Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Stands in the loves ZERO EFFECT corner with Kathy and beej.
I own the DVD proudly (MALICE too, but somewhat less proudly).
Loved STATE & MAIN (or was it MAINE?) - really must get a copy of that. Rebecca Pidgeon's character on children (she plays a grade school teacher): Never much saw the point of them.
Okay, I'm probably one of the most liberal people out there, particularly when it comes to First Amendment rights, and double particularly (way good grammar!) when it comes to those rights and filmmaking, but I saw a bilboard for this movie today at the corner of Hollywood and Vermont, and I'm incredibly offended.
Basically the bilboard was a four panel story board with the captions "Abduction, Confinement, Torture, Termination." each with a picture of a woman (presumably star Elisha Cuthbert) in each of those four states. Basically a storyboard for the ritualized sexual torture and murder of this woman.
Seriously vile.
Basically the bilboard was a four panel story board with the captions "Abduction, Confinement, Torture, Termination." each with a picture of a woman (presumably star Elisha Cuthbert) in each of those four states. Basically a storyboard for the ritualized sexual torture and murder of this woman.
Odd. It's by Roland Joffe who did THE KILLING FIELDS and THE MISSION. The snarky part of me wants to say that he wants revenge for everyone who watched the first 3 seasons of 24, but I'd hope there was more going on than it looks like.
OTOH, he also directed that gawdawful Demi Moore SCARLET LETTER, so maybe he's just embraced his inner hack.
Actually, what little information there is about the film on the IMDb listing for it makes it sound like an interesting movie. For the moment it seems like it's just the billboard that is an extremely piss-poor and offensive marketing scheme.
a storyboard for the ritualized sexual torture and murder of this woman
What about it says sexual? I've seen the billboard, and that didn't occur to me. But it was a quick view.
What about it says sexual?
In the first three frames, the woman is looking directly at "you," typically close up on her eyes, and given a degree of beauty or sexuality (degrading from frame to frame as her circumstances become more dire). The final frame, for "termination," has her corpse draped in a sort of sexual pose.
In the first three frames, the woman is looking directly at "you," typically close up on her eyes, and given a degree of beauty or sexuality (degrading from frame to frame as her circumstances become more dire). The final frame, for "termination," has her corpse draped in a sort of sexual pose.
I looked at it again about half an hour ago, and given that the woman is going to be pretty (as would a man have been in the same situation), how would having no eye contact make her less sexual? How is her prettiness supposed to not degrade from frame to frame--I mean, if she became more sexual, I'd think the billboard hella skeevy.
And I feel a bit square, but I don't see anything sexual about her final position.
This looks degradingly sexual. This way more so. And even I can see the sex in this.
The billboard is not just way less sexual to me than those posters--don't get me wrong. I didn't find those until just now. I think the billboard a pretty woman in peril, but, man, one of her eyes gets removed. It's just peril peril to me.
I looked at it again about half an hour ago, and given that the woman is going to be pretty (as would a man have been in the same situation), how would having no eye contact make her less sexual? How is her prettiness supposed to not degrade from frame to frame--I mean, if she became more sexual, I'd think the billboard hella skeevy.
Let me clarify.
By sexual violence, I was sort of specifically referring to the fact that it's probably going to be a man doing the violence. And the violence is being done to her in part because she's a woman. It was that aspect of the billboard that bothered me.
And the violence is being done to her in part because she's a woman.
From the movie description, that doesn't seem so, though. I totally get why the chick's on the poster (you don't cast Elisha for her chops) because that's salacious and vulnerable and all that crap, but I see that as gender-based as much as sexual (if that makes sense--woman as weak and to be protected, not so much woman as shaggee). The movie description makes it seem more even, and then talks about the...yeah, I don't think it's gross, but I don't find myself wanting to type it because it's dumb. It's on the IMDB page, anyway.
