race/gender/science fiction - movie

large blue men with fin ears = future enslavers of the human race

dreamfall17 — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:26:19 +0000

So, I watched a bit of this movie the other day, a 1973 French cartoon called La Planete Sauvage. I only saw part of it because I got super creeped out by it, but the part that I did see was very reminiscent of Lilith's Brood to me. Humans are toyed with, what it is to be human is questioned, superior and uncaring aliens screw around with human lives, the whole bit.

I think you can find most of it dubbed over into English on youtube. Watch it if you want to feel like you are on hard drugs.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070544/maindetails

barbarella as feminist?

dreamfall17 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 09:00:35 +0000

As I said before, I think Barbarella rocks. Also, I found it to be suprisingly feminist, considering - well, considering everything. On the surface it's pretty wonderful in its unselfconscious exploitation of Fonda's sexuality, but its underlying concepts are much more subversive.

Think about it. The guy that sticks around the longest in the film, and the closest thing the film has to a male protagonist. He's far from being the standard hero type; actually he's pretty useless. He walks into walls and just stands around until Barbarella shouts directions at him, which he quickly obeys before lapsing back into passivity. She thanks him for saving her life in the appropriately breathless damsel-in-distress fashion, but it's pretty clear to the audience that he was little more than an extra set of appendages.

In addition, Barbarella wastes a lot of time repeatedly rescuing him. She returns to Pygar his power of flight and tells the evil tyrant to 'decrucify the angel or I'll MELT YOUR FACE,' among other things. He never really redeems himself. True, he flies Barbarella into and out of the tyrant's liar, but the way Barbarella asks, the viewer gets the impression that he's just the quickest and cheapest mode of transportation and she could find another way if she REALLY wanted. He acts as little more than motivation for the main character.

With any strong male character there to hijack the movie from her, Barbarella is the undisputed star of the show. Yes, she sleeps with pretty much every (post-puberty) male character she encounters, but she does it without really being sexual at all. Men beg to sleep with her, and if it's in her best interests, she shrugs cheerily and says okay. Sex isn't taboo, dangerous, or shameful at all for her, so she has no resigned, defeated air of a woman with no other options - no 'weeping vrgin' stereotype. And though she often sleeps with men as a means to an end, neither does she destroy them as do exoticised 'black widow' character types.

Though the movie has distinctly pornographic overtones, it is difficult to really place Barbarella (the character, though not Jane Fonda the actress) in a traditional position of desire. There is no thrill of excitement, danger, or taboo with her, and it's much harder to desire and lust over a sure thing.

barbarella barbarella

dreamfall17 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:43:33 +0000

omg, barbarella has just become my favorite movie ever. I say that with no irony whatsoever. the pill sex scene ~1:05:00?? AMAZING! I want my hair to curl and my hand to smoke like that.

AND I want to be able to smoke essence of man..

god, hollywood sucks at life.

dreamfall17 — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:32:47 +0000

Given that this was the first week the book and the movie could be so directly contrasted, the differences between literary and Hollywood conceptions of what makes a good story really struck me. My generalized conclusion: Hollywood is SO LAME!

In the book, I found the widespread tendency toward inaction especially disturbing, but also the most relevant to today. Some things Offred said â€“ 'I took too much for granted; I trusted fate, back then,' for example, or 'We lived by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at itâ€¦' â€“ struck me as very true and real (27, 53). Laziness, or apathy, or ignoring, is a pretty powerful force. It seems almost plausible that the country would allow a force to slowly gather power as the population ignored it until it was too late, when it would slip fairly quietly into control.

Laziness is not an enemy that translates very well onto the screen, though, so the movie changes it up, and destroys much of the story's power in the process. That a country as populous as the United States could be subdued purely by military force, which is what seemed implied by the movie, is so much more unlikely (and therefore distant and safe to its audience). Atwood constructs a scenario that one could see actually occurring; the movie is just a movie.

For one thing, most people do not seem too pleased with the new arrangement; the second scene in particular depicts a forced subduing. They are reminiscent of film portrayals of Nazi Germany, with soldiers corralling the undesirables into trains and trucks like cattle (as oh-so-subtle truck with the crossed-out label 'livestock' points out) and carting them off to certain death. The book distances itself from such disturbing scenes, making it easier for the reader to slip into the same apathy that Offred does.

In addition, the people fight what is happening to them â€“ they make the soldiers shove them around, they try to escape, they resist, instead of just standing around as this new totalitarian regime is built around them. Throughout the movie, there are references to the ongoing war that indicate a more widespread discontent and organized resistance than the book. Not only are the rebels powerful enough to disrupt fruit shipments from California and Florida, the handmaids know about it.

In the movie, Kate (she has a name! an independent identity!) is quite a bit more feisty, as well. She is not submissive â€“ at least any more than so many Hollywood leading ladies are. She challenges the commander, falls into an affair with Nick at an absurd speed, and even helps Moira bind and gag Aunt Lydia when Moira escapes. She is a Hollywood hero â€“ she takes risks, stands out, does what others are too cowardly to. Atwood's Offred admits she does nothing and is reduced to reveling in the power she has, '[the] power of a dog bone, passive but there' (30).

The movie gives her much more motivation to resist. For one thing, there is still a sense of community among the characters; they do not exist in their own little bubbles of fear and isolation. In the book, Offred does not trust anyone, fearing Nick to be an Eye and saying of Rita, 'Why tempt her friendship?' (15). Kate has to fear only the soldiers and the government they represent. Just as powerful, but at least she knows who they are. They don't hide as handmaids, wives, or drivers.

Additionally, the Offred of the book can describe the Ceremony scenes with an almost clinical distance. 'Below [my skirt] the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my bodyâ€¦rape [doesn't] cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed on for' (121). The Ceremony of the film reads much more like a rape scene, with Kate crying loudly though most of the first one, and the Commander is sort of a lecherous old man â€“ easy to hate him.

In the film, her life is bad enough, and her motivation (finding her daughter) strong enough that NOT acting seems inconceivable. The book's Offred is not in a living hell so much as in a vaguely unpleasant place, and the risks of leaving it are much too high. Inaction is much easier, and it's a pretty steep and short slope from inaction to apathy to acceptance. Atwood's world is a much scarier, and much realer, place. Hollywood cannot deal with anything less than five steps removed from reality.

Perhaps the film isn't totally ridiculous...

dreamfall17 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:20:57 +0000

Robert Heinlein is not overly concerned with subtlety. Perhaps fearful of some particularly dense reader missing his unmitigated support of the military, big government and capital punishment, Heinlein places only the thinnest of sci-fi veils over his long-winded political monologues. This does not make it a bad read â€“ the plot is still compelling â€“ but when I reach the scenes of History and Moral Philosophy classes, I do want to throw something at him, as roseblack says. This future world in which Johnny Rico operates has indeed been radically altered. The military has risen in power and influence, technological advances are responsible for major military and social changes, and the increased globalization of Terra has resulted in cultural assimilation. The film version, while truly atrocious when taken seriously, takes on a new and deeper meaning when read as an oppositional text.
As Heinlein portrays it, Rico's society is near perfect, or at least a great improvement on our own. The new style of democracy "insure[s] that all who wield it [the vote] accept the ultimate in social responsibilityâ€¦to wager his own lifeâ€¦to save the life of the state" (184). The Federation of the film, however, has definite fascist tendencies; they control voting rights, reproductive rights, and the media. Significant segments are viewed through the Federation's media channel, heavily laden with World War II style propaganda and an almost sadistic celebration of executions and gore. An authoritative male voice narrates, and in one advertisement asks "Want to know more?" over the sound of a crowd cheering at a death sentence. They seem more to be hallmarks of a dystopia than a perfected society.
The main character, Juan Rico, is renamed John Rico in the film, the actor's blonde hair and blue eyes stereotypically Anglo. It underlines the loss of ethnic and cultural diversity in Starship Troopers, something that Heinlein glosses over or even celebrates in his writing. In the book, Rico is from Buenos Aires but is still an English speaker. He is part of the social elite, one of the richest of his peers, part of the hegemonic order that clearly adheres to a Western patriarchal society's ideals. Globalization has destroyed all other culture's values. The film highlights this in its transformation of Rico, indicating his adherence to our social order. Further underlining this Western hegemony is the only Hispanic in the movie, a fellow member of boot camp who admits he is only in the military because his family does not have enough money to send him to Harvard, placing him in the same lower classes than the current stereotyped image of Hispanics today. Religion, pretty much the most powerful divider throughout human history, has only the slightest presence in the book, meriting only a passing mention in the beginning that the same Catholic priest is sufficient for "Moslems, Christians, Gnostics, Jewsâ€¦"(4). Even religion does not really matter anymore.
A final stake to the heart of the book is in the film's battle scenes. Heinlein's military is at its peak of efficiency and power. The M.I. are superhuman, well-trained killing machines. In appearance, the film's soldiers are barely different from today's; the only improvement seems to be the increased presence of nuclear weapons, which are more just big bombs than the ultimate in death and destruction. Soldiers run in disorderly swarms across the screen, firing indiscriminately, and poorly, in the general direction of the Bugs before beating a hasty, and often cowardly, retreat. They come across as badly trained and just plain unequipped to deal with a threat, rather than the book's depiction of a dominant fighting force that has finally met its match in the Bugs.

The only thing to do with a 'cult favorite': SEQUEL!

dreamfall17 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 06:00:17 +0000

Because in Hollywood-speak, 'a horrible movie' is called a 'cult favorite' and sequels rule the universe, Sony Pictures in 2004 put out 'Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation', a 'rapid-fire sequel to the cult favorite, [in which] the Federation's best Mobile Infantry unit goes back into action against the Bug horde.' A straight-to-DVD masterpiece!
And, according to imdb, they're making a THIRD one starring the original Johnny. Really? Really?

The bad photoshopped poster is worth a visit.
http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/starshiptroopers2heroofthefederati...

WTF, Paul Verhoeven.

dreamfall17 — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:56:19 +0000

I am currently 4 minutes and 15 seconds into the movie Starship troopers, and I am absolutely sure that is has the worst opening sequence I have ever witnessed. Perhaps it is because I just recently saw Cloverfield, which went a little too far down the documentary/shaky-cam road, but the little sequence 'on the battlefield' was RIDICULOUS. Let's even put aside the fact that a trained soldier continues to talk to the camera even though a Bug has (not sneakily at all) come around the corner and is about to snatch the soldier up in his semi-CGI, animatronic-looking maw. Let's put aside the fact that the soldier takes time to shout over the sound of gunfire and comment, in melodramatic terms, on the aesthetics of the planet he's landed on. We are evidently supposed to believe that the camera is being held by someone on the news crew, unarmed. SO WHAT IS HE DOING?? The Bug comes roaring around a rock and bites a few soldiers in half, and he just stands there, evidently intelligent enough to aim the camera into the action but not intelligent enough to remove himself to a safer location (namely not one within arm's-length of the Bug). He also has the steadiest hand I have ever seen, capable of smoothly swinging from Bug to shouting soldiers and back again. He can apparently do this even while running; perhaps this is why he appears to be moving no faster than a brisk trot. Once this faceless, brainless camera man has been put out of his misery by the Bug, his camera falls to the ground, allowing Rico to crawl toward it, his blindingly white teeth clenched prettily in pain and his eyes still open slightly, as if he is checking to make sure that he is still in frame so his bravery can be appropriately documented.
I believe that came out more like a rant than I intended. I apologize. Please look to 'to whitewash or not to whitewash' for a more measured and rational example of my response to Starship Troopers.