Hell Hath No Fury Like a Spurned Horned-Fairy Bitter Ex-Girlfriend

I'm sure they stole contacts off the Twilight set for this.

So I went to see Maleficent (2014) last Friday with dwindling optimism. I'm one of those girls that's not a huge fan of Angelina but that's really due to resentment and jealousy more than anything else. So myself and my hetero life-mate Shannon, parked ourselves in one of the back corners and because we both get dizzy from 3-D prepared for a regular screening of Maleficent. Neither of us had seen the original Disney version since we were this side of 8 years old, but it wasn't too crowded in there and we snuck in yogurt, so how bad could it be? The answer is surprisingly, not at all. I was actually feasibly impressed, and my dead heart fluttered just a tiny bit. Don't get me wrong I rolled my eyes quite a bit and had a few choice sarcastic quips for the growing more and more annoyed person I was with, but I left that theater feeling like that was not time wasted. Shocker.
Angie makes a splendid comeback to the big screen after a four-year hiatus and being publically humiliated at the Golden Globes by Ricky Gervais, and then her weird leg-dress moment at the 2012 Oscars. I mean what was that exactly? Then she reappeared to support her husband’s producing efforts last year at the Oscar and even went up to the stage when 12 Years a Slave (2013) won for Best Picture even though she had nothing to do with it besides being married to the Executive Producer, but that’s H-Wood I guess.

Let’s just admit it female community, we were never fans. She was too intimidating with her long legs, her crisp cheekbones that could cut glass, the most sensual lips ever, and long wavy locks of brunette hair. Fuck her seriously, who’s born like that? So we aren’t exactly itching to bring our boyfriends along to one of her flicks, unless we know we’re going to be prodding them the entire time with asinine questions like ‘do you think she’s prettier than me?’. Poor men, they have to lie and say ‘no not at all sweetie, I enjoy how ‘normal’ and ‘boring’ you look’… or ‘I find tattoos gauche and vulgar’…and my favorite ‘I’m not attracted to perfect-looking women’. UGHHHH!

Just admit it you would cheat on me with Angelina Jolie, and that goes for every man in America ladies, even the blind ones. Moving ooooooooon!

We all (and by we all I mean the women amongst us) remember the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty (1959) like it was yesterday. Don’t know about ya’ll but it used to terrify the everloving shit out of me.

I especially cowered at that part when Princess Aurora is hypnotized and wanders into that old forgotten room full of broken spindles with her eyeballs dilated like she just dropped 8 hits of E. I swear that would haunt my nightmares, also that's a huge hole in the story, seriously. They couldn't just burn the spindles in a giant pire, they have to hide them in a room that no one will ever get into? Really? ...really really? 

But as traumatized as I was and as much as the night light company made off of me, I did not expect the re-imagining of the classic tale to be at all scary. I honestly thought it would a farce and at the very least yield a lot of snarky eye-rolls. But I got distracted by the ridiculous amount of homages or rather pastiches of Lord of the Rings, and the endless who's who parade of marginally famous actors for whom I carry a deep appreciation such as Sharlto Copley who made a huge impression on all of us with his debut film District 9. Then there's Sam Reilly who made HIS debut in the disastrous clusterfuck of a movie On the Road (2011) based on the American Opus by Jack Kerouac where he played the Kerouac-inspired character of Sal. Then there's Dakota Fanning prettier and more talented little sister Elle as Sleeping Beauty herself, with basically the entire Mike Leigh company including Lesley Manville and Imelda Staunton rounding out the cast. I mean, that's pretty effing impressive. You would expect a cast list like to read like the opening credits to a Shakespeare adaptation. But Shakespeare this is not. It was amusing, and at times campy as hell, and in the good way. Angie is definitely not taking herself too seriously which is a feat for her. But she is bringing all of her chops to this rather sparkly and ridiculous parable. She doesn't chew the scenery, and in fact holds back when she has to making her performance enigmatic, emotionally charged, and at times sarcastic. It works, what else can I say? Oh yeah, and Juno Temple is there too so what's not visual masturbation about this film. T&A from Angie, walking and talking trees a la Lord of the Rings for the geek crowd, and enough glammed out costume changes to make David Bowie jealous, it's a sensual feast for the eyes, but don't expect it to warm your heart or anything. It's completely predictable and somewhat banal, but who cares? Angelina has horns and a catsuit. What else do you need exactly, needy! It's a formulaic Disney live-action film with little depth and an actress that should reside nowhere near Disney street, but now that she's a momma to like 45 toddlers, has started to mellow out a bit. It was enjoyable. And don't even get me started on the S&M fetishies that's all over this freakin' film that went flying over the kids' heads. It's a tongue and cheek sexual interpretation of a beloved old classic which is the best kind of interpretation you can have. I mean seriously, who's more sexually explicit than Ang? It's giving a new generation of 12-year-old Disney fans something different to wank to. More power to it.

I Finally Watched 30 Minutes of Gatsby and That Was Enough For Me

A view from above. One of Baz's (excuse me but actually, it's one of Busby Berkeley signature shots that he invented back in the 30's that Baz ripped off, but you know...) Don't choke on all that glitter.

Baz Luhrmann bless him, seems to believe that we as humans sitting in a darkened theater are so dulled and thick that they need to be assaulted by colors, music, and camera tricks to create such a high level of visual stimulus so that nothing competes. But what he seems to misunderstand is that when there's already an important, nay...iconic story, already articulated, which every movie-goer has by this time read or has had to read or are at least aware of you have to tread lightly and respect the original material. We get all of the parallels, symbolism, and themes attached to the story of Jay Gatsby even if we haven't read F. Scott Fitzgerald's American opus published back in the 20's about the disillusionment of a culture built on fame, money, and decadence, set in the sparkly aura of The Jazz Age.

Not for a minute did I believe this love story. Those two couldn't have had less chemistry if they were first cousins.

Luhrmann probably latched on to certain words and phrases in that first act, like 'decadence' 'collosal vitality' and 'so we beat on' and put them to literal translation. And, compared to his other work, it's like everything else. A lot of show, and a lot of melodrama, but no real performances, and all of the character arcs have to be shoved into our faces as if we don't get what exactly it is each character is going through. Everything serious and violent has to be done in slow motion, and everything glamorous and uplifting has to look like it was just found in David Bowie's closet and shot through a Sepia filter. It's like, step away from the computer, and read the book another time. But, I'm quite honestly not hating on Luhrmann, I think he's really trying but he's tragically misguided. It's like giving a 3 year old a camera, they don't know what the fuck it is or what to do with it. I think he desperately wants to be camp or even cult, but takes himself too seriously to ever achieve that. He's nowhere near as brilliant as someone like Paul Verhoeven who could adapt Gatsby for half this budget and do a better job. So Baz is floating somewhere in between the John Waters/Todd Haynes/Andy Warhol territory and the Ridley Scott/Michael Bay/James Cameron territory...trying to find his own voice and style, but it's just not one that fits into any kind of spectrum or genre, it's (just like his films) a big ol' mess.

Baz is like the George Lucas of his genre when it comes to actors, where he can take intense complex actors and just make them give the most boring two-dimensional performances of their careers.

The only person that I think gives any kind of performance (and you'll probably kill me for this) is actually Jay Gatsby himself; Leonardo DiCaprio. Though every time he said 'old sport' I cringed because he just couldn't get that to sound natural. He looked the part, he played the part, and he is the artifice through which we see the beginning, middle, and end of a golden age. And he plays all of those movements very well. I'll give him that...or rather to the best of his abilities. It's very hard for a performer like Leo to drown in abysmal material.

A still from Moulin Rouge, with the actors' wardrobe photoshopped so it would be appropriated for the right era.

But in the end, we don't watch Baz Luhrmann's films for the performances lets be honest we watch them so our heads will twirl around until our eyes bulg from their sockets and steam comes out our ears like an old Looney Tunes cartoon. Unfortunately Baz in all of his aesthetic genius couldn't grasp that there is an ironic edge to Gatsby, it's actually not about the glitz and glamour, it's about the tragedy of how putrid and unreal all of that is and the awakening to that; it's the death of a dream not the birth of it. The disillusionment of Neverland and acceptance and acquiessance to banal and bland 'real world' life. Sorry if that ruined Gatsby for you, but you should have fucking read it by now. PS. It is such a fucking cop-out to adapt a book with first person narration into a film with first-person narration, like seriously? We need the book read to us by the main character? That's why we...read the book. I want my 13 dollars back.

Subtitle: 'Ok, it's the 20's but pretend like you're at an LA nightclub in the now. Get her a vodka redbull'

Baz saves the last like 2 minutes to kinda pepper in some tragedy but it's conveyed through a teary-eyed, whiny Tobey Maguire trying his best to emote near a green screen, and feels reminiscent of like a child losing his favorite toy more than disillusionment of an entire era, as usual, it's pretty futile and devoid of any substance. And isn't that the ever-present problem with Baz? That he makes films that are all style and no substance? Give me an example to counter that I defy you.  First he had to ruin Shakespeare for all of us, and now he's taken on bringing down Fitzgerald. Who's next Baz? I'd love to see your adaptation of 'Naked Lunch', I just hope the ghost of Burroughs stabs you in the eye. For some reason I have a feeling he's been itching like hell to re-do 'Breakfast at Tiffany's'. Can't wait to hear his bastardized version of Moon River. But for now, let's all sit quietly and wait for his new Kung-Fu epic. Heads are going to roll.

Trailer below (whirlwind of mehhhhhh)

The Death of Glitter: Great Films About Glam Rock

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as the Ziggy Stardust inspired character, Maxwell Daemon

Let's face it, Glam Rock is nothing more than a distant memory and the music of Bryan Ferry, The Sweet, Slade, T. Rex, and others is no longer played even on rock stations. It was an offshoot of the rebellious hippie trends that recognized the hypocrisy of a movement based on political revolution that never actually manifested, and decided to exploit the fashion, spirit, and aesthetic of the sexual revolution that was also taking place.

It's ironic that the one time we as a society became reflective of that was in the 90's mainly, not sure why, Bowie had just released a new album and newbies were all introduced to the music of Iggy Pop when Trainspotting came out in 1996. I wouldn't call this reflexivity disingenuous because behind the camera were some of the best storytellers working today like Todd Haynes and Neil Jordan.

I remember watching Velvet Goldmine for the first time when it first came out in 1998 and being like 'yeah, awesome, glitter, free love, sex drugs and rock n' roll' but then I saw it again when it was taught in one of my classes at NYU and introduced to us by our learned professor as 'his favorite film'. I began to understand that like the Glam Rock music, Velvet Goldmine was a film rooted in the deepest of hedonistic, stylized and self-reflexive nature. In fact, if you do enough research for the film, you'll find out that a good majority of the script comes verbatim from the work of Oscar Wilde, whom in the film, Todd Haynes singles out as the 'inventor' of Glam Rock. 

Johnny in costume being coached by director Todd Haynes, keep in mind he was only 19 when he was cast in that role. And given how complex and layered it was, it was a tour-de-force performance.

Thereby Glam Rock was a rebellion. It was a movement that dained to be daring, incendiary, and throw out all repository hypocrisies and norms we as a society had picked up, and for its idealism, that's perhaps why it had such a short run in the mid-70's and never really fully resurfaced. Yes David Bowie just came out with a new album but his Ziggy Stardust days are far behind him. One can really say that Glam Rock started with The Velvet Underground and their connections to Andy Warhol who was all about exploitation of the fabulous and the non-boring in life which was parlayed into a devil-may-care movement where men proudly donned glitter eye-shadow and lacquered hair, openly practiced bisexuality as a means of being sexually ambivalent, and created some of the best, outlandish, and moving music ever. 

I'm going to list three films from the past 20 or so years that accurately, if not brilliantly portrayed this movement and then leave you with clips. As I said before Velvet Goldmine (1999) is nothing short of a masterpiece, both in storytelling, but also in aesthetic. It utilizes not only the work of Oscar Wilde but also a soundtrack based on covers from one of the most seminal Glam Rock bands of the 70's; Roxy Music. It's masterfully acted and directed, not to mention written with a narrative that copies that of Citizen Kane (1941) where a lowly journalist is sent on a mission to find out what happened in the mysterious shooting of a Bowie-esque figure that in his time encapsulated everything people wanted out of their pop icons. What's great about it, is that it's told in modern time and flashbacks to the magical times of the 70's. That time is aesthetically presented as colorful, magical, and whimsical, while the modernity is bland, dystopian, and harsh. Meaning to say that without the effervescence of those influences, we have all returned to a dull and mundane existence, and let's face it we really have, and no Lady Gaga has not been our messiah.

The second is a Neil Jordan film called Breakfast on Pluto (2005) which takes place in war-torn Ireland fraught with protests and attacks by the IRA. In the midst of everything a young androgynous student named Patrick 'Kitten' Braden (Cillian Murphy) who is completely ambivalent to the turmoil and decides to go to swinging London looking for his mother in order to piece together the cracks in his identity. 

Cillian Murphy in drag for his role in Breakfast on Pluto (2005) and to make up for his lack of breasts he often refers to himself as a 'svelte gamine'.

The third, is not so much great of a film, but it heavily features the music of Roxy Music, and uses that as inspiration in a lot of the scenes. My favorite song of all time is 'If there is Something' written by Bryan Ferry and performed by Roxy Music. It speaks to me because it has such a deepness. It starts off as a jaunty little tune about a man falling in love with a woman and then there is an outcry which seems to come out of no where in which the man proclaims his love in the most heartbreaking way, and then there is about a 5 minute interlude which seems menacing and all the while you're wondering where is this going? After which, there is a lament about a love lost, or a reflection of an old man on the great love he once had. I had literally thought this song had faded into obscurity forever ago but apparently it still has resonance in a film starring Daniel Craig and Claire Forlani called Flashbacks of a Fool (2008). Again, the movie is wildly flawed but just for those moments I adore it. Enough from me, enjoy the clips.