The Woman (Lucky Mckee, 2011)

In 2002, Lucky Mckee unleashed May. A concentrated blast of modern social discomfort and disquieted rage at the traditional female roles and portrayals, it's one of the most under rated and under appreciated films of it's generation. We've seen the awkward outcast story done with male protagonists thousands of times, but May takes a unique look at it from a female perspective and has some incredibly interesting things to say, while being a deeply compelling, startlingly intelligent film. Angela Bettis embodies the title character with all of her quirks and ticks in a way that is less about being showy and trying to gain acclaim for her talent than it is about making May human. It's not available for streaming on Netflix currently, but it is available as a streaming rental on Amazon. Click here and go watch it now if you haven't seen it, you won't be disappointed.

Zero Sum Controversy

2012 had it's fair share of controversy spilling out of the film press and into the more mainstream news. The Dark Knight Rises was lambasted as both a communist plot to indoctrinate youths and inspire them to overthrow the wealthy and as a propaganda tool of the 1% in an attempt to convince the pleebs that they actually have our best interests at heart. Both things could or could not be true. Overall, the film got sucked into a larger social/political discussion that I don't think it meant to include itself in. I think the fact that the script was finished almost two years prior to going into production supports that. Also, it's a movie about a guy running around at night dressed up like a bat and beating people to a pulp with his bare hands, another guy who sounded like Sean Connery if he'd had a few too many highballs and someone slipped him a tab of acid, and a woman dressed up like a cat caught between the two. No matter how I might feel about how well or poorly made the film might be on it's own merits, it's hard for me to take away any serious political content from it. I do take it as a good sign that virtually no one read their tea leaves to mean that the shooting that happened in Aurora Colorado during a midnight screening was somehow the fault of the film, the film makers or anyone else involved with the film. Take small miracles where you can get them when it comes to acts of maturity by our politically motivated brethren.

Now comes Zero Dark Thirty. The clashing of my worlds is happening yet again. I can't read the film press without some screed either defending or defiling the film based on whether or not the writer feels the film did or did not defend the use of torture. Let me be clear here, I have yet to see the film, and I honestly have no interest in weighing in on that debate in part for that reason and in part because I find the tenor of the entire discussion pretty ridiculous. I also can't turn from the film press to what is generally considered more "substantial news" and escape the ridiculousness of it either. Suddenly, the same discussion is popping up in places that normally couldn't care any less about film or what is happening on screens nation wide or world wide. Somehow, no matter which side a particular journalist comes down on, I want to bang my head on my desk or stick a pen in my ear.