the groundhog day project

To counter yesterday 's Katniss Everdeen, we have Ava (Alicia Vikander) in Ex Machina . Literally programmed to be who she is, Ava demonstrates more agency in one film than Katniss does in three... Maybe. There is a point where the "programming" inherent in cinematic characters by the writer and the director and the actor (let's call this LEVEL 2) conflict with the "programming" of the character within the story by her creator, Nathan (Oscar Isaac) (which we'll call LEVEL 1, since we're talking about the film here), and where both of those levels of "programming" conflict with the real-life "programming" that a woman receives from the society around her (LEVEL 3). We'll come back to the issue of programming. First--and this entry will be full of SPOILERS big and small--Nathan's introduction is entirely manipulative of both Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) and the audience. Reclusive tech-genius living in (my personal take) an ...

Mockingjay Part 2 doesn't come out for a week, but today was a Hunger Games day. While grading papers, I've had the original The Hunger Games and then The Hunger Games: Catching Fire playing. Seen those two before, but haven't seen the third one-- The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 --before now. As this one gets going, I must voice my primary complaint with the first two because really, I wish Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) had more to do. The problem--the problem with my problem, that is--is that it would be hard to market a story to young readers (and maybe more so the film based on it) in which the main character kills a bunch of other young people, even if she is forced... In America, at least. I know there are those who call The Hunger Games series a ripoff of Battle Royale , a Japanese manga series (and I believe there's a movie, but I haven't seen it) that is very much about teenagers killing each other. In Japan, you can have that plot more readily wit...

Now, let’s get out of New York. And, be a little less light and happy. The kind of movie that starts with two prostitutes buying some crack on the streets of Hollywood... unless Disney gets their hands on the script and twists it around and around until not only does the lead female—still a prostitute, mind you—no longer has a drug problem and the rich guy picking her up is just asking for directions, not prowling for a replacement girlfriend for the week. What used to be a rather despicable guy picking up a hooker who lists her likes as “hot baths and white rocks,” becomes a meet-cute instead. It’s a little sad. You’d know the movie as Pretty Woman . The original script by Jonathan Lawton was called $3,000 . $3,000 has a fairly straightforward plot, making a serious effort toward a critique of 1980s American capitalism. Pretty Woman drains so much of the darker... I would say realism, but $3,000 is just slight enough that it’s hard to suggest it has real depth. But, whatever...