moira-7 Reviews

September 11 (2002)

War and media, take a hike! Love your brothers and sisters everywhere!

[14 September 2002]

The September 11 film is a separate but collective effort by 11 filmmakers who were given $400.000 each to make a film 11 minutes, 9 seconds and 1 frame. The formula is not new, neither are eternal flames as grave markers.

Each director was given creative license to make their film. The result is 11 viewpoints on a host of angles regarding to the suicide aircraft attack on the World Trade Center. The facts of atrocities committed in war should come as no surprise to anyone from any country. Americans are as aware of the damage of war as other nations. War is not good for anyone. When men play war with guns people are killed, innocently. The most interesting inclusion is the Israeli journalist trying to report on a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. Her story gets bumped because of what's happening in New York. The story is absurd showing how powerful war and media is, and how far from peace the world is. Showing the film reveals how clever the media is in pitting nation against nation and cultivating a fake sense of patriotism. An aftermath of the film could be, don't buy into hating your brother and sister and show some compassion for all people for all injustice everywhere.

Mr. Skeffington (1944)

Bette we miss you!

[16 July 2002]

Bette Davis was an actress. She did not play herself over and over but reinvented herself in each film she made. Mr Skeffington is curiously names after Claude Rains character Mr Skeffington, like Dorothy Arzner's Christopher Strong, a film about Cynthia Darrington ( Katherine Hepburn). Davis plays a Fanny, a woman of less than average intelligence, one afraid of being a woman, mostly because of the attention paid to her by ridiculous suitors, and a life spent in sucking up to them and learning how to get what she wants because of their stupidity. Finally she is truly loved by Mr Skellington (Claude Rains). Nevertheless she still feels embarassed having a baby so she goes back east to hid her growing body. Whatever made her into the fragile and distant creature she truly is underneath her silly flirtations and airs, she realizes in the end the shallowness of her fan club and the true love of the man who loves her no matter what. She conveys the bunglings of a woman caught up in her appearance and the futility of living as an image brilliantly. Well done Bette! You still outshine all actresses living!

American Psycho (2000)

Mary Harron loses the day

[7 June 2000]

The Age of Sex Crime is still with us thanks to the work of the British tabloid press in blowing out of proportion the pathetic antics of the so-called Jack the Ripper. Every so often a film comes along which is only a vehicle for the murder and dismemberment of women. American Psycho is such a showcase for 80-style yuppie gore. In Stockholm Sweden, this film was reviewed without any details about the murders of women right and left--in fact, only the yuppie lifestyle was reported. Its not hard to imagine that this young crowd even emulated the film, as does the movie site, where you can design your own business card. Why is it fashionable to rape, murder and dismember women in films--because its important to remember that women can never be in charge. Why were not the psycho's yuppie girlfriends harmed: they were in his class. Why did Jack the Ripper murder prostitutes: he could distance himself from them, as if they were animals. Over a hundred years later, Mary Harron elevates Bret Easton Ellis' twisted empty novel to full screen. Its important to point out a woman did this--as women typically do the hatchet work for men, such as holding down young girls and mutilating their genitalia. This is what Harron symbolically has done for Bret Easton Ellis. Its hard to elevate films which are rascist today--we've evolved that far--but even Spike Lee has a terrible view of women, as does Quentin Tarantino, and Mary Harron. When we start separating the violence to women in films from the so-called features of a movie--or rather when we realize that in mutilating women, the film has no real basis any longer and is just a perpetuation of women hatred, we will start seeing some really good work. Harron has a quick ride to fame on this one, and therefore negates all previous work where her achievements were outstanding.