Sexism, Outrage and Suicide Squad

The Internet has been ablaze with outrage regarding Suicide Squad. Whether or not it was “good” isn’t what I’m writing about in the post. Before I even write a review of it, I wanted to write about how there seems to be an oddly passionate outcry with respect to the sexist representation of Harley Quinn.

If you Google “Suicide Squad Sexism,” the first article that comes up is from the dailydot.com entitled 'Suicide Squad's Harley Quinn is the result of 'sexism by committee' written by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw. Its sentiments are mirrored by several other articles. Now, allow me to be clear. I’m not saying that Suicide Squad was a particularly progressive film. I’m not saying it’s a feminist film. I’m not even saying that it wasn’t a sexist movie. But I am confused by how outraged people are over this movie in particular.

Is the outcry a result of disappointment? When you heard “You Don’t Own Me” introducing Quinn, did you expect to get Rey (from Star Wars The Force Awakens)?

Don’t get me wrong; I applaud the fact that people are calling out a movie for objectifying women. 

But, for the people who are particularly outraged, have you ever seen a movie?

Have you ever seen a superhero movie?

Have you ever seen Harley Quinn?

Part of me wants to point out the fact that Harley Quinn isn’t someone we want to be. I mean if for no other reason than because she’s in an abusive relationship and, oh yeah, she’s a murderous criminal.

Why is this depiction so much worse than somebody like Black Widow? Black Widow, after all, is supposed to be something of a role model.

The thing that bothers me about Suicide Squad is that it does a garbage job of “being progressive”. In the article above, the author notes the scene of Harley dressing, the movie calls out the guys gawking at her. It’s as if the movie gets a free pass because we can laugh at the leering men...all while we gaze at her. Harley may have the power to punish male characters but she can’t punish the audience. There are things the movie could’ve done to implicate the audience too (and that would be so good if it did) but it didn’t.

One Warm Line: The Legacy of Stan Rogers

Written and directed by Alan Collins, and Robert Lang. Starring Stan Rogers, Garnet Rogers, and Ariel Rogers.

Bottom line: One Warm Line: The Legacy of Stan Rogers is a well-done Forty-five minute documentary about a really interesting, talented, and influential folk musician.

3/4

I don’t know about you but I like me a good, light documentary from time to time. There are lots of great documentaries like Blackfish or Capturing the Friedmans but those are heavy, man. I’d recommend them but if I’m tired after a long day of work, I kinda just want to watch something pleasant while I’m eating dinner. Wait till after dinner, that’s when then we can get into the heavy stuff.

One Warm Line: The Legacy of Stan Rogers is about the Canadian folk musician Stan Rogers. He sang of country life as a farmer and a fisherman. He rose to fame through his connection to his audience and his tireless desire to perform. I’ll leave it at that lest I spoil the documentary.

From my experience with reviewing documentaries, it’s less about what information is presented but how. One Warm Line jumps between interviews with friends of Rogers, images of the musician, and clips of him in concert. There was a good balance between the musical and non-musical sections so if you aren’t the biggest fan of his style, the film overall isn’t overwhelming.

Until I saw this documentary, the only experience I had with Stan Rogers was from searching on YouTube for “pirate shanties.” One of the videos I found was an excerpt from this documentary. I made time to see the whole film and I’m glad I did. Not only will I recommend One Warm Line but I’ll recommend Stan Rogers too.

Thanks for reading this short review of a good and short documentary. Are you a fan of Stan Rogers? Have you seen any good, light documentaries recently?

Die Krone von Arkus

Written and directed by Franziska Pohlmann. Starring Lukas Jantzen (Jono), Anna-Lena Sender (Saraja), and Tom Barcal (Gurungur).

Bottom line: For a German family movie with no English audio or subtitles, I had a solidly ok time watching Die Krone von Arkus.

2.5/4

Before we get to the review of Die Krone von Arkus, allow me to give some context. My wife and I are flying from Krakow to Chicago by way of Munich and Toronto: the Munich to Toronto portion was about 7 hours on Lufthansa. Several movies were watched on the long flights but, while my wife napped, I watched the film currently in question, Die Krone von Arkus.

Die Krone von Arkus is a very German family fantasy movie. It’s so German it didn’t have English subtitles or audio. It’s so German, I couldn’t stream it on Amazon, heck, I couldn’t order it on Amazon! I had to reside in Germany to rent it. I couldn’t even find a torrent to pirate the thing.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention that I don’t speak German….

Other than that though, let me tell you what I thought so far...because, well, as it was on a flight, I didn’t actually finish the film but I saw almost all of it.

So in this little German town, there is a witch who is looking for a magical diamond ring. She rules over the town with an iron fist. She kidnaps children who live in the town to try and find the ring. I suspect, because, children and their purity are the secret to getting the ring. We cut over to our hero, the leader of a group of ragamuffin kids. He’s kinda like the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist. He meets a pretty lady ragamuffin who teaches him that he doesn’t have to steal. Long story short, they have to try and save their friends and the town from the evil witch.

If you’ve read my other reviews, you might know that I’m not a fan of musicals. More often than not, the songs long overstay their welcome. Maybe it’s because Die Krone von Arkus is a fantasy movie and a kids movie but even though there are a bunch of songs, they are all very short. I actually felt like I would’ve liked to hear more of them. Conveniently, even though I couldn’t find the movie, the soundtrack is on YouTube.

So, because I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, and I probably missed cultural queues, I can’t speak too too much to the dialog. That said, it sounds pretty cool.

The art direction is pretty solid too. Die Krone von Arkus feels like a big budget movie. Would I recommend this movie? Sure, but especially if you are flying Lufthansa. In the future, if I do wind up watching the rest of this with subtitles, I’ll return to this and do a follow up; let’s hope it doesn’t turn out to be awful writing with a cliché story.

This movie kinda reminds me of the first time I saw Jacques Tati’s masterpiece, Playtime. I was a freshman in college. A small group of us made a pilgrimage to an obscure movie rental place to pick out some zany foreign films. I chose Playtime because it looked cool. We hike back to our dorms and pop in the movies. We sit through about an hour of Playtime before the group vetoed my pick. It was a French art movie so I didn’t really get it on a number of levels but there was something alluring about it. I couldn’t quite tell what it was but I knew there was something.

So years later, I crossed paths with Playtime again and I gave it another go and, the rest is history. Now, I don’t know if Die Krone von Arkus will be as life changing but, this is to say, I’d recommend giving it a shot even if you don’t speak German. Maybe by breaking from the dialog, it will cause you to look at it (and film in general) in a new way.

Independence Day: Resurgence

Directed by Roland Emmerich . Written by Nicolas Wright, James A. Woods, Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, and James Vanderbilt. Starring Liam Hemsworth (Jake Morrison), Jeff Goldblum (David Levinson), Bill Pullman (President Whitmore).

Bottom line: Computer graphics and failed attempts to exploit nostalgia. Please avoid Independence Day: Resurgence.

.5/4

Independence Day: Resurgence opens to a voice over of the President’s monologue from the first film. It’s one thing to make a nod to a predecessor but it’s quite another when a movie immediately breaks into a reference just for reference’s sake.

Now, the idea is that America defeated the aliens in 1996. Using the unifying threat of the aliens and the technology they left behind, the world is all futuristic. But wait! The aliens are back. Now America has to defeat them again.

I’m sure you’ve seen movies which are bad but not fun-bad. Fun-bad movies are cheesy and, well, fun to laugh at and with. Think about Sharknado. It’s a shark-filled tornado. It’s absurd and fun to talk about the absurdity. One of the reasons why Independence Day: Resurgence isn’t fun is that the plot has so many holes, it doesn’t lend itself to any sort of conversation. The big spaceship, for example, is so big “it has it’s own gravity” which means all ships and buildings and people all fall towards the spaceship. The buildings and things all stay up there, until it gets to LA at which point everything falls back down.

Wait, what?

It would’ve been so easy to say it was an alien gravity weapon (to explain why the effect only happens once) but noooo, they said it’s so massive it has it’s own gravity. It’s such a simple thing. Couldn’t one person just say, “Excuse me, could we just maybe tweak this a little?” Independence Day: Resurgence is filled to the brim with similar inconsistencies. Even Goldblum can’t salvage it, and I like Goldblum.

The only one interesting point of this film, is how internationally minded it is. Transformers and other computer graphic blockbusters destroyed the box offices in China. They did so well that there was a bunch of product placement for Chinese products in Transformers 4. In the case of Independence Day: Resurgence, one of the heroes is a representative from China and she speaks Chinese occasionally. Instead of Skype, to do video chatting, people use Tencent QQ (which is a Chinese chat program), and he drinks “moon milk” which is half covered with Chinese characters. I’m so used to being the target audience, it’s a neat, new experience to not be.

If you want graphics go play a video-game. If you want Independence Day, go watch the original. But, please, avoid this movie. If we all abstain maybe this train of bad-nostalgia fueled films will stop.

Zootopia

Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, and Jared Bush. Written by Byron Howard, Rich Moore,  Jared Bush, Jim Reardon, Josie Trinidad, Phil Johnston, Dan Fogelman, and Jennifer Lee. Starring Ginnifer Goodwin (Judy Hopps), Jason Bateman (Nick Wilde), Idris Elba (Chief Bogo).

Bottom line: Zootopia was cute, fun, and nice; I wasn’t expecting much and was pleasantly surprised.

3/4

As the introduction explains, in ages past, the animal kingdom was divided into two groups, predators and prey, who constantly lived at odds. Fortunately, overtime they evolved to form a society where animals can live in harmony. A utopia...or a Zootopia. Pun aside, Zootopia is the name of the giant city in which all the animals live. In this city, so explains our protagonist bunny (Goodwin), anyone can be anything their heart desires. In the case of our heroine bunny, she dreams to become the first bunny cop (larger animals like Bulls and Elephants tend to be cops). Will she be able to follow her dream despite the adversity that will surely follow?

My expectations were low for Zootopia. It looked colorful but I didn’t think it had much else going for it. I was, however, mistaken. Zootopia is a really pleasant movie overall. The animation isn’t merely colorful, it’s fun and dynamic. The city itself is divided into different climate-based zones: you have the jungle, tundra, desert, and regular old concrete jungle section of the city. Even though you only see brief portions of Zootopia, it feels like a fleshed out world. It’s fun.

I’d recommend Zootopia for anybody. It was a pleasant family friendly movie. It is somewhat predictable here and there but, what do you want, it’s a kids movie.

Have you seen Zootopia? Have you seen any family movies in the recent past that have pleasantly surprised you? Thanks for reading!

Ratatouille

Directed by Brad Bird and Jan Pinkava. Written by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava, and Jim Capobianco. Starring Lou Romano (Linguini), Patton Oswalt (Remy), Brad Garrett (Gusteau).

Bottom line: Ratatouille is a wonderful Pixar movie that I would recommend to anyone especially if one enjoys food.

3.5/4

Ratatouille opens with an exposition describing the late, fictional celebrity chef Gusteau (Garrett) whose motto was “Anyone can cook.” We cut to our protagonist; a rat named Remy (Oswalt). Remy is gifted with an advanced sense of smell which teaches him to appreciate the food that he eats. He’d rather not eat garbage when there is a whole culinary world around him. In his attempts to get some basic spices, he stumbles upon a cooking show featuring the aforementioned chef. Before he knows it, Remy finds himself in Paris. Exploring a little further, he makes his way to Gusteau’s restaurant. He watches, with hungry eyes, the creations of the master chefs. Remy crosses paths with the recently hired garbage boy, Linguini (Romano). The pair team up; Linguini will be the human representative of the two, while Remy provides the culinary direction.

Ratatouille isn’t too dissimilar from the dish of the same name. Ratatouille (the dish) is a bunch of vegetables, cooked together and baked. It’s simple but it can be delicious. In Ratatouille we follow the smallest of characters, a rat, in his quest to do what he dreams; to cook. There are so many wonderful decisions even with the basic premise. Consider the idea of simply cooking. It’s something we can all relate to because even if the audience doesn’t like to cook per se, who doesn’t like food? We can follow Remy’s quest and imagine tasting his creations. And even the desire to cook is attainable for anyone in the audience. It just takes practice to get a sense of the mechanics, aromas, and flavors. Indeed, “anyone can cook” and Ratatouille makes the ordinary that much more magical.

The music of Ratatouille is phenomenal (I’m listening to the theme song “Le Festin” by Camille as I write). Some of the characters, particularly Linguini, teeter on goofy which I’m not the biggest fan of but they are so darn endearing it’s ok. The graphics are, of course, incredible. Early in the film, Remy goes down a raging river and the water effects are amazing, even by today’s standards and this came out in 2008.

I’d highly recommend Ratatouille. I’ve seen it several times and it’s always been a lot of fun. It’s accessible to everyone too so it’s a great family movie. I hope you see Ratatouille and enjoy it as much as I have. This is, of course, assuming you haven’t seen it a number of times already.

Thanks for reading!

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Directed by Tim Burton. Written by Roald Dahl (book), and John August (screenplay). Starring Johnny Depp (Willy Wonka), Freddie Highmore (Charlie Bucket), David Kelly (Grandpa Joe).

Bottom line: I wouldn’t say that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory holds up as a standalone movie, let alone a remake.

.5/4

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is Tim Burton’s 2005 adaptation of the book with the same name. Just watching the opening credits, in all it’s dated (even for 2005) graphical glory, you can see the names appear on the screen: Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, music by Danny Elfman. We got the whole Burton crew here, boys, let’s rumble.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, if you’ve seen the ‘70’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, is largely what you’d expect; the reclusive candy-man Willy Wonka has announced that he will open his mysterious factory to the lucky children who find the several Golden Tickets hidden within chocolate Wonka bars.

Let me just start off this brief review to say that I wouldn’t recommend this movie. I didn’t enjoy the songs, the characters, or the stylistic decisions. I couldn’t help but compare it to the original which I’ve seen countless times. The first portion of the movie is mediocre enough. It looks kinda like a Wes Anderson movie (he directed The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom) but more black and white checkerboard. But as soon as Johnny Depp comes into mix, everything takes a sharp downward turn.

You know how sometimes, especially with action movies, the hero eclipses the rest of the movie? It doesn’t really matter about what is going on because we get to see the hero kick butt. For example, at first, there was Terminator and then shortly thereafter, there were Schwarzenegger movies. It doesn’t matter who Schwarzenegger is fighting as long as I’m along for the ride. This works with Tim Burton now that I think about it; there was Nightmare Before Christmas and now we have Tim Burton movies. It doesn’t really matter what’s going on as long as I get to see some whimsy.

Now, with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, we spend a decent amount of time establishing this whimsical movie about a poor boy named Charlie but, once Depp is introduced, the focus shifts to him. If any movie should be called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory it should be this one.

Depp’s representation of Willy Wonka makes me really uncomfortable. He seems to be channeling Michael Jackson but, doesn’t the whole pedophile thing color this in an odd way? I mean, Wonka is inviting half a dozen children into his mysterious wonderland for a contest for which only he knows the rules. Sure we get to see Wonka’s backstory (to explain his childlike nature) but that juice ain’t worth the squeeze. I was attempting a more candy oriented phrase, but that’s all I could think of.

I have pages of moleskine notebook notes about what I didn’t like about this movie and why and how but, then, last night I re-watched Ratatouille. I’ll go into more details about the plot but, for our purposes here, the main villain in Ratatouille is a food critic named Anton Ego.

At one point he says, “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so...”

The above quote makes me wonder about movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There are plenty of movies out there and even plenty of fun bad movies. I can even see having a fondness for bad movies (even if they aren’t fun). That said, I’m recommend avoiding Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If you want some whimsy, why not go to watch one of Tim Burton’s older movies? And if you want some Chocolate Factory, I’d recommend the original film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Thanks for reading!