After my curiousity about it a while ago, Sony was kind enough to put "Ginger Snaps" in her Netflix queue, and we watched it a few weeks ago. I have to say, I was pleased. Getting the negative out of the way, I think it's a bit of a shame that "Ginger Snaps" didn't escape the apparent rule of horror movies that, no matter what came before, the climax of the movie must involve a twitchy, hold-your-breath, beast-popping-out-of-shadows chase/fight that resolves by an accident of physical circumstance. That stands out as a miss, though, because up until that point the movie plays more as an incredibly amped-up character study between the two sisters.
Yes, there are moments of physical repulsion. The opening credits show a little kid discovering the ravaged corpse of the family dog, and at that point I was sure I'd gotten myself into something I'd seriously regret.
On the whole, though, the movie is not gratuitous with its violence. Only three people die in the movie (or four, depending on how you define 'person'), and none of them die cheap deaths just to illustrate the danger of the werewolf. Each death is personalized and illustrates something about the broken relationship between the two sisters. All in all, I got the feeling that Ginger had already decided to walk much further down the road of despair and destruction than her sister, even before the supernatural intruded into their lives. As far as meaningful cinema goes, it's no "Boys Don't Cry", but I could hold my breath through the violence to appreciate an interesting illustration of why company is not always the best approach to misery.
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"Frida" did not impress us. This may be partly because Nadya had studied Frida Kahlo's biography and was commenting on which things were being made pretty for the movie. It is a pretty movie, with some very nice animation/effects work (including a bit by The Brothers Quay) that pays stylistic tribute to Kahlo's paintings. Overall, though, it felt like a highlights reel, jumping from one picturesque/dramatic high point to the next, almost like a trailer for an actual life.
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We rented "Leon: The Professional" on the strength of glowing recommendations from friends, neighbors, Movielens, and the local video store. Hmm. "It's about a hit man? How brutal is it?" we ask. "Oh, not very," says our deceitful neighbor, smiling. Remember a few paragraphs back, I talked about how each death in "Ginger Snaps" is personalized? Well, "Leon" is pretty much the opposite -- the only reason anyone dies in this movie is to show how dangerous and [ cool | evil ] a character is -- and going by that count, these people must be very [ cool | evil ] indeed. The villain is so gratuitously, laughably crazy that the movie loses whatever unifying focus it could have had about power and those who abuse it. Interspersed with the murder and mayhem are some scenes of screwball comedy which felt totally inappropriate and not particularly played for that dissonance, just cute scenes between a teddy-bear hit man and his surrogate daughter. All of which is really too bad, because Natalie Portman does some incredible acting, deftly infusing with irony the 'passive' in 'passive aggressive' -- I would never have believed it after seeing the Star Wars prequels.
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A few years ago, as I was watching "Being John Malkovich", I kept thinking to myself, "this is clearly the kind of movie I would like -- why am I disliking it so much?" I think sometime between then and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", Charlie Kaufman discovered how to love the damaged characters he writes or found a director who knew how to love them the way he loves them or something, because the latter movie is one of the most mentally stimulating and emotionally bracing movies I've seen in a long time. I think it takes real courage and skill to write characters' confrontations with the facts that they are in some way broken and that no happiness is ever unmixed, while still doing a great deal of honor to the value in each person and each bond between people. I don't think "Being John Malkovich" even tried to understand the 'value' part. "Eternal Sunshine" has all that and the best execution of and justification for dream-logic sequences I've ever seen.
Major honor to Susan, who talked this movie up to me despite my Kaufman-skepticism. Now I want to know when Kaufman's movies got good. "Human Behavior" is directed by the same person as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", so I might try that one next.
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By serendipity, we found that the local PBS station was running the entirety of "Anne of Avonlea" (mysteriously re-titled "Anne of Green Gables: the Sequel") back-to-back the other night, and we caught it almost from the beginning. It's amazing to me how the distinctive musical theme from the "Anne of Green Gables" miniserieseses can still make me a little misty-eyed, some 20-ish years after the first one aired. I guess that's what one's formative years are all about. This one had the unexpected bonus of featuring two members of the Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley and Bruce McCulloch) in small-but-notable parts. (Anne: Do you dance as well as you boast? Dave Foley: Better!) It seemed so... profane, somehow. I kept expecting McCulloch to break into the "These Are the Daves I Know" song, or maybe the "Doors Fan" monologue.
