Ah, the awesome, it burns! In a GOOD way!

So, for years, people  (at least three of them: Gin, Vlad & Me) have been asking “Just once, can we get a movie where the hicks are the GOOD guys and the pretty/urbane/privileged sorts are the cannibal/wierdo/inbred/psycho freaks?”  And for eons untold we have been denied.  Plenty of flicks- from “Deliverance” to “Wrong Turn” have it the other way around, but just once, can we not see the reverse?

Now, in television, we have already seen a bit of this- case in point:  Daryl Dixon on Walking Dead.  Who is not a particularly cuddly fellow; he starts off as hostile/back woods/racist/volatile as they come…but, for those who have watched the show…well, the  Zombie Apocalypse has caused Daryl to rethink a few things, evolve in some ways.  We can see he has developed some respect and even, well, not sure Daryl likes anyone, but he seems to not hate Glen (the Korean-American character) and just last night in the Season 2 Opener, he saved T-Dog (a black character) twice, and we have seen him working with both of them well- a few times…so actual Good Guy potential for Mr. Dixon…and face it, when the Zombies do come, you want that guy on your side.  He might be highstrung and lack in social skills, but dude knows how to waste some Zombies…

However, while Daryl is one of my two favs on “Walking Dead” (the other is Glen), he does fall prey to so many of the typical stereotypes of characters of his ilk.  And hell, admittedly, I have a couple stories filled with characters who fall prey to those same stereotypes- big time.  And while there is hope for Daryl (after all,the  Zombie Apocalypse will change a person), I still found myself searching for THAT movie/show, the one where, well, yeah, the hicks are not the bad guys and the non-hicks are….

And guess what?  It’s out there!  On Friday Vlad, who had been thrilled when he found it, introduced me to “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil”.  About 10 minutes into it I emailed Gin, who then also watched it (fuck yeah, on demand kicks ass)…and why yes, in “Tucker and Dale vs Evil”, our wishes were granted! A film of the black comedy ilk, this flick is…well…just awesome.  Everything a cheesy yet funny black comedy spoofing fun at horror movies and set in West Virginia should be, but with the awesome twist that the hicks are not the evil, psycho, cannibal freaks but well, just some guys who get thrown into a crazy weekend in the woods where they are the victims of some crazy, psycho….college kids.  And while it has some violence and gore…well, “Walking Dead” makes it look like a cartoon in that aspect, hell “Supernatural” is way more gross.  I absolutely recommend “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” to everyone, but especially Rootie…

See this movie.  If you like it half as much as I did, its worth the rental fee!

And will inspire you to take care of your bowling fingers!

Things I am findin’ kinda awesome at the moment…

One, I gotta say, since I shut down the old joint I have really noted who has kinda stayed around because well, holy crap, I am more than the sum of my former bloggy goodness…and its kinda cool because who reads here is kind of a diverse bunch, I like that.  And yeah, I was happy to see AntiPrincess pop up and comment (heya AP, how you been?)  Need more Kim thou…never enough Kim in blogland.  But yah, digging the diversity of folk around this blog these days.

Other things of note worthy diggness:  Have y’all seen the movie “Winter’s Bone”?  If not, I cannot recommend it enough.  I really, really liked it, in so much that I plan to own it, and probably read the book it was adapted from.  There were a million different things that I liked about this film, from the music to the style of film to the characters, but something I was very impressed with was…aside from the lead character being a pretty tough cookie, and a young woman…the whole cast?  Real Looking People.  None of this glammed up Hollywood BS where the actress playing our decidedly NOT glamorous lead had to be hawt and made up and perfect, all of the actors in this flick, every single one of them…looked like a real person.  They fit the story.  This thrilled me beyond words.  So yeah, see this movie, the God Emperor of Rome Commands It! 

And speaking of the non-glam Win of “Winter’s Bone”, Joan Kelly has a post up that I love more than…well, okay, no…there are very few things on this earth I love more than biscuits and gravy…but well, I like it a whole lot.    One, anyone who actually manages to quit smoking has tons more willpower than I, and two…its a good post.  I really, truly, honestly myself do not care if, how, or when various women do or do not engage in femininity in all its various forms.  I honestly think there are women who absolutely enjoy it, and those who absolutely hate it and do it only because they have too, and some who sometimes feel both those ways about it depending on time or reasons…but sure enough, I do not think for a second that it something that women are not encouraged, pushed, guided, heck, even forced into, and I sure as heck do think there are consequences for non-compliance…from outright aggression and ridicule to, well, being rendered invisible to…well…everyone.

It’s also a subject I personally have very mixed feelings on.  I think it is stupid that it is forced on women and they are so harshly judged due to compliance or non compliance.  I think it is flat out disgusting that things like “sexy clothes” and make up and diets and nail/hair salons and stuff are pushed onto girl children at a mind-blowingly young age.  IMHO, there is NO dang reason that young girls need micro mini skirts and super low rise skinny jeans, or sparkly glitter lipstick, or appointments to get their hair highlighted, or any of that shit…and it is all out there and happening  (I mean, heaven for fend girl kids just get to be kids for awhile before they have to worry about being pretty and hot and skinny and perfect and having a boyfriend and shit like that…grumble).  I know how absolutely horrible teenage girls can be to each other over everything…and at that age, so many girls end up with so many issues because they are being picked on for being too heavy, or not pretty enough, or having boobs that are too small or too big , or not having the latest trendy clothes, make up and hair styles, and well, just about every other dang thing you can imagine. …

Yet, I also know how much easier a great many things can be for you if you are considered conventionally attractive or pretty or hawt or whatever.  I know because I have, and always have had, thin privilege that my life is easier for it…and totally true and honest?  You know what…I’ve not much ever feared getting grey hair, or some wrinkles, or having scars (good thing, eh?), or a bunch of other things…but I have- since I was aware enough to notice- feared ever being overweight.  Why?  Because I have seen how heavy people, esp, women, are treated and talked about.  And it sucks.  I also dang well know that…aw screw all the long explanations and stuff:  consider my job.  It pays to be seen as attractive.  literally.  Conforming to the heels, thin, make up and long hair and femmey femme fem stuff makes life a shit ton easier a whole heck of a lot of time.

And growing up I missed the worst of it I think because one: thin, two: tom boy, three: couldn’t afford any of the trendy fashiony popular pretty girl shit anyway, so I never even had the chance to get caught up in that rat race bs teenager shit.  Thank God, I think.  But be that as it may…

No one gets outta the forced femmy machine unscathed.  I may ignore a lot of it these days;  I rarely wear make up (but you know, I do think I look better when I do), my hair..well, shit, its lucky if it gets washed once a week, let alone preened over very often, I generally dress like one of those spooky backwoods militia people (but I do dress up sometimes, and have several pairs of heels, and a ton of sexxxxay stuff), and you know what?  While I might scare people in my general civilian wardrobe…I absolutely and without a doubt get treated better when I am Girled-Up…by both men and women alike  (unless of course, I look er, slutty, then the guys might be nice and chatty, but the gals can get mean and catty).  And I admit without shame but with absolute knowledge that it wasn’t my original idea that I shave/wax.  Obsessively.  Now, since I have been doing it for so long I actually feel uncomfortable if I do not, and have developed such an aversion to body hair that I don’t just do the normal woman deal (legs, pits, womanly bits, eyebrows, whatever), hell, I wax my dang forearms and shit…but I wonder if I never had, or if it was not what women did, if I would be bothered by body hair at all?  And see, that right there, that’s the killer of it all right there:  Women have hair.  On places other than their heads.  It is natural.  It is the way they are made.  Body hair is about as real, full on womanly woman as you get.  Just like sweat, periods,wrinkles that come with nature, gravity having its way with breasts, grey hair, morning breath, acne or dry skin, scars, stretch marks, and everything else that goes on with women…a lot of which goes on with men too….but Being Feminine?  Hell, that means lying about being a woman and what goes on with us naturally and hiding all that natural shit under make up and hair dye and perfume and brazilian waxes  (which, btw, that shit hurts).

But a lot of us do it.  Sometimes. Full time.  Whatever.  Why?  Because it makes us feel better.  Why?  Because then we get noticed, or fit in…or at least are not as often singled out for ridicule…and I cannot nor will not ever blame someone for wanting to avoid that shit.  But is sure as shit ain’t fair.  Might not even be sane.  I sure as shit bet most dudes wouldn’t do it.  The one great truth however is that being feminine has shit all to do with being a woman.

Wow, that actually turned into a post…I can dig that too.

Television and Movie Tough Gals…

So, Gin has a post up that, amid other things, touches on a subject near and dear to my heart…which is Television and Movie Tough Gals.  I mean it’s noooo secret I love strong women

Fiona, Current Queen of the Tough Gals!

characters, so yep, sure enough, when I watch TV or movies, I like to see them…however, I want them to be…believable, and all to often, they simply aren’t.  Yes, there are good ones, in TV and movies past and present, some that spring to mind right away are Fiona from Burn Notice, Ziva on NCIS, Sarah on Chuck, Annie on Chase (who is actually a bit over the top), Olivia on L&O SVU, Gina Torres as ANYONE she has ever played (Zoe on Firefly, Cleopatra, forget her name on Hercules) Ripley from The Alien Series (esp. the later movies), Vasquez from Aliens (the actress who played her also played other tough gals in Near Dark and Lethal Weapon 3), Lorna from the Lethal Weapon movies, and, of course, the often mentioned Linda Hamilton from T2 (I would also add Major Houlihan from MASH, a tough gal of a different sort)…and oh damn, the gal who did the guest spot on Leverage as the Other Team’s version of Elliot Spencer (hottest fight scene ever!)  And what is it that makes these tough gals awesome IMHO as compared to, oh, the gals in the current incarnation of Nikita, or either of the Catwomans, or Zoe Saldana in The Losers, or Angelina Jolie in Wanted (not so much in some of her other films), or Silk Spectre 2 in Watchmen, or tons and tons and tons of other movie and TV tough gals?

They are believable in the parts!  The way they look, the way their fight scenes are choreographed, the weapons and tactics they use…well, heck, they work as badasses!  It works, it flows, as a viewer, you think “hey, that could work!”  The actors playing the characters possess a physicality which makes their badassness believable.  The directors have them using moves and fighting styles that work for them.  Even Fiona of Burn Notice- who is a petite, slim (very buff) gal- well, the way they do her badassness- it works!  Which is awesome, because I can tell you, other times, it does not.  In the Losers, I was really sitting there going “There is no damn way, no matter how drunk he is, that Zoe Saldana’s character would be able to kick the crap out of Jeffery Dean Morgan’s character…no way”-let alone hold a rocket launcher steady to get off a shot like that.  In Wanted I was fairly certain that a very, very, very skinny Angelina Jolie would not actually be able to run a block, much less as much running she did in the film at such..velocity, let alone even pick up half the guns she was using.  And yes, sometimes, due to the nature of the character, you can have a hot, supermodel skinny actress play a bad ass (Meg and Ruby from Supernatural come to mind) because well, they aren’t…fully human.  Any actress can play a vampire or alien or whatever and be a badass, because, well, they are “special”, but even then..I really do like it when the gals playing tough gals are believable at it.

Angela Basset in Strange Days

I remember how just amazingly pleased I was with the two tough gals in the film Strange Days, played by Angela Basset and Louise LeCavalier…because you know, they both LOOKED the part.  These were two women characters you did not want angry or coming after you- both were professionals Basset’s

LeCavalier in Strange Days

 character a bodyguard and mother, LeCavalier’s character (a bit part, but there none the less) a hired thug and club crawler.  And sure enough, both of them kick some butt…and look like they could!

And you know what else I pay a lot of attention to when determining a tv or movie tough gal?  The ones who are good?  They will pull their hair (if it is long) up or back when they are knowingly about to get in a fight or go to work- where as the sexxxay ones won’t because hey, it’s not as hot, and more times than not?  Unbelievable tough gals…well, they run, shoot, fight, kill, kick ass, all that…in six inch heels.  I even have noticed in some movies the sexxxay female tough gal walks into the scene in crazy heels, but in the fight, when she is actually doing the movies, magically, they are flats!  (ahem, Watchmen, Batman Returns).  HAHAHAHAH.

(oh, and for anyone who has ever worn it, no way in hell someone can actually do cool ass karate and stuff in…full tight ass vinyl).

So yeah, let’s hear it for good, believable TV and Movie tough gals!

A movie you must see…

This Film is Not Yet Rated-

Brought to us by Kirby Dick, This Film is Not Yet Rated is a documentary about the MMPA and its rating system…and heh, not something to watch with wee ones in the room, but…one hell of an interesting film that asks a whole lot of questions I too have asked about the film rating system in the US for a long, long time…

Now make no mistake, I am a fan of movies.  Especially action movies.  With lots of guns and shit blowing up and psychotic fight scenes and all kinds of violent crap.  I admit this freely.  However, I have often wondered, even whilst I enjoy everything from cop to serial killer to war to apocalypse to all kinds of action movies, why is it that- oh, you can shoot, maim, dismemeber, stab, axe murder, chainsaw, blow up, curb stomp…someone in a film and you get the money-making “R”, but hey, you show people having realistic looking sex, not even porn sex, but sex, or oh, sex between non hetro people, or non traditional sex or what ever else and BOOM, NC-17.   Hummmm….

Kirby talks to several folk who’ve recieved NC-17′s for their films, films that range from “Boys Don’t Cry” to “American Psycho”, and discuss what it was that earned them the profit killing rating, and there is also much discussion about what can be shown and can’t…and yeah, a personal peeve comes up- how you can show a brutal rape in a movie (The Accused, Strange Days, countless other films) but if a woman character in movie has realistic looking orgasm or biological reaction, or of it is non hetero or “non traditional” sex -even between characters that are loving partners…often…NC-17.  He also delves deeply into the serious wall of secrecy that surrounds the Ratings Committee of the MMPA and the serious no chance in hell that directors have of getting films out there unless they edit and butcher them to the MMPA’s ratings squad’s liking.  I found it amusing that while the rating committee is supposedly made up of “normal American parents”  with childrend between the ages of 5 and 17, many of them live in multi million dollar homes and have  children in their 20′s and 30′s.  Also interesting how the whole process and those invovled are protected better than the dang Pentagon. 

And the private investigators Dick hires…awesome.

So yeah, if you’ve ever wondered WTF the MMPA Ratings Board is thinking- see this flick.

In other news- I’m back.

So, I spent today…

Feeling kinda crappy with a stomach thing, so I flaked out on the couch and watched movies with heavily armed degenerates blowing shit up all day.

It was pretty awesome.  Any afternoon I can spend with Mr. Soot, The Tremors, “The Surgeon” and that whole merry crew when I have to be sick?  Well, better than just being sick.

So yeah, I have watched “Smokin’ Aces II:  Assassins Ball” twice now.  Once last eve with Vlad and once today…and while cheesy and all…I’ll admit, I enjoyed it.  I really do like Vinny Jones and parts of it were pretty damn funny (if you’re twisted like that).  Tom Berringer is also pretty good in it.

Movie: The Book of Eli

So, yesterday I saw the Hughes Brothers/Warner film The Book of Eli.  This is one of those films that as soon as I saw the commercial I was all “Oh, I am seeing that movie!”-  Post-Apocalyptic?  Denzel Washington?  Gary Oldman?  A yep,  I am there…

So sure enough, yesterday I was there. 

The set up for the film is pretty common for the genre:  It’s 30-something years after the world has been decimated by (presumably) nuclear war, civilization has collapsed, resources we take for granted (like water) are scarce, some folk have resorted to cannibalism, and Eli (Denzel)  is, well, a man with a mission from God.  He is in possession of the last copy of the Bible on Earth and it is his destiny to take it west.   However, there is another fellow out there (who like Denzel is apparently one of the last people on earth who remembers how to read) who wants that Bible.  That fellow would be Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman- God and King of a small town that has sprung up in the middle of nowhere.  He (of course) rules by fear and due to the fact that…well….he knows and controls where some drinkable water is.

‘Course it’s just a matter of time before these two run afoul of each other…

Filmed in a very gritty almost black and white style- with an impressive budget and good soundtrack, I gotta say “The Book of Eli” is a good, but very strange movie.   It’s not quite an action flick (while there is a lot of action in it), and while tremendously brutal- it is not without a hopeful message and moving moments.  Denzel Washington is good as the stoic, almost old west feeling Eli, who is not inclined to do violence unless provoked, who generally prefers to keep to himself and his own task unless he has to do otherwise (and yeah, you know he gets provoked and has to do otherwise…)

And he is seen doing a great many things one does not think about having to do if they survived the apocalypse:  Eating cat, being thrilled with a good, solid pair of boots he removed from a corpse, oiling up his skin to keep it from blistering, scavenging through a car- complete with a skeleton- for anything that might be of use- bartering away useful and prized possessions for water, washing up with foraged wet-naps…and of course kicking the asses of people who attempt to steal his prized possession…the thing which he must take west- a big leather-bound copy of the bible.

Gary Oldman is also good, I mean, hell, a skeevy, sleazy,would be dictator of what is left of civilization who is obsessed with getting his hands on a bible?  This is what Gary Oldman does.  And yep, he does it well.  You want to kick his ass as a viewer. 

The movie also stars Mila Kunis (that 70′s Show) as Solaris- and while she is not really necessary to the story IMHO, she adds for some flavor as the brave young woman who was born after the war, cannot read, and wants to learn about life different from what she knows. 

But as I said, this is a strange movie.  It is absolutely a tale about good and evil, it absolutely has religious overtones, and is a strange mix of action, drama, character study, bleak, grim film making  and a look at what humanity might just be like should the apocalypse come.

I liked the movie, but I will say this:  It does contain some graphic violence, and seemingly like all post apocalyptic movies, more than one scene that will remind female viewers of just how much it would suck to survive after the end of the world (read- not one, not two, but three attempted/completed rape scenes- not graphic, but violent and shaking enough).    So keep that in mind if you decide to see “The Book of Eli”.

Bonus points however for the prevalence of blast goggles in this film.