Reality Bites: In Defense of Kick-Ass

This post is not a review, but rather a more analytical piece in response to some of the debate surrounding Kick-Ass.  It does contain spoilers.  You have been warned.

If you're even remotely interested in film or comics then you're probably well-aware that this weekend sees the release of Kick-Ass, the highly-anticipated (in geek circles) adaptation of Mark Millar's graphic novel of the same name.  Marketed as a deconstruction of the superhero genre in the same vein as Watchmen, Kick-Ass follows superpower-less high schooler Dave Lezewski who decides to dress up and fight crime since... well, somebody has to do it.  He teams up with a wealthy ex-cop named Big Daddy and his daughter Hit Girl and attempts to take on the city's bad guys, often with mixed results.

Kick-Ass has been causing quite a stir in critical circles.  Roger Ebert found it morally reprehensible.  Many have criticized its use of extreme violence involving minors.  Others have argued it promotes the sexual abuse of children.  Moral arguments aside, some have claimed that it fails as a satire, that it’s hypocritical in its deconstruction of a genre, and that it’s all style with no substance.  While all of these concerns are certainly valid, and I can see the evidence for each of them, I can’t help but think they’re ultimately missing what the film is offering.  After the first viewing, I might have agreed with some of them.  But after seeing it a second time, I think there’s more going on beneath the surface of Kick-Ass than first meets the eye.  In fact, I'm convinced Kick-Ass is downright progressive, due largely in part to three factors: its portrayal of women, its critique of mass media and the internet, and its honesty about why people consume films and comics.

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EssaysAndrew JohnsonHit Girl, Kick-Ass, Matthew Vaughn, Red Mist, controversy, feminismComment
SXSW 2010 Review: Serbian Film

I haven't been posting much lately due to the fact that I have been extremely busy prepping and participating in the 2010 South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas.  You can find all that coverage, in audio form, over at MovieChatter (that is, as soon as we overcome our technical difficulties and are able to post it).  This is simply a written review of one film I saw during my time there.  If I'm taking the time to write about it, it's probably noteworthy.

When the closing credits of Serbian Film began to roll, I could only sit paralyzed with my mouth drooping slightly and my eyes glazed over as I processed what I had just seen.  My brain seemed unable to produce any sort of coherent thought, let alone come up with an answer to the question of what to do next.  How should I respond?  I spent the remainder of the evening not wanting to say much to anybody, preferring to sit in silence and attempt to figure out... something, I'm not sure what. I wanted to cry. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to have sex.  I wanted to castrate myself. And I wanted all of these things equally.  At some point during the climactic scene, I realized that I was a living example of the phrase "physically shaken," my arms and legs spasming like some sort of micro-seizure.  It would not be an exaggeration to say I was reduced to a quivering mess of a man; Serbian Film chewed me up and spat me out, and that was that.

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ReviewsAndrew JohnsonRadivojevic, Serbian Film, Spasojevic, porn, review, sex, violence Comments
Review: A Single Man (2009)

"I wanted this not to be a gay story or a straight story but to be a human story." --Tom Ford

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I don’t really care much about fashion.  It’s just not one of those things I find to be interesting or important.  I hear the word “Prada” and the first thing I think of is Meryl Streep.  But despite my complete and utter ignorance about this element of Western culture, I wasn’t surprised to learn that A Single Man director Tom Ford is the former creative director of Gucci and now runs his own fashion label.  Who else would be able to combine framing, color and design into such memorable imagery?

Indeed, even if you walk away from Ford’s directorial debut feeling let down by the overall product, it can’t be denied that the man has a gift for the aesthetic.  The film is set in the early 1960s and follows George Falconer (Colin Firth), a gay university professor struggling to cope with the death of his partner Jim (Matthew Goode).  It’s been eight months since the fatal car crash, and George has decided that he can’t take the grief anymore.  Today will be his last day before committing suicide.  It’s a bleak premise, and the cinematography acts as a visual representation of George’s spirit.

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ReviewsAndrew JohnsonA Single Man, Colin Firth, Tom Ford, homosexualityComment
The Year's Best: The Broadway Melody (1929)

The Year's Best is a continual feature at The Kuleshov Effect.  In these posts, I take a detailed and chronological look at films declared the “Best Picture” of a particular year by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.  These posts are not intended as discussions of whether or not these films “deserved” to win.  Rather, they are simply my musings and thoughts on what are supposedly the cream of the crop of American cinema.

Title: The Broadway Melody
Director: Harry Beaumont
Starring: Bessie Love, Anita Page, Charles King

Oh, the late 1920s.  It was a time of change for Hollywood.  Film studios were still transitioning into the sound era – the technology was not yet perfected, and most theaters were still not equipped for audio, meaning that most films had to be shot and edited for both “talkie” and silent versions.  It was in this context that MGM began producing films in what would come to be its most popular and well-known genre: the musical.  The Broadway Melody was released in 1929 and was a critical and commercial success, grossing a record $4 million at the box-office and going on to become the second winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. 

Unfortunately, though it’s considered the “grand-daddy of musicals,” The Broadway Melody is a pretty mediocre film by today’s standards.  It’s clear that Hollywood was struggling to adapt to the new sound technology.  Microphone range and placement limited camera placement.  Actresses who were stars in the silent era were frequently unable to adapt to the new style of acting, and those who were often faded from the limelight after the public didn’t like their voices.  The Broadway Melody carries the scars of an industry confronted with rapidly-changing technology: stiff acting, a formulaic script, and bland cinematography.

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The Year's BestAndrew JohnsonHarry Beaumont, The Broadway Melody, musicalComment
Review: Tape (2001)

"You think I'm a dick?"
"Uh, no.  But I do know that occasionally you have a tendency to act in a phallic fashion."
--Tape

Few films I’ve seen recently have left as much of an impression on me as Richard Linklater’s Tape.  Despite being a fan of a great deal of Linklater’s work, I was apprehensive about sitting through a film built around what might at first seem like a cheap gimmick: the entire thing takes place in a single room.  Linklater has been successful with his character-driven pieces in the past, but his experiments don’t always pan out the way one might hope – A Scanner Darkly, which involved a unique process of rotoscoping animation over the actors, was a dismal experience from start to finish.  And before you start sending me hate mail, yes, I’m aware Linklater first used the effect in Waking Life, but I have yet to see that film and can only hope that it fared better than its successor.

Released in 2001, Tape is a micro-budget film shot on digital video – it looks like Linklater went out and bought a camcorder at Best Buy and decided to shoot a movie.  Based on a play written by Stephen Belber and sent to Linklater by frequent collaborator Ethan Hawke, Tape takes place in a single hotel room.  There are three characters.  It’s a simple set-up, with not much in the way of what mainstream viewers would call “action.”  Like many of the films in Linklater’s oeuvre, most notably the Before Sunrise/Before Sunset duology, this is a film that relies first and foremost on dialogue.

If that sounds boring to you, don’t worry: Tape is absolutely riveting.

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ReviewsAndrew JohnsonEthan Hawke, Richard Linklater, TapeComment
Review: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

It’s official: Guy Ritchie can still make a good movie.

Sherlock Holmes isn’t as memorable as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, but it’s a fun time in the theater and that’s all I was really looking for.  From the very beginning, it’s clear that Ritchie knows how to handle a big-budget blockbuster: the costumes are lavish, the architecture is ornate, and the set design screams “19th Century London.”  The script and art direction perfectly capture the Age of Enlightenment, from the wheels and cogs of the Industrial Revolution to the extreme emphasis on rationalism and the mistrust of religion. 

But this isn’t your grandfather’s Sherlock Holmes.  This is a Holmes who seems to enjoy beating people up as much as proving he’s smarter than they are.  He frequents bare-knuckle boxing arenas (complete with Ritchie’s trademark slow-mo fistfights), takes on henchmen twice his size, and doesn’t think twice about leaping out of tall buildings.  This is a Holmes with balls as big as his brains, the kind of detective a 21st-century audience can get behind.  Ritchie directs the action set-pieces with a frenetic energy that feels exciting without being disorienting.  While there’s quick-cutting galore, there’s no shaky-cam to distract from the geography of the scene, and as a result Sherlock Holmes is at the very least a fun romp through back-alley London.

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ReviewsAndrew JohnsonGuy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr., Sherlock HolmesComment
The Hitchcock Files: Blackmail (1929)

The Hitchcock Files is a continual feature at The Kuleshov Effect.  In these posts, I take a detailed and chronological look at the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock.  It should be noted that this series does not include his early silent films, though these are probably noteworthy in their own right.

“A good, clean, honest whack over the head with a brick is one thing.  There’s something British about that.  But knives… nope, knives is not right.  I must say that’s what I think and that’s what I feel.  Whatever the provocation I could never use a knife.  Now mind you a knife is a difficult thing to handle… knife… knife… knife…” –Blackmail

If there’s one thing that can be said about Alfred Hitchcock, it’s that he was an innovator.  He first worked in the motion picture industry as a title card designer, and was so good at it he was directing silent features within five years.  Over the next five decades he would radically influence the art of filmmaking and be known as the ultimate “master of suspense.”  Through his habit of having a cameo in each of his films, appearing in marketing materials, and hosting his own television show (Alfred Hitchcock Presents), he would become one of the few film directors everyday citizens could easily recognize.   Though he never won an Academy Award for Directing, if there was a Top 10 list for Best Directors of All Time, he’d be on it. 

Even though I love the few Hitchcock films I’ve seen, and am fully aware of his larger-than-life reputation, I wasn’t expecting much when I sat down to watch his first sound film – one of the first European talkies – Blackmail.  Released in the summer of 1929, it had only been a year-and-a-half since Warner Bros. had premiered The Jazz Singer in the United States, which signaled the sound revolution.  That film, while accompanied by recorded score and a few sound effects, only had a few scenes in which sound was recorded live on set, and most of them were musical numbers.  I expected much of the same from Blackmail.

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The Hitchcock FilesAndrew JohnsonBlackmail, HitchcockComment
Ouch, My Balls! The Philosophy of Crank: High Voltage

Crank: High Voltage is a visceral experience.  It is so insane, so perverse, so racist and misogynistic, that it can only be one of two things.  It's either one of the most despicable pieces of garbage ever filmed, or it’s actually an incredibly self-aware piece of subversive satire.  This is a film that has been dismissed by critics as a fun B-level action flick at best, and a morally offensive junkyard at worst.  But I think there’s a certain level of intelligence running through Crank 2’s orgy of debauchery.  In fact, I would go as far to say that this is a film that’s going to be studied in film classes years from now, not as any sort of “classic” by any stretch of the imagination, but as a piece of quasi-avant-garde filmmaking that had its finger on the pulse of a generation.

I recently re-watched Crank: High Voltage with my parents, both of whom loathed the film and found it to be borderline pornographic in its depiction of women and violence.  My mother said it was like a fantasy for white Southern “bubbas.”  She’s absolutely right.  Take the stereotypical image of a white trash, politically conservative male – the kind who idolizes guns, frequents strip clubs and still uses the n-word – and give that guy a video camera.  This is probably what you’d end up with.

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EssaysAndrew JohnsonCrank, chev chelios, jason stathan, masculinity, sexism Comments
The Year's Best: Wings (1927)
The Year's Best is a continual feature at The Kuleshov Effect.  In these posts, I take a detailed and chronological look at films declared the “Best Picture” of a particular year by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.  These posts are not intended as discussions of whether or not these films “deserved” to win.  Rather, they are simply my musings and thoughts on what are supposedly the cream of the crop of American cinema.

Title: Wings
Director: William A. Wellman
Starring: Clara Bow, Richard Arlen, Charles "Buddy" Rogers
Wings was released in August of 1927, when Hollywood was still transitioning into the sound era – it is the only silent film to win top prize the Academy Awards.  During the first Academy Award ceremony, Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans won the statue for Most Artistic Quality of Production, while Wings received the Oscar for Best Overall Production.  The two categories would be combined into one award, Best Production (the precursor to Best Picture) the following year.
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The Year's BestAndrew JohnsonBest Picture, Oscar, Roaring Twenties, WingsComment