Summarizing State Ideology is so easy.
Film – Superman Return
Yawn! What a boring movie.
It is not so much the boredom that got me. It was Lois Lane. Or lack there of. I’ve grown up with Zagor and Alan Ford rather than Superman. The only memories I have of Superman are films from the 80s. I’ve watched “Superman II” recently (it was on TV while my back was out) and really liked it. I liked Lois Lane. She is cool. She is smart and witty and fun. In fact, if Superman was stuck under a rock for half the movie, she could still carry the action. Lois Lane in “Superman Returns” is such a wretched and pointless creature. Except for some annoying angst, she has no personality. Well, you say, it is the age of femininity, they have replaced her career orientation with motherhood. If at least she was an affectionate mother! There is this scene where she is stuck in a locked box that is slowly sinking into the ocean with her 5 year old son for about half an hour. During this time she is sitting on the opposite side of the box. I don’t know anything about motherhood, but if I were in similar situation I would clutch and hug my child. What were the filmmakers thinking!!!
I think this is just a symptom of a larger trend in mainstream cinema. The female love interests are becoming faceless and boring. This is not necessarily true when the woman is the lead in the story (for example The Devil Wears Prada), but Chris and I could only identify two mainstream films we have seen in last two years where the female love interest had character (40 Year Old Virgin and Casanova). Similar thing is happening with rom-coms, but I’ll let this article from cbc speak for itself on the subject.
Film – Kinky Boots
So I’ve seen two feel-good films in the row. What shall I see next?
Film – The Devil Wears Prada
It amuses me when films are set in “NYC” and/or “Paris” the film makers still have the characters stand in the middle of the road to have important and heightened discussions. There were at least three or four such discussions in this movie in both cities. The best part is that one of the characters gets hit by a NYC taxi half way through the film and her friends still stand in the middle of the road for important discussions after that.
Film – Sketches of Frank Gehry
Watching documentaries about people in my line of business (producing functional art) is always fascinating if for no other reason then to gloat about the eternal struggle for the beauty of the world*. Sometimes I get tangled up in details and hassles of the day that I forget that I have an opportunity to create something beautiful. I loved how the film showed the combination of requirements to conform and the 10% space for creativity. There is a crack, a crack in everything – That’s how the light gets in. **
In any case, even if the film did not inspire reflection (which it did), the bits with Julian Schnabel made me giggle like a schoolgirl. That alone is worth the price of admission.
* In The New Light – Laibach
** Anthem – Leonard Cohen
Film – The Proposition – revisited
A couple of years ago I went to see “Le Goût des autres”. I was so bored by the film that it is only due to my laziness and disinclination to inconvenience other moviegoers that I did not leave the cinema half way though the film. Yet, looking back, I think about this film more often than about many films that I thoroughly enjoyed. I felt the same about “The Man Without a Past” by Aki Kaurismäki.
There are films that I enjoy right away, and some that have moments that make it worth the trouble regardless of how good or bad the rest of the film is. The Proposition (like much of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds music) falls into the third category with “Le Goût des autres” and “The Man Without a Past”. These are the films that I do not like while watching them, give them credit for insight when I leave the theatre and think they’re brilliant several weeks later.