Of Females and Film

Of Females and Film.

 Last week I officially graduated with a first class degree in Media Studies. Three years spent watching what I estimate as almost two hundred films and television programmes and reading countless book chapters. Most people find my degree hilarious, the ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree, the softest of soft subjects, pointless and unchallenging. However, and I hate to sound cheesy here, I really do believe that studying our media environment has never been more relevant, and has truly changed my life.

 I remember the person I was before my ‘revelation’. I walked into my first seminar with long brown hair, a bag full of pink pens too scared to say boo to a goose. The majority of the room was filled with male students (including a particularly smarmy and arrogant phd student who would lead the seminar) and a few girls I simply would have NOTHING in common with. I mean, just look at their hair for starters, have they never heard of Toni and Guy? And is that chick really wearing a wrestling T-shirt? How tragic, don’t they realise they are GIRLS? So I sit there politely making notes, let everyone else have their say because I don’t really know much about film anyway, and what I do know is probably wrong, I’m not as smart as these guys…

 Fast forward three years, I’m at the last seminar I had time to turn up to. I’m shouting across the room to a mature student at least 30 years older than me who I had suspected of minor misogyny for years and finally had my proof. I don’t care what anyone else thinks of what I am saying, it needs to be said. I’m not backing down, I WILL make him understand the exact reasons why his attitude offends me. Sitting next to me is a girl who refuses to shave her legs. She is so cool.

 Something had happened to me in three short years. I saw things differently now. I term this to myself as me being unplugged from The Matrix. I am Keanu Reeves, and somewhere along the line I stopped seeing the false, exterior façade of ‘reality’, and broke through to the truth. Kind of like when Neo rises after being shot and everything turns into the funny green code. That’s how I see now! I began to realise I was living in a dream world. I was created by machines, flesh compressed into a feminine prison. The advertisements, the magazines, the films, Paris Hilton were suffocating me. The message is clear. You are weak. You aren’t born good enough, but we can make you good enough. For a price.

 “You see girl, your skin is all oily, but also dry in places, so take this cream. But still, you might want to cover up your face in this stuff because it’s kind of the wrong colour. So is your hair, but that can be fixed too. And with that new hair colour, you should wear this lipstick because we want to see you pucker up. Make sure you get the clothes right too, because we’re quite strict over what shape they are so if your body doesn’t quite fit them, then you gotta change that too. Ok, so you’re looking pretty good, but that girl over there is always going to look better, so keep working on it. And in the mean time, don’t be concerned if we use the image of you for our own purposes, because we control that. We could really use the image of women in our films, you know, just to pose a few problems to our hero and to displace all of our fears and anxieties onto. But you just concentrate on fixing all these flaws you have, and let us big boys look after the important stuff. And remember, the more expensive materials you buy, the more successful you are!! So get saving for that Chanel whatever, because then we’ll have your money AND your heart! ”

 I came home and I emptied all my draws of all the crap I didn’t need. Bags and bags full of clothes I’d spent so much money on that I had worked so hard for. Bottles of lotions and potions that promised to make me perfect. Thousands of pounds I might as well have set up in flames. I felt ashamed, like a fool who’d been hoodwinked by a rogue salesman. But at least now I am free to be me. I am a fighter. I fought for my degree. I suffered from a certain situation I would not wish on my worst emeny but didn’t break. I faced challenges that brought out the best in me I didn’t even know I had. In fact, I realised I’m so strong that those messages on the T.V don’t work on me anymore. My hair is not lank and lifeless, and who cares if it is. I don’t need a leg shaver to bring out the Goddess in me; I can be as powerful as Zeus himself alone. I don’t care how much I weigh, how attractive I am to whom or how good my clothes look, I refuse to waste anymore energy on these things. 

I look around and see a few of my fellow ladies still jacked in. School girls as young as twelve skipping lunch to be skinny. 58% of year ten girls wishing they could lose weight. The powers that be will never loosen the constant manipulation and enforcement of femininity in the media. We can’t wait for change from the top down. Women need to free themselves from their own prison. 

 I’m here to follow my passion. I love my freedom and I love film. I’m in a mans world though. I’ve been patronised, ignored, been told I look thick (‘but take it as a compliment, because I mean, your really hot”), but I wont give up.  And I fully intend to be the change I want to see in the world. 

Comic Con: Disney Panel

Comic Con Disney Panel

As most people in the Klingon speaking world already know, Comic Con kicked off yesterday in San Diego California, an event which has be writhing in jealousy every year at those lucky enough to bag themselves a ticket. However the highlight of my day (had I have been there of course…) would have been the Walt Disney Studios panel, which revealed much info a few of my most anticipated films of the next year or so, Oz: The Great and Powerful, Tim Burton’s next feature Frankenweenie and what most girls will just term ‘the new Johnny Depp, Lone Ranger. Oh yeah, and Wreck it Ralph.

OZ 

Oz: The Great and Powerful, not for release until march next year (GOD!!!) stirred up excitement by revealing its first trailer which quickly followed up seconds later online  for the pleasure of the viewing public.

Apparently the movie contains giant sets, is ‘classically Disney’ and will continue the tradition of bearing Sam Raimi’s trademark car, the Oldsmobile (although apparently some changes to its appearance have had to be made). The story will follow the development of Oz the wizard into the character we know today as presented in the Frank L. Baum books.

The trailer starts off in black and white before bursting into colour upon the arrival into Oz, naturally nodding towards the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Also, following the same theme as Dorothy, it seems poor Oz gets caught up in aKansas tornado during a failed flight in his hot air balloon (note to self: never go toKansas…or do?), and embarks on a journey to become ‘a great man’. Of course, I’m sure he’ll face numerous doubts over his ability to achieve greatness as heroes these days always do. However, if we go by the books, we all know he turns out to be a big old fraud, so I wonder how they’ll translate than into ‘greatness’.

Oz in the trailer looks fabulously fantastical, a little too much for my liking! It kind of feels like you are trapped in some big, lurid fishbowl, with that horrible little naked pink guy buzzing around your face. However, the following shots show some of the many aspects of Oz; some dark, some made out of teapots, and some on fire, so it seems like its going to be really imaginative, a really big concept mapped out across the great Kingdom. Which is cool. It looks like there’ll be action, romance, good, evil, flying monkeys and lots of witches, so really embracing the world of Oz.

Me, I have always loved The Wizard of Oz and watch it every Christmas, I was obsessed with The Return to Oz as a child and am in LOVE with Wicked: The Musical, so pretty much will go for any thing Oz themed. SPEAKING OF WHICH, apparently there have been more talks of translating said musical into a film screen adaption suggesting Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, The Reader) as its director. I want this to happen so bad, but these ‘talks’ have been happening for years regarding this production, so I wont hold my breath just yet (but pleeeeeeeeeaase!! WHAT is the hold up!!!)

Frankenweenie

Tim Burton discussed his latest film, the reworking of his earlier short animation Frankenweenie due for release October of this year, making a nice little Halloween treat for us all!

You can catch the original trailer for it here on IMDB, but at Comic Con Burton revealed a sort of 50’s style reworking complete with spooky letters, music and dramatic voice over. It works really well and will probably please grown up Tim Burton fans more than the kid audience. The effect is that classicBurtonfeel the fans love; it’s stop animation, it’s retro and it’s ghouly, but still retains that sense of innocence and childhood humour. It even seems to have a character that possesses a striking resemblance to Vincent Price.

Anyway, the story follows a boy who figures out how to bring his dead pet dog to life. I have real trouble watching things about peoples pets dying. I don’t care how high the human body count is. If the pet dies, I am out of there, which is why I very wary of the ending of this film as surely the dog will go back to rest. But knowing Burton films, the little boy will find closure or the dog will WANT to die or something to ease my pain, so I’m willing to give this one a go.

During the Q&A, Burton pondered the potential of the outcome of his black and white film in 3D as it is pretty new to the format, so that should be interesting. I wonder if kids will be into it, as it starkly contrasts with the technicolour bubblegum renderings of Oz, Wreck it Ralph and The Lorax. I know I’d force my kid to watch it whether they liked it or not, and be all ‘appreciate it dammit!’

Lone Ranger

A few sneak peaks of The Lone Ranger have been allowed along with an exclusive trailer preview, which hopefully will be released to the public soon (pleeeease??!!). Apparently its packed with action and guns, has a huge train set piece and suggestions of time travel. The film, directed by Gore Verbinski of Pirates of theCaribbeaninfamy, follows the story of the fictional legendary masked ex- Texas Ranger (played by Armie Hammer) and his Native American companion Tonto (Johnny Depp).

The reuniting team of Verbinski and Depp would lead me to expect a reappearance of the Jack Sparrow character in Native American disguise, which is great for the audience but is obviously typecasting for Depp. However, it will also hopefully bring that swinging, swashbuckling epic action of Pirates of the Caribbean, with lush sets to die for and a soundtrack to follow.

There has also been a bit of news on Wreck-It Ralph which is starting to gain my interest. At first I thought the main pleasure for the viewer would just come from the recognition of various retro gaming characters, but with the addition of Sarah Silverman (hoping she will be in it for more than 15 seconds) and Jane Lynch, I’m starting to see the personality and possible depth emerging, so might give it a chance. There was also plenty of stuff going on with The Hobbit elsewhere, but even I am getting tired of my own voice going on about this bloody hobbit, so I’m giving that a rest. The last Twilight instalment was discussed along with a preview of the 7 minutes of the film. I’m not really a fan of Twilight and don’t follow the films so can’t really comment, but there is a good article on it here: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/07/13/comic-con-2012-robert-pattinson-kristen-stewart-preview-the-twilight-saga-breaking-dawn-part-2/?mod=google_news_blog.

Of course there was plenty of other interesting stuff going on too such as discussions of the use of prosthetics in horror featuring make- artist of True Blood, a demo from Dreamworks Animation, a panel discussing the effects of censorship on female artists, a live stage demo of Assassins Creed III, the return of Klaspy Csupo….in fact I’m going to give up on naming interesting sounding things as there are justy far too many! Tomorrow brings a Q&A with The Big Bang Theory cast, presentation of the new Judge Dredd, Game of Thrones panel, Jonathan Ross turns up, the cast of Breaking Bad make an appearance, the best Korean animation is displayed, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards take place and Blade Runner’s 30^th anniversary gets celebrated. So you know, not much.

Promotional Bumf

Low down on the promotion scene today:

A wave of promotional bumf comes from The Hobbit with its fantastic poster which can be found here on the Empire website complete with a scene by scene run down on what is going on across the scroll, and here is an awesome little device which provides you with a little magnifying glass to get right into all those lovely nitty gritty little details. For those who like to express their love for Middle Earth publicly, Warner Bros have put together a nifty little app to create twitter skins, Facebook covers and wallpapers from the poster. All of my electronic devices are already covered in this image!!

The promotional trail for The Dark Knight Rises has been so extensive, I have to thank the advertisers for saving me a few quid as I now feel I don’t need to see the completed film next week. Not that I’m denying how excited I am for it. I loved the earlier trailer which builds from near silence, which was of course predictably juxtaposed with all of those images of pain and destruction, and crescendo’s into Hans Zimmer’s score climax (preview soundtrack here). I try to refrain from watching TOO many clips and trailers for the films I am most excited for, I like to let myself in for a few surprises, but here can be found a short clip, one of the many posters released with accompanying trailer, and here is, well, another trailer and a slightly longer clip.

Another note, Elysium is preparing for its release in March with a ‘citizen initiative’ simulation, which in the style of Prometheus‘s Weyland Industry/ David virals invites the user to participate in a distinctly unsettling version of humanity.

And finally, The Dinosaur Project, a film I have hardly heard about (though it’s hard for any film to be heard over the comic- book monster tag team that is The Amazing Spiderman and The Dark Knight Rises) released a really handsome poster, which you can get a glimpse of along with a trailer here. It seems like a pretty standard, run of the mill found footage film with dinosaurs thrown in for an attempted added measure of excitement. The films website looks like a cute concept, but lacks content and simply links to a facebook page (damn it facebook!). In fact, the whole film and its promotion all has interesting concepts which seem to fail to translate into the excecution of the actual film. I hate when that happens. But I do love promotional bumf.

I just want the whole world to read this blog, I want to print it all off and cover all the walls in the world with it until everyone listens!

The Amazing Spiderman, 3-D Screens and Accepting my Age

This week my main lesson learnt about the world of film came in 3- Dimensional form with my experience of The Amazing Spiderman.

I’ve only ever seen one other film at the cinema before The Amazing Spiderman, and that was the re-release of The Lion King last year. Before then, I had only experienced it through those 3-D cinema rides at Disney world and Universal Studios and subsequently saw 3-D film as a novelty that would surely get tedious after half and hour. Although now I think about it, both of the two 3-D films I have seen at the cinema I have been on a related ride for. At some level I think I still relate to them as rides rather than actual films! The Spiderman ride at Islands of Adventure was firmly kept in mind on my way to the cinema and increased my excitement considerably! I loved that ride so much. The 3-D parts were genuinely terrifying and the perceptive tricks pulled on you had me completely forget I was not flying through the skyscrapers ofNew York City but simply strapped into a cart firmly on the ground. Overall, I think my need to see this film was basically grounded in my yearning to be back in the gloriously tropicalFlorida, going to mall where clothes were plentiful and cheap and food was delicious and people had accents like from telly instead of being stuck inNorth Wales’s rainiest summer on record. That, and mummy and daddy offered to pay!

However, even though The Amazing Spiderman may not have quite live up to the standards on The Spiderman ride, I still thoroughly loved the 3-D effects. I’ve always reverted to being a kid when faced with a 3-D screen, jumping and ducking away from whatever was being thrown at me and The Amazing Spiderman was no different. However, it also provides some visually striking and wonderfully composed shots. However. one of my main problems with 3-D in cinema is that it does not allow you to explore the scene yourself. The screen of 3-D film seems to be separated into planes, and if you chose you want to take at look at the background when there is all sorts of 3-D stuff going on in the front plane, your eyes don’t seem to understand what is going on and everything seems unfocused. Or at least it does with me! Basically, what I am trying to say, is with a 2-D screen you can look wherever you want on it, you can see all the little details going on all over the screen. With 3-D, you don’t have a choice but to focus on the enormous reptile coming at you from the middle of the screen. Its hard to appreciate things like narrative and the subtleties of film composition when this is happening. However, I think people need to start to understand that this is not necessarily bad, but only a different type of film, and new medium for film makers to experiment with. Cynics say 3-D is just a gimmick to increase cinema ticket revenue, but me and the child within me can’t help but love 3-D! It obviously shouldn’t just be used willy nilly, but flying swinging through the streets with Spiderman in 3-D? Like you REALLY THERE!! So cool!

The main criticisms I hear from my friends though, is that it is too soon for a reboot of the franchise, since it has only been five years since the last instalment of the previous series. At first I agreed with this, but then started to think , and couldn’t help compare with the Batman franchise. Since 1989 there have been EIGHT Batman films, with four different actors playing the hero. Me, being only 21 now, only really started paying attention to them when Batman Begins came out but somebody ten years older than me must surely be sick of Batman films by now! The X-men franchise similarly did such a seemless reboot of its films from the initial trilogy to its prequels that nobody even noticed, we just seem to accept a constant stream of X-men films! This is why I think me and my friends need a good talking to. We’re are going to have to start seeing films being remade, films of which we might say ‘hey, that was only out a few years ago!’ only to come to the terrifying conclusion that it was in fact 15 years ago, and the kids we are talking to have no idea what we are on about. Spiderman might ‘only’ have been released ten years ago to us, but there is a whole load of 10 year olds who have never even seen it!

Furthermore, looking back on the original Spiderman’s, they seem to be distinctly out of vogue. To me, Chad Kroger’s Hero is one of the best film soundtracks EVER! But are kids still into whiny white guy rock? I still am, but I would probably be laughed out of the room by the girls on my street with their Nicki Minaj and Jessie J remixed by Kanye West featuring Rhianna craziness. And reflects the whole attitude of the original films. They are admittedly quite teenagery, which was good when angst was in. But now its all about darksides and villains with 1950’s madmen styling such as Captain America, Watchmen and of course the darkest of them all The Dark Knight. Aunt May is all but ignored for the latter half of The Amazing Spiderman after Uncle Ben’s death, and Mary Jane’s depressing life struggle against her father to be an actress but can only make it as a waitress is kindly removed. Already we can all predict the battle against the evil with in that (the RIDICULOUSLY CUTE!) Andrew Garfield is going to face in the remainder of the trilogy.

Which leads on to the next requirement of the comic book film these days; the super villain. Since Heath Ledger’s Joker, the villain has never been more important. It has to be iconic, memorable and personal. It can’t just be some big, general manifestation of evil, but has to know how to push our hero’s buttons. This was actually done ok in the first Spider- man, but in The Amazing Spiderman, our villain seems a bit distant. He has his own agenda going on with his arm and his desire to regenerate like his mutated self, a lizard, but this doesn’t seem to connect with Spiderman himself. The two are a bit disjointed. The greatness between Batman and the Joker in The Dark Knight was their relationship with each other, their need for the other to exist contrasting with their innate need to destroy each other. There doesn’t seem to be much shared between Spiderman and this reptile character, which hopefully is something that will be remedied as the series continues.

Other exciting news I have learnt:

• The Hobbit has finished shooting! Next Christmas will be the best Christmas ever! http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=34476
• Disney has released a teaser poster for Oz: The Great and Powerful. I’m assuming it will be live action, but judging by the poster I would have loved to have seen it in Pixar’s hands. It looks like a mix between Alice in Wonderland and Brave. http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=34463
• Michael Fassbender will star in a film of the game Assassins Creed. For a guy who once featured on Holby City, he really is starting to hit it big time! http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118056333.html?cmpid=RSS|News|FilmNews

PROMETHEUS: GIMME SOME SCI- FI LOVIN

PROMETHEUS: GIMME SOME SCI- FI LOVIN 

 

It seems to me, it is safe to say that not many socially functional people have much interest in the science fiction genre until that one big film takes over. Because when sci- fi is big, it is HUGE. There is a constant flow of sci- fi/ horror films released that are easily ignored, in fact unheard of, until you browse the shelves in Asda and come across films that would make Hannibal Lector himself squirm in discomfort (Alien Raiders? The Thaw?).

 

And so, the sci- fi films that make it big time really are the giants of the genre. For example, Splice in 2009 I had no strong desire to pay £7 to see, but will be the first person to grab it from the cheap DVD section and love just for the pure sci- fi- ness of it. See, for me, there are two types of sci- fi films: those which possess narratives based on fictional scientific technology, and those which are fully absorbed in the science fiction tradition (my fave!). Splice was the latter. Full of primal scene references, teratology, wombs bursting open and sexual bending, it covered all the science fiction traditions. And Ridley Scott with science fiction genre giant Prometheus has brought this back in vogue.

 

Technology has also held a special place in the science fiction heart, but Transformers eventually managed to make that boring. And although there was a quick folly into environmental sci- fi somewhere between The Day After Tomorrow and the apocalyptic I am Legend, the comic book film has arguably taken over the genre and reformed it in its likeness. However, Prometheus has finally stolen the genre back. Full of existential exploration, it takes on one of the biggest science fiction theme of all; the origin of man. But what about Avatar, I can imagine many asking. The biggest film of 2009, probably the biggest ever, surely this is a genre giant? Mais non, I reply. Unfortunately, it is part of my sci- fi group that is based on fictional scientific technology. As was not quite so subtly suggested in the film, the genre was a vehicle for more Pocahontas style issues, and never really engaged with its own science fiction genre but remained disconnected from it. Similarly, Battle: Los Angeles was one of those annoying alien films which didn’t seem to have any aliens in at all, and may as well have just been set inIraq and saved a lot of time and expense!

 

In fact, the only science fiction films of the last 30 years which achieved highest box office success of their respective years apart from Avatar have been Star Wars films and a 1 or 2 others dotted around during particularly dull years. Star Wars, the film that any fan will bite your head off to remind you of it’s western style narrative, which although did spawn a new branch of the genre, it further distanced us from its pure form.

 

Which is why, for me, it’s hats off to Prometheus. Of course its not without flaws. I personally found it never quite reached epic status in the way Alien, and I was constantly egging on the screen to burst into life with a tirade of face hugging violence. However, a return to sci- fi origins to me is something to be celebrated. Don’t get me wrong, I love genre mixing and new sub genres emerging, but at some point, its nice to be reminded that the masters of our progenitors still exist.

 

 

 

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