Vincenzo Natali’s Splice is just about everything I was hoping for: a smart, scary, visceral, well-acted, and good-looking two hours of scifi/horror. That alone would qualify it for accolades, as it’s been kind of a depressing year for both scifi and horror so far.  But what really makes me excited about the film is its odd equal opportunity nature.  With Splice, we finally get a female mad scientist worth the screen time.

Let me back up for a minute and reiterate how much there is to love about the film, in general.  It’s a thoughtful (not quite revolutionary, but still very smart) and provocative take on cloning and genetics. Splice is a story about a couple of hotshot supernerds (dig the Bride of Frankenstein reference with the names of our two main characters: Clive and Elsa) played by Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody, who secretly make themselves a gene-spliced, mutant test-tube baby.  Bloody hijinks ensue.  As a portrait of hip nerddom, it’s practically unmatched in genre film: our protagonists are self-assured, very ironic, and deeply cool young scientists. (Their car?  An AMC Gremlin.  I rest my case.)  A big part of the fun of Splice is that it’s an alternately scary and hilarious film about new parents. (In this way, it reminds me quite a bit of Joshua, an under-appreciated little psychological horror gem about Manhattan parenting.)  Splice taps into so much complicated energy about new parenting that, at times, the character drama overshadows the horror feature – which is saying an awful lot about the acting chops that Polley and Brody bring to the film, since they’re competing for attention with an amazing monster. I can’t help but mention that “Dren,” the mutant baby who starts off looking a little bit like a turkey but who ends up being an uncanny human-like (but definitely not human) creature, is played to perfection as a child by Abigail Chu and as an adult by Delphine Chanéac.  Thanks in part to these performances, seamless visual effects, and some strong writing, the film blurs the line between anthropomorphic identification and compassion in ways that are very compelling, which makes the blood and mayhem (some of it fun, some of it very painful to watch) of the film that much more effective.

Splice doesn’t quite hit Cronenberg levels of unease, but you’ll feel plenty uneasy by the end.  In fact, one of the strangest accomplishments of Splice is the parenting/psychosexual love triangle that it creates between Clive, Elsa, and Dren.  (This film plays with all sorts of Freudian, gender, and family conventions, and just when the audience is about to point its collective finger at either Clive or Elsa and say, “Ok, that’s really effed up,” the other parent comes along and does something REALLY effed up.)  I don’t want to say anymore, because I just don’t want to spoil a single moment of the film.

But what I found truly exciting about Splice was Elsa.  She’s a driven, accomplished young scientist – and a deeply troubled woman with lots of unresolved issues about motherhood.  Her relentless desire to achieve results is clearly grounded in her traumatic childhood, and her conflicting impulses about Dren are rooted in a need to control.  The psychology of Elsa’s character breaks no new ground in cinema. In many ways, her profile is completely stereotypical. But here’s what’s marvelous: Elsa is a completely realized and powerful woman of science.  We get a lot of Pandora’s boxes in scifi and horror, but they’re rarely made by Pandora herself.  And this Pandora is brought to life by Sarah Polley, who is just a great great great actress.  By the end of the film, we really see Elsa as pretty unhinged, and that’s exactly the point: she’s a mad woman scientist.  And like all mad scientists, she must contend with the results of her scientific hubris. Now THAT is breaking some new ground in cinema.

Splice evokes gender in really interesting ways, too. It exploits our cultural anxiety about intersexed creatures (a long-standing horror convention is hybrid creatures, and sex/gender is a common embodiment of that hybridity) even as it raises issues about how Elsa and Clive “gender” Dren. Splice will be fodder for good feminist critique for a long time.  So, yay.

(Despite the fact that I’m recommending Splice like crazy, I would totally understand if new or expecting parents would want to sit this one out.  Yeah.  Also, I want to give a trigger warning about the film, too.)

This is a compelling premise for a biopic of The Runaways, especially one that derives its primary narrative by contrasting Currie’s experience with that of Joan Jett (Kristin Stewart), who forged a who-the-hell-cares rocker identity grounded largely in butch sexuality.  But despite its potential, the film never quite adds up to the level of sharp insight or critique.

The film is based on Cherie Currie’s tell-all memoir, Neon Angel, but Joan Jett executive produced it.  The two – along with all of the members of the The Runaways – have long had a contentious relationship.  One can only guess that the screenplay is an act of epic compromise, designed to produce a version of real-left events that everyone involved could live with seeing on the big screen.  As a result, the narrative is kind of a hot mess: the timeline of the band is never clear, real events come across as patently unrealistic, and the whole trajectory of the band gets glossed as a cautionary behind-the-music drug tale.  Fanning, in particular, gets saddled with a narrative that’s intended to be deeply sympathetic and moving, but there’s just not that much for her to do.  Too many depressive, swacked-out close-ups of Currie later, we still don’t know a thing about her internal life (or, for that matter, her breakdown) and we wind up blaming Fanning for a bad performance that’s probably not entirely her fault.

The Runaways isn’t a great film, but it does deliver on many fronts.  Kristen Stewart virtually disappears into the character of Joan Jett.  It’s a doozy of a performance.  She even gives Michael Shannon a run for his money, which is saying  something.  As producer/exploiter/legendary super creep Kim Fowley, Shannon turns in a crazy and charismatic performance that pretty much steals the movie away from its female actresses whenever he shares the screen with them.  (I can’t help but feel that it inadvertently rings true to the real-life dynamic being depicted, too.)  One of the key strengths of The Runaways is that it does an excellent job of making you realize that Currie and Jett – along with Sandy West, Lita Ford, and the other band members – were so very young when The Runaways started.  It really was an all-girl band.  In a scene featuring one of the band’s practice sessions, Shannon’s Fowley exclaims, “This is not about women’s lib… this is about women’s libido!”  It’s a statement that underscores the power of what Sigismondi does when she’s at her directorial best: letting The Runaways really rock.  There are several joyful and amazing moments that capture the elation and excitement of the musicians at work/play, and you can’t help but feel that they have actually liberated themselves from all the pressures of the music world to experience their burgeoning adolescent girl libido.  These moments celebrate The Runaways in all of their bad ass-ness; it’s just too bad the film falls flat at telling a good story about the band and exploring the complications and costs of the band’s success.

Unfortunately, the emphasis on Jett and Currie also renders the rest of the band members nearly invisible and, seemingly, dispensable.  This seems particularly criminal in the case of Sandy West, a pioneering female rock drummer who co-founded The Runaways with Joan Jett.  I would love for someone to tell her story – it’s a heartbreaking and moving one. For the time being, I would have settled for The Runaways to pay a decent tribute to her.  Sadly, that tribute never materialized.

Still, here’s the thing: The Runaways is pretty exuberant – even inspiring, at times. Sigismondi, a seasoned music video director, demonstrates a fair bit of awesomeness in her craft.  I hope she lands more work (perhaps next time with someone else’s script).  I also hope that the film emboldens more young women who dream of rocking out.  That would surely be a nice grace note to The Runaway’s important legacy.

I confess that I haven’t done a great deal of publication writing lately.  I’ve been awfully busy with client work. However, I’m always so pleased to be a part of a lot of very important feminist conversations!

Terribly Happy (Frygtelig lykkelig)

Fans of David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, Shirley Jackson stories, and noir-Westerns should definitely get out to see Terribly Happy, Denmark’s Oscar selection.  It’s all kinds of creepy, tense and funny – the kind of mystery that sparks a-ha(!) moments many hours and conversations after you’ve left the theatre.  The film has a lot to say about the suffocating conservatism/weirdness of small communities, who controls the power in them, and mental instability.  I need to see it again.  I want to see it again!  It’s terribly awesome. Also, if I ever got a cat, I would name it Mojn. [Looks like Terribly Happy is going to be remade in English - by the original director.  Let's hope this isn't another The Vanishing...]

Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart belongs to the category of indie films I call “Great Performances in Search of Good Films.”  Jeff Bridges gives a remarkable performance, one that makes the redemptive trajectory of the film almost seem meaningful and deserved.  There’s just not much movie here to help him out.  Maggie Gyllenhaal turns in a solid supporting performance, and nearly sells the romance central to the film, but the real surprise is Colin Farrell, who makes a surprisingly credible country singer.  Robert Duvall turns up, too, nearly stealing the show with his delightful few minutes on screen.  Oh, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Crazy Heart makes the best use of a Waylon Jennings song I’ve seen yet in a film.  Waylon FTW!  (Heck, I guess I did like Crazy Heart all right.)

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Precious is a good film.  It’s a powerful film.  It’s not an amazing film.  Without a doubt, the film was a tough job for its director, and Lee Daniels has done a commendable job of bringing the novel to screen and – most importantly – letting his actors act.  And the acting is truly marvelous – everyone turns in focused, strong, and engaging performances.  There’s been quite a backlash against Precious, and I think there’s an insightful and important dialogue to be had about the criticism of the film as exploitative and damaging.  Ishmael Reed’s recent NYT opt-ed makes a lot of compelling arguments about the film and its reception among white and black audiences.  I think so much of this kind of debate about Precious points to a much larger problem, though: there simply aren’t very many (positive) depictions of African American families on film – or any African American families, for that matter. We don’t see them, and when we do, they are overwhelmingly negative.  As a result, Precious ends up standing in for all films about African American families, and offers to many a pathological, destructive representation of that family life.  We need Precious to be just one of many films, and we need those films to provide many different representations of families. Instead, to Reed’s point, Precious (inadvertently, in my estimation) unfortunately ends up being a de facto representation of African American families that can serve to reinforce racist and classist ideas that many white people still have.  This is an important issue, and I don’t think we should shy away from talking about it.  I think the film is worth seeing, too, and not just to have this conversation, but also to appreciate the strength of its many merits.

And some super short takes from DVD land…

(500) Days of Summer: Joseph Gorden-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are both excellent, and there’s a good bit to love about the first half of this film.  But by the time Gordon-Levitt’s character makes a phoneymoviebalony speech about the phoneyness of greeting cards and becomes a complete whiny jerk, the film has totally become 500 Days of Bummer.  Add to that some dumb voiceovers and an uneven tone, and you end with a perfectly meh film.  But it looks and sounds real pretty.

In the Loop: Saw this in the theatre several months ago, and have been looking forward to seeing it a second time on DVD.  It’s even better the second time around.  Razor sharp writing and directing, amazing acting, and Peter Capaldi slays. In the Loop will not improve your worldview, nor will it make you happy (it has serious serious serious bite) but it will make you laugh.

Extract: Welcome back, Mike Judge!  Extract is one very smart and low-key comedy full of great performances.  Judge has a particular knack for writing surprisingly complicated characters, and he brings his signature brand of loving satire back to Extract.  (Idiocracy was a total misfire, I think.)  Hooray for Kristen Wiig!  And, miracle of all miracles, Ben Affleck is simply great in this film (I find him loathesome across the board).  You know, I think that Mike Judge explores masculinity in some pretty interesting ways in his films and tv shows, and I think he deserves props for how intelligently he thinks about male characters.  Eat your heart out, Judd Apatow.

Angels & Demons: Well, of course I was going to see this film – it’s big budget genreschlock!  And just what do I have to say about it?  Well, it was better than The Da Vinci Code.  That’s something, right?

And then… nothing happened.  Bigelow continued to direct films and television – some exceptional and some engaging-but-kinda-meh – but no wave of women filmmakers followed in her wake. And whenever I found myself talking with someone about women directors (in high school, college, and graduate school) we could always name just a small handful, and then we’d say, “But Kathryn Bigelow – she’s made it!”  In fact, Bigelow has never – EVER – made a major studio movie (yep, including Point Break).  She has always had to pursue independent financing for her projects.  And there have always been long periods of time when she disappeared.  But still, I really wanted and needed to assert that she’d made it. Because, despite all of my optimism, women directors have continued to be a rare commodity.

In 2008 I found out that she had made The Hurt Locker, and I was thrilled. I couldn’t wait to see her take on a war picture.  But I also knew that the film was sitting on a shelf, waiting for distribution.  Waiting and waiting and waiting.  And then it was FINALLY released on a handful of screens in the middle of 2009.  And it was stunning.  I couldn’t believe how gripping, how disciplined, how thoughtful, and how exhausting the film was.  And I worried that despite critical acclaim, Kathryn Bigelow (and The Hurt Locker) would disappear again, invisible to everyone except action junkies and feminist film fans.

And here we are now, at the beginning of 2010, and Bigelow has won the Directors Guild of America award.  The first woman to ever do so.  And she has become only the FOURTH woman to be nominated for a Best Director Oscar.  [Count 'em:  Lina Wertmüller  (1976), Jane Campion (1993) and Sofia Coppola (2003).]  And she’s cleaned up in critics’ circles.

This matters.  This matters so much!  And, of course, it’s totally complicated: Bigelow makes movies that dudes love, while so many other women directors are resigned to chick flicks, especially romantic comedies.  Other talented women directors, indie and major studio alike  - Kelly Reichardt, Lisa Cholodenko, Darnell Martin (who became the first African-American woman to direct a film for a major studio in 1994), Kasi Lemmons, and many more – haven’t been able to gain Bigelow’s credibility or audience draw (see my point above: they don’t make action movies) and often end up on very few screens.  (And then there’s Jane Campion, who makes films that just freak the shit out of men.) And, yes, Bigelow was married to one of Hollywood’s most powerful producer/directors, and is now contending with him for the Best Director Oscar.

But still: HOORAY.  In fact, a big hooray!

But it doesn’t mean that Kathryn Bigelow has made it.  The Hurt Locker is not a commercial success.  Bigelow may not get any major work after this.  And her success doesn’t mean that women have made it in Hollywood.  In fact, things are B-A-D for women in Hollywood, in front of and behind the cameras.  The movie biz is a numbers game, and we need lots and lots more numbers: more women directors, more box office dollars for their movies. There are still precious few women writing and helming films that get any major support – and if their films don’t make a lot of money or if they have a reputation for being irrational and weird, they disappear.  And all the while Joe McHack director gets the next action franchise sequel.  We need more women hacks.

So I’m celebrating, but – seriously – we have a long way to go.  And the only way to get there is to buy more tickets for women’s films.  So, friends, let’s make it a point to get out and support women filmmakers.  It’s the only vote we get in Hollywood.  Let’s make it count!

And, you know, Lee Daniels is only the SECOND African-American director to receive an Oscar nomination.  Spike Lee and John Singleton have both been nominated for screenwriting awards, but only John Singleton has received a directing nomination.  So while I can get excited about Bigelow, I would do a big disservice by glossing over the issue of race in Hollywood here.  I reiterate: I’m celebrating, but we have a long way to go.