Soundtrack Saturday: Goodfellas

The number of songs used in this movie is insane! If Marty weren't a filmmaker, he would've made a great deejay!

The Shangri-Las, "Remember (Walkin' in the Sand)"

Bobby Darin, "Beyond the Sea"

Cream, "Sunshine of Your Love"

Precious

This is Monster Mommies Week! All this week we'll spotlight some of the cruelest, meanest, and scariest cinematic mothers.

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
first seen at Pavillion Park Slope, Park Slope, Brooklyn NY
2009

I have a close friend who had an abusive mother. I'm fairly certain it wasn't physical abuse, though; it was much more the verbal kind. My basic understanding is that her mom was the severely disapproving type. It wrecked her self-esteem for a long time, and though she's doing alright today, every now and then the scars peek through. Still, she's happily married to a man who not only shares her interests, but is remarkably supportive despite the issues she still grapples with, some a result of her childhood, some not. They don't have kids of their own. She says she could never imagine herself as a parent, in large part because of what her mom put her through, and they're both perfectly fine with this choice.

I have no desire to be a parent either. Taking responsibility for a life, from the moment of its conception onward, seems more like a burden than a blessing to me because of all the things that can go wrong. The temptation to mold this life into one's own image, even with the best of intentions, would be great - and if it doesn't happen, the urge to blame the child would be equally great. Plus - and this is another reason my aforementioned friend chooses not to have kids - there are far too many children being made to begin with, by too many people who should not be parents under any circumstances.

I used to work in an office with a large number of young single mothers. These women would've had to have had their children in their early 20s or even their teens, and while it's admirable that they were working to support their kids, I always wondered whether they received the guidance necessary to prevent them from having kids at so young an age. I did my best not to judge, however; I don't know the temptations and pressures they may have faced.


Which brings me to Precious. Like you and the rest of the world, I was shocked to discover that Mo'nique could actually act. Give director Lee Daniels credit for taking chances on people not known for their dramatic chops and making them watchable at minimum (Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz) and genuinely good at best - that, of course, includes Gabby Sidibe as well as Mo'nique.

Much has been written of Mo'nique's performance as Mary, perhaps the most frightening cinematic mother since Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. Her desperate attempt to justify her actions towards the movie's end, while undeniably moving on a certain level, struck me at the time I saw it as being as over the top as the rest of the movie. It almost seemed as if the film's misery was as much a selling point as this story of a young woman's coming of age - and while I know the book was the same way (I didn't read it, but I know from interviews by Daniels and others), I felt at the time that too much was being made of the abuse angle and not enough of Precious' struggle to escape that abuse. Ultimately, I thought the whole thing tawdry, tedious, and beyond melodramatic...


...but it clearly struck a chord in a lot of people, whether they could relate to Precious or not. Still, though, the emotional buttons that the movie pushes are easy ones. Who wouldn't feel sympathy for Precious? Who wouldn't root for her to get away from Mary and take control of her own life? Mary's confession raises difficult questions, yes, but they come too late in the story and as a result, it seems like an attempt to let her off the hook instead of introducing a deeper layer of character.

As for Mo'nique, I'd like to see her take on other challenging roles like this, but Hollywood hasn't actually beaten a path to her door, from what I can see - big surprise. Perhaps she's content to stick with her TV show and raising her own kids, but man, it would be a shame if she never got another chance to build on this performance.

----------------

Previously on Monster Mommies Week:
The Brood
The Baby
Dead Alive

Dead Alive

This is Monster Mommies Week! All this week we'll spotlight some of the cruelest, meanest, and scariest cinematic mothers.

Dead Alive (AKA Braindead)
seen online via YouTube
5.4.11

So how about that Peter Jackson, huh? I still remember when he was named the director for the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The only other work of his I had seen to that point was The Frighteners, which I liked, but I couldn't help but wonder if he had what it took to handle something on as huge a scale as the Rings movies. I probably wasn't the only one who thought so, either. I think it's safe to say he not only met, but exceeded, expectations. Now he's a part of the geek pantheon of directors: Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, Nolan. Looking back at his early days as a director, though, it's hard to imagine that he would reach such heights... especially when you consider a movie like Dead Alive.

The monster mommy here is an old lady who keeps her son Lionel on a very short leash, to the point where it interferes with his burgeoning love life. Then one day she gets bit on the arm by a rabid animal from a mystical island, dies, and becomes an undead zombie (making her a literal monster mommy). And things get a hell of a lot worse.

I hadn't planned on watching this. It was a last-minute substitute. I had heard of it before, going back to my video retail days, as a matter of fact, but never got around to seeing it. All I knew about it was that it was a bizarro horror flick from Jackson's early days. I was reminded of it while looking through Kindertrauma (once again), looked it up on IMDB, and gave it a shot, not giving it too much thought because I needed something to watch quick.

Well, I've seen it. And I'll tell you this much:

I no longer feel like I need to watch another zombie movie... ever... again.


How can any other zombie movie top this? This makes Night of the Living Dead look like Bambi! Half of the time I was literally holding my laptop out at arms length away from me. I started out watching it in full-screen, but after awhile I reduced the window size to normal because I really, really did not need to see things like eight miles of zombie guts, unnatural bodily fluids, and especially zombie sex up close.

Dead Alive reminded me a whole lot of Sam Raimi and the Evil Dead movies. Like Raimi, Jackson uses a lot of quick, swooping camera movement from skewed, exaggerated angles. In Jackson's case, however, the action is breathtakingly quick and edited fiercely, to the point where it's a bit hard to keep up at times. It's an approach that he's since curbed, though his King Kong had some of it. (Speaking of which, Jackson has said that the original King Kong was the reason he became a filmmaker, and the opening scene in Dead Alive appears to be a shout-out to that classic monster movie.)


I freely admit that I'm a wuss when it comes to watching cinematic gore, so it helped somewhat that Dead Alive was also pretty funny. I mean, once the zombies start multiplying and the carnage increases, things go way over the top to the point where it's fun-scary, but even before then it's clear that the whole thing is intended to be a romp. Anything goes in this flick - and it often does. I mean, look at what happens to Lionel's mom towards the end...

Seriously, I don't see what more you can do with zombies after this except to go in the completely opposite direction, Walking Dead-style, and make it all brutally serious and bleak - which has its merits too.

-----------------

Previously on Monster Mommies Week:
The Brood
The Baby

The Baby (1973)

This is Monster Mommies Week! All this week we'll spotlight some of the cruelest, meanest, and scariest cinematic mothers.

The Baby (1973)
seen online via YouTube
5.3.11

There's a website (which I won't dignify with a link) that's dedicated to the elimination of the "r-word" from the English language, the word in question being retard. I've always believed that when we hide behind potentially harmful words with euphemisms, we give those words far more power over us than they deserve, and we make genuine communication that much more difficult. That said, when I heard the word "retarded" used to describe the title character in The Baby, it still shocked me for a moment. It was used in the purely clinical sense, meant to describe Baby's medical condition and not as an insult, but it still seemed surprising and yes, even anachronistic, to hear him referred to this way. Decades of politically correct brainwashing have had their effect, it seems.

The Baby is another movie I discovered through the horror site Kindertrauma and it was a very pleasant surprise. Ruth Roman, a veteran TV actress who was in, among other films, Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, plays Baby's mother and she dominates the film. Physically, Baby is a young adult, perhaps 18-21 years old, but developmentally, he's still an infant, incapable of speech or even walking upright. His mother and two adult sisters take care of him. A social worker assigned to the family determines that Baby needs a better environment in order to progress, and so begins a tug-of-war between the two women over who should have full custody of Baby.


Roman's character, Mrs. Wadsworth, reminded me of an old Bill Cosby line from his stand-up days. In talking about parenting, Cosby says that little children are "false advertising:" they're great fun when they're little, all cute and playful and totally devoted to you, but then they grow up! In this case, Mrs. Wadsworth gets the best of both worlds, in a sense. In one scene, she more or less admits as much to a group of her friends. She says something like how other parents might consider dealing with Baby a burden, but she doesn't. In that moment, she speaks of Baby with such genuine tenderness and love, and Roman completely sells it. Watching her, you forget that her love for Baby causes her to do some cruel things to anyone who tries to come between them. An unfortunate babysitter provides one example early in the film.

I'm not a parent, but I can see how this could, on some level, be a kind of wish fulfillment fantasy. To have a child's unconditional love, untainted by the changes time and exposure to the wider world inevitably make, forever, has to have some appeal to a parent, particularly to a new or recent one. When I was about 12 or 13, I was a counselor-in-training at a summer day camp, and I met a girl, a camper, perhaps three or four years younger, who developed an unusual fixation on me. She actually thought of me as a surrogate father, though I couldn't begin to tell you why. It goes without saying, perhaps, that she had some major issues. Still, though, a part of me liked being in that position, difficult as it was (and boy, was it difficult), and I felt as if I would've done anything to protect her.


The Baby has the feel of a horror movie in places, but I'm not sure if it should be considered one. There is violence and murder, but it comes in relatively small doses and doesn't dominate the overall story. Most of the fear and tension comes from other sources. For instance, one of the more disturbing aspects is the sexual tension. Baby may act like an infant, but he has the body of an adult man, and more than one woman in the story responds to that, even though Baby himself is incapable of initiating any sexual activity. When the majority of the violence comes, it ends up twisting all your conceptions about the characters completely upside down, leaving you with a shocker of an ending. I know I didn't see it coming.

-----------------

Previously on Monster Mommies Week:
The Brood

A Life in Movies

"A Life in Movies" is a blog-a-thon hosted by the site Fandango Groovers Movie Blog. The goal is to pick a movie from each year of one's life through 2010 and say a few words about it. A complete list of participants can be found at the host site.

I almost wasn't gonna do this because I was a bit hesitant about actually revealing my age - something that normally doesn't bother me in real life! But then I decided that was a silly reason not to take part in a blog-a-thon, so here I am. I suppose being surrounded by so many film bloggers who are so much younger than me makes me feel my own age sometimes - not that I'm a senior citizen or anything.

Props to Andy from FGMB for this idea, and for inviting me to take part. It is a pretty clever idea for a blog-a-thon. These aren't necessarily my favorite films from each year; just films I like, or at the very least, have seen.

Cabaret (1972). I think dark musicals are my favorite kind, and this is one of the best. Liza knocks 'em dead, but I like Joel Grey best.
Sleeper (1973). I need to accept the bitter fact that screwball Woody is gone and is never coming back. But I keep hoping.
Foxy Brown (1974). Recently scientists have discovered that the sexual energy generated by Pam Grier could light up the North American East Coast for a year.
Cooley High (1975). If John Hughes were black, he would've made movies like this.
King Kong (1976). No lie - the overt sexual foreplay between Kong and Jessica Lange always made me uncomfortable as a kid. Of course, I couldn't have explained why back then...


Pete's Dragon (1977). I remember my mother taking me to see this one.
Thank God It's Friday (1978). Guilty pleasure movie! A young Jeff Goldblum, the Commodores, disco dancing, Donna Summer singing "Last Dance" - you can't miss.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979). As a Trekkie, I would be remiss if I didn't include a Trek movie. A sub-par execution of a very good story - one that doesn't need a villain (are you listening, JJ Abrams?).
Popeye (1980). If nothing else, it's perfect casting.
Pennies From Heaven (1981). Another disturbing musical, made even better with dancing Christopher Walken.

Eating Raoul (1982). "I'm a hot-blooded crazy emotional Chicano!"
Eddie and the Cruisers (1983). This kid I used to work with couldn't get enough of this movie. Stay far away from the sequel, though.
A Soldier's Story (1984). Underrated military drama that my father took me to see. Early role for Denzel.
Tampopo (1985). A sweet little Japanese movie about food that I discovered during my video retail years.
She's Gotta Have It (1986). Spike Lee has become so closely associated with New York it's easy to forget that he's originally from Atlanta.

Dragnet (1987). Another guilty pleasure. Tom Hanks has another comedy in him, I know he does.
Midnight Run (1988). Charles Grodin needs to make a comeback, dammit!
Uncle Buck (1989). Got dragged to see this and ended up loving it.
Pump Up the Volume (1990). If not Jenny's favorite film, then it's at least in her top five.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). The movie that made me a Trekkie.

Hard Boiled (1992). I used to slide down bannisters all the time as a teenager. Sad to say, however, I never did it while shooting bad guys. It's one of the great regrets of my life.
Demolition Man (1993). More people dig this one than I realized.
Heavenly Creatures (1994). There's this song - I wish I knew who sings it - that's an ode to Kate Winslet. The chorus goes, "I'm no diplomat/But you look better fat/Kate Winslet!" And it's true.
Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995). I saw Heather Matarazzo speak at a gay rights rally here in NYC once.
Matilda (1996). Awesome, awesome, awesome kids movie. Matilda is totally my role model. Now if only I could develop telekinetic superpowers...

187 (1997). Sam Jackson the dramatic actor doesn't get nearly enough credit. Check out this film about pre-Columbine high school violence one day.
A Simple Plan (1998). Sam Raimi needs to make another movie like this.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999). "It's da fuggin' birdman!!" [wheeze]
Dude Where's My Car? (2000). The ONLY Ashton Kutcher movie I'll ever watch.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001). Who knew that John Cameron Mitchell would go from this to Rabbit Hole?

Barbershop (2002). Why do so many black barbershops have wide screen TVs? Seriously, in my neighborhood, there's like, a hundred different barbershops and they all have them. Some guy could be shaving Lebron James' number into your scalp when all of a sudden somebody gets shot on CSI and the next thing you know you've got half an ear!
Mystic River (2003). The movie that got me hooked on Dennis Lehane.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004). Took a chance on it on a day when I was feeling depressed, and ended up enjoying it.
Good Night and Good Luck (2005). I know this was the year of Brokeback Mountain, but this was the movie I was rooting for to win Best Picture.
The Fountain (2006). Years from now, people will better appreciate this movie.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). Would I have the courage to live if I were in this guy's situation? I wonder.
Rachel Getting Married (2008). An interracial marriage and it's treated no differently than any other one.
Up in the Air (2009). Still kinda pissed it didn't win the Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
Hot Tub Time Machine (2010). Seeing this was purely a spur-of-the-moment decision.

H'wood eager to kill Bin Laden all over again

I've learned that Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow in recent weeks has been preparing and starting to cast an indie movie with the working title Kill Bin Laden, while another movie project about the hunt for the Al Queda terrorist leader at a major Hollywood studio stalled back in 2006. Given tonight's startling news, it's clear that these may be the timeliest film projects in recent Hollywood history. And judging from tonight's showbiz phone calls coming into Deadline about Osama bin Laden's death, I wouldn't be surprised if the movie studios are anxious to bring these projects to the big screen as soon as possible, updated with the details behind tonight's successful military mission...

I found out on Facebook, of course. My first thought was, "joke." Then I saw other people posting about it. Even when I saw it on CNN.com I still couldn't entirely believe it, but there it was. I had reached the point where I was beginning to despair of anyone ever finding OBL - or even if finding him remained a high priority. Yesterday morning I watched a bunch of videos on the CNN site, read articles, tried to take it all in. I do feel relief, naturally, as well as pride in our military and our president in getting this important job done. I'm not sure I feel right about cheering anyone's death, but man, if anyone's death deserves to be celebrated...

So now we find that Hollywood is champing at the bit to capture the moment on celluloid (metaphorically speaking; I know that everything's digital now). Kathryn Bigelow's record speaks for itself; I trust her to make a great movie about this that will, perhaps, serve as a companion piece to The Hurt Locker.

One thing that I hope will not get forgotten, however, when these movies do get made, is all the lives that were lost in the past nine and a half years as a direct result of OBL and the events of September 11. That includes all the victims at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Flight 93 passengers, the US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, even the Iraqi civilians killed in the line of fire. OBL's death closes a chapter in world history (though don't let anyone fool you into thinking terrorism is no longer a problem), but it came at the cost of too many lives that were needlessly wasted, on both sides, and that's something we mustn't lose sight of in the rush to cinematically canonize our heroes.

Thoughts?

------------------

Related:
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (the first movie I saw after 9-11)

The Brood

This is Monster Mommies Week! All this week we'll spotlight some of the cruelest, meanest, and scariest cinematic mothers.

The Brood
seen online via YouTube
5.1.11

I used to always confuse David Cronenberg with David Lynch. I suppose it was the first names that did it. They still trip me up occasionally, though not as much. Cronenberg, of course, is the guy who has made a career out of making films about body mutilations and transformations. It's a good subject for a horror filmmaker to explore. Most people will likely agree that normal bodily functions are gross to begin with. When you search for different ways to twist and reshape the human body in films, I think you're getting into primal-fear territory.

Feminists probably had a field day analyzing Cronenberg's The Brood, a film I read about at a terrific horror movie site called Kindertrauma, which specializes in childhood fears. Mentally-unbalanced woman undergoing radical psychotherapy which causes her anger to manifest as little mutant children that kill anyone she's pissed at? Yeah, I can see feminists reading some interesting things in a story like that.

The Brood came out the same year as Alien, another movie in which human bodies are the vessels for violent, murderous offspring. The tie to one's emotional state, however, makes me think of another angle: the notion of a cycle of violence linking familial generations - the children carrying on a battle begun by the parent. And because children are so easily mutable, it's easy for a parent to mold them in their image, for the express purpose of carrying out their bidding. In the movie, Nola's maniacal rage leads to her mutant children threatening the life of her natural daughter, and that's the danger of vengeance, isn't it? Left unchecked, it could consume everything in its wake.


It's unfortunate that The Brood is told from the perspective of Nola's husband Frank. Hers is the more interesting story - and because we never see her prior to her commitment to psychiatric care, every time we see her she's either nuts or in therapy to keep her from going nuts. The treatment she goes through made me think of Scientology at first: a charismatic leader who isolates the subject from their family; former subjects who escape with mental (and physical) scars; the whiff of a cult about it. I would've liked to have known how Nola got caught up in it.

Plus, we never see Nola with Candy, her natural daughter, so we don't get a sense that Nola ever cared about her to begin with. She seems to embrace her transformation - again, something I would've liked to have seen more of, especially when she seems to hold her mutant offspring in higher regard than her natural one. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a mistake to not show more of her side of the story. Awesome climax, though.