Week 12.2 – Scully Saves The Day

In an extension of the hard bodies/soft bodies discussions we had, I am going to talk about girls with guns being better than the guys with guns. Doesn’t happen very often does it. Tomb Raider and the rest of Jolie’s films being the exceptions I’ve seen.

Enter yet again into the world of The X-Files (*SPOILERS) and Jillian Anderson’s awesomeness as Dana Scully. A medically trained scientist, she is a strong female character who was inspiring to many in the 90s. She wasn’t costumed as the ‘sexy assistant’, nor did series creator Chris Carter write her dialog to make her seem dependant on Mulder.

 

 

The particular episode I want to discuss is “First Person Shooter”, a stand-alone episode from season seven (2000).  A summary: The Lone Gunmen request Mulder and Scully’s assistance in a murder case at a video game company. A virtual reality game has gone haywire, and players are dying for real at the hands of Maitreya, the central character in this game. Mulder and Scully enter the game in an attempt to find and stop the killer. When all looks like it is lost, Scully steps in and after ridiculing the men for their blood lust, destroys many a level to get Mulder and herself to safety.

 

 

The twist of the narrative is that Maitreya wasn’t a male stereotypically over the top creation. She was a female developer’s rebuttal to working in a testosterone-fueled workplace (the episode is set at a famous video game lab). She was her “goddess”, designed as a source of strength. Jade Blue Afterglow, a stripper, was digitally scanned to be the model for Maitreya. This episode is an interesting look at feminism and soft/hard bodies.

 

 

On one hand, you have Scully the passive scientist. Then half way through the episode you get Scully, the uber-gun-chick who can defeat girls aplenty on tanks no less.  Unfortunately for Scully, her character turns to mush once she falls pregnant. She turns even mushier once William is born and Mulder is on the run. To reiterate previous blog posts’ views. End the journey at the end of season seven. Eight and nine don’t deserve much praise. At. All.

 

So that is my blogging for a while, I may come back to it later on in the year, I may not. I have enjoyed studying film and television again and defiantly have enjoyed the awesomeness of the Friday Mark Sessions! Lets hope we all get to get together in a classroom again.

 

 

Bonnie.

Week 12 – Horror-ible Restraint

Apologies now for that horrific pun. And that one as well. Moving on.

 

Well. What to say about I Spit on Your Grave and Inside. They weren’t as horrifying as I thought they would be after all the build up. I found the scull crunch scene Jonathon shared with us from American History X to be much more horrifying, due probably to the softness theory Mark floated with us. The premises are certainly scary, Inside for pregnant females and I Spit On Your Grave for males (and the beginning for females as well I think, but I haven’t seen it so cannot comment).

Lets start with Inside, in which a psychopath Goth looking chick is trying to steal a woman’s unborn child from her belly, not in a C-section type of way.

 

 

A French film set against the 2005 riots, this was freaky. The clip we saw was of the snip into the pregnant belly, and subsequently, the pregnant lady unknowingly killing one of her parents.  The casting of the Goth chick is fabulous, her facial features are not quite normal and her costuming is perfect. The use or morbidly oversized scissors is slightly grotesque. Why didn’t I find this more scary then?

It was, to me, all too fake. I know that the pregnant belly is a prosthetic and the actors aren’t really killing each other. I think that from what we saw, there wasn’t enough to pull me in or to scare me. Nor was the sound design anything special.

 

 

Which brings me to I Spit On Your Grave. I found this to be disgusting in the affecting way.  During the screening of the castration bathroom scene, I felt trapped in the situation.

The timing and action in the scene along with the subsequent sound design is what did it for me I think. We have the slow and innocent looking introduction to the scene were the woman is elaborately doing her hair. She then gets in the bath with her rapist and massages him into subdue, reaching for her knife as she does. The directorial choice of NOT showing the castration is wise I think, as it would cheapen the scene to one of gore, and not of horror.  All we see in the affecting bubble of blood and the sound effect to go with it. Oh. My. How squeamish I got at that point. Then to have her leave the bathroom (while the rapist comes to terms with the fact he is bleeding to death) only to put on a pure white gown, play a record and sit down in a rocking chair to savour his screams, well, that is my idea of how a horror film should be done.  As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, “When there is no imagination, there is no horror”.

 

 

Restraint works people, and therefore should be used a bit more often.

Pairing horrific images with saintly and innocent music or a little girl singing just heightens the horror. It subjectifies it. If I were ever to shoot a horror film, it would use a suitable amount of restraint (which is cheaper to when you think about it, less to show, less to shoot) and have some sort of Disney-esk soundtrack along with suspense.

You’ve got to love some good suspense.

 

Ciao for now, only one more post to go

Bonnie.

 

 

Week 11 – National Cinema and the Australian Film Industry

Sitting in class today I was thinking about the great film written by Peter Helliar and directed by Daina Ried, the 2010 romantic comedy I Love You Too. Starring a stellar Australian cast with exceptions of a British and an American character, it follows the relationship issues of Jim and Alice, who have been dating for 3 years and would be more if Jim weren’t a commitment-phobe. Set in modern day Melbourne, it is an Australian film no doubt, but it isn’t slamming the “Australianness” down the viewer’s throats like it is with films such as Crocodile Dundee.

I want to contextualise this movie into the different things discussed in class; government funding regulations and their requirements, a distinctly Australian voice and the non-reliance but use of stereotype.

Government Funding for Australian films comes with many rules. Included in the film there must be “Australian influence or identity”. Basically, you have to have some sort of gimmicky touristy ‘this is Australia’ shot or props. In the case of I Love You Too, there are the trams of Melbourne, various Australiana in Jim’s house and from memory, a lawnmower. Jim also works at a miniature railway, but how ‘Australian’ that is I don’t know.  The funding rules came about if I remember correctly in the 70’s (but don’t quote me, I could be extremely wrong) as another viable way of boosting the Australian tourism industry. So much for the film industry…

A break down of more recent figures however and (taken directly from Screen Australia):

In 2006–07, 28 Australian-produced and co-produced feature films, with a total production value of $270 million, and 45 television drama programs, with a total production value of $272 million, went into production in Australia. In the same year, the value of foreign film and television production in Australia was $49 million.

Even more recently and the statistics for Australian audiences are:

1.4 million more Australians went to the cinema to see Australian films in 2009 than 2008 – up 45 per cent, and 2010 so far:

•Bran Nue Dae – $7.5 million,

•Kings of Mykonos: Wog Boy 2 – $4.6 million,

•Beneath Hill 60 – $3.1 million

•I Love You Too – $2.3 million

•Animal Kingdom has already taken over $1.8 million

Of the 18 Australian films released, combined the box office share was a meagre 4.4%.

But lets think, when factually defining national cinema, it is a cinema that shows a nation, right? But out of the films listed, what can one assume Australia is? You cannot convey a nation in a film, and if you can, then you are a genius, or slightly mad.

National Cinema as a broad term fits better I think. More an umbrella and unique view of the filmmaker. SO moving on to how I Love You Too has an ‘Australian’ voice. And its clipage time!

I LOVE YOU TOO MOVIE TRAILER

So! There is use of the good old Aussie word “Mate”, there is iconic Melbourne wide shots, there is the Aussie accent brought to our attentions by the presence of English and American accents.

And some more supporting clipage, they discuss accents about half way through:

THE 7PM PROJECT INTERVIEW

Now for the stereotype discussion. While abiding to the funding regulations I assume the production was under, I Love You Too could be set in any major city that happened to have trams. It (as an Australian film) hasn’t relied on the big panoramic desert or rainforest shots, or the architectural splendours of Flinders Street of the Opera House.  Instead, the use of the Melbourne trams, Australiana in the backyard and the good old hill hoist was presumably enough to satisfy the moneymen.

The characters aren’t overdone stereotypes, but there are definitely stereotypical elements in them. Jim is a bloke. He isn’t a shirtless-man-of-the-earth type bloke seen in other Australian productions, but he is a bloke non-the-less.

I found I Love You Too to be a great Australian romantic comedy. I was studying film at the time and was a bit embarrassed by my film lecturers view point that “I was just going to see it to support Australian cinema” as if that was a bad thing, but I saw it because it really looked like it would be a ball. Reviewed well on At The Movies, interviews on ABC news and the 7pm Project, plenty of print media and trailers, I Love You Too got something most other Australian films of late didn’t, a decent promotional budget.

Week 10 – Can Cultural Knowledge Change A Viewing Experience?

I have procrastinated too much this last week, and even though my essay is due on Friday and I have barely touched it (I plan to write on the social constricts that made Melodrama so popular, and then consequently with a bit of modernity, unpopular), I want to have a short blog out muse about how Japanese films are differently received depending on the nationality “slash” cultural sensitivity of the viewer.

This all started in our Friday class (one which I will miss greatly next semester, it is so refreshing to talk, debate, geek out over and discover films & television with like minded students under a very thought provoking and awesome teacher, awww, how soppy of me, maybe melodrama is rubbing off…). Mark showed the film I felt I should watch if I considered myself a serious film student, but also a film I felt I needed to watch to help me retain my Japanese skills (I lived in Kanazawa City Japan for a year in 2007, and consequently have a minor in Japanese language from Monash University, level 8).

The film you say? Made in 1953, it is Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story.

I am yet to find a copy to watch the entire film, but the segment shown had me drawn in from the start. It was compelling to see and hear the lives of a family in Tokyo in the 1950’s. The thing that struck me the most, and this is maybe due to Kanazawa being a very traditional castle city, is that the houses didn’t seem to be radically different, and that the mannerisms between family members seemed to have the same levels of respect seen today.

Above: Tokyo Story, Below: house in Kanazawa, 2008. I wanted to share with you all a picture of my first host family’s house, but alas I couldn’t find it amongst the 2500 photo’s I have from my year long exchange It pretty much matches the top picture 80%. The only difference is the layout.

Above: Tokyo Story, Below: A tea ceremony I attended, which was still extremely traditional. I had to wear my hair a certain way, sit on my knees for about 2 hours and even have the way I drank the tea moderated by pre-determined actions.

I refer now to a completely irrelevant but funny blog post that has since become a book, called What White People Like. The post I’m referring to is titled Japan. Here is a quote from the post. “White people love Japan, they…(blah blah)… and any white person who knows how to speak Japanese just ruins it for the rest of us.” Being one of the white people who know how to speak Japanese (and fairly well in the colloquial sense, ok in the honorifics), I didn’t want to be too vocal in my other observance in the subtitling of Tokyo Story, or any film with Japanese-English subtitles for that matter (based of a Japanese film called Koizora* and the Harry Potter films, of which I have seen with subtitles).

They don’t match. Not 100% at least anyways. There are slight differences is the politeness of the characters’ Japanese dialog that simply doesn’t translate into English (in the case of Tokyo Story) and the sense of humor between Japanese and western culture is very much lost in translation.

Another point on Tokyo Story. The directness of camera use. I didn’t notice it until Mark pointed it out. All the close ups of the characters have them barreling the camera?! Starring straight into the audience most of the time, then the establishing shots are from behind the characters’ backs… I will be very interested to see how the rather well discussed single change in camera movement emphasizes the plot point. (I just read that sentence back… how do I put it better? I haven’t seen it yet though so I’ll have to settle for a bad sentence). But while others may find it a very rigid form of storytelling, I just found it to be very Japanese. Society is like that, very polite, helpful, rigid but fluid at the same time. I don’t really know how else to put it as I am a bit out of my depth when it comes to eloquent societal comparisons but basically, I found it to be a natural if not acceptably normal mode of address.

*Koizora, literally translates to Love Sky, and is a beautiful and tremendously moving true story novel adaption that was released when I was living in Japan. For anyone who would like to see it, I have a copy. It is funny, heartbreaking and so soo sincere. The japanese down the centre means “were you happy?” and the pink is the title.

So yet again I have prattled on about not much, loosing the main point of my thoughts and wondering off into cloud land. But I would be very interested to read further into and maybe even write about the difference in audience reactions cross cultures.

Maybe when I have time.

Because I REALLY need to do my essay.

It will be done.

Tomorrow.

Yeah.

Ciao for now,

Bonnie.

 

Week 9 – The Documentary Debate

So after a very pleasing 2 weeks in Television land, we moved into Documentary and Cinema Verities. I’ll admit it now, I haven’t seen many documentaries, and the one I discussed in class (Grizzly Man, where Herzog takes footage Treadwell had shot before his death and additional footage to make a film about Treadwell instead of bears) was a class from Monash University last year. I know what a documentary is very well, probably because my Dad loves to watch all the nature ones. I found the cinematography to be amazing, but the narratives slightly dull.

I can hear the groans now. So I should also point out that I went looking for the Rolling Stones documentary and am hopefully watching it soon. I guess I just haven’t had the exposure needed to gauge my appreciation for them.

The more academic side of my blog today will be an inner debate I had rolling through my head in a very incoherent-only I get what I mean-how the hell do I articulate this type way during the different modes of documentation discussions. I was thinking about how a non-interfering mode would show a more true and realistic mode of the truth, even though the subject would know they were on camera (apart from animals, the only place where absolute truth could be captured, or so I thought).

Then Mark came along and showed us the Rolling Stones documentary, with the outstanding chance capture of a murder. The mode could be said to be a mix of non-interfering and interactive and reflexive, but whatever the mode is, it is until now some of the most insightful footage of a humans’ feelings I have seen. Watching the band members hear and see their concert and the events that unfolded for the first time in an unbiased view was very, very powerful.

So which mode is better or correct? I think I’ll have to get some more viewing in before I can answer (obviously subjectively) on that one.

Week 8 – Book Adaptations

So I’m tired but my brain won’t let me get to sleep unless I blog this out. Ideas are annoying like that with me, they come to me when I’m trying to go to sleep, but never when I am sitting refreshed in front of a word processor. As Liz Lemon of 30 Rock would say, BLERG!

This particular idea grew like a little seed in my mind since this afternoon when I was discussing the awesomeness of Marvin (the depressed robot character) from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Below is one of my favourite trailers of all time, to put it plainly, it rocks:

THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

While I am yet to read the book (I am endeavouring to get a copy), more literate people who have tell me it is a fine and true adaptation, missing only slight things, but overall, 90% true to the book. I saw the movie after an impulse 3-for-$40 DVD buy and chose it simply for the actors (Zooe Deschanel, Martin Freeman, Mos Def and Alan Rickman). If it turned out to be crap (which luckily for me and all the book fans out there, it wasn’t), I could appreciate at least the mis-en-scene.

So what makes a good adaptation in the Bonnie Marnock world? A semblance to the original plot is always good and necessary, as is correct casting and creation of proper environs. Music, while not 100% part of a book experience, can also be imagined and therefore needs to match in the film. An example to illustrate would be The Lovely Bones, which Shaylee presented a clip on.

THE LOVELY BONES TRAILER

Alice Sebold’s book is an amazing, moving and imaginative story of destroyed relationships and Suzie’s inability to move on from her family once she’d died. Her murderer, George Harvey (freakily played by academy nominee Stanley Tucci), and the cornfield setting were the only things about this film that I thought worth including. Suzie’s casting was decent enough, but choosing Rachel Wiesz and Mark Wahlberg as the parents was just wrong. They are too well known for me to be able to connect with their characters.

My next dig at the movie is the creation of the “in-between” or the heaven world.  The book is problematic to begin with in movie format as it is narration strong from Suzie’s point of view, but also because the readers captivated by Sebold’s book all have distinctly different imaginations as to how Suzie’s heaven would appear. Below is a clip from the movie, then a clip from 500 Days of Summer, which I think is more like the way I imagined the world (but not 100%…)

THE LOVELY BONES – HEAVEN SCENES

500 DAYS OF SUMMER – Scene form 2:00…

For the audience members who have also developed a love for the book and their own imagined heaven world, this movie would have been a disappointment. Lastly, Peter Jackson just cut the book’s narrative up and rearranged it to his pleasing, removing some vital scenes and inserting random visuals that were 100% unnecessary. My particular annoyance was the cut down of Lindsey’s story time.  So kids, read the book and skip the movie. Or save yourself some disappointment and see the movie first.

But I should also defend myself against Peter Jackson lovers, I adore his more famous creations, The Lord of The Rings trilogy, and eagerly await the release date of The Hobbit.  I could wax lyrical about all the things I love in these movies, from the production choices to the casting and dedecation to environs, but I will save you. I have blabbed on enough already tonight. And I kind of want to go to sleep now.

Ciao for now,

B.

“The Lord of the Rings” Winning the Best Picture Oscar®

Elisabeth Sladen (1946 – 2011.4.19)

“The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it’s a world, or a relationship… Everything has its time. And everything ends”

~ School Reunion

Loved by multiple generations, the Liverpool born actress most famously played Sarah Jane Smith, opposite Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and David Tennant’s resepective Doctors in the science fiction hit, Doctor Who.

I found her to be absolutely amazing, and beautiful, and very, very endearing.

Condolences to her family and friends, and may she rest in peace.