Stoker

directed by Chan-Wook Park (2013)

I got to see this knowing only that it was directed by the same guy who did Oldboy, and that Nicole Kidman was in it.  I saw the poster going in so I knew that Mia Wasikowska was in it too, but everything else was a surprise.  I'd suggest you go into it knowing as little as possible, because I just watched the trailer, and even though it doesn't completely destroy the plot, it does give away a whole lot of key points. Besides, knowing NOTHING is by far the best way to see any movie anyhow.  So go watch it before you read the rest of this, because I'm gonna spoil shit because I feels like it.  Fair warning eh?

It's guilty of the usual crimes when it comes to movies and mental illness - the crazy folk are killers, and the killers are crazy, because they have cold moms who didn't love them right - well at least one of the killers has a mom who's a fucking cold hearted bitch - the dad was ok seems like.

But I dunno, sure was like he was doing a Dexter's dad kinda deal, teaching his daughter how to channel her kill crazy impulses by taking her out hunting where she could kill animals instead of harming people.  I guess that's a compassionate thing though?

The dad's funeral is what starts the flick off, so the daughter doesn't have him dragging her out for that bird killing outlet anymore, and immediately her crazy uncle, (played so very well in a disquieting performance by Matthew Goode), is on the scene.  And you know he's crazy from the get go.  He is seriously the creepiest uncle ever.  Uncle Fester was a sweetheart in disguise, but this guy is an all-American Psycho - all slick rich dude with the nice clothes, and a dead eyed psychopath smile - just gave me the heebie jeebies from the first scene.  Psycho killer qu'est ce que - he even parlez vous francais!!

He kinda looks like the dude from Beverly Hills 90210 - the guy from Vancouver, Jason Priestly.  Joe was saying that he should have been played by Tom Cruise, because watching Nicole Kidman and her ex square off? Damn rights people would have payed to see that! And yeah that's true, and yeah the guy kinda looks like Tom, but he looks like a lot of other actors too.  He's got a clean cut, rich guy swagger, with mental edges, that any number of actors have pulled off.  Anyhow, he did a great job, but so did Kidman, and especially Mia Wasikowska.

Alden Ehrenreich, from Beautiful Creatures who was doing his best Jack Nicholson, or maybe he was doing Christian Slater?  He's got a small part playing a nice guy who turns into an asshole rapist - or does he?   Because the unreliable omniscient narrator aspect of the film, while making things interesting, it wasn't good for coherent storytelling.  I dunno if Mia's memories going back and forth in time, if that was stylistic bullshit, or if it created more tension through ambiguity, or if I'm just not getting something.

Anyhow, it sure seemed like the girl was a chip off her crazy uncle's gene block.

Ooo! I have to mention the music.  There were 3 great uses of music.  One was the final scene song - she kills the sheriff and talks about sailing off into the sunset to a creepy power grrrl rap kinda lyric,

The scene where Nicole Kidman is seducing her BIL to Lee Hazelwood's Summer Wine - this is heard again when Kidman is reminiscing on that conquest while listening to an iPod, and the daughter is maybe gonna kill her?  "Sometimes you need to do something bad to stop you from doing something worse."

Finally when Mia and her uncle duet on the piano - or do they?  This is another one of those scenes where you're wondering - did that happen or did she just think that?  What just happened again???

I found the piano duet scene excruciating.  It was erotic and gross both.  Squicky AND sexy, at the same time!  Confusing!!! Urghmm?

I found a mixcloud that streamed the whole soundtrack - at least the musics by Clint Mansell, but it's not working anymore.  Still, the musics be worthy eh?

It was a great movie, not moral or anything.  Lurid as fuck actually.  As I said right after, when asked what I thought,  "If you're gonna make a movie about killers, you could do much worse."  I liked it. Super tension, especially near the end.

Albert Nobbs

directed by Rodrigo García (2011)

Wtf is up with killing off the fags?  I know, Glenn Close was portraying a transman, not a fag, but it's still a case of smear the queer ain't it?  I'm sick of queer flicks that focus on the otherness of the minority.  Albert Nobbs is another tragic homo story that fails. fails. fails.

I'm gonna spoil the fuck out of it so fair warning eh?  Also I'm gonna use words like fag and queer and homo, so don't get your panties in a bunch about that, because I like reclaiming slurs in the context of writing about queer bashing, and I think this movie is a queer bashing queer basher, a basher of oddness, and not just the homosexual kind.

It's written by István Szabó the same guy who directed Sunshine, and he's a rich guy so he's got the knowledge of how high society operates, with the help churning away beneath the surface maintaining the facade of invisibility for the folk that makes their existences so comfortably liveable.  Servants should be unseen and unheard and their needs and desires inconsequential, of course, yes sir, yes ma'am.

The doctor, (Brendan Gleeson), was a man who worked, so he was a go between to the world of the servants and the ruling classes.   He ran off with his lover, because he was tired of secrets, and this was about the only point in the film that I liked.  Yes, we should all shrug of the expectations of others that impede our own paths to true happiness.  This is a message worth making a movie about,  but what was the impetus for his upending the facade of his life to pursue his dream?  The death of Albert.  What  kinda message is that?   Yeah, you go for that glory, chase down your dream, but if you're an odd duck queer, well you'll just have to die so we can cherish that notion of LGBT being sooo soo sad, and geez but they're strange too right?  I wish the movie had been different.  I wish it had a happy ending for Albert.  I wish he had been written more charming and less othered and odd.  "He's a dear sweet man" says the woman he's in love with, (Mia Wasikowska), but she's got her own agenda and manipulates that sweetness for her own gain.

And what is up with making Albert be so strange and socially awkward?  Was it a function of class?  I liked the class issues the movie raised, the degradation, exploitation and desperation of the working stiffs was spot on, especially contrasted with how the asshole rich folk were so comfortable treating poorer folk as less than, and less than human even.  Disrespecting sons a bitches!!

Why was Albert was such a clueless sheltered sort?  He wants to move in with Mr. Page, (Janet McTeer), and he doesn't even know him, the man just lost his wife, (Bronagh Gallagher), and Nobbs is completely tone deaf to that.  Why oh why do I have to keep seeing queers on film being born SO different.  Queers are NOT so different, except that they're queer ya know? There's a whole rainbow of variety in land of the queer, just like there is in the rest of society, and constantly creating work about how DIFFERENT homo folk are is just so fucking trite and boring.

Jaysus, as Mr. Page would say.

I wish I'd seen a romantic tale of the transman painter Mr. Page and the story of how he got together with his wife, (Bronagh Gallagher). Or even better, Mr. Nobbs successfully romancing the maid, charming her, and settling down with her happily ever after in the tobacco shop.  What's wrong with a happy story anyhow?

I was expecting the wastrel Joe, (Aaron Johnson), to rob Mr. Nobbs and run off to America, ditching the pregnant maid Mr. Nobbs was courting.  Nobbs could still have saved the day,  but Nooo!!!  He had to be killed off, by off all things, a bump to his head?!! The bit about his life's wages getting scooped up by that bitch of a boss just added to the bitter fail.  Sure Mr. Page came to the rescue of the maid and her little Albert Joseph, but fuck that!  That was Albert's dream. He deserved better than the legacy of a name to a baby he never got to meet.  I know it was an adaptation of a play, but keyword here -- ADAPTATION.  Glenn Close, you did a good job being him, but you could have written him the hero of his own story.  You coulda written him a little better ending, a little better life, but I guess it gets better just doesn't apply to Mr. Nobbs.


I'm leery of proposing the idea of an authentic voice in the creation of fictional stories, but in this case I think the lack of respect shown for the character of Mr. Nobbs is one born of that disconnect of experience in creation.  Somebody was imagining what it's like to be trans, and made this mishmashness of queertransphobia.  Do we really need more bullshit fiction that perpetuates the casual homophobia of the other and the idea that a queer's destiny is bound to be tragic?  I doubt that a transgendered person would have made a flick this heterosexist, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what the formerly known as the Wachowski Bros. come up with next.  I but they'd do a stellar job with a transgender character study.