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Antichrist (2009)
Remarkable, if genuinely baffling
She, in her research for her thesis on "gynocide" reads old philosophies proclaiming women and witches to be evil by nature. They are controlled by their bodies and have no control of their own their bodies, and as she surmised that human nature is in essence evil, the prosecuted women must have been as evil as the men prosecuting them. She takes this somehow to heart, perhaps having lived a life fearing herself to be less good than she would have wanted to believe, evil even. If all women are evil by their natures, then she must be also, and can have no control over it, and thus bears no responsibility for it. It manifests in small ways- her sexual appetite, (even prior to her son's death) her slow and strange mutilation of her son's feet; all things she can revel in as being of the evil nature native to her.
While engaging in the aggressive sexuality she has been playing at, her son dies in an accident. She decides that it was preventable, and that he died because she could not have been bothered to interrupt her pleasure to stop him from falling from the window- suddenly the evil nature she has assigned herself (and all women) has a true consequence for her beyond forcing the wrong shoes onto Nic's feet. It only serves to convince her further that she is evil, and her husband- being the stoic commanding voice of power and reason- decides to "fix" her.
He is arrogant in his belief that he knows best how to treat her, even that she needs treatment. Having experienced frightening and inexplicable things at their cabin, Eden, the previous summer, She is now ascribing all of her fear and panic and guilt to the woods there. She associates her unconscious decision to free herself of moral responsibility with that place and the nature that defines it, and it becomes an all-encompassing phobia for her. He, being again so self-assured that he knows how to fix this, decides that they must go to Eden to face her fear.
I believe Eden here is a literal hell. What they experience when they get to the woods is not mere hallucination but genuine evil that eventually sends them into a shared insanity. She takes on her self-assigned role as the Antichrist, and, having been led to that by Her, he follows in his role as the persecutor. She believes ever more fully that she is evil and must embrace her hedonistic self, and he believes ever more that she is insane, evil by nature, and that he is reason, meant to set her right. Her sexuality becomes more violent and depraved, as she takes less pleasure from it, engaging simply because she believes it to be her bent- almost as though, if her son had to die for her evil, for this aggressive, loveless sexuality, then it must be taken to its full extent to make sense or be for nothing. Each time for her is more painful and more condemning, making her belief more and more irrefutable; she uses sex both as affirmation of her role and as a punishment for the sins she wants to believe she bears no responsibility for.
After she mutilates him in an attempt to free herself of his power over her and her own beliefs He tries eventually to escape, but the hell of Eden, Satan's Church, grows more feverish and encroaches more heavily on their sanity. When he is brought back to the cabin, she tries again for catharsis through sex, tries again to both prove to herself that she is free enough of morality through her inherent nature to simply lust freely even in her despair, and also to cleanse herself of her guilt through the masochism she has attached to the act. She "castrates" herself in an attempt to exorcise the very instrument that allows her the evil nature that she believes caused the death of her son, and to deny herself any of the pleasure it would afford in the future. At this point, her sense of reason is outweighing her belief in the nature of woman, and the dominant desire is for self-punishment.
Eventually though, both fulfill their self-assigned roles, the nature of their belief in the nature of the sexes as wider symbolic entities overcoming their logic or empathy. Eden has fueled their paranoia and obsession, and man kills woman, burning her on the pyre, even though she may not have been guilty of the original sin at hand. (Letting the child die.) The women who close in on him on the hill are the representation of all the victimised over centuries, of the gender as a whole, which is one of the most interesting points I think. People have been saying that this movie simply makes the point that women are guilty of bringing about original sin, of getting man kicked out of Eden, and stands as a thesis to Von Trier's misogyny. I think this scene is what disproves that, and makes the point for the mutually assigned gender roles of persecutor and persecuted, and the self-fulfilling prophecy of their ultimate demise. He is not excused his sins, and the point that these women throughout history have been falsely accused and killed for gender discrimination is not hand-waved.
Yes, She is the Antichrist, but only because she assumed the role and because he decided that he was the saviour.
I Am Legend (2007)
Disappointing...
I had no idea there had been a book before the movie, so I didn't go in expecting the world. Although everyone had been raving about this, I went in expecting nothing more than some above average escapist action, considering the hype. From the moment they try to instill that heavy sense of depth by having Will Smith breath heavily, scared snotless of the badly CGI'ed monsters, they lost me. Reading what I have of the book, it feels like it might not have come across quite as pretentious if it had stuck to the ideas of the book closer, but it went with the most hackneyed apocalypse scenario, and by limiting the potential of the vampires in order to cut him off so completely from any society, they had to find ways around cinematic stumbling blocks they created themselves. This means a lot of predictable fluffing around, a lot of injecting existential angst into the main character, and not much else.
Somehow I was just expecting something a little more original.
The Weather Man (2005)
Well written and acted, but somewhat directionless.
As other users have commented, the marketing for this movie is slightly misleading.
Here you have a man whose job basically consists of smiling for the camera and presented other people's guesses on the weather in a chipper and marketable voice. His whole persona, as the character so aptly puts it, is meant to be 'refreshing', yet off camera he is anything but. Things are thrown at him randomly on the street, by people who simply don't like his face, his predictions or his catchphrases. His ex-wife is getting married to another man, his heavily overweight daughter seems dispassionate about everything, and his 15 year old son has to fend off unwanted advances from a an older counselor.
There is some great black humour here, and the movie is well written. Spritz's dry and sometimes irreverent observations are a great way to offset a very dark- and quite frankly, bleak- movie. But at the end of the day, I have to wonder what this was meant to be about. There are a lot of things it could have been about, but no one clear journey or point. I think that if the quirkiness had been upped a notch, it might have made it a bit more consistent, but not consistent enough. The character, although finding himself trapped in such a sad life, is obviously a good guy, and he does try to connect with his kids and the people around him, and tries to get himself out of the bleak reality he lives in.
Those moments are the ones that save this movie- in particular the one with his dad in the car, where suddenly they find a common thread to cling to, but somehow the bleak and depressing ending doesn't fit the arc. Yes, OK, I get that they didn't want another formula driven Hollywood ending, but just because an ending is bleak and non-conformist doesn't make it the right one for the movie. Everything is so gut wrenchingly sad, that those few bright moments should have been the focal point, so that even a outright unhappy ending wouldn't have felt like such a disappointment.
What I personally would have done is have his dad tell him that he liked his book, so that Spritz could realize that really his pipe-dream for the picture perfect life with his wife and kids wasn't necessarily the only way to be happy. Emphasize how despite his failed attempts to get his daughter interested in archery, he could still make her happy by buying her clothes that made her feel good about herself, and that once again the obvious road isn't always the best. That way, once you get to the end, where he admits that nothing worked out how he had predicted, and that he hadn't had the picture perfect ending he wanted, things weren't hopeless. If they had done something like that, you could still have retained the bittersweet tone of the ending and the rest of the movie. It would not have been formulaic, and it would have jelled a bit better.
That being said, I still thought it was good, better than average, in fact, and the sad moments of it are so beautifully drawn- so I still give this a seven.
Oh, but the American accents by the Brits? Horrible. Truly BAAAAD. Funny how it was the grandfather and the grandson- apparently bad accents skip a generation.
Loverboy (2005)
A commendable effort
A very fanciful film about a woman who grew up without parents (for all intents and purposes) and who is abandoned by the only maternal figure in her life, (the neighbor) who grows up to be an obsessive and controlling mother who's entire world revolves around her little boy. He is home-schooled and kept from any other kids his own age, his mother wanting desperately for him to stay not only her little boy, but also her best friend, forever. Through many flashbacks (all done in a very rosy colored lens and 'artistic' camera movements) we learn how strange and lonely her childhood was, by way of being an excuse for how she turned out.
All in all, this movie had potential. It's an interesting, if not groundbreaking, concept, with a cast that should at least peak your interest. Once you get into the movie, you immediately notice that Kevin decided that this would be an 'Art Movie', going for the over-reaching yet badly executed camera work and over uses his color filters and softening lenses. Although built on a good premise, the movie never gives you the incentive to get involved with the characters, and there is little to no development. It lacks the meat you want in an art movie, and the charm you expect from an out-of-mainstream flick.
My impression? It's not dismal, because it's never extreme enough for that. It gives the impression that it was directed by a first-time to Hollywood director, who called in a few favors cast wise. Not worth it.