Favourite Films - the one that got away

When Stroppy did a 'favourite films' post a while back, I can't for the life of me fathom why I forgot to mention P'Tang Yang Kipperbang. But having just returned home from the anti-capitalist feminist conference co-organised by Feminist Fightback (about which more probably tomorrow), I find that it is on Film 4.

This was one of the first films I saw on Channel 4 in its early days, and though I haven't seen it in the quarter-decade since, I've always remembered it fondly. Basically, it's the post-war story of cricket-obsessed schoolboy Alan Duckworth, known as Quack-Quack, and his crush on a classmate. There is a great contrast between the handsome, confident, posh boys in long trousers, like Alan's love rival Jeffrey, and the bumbling nerds in short trousers like Quack-Quack. The former say their farewells with "Manana" "Manana's not soon enough for me"; the latter "P'Tang Yang Kipperbang - uuuuh!" - hence the title. Actually, they are all posh, but the contrast is still there.

Anyway, that's enough from me, cos it's on now and I'm going to watch it.

Blessed Are the Cheesemakers. Torquay Finally Gets A Life

Torbay Council has finally seen sense and lifted the God-squad-inspired ban on the 'Life Of Brian'.

Yes, for years the Bible-bashers prevented the residents of Torbay and surrounding areas from watching one of the world's greatest comedy films, with their minority tut-tutting obstructing everyone else's right to sinful pleasure.

Whoever made that decision was not the Messiah. He was a very naughty boy.

So popular as the decision been that an extra screening has been organised.

But lest you think that Torbay was the last bastion of God-bothering narrow-mindedness, spare a thought for the residents of Abersytwyth, still barred from appreciating the antics of Brian and his chums in the People's Front of Judea. Never mind, at least Torbay has taken the secular step: always look on the bright side of life.

Must see movies

Time for a bit of culture and much needed light relief on the blogs.

Whilst pottering round some charity shops I came across 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I have no idea how good it is, but for £1.99 I decided it might widen my viewing as I am trying to catch up on both recent and older films I have missed.
1001 is a little daunting though and this is where the readers of the blog can help out.

What 10 films would you be your 'must see before you die'?

Oh and don't try to be all arty and clever and just list obscure unwatchable pretentious films , lets have what you really like.

Russian CP Wants Indy Banned

Something about this tickles me. It seems that the Russian Communist Party has taken great exception to the new Indiana Jones film on the grounds that it is not an accurate portrayal of history.

My my, anyone who pursues self-education in history by going to see Indiana Jones films is, erm, probably going to the wrong place. Try your local college.

If the Russian CP has been learning history from Indiana's previous outings, I am going to have to gently break it to them that there is not actually a 700-year-old knight guarding the Holy Grail, and neither does the Ark of the Covenant contain magic dust with the power to shoot out beams of fire and slay Nazis.

It's a fictional movie! A story! And I rather enjoyed it. It's exactly the same as its predecessors, though thankfully of the standard of Raiders Of The Lost Ark and The Last Crusade rather than the weak and sexist Temple Of Doom. It has the same delectable contrast between polite university corridors and wild truck chases, the same silly but fun action sequences in which every enemy bullet mysteriously misses its target, the same storyline in which the baddies make Indy find the desired relic for them only to fall for its destructive powers because their motives are less academic than his, the same just-about-plausible first two hours culminating in the fantastical climax.

Actually, at the start I had a tweak of worry that it was a mite cold-war red-bashing. But it goes on to knock the FBI's anti-communist witch-hunting as much as it mocks the Soviets.

But the most amusing thing about this news story is, I think, the Russian CP getting all upset about inaccurate portrayals of history. You'd never catch them doing that kind of thing now, would you?

Jodie Foster : out of the closet at last !!

So Jodie has finally come out !:

The Oscar-winning actress thanked "my beautiful Cydney" after winning an award at the Women in Entertainment Power 100 breakfast in Los Angeles.

She went on to praise Cydney Bernard, saying the film producer "sticks with me through all the rotten and the bliss".









Hardly a shock as rumours have been around for many years. Jodie (pic above with her partner and their family) is famously very guarded about her private life. She is not one of those celebs who are all over the tabloids and glossy gossip mags. She seems to do whats needed to publicise her films and that's all.






So does it matter that she never confirmed or denied that she is a lesbian? Should famous people be out and do role models matter?

Well if someone is playing the family card and pretending to be straight yes it does matter. If its a politican or religious leader who spouts one thing and does the opposite it does matter. They deserve to be outed as hypocrites.


What if someone does not pretend and just remains private like Jodie? Is it any of our business? Haven't times moved on since the days when actors like Rock Hudson had no choice but to go into fake marriages and play the heterosexual pin up on and off screen ?
I suspect for many up and coming actors it might still not be too good a career move at the beginning . Much of course depends on the target market. Boy bands often have members who play straight for fear of upsetting their teen girl fan base.



I don't think any famous person has to act as a spokesperson for lesbian and gay people . Some may want to be more vocal and political, that's up to them. I think though it should just be like it is for a straight person, so on the red carpet they would just be with their same sex partner . They would just thank them, as Jodie did, at awards ceremony. Perhaps Jodie would have been as private if she had a male partner, who knows. Her reticence may be due to her experience of being stalked while a student.

I do though think it helps if people in the public eye are open about being lesbian or gay. Of course it really is no one's business but unfortunately we are still in a world where homophobia exists. A world where kids are teased or bullied if they are thought gay as being gay, where in many areas a lesbian or gay person will feel very isolated. In many parts of the world its still illegal, being lesbian or gay can lead to physical violence.We need to remember that the issue of sexuality is still one that is fought over and whether we like it or not is not private . It is political and for many people being able to be with the person you love, or perhaps just want to have sex with for that one time, is not a real choice and can result in violence and imprisonment and being rejected.Even where I live, which is seen as a LGBT friendly place with all its pink pound businesses and entertainment, there are still homophobis attacks . So yes, to many young people growing up it does help to see famous people who are lesbian or gay . Not necessarily in some in your face or political way, but just being , just there with their partner and families.



Lots of pics Jodie to make up for the cockroach that has now been deleted! .As I said in the comments box of a post , I wouldn't kick her out of bed ;-)

Sicko....

The first couple minutes of Sicko made me wince. A man is literally using a needle and thread to sew up a deep wound in his leg. No health and safety and you aren't conscious of anything anti-septic being used or a sterile (the man's cat sits on the sofa) environment. He couldn't afford to go to hospital so it was a case of DIY stitches and probably will take his chances if an infection develops.

Another man spoke about losing the tops of two of his fingers. His hospital gave him a choice, the middle finger would cost around $30,000 to re-attach and the ring finger would cost around $12,000. The man chose the ring finger as it was the cheaper option and all he could afford.

Welcome to America, the land of the free (if you can afford it) where nearly 50 million people are without health insurance while 18,000 die because of being uninsured. A rich country with third world health care.

Moore interviews people who have shafted by private healthcare providers, workers who left in disgust at what they were expected to do and medics who couldn't stomach rejecting patients for healthcare any longer just to make the company happy and to make a quick buck for themselves on the backs of misery and pain. I remember a scene in The Sopranos where Tony Soprano is in hospital where he's visited by the HMO to assess his condition. He tells her to f*ck off. I wondered how many Americans echoed that sentiment!

Healthcare (what an oxymoron) in the States is about profit. People have to jump many hurdles to get "approved" by a healthcare provider and even then it is never certain as there's "pre-existing conditions" and "deductables". A needless complicated system that even if you are certain to get insurance they'll find ways of rejecting you. I think it is highly possible that I wouldn't be granted health insurance if I lived in the States.

Two women both had sick children. One got her child to the hospital but was told by her healthcare provider that the hospital wasn't approved so she had to wait around for her daughter to be transferred. By the time she got to the right hospital her daughter died. The other woman in the film had a similar life threatening situation concerning her daughter. Her daughter survived. Why? She lives in France where her daughter was treated immediately without the rigmarole and extra worry of approved hospitals.

Words like obscene, grotesque, inhuman cannot describe the healthcare system in the States. Watching the American woman describe her dead daughter was unbearable, tragic, moving and shocking. The child's death was needless. And yet the CEOs of these corporations are rich beyond belief. Insurance and drug companies make a killing.

Grainy CCTV images show sick people being dumped in the gutter outside mission style run hospitals (the care you get it very basic) because the other hospital has discovered there's no insurance etc. Moore globe trots around America, Canada, UK, and France. All these countries have universal free healthcare (France is far far better than the one we have here).

Moore meets rescue workers involved in 9/11. Many of them have respiratory problems and have been abandoned by the government. They have to eke out a living on very low pay buying basic medical necessities at inflated prices. One woman pays $120 3 times a month for basic medicine when she could get the same drug in Cuba for around 5 cents. They cannot afford to get well. So.....where does Moore take them to get free universal healthcare...? Yes that land run by Satan...Cuba.

I like the cut and paste documentary style of Moore (it reminded me of the excellent Walmart: the high cost of low price). It isn't deeply analytical but Moore doesn't pull any punches. And that method can be highly efficient in putting your message across along with a dose of humour .There are couple of rather schmaltzy scenes but I forgive him. He makes a simple straightforward yet politically powerful case for universal health care (and lobbyists hate the film and are trying to spin that healthcare insurance is run by really fwiendly cuddly people). It is a damning indictment for private healthcare. There's an interview with Tony Benn who explains the history of the NHS in Britain.

But this should serve as a cautionary tale for us Brits as the likes of Kaiser Permanente are sticking their already bloated chops in the trough as they have been invited to discuss healthcare with New Labour. Around 14 of these healthcare companies have been commissioned by New Labour for buying healthcare for NHS patients.

Ivan Lewis, New Labour minister, has claimed that these companies can be trusted! One of these "trusted" companies, Unitedhealth, was fined $9.7m in 2004 for defrauding the US healthcare system. Gee, you can surely trust this lot with the family silver!

Private medicine is creeping into the health service. And there are charges to healthcare i.e. dentistry and trying to find an NHS dentist is bit like needle in a haystack! There are the inevitable pushes for charging by economists who preach "rationalisation"...

Yes, what a fresh and dandy idea, a two tier health care service where the poor get thrown in the gutter.....

So many films to see, so little time....

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Last week and this week a couple of interesting films have been released. I am tempted by Cronenberg's Eastern Promises but I saw the trailer recently that didn't impress me too much as it was rife with stereotypes with bad accents! And I thought that Cronenberg's previous attempt at the more mainstream, A History of Violence, was magnificent (also starred Viggio Mortensen).

I also want to see the film, Blame it on Fidel (La Faute A Fidel), which is on limited release. The director is Julie Gavras the daughter of leftie director Costa-Gavras (who directed, Missing, an unforgettable political film that exposed American involvement in the coup to overthrow Salvador Allende in Chile).

Oh, and what we have all been waiting for has been released this weekend and that's Michael Moore's Sicko. A damning indictment of private healthcare and why the States needs a welfare state.

And finally, next week sees the follow-up to Shekhar Kapur's sumptuously filmed Elizabeth (so what if the historical facts were a bit out of kilter it was a pleasure to watch) with Elizabeth: The Golden Age (I doubt if they could have gone for Elizabeth II..too confusing). Cate Blanchett (Blanchett was robbed as she should have won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1999 not cry-baby Gwyenth in an ill- fitting pink Ralph Lauren dress) reprises her role as the eponymous virgin Queen and thankfully, Geoffrey Rush, who electrified first time around as deadly spymaster Francis Walsingham.

So little time..........

I was also pleased to read that the film Control has been nominated for 10 awards at the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). The event will take place at the end of November. Good luck to new comer Sam Riley who played Ian Curtis he deserves the award for Best Actor..

Obituary to Deborah Kerr

Deborah Kerr always reminded me of one of those posh subdued English roses with a clipped accent and stiff upper lip. But that's on the surface when she was on the celluloid screen she could act exposing a passionate sexuality.

Her most famous role was bored housewife, Karen Holmes in From Here to Eternity (1953) where she follicked in the waves and on the beach getting down and dirty with her lover, Burt Lancaster.

Very tame now but at the time it caused a commotion with the Motion Picture Association of America where stills of the scene where waves are crashing over the snogging couple were banned as it was seen as too erotic!

I loved her in The Innocents (an adaptation of Henry James's bk The Turn of Screw) were she plays the sexually repressed and haunted governess in this Freudian and gothic chiller. My other favourites include Black Narcissus (1947) directed by the dynamic duo, Pressburger and Powell. Another one of their classics (I saw again over the summer on BBC2) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943). Not terribly fond of Quo Vadis or The King and I.

But she did have hidden depths and qualities that stood out. Joan Crawford was meant to play that role made famous by Kerr. I just can't imagine it myself........

Warner Bros without the sisters...

If a film bombs without a trace at the box office and the lead actor was a woman. What would you do? Well, it's simple really, don't finance films with women leads. That's the latest blue sky thinking from Warner Bros executive. The reason they have got their boxers in a twist is that the film The Brave One tanked at the box office.

So, they are indulging in that time-honoured tradition called "blame the woman"... I saw a trailer for that film and frankly, it looked....bad. It seemed like a hand-wringing morality tale and even though it had the stunning and wonderful actor, Jodie Foster, it just didn't entice me.

But instead of Warner Bros wondering whether it was piss-poor writing (men) that kept the punters away from this sub-Death Wish flick or even lousy direction (man) but nay, it is the fault of Jodie and obviously she must shoulder the blame....

Ah, sexism is alive and kicking in La-La land. And what I would like to know is when the next film that tanks at the box office and the lead star is a bankable bloke, will they send out an edict stating no more finance for flicks with male leads? Yeah....right and then I woke up..

I remember reading somewhere that there were more women screenwriters in the 1930s and 1940s as opposed to now. There was some really juicy dramatic parts for women. Iconic goddesses still remembered today from Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Lena Horne, Rosalind Russell, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Harlow, Louise Brooks ....the list is endless. Many of the films I have seen in the past year, the characterisation of women in many of these flicks has been lack lustre and under demanding. And Hollywood seems full to brimming with young women with the stereotypically plastic skinny look. They could be clones of each other.

I suppose the industry would argue that they are giving the punters what they want. I for one would love to see more developed, 3-dimensional crafted parts for women. There are some damn good fine actresses out there but alas, Warner Bros wouldn't want them anyway near the lead role. Maybe they will bring back the good old casting couch as well.....

Hollywood has a long long long way to go regarding equality and to quote Goldie Hawn : "There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, and driving Miss Daisy."

Quite!

Control

“Get a taste in my mouth

As desperation takes hold

Is it something so good

Just can’t function no more”?

(Love Will Tear Us Apart)

As a depressive suicidal soul it is no surprise I like Joy Division. I first heard Love Will Tear Us Apart when I was around 10 it was the upbeat intro and melody that captured my attention (I was 10 so didn’t really understand the lyrics). I tried to master that intro on my guitar along with the intro to This Charming Man by The Smiths.

It is strange but when I think of Joy Division I see them in black and white never colour, many of these pictures were taken by Anton Corbijn. He has also directed the film Control based on the book by Deborah Curtis, Touching From A Distance.

The film is exquisite to watch as b/w does give softer images and is much more subtle than colour. We first see a young Ian Curtis in his final years at school holed up in his bedroom, like any average teenager, listening to David Bowie miming along to lyrics while dancing in from of the mirror. We see him meet Deborah, going to gigs, working at what is now the Job Centre, and meeting 3 young men in a pub who have set up a band but can’t find a singer. After watching the Sex Pistols Ian offers himself as the lead singer and Warsaw is born (later known as Joy Division). The story revolves around Ian’s relationship with Deborah, the gigs, interaction with other band members and later, the epilepsy and Annik, the woman he has an affair with.

There has been criticism that film doesn’t really explore the reasons why Curtis hanged himself. I think it does. It paints a picture of a man caught between two conflicting lifestyles. The image of conformity where he’s married with a child and works in an ordinary full-time job, the other lifestyle that is kicking against the traces, subverting the norm. There is a scene where Curtis is going to work, walking down an average street smoking a cigarette and as the camera pans back we see the word “Hate” on the back of this jacket.

These two lifestyles converge and the immense feeling of being trapped is starting to become apparent. Curtis loves the freedom of breaking away from family life where he enters different worlds and where he meets Annik, a "free and independent woman". Million miles away from his life with Deborah in Macclesfield. The clash of these two conflicting lifestyles, increases his isolation, desolation and desperation coupled with his epilepsy where he is prescribed 4 or 5 different kinds of medications and the side-effects are staggering. There’s the realisation he will always have epilepsy, and having no control over his life pushes Curtis over the edge. His lyrics express these inner turmoils and demons.

It is interesting that Deborah (portrayed well by Samantha Morton) starts off attending the gigs and is always in the front but as Joy Division becomes famous she is further in the background where finally she is sitting at home with baby Natalie waiting for the phone to ring. The world where she is excluded from is a very male place where wives/girlfriends are kept at a distance. When she does intrude she is treated as if she is an embarrassment. Deborah propped him up and supported him and he admits in a scene in the film that he wouldn’t be anything without her.

Curtis is too overwhelmed with his own problems that he sees Deborah as a reason for him feeling trapped with a young baby but he doesn’t seem to understand that she too is trapped and constrained by the home environment. He is the one who believed they should marry and have a baby. This does convey an imbalance, riddled with the usual norms about how women should behave, the usual sexist double-standards.

Towards the end of the film we see Deborah asserting her own independence such as wearing short skirts (he didn't like her wearing them) and driving a car etc. I know the film focuses on Ian Curtis but we don’t glimpse the hopes, desires and needs of Deborah so in many ways her character isn’t as shaped and developed as Curtis.

He can’t make up his mind between Deborah and Annik. He can’t have both. The realisation that as Joy Division grew and became more famous the pressures and the feeling of powerless increased for Curtis. The increased drinking and not taking his medication increased the spiral downwards into the abyss. And before his death Joy Division was on the verge of touring the States and therefore more pressures.

Ian Curtis felt trapped in his life and saw no way out. So he killed himself. His daughter, Natalie, believes he was let-down by the NHS.

“My father also suffered from mood swings and depression. You read about mental health services being cut now, but God knows what it must have been like in the late 70s. There were loads of side-effects to his medication. It's likely that the epilepsy and the medication would have exacerbated the depression, although there was no provision for dealing with this”.

The likes of Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain, Sarah Kane and Richey Edwards (presumed dead) to name but a few sought solace from their inner demons and emotional pain through the act of suicide. Around 19,000 people aged between 15 -24 years have attempted suicide while 700 of them are successful. And 90% have mental distress.

The film is utterly beautiful and stylized. Sam Riley as Ian Curtis is electrifying especially during the gigs scenes (the lighting on Curtis' face gives it a chiaroscuro effect) where he perfects Curtis’ baritone voice. He displays a physical and emotional sense of isolation and alienation. The way he emulates Curtis’ dazed and stoned manner (possible side-effects from medication) the erratic dance style that was sometimes a seizure are memorable as they are realistic. Sam Riley really deserves accolades for this moving portrayal.

Samantha Morton portrays Deborah as the concerned and loving wife who is moving away from Ian’s world and love indeed is tearing them apart. She is touching from a distance. She is physically and emotionally excluded from Ian's world. It is passionate yet painful to watch. Overall this film gives a seemingly honest account of the rise of a gifted songwriter who couldn’t cope with life or its excess pressures. A prisoner in his own mind and the only escape is through suicide.

Maybe that was the only way for Curtis to exert some control. The end scene shows smoke rising from the crematorium and for me that represents Ian Curtis symbolically being freed at last. It is a beautifully crafted upbeat and uplifting (also there are some fine tragicomic scenes) film with realistic portrayals of people caught in a trap. An exercise in human fragility and frailty that we can probably relate to, the contradictions and conflicts that can trap us all in everyday life.

And I have been listening to Unknown Pleasures and Closer whilst writing this review.

Death Proof: misogyny unbound...?

(Alternative title: What a woman can do with a piece of scaffolding...)

“Quentin Tarantino makes guy movies, and great ones at that. He's a lad's lad, a cinephile's cinephile, a geek's geek, the thinking man's actioneer... who usually, it must be said, has very little on offer for any woman who happens to find herself in his cinematic space”. (B.Ruby Rich, “Day of the Woman” – Sight and Sound, June 2004)

Being a movie geek, I kinda like Quentin Tarantino. I get a perverse thrill from watching his films and usually that’s about who he is paying homage to, the quaint nods to different film genre, the in-jokes, punchy sharp dialogue and so on. The geek in me was impressed with the scene from Kill Bill Vol. 1, when Ellie Driver was dispatched to kill The Bride and while walking down the hospital corridor holding a deadly syringe she whistles the chilling but distinctive tune from the schlock-horror 60s British cult film, “The Twisted Nerve” and the nod to Sergio Leone by reversing The Man with No Name to The Woman with No Name (known as The Bride) seeking revenge. A common thread is now emerging regarding the woman avenger...

This can be seen as thoroughly irritating but as a film buff, I love spotting them. Tarantino picks and mixes different concepts, creates a montage and reinvents ideas. There usually is nothing new under Tarantino’s sun but I like how he re-develops a story, dialogue and action. I like what ideas he conjures up and I make no apology, I like his work. Taste is subjective.

And now Tarantino is paying homage to the exploitation film. Double features of the ‘B’ movie kind playing at the local Grindhouse. Unfortunately, the two films aren’t shown back to back. Death Proof has been released first. The film is shot like a cheap exploitation flick with dodgy cinematography, interchanging colour and badly spliced.

It revolves around a story of women drivers being terrorised by a man called Stuntman Mike who drives around in a death proof car. The first half of the film is slow and the dialogue is overblown (one gripe I have with Tarantino is since he parted company with partner-in-crime, writer Roger Avary, there’s so much superfluous dialogue that needs to be slashed with a razor sharp blade!).

We see 4 young women who are friends on a road journey and their stop-off at a bar where they encounter Stuntman Mike. One of them, Butterfly, gives Mike an impromptu lap dance. The women are kinda cautious of Mike as Butterfly thinks he has been following them and we, the viewer, know he has been closely watching them with voyeuristic curiosity, and intensity. There is something unnerving, creepy and hostile about Mike.

The way Mike views these women is utter loathing. Loathing for their sexuality and asserting their sexuality. In context of the lap dance, Butterfly is the one in control. Mike is a misogynist and a serial killer (as we see later) who needs to feel in charge and have power over these women.

The violent scenes are actually understated though shocking all the same and not the usual gore fest you get from Tarantino. The car crash is brutal but quick and no slobbering enjoyment of twisted limbs and severed heads. It also reminded me of Cronenberg’s Crash, Thelma and Louise and Spielberg’s Duel (being pursued by a shapeless deadly entity). There’s also elements of the road movie overall. Stuntman Mike gets away with murder but he shunts a car too far with stuntwomen inside and that’s a recipe for revenge where Stuntman Mike gets his final comeuppance…..And the hunter becomes the hunted. A reversal of fortunes and roles.

The car cashes are utterly fantastic and that last 30 minutes are breathtaking. It seems finally film makers are going back to good old fashion stunts and eschewing CGI. I thought Zoë Bell (real life stuntwoman aka Zoë the Cat) doing the Ship’s Mast stunt on a 1970 Dodge Challenger was awesome and fantastic to watch. Pure visual entertainment. And as the viewer, you want these women to get their revenge and there is identification with them (and the final scene in the film a cheer went up in the audience and it wasn’t only women cheering...). And it makes a change from “woman in peril” being rescued by man. These women can hold their own, thanks-very-much!

What of the film’s political message? The film is a parody of exploitation films and tongue in cheek. There has been pickets at the screenings of Death Proof and of Quentin Tarantino when he was in the UK recently promoting the film.

The message from the protesters is that Tarantino's depicting women by objectifying and degrading them. And glorifying violence against women. But isn’t that the whole meaning of this kind of film genre? You can also argue that these women are strong and expressing their own sexuality.

Stuntman Mike is a misogynist who has to be in control yet Tarantino doesn’t choose to revel in it as he exposes Mike as the cowardly loser he is when pursued by confident and strong women. The man is only in power and control when he hides behind his death proof car.

Radical feminists and other supporters of censorship take a literal interpretation of violent films. As Lynne Segal argues that pro-censorship supporters see porn as “literally harming women and creating gender inequality”, can equally be applied to the depiction of women in violent movies or "gorno".

I also think there’s merit in Carol Clover’s view of the “Final Girl” narrative that can be applied in this film where the women are precisely fighting back and not becoming victims. I think it is more important to seek understanding and analyse the politics of these films. An analysis that reflects the power relations in this society and which are expressed in film. If we want to challenge patriarchal norms then in order to create strong loud vibrant confident women challenging the status quo then we need to oppose knee jerk reactions. And this one-dimensional view of "once a victim always a victim"..

Again, taking a literal understanding of violence and sex ignores fantasy and imagination: do men really want to do this to women? I enjoy Tarantino films, what contradictory message does that say about me as a socialist feminist? I identified with those women and sorely wanted them to get their revenge. Watching violent movies can be cathartic as well.

It is easy to point at some film and blame it for violence against women (though violence against women has been around longer than the flicks!) and that argument removes culpability for violent male behaviour; "the movie made me do it, guv".
As Linda Williams rightly states: “Sexual politics must be aware of the diversity of sexual fantasies which cannot be over simplified into an easy scapegoatable aggressive perversion or evil”

The film actually isn’t Tarantino at his best, it is kinda boring and only the last 30mins saves it. Why waste time picketing it? And before anyone accuses me of not being a “real” feminist ‘cos I don’t appear to be taking these issues seriously, I do. It’s just that there are more scary oppressive violent things happening to women in the real world as opposed to the celluloid imaginary world.

Btw: there’s the argument that Tarantino is turning into Michael Winner. But Winner never has cool soundtracks in his films unlike Tarantino. I had forgotten how cool Marc Bolan was………….

There is a sensible and impressive post about the film from Mind the Gap

"Gorno" or Torture Porn - What do you think about it?

I am feart of blood so there is no danger I would ever watch Kill Bill or Saw II or really anything with zombies, torture or anything like it. I did manage to watch Shaun of the Dead but was sick watching Pan's Labyrynth.

However I am aware that there is more and more torture films on the go just now and films depicting real horrible violence. Some people are saying they particulalry glorify violence against women. I haven't seen any of them so I can't comment soI just wanted ask others - what do you think?

There's a protest about Tarintino's new film which is supposedly is really glorifying violence against women.

Here's an article in The Guardian about it all.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2069286,00.html

Why are gory, violent fims good to watch? What is the attraction? Does anyone who reads Stroppy Blog watch them?