Behold: my wedding announcement

Our announcement was written and illustrated by Mike Walton (creator of Dual and falsepositivecomic.com). For an even better viewing experience, you can see it on imgur: http://imgur.com/a/qoR4L .

Prometheus: 'Big things have small beginnings'

Before seeing Prometheus, I was bombarded by mini-reviews from Facebook and Twitter friends saying, "meh," and I have to say, I think this film is better than mediocre. Perhaps everyone set my expectations low, but I thought it was enjoyable and engaging. Having said that, it definitely has its problems.

I love the way the film looks, and it's fun being transported to an Alien-like realm that's also new and interesting. It has a satisfyingly creepy, eerie design and feel that kept me at attention, waiting for something to lurk from the shadows, and I wasn't disappointed. There are a few scenes that genuinely disturbed me in the best way possible, and I found myself clutching my seat with vigor. Oddly, this film also has some horrifying motifs that echo female anatomical parts, possibly created by someone with Mommy issues.

Aside from the awesome atmosphere, the characters themselves were big hits and big misses, but I thought the main characters were spot-on. The eerieness of the film was contributed to in no small part by Michael Fassbender's robot character, Michael. Win. Also, I loved the main female character Elizabeth Shaw (played by Noomi Rapace) who brings some serious badassery. And for all you feminists, I liked that this actress rocks some curves-- and yes, between Rapace and Theron, this film does indeed pass the Bechdel Test. Besides the characters I liked, there were a few scientists in the mix that proved ridiculously incompetent, but I forgave them for the characters that were cool.

Overall, I like that this film leaves things open-ended and doesn't explain too much. However, awkwardly amongst the obscurity, there are a few scenes that painstakingly over-explain the obvious, and those are the parts where I face-palmed. For me, the good outweighs the not-so-good, and I think this beautiful film (yes, I use that word in conjunction with an alien-horror film) deserves a watch.

Feminism and Avengers

I've now seen Avengers a couple of times, but I hadn't written a post because I didn't know what I could say that hadn't already been said. It was awesome, everything I hoped it would be. Whedon stood tall and rose to all my expectations. The arrangement of strong characters was well-balanced and well-written, each contributing a unique personality to the whole. Roger Ebert is an idiot. Moviefone is sexist. The end.

After discussing the film with others and watching it a second time through, I realized that while this film has some fantastic female characters, it does not pass the Bechdel Test (watch this if you're not sure what the test entails). Having said that, I still think it's a film with successfully feminist female roles in the form of Black Widow, and more interestingly to me, Maria Hill (Fury's second in command).

I like that Black Widow plays into all the stereotypes of the damsel in distress (helpless, sexually objectified, emotional, vulnerable) in order to trick her male counterparts into spilling their secrets. Is she still a femme fatale figure? Yes. Is her sexuality still referenced as important to her job? Yes. Is she still tied up at one point? Yes. But she's still a really cool superhero and incredible leaps and bounds beyond female characters in other Marvel films (I'm scowling at you, Jane from Thor).

However, the female character who really caught my eye is Maria Hill. This may seem odd, since she isn't a main character. She just sort of drifts in and out of scenes like a shadow with no backstory or characteristics shown besides those pertinent to her job. But this is what I like: her role could have easily been played by a man, keeping the script exactly as it was written. Of course, it would be strange if all female characters were written in such a way. But in this case, as a military-like employee, it makes sense. And I like that no one ever comments on her gender or makes gendered comments to her. She is just part of the operation; it is natural. She is a woman doing her job. It was so simple to make this character female, and yet, many films fail to incorporate similar female roles: everyday females doing their jobs in typically male-dominated fields. I like it.

The Cabin in the Woods: 'Something weird is going on'

At this point, it's no secret that I'm a sucker for horror movies, but this one takes the cake. This is one of the funnest horror movies I've ever seen (yes, I might even like it more than Jennifer's Body, which is a statement I haven't yet uttered about a horror film until now). Not only was The Cabin in the Woods a celebration of all things horror, it was clever, shocking, and different. It gushed (pun intended?) with originality, a rarity in contemporary horror.

In the era of the postmodern smarty-pants viewer, well versed in genre constructions, we are in the age of meta-horror. It seems that every film since Scream has tried to point out its own constructedness, paying homage to the horror genre and referencing the horror conventions that have come before. The Cabin in the Woods (we're talking the 2012 version here, of course) forces this agenda to a new level, pushing the purpose, commentary, and conversation of contemporary horror. This isn't self-referentiality for the sake of street cred-- this is self-referentiality that propels itself and the genre to something new, one of the markers of a great work.

And in case you were wondering, yes Joss Whedon is an incredibly talented writer who has grown a lot since Buffy and Angel. Moments of serious horror and gore are undercut with witty and thought-provoking humor that fits into a story that pushes its premise to its limits. I can't wait to see what this guy does with The Avengers. To all you nervous, Whedon nay-sayers who worried if he'd be able to shine on the silver screen, I just want to give you an inelegant and irritating (but well deserved) "I told ya so."

A Response to "Texting Makes U Stupid"

Today my dad handed me an article he had torn out of Newsweek in September and said, “This made me think of you, so I saved it.” As I read the title, I groaned. The article was written by a professor of history at Harvard (and yes, I deign to disagree with a Harvard professor), entitled “Texting Makes U Stupid.”

From the title alone, I had the article outlined in my head, point by point, before I read the rest of his words. Bring in stats about how much teenagers tweet. Make snide quips about the inanity of the text message (because nothing important or beautiful or poetic or smart could possibly fit into the format of a text message). Queue stats, mourning the loss of literacy in the United States. Boldly state at the end of the article that we should read more! Of course the author states this to an audience currently reading Newsweek, patting themselves on the back for dodging the scourge of the text message, understanding the value of reading, and being from a generation who understands the elusive “good ol’ days.”

It’s disconcerting that a professor from Harvard would write an article falling into post hoc fallacies and blaming something as complex as our illiteracy epidemic on the invention of the text message. When the novel itself first came to be (yes, it’s a fairly new invention that didn’t emerge until the Victorian period), people thought the same thing. A novel was thought to be a waste of time, an unintelligent hobby. And later, with the widespread popularity of television, people worried that the novel would die. And yet we have a professor of history crying that the sky is falling when teens are texting.

I do not think that falling literacy rates are great. What I do think is great: teens write more now every day than they ever have in the past. Kids write emails, text messages, tweets, and facebook statuses. Are they always spelled correctly? No, but it means that several times a day, they’re thinking about writing. They’re stringing words and sentences together and thinking about how to express ideas. They’re thinking about concision, clarity, and audience. They’re thinking about communication and its value. I don’t think any of these things are bad, and I don’t think that’s what’s to blame for a falling interest in reading. I think it’s an easy answer and a scapegoat.

It’s silly, unfair, and archaic to define reading a novel as the only kind of reading that merits worth. Teens and college students now have information, news, and updates at their fingertips, which adds up to quite a bit of reading. Is all of it good? No, but neither are all novels. Yes, teach our kids to be smart. Teach our kids to appreciate art and words and nuances of meaning. But don’t sit around telling kids that texting is bad or leading them to a disinterest of the world around them, because that just validates the phrase they’ll spout back at you, which is “you just don’t get it.”


Link to Newsweek article: http://bit.ly/qexahN

P.S. I teach Writing and Rhetoric to college freshmen. I’m very much concerned about the reading and writing habits of our youth. I just don’t agree with the leaps of cause and effect in this article.

My New Favorite Web Comic: False Positive

My new favorite web comic. Check it out: http://www.falsepositivecomic.com/

Go see Drive. Like, now.

I sat in the theater, long after the credits had ended, long after several pubescent theater workers grumbled while shuffling around me. I had never been so shocked into silence after watching a film. I remained thoughtful and quiet walking out of the theater and to the car and throughout the car ride home (much to the worry of my boyfriend who was with me). Okay, I wasn’t completely silent. Right after the film ended I looked at my boyfriend and said, “Holy shit,” but that was it.

Drive is the kind of film that doesn’t come around often. It’s a film that reminds you of the potential artfulness of filmmaking. Actually, it’s a film that reminds you that humans are capable of making things that are so incredibly beautiful that they seem to transcend the physical space that they inhabit. As cheesy as it sounds, I left that theater with a renewed hope in the creative powers of man, and I don’t mean that as hyperbole. I don’t have a single negative thing to say about this film—and I can’t recall any other time in my life-long career as film critic (and critic of all things, in general) that I’ve uttered such a phrase.

This film was exceptional. The acting, writing, editing, cinematography, music, pacing—everything—was impeccable. That’s not to say it was safe. As Guillermo del Toro said of the film at Comic-Con, this is balls-to-the-wall filmmaking. It’s gutsy and experimental in the way it’s put together, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s rare to see something so fresh and new that actually works as a harmonious whole.

I now have an enormous amount of respect for Nicolas Winding Refn, who rightfully claimed best director at Cannes for the film, and also for Ryan Gosling (turns out he’s a total badass—could’ve fooled me). In fact, as I learned at a Comic-Con panel, it was Gosling who had the rights to the book Drive is based on, and it was Gosling who sought out Refn to be the director. After a horrible first meeting over lunch, the two bonded through an REO Speedwagon song in Gosling’s car and realized they shared the same vision for the film, as Refn broke down into sobs and they discussed their vision of a character who cannot feel real emotion unless he’s driving (and listening to '80s pop). Crazy, right? The stuff of fairy tales.

At Comic-Con, I was stunned by the footage that was shown, and I was equally stunned by Guillermo del Toro’s gushing over Refn, but being the cynic that I am, I worried that they had showed us the best scenes. How could every scene in the film live up to the scenes that they had shown us? Oh, my friends, how wrong I was. The scenes shown at Comic-Con were even better in the context of the film, and those scenes were not the exception to the rule. Every scene was phenomenal.

For those of you who were fooled by the marketing ploy and believe this to be Fast and Furious 6, it’s not. In fact, I heard many disappointed movie-goers leave the theater with complaints: “That was so slow and boring” and “That did not have enough action.” Yeah, I’m sorry you guys were tricked into seeing a brilliant film.

P.S. I bought the soundtrack. Of course, it’s awesome.