Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the conversation by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
What a topic! And since it was planned a year (or so) ago, there was no telling then just how timely it would be, so kudos to Wanderer for her foresight! But it begs the question: What IS a "strong female character"? Is it a well-rounded, real-feeling character, as opposed to a one-dimensional caricature or one-note "supportive" wife/mother/girlfriend - someone who has their own agency and makes their own decisions? Or is it more literal, a female character who displays strength of character, whether mental or physical? For me, it's the former moreso than the latter. And since we are in such a timely place with this topic, I've decided to go full-on current. Thursday Movie Picks: 2017 Edition.
Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd, 2017) Florence Pugh gives a magnificent, star-is-born performance as the title character in this austere tale of a woman scorned. Katherine is married off to an unfeeling, uncaring husband who would rather jerk off looking at her backside against a wall than make love to her, and insists that she stay indoors despite her love of the moors. But though she was bought/sold like property, Katherine is a person with needs and desires, and one day she ventures out and happens upon the farmhands abusing her maid Anna. She feels an instant attraction to the newest farmhand, Sebastian, and before you know it, the two of them are having a full-blown affair. I won't give away any of what happens after that, but suffice it to say this gives Katherine a form of strength and autonomy that makes her resent her lot in life even more, and takes steps to live a life of her own making. The film grapples with what it means to be strong woman, and asks an interesting question: At what point in asserting oneself does a person become a danger to those around them? It's the tensest movie of the year, keeping me on the edge of my seat for the entire back half - and occasionally eliciting laughter that it then made me regret not so much as a minute later. Lady Macbeth is brilliant.
Atomic Blonde (David Leitch, 2017) A strong woman in every sense of the word, Lorraine Broughton is the best spy MI-6 has to offer. And her latest assignment in Berlin just before the fall of the wall will put her to the test. Charlize Theron literally kicks ALL THE ASS in the biggest and best shoulda-been blockbuster of the year. The moment New Order's "Blue Monday" kicked in on the soundtrack in the opening scene, I was sold. Atomic Blonde is smart, stylish, and super sexy... a total blast that I can't wait to watch again. Read more in my full review here.
Wonder Woman (Patty Jenkins, 2017) If we had to wait this long for a Wonder Woman movie just to get Gal Gadot as the lead, then the wait was well worth it - Gadot is a PERFECT Wonder Woman, and she's perfectly matched with Chris Pine as the male romantic lead. And the film gains so much from its World War I setting (that no man's land scene is undeniably, impossibly righteous). So it's a shame about the last act, when it becomes an utterly average, disappointingly standard superhero movie. While I admire that the film ends up making the Big Bad (SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT) a pragmatic politician, I don't think that decision ultimately works as well as it could have. But none of that matters so much in the face of the woman at this movie's center. Diana "Prince" is a strong woman, no doubt about it, but it isn't until she's able to embrace potential weakness (in both herself and others) that she becomes her best self. And that's kind of beautiful.
Lorraine Broughton is in pain. A man she was close with was killed, so that explains the inner pain, but we don't know how she got all those cuts and bruises. We'll find out soon enough, though, that she got them in quite fantastic fashion.
So begins Atomic Blonde, the most ass-kinkingest movie of the year. Charlize Theron stars as the top secret agent in MI6, a modern feminist James Bond with a killer bod and a particular set of skills. After a colleague (and probable lover, the film never makes it clear and is better for it) is shot while retrieving a MacGuffin in Berlin, Lorraine was shipped in to find the MacGuffin and bring it back home, or else the enemy Russians would know the identity of every British and American agent. But Berlin during the time of the Wall is a dangerous place, and Lorraine runs into trouble before she even gets to meet her contact, Berlin station chief David Percival (James McAvoy). And that's just the beginning.
Hold onto your butts. This is gonna be one helluva bumpy ride.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun - and it IS fun - by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
AH writing. Sometimes the muse is with you. Sometimes it is not. Of course, there is more drama when the muse is NOT with you, so that explains why most of the movies about writers (both fictional and non-fictional, but for the rules of this week we're sticking to the fictional) are about writers dealing with writer's block.
Young Adult (Jason Reitman, 2011) One of the best movies of the '00s, Young Adult follows Mavis Gary, a writer of a once-popular series of young adult novels that is now being cancelled. Living a rather lonely existence in Minneapolis after a bad divorce, she goes back to her home town after receiving an invitation to the naming ceremony of her old high school boyfriend. And... well... things don't go so well. What's so amazing about Diablo Cody's script and Jason Reitman's direction is just how much of that story I just described is told in the background. But when you have Charlize Theron giving an unbelievable performance of one of the trickiest characters seen on screen in ages, you can afford to let the story simmer on the back burner. Theron gives an absolutely tremendous performance as the acidic Mavis, and she brings the best out of scene partner Patton Oswalt as a crippled former high school classmate.
The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski, 2010) Perfectly cast and designed, and directed with Polanski's typical chilly precision. Only with this story, chilly precision is EXACTLY what's called for: A ghost writer (Ewan McGregor) is brought in to write the memoirs of a shady politician (Pierce Brosnan). Scandals start to swirl and before long, the ghost writer starts to think he may be marked for death because of what he knows and what he's seen. Perhaps not a brilliant thriller, but a really goddamned great one, with a flat-out brilliant, perfect ending.
Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006) Well, I mean, it's all right there in the trailer, isn't it? Emma Thompson is having a particularly nasty case of writer's block while writing her new novel. AND it turns out, through a metaphysical twist, that the character she's writing - IRS agent Will Ferrell - actually exists in the real world, and what she's writing is having a direct effect on his life. Perhaps a little too clever for its own good, Stranger Than Fiction is still enjoyable thanks to the sly performances of Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman, as a professor of literature whom Ferrell contacts to try to figure out what's going on, an the surprising chemistry between Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal, as a baker he's auditing.
For the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves, just pick three movies for the week's theme. That's it. Join us! It's fun!
This week's movie picks are Live Action Fairy Tale Adaptations, which is apropos since Disney's Ever After remake live-action Cinderella opens this weekend. But I have to say, this one threw me a bit. Where do you draw the line between a "fairy tale" and a children's fantasy? Or a folktale? For example, is Alice in Wonderland a fairy tale? Is The Wizard of Oz? The Emperor's New Clothes? I'm really not sure. The first two involve a "magical" trip to a strange land, but only Oz actually involves magic, which for me is a key ingredient for a fairy tale. The third involves no actual magic, but was published in Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales Told for Children, and a version was filmed for Shelley Duvall's Fairie Tale Theatre. I decided that, for me, a fairy tale is a story that involves both magic (in some form) and a royal family (usually in the form of a princess). From there, these three basically picked themselves.
La Belle et la Bête (Jean Cocteau, 1946) The Big Kahuna of live-action fairy tale adaptations, and with good reason. This is one of the most stunningly gorgeous films ever made. Jean Cocteau's near-surrealist version of the French fairy tale is so influential that every subsequent fairy tale film owes a debt to it - not just versions of this tale. How Jean Marais is able to emote through his Beast makeup I will never know, but he does, and Josette Day overcomes her resting bitchface to be a Beauty for the ages. But make no mistake, this is Cocteau's show, and even now, over 70 years later, the images he created still retain their ability to inspire wonder and awe.
Ever After (Andy Tennant, 1998) When I first saw the trailer for the new Cinderella, my immediate response was "So... they're just remaking Ever After?" Drew Barrymore makes for a lovely, proto-feminist Cinderella (née Danielle), and Anjelica Huston slyly spins gold from the stock role of the wicked stepmother. Yes, the script contains that heinous line about a bird loving a fish, but in Barrymore's hands, it doesn't feel nearly as cringe-worthy as it should. This is a fairy tale firmly grounded in reality (the role of the fairy godmother, we have.... Leonardo da Vinci?!?) that is all the better for it, reminding us that all stories we tell, however fantastical, have some basis in reality.
Snow White & the Huntsman (Rupert Sanders, 2012) Charlize Theron is God. Make no mistake, Snow White & the Huntsman is... not a good movie, but it is a fantastic-looking one, one of the most striking films in recent years, fairy tale or otherwise. And the centerpiece of the whole enterprise isn't either of the title characters, it's Theron's tremendous performance as the evil Queen Ravenna. Aided by some imaginative, truly special visual effects (the mirror! the soldiers that shatter like glass! the ravens!) and stunning costumes - both deservedly Oscar-nominated - Theron tears into the part like a hungry lioness, a vengeful wraith in medieval rock star couture descending on the land to avenge the pain brought upon her (and all women) by the men who had ruled it.
Oh yeah, and Kirsten Stewart isn't terrible in it, either, so...
BONUS PICK
Enchanted (Kevin Lima, 2007) Look, I know it isn't actually based off a pre-existing fairy tale (existing on its own as a send-up of Disney's animated fairy tales), but this is by far the best live-action fairy tale of the past twenty years. Clever Alan Menken-Stephen Schwartz songs, a fun, funny script, and flat-out brilliant performances from James Marsden (as the fairy-tale Prince Charming) and Amy Adams (who should have gotten an Oscar nomination for her bonkers princess Giselle) make this one a film I will probably never stop enjoying, no matter how many times I see it. The "That's How You Know" scene still makes me shake with uncontrollable laughter (actually, Patrick Dempsey is really underrated in this - watch him in this scene again and tell me he doesn't make you laugh). Pity about Susan Sarandon's Evil Queen, but you can't have everything!
