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Why don't you send me some mail? I'd be interested to know what you think of the site, what you agree or disagree with, and any movie recommendations you might have.
If you do send me mail, please be aware that I might post it on this page. I will not post your name or email address, however.
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READ MY MAIL:
The Many Issues presented by Stealth
hey
after feeling sevearly insulted by your cruel review of STEALTH, i looked around your site. i congradulate you on having so many full and completew reviews, good work!. the site is awsome, but its your review of STEALTH that annoys me.
ok, so the plot is pretty lame and un origonal, AI out of controle via lightning, that is the downside, but the rest of your reasons are stupid. how the hell can you think that firing a missile into a cave is in anyway like cumming!? the planes are works of art, not delousions of penisis. their flight suits are supoust to be half way between space suits and actuall navy pilots suits. look up the new suits NASA is thinking of using on mars, and you'll get what their playing for in the movie. if your in north Korea with a bullet through the shoulder, numerous cuts and bruises, and have been like this way for almost an entire day without food or water, your hardly going to give a crap if your ass is in the air.
and now onto your part of racisim. the film is in no way saying that girls from thiland are sluts, or that black guys are thet egotistic. im sorry, how IS that racist!? his dance scene in his room is just him having a little fun. if your sealed up in a fighter cockpit 24/7, i think your allowed to have deusions of popularity. this is one charicter who is fairly easy going.
the terrorists and warlords. now if your in the USAF, then you are (or would i supouse) be told to do things like this. if there is the equivalent of three osama's gathering at one point, you have to take them out asap. you dont have a choice in the matter. the movie also isnt going to spend ages exploring the past of these terrorists, what they did, what they plan to do, who they are, its irrelevant to the plot of the movie.
as for jessica, plot wise she is the best role the caring person. Ben is the leader, Henry is the happy-go-lucky guy, and she is the caring one. whould you prefer it for Ben to say "farmers Jess, their just farmers"?
where this movie is set, the satelites are just about the most advanced things they have, aside from EDI. they are specially dezighned to give them that intel.
im an australian, and have little simpathy for the US, but that remark on the wtc is stupid. why would they director want to prove a point about that!? if their not trying to kill civilians, the how else is the building supoust to colapse? upwards?
as for EDI, the trailers did overdo how dangeropus he was. that ordanance of missiles couldent kill the world, but the concussions of his actions could have. if your in a fighter jet, and you lauch a missile at a russian weapons facility, they are gona be pretty pissed as soon as you find out its an american jet. bam, WWIII. the brain of EDI is just supoust to look cool, and i think they did that well.
the movie isnt the best in the world, but it is certainly much better than what you give it credit for. i think the movie was pretty damn cool, so please note this email, and display it on the site if you can.
great site though
Aklex
Scott Responds:
Hey Alex—
I appreciate your kind words for the rest of the site, which is nice. Most people who write me because they're annoyed about a review go on to ridicule me and the rest of the site as well. So I appreciate that.
Most of the points you mention hinge on realism in the movie—the flight suits are realistic, if you're crawling through muck after crash-landing you don't care if your ass is in the air, the movie isn't going to go into detail about what the "terrorists" did…. I see what you're saying, but my point is that regardless of how realistic the suits or the lingo or the crawling are, this is a movie, and someone wrote it to come off as it did, someone shot it in a certain way, and someone directed it in a certain way—and all of those are decisions they made that I think are valid topics for discussion.
So even though it may be realistic that one would be crawling through North Korean muck, someone decided to put the camera right behind Jessica Biel and shoot looking right up her ass. Which they didn't necessarily HAVE to do. I found two pages with photos NASA is thinking of using on Mars [ http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060505_mars_spacesuit_test.html And http://quest.nasa.gov/space/teachers/suited/8future.html], and both of them look quite bulky and only vaguely like what I saw in the movie, although I can see what you mean. The impression I got was that the suits were quite consciously designed and lit to emphasize the actors' bodies, and since this movie has an attractive, young cast, and the audience they're expecting for this movie is young thrill-seekers, I think that was done to provide additional stimulation and interest for the audience. But again, someone DECIDED to design [and light and shoot] those suits that way. And once they do, I think it's fair game to point out and comment on.
As for calling the enemy "terrorists," I was struck by how technological and tactical information in the movie was delivered with a reasonable amount of detail, but the bad guys were just "terrorists." As you say, you can't stop everything and go into who these guys are and what they did, but in this case I got the sense that information about them was purposely being kept out for the sake of the audience. We can't get behind our heroes if we aren't fully supportive of them killing the bad guys, and at the time this movie came out, nearly everyone would be supportive of killing a "terrorist," which is part of why I suspect that they were presented so simplistically. My problem with that has more to do with the real world—in this country we've changed the law so that we can decide who is a threat and throw them in jail as long as we want with NO evidence and NO trial, and the reason always given is that they were a "terrorist" or a "threat." And how do we know? How do THEY know? Either way, we can never find out. Not to mention the way people are regularly dismissed or classified as enemies by merely calling them “evildoers,” without any further information. So the movie brings that up for me, and my problem with that in the movie is that it encourages that kind of simplicity, which I think is dangerous. In the movie, someone has decided that these people are "terrorists," and that is reason enough to kill them. You are right that the trio of heroes has to go along without question, but we in the movie audience don't, and I was turned off by the assumption that all we in the audience needed to know was that someone, somewhere called these people "terrorists," and that's enough for us in the audience to support the movie heroes killing them.
With regard to the comment about the destruction of the building recalling the World Trade Center, and “How else is the building supposed to collapse? Upwards?” I would argue that with as many people around the world who saw footage of the collapse of the World Trade Center, ANY movie image of a building collapsing straight down [as opposed to falling over sideways, as is more common] MUST recall the World Trade Center. The footage of the real building’s collapse was so ubiquitous, if the director WASN’T aware that some people would make a connection, I would think that he is pretty clueless. Especially in this movie, when it is so closely tied into the amount of civilian casualties, as the collapse of the WTC was. Since the rest of the movie so fetishizes the American military and the precision of our pilots, and since much is made of the fact that in the movie the building collapses with NO civilian casualties [information the military knows instantly], I arrived at the interpretation that this part if some perceived redress for the WTC attack, wherein we collapse a building vertically through our advanced skills and precision, with zero casualties—which I still don’t think is too far off the mark.
As far as the presentation of Jamie Foxx's character [and the Thai woman] verging on racism, yes, certainly there are black people like that, but again, someone decided to write this character THIS way [he could have been into classical music or watching art movies]. And I got the sense that he was being portrayed in this way to appeal to the popular black audience—he dreams of being a rap star who is besieged by paparazzi. He also jokes that he has sometimes been called the "extreme deep intruder," which I think is a reference to black men’s reputation as having big dicks. So all in all, it seems that his character was conceived in a way that just recycles stereotypes of how black people are. That these characteristics in black characters are quite common in movies still doesn’t mean that they aren’t just a rehashing of old ideas. I am always kind of amazed that more blacks aren’t angry about the way blacks are portrayed in movies, usually as sassy, self-centered and interested primarily in money. Somehow all of this has become acceptable, even to blacks, although it does seem to be just a regurgitating of stereotypes.
As for the missiles and whether they are sexual or not: of course, on the literal level, they’re just missiles. But when you start to add up all the content of the film, I think it points to more than that. Take the example of a car commercial. The cars are shot in such a way and we are shown them eliciting reactions in other people [often women oohing and ahhing] that we know the commercial is trying to imply that this car is more than just a car, it is something that will add irresistible sexual power to whoever drives it. Similarly with the movie. It seemed to me that a lot of the imagery of the jets and the missiles they shoot were shot in such a way as to imply more excitement and potency in these jets than they really have. You might say “yeah, but the movie, unlike the commercial, isn’t trying to sell anything,” but I think it is. Aside from the product placement movies often include [which means that the product has to be highlighted in a positive way and the movie has to be an acceptable vehicle for it], this particular movie was also made with a lot of participation from the military, which means it has to sell—or at least not deride—the military. So to me the jets, which are fairly phallic anyway, were used to highlight the sexual potency of the Josh Lucas character. When you talk about “shooting a missile into a cave” in this context, yes, I think it’s sexual. It’s very much a metaphor for sexual potency [with his superior skills, he is able to shoot the missile all the way to the rear of the cave, where it explodes, like a sperm reaches the womb and enters the egg, causing explosive growth], and I think this is there to pump up the perceived prowess and ability of the Lucas character.
But I’m NOT saying that the writer and director and whoever else is sitting around masterminding this whole thing, saying “Ha ha! We’ll make the planes really sexual and the missiles will be all like sperm!” I think it comes out unconsciously, at least in the case of this movie. They are just making the movie the way it seems “right” to them… but the way it “seems right” is the result of a bunch of decisions like the ones we discussed earlier, and when it’s all finished and put up there on the screen I don’t think there’s anything wrong with pointing out some patterns in it and making an interpretation about it.
And finally, it’s a matter of whether one just sits back and passively accepts everything on the screen, or you want to be more active in your viewing and ask questions about why something was done a certain way. There’s nothing wrong with just watching a movie for fun and not picking it apart, but there’s also nothing wrong with trying to puzzle out what it’s really about and what it’s trying to say above the literal meaning of what’s happening. And my site in particular is a little more about picking things apart and trying to puzzle out the meaning of them, because I believe that even “dumb fun” movies like Stealth still have themes and patterns going on in the background that are interesting and can be discussed. It may strike some people as so much intellectual masturbation at times, but it’s fun for me and the people who are into my site.
One last thing—I’m just a bitter, sarcastic guy, and a lot of that attitude comes out in my reviews, which most people are fine with, although it can bug them when I’m being snide about a movie they like. So I think that may be a lot of what elicited your email as well.
Okay, thanks again for writing and not allowing this one review to cloud your view of the entire site—and for waiting so long for my response. Your email gave me a good opportunity to think about how to articulate some of my own thoughts about these things, and I appreciate that. If you want to write back and discuss this more, please do. I will post your original email and this response up on the site.
Thanks—
Scott
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'The Function of the Fag' and Alexander
Hello,
I've been reading your page for awhile now, usually when I have some free time between classes or homework, and I'm damn pleased to find somebody who I think has the right outlook on movies. It has, in
my experience, seemed to be that you have two options: people who love the pulp crap that comes out in theaters everyday, and those who are so into indie "meaningful and deep" films that it's not about
enjoyment, it's about who can deduce the most abstract messages from them. I've always felt that you can enjoy both. Your site provides an excellent view of both types of movies.
I decided to write you this e-mail after reading your essay on the Function of the Fag in movies today. I'm glad that somebody else can agree with something that I've been arguing about since I first became aware of sexuality in movies and what all this gay/straight stuff was about. As a straight guy, I catch a lot of flak for defending anything "gay" or being able to recognize another guy as attractive. The sheer homophobic tendencies of the target demographic of movies today is amazing. My favorite experience took place at the endless nothing of a film, Alexander. As the "gay aspect" came up over and over again in the film, me and my friends were amused as they became more and more vocal against it. Ultimately they left early because it was "too gay."
While there was no "fag" to deflect the homosexual fear in this movie, I felt like their way of dealing with that was to show the aggressive sex between Alexander and females, while only depicting the overly done sappy parts between him and his male lover. I think that it served for many to be able to say "oh wow, I'd totally bang that chick" during guy/girl sex scenes while they were able to feel safer during scenes of lovey dialogue with Alexander because even if they have an attraction to him on the physical level, it definitely doesn't translate to this bad love-letter dialog. If they had simply depicted a sex scene of him with another man in the same way they depicted him with other women I think it would have seemed a lot less awkward (for those who lack the homophobic tendencies that so many people seem to have these days).
Anyway, I'm sorry that turned out so long and rambling, but I'm writing this during a break of studying for mid-terms, so I'm a little burned out. I overall just wanted to let you know that I love your site and I think that you have an excellent way of cutting through the bullshit that most people pile on top of movies. Keep up the good work, and don't pull any punches. --Cassidy
Scott Says: Hey Cassidy--Thanks for writing. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you--I'm moving AND starting a new job [where I can't write reviews at work--drat!] I appreciate your nice comments about my site. Yes, as I try to figure out what exactly my site IS about [since it's more than just bad movies] I think it's just about ENJOYMENT, rather than how good or bad the movie is. Anyway, I definitely appreciate your kind words and just knowing people are out there.
I'm glad you enjoyed the "Fag" essay. I have wondered what straight guys make of my site, and what they think when I say a guy is hot or whatever. I'm glad there are straight guys like you out there that understand that their dick isn't going to fall off if you sit through Alexander or something. Though really, I wouldn't wish Alexander on anyone.
Speaking of that, YES, I did notice that the gay sex was restricted to meaningful looks, while the straight sex was this wild and violent thing. I took that as the result of their fear of offending anyone, gay or straight, and a way of mitigating the anxiety straight guys might feel. They’re saying “Okay, you made it through all these meaningful homo gazes, now he’s some hot hetero banging as your reward.” It’s an interesting reversal, though, as usually hetero relationships are presented as based on love [and all that is true and pure and holy], while homo relationships [in mainstream movies] are usually presented as based on lust and the base [and shameful] need to get one’s rocks off.
You know that on the 'director's cut' he took most of the homosexuality out, right? I’d like to know what’s different, though nothing could make me sit through that again.
Anyway, thanks a lot, and good luck on your midterms, if they aren't over already.
Scott
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Misogyny in Carrie
Hey, Scott,
I'm a frequent visitor to "bad movie" sites (Jabootu, Badmovies, AgonyBooth, etc.), and came across yours as well. I'm pleasantly surprised that there is someone else out there who started out loving movies and has come to hate 90% of them. You and I share certain sensibilities about what makes a movie good and how what's "cool" these days is so ridiculously removed from reality that most movies seem like satire. I also like how you review good (or even great) movies, rather than just exclusively dumping on dreck.
Interesting that you should mention DePalma—having read your review, and having seen the movie in high school, I decided to watch CARRIE again.
First off, I think DePalma has a nasty misogynistic streak, which actually worked to his advantage here. The subject matter (women-on-women violence, as it were) is ugly enough, and while directors of a certain sensibility might downplay or otherwise shy away from it, DePalma was all too happy to embrace it.
I found the girls' locker room scene over the opening credits (at least a half-dozen girls fully nude) gratuitous. It looked like even Betty Buckley (as a very convincing gym teacher) wasn't wearing with a bra. I realize this was the seventies, Erica Jong et al, but jeez Louise...
And what was up with the G.I. Jesus in the prayer closet ("It's the Savior you can pose!")?
Aside from that, the performances all across the board were strong, good score, good editing (keeping everything moving at a decent clip).
I guess I fondly remember the days when every shot, every line was all meant to advance the plot. Contrast that with movies today, with quick cuts, montages, and one-liners (more sarcastic that witty, and there is a difference) all designed to disguise the fact that there is no plot.
Enjoy your weekend,
Joe
Scott Says: Hey Joe! Sorry it took me so long to get back... I have started a new job and am moving in a week, so I'm really busy. Plus I can't write my reviews at work [as I used to] anymore, so that's a bummer as well.
YES, DePalma has a BIG misogynistic streak, but I take it in the context of his obsession with Hitchcock [who seemed to have his ideas about women as well], but more so that often DePalma makes the depiction of his women so front and center that his misogyny becomes part of the conversation, which I think is playing more fair than having it be like The Island or something, in which it's just assumed that everyone in the audience wants to leer at hot babes...
I don't mind Carrie because it seems that the entire movie is about women's sexuality and power. Since the onset of Carrie's powers coincides with her sexual maturity, not to mention her mother's religious obsession with how girls must remain asexual [because they are inherently dirty], and then Betty Buckley trying to convince her to wear makeup and be more overtly attractive... the entire movie is very tightly focused on the how much power women can have over their sexuality, and I think the women-on-women violence is a part of that investigation into power and sexual jealousy. I don't really take the opening shot as gratuitous [though I'm sure DePalma wasn't HATING it] because it shows the other girls' comfort with their bodies and sexuality, which contrasts with Carrie when we see her alone in the shower, and sets up for the whole rest of the movie.
So personally it doesn't bother me, because all of those issues are right there on the surface, they're what the movie is ABOUT, rather than just an assumed attitude going on in the background. For example, one of the most disgustingly misogynistic movies I know of is Species II... in which an alien guy fucks women and their bellies swell instantly then BURST OPEN with his children! And at the end he chokes a woman TO DEATH on one of his alien "appendages." So these kind of sick male fantasies masquerading as something else, to my mind, is worse than a movie like Carrie in which the issues may be ugly, but they ARE the topic of the movie.
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK!?!?!? Lay it on me, I could talk about DePalma forever.
Thanks for continuing to write, I appreciate it...
Scott
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Why no gay classics?
Hi there! I have been enjoying reading your reviews. However, as an old school homo, I'm surprised not to see the classic gay movies with Joan Crawford or Bette Davis, like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane or The Women. Are you planning on including these? --Gary
Scott Says: Thanks for writing. There are a few reasons those movies aren't on my site: 1) I want to maintain the integrity of this site by only writing about movies that I really have something to say about, and that hasn't been said a hundred times elsewhere, 2) I want to avoid writing about movies that everyone knows about already, and 3) Those movies aren't really to my taste and don't necessarily fit the purview of this site. All of these rules can be trumped, of course, if I really love--or hate--a movie. So that's the deelio, thanks for asking.
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New insight into Altered States
Hey--read a review of yours on IMDB and then found your site. Wonderful stuff. Just wanted to add another reason to love Altered States (aside from the fact that it's based on a novel by Paddy Chayefsky who also penned the irrepressible Clint Eastwood musical Paint Your Wagon)--it's a thinly veiled bio-pic of John Lilly, full-on nutter Harvard scientist who moved on from his sens/dep tanks and hallucinogenic substance experiments to spearhead the dolphin intelligence movement before finding his true calling as an author of really really crappy new age books about how great his wife is. He wrote like a dozen of them. I'm serious. He's also by far the worst poet I've ever encountered (puts Sun Ra to shame), his works reflecting a hideous admixture of everything that makes him noteworthy: a) dolphins b) drugged out seventies shit c) his wife d) crap science and e) his complete inability to write anything anyone would ever want to read. They include unforgettable lines like: "My wishful thing of desire, desire for you, perverses what I know of the postulates," "there is no inborn automat serving up easy transcendence," "dolphins are the humans and suprahumans of the oceans," "cracks in my universe fill with me / oily I go, oily I come, / too fast I shuck me," "without you I am merely a shitful computer unable to love," "failure of fertility, hysterectomy, what then? / Do I then strive to place my sperm in another, pregnant to make?," and "to get there, a vagina may be needed" (all excerpts from Simulations of God, 1975). Fuck Kinsey, there's a man worth making movies about!
Oh, and if you ever stumble upon a copy of "The rats are coming, the werewolves are here," don't hesitate. Pure shlock that features about 40 minutes of rat footage filler added to make it feature length. And I suppose to justify the title. Or maybe there was 40 minutes of crappy werewolf movie added to the rat footage. It's not like it looked any better, I'm just assuming, cuz it had dialog. Keep fighting the good fight. --Eric
Scott Says: Thanks for writing. Glad you like the site. NO, I had NO IDEA what Altered States was based on John Lilly. what you say makes total sense, and fits into my theory about the movie being about this utter narcissist who is only into his own ideas [and in the end, his wife]. That is really fascinating... thanks!
Thanks also for the recommendation of the Rats movie. That sounds... interesting. Did you ever see Hell of the Living Dead? That's at least HALF random nature footage as well, but put in in such a way that it's really funny. Thanks again for writing...
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An interesting observation on The Birds
Hello-- We've been reading your site like a crackwhore waiting for another hit. It sure makes work a bit easier to suffer through. We had two thoughts on movies we'd like to see you review: the eternally atrocious but precious because it tried so hard MAHOGANY (diana ross is my olivia newton john) and anything by russ myers but especially FASTER, PUSSYCAT, KILL KILL!! (with a name like that it must be good, huh?). Keep up the good work it's hilarious!
Also one last thing- I read your review of THE BIRDS, one of my all time favorites (tippi hedrin is a gas). Very good. I wondered if you had noticed something that has always puzzled me in watching the film. Each of the female characters does this business with gloves (these were the last days when ladies were still expected to wear gloves) in which they are seen with one glove on and the naked hand is clutching the other (suzanne pleshette takes off a gardening glove to shake melanie's hand when they meet; melanie takes off one glove at the bodega bay store; mitch's mom runs from her dead friend's farm house clutching one glove; and even the dykey ornithologist lady in the diner has on one glove as she pauses to light a cigarette) I just love these little meaningless details because with someone like hitchcock you know it probably in fact maybe did have some meaning, or maybe it didn't.
See? This is the type of thing we'd rather do than work. --Norman
Scott Says: Really glad you're enjoying the site! That's great to hear. YES, Mahogany is on my rental list! I remember seeing that several times when I was younger, and that is a great candidate to watch again. Thanks! I also want to see Faster Pussycat... I've never seen it. My friend just taped Beyond the Valley of the Dolls for me, and I look forward to watching and reviewing that. You've seen that, haven't you? It is PRECIOUS. I can't believe it's not on DVD.
I HADN'T noticed that about the gloves, but that's a great observation. I wonder if it means anything? I suspect, as you do, it might have just been a fetish of Hitchcock's. But I'll definitely keep an eye out for it next time I watch.
Thanks again for your positive feedback, I really appreciate it.
