**We're back to movie reviews. Yay! Thanks for the support re my icky cat calling evening though :)**
***There are some Skyfall spoilers here, but no Spectre ones. You've been warned!***
I saw Spectre (2015, Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes) last night. Definitely highly enjoyable.
Let's talk plot:
Basically, Bond has received a cryptic message in the wake of Skyfall (2012) (by the way-although you probably would be fine watching this if you haven't seen Skyfall, you'll be happier if you go back to the previous Bond first. Plus, that was a good one. Just watch Skyfall. Don't live your life with regrets) so he has some shenanigans in Mexico City. This starts him on an unofficial wild goose chase.
Meanwhile, M (Ralph Fiennes as we discovered at the end of Skyfall. Still weird seeing him with a nose, by the way...) is dealing with a new guy-C (Andrew Scott. You know him as Moriarty on Sherlock from BBC). C wants a massive global intelligence network. Whether it is actually a good idea or not is kind of debatable for most of the movie (3 guesses whether we've discovered whether or not it's a good idea by the end...).
Since 007 wasn't really supposed to be blowing up city blocks in Mexico (he did it to make sure a whole stadium didn't blow up. I know they filmed this ages ago and it's been out since before the Paris attacks but that still hit a bit close to home...), he's grounded. Q (who gets a lot of screen time in Spectre. It's great) won't give him anything except a watch (although he shows him a very pretty new Aston Martin that's already been marked for 009 and the pieces of the car he accidentally destroyed during Skyfall. Q remarks that he told Bond to bring it back in one piece, not to bring back one piece-the steering wheel. He is repairing it though, and we can all expect it to, at some point, be good as new). "What does it do?" Bond asks about the watch. "It tells the time," Q tells him, before warning him to watch out for the alarm because it's "quite loud."
Q does, however, give him a medical exam, which includes some funky blood technology that allows his coordinates and vital signs to be under surveillance world wide.
Naturally, this means 007 needs Q's help to sneak out of the country.
So, Bond begins his wild goose chase, Q starts lying to M, C starts playing politics, and Moneypenny joins Q in covering 007's tracks.
More things explode, Bond has some fight scenes. Bond has some sex. Secrets start to come out, and eventually all hell breaks loose. It's pretty standard, frankly.
But I loved it. Bond movies always have great cinematography and soundtracks and this one absolutely holds up. One particularly great moment came when our secret agent man was in a car chase in Rome, driving an Aston Martin. The Italian man chasing him was driving a fancy Italian sports car. My brother (a car fanatic) leaned over to me to point out that this wasn't just a race between a British guy and an Italian one. It was between a British car and an Italian one. It seemed very appropriate.
It wasn't nearly as homoerotic as Skyfall was but then the creepy villain from Skyfall wasn't there, so who's surprised. It did have a lot of naked people hanging out with octopuses (octopi?) in the opening credits, though, so your slightly weird and highly sexual moments were there anyway.
It didn't pass the Bechtel Test, but when a woman character who had previously never demonstrated any fighting skill starting fighting there was an explanation as to why she could fight (and it wasn't a practice fighting montage that made it look like she mastered her skills in, like, two hours. So yay plausibility?).
Bond only had, like, one martini. Said "shaken, not stirred" out loud (yay! I always look for it. Also, why does he drink vodka martinis in this movie?? Go for gin, people. Tastes like Christmas tree. Delicious).
*Side note: I looked up Bond martinis on Wikipedia for this review (plus this is me not doing my NaNoWriMo. I'm at like 40,000 words though. Totally fine). Apparently scientists have done tests to find the difference between shaken and stirred martinis. And here I always thought President Bartlett on The West Wing was right that "he's ordering a weak martini and being snooty about it." Also, apparently he's inconsistent about vodka versus gin. Go figure.*
All in all, kind of predictable but also fun. So yay. Go see Spectre. But maybe don't be like me and keep wondering if M is going to disappear in a cloud of dandruff because you still haven't forgiven David Yates for ruining Voldemort's death (HE'S SUPPOSED TO DIE AS A MAN. COME ON). But I digress. I will review all the Potters at some point. But not now. Now is Bond. Ok.
*obligatory special shout out to Megan Beckett. A fictional character in my head who is finally coming to life this month and whose name is finally being publicized in the world in this blog as soon as I hit publish*
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Don't Tell Me To Smile
*This isn't a movie review. This is a discussion of cat calling and street harassment*
Smile, young lady!
I'm not smiling for you.
Aww why not? You'd be so beautiful if you smiled!
This is the conversation that happened in Harvard Square at about 11:20 tonight, at the intersection of Mt. Auburn St and Brattle St.
This is the conversation that ruined my favorite part of my walk back to my car.
On Tuesday every week, I go blues dancing. It's fun. It's a big part of my social life. I love it. Sometimes I carpool with a friend, which has all kinds of perks and I love it. When I go by myself, I have a little tradition.
See, I love cities. I love walking in cities and I love being in cities alone and at night. Unfortunately, cities alone at night can be really creepy. That's part of why I like Harvard Square. It feels safe.
When I walk alone in cities at night, when it's all empty and quiet, I get to imagine I'm in a movie. I always hear Marlon Brando's voice (from the Guys and Dolls movie) going "now is the time you can hear footsteps on Broadway." Sky Masterson loves New York at night and I love Cambridge.
So when I walk back to my car after bluesy tuesy when I'm not carpooling with my wonderful friend, I get to play a little pretend.
The garage where I always park has a big brick covering with columns along the sidewalk right before you get to the entrance. The acoustics are amazing and at 11:30 at night no one notices or cares if you want belt a little bit.
It's fun. Walking alone when everything is quiet and empty is fun.
But I didn't get to have that fun tonight.
I was walking down Mt. Auburn, about to cross the street, thinking about how excited I was to get to those bricks and how I could sing Once Upon a December (from Anastasia which has been stuck in my head all day) and hear it in the cool acoustics. I was lost in thought and excited. I was planning this.
And then I hear it.
Smile, young lady!
I didn't think about what I should say back. I forgot that you're supposed to ignore it. I forgot that saying no could mean literally taking my life in my hands.
I said no, I'm not smiling for you.
You could hear that he was surprised. He hadn't expected me to say anything.
He was crossing the street about 20 feet from me. He couldn't have actually seen my face, but he'd seen my heels and maybe a flash of red lipstick. And he wanted a smile.
He told me I'd be so beautiful if I smiled. He wanted to know why I didn't want to smile.
I have a few things to say to this man on the street.
#1 I don't owe you a smile or beauty. Beauty is not the tax I pay for being a woman. Beauty is not the tax I pay for being on the street. A smile is not the price of courtesy in public. A smile is a gesture I can bestow or not on whomever or whatever I choose.
#2 I'm writing this sitting in my bedroom, where I can see my mirror across the room. I'm not smiling. I'm looking at my own face and you know what? I'm goddamn gorgeous. I don't need to smile to be pretty. Fuck you.
When I walked away from him, I walked fast. I pulled out my phone and called a friend. She didn't pick up. She texted me that she couldn't talk. I texted her what happened. I told her I was nervous to finish the walk to my car.
At that point, I could see the brick columns. I was almost to the spot where I would get to sing. I didn't want to sing any more. I wanted to cry. This stranger ruined my favorite part of driving by myself.
When I got to the columns I told my friend I was walking to my car but that I was still nervous. If she didn't hear from me in 20 minutes she should be nervous too. I put my phone away, sucked it up, and belted Once Upon a December. I was convinced I couldn't let him destroy everything.
I was, quite frankly, terrified when I got to the garage. I had had to park on the lower level and the elevator at first wouldn't work. I nearly ran to my car when I finally got down to it and locked the doors the instant I was inside.
Why was I so afraid?
Because a man ran his car over a 14 year old girl who turned down his advances on the street. Because a woman in Detroit who wouldn't give a stranger her phone number was killed. A New York woman was killed when she wouldn't go on a date.
I found these with a single google search. They were the top couple of results. I've heard the stories before. They're all less than two years old.
All women know: any time you say no to a stranger on the street, he might kill you.
That is fucking terrifying.
I was alone. I was wearing high heels. I was carrying a big tote bag.
The guy was big, he was with a friend. If he had wanted to hurt me, there would have been nothing I could have done.
"But Wendy," you might say, "if you didn't hear all these stories about street harassment escalating into violence, it would be okay, right? Because you wouldn't have had to be scared."
Actually does it matter if it might escalate into violence? Isn't the fact that MY SMILE AND BEAUTY ARE NOT THE PRICES I PAY FOR EXISTING IN PUBLIC enough to show that you DON'T TELL STRANGERS ON THE STREET TO SMILE???
I've been cat called at times when I had no fear of it escalating. A cabbie has commented on my bright red cheeks. Cars have honked as they've sped by. Guys have winked, hooted, and generally hollered as they've passed.
Not all of them are scary. All of them suck.
I. Do. Not. Exist. For. Your. Approval.
I do not want you to tell me I'm beautiful. I don't want to hear that my cheeks are rosy red.
You know what? I know I'm gorgeous. I know my cheeks are red. I know my ass looks good. I know my boobs are big. Do you really think you're telling me something I don't know?
If you actually wanted actual conversation you can probably come over and say "excuse me, I know we're strangers but I just wanted to say, you look really nice and I wanted you to know people notice too" because, yeah, it's always nice to hear everyone else knows you're pretty. But when you yell it at me, it's not a compliment. You can stop me and say "hey, wow, you have such bright cheeks! You don't see too many people with such rosy cheeks!" That's fine. What's not cool is the yelling that roughly translates to "I approve of your body and it is here for public consumption."
I'm not a drinking fountain. I am not a park bench. I am not here for the public.
Don't tell me to smile.
Smile, young lady!
I'm not smiling for you.
Aww why not? You'd be so beautiful if you smiled!
This is the conversation that happened in Harvard Square at about 11:20 tonight, at the intersection of Mt. Auburn St and Brattle St.
This is the conversation that ruined my favorite part of my walk back to my car.
On Tuesday every week, I go blues dancing. It's fun. It's a big part of my social life. I love it. Sometimes I carpool with a friend, which has all kinds of perks and I love it. When I go by myself, I have a little tradition.
See, I love cities. I love walking in cities and I love being in cities alone and at night. Unfortunately, cities alone at night can be really creepy. That's part of why I like Harvard Square. It feels safe.
When I walk alone in cities at night, when it's all empty and quiet, I get to imagine I'm in a movie. I always hear Marlon Brando's voice (from the Guys and Dolls movie) going "now is the time you can hear footsteps on Broadway." Sky Masterson loves New York at night and I love Cambridge.
So when I walk back to my car after bluesy tuesy when I'm not carpooling with my wonderful friend, I get to play a little pretend.
The garage where I always park has a big brick covering with columns along the sidewalk right before you get to the entrance. The acoustics are amazing and at 11:30 at night no one notices or cares if you want belt a little bit.
It's fun. Walking alone when everything is quiet and empty is fun.
But I didn't get to have that fun tonight.
I was walking down Mt. Auburn, about to cross the street, thinking about how excited I was to get to those bricks and how I could sing Once Upon a December (from Anastasia which has been stuck in my head all day) and hear it in the cool acoustics. I was lost in thought and excited. I was planning this.
And then I hear it.
Smile, young lady!
I didn't think about what I should say back. I forgot that you're supposed to ignore it. I forgot that saying no could mean literally taking my life in my hands.
I said no, I'm not smiling for you.
You could hear that he was surprised. He hadn't expected me to say anything.
He was crossing the street about 20 feet from me. He couldn't have actually seen my face, but he'd seen my heels and maybe a flash of red lipstick. And he wanted a smile.
He told me I'd be so beautiful if I smiled. He wanted to know why I didn't want to smile.
I have a few things to say to this man on the street.
#1 I don't owe you a smile or beauty. Beauty is not the tax I pay for being a woman. Beauty is not the tax I pay for being on the street. A smile is not the price of courtesy in public. A smile is a gesture I can bestow or not on whomever or whatever I choose.
#2 I'm writing this sitting in my bedroom, where I can see my mirror across the room. I'm not smiling. I'm looking at my own face and you know what? I'm goddamn gorgeous. I don't need to smile to be pretty. Fuck you.
When I walked away from him, I walked fast. I pulled out my phone and called a friend. She didn't pick up. She texted me that she couldn't talk. I texted her what happened. I told her I was nervous to finish the walk to my car.
At that point, I could see the brick columns. I was almost to the spot where I would get to sing. I didn't want to sing any more. I wanted to cry. This stranger ruined my favorite part of driving by myself.
When I got to the columns I told my friend I was walking to my car but that I was still nervous. If she didn't hear from me in 20 minutes she should be nervous too. I put my phone away, sucked it up, and belted Once Upon a December. I was convinced I couldn't let him destroy everything.
I was, quite frankly, terrified when I got to the garage. I had had to park on the lower level and the elevator at first wouldn't work. I nearly ran to my car when I finally got down to it and locked the doors the instant I was inside.
Why was I so afraid?
Because a man ran his car over a 14 year old girl who turned down his advances on the street. Because a woman in Detroit who wouldn't give a stranger her phone number was killed. A New York woman was killed when she wouldn't go on a date.
I found these with a single google search. They were the top couple of results. I've heard the stories before. They're all less than two years old.
All women know: any time you say no to a stranger on the street, he might kill you.
That is fucking terrifying.
I was alone. I was wearing high heels. I was carrying a big tote bag.
The guy was big, he was with a friend. If he had wanted to hurt me, there would have been nothing I could have done.
"But Wendy," you might say, "if you didn't hear all these stories about street harassment escalating into violence, it would be okay, right? Because you wouldn't have had to be scared."
Actually does it matter if it might escalate into violence? Isn't the fact that MY SMILE AND BEAUTY ARE NOT THE PRICES I PAY FOR EXISTING IN PUBLIC enough to show that you DON'T TELL STRANGERS ON THE STREET TO SMILE???
I've been cat called at times when I had no fear of it escalating. A cabbie has commented on my bright red cheeks. Cars have honked as they've sped by. Guys have winked, hooted, and generally hollered as they've passed.
Not all of them are scary. All of them suck.
I. Do. Not. Exist. For. Your. Approval.
I do not want you to tell me I'm beautiful. I don't want to hear that my cheeks are rosy red.
You know what? I know I'm gorgeous. I know my cheeks are red. I know my ass looks good. I know my boobs are big. Do you really think you're telling me something I don't know?
If you actually wanted actual conversation you can probably come over and say "excuse me, I know we're strangers but I just wanted to say, you look really nice and I wanted you to know people notice too" because, yeah, it's always nice to hear everyone else knows you're pretty. But when you yell it at me, it's not a compliment. You can stop me and say "hey, wow, you have such bright cheeks! You don't see too many people with such rosy cheeks!" That's fine. What's not cool is the yelling that roughly translates to "I approve of your body and it is here for public consumption."
I'm not a drinking fountain. I am not a park bench. I am not here for the public.
Don't tell me to smile.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Always Nice When An Old Movie Holds Up To Its Hype
I'm doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month. Basically write 50,000 words in November) so expect very few reviews and updates (although I have a schedule for my writing which should allow for some movie viewing. I will at least have reviews for Suffragette, the new Bond, and Mockingjay Pt 2. We'll see if I get to anything else.....). But I'm doing NaNoWriMo so right now I'm gonna write about the 1963 Cleopatra instead of my novel.
Cleopatra. Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison. Mostly I enjoyed it. Somehow, this is only the second movie I've seen with either Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton (the other being Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1966), but I am well acquainted with Mr. Burton's VOICE because he played Arthur in Camelot (onstage with Julie Andrews. The 1967 movie starred Richard Harris as Arthur and Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere) so I've heard him singing at least all my life. Rex Harrison, of course, also starred on stage with Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady and then reprised that role with Audrey Hepburn in the movie (I could've sworn I'd seen him in many other movies, but apparently I've only seen him in MFL. Maybe I've just seen it enough times...).
Let's talk plot: it's pretty standard. I don't know THAT much about Cleopatra's life, but this fits with what I do know: Egyptian politics get funky, she needs Caesar's help and delivers herself to him in a carpet. They begin a love affair. Eventually he is stabbed and she begins an affair with Marc Antony. Throughout this second affair, Caesar's heir, Octavian (calling himself Augustus) makes life very difficult for them and is constantly warring with them.
It's pretty much what you would expect, particularly if you've seen or read Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra (both by the Bard himself) or All For Love (by John Dryden, a retelling, and frankly kind of watered down, version of A&C). Or any book about Cleopatra (there's a good young adult fictionalized book about her-part of the Royal Diaries series). Basically, it's her life story.
And it is really good. The point of it is absolutely the visuals. Rich and glamorous costuming, opulent sets, phenomenal make up. The acting holds up pretty well and Elizabeth Taylor can throw a fit while maintaining her glamor like nobody's business.
Of course, it has some downsides. It was originally planned as two movies, each three hours long, one of Caesar and Cleopatra, on of Antony and Cleopatra. Between the budget (which over the course of the shoot and many many delays ballooned from $2 million to over $130 million. It took 10 years to break even) and the fear that the public (which was excited for Burton and indifferent to Harrison) would only turn out for the second half, the studio insisted it be cut together into a single 4 hour movie. 4 hours is, frankly, an awful lot of movie, especially when each half has a pretty clear story arc. The two halves fit together very well, but in the middle it feels like you've gotten to the end of a movie and then the second half takes a little while to really get going. Plus, honestly, eventually (if you are me) you start yelling at the movie to stab Caesar already because Rex Harrison has started to get on your nerves (I started channeling Gretchen Weiners in my tweets about the movie. It wasn't pretty. Unless you're a Mean Girls fan, in which case, yeah it was pretty great).
Aside from the drawing out of the plot, it was actually pretty good and definitely did hold up after the hype I had heard.
Fun thing to note about this movie: although there are no explicit references to the famous Shakespeare plays which cover the same material, I, ever a theater dork, could not help but notice that when the senators started meeting to conspire, the words "honor" and "honorable" got thrown around an awful lot (as in Antony's famous refrain in his famous speech in Julius Caesar-"Brutus is an honorable man" etc).
So, would I recommend? Absolutely. It clearly is a good movie, it has stood the test of time, and, quite frankly, it's a good thing to watch the great epic films of time gone by. They don't make movies like they used to. Green screen is cool, but this has these giant, crowded, *epic* scenes without CGI and we should savor that. Unfortunately, the reason I made a point of watching this movie this week is that as of today, November 1st, Cleopatra is gone from Netflix (sad) so I can't say "hey super easy it's streaming on Netflix." I'm sure it's available in a thousand other ways though so no excuses. Go watch movies, people! It's good for you.
And now I'm off to write. Stay tuned though, I should be seeing Suffragette soon and I'm sure I'll have things to say.
*obligatory special shout out to my personal Antony-my Watson with just a coat-thanks for asking me if you were getting laid yet every 5 minutes, that was funny. Also asking if you were dead yet. <3*
Cleopatra. Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and Rex Harrison. Mostly I enjoyed it. Somehow, this is only the second movie I've seen with either Elizabeth Taylor or Richard Burton (the other being Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1966), but I am well acquainted with Mr. Burton's VOICE because he played Arthur in Camelot (onstage with Julie Andrews. The 1967 movie starred Richard Harris as Arthur and Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere) so I've heard him singing at least all my life. Rex Harrison, of course, also starred on stage with Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady and then reprised that role with Audrey Hepburn in the movie (I could've sworn I'd seen him in many other movies, but apparently I've only seen him in MFL. Maybe I've just seen it enough times...).
Let's talk plot: it's pretty standard. I don't know THAT much about Cleopatra's life, but this fits with what I do know: Egyptian politics get funky, she needs Caesar's help and delivers herself to him in a carpet. They begin a love affair. Eventually he is stabbed and she begins an affair with Marc Antony. Throughout this second affair, Caesar's heir, Octavian (calling himself Augustus) makes life very difficult for them and is constantly warring with them.
It's pretty much what you would expect, particularly if you've seen or read Julius Caesar or Antony and Cleopatra (both by the Bard himself) or All For Love (by John Dryden, a retelling, and frankly kind of watered down, version of A&C). Or any book about Cleopatra (there's a good young adult fictionalized book about her-part of the Royal Diaries series). Basically, it's her life story.
And it is really good. The point of it is absolutely the visuals. Rich and glamorous costuming, opulent sets, phenomenal make up. The acting holds up pretty well and Elizabeth Taylor can throw a fit while maintaining her glamor like nobody's business.
Of course, it has some downsides. It was originally planned as two movies, each three hours long, one of Caesar and Cleopatra, on of Antony and Cleopatra. Between the budget (which over the course of the shoot and many many delays ballooned from $2 million to over $130 million. It took 10 years to break even) and the fear that the public (which was excited for Burton and indifferent to Harrison) would only turn out for the second half, the studio insisted it be cut together into a single 4 hour movie. 4 hours is, frankly, an awful lot of movie, especially when each half has a pretty clear story arc. The two halves fit together very well, but in the middle it feels like you've gotten to the end of a movie and then the second half takes a little while to really get going. Plus, honestly, eventually (if you are me) you start yelling at the movie to stab Caesar already because Rex Harrison has started to get on your nerves (I started channeling Gretchen Weiners in my tweets about the movie. It wasn't pretty. Unless you're a Mean Girls fan, in which case, yeah it was pretty great).
Aside from the drawing out of the plot, it was actually pretty good and definitely did hold up after the hype I had heard.
Fun thing to note about this movie: although there are no explicit references to the famous Shakespeare plays which cover the same material, I, ever a theater dork, could not help but notice that when the senators started meeting to conspire, the words "honor" and "honorable" got thrown around an awful lot (as in Antony's famous refrain in his famous speech in Julius Caesar-"Brutus is an honorable man" etc).
So, would I recommend? Absolutely. It clearly is a good movie, it has stood the test of time, and, quite frankly, it's a good thing to watch the great epic films of time gone by. They don't make movies like they used to. Green screen is cool, but this has these giant, crowded, *epic* scenes without CGI and we should savor that. Unfortunately, the reason I made a point of watching this movie this week is that as of today, November 1st, Cleopatra is gone from Netflix (sad) so I can't say "hey super easy it's streaming on Netflix." I'm sure it's available in a thousand other ways though so no excuses. Go watch movies, people! It's good for you.
And now I'm off to write. Stay tuned though, I should be seeing Suffragette soon and I'm sure I'll have things to say.
*obligatory special shout out to my personal Antony-my Watson with just a coat-thanks for asking me if you were getting laid yet every 5 minutes, that was funny. Also asking if you were dead yet. <3*
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