Ron Howard for “Frost/Nixon”
• Gus Van Sant for “Milk”
• Stephen Daldry for “The Reader”
• *Danny Boyle for “Slumdog Millionaire”

Achievement in film editing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “The Dark Knight”
• “Frost/Nixon”
• “Milk”
• *”Slumdog Millionaire”

Achievement in makeup

• *”The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “The Dark Knight”
• “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “Defiance”
• “Milk”
• *”Slumdog Millionaire”
• “WALL-E”

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E”
• *”Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire”
• “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire”
• I refuse to choose from these songs because Bruce Springsteen’s The Wrestler should have been here.  I feel very strongly about this.

Best motion picture of the year

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “Frost/Nixon”
• “Milk”
• “The Reader”
• *”Slumdog Millionaire”

Achievement in sound editing

• *”The Dark Knight”
• “Iron Man”
• “Slumdog Millionaire”
• “WALL-E”
• “Wanted”

Achievement in sound mixing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “The Dark Knight”
• *”Slumdog Millionaire”
• “WALL-E”
• “Wanted”

Achievement in visual effects

• *”The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “The Dark Knight”
• “Iron Man”

Adapted screenplay

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
• “Doubt”
• “Frost/Nixon”
• “The Reader”
• *”Slumdog Millionaire”

Original Screenplay

• “Frozen River”
• “Happy-Go-Lucky”
• “In Bruges”
• *”Milk”
• “WALL-E”

You might notice (you won’t) that I skipped a few categories — this is because I have no business commenting on who might win Best Animated Short, etc.  So there you have it.  Check back on Monday to see how I did.

UPDATE: I went 13/19, which is not too shabby, in my opinion.  I knew that Slumdog was going to clean up.  I guess that’s OK…I mean, at least it’s not about the Holocaust or Hobbits.

I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You over the weekend.  It was pretty much against my will.  And it pretty much made me want to kill myself.  Now, I’ve never read the eponymous book – as a matter of fact, I’m not even certain I’m using the word “eponymous” correctly - but I can’t really argue with the basic tenets of said book, that are spelled out in the movie using oh-so-subtle intertitles (e.g., …if he’s not marrying you, …if he’s sleeping with someone else, …if he is Criss Angel…Ok, I made that one up, but I think you get the idea).  What I can argue with is the value of this stupid movie that, though probably disturbingly accurate in some cases, is not just offensive to women, but to all adults who purport to be capable of decent, mature interpersonal relationships.  Yes, everyone plays mind games once in a while, or makes a mistake, or posts a passive-aggressive status update on facebook, but for the most part, I like to believe that there are a lot of people out there who are decent and nice and not BATSHIT INSANE like everyone in this movie!

A rundown of the characters and the endless range that each actor had to display in embodying these incredible three-dimensional and completely sympathetic men and women (and a bunch of spoilers) after the jump.

GiGi (Ginnifer Goodwin) is a naive, trusting, and dare I say DESPERATE young professional woman, searching for love in the bustling metropolis that is Baltimore.  She is your female friend that checks her messages obsessively, stages “run-ins” when she doesn’t get a call back and dissects “signals” and “signs” to meaningless minutia.  Her completely mediocre date with Conor (Kevin “E” Connoly) begins the movie.

Janine (Jennifer Connelly) is a buttoned down control freak, untrusting of her hot husband, Ben (Bradley Cooper) and ready to have a baby.

Beth (Jennifer Aniston) is in a happily monogamous relationship with Neil (Ben Affleck), but still has a deep down desire to get married, even though he “doesn’t believe in it.”

Anna (Scarlett Johannsen) is a struggling singer who meets Ben at a convenience store and begins an affair with him.  Conor is in love with her, but she feels no spark with him and would rather steal another woman’s husband. 

Mary (Drew Barrymore) is Anna’s friend, who is also searching for love (surprise!) and giving Anna bad advice all along the way.

Alex (Justin Long) is Conor’s bar tending friend who ends up being GiGi’s shoulder to cry on and advice giver about the male species.  But guess WHAT.  She Changes Him and He Falls For Her.  I KNOW that goes against the very basic principles of the book, but that’s what Hollywood is for!  To create false hope!  Not give ADVICE!

I can understand that to translate a self-help book into a narrative film could be a challenge for any writer.  I can also see what the writers (Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein) were hoping for – something akin to a charming American Love Actually, but it didn’t work.  Instead, these characters are exaggerated stereotypes who garner no sympathy, aside from the occasional painful memory.  Bright, creative, ambitious, attractive, (incredibly) well-dressed women and all we know about them is that they have Boy Trouble.  And when their Boy Trouble is resolved, they are all better.  Yeah, I have Boy Trouble sometimes, but more often I have Friend Trouble or Job Trouble or Apartment Hunting Trouble or Car Trouble or any of those other troubles that make up a real life.  An interesting, real, LIFE.

I mean, there’s not even a good drunk dial scene, you guys.  How realistic is THAT?

The fact that this movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards makes me seriously question whether or not the voting members of the Academy actually watch movies.  Do they?  Does anyone have proof that they actually watch movies?  I’m going to suggest that voters have to take some kind of quiz that proves they actually watched the movie.  This might (MIGHT!) prevent Awards Disasters such as this.

I don’t need to tell you what happens in this most boring of Best Picture Contenders.  Brad Pitt is born as a wrinkly little baby, grows up (or down?) into sex incarnate, riding a motorcycle in mirrored aviators, and dies as a wrinkle-free baby.  Trials and tribulations.  Lessons in life and love.  Painful Southern accents all around.

Probably one of my least favorite parts of the movie (oh, there are so many to choose from) was the frame story.  Oh yes, just as Forrest sat on that bench with his box of chocolates, a really old lady (SPOILER 1: it’s Cate Banchett’s character, only really old now and about to die) languishes in a hospital bed while her daughter (the much underused Julia Ormond) reads to her from Benjamin Button’s diary.  All of this set against the completely unnecessary backdrop of Hurricane Katrina.  Yeah, no, I’m actually serious.  So, in bits and pieces, with Brad Pitt’s slow and disaffected voiceover, we watch his stupid and pointless story unfold until we find out (SPOILER 2!) that Julia Ormond is actually Benjamin Button’s daughter.  First, DUH!.  Second, oh, wow, who cares?

The women in the film are offensively bland.  Blanchett with her regal beauty is relegated to a painful stereotype of fickle woman, punished for her sexual desires and forced to spend her life paying for them.  She is only a complete person once she has a baby.  Awesome.  Oscar Nominee Taraji P. Henson gives a reasonable performance as Benjamin’s adopted mother, but her character, again, is the stereotypical god-fearing, child-rearing, kind-hearted Mammy.  Tilda Swinton as Benajmin’s first love, Elizabeth Abbot, is the closest to being a complete woman that isn’t just a pain in the ass…but even she just needed some good Brad Pitt loving to help her achieve her goals.  Um, what?

Overly long with metaphors that are forced down your throat so far you’ll need to have your stomach pumped, the case of Benjamin Button is indeed curious.  That is, I’m quite curious as to how anyone liked this movie.  Damn.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN
Changeling
For instance, we apparently we have wildly different ideas about what constitutes a good movie.  Yes, it is true that Changeling stars a woman (Angelina Jolie) and that said woman cries and yells a lot.  But, so what?  Even though I didn’t particularly like either, Rachel Getting Married and I’ve Loved You So Long are both VASTLY superior to Changeling and center around female characters.  Rachel Getting Married was even written by a woman.  Changeling was an overly long, uneven, messy, boring, piece of crap.  Hell, even Australia was better.  Bad choice, ladies.

BEST YOUNG ACTRESS
Abigail Breslin: Kit Kittredge and Definitely Maybe

How about, Definitely, Maybe Abigail Breslin can fuck off.  No, just definitely.  She is not a good actress and she’s not even cute!  Plus if they’re going to mention Kit Kittredge, they should at least put Nim’s Island in there, too.  Yes, it was atrocious, but Kit Kittredge was worse.

BEST ANIMATED FEMALE
Eve: WALL-E

This is kind of cute.  I didn’t think about the fact that she’s a cartoon chick that doesn’t have impossible proportions and gorgeous hair.

ADRIENNE SHELLY AWARD: For a film that most passionately opposes violence against women
Changeling

Uh, OK.

JOSEPHINE BAKER AWARD: For best expressing the woman of color experience in America
Ballast

I’ve never heard of this movie.  Surprise!

MOST OFFENSIVE MALE CHARACTERS
Aaron Eckhart: Towelhead (I never made it out to see this one.)

Sam Rockwell: Choke (I loved this movie.  I guess his character is offensive, but that is kind of the whole point.)

Larry Bishop: Hell Ride (Didn’t see it.)

Paul Rudd, Sean William Scott: Role Models  (I didn’t see this one, but it seems like this kind of crass humor doesn’t even need to be mentioned.)

Jason Mewes: Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Oh god, does Jason Mewes even count as an actor?  Come on!)

There is also a list of the “Top Ten Hall of Shame” which I won’t go into in detail.  But it includes Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which, as I pointed out in my review, I found to be particularly non-misogynistic.  Weird.

Here’s the thing: yes, this is a blog written by a woman (moi). And I do like to talk about being offended.  But I feel like the thing that most offends me is stereotyping of women.  Go ahead and show men being pigs, why should that bother or offend me?  I have no control over how men act in these films, or in real life.  But I do have control over how I act, and I prefer to see myself as a woman with agency, intelligence, spunk, class and all of that other crap, so that’s why I get offended – not even offended, more like annoyed – when women are portrayed differently than that, just for the sake of having a rag doll character who will do what the dude tells her or seduce the good guy or what have you.  I think it’s counterproductive to put out a list of the “Most Offensive Male Characters” because when it comes right down to it, Males can be pretty damn offensive (Females as well), so why single them out in movies?  Especially when one of the movies on their list (Choke) was actually quite good.  They also name the actors instead of the characters.  What’s up with that?  These guys are just out to act and make movies.  I count most of them among “actors I appreciate” if not “favorites” – why pick on them like this?  I really think this misaimed fingerpointing does the cause of conscientious portrayal of women, as well as creating more and better roles for women, a disservice.  Therefore I will not be joining the Women’s Film Critics Circle.*

*Unless they ask me to.

Appaloosa, a stylish Western starring the intimidating and rugged Ed Harris, the sexy and suave Viggo Mortensen (yes, why, feel free to take advantage of me on a staircase, that would be just fine, actually…) and the inexplicably employed Renee Zellweger (I’ll be damned if I’m going to search out the e with an accent mark for her) is only playing in 6 theaters in Los Angeles County.  As you might imagine, there are a lot more than 6 theatres in Los Angeles County.  Why might that be?  Inquiring FilmFemmes want to know!

The answer that I have deduced is that it is because it is such an awful movie.*

Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hicks (Mortensen) — oh god, those NAMES!! — come to Appaloosa offering their services as vigilante law enforcement to take the town back from Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons channeling Daniel Day Lewis channeling Daniel Plainview) and his band of rowdy outlaws who killed the last sherrif, or something.  There’s a lot of intimidating, mainly in the form of Viggo Mortensen silently posed with a shotgun and Cole is briefly distracted by the arrival of Allison French (Zellweger) who is single and “not a whore” but is still kind of a whore.  Oh yeah, there is nothing likable about any of the women that appear in the movie, either, which is something I tend to note.  Anyway, Cole and Hitch’s main objective is to convict Bragg of murder and watch him hang in the name of justice.  They encounter obstacles, find out that Allison is kind of a whore, have some gun battles, ride some trains and eventually reclaim Appaloosa.  Kind of.

Ed Harris directed the script that he co-wrote which reads like someone had a screenplay checklist that included a couple of plot points and some character quirks.  The story is fine, passable Western fare with outlaws, some violence, some horses and a little bit of romance.  But the story drags on, the goofy jokes completely negate any sense of caring you might have.  And oh, you have to look at Renee Zellweger for a significant portion of the movie.

 *Turns out the answer is that it is not in wide release until October 3rd.  I like my reason better.