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Attack of the 40-Something Feminist!

Image Credit: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images
Image Credit: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

As a dedicated Before fangirl, I walked into the Before Midnight screening as excited as a LOTR fan viewing The Return of the King in hobbit feet. While aging along with Jesse and Celine (because time … it’s the worst), my relationship with the films has evolved. Watching Before Sunrise is now akin to reading the marginalia I made as an undergraduate: I cringe, yet part of me still thinks the flowers in Mrs Dalloway DO symbolize the emptiness of the phallocentric gift economy. And Before Sunset is now porn. That’s right, just porn. Because there are humanities majors who would much rather walk around a European city discussing art and relationships than actually having sex with, say, Channing Tatum. Spoiler alert: I am one of those people. But the only reason I can watch these films and not want to perpetually punch Ethan Hawke—and his alter ego Jesse—in the face is Julie Delpy. Although Delpy’s Celine is equally pretentious and neurotic, she’s also intelligent, funny, kind, and sexy as hell. She’s basically Wonder Woman for feminist cinephiles. So when Celine becomes just as annoying as Jesse, there’s a problem. Continue reading “Attack of the 40-Something Feminist!”

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Dancing On My Own

Image Credit: IFC Films
Image Credit: IFC Films

If you had previously asked me what you would get if you removed all of the misogyny from Woody Allen’s films, I would have guessed Diane Keaton saying “la di da” in a tie. But, thankfully, I was wrong: you get Frances Ha. While attempting to pinpoint the origin of my current obsession with this Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig creation, I came up with the following possibilities: perhaps it’s because the film perfectly captures that particular brand of depression that arises when you return to your college campus as an adult and pretend not to be that much older than the undergraduates, only to realize that you are SO much older than the undergraduates. Perhaps it’s because so many white finance guys are EXACTLY like that (i.e., nice enough, but you know they’ll sleep with your babysitter one day). Perhaps it’s because the film recognizes that, yes, at some point you have to get a real job involving far too many spreadsheets. But, more than anything, it’s because Frances Ha is a comedy about a woman that isn’t concerned with her relationship status. So Frances Ha doesn’t just pass the Bechdel Test. It basically IS the Bechdel Test. Continue reading “Dancing On My Own”

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The Rest of the Story

 

Image Credit: Lion's Gate and Everest Entertainment
Image Credit: Lion’s Gate and Everest Entertainment

Mud is being marketed as an updated retelling of Huckleberry Finn, but I don’t recall Mark Twain ever expounding the lesson so central to this film: “Boys, bitches will break your heart.” Now, you would probably surmise that a film featuring such a warning would be somewhat less than progressive when it comes to gender, but you would be wrong. Very, very wrong. Jeff Nichols’s coming-of-age tale of a 14-year-old boy assisting a wanted man in his quest to sail away with his one true love would seem to fit in neatly with the spate of recent hero films, featuring helpless women and taciturn men. But Mud subverts this narrative, highlighting the absurdity of the male presumption that his story is, without question, the only story. Mansplaining, it turns out, does not lead to healthy relationships nor happy Hollywood endings—especially not when the explainer in question is Matthew McConaughey.

Although Mud (McConaughey) recites the epic love song of Mud and Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) as though he’s her avenging knight and she’s his innocent queen, the film suggests that he’s leaving out a few, perhaps key, details. And it becomes increasingly clear that the tale Mud is spinning is his story alone. Mud simply assumes that if he loved Juniper from the moment she helped rescue him from a snakebite, she must have signed up for everlasting devotion as well. He assumes that if he wants to forgo showering for months and travel down the Mississippi River on a filthy boat with no money, she will too. These are not excellent assumptions. Continue reading “The Rest of the Story”

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Hey Girl, You Need a Hero?

Image Credit: Focus Features
Image Credit: Focus Features

Just when we thought that sword-wielding, damsel-saving white knights had gone the way of Mitt Romney, here comes Ryan Gosling to prove us wrong. In The Place Beyond the Pines, director Derek Cianfrance reteams with Gosling for a dream-like short film featuring his kinetic, richly colored visual style—which happens to be followed by two hours of mundane family drama that’s only marginally less depressing than Blue Valentine. A note to all directors: do not cast Ryan Gosling and then kill him a third of the way through your film unless you want viewers to spend the rest of the film wondering why they paid $12.50 to not watch Ryan Gosling.

Clearly, I was fully on Team Gosling before the film began, but even I was a little disconcerted about the fact that he appeared to be playing the same character from Drive. I realize typecasting remains a common practice in Hollywood, but STUNT DRIVER WHO SIDELINES AS A THIEF IN ORDER TO PROTECT A WOMAN AND HER CHILD is a pretty specific type. Both Gosling incarnations—the driver and Luke—are at turns sweet and psychopathic. While you understand the leading ladies’ attraction—it’s Ryan Gosling after all—you also feel the need to warn them that this guy will probably kill you in your sleep—and then compose you a poem—written in your own blood. It’s all very confusing. But what truly connects these two men is their sincere belief that they are twenty-first century knights slaying twenty-first-century dragons for twenty-first century damsels. The damsels in question, though, have very little to say in the matter. Continue reading “Hey Girl, You Need a Hero?”

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Weekly Girl Crushes

Photo Credit: Jacob Krupnik
Photo Credit: Jacob Krupnik

Girl Walk // All Day

When you are walking through Central Park and run into a roving pack of modern dancers, there is normally only one option: flight. But Girl Walk // All Day has made me rethink my blanket policy on impromptu modern dance performances. Starring Anne Marsen as “the Girl,” Girl Walk // All Day is a 75-minute film featuring Marsen and two male dancers who stomp, flail, and pirouette through all five boroughs (yes, even Staten Island). We first meet Marsen in a claustrophobic ballet studio. But the classical music soon gives way to a soundtrack by Girl Talk as Marsen ecstatically breaks out of the studio’s four walls. This rupture of the public/private divide generates much of the humor, tension, and joy in the film. Although a vague narrative of “the Girl,” “the Guy,” and “the Creep” runs through the film, the “story” of each scene emerges when Marsen invades the private space of others. A few of the bystanders clearly recognize that they are being filmed, but the vast majority respond with genuine confusion, laughter, awe, and, only rarely, complete disinterest. In one particularly fascinating section, Marsen carries countless shopping bags as she stumbles through a hoard of Occupy Wall Street protesters. Some begin clapping, assuming she’s a performance artist denouncing capitalism, while others actually mistake her for a clueless shopper. Neither of these interpretations is entirely correct, but this is unimportant. What matters is that the private thoughts of the bystanders affect the public performance. Whether she is being championed by tourists on the High Line or being chased out of Yankee Stadium by security guards, Marsen is challenging our urban propensity to turn on our iPods and shut out the city. While NYC is known for its stoic citizens who could see a man change his pants on a subway train without reacting, NYC is also famous for forcing people to live their private lives in public: we make out in front of Grant’s Tomb, have screaming fights inside a Duane Reade, and then cry on the Q train all the way home. Girl Walk // All Day gets at this essential contradiction of urban living, celebrating the chaos of the city and the quiet lives of its inhabitants. Continue reading “Weekly Girl Crushes”