humor

Vag Magazine

mandy — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:00:00 +0000

I didn’t think it was even figuratively possible to shoot yourself in the foot while disappearing up your own behind, but the characters in Vag Magazine have proven otherwise. This eerily well-observed sketch show from the women of the Upright Citizens Brigade is watchable and rewatchable by third wave feminists and those who love them—or who love to laugh at them—especially since every episode is available on the web.

The six-episode, internet-based series of shorts shows what happens when a trendy, glossy women's magazine is taken over by a group of hardcore third wave feminists who revamp it by firing all but one staff person then change its name to Vag Magazine. The newly minted mag is a hipster-heavy haven of hypocritical hilarity that describes itself as such: "Not your grandma's feminist magazine, though we support her as a woman."

I have to admit that, as the editor of a comedic zine about menstruation, I was terrified Vag Magazine would have me crying instead of cracking up. And I'm relieved to report that the show is really very funny. The humor is devised from improvisation at its finest. The overall concept covered all my pet peeves about feminism, an ideology to which I subscribe, despite the kind of annoying behaviour on display in Vag Magazine. I offer the following dialogue as evidence.

Hierarchical Hypocrisy: "We don’t believe in hierarchies, but we also don’t have time to get our own coffee."

Capitalist Conundrum: "I feel like the idea of advertisers is really un-feminist." Swiftly followed by, "It's just that we need advertising dollars if we’re gonna be able to tell women what to do."

The biting observations are dead-on, down to the last detail: roller derby, cloth maxipads, ironic bunting. The writers leave no handmade, vegan, Zapatista-solidarity stone unturned. You’ve gotta be in that scene, or very near to it, to be able to poke so much fun in such glorious detail, and to my satisfied delight.

How did these awesome comedians have time to spy on self-righteous feminists and put together an outstanding sketch comedy show? Perhaps a future season of Vag Magazine will tell us.

Written by: Chella Quint, April 16th 2011

WTF? Women: How to Survive 101 of the Worst F*#-ing Situations With the Ladies

gita — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Jodi Miller, Gregory Bergman

Adams Media

The first time I flipped through this book, I felt like throwing it in the trash. The humor is crude and the tone misogynistic. But then I sat down and read it more carefully (not that it necessarily requires a careful reading). And I discovered that reading it was a lot like watching the performance of a stand-up comedian. Turns out that's not coincidental, since the creator of the WTF? series actually is a stand-up comedian out of LA, as is his co-author.

I'm not a man-hating feminist. But if I took this book seriously, I'd probably turn into one. Men aren't exactly depicted in the most flattering light. Fortunately, you don't have to take it seriously. And if you're an adolescent boy I think you would find it hilarious.

The 101 situations that are depicted in this book progress through the life cycle of a relationship: from being too shy to approach girls to what to do about sex if you're a senior citizen. After each situation is described, the reader is given several options to choose from for how to deal with it. For instance, #15 is “Dating a Virgin” and the options are: 1) embrace it; 2) run; and 3) sell her because virgins are in demand.

I think there's a lot of honesty in this book about how men do feel about women. But there's also a lot of satire, exaggeration and just plain poor taste. The vocabulary used comes right out of a porn film. If I give the authors the benefit of the doubt, I would characterize the book as a tongue-in-cheek look at male-female interactions. I would even go so far as to say that it says a lot (beneath the jokes) about how clueless and frustrated men are when it comes to the opposite sex. But for those who don't have a sense of humor, it's going to come across as a manual for how to treat women like bitches and sex objects.

That's why you should be careful who you buy this book for. It would be great as a gag gift at a bachelor's party, or as an addition to your bathroom library. But I would definitely hide it from your mother.

Written by: Ellen Keim, March 12th 2011

Freak Nation: A Field Guide to 101 of the Most Odd, Extreme, and Outrageous American Subcultures

gwen — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Kate Stevens

Adams Media

As the subheading states, Freak Nation is truly a field guide to American subcultures. Its format presents each group as if it were a species of bird in a bird-watching guide. For instance, you can learn where they are typically found, what their most distinctive trait is, and how to recognize one in “the wild.” Much of this humorous book plays upon stereotypes and pokes generous fun at these subcultures and what makes them so, well, fascinating.

The subcultures are divided into the following categories: collectibles, fashion, art, food and drink, lifestyles, music, sports and games, pastimes and careers, politics, sex, society, and technology. It’s a bit difficult to determine what criteria the author used in selecting these categories and deciding whish group should be placed in each. I would argue that a great many of them would fall under the general heading of lifestyle. The entire “food and drink” section, for example, certainly qualifies as a lifestyle (i.e., vegans, macrobioticists, etc.). “Pastimes and careers” is another general heading that could include all of the sports players and fans, as well as the tattoo artists and slam poets. Qualms about categorizations aside, a great many of Stevens’ vivid descriptions had me guffawing and thinking of friends and acquaintances that perfectly fit into the various stereotypes.

Although many of these groups were already familiar to me, there were a few that were completely new or foreign to me. For instance, I had never heard of Bilderbergers, or major political and business figures from the U.S. and Europe that meet for an annual hush-hush conference. I was also unfamiliar with Bennies, who are apparently people that spend their summers at New Jersey beaches. The name BENNY is an acronym of the places from which these people hail: Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark, and New York. Even if you do already know all about these various subcultures and groups, this book still makes for a fun, tongue-in-cheek guide to some of the more extreme and adventurous members of our society.

Written by: Shana Mattson, February 26th 2011

Adult Child of Hippies

andrea — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Willow Yamauchi

Insomniac Press

The cover of Adult Child of Hippies is priceless. For anyone who started out life in the 1960s or 1970s, a version of this photograph of a mostly-naked, preadolescent girl sporting a flower in her mouth probably exists in the family album.

Willow Yamauchi is banking on the fact that the rest of the book will resonate with readers just as strongly. A funny, inspired work in the vein of Jeff Foxworthy’s You Might be a Redneck…, Yamauchi’s humor will help you come to terms with whether or not you were raised by wolves... er, hippies. Each page contains a simple phrase such as “You breast-fed until grade school.” The facing page has a vintage photograph of a real-life flower-child to bring back memories.

There are 144 statements for the reader to identify with, become horrified by, or both. There is extra credit available. For example, you get one point for noting that you practiced yoga daily as a child, but you get a bonus point if your family did it while naked. At the end of the book is a breakdown of scores and the author’s tongue-in-cheek assessment of just how far you’ve distanced yourself from your hippie roots.

I found myself laughing out loud many times as I made my way through the book and it will definitely occupy a place on my bookshelf that is easy to find so that when I have other “flower children” over for dinner we can thumb through it and relive our childhoods. Even if you don’t think you were a child of hippies, Willow Yamauchi’s book might give you a reason to treat the rest of us with a little more compassion in light of what we had to endure growing up during the Woodstock Era.

Written by: Kari O’Driscoll, February 13th 2011

Literary Readings: Jonathan Franzen and Lorrie Moore (11/13/2010)

mandy — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 08:00:00 +0000

92nd Street Y

New York, New York

In the deeply downtrodden, recession smashed state that the publishing industry is in, and in a culture in which few people seem to have the attention span to read an entire novel (much less one nearly 600 pages long), it seemed unlikely that America would ever crown yet another Great American Novelist. However, Jonathan Franzen has been given such a title by many media outlets, some of which showed a photo of President Obama carrying Franzen's latest work, Freedom. Franzen’s readings across the country have lead to lines around the block, giving life to a dying industry. But all of the fawning and attention directed at Franzen has lead some writers, like Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner, to wonder if writing by men is automatically taken more seriously than writing by women, who are often written off as "chick lit" or left to play second fiddle.

This question seemed to be in the air at the opening of the 92nd Street Y’s talk with Lorrie Moore and Jonathan Franzen. Despite being a well known and prolific writer, Moore was the first to read, and functioned much like the opening act at a concert, warming up the crowd for the headliner. She even made a joke out of the situation, choosing to begin by reciting the lines: “Opening acts,/opening acts/I’m not a girl complaining,/I’m just facing facts.” Moore then launched into singing part of the song “We Shall Overcome,” poking fun at her underdog status.

While the majority of the attendees seemed to be there for Franzen, Moore managed to solicit more laughs in the end with her warm, laid back nature as she read from her novel A Gate at the Stairs. Franzen’s reading of his recent, critically lauded Freedom was, by comparison, a bit hurried and self-conscious. He did not stop to pause over the language and coy jokes the way Moore did as she languidly hovered over the lines in her story that drew the most laughter. This caused her work to come across as more humorous than Frazen’s, though they both implanted plenty of wry observation into their respective works.

Both authors chose to read passages that depicted women naively giving all of themselves to men who do not love them quite as much as they assume, with Moore’s being from the woman’s point of view and Franzen from the man’s. The similarity of their two plots made it seem as though they were reading two sides of the same story.

Following the reading, a moderator took questions from the audience. One audience member questioned whether there was a connection between being from the Midwest and writing humorously. Moore responded that perhaps it is the result of the terrible weather in the Midwest, and that they have to find ways to amuse themselves. Franzed added that “those who can leave the Midwest must have mastered one coping skill, such as flight,” and Moore noted that perhaps humor is another of those coping skills.

During the course of the evening, Moore’s warmth and Franzen’s self-consciousness showed that, unlike stars of other artistic mediums, those of the literary realm are much more grounded, even when endless lines of fans wait in rapt anticipation for them to autograph their newly purchased books.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, November 25th 2010

Four Lions

beth — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 21:33:00 +0000

Directed by Chris Morris

Drafthouse Films

Four Lions, produced and directed by Chris Morris, satirizes terrorists and the response to terrorism in modern Britain. Every character is flawed and every person is spoofed. No one is spared; police, politicians, local working stiffs, neighborhood religious fanatics, and the floozie next door are lampooned with great one-liners and riotous insults. This may sound insensitive, but the humor does not obscure hard issues. Rather, it makes them approachable: you’ll likely want to talk about this funny and unexpectedly sad film after seeing it.

The film’s strength is in offering a point of view that for most is simply unthinkable and unsympathetic: the perspective of four British Muslims who attempt jihad and plot suicide bombings. Morris’s incompetent and conflicted would-be martyrs are mostly likable oafs, the gang that couldn’t shoot straight, as if Harold and Kumar waged jihad under the tutelage of Twitter’s Al Qaeda. This sympathetic perspective is most disturbing as each meets his violent end, sometimes regretfully. The humor makes discussion possible.

I was deeply curious to see this film because I wondered whether the balance of humor and serious issues could be applied to this topic. I’m not convinced that such satire would work with more nuanced matters than suicide bombers or topics that are not thoroughly polarized. Polarization made Citizen Ruth work, but the difficulties presented by more subtle issues may be the reason that humor is rarely used to promote discussion. It’s not easy to be funny or enlightening, and to do so at the same time seems near impossible when talking about something, well, serious.

While Four Lions is a great discussion tool, it is less successful as entertainment. It’s funny, and the characters are always engaging, but the story wanders a bit because it’s both satire and buddy movie, and these elements do not entirely work together. The film does not have universal appeal. That said, the biggest downside is that you may never get rid of the earworm “Dancing in the Moonlight” after the movie ends.

Written by: Melissa Ditmore, November 5th 2010

Cho Dependent Tour (9/23/2010)

mandy — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Margaret Cho

Anaheim, California

Margaret Cho's hour-long set at The Grove began with a story about her recent experiences as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars that parlayed into a story about using a vocal coach from American Idol while touring in support of her newly released album Cho Dependent. Apparently her vocal coach made her drink shots of olive oil when she developed a sore throat, and as a result, Cho suffered from uncontrollable flatulence and diarrhea. This was a reoccurring theme of the night (I actually wasn’t aware Cho had such a penchant for poop jokes), and while I spent half of Cho’s act loving her intensely and laughing out loud, the other half I found myself wondering if she’d lost her edge.

Shitty stories aside, I’m convinced that Cho and I have the potential to be best friends. During her set I learned that we have many of the same concerns (like who will fuck us when we’re old) and interests (e.g., gay men and the American south). I’m considering a move to the south, in fact, but one of my biggest concerns is the lack of multicultural and LGBT communities, two things that are vital to my happiness here in Los Angeles. Cho touched on the south many times, as her Lifetime show Drop Dead Diva is filmed in a small suburb of Atlanta where Cho now spends a great deal of her time. Besides picking up a southern boyfriend with a massive dick (her words, not mine), she’s made a few gay friends as well.

Cho revealed that while living in Georgia she’s encountered many people who feel the need to share their opinions about homosexuality with her, a majority claiming it’s in opposition to their religious beliefs. She says her standard response to this and other statements made by close-minded folks has become, “Well, fuck you then.” I mean, really, when no amount of philosophizing or arguing will get through, what else are you able to say?

Sexuality is always a major part of Cho's performances, and as always, I applaud her candor. At the Anaheim show she expressed her love of the now-defunct Craigslist casual encounters ads, and joked about her many sexual conquests, her desire to be fucking well into her seventies, and her recent attempts at having a baby with a drag queen sperm donor. (Maybe that last one wasn't a joke?)

While listening to Cho, a woman who seemed so badass and ballsy when I was younger, I realized that the forty-one-year-old comedian may very well be less edgy. Although she may be more apt to discuss topics pertinent to her changing lifestyle, her mainstream success, and her audience’s changing demographics, Cho's biting social commentary, brazen sexuality, and championing of the LGBT community will always be enough to keep me coming back for more.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, October 6th 2010

Jack Goes Boating

mandy — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Directed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Overture Films, Anchor Bay Entertainment

I had no idea that Phillip Seymour Hoffman had such a devoted fan base. Yeah, he won Oscars for his work in Capote and Doubt and he did liven up overrated stinkers like The Talented Mr. Ripley and Magnolia. Still, I was shocked by how many people streamed into the theatre to see his directorial debut, Jack Goes Boating. Nearly all the chairs in the 600-seat space were filled.

Adapted from Bob Glaudini’s play of the same name, Jack Goes Boating revolves around the doings (or, more accurately, not-doings and undoings) of a group of forty-somethings in New York City. The movie opens with limo drivers Clyde (John Ortiz) and Jack (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) discussing Jack’s upcoming blind date with Connie (Amy Ryan), the co-worker of Clyde’s wife, Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega).

Connie and Jack are sad sacks, having only their jobs and their relationships with their co-workers cum friends to give their lives any type of purpose. Although Connie and Jack are anxious about romance, the two feel an attraction to each other and embark on a snail’s pace courtship. Jack decides to learn how to swim so he can take Connie on a boat ride the coming summer. (The film begins at the cusp of winter.)

Clyde and Lucy’s long-term marriage is slowly disintegrating under the pressures of sexual betrayal, resentment, and boredom. Lucy is quietly ambitious, railing against her husband’s inertia. Clyde attempts to please her by half-heartedly attending business school. Clyde and Lucy distract themselves from their own unhappiness by coaching Jack and Connie's newly forming relationship.

The four inhabit an urban landscape that is strangely devoid of noise, excitement, or other people. This could have been intentional, a subtle way of depicting the isolation of its characters, but it is an iffy creative choice, forcing the audience to focus exclusively on characters who aren’t fully developed.

The film has other flaws as well. While many of the sly jokes in Jack Goes Boating hit the mark, its glacial pace undercuts the film's overall effectiveness. It takes too long to reap the meager payoff and, like many movies that are based on plays, has entirely too much dialogue.

Jack Goes Boating grated on me for political reasons, too. A woman who is willing to ask for more, Lucy is depicted in a quasi-villainous manner, as she’s the one who breaks the tenuous bond of the foursome. The scene where Connie requests to be “overpowered” by Jack before they have sex wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I hadn’t seen the bloody aftermath of her victimization by a subway pervert earlier in the film… or watched her boss touch her in a highly questionable manner. (Is Glaudini suggesting that some women invite victimization?) And the fact that Lucy and Clyde re-enact the workplace sexual harassment in an impromptu sex game left a bad taste in my mouth.

I did enjoy Jack’s visualization and cooking sequences, though. Exquisitely scored, they have a haunting beauty to them. I also appreciated the defiantly downbeat depiction of a fortyish single woman. Connie is anything but Carrie Bradshaw, and Jack Goes Boating avoids being even remotely similar to a rom-com cliché.

All told, Jack Goes Boating is a grown-folks movie. It doesn’t have a feel good vibe, despite its relatively happy ending, and anyone in search of light fare should skip this thinking person’s romantic comedy.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, September 18th 2010

Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir

mandy — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

By Sonya Huber

University of Nebraska Press

If you suspect that your experiences alone put the hell in healthcare, then Cover Me by Sonya Huber is the memoir for you. By the age of thirty-three, Huber had already endured eleven gaps in healthcare coverage, and had also been sent to collections for medical debt multiple times. She became an expert at scavenging for alternatives and at squeezing every drop of blood from the recalcitrant turnip that is the US healthcare system.

Cover Me is a moving portrait of how access to healthcare determines who is a “have” and who a “have not” and in Huber’s hands, the issues surrounding healthcare reform become clear and relatable. Improbably, given the toll the struggles exact, the author is also very funny, telling her stressful tale with an irrepressible sense of humor.

Huber began her adult employment journey as an idealistic labor activist and became a university professor. At one point, she held down three jobs at once, none of which offered healthcare benefits. The pressure to find affordable healthcare ballooned exponentially as Huber went from single working woman, to wedding a man who was also a healthcare "have not," to becoming a mother.

But even as a single woman, the challenge of good health was daunting. Diagnosed with a disabling panic disorder, Huber was forced to scrounge for low cost medical clinics and sliding scale arrangements, at one point even bartering office cleaning services for therapy. She was often left to rely on two of the universe’s most unstable forces: luck and the kindness of others. At times, sympathetic doctors offered free pharmaceutical samples and dentists forgave their fees. But there were consequences, many of which could be filed under “you get what you pay for,” or more accurately, “you get what you are able to pay for.”

As a wife and mother, Huber’s determination grew even grittier. Schlepping her infant son through the frozen Ohio tundra to register for WIC and Medicaid benefits, and expertly working the phones to correct inevitable and near catastrophic bureaucratic errors, Huber became a master of resourcefulness and tenacity. Even during a rare stretch when Huber had coverage through an HMO, she found it to be Dungeons-and-Dragons-esque, requiring the right "passwords" to gain entry. (The passwords being properly worded referrals and appeals, and an intimate familiarity with the policy’s fine print.) If it’s true that insurance companies spew gobbledygook and denials to weed out folks who lack perseverance, they never counted on someone like Huber.

Huber’s Odyssean journey through the American healthcare system throws the institution's inequities and ironies into stark relief. She describes working for a nonprofit whose mission is to provide low income workers with health insurance; however, in a stunning revelation of either outrageous hypocrisy or business-as-usual in fund-strapped nonprofits, that same organization was unwilling to provide Huber with healthcare coverage. Meanwhile, Huber’s boss, who had stellar insurance through her prominent surgeon husband, could brandish her benefits card and blithely obtain top care. Reading this, you will be tempted to hurl the book against the nearest wall, but you won’t because you’ll be too riveted to let go.

Huber’s story will resonate with anyone who has ever battled a medical bureaucracy. That is, with everybody in America. Her refusal to say “uncle” will inspire, and along the way, readers may even pick up invaluable tips on navigating the labyrinthine depths of both public and private healthcare. There is also a twist at the end that makes university bureaucracy even scarier than its medical counterpart.

One question nagged me throughout Cover Me: where is Huber’s husband? He seemed to hang back and let Huber take the front lines, a story known to too many wives and mothers. But that question aside, and because Huber is such a deliciously skilled writer, Cover Me is the best kind of memoir; it is engaging, enraging, tragic and funny. Fortunately, laughter as medicine is one thing the insurance companies have not yet managed to deny.

Written by: T. Tamara Weinstein, September 15th 2010

New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation

brittany — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

By Chris Bobel

Rutgers University Press

When I first picked up New Blood, I immediately thought about Sarah Haskins, the feminist comedienne who does the segment ‘Target Women’ (on Current TV), in which she uses humour and sarcasm to draw attention to ridiculous media representations of women and female stereotypes. Watch ‘Target Women: Your Garden’—in which she exposes commercials that dare not name ‘lady parts’ and you’ll understand why I thought of her and now, after reading New Blood see in her a great representation of the contemporary feminist movement.

In New Blood, Chris Bobel, an associate professor and chair of women’s studies at the University of Massachusetts and the author of The Paradox of Natural Mothering, shines a timely and important spotlight on the small menstrual activist movement. Borne out of divergent feminist leanings that shape contemporary menstrual activism, it is based on the effort to speak openly about menstruation, the bleeding body, and to rebel against the notion of period as a ‘dirty little secret’ as well as to act against negative campaigns and build an environment in which alternative, environmentally sustainable and body-positive feminine health care is mainstreamed.

Bobel’s research for this book brought her in contact with two strands of menstrual activists: feminist spiritualist who celebrate the inherent female experience of menstruation (think: red-tents, menarche rituals at moonlight); and the radical menstruation activist who, choosing the term ‘menstrator’ to replace ‘woman’ to free themselves of the sex/gender dichotomy and resist the exclusivity of static gender identity. Bobel calls them ‘revolutionary’; (think: radical cheerleaders; anti-corporate rallies, eco-warriors, and dressing up as Tampons to cause stir in campuses across the US).

Though Bobel spends much time on charting the development of today’s menstrual activism, she also reviews the history of menstrual activism, its manifestation and different approaches (i.e. working to lobby the FemCare Industry and government to improve the safety of disposable products rather than today’s radical menstrual activists, who have turned their back on such products and the corporations completely) during the 1970s and 80s in the times of the ‘Toxic Shock Syndrome’ scare. Furthermore, Bobel’s underlying message goes out to all those of today’s 'Third Wave Feminism' to not dismiss its ties with the ‘Second Wave’ (of the 1960s, 70s and 80s), whose tactics and some messages and efforts were very similar.

What struck me most, when reading this book was that there is a dearth in literature that so eloquently combines the scholarly theoretical developments in feminism with the practical, human, and material activism as New Blood does. What I furthermore particularly liked about Bobels material was that she has made a great effort here to question the demographic (overwhelmingly white, middle-class, though in the case of radical menstrual activists, mainly homosexual/genderqueer) of this movement and provides an important and interesting hypothesis that accounts for the absence of larger numbers of women of colour in this movement and the apparent complete lack of trans-identified participants.

Written for an ‘undergrad/general public’ audience, this book is an important and interesting read for anyone who wonders what’s going on with feminism today, wants to know about its relationship with its recent past and has ever felt that ‘bleedin’ is everyone’s business’. Let’s just say that this feminist went online yesterday to buy a Mooncup and not just because it’s all the rage. Last year, The Guardian’s Kira Cochrane said: Menstrual activism is ‘having a moment.’ Lets hope that it is not just a fleeting apparition on the left-wing media landscape but, like Bobel advocates, continues to be used to ‘interrogate the material body and identity, the cultural and the biological, and the social and the individual…to be better equipped to make profound change.’

Written by: Anna Matussek, September 13th 2010

The Other Guys

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:22:00 +0000

Directed by Adam McKay

Columbia Pictures

Adam McKay is one of a million: a writer and director who can put together a great trailer. Too bad the feature presentation of The Other Guys is so long and boring that it chokes on its own machismo.

The underwhelming tragedy of The Other Guys is that Saturday Night Live veteran McKay is the same fellow behind the hilarious Funny or Die short The Landlord and Anchorman. Then again, he’s also the guy behind other Will Ferrell flops like Talladega Nights and Step Brothers. Clearly, the McKay and Ferrell duo is destined to be hit-or-miss.

The Other Guys starts off promising. Two over-the-top cop heroes (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) barrel through New York City chasing teenagers who are in possession of a negligible amount of marijuana. They destroy millions of dollars of property and endanger dozens of lives, but they do it to the soundtrack of their own gunfire and acerbic quips. These two men get the glory—and of course, the trophy sex-with-women that goes along with it. The other dozen New York Police Department detectives—they get the paperwork.

This film is the story of two NYPD “other guys.” Desk-ridden detective partners Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) and Allen Gamble (Ferrell) don’t get out from behind their computers much, because one accidentally shot someone and the other craves safety. These two uncover a fishy financial deal, but for reasons completely unexplained (there’s no corruption involved) the police chief and district attorney thwart Hoitz and Gamble’s every move to investigate.

What follows is 107 minutes that will seem like an eternity of you’re-like-a-woman-and-that’s-bad jokes. Because, you see, there are apparently no women in this film’s NYPD (aside from a counselor), and the men basically only insult each other about being effeminate. What defines ladylike in The Other Guys? The way one’s urine sounds hitting a urinal, talking about shooting someone without bragging, and driving a Prius (bonus points for equating environmentalism with emasculation). And what defines manhood? Learning to dance just to make fun of homos, lamenting the fact that your son is bisexual or saying the word bitch ad nauseam. And the thing is, you don’t particularly care if Gamble and Hoitz catch the bad guy (Steve Coogan), because Gamble is an accountant at heart, and Hoitz is just an unrelenting asshole. The bad guy is much more entertaining.

But even if you were following the plot, the barrage of woman-hating language and themes in this film is hugely distracting, although frankly there’s not much to distract from. Aside from the language, there’s the classic (and somehow never not endearing in the world of film) side plot about a girlfriend who went from restraining order to marriage vows in about fifteen minutes since, really, stalking is flattering in romantic courtship.

And then there’s the whole Gamble’s ugly wife jokes. The twist here is that his wife (Eva Mendes) is objectively hot, if you’re into the whole American-beauty-standards ideal. Ferrell’s character spends the whole film lamenting, to her and to others, that she’s an ugly duckling and sucks at cooking. The ways he seems dissatisfied are the things that are traditionally valued in women—beauty and domestic aptitude. Hoitz and the audience wonder throughout the film: What’s the reason for Gamble’s odd point of view? Well, Gamble later confesses that he doesn’t feel he deserves such a wonderful, beautiful wife so he understates her attributes (to say the least) to keep her from leaving him. How sweet, and how unlike real-life domestic violence.

Hands down, the best part of this dud is the credits, which graphically show how a Ponzi scheme works. (I guess all of a sudden this film considers itself to mostly be about finance?) These credits will cool you down from being pissed that you heard the best jokes a month ago when you saw the trailer before Inception. You’ll realize while watching the credits that the inexplicable narration voice you were trying to place is Law & Order’s Ice-T. You’ll also realize you should have lobbied harder to see The Kids Are All Right earlier that evening.

Please, stay away from this drivel. Even the above examples don’t fully capture the constant onslaught of absurd fodder this film gives even the most casual feminist (or person who thinks that women are full humans). Let’s wrap this piece of crap up with a few words of wisdom, courtesy of The Other Guys: “She overreacted… she’s a woman.”

Written by: Hannah Moulton Belec, August 17th 2010

Dinner for Schmucks

admin — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Jay Roach

Paramount Pictures

In the formulaic plots that have developed in mainstream comedies over the last several years the re-occurring theme seems to be male idiocy. The Will Ferrells and Steve Carrells of the comedy world have delighted in creating man-children characters who don’t exist on the normal plane of human intelligence. They come equipped with stock sex jokes, like not understanding the female anatomy, or overconfidence that their incorrect knowledge of basic vocabulary is accurate. As audience members we then feel forced to laugh at their idiocy as we revel in our own perceived genius.

In the latest formulaic mainstream comedy Dinner for Schmucks the stupid culminates into a festival of idiots. It’s as if a team of Hollywood screenwriters and comedians have been sitting around with these amusing character creations that didn’t fit into any film and they devised a shaky story just to insert them into a film. The plot for Dinner for Schmucks is essentially non-existent featuring moment after moment of nonsensicalness and a finale that leaves the viewer wondering what the exact message was. Despite all of that, the film manages to be hilarious enough to keep any schmuck’s attention.

Paul Rudd stars as Tim, an eager business analyst for a major financial planning corporation who has just come up with the proposal that could give him the promotion he’s been waiting for. His soon-to-be fiancé, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), has just been asked to curate a major art exhibit and things couldn’t be going better for the couple. Tim is asked into the head of his company’s office and told about the proposal that could land him the promotion he deserves–he needs to find an idiot and bring him/her to dinner at his boss’s house so that all the other employees can make fun of him/her.

Enter Steve Carrell as Barry, an IRS agent and mouse taxidermy enthusiast who doesn’t know what “curate” means and is unable to detect sarcasm. Against Julie’s adamant declinations, Tim decides to take Barry to the infamous “Dinner for Winners” and use him as the catalyst for his promotion. Along the way Barry gets intertwined in Tim’s personal life, straining his relationship with Julie and his opportunities to look good at the office causing Tim to question his career choice and his values.

Unlike other mainstream comedies where the stupid characters are ever-present and unbalanced, Dinner for Schmucks creates two teams right from the start–the idiots and the everyday characters. Each time a new character is introduced you find out which side they are on–if they’re quirky and interesting, they’re a schmuck; if they’re plain and undeveloped, they’re probably a “normal” person.

Paul Rudd is his usual sardonic and sensitive protagonist, similar to his roles in I Love You, Man and Role Models. His natural sweetness makes his predicaments with Barry almost unbelievable as he attempts to act like a self-important asshole. Rudd isn’t as natural at that type of role as say Ron Livingston, who ironically has seemed to play nothing but corporate jerks since his breakthrough role in Office Space.

Steve Carrell is only mildly funny in one of his worst performances of his career. Unlike in many of his other comedies, he doesn’t find any layers to give to Barry and even the subplot about his broken heart over his ex-wife is easily forgettable.

The comedic highlights of the film are Zach Galifianakis who plays Barry’s faux-telepathic IRS boss and Jemaine Clement who plays a self-absorbed artist. Galifianakis is the new king of stupid. His humor is better suited for sketch comedy than feature films because of its lack of depth, but he’s so hilarious that it is easy to forgive his misgivings. Clement’s background in improvisation shines through as you sense the other actors trying to hold back laughter with each witty and unpredictable line that he delivers.

The only other commendable performances come from the limited female roles in the film. The drop dead gorgeous Stephanie Szostak has one of her largest feature film roles as Julie and she makes the character easy to fall for. Lucy Punch also has a limited, but hilarious role as the off-the-rails Darla, Tim’s stalker ex-girlfriend who throws a wrench in his plans.

As the film approaches the ending one wonders what the message is as every attempt at meaning or depth was bungled by director Jay Roach and screenwriters David Guion and Michael Handelman. However, you may just leave the cinema quoting your favorite lines from the ridiculousness that just ensued.

Cross-posted from Film Misery

Written by: Alex Carlson, August 9th 2010

I Can’t Think Straight

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Shamim Sharif

Enlightenment Films

It’s always a bit tricky to adapt one’s real life experiences to the big screen, but that’s what award-winning filmmaker Shamim Sarif has done in I Can’t Think Straight. Based in London, the film depicts the budding romance between Leyla, an Indian Muslim woman raised in the UK, and Tala, an Arab Christian Palestinian woman who was brought up in a very wealthy family in Jordan. There are several challenges conspiring to keep the two apart such as racial, religious, and cultural discrimination, but the one central struggle in the film is overcoming the families’ homophobic bias.

Both Leyla’s and Tala’s cultural traditions are portrayed as not simply privileging heterosexual couplings, but forcefully pushing marriage to men on daughters. Tala is on her fourth engagement, a situation that brings much embarrassment to the family. She is set to marry Hani, a wealthy and handsome man with no protruding flaw, but whom she does not love passionately. Leyla and her boyfriend Ali are being pressured by Leyla’s mother to take their relationship to the next level, but her sister correctly guesses the reason for Leyla’s reticence. Despite the unexplained insistence that coming out to their families would be impossible, it is the infatuation of the women’s mothers in particular to be the gatekeepers of cultural and religious authenticity. Their siblings, friends, and fathers, however, are proud of Tala and Leyla’s feisty personalities and sufficiently sympathetic to their “Western” desires.

A typical romantic comedy, the myriad issues brought up in the film are never delved into with any amount of depth. More than lesbianism itself, the Israeli-Palestianian conflict receives the most attention in the film’s dialogue, which features several conversations involving anti-Semitism and support of suicide bombings that are, of course, tempered with standard liberal rebuttal. Feminist sentiment abounds as well with moments like Tala shoving food into her mouth after her mother’s reprimand that if she continues to eat she won’t being skinny enough to fit into her wedding dress. If not taken too seriously, I Can’t Think Straight is a fun, fast-paced, slightly campy, B-movie romp about self-determination and laying claim to one’s desires.

Originally published in Bitch Magazine

Written by: Mandy Van Deven, August 6th 2010

Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:28:00 +0000

Directed by Anne Sundberg, Ricki Stern

In the previous millennium when I was an idealistic young thing attending Barnard College, the women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, there was a lot of talk about who before us had walked the hallowed halls: anthropologist Margaret Mead; writers Edna St. Vincent Millay, Zora Neale Thurston, Francine du Plessix Gray, Patricia Highsmith and Ntozake Shange; recent United States ambassador to the U.N. Jeanne Kirkpatrick; musicians Laurie Anderson and Suzanne Vega (whose song “Luka” was then on all the airwaves); NPR’s Susan Stamberg; nationally syndicated columnist Anna Quindlen; choreographer Twyla Tharp; and a pre-Omnimedia Martha Stewart, whose daughter had also recently attended.

We students looked up to these women, our heroes. No trivia about them was too slight to swap and discuss. But I can only remember a couple of times when the name Joan Rivers was mentioned, and then only with a smirk. It seemed unbelievable that someone like her—brash, crass, undignified, disfigured by plastic surgery even then—could have once been part of our very serious undertakings in academia and feminism. Above all, we were earnest, and serious, and she was not.

The truth is that we failed to recognize Rivers for the pioneer she was. Those were the early days of Seinfeld. The backstage world of stand up comedy was still a mystery. There was no Comedy Central. We had no idea how brutal the world was in which she had risen. What a boy’s club. We were feminists, but we still thought we had to be ladies, or at least decorous. We disapproved of Joan Rivers.

Well, what did we know? Martha would go on to rule over all things female: weddings, entertaining, flowers, crafts, cooking. But the surprise is that Joan Rivers, now seventy-five years old, who seemed even then to be on the wane, continues. And the entertaining new documentary, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work shows the incredible scrappiness and determination it has taken her to survive.

Born in 1933, Joan Rivers grew up Joan Molinsky in affluent Larchmont, NY, a dark-haired girl with a big nose. Her mother, as she relates, continually assured her that “looks don’t matter.” Meaning that she was ugly and they all knew it. “No man,” Joan says, at one particularly poignant moment, “has ever told me I looked beautiful. Oh, they say, ‘You look great!’ But never beautiful.” And so the plastic surgeries began—very early, from all appearances. By the time of her first TV appearances, in the mid-1960s, her nose had been transformed into a ski slope, although not yet the snub it is today.

Part of the fascination of the film is the grotesque state of her present face, with eyes slanted to cat-like angles from numerous lifts and lips and cheeks so swollen she can sometimes barely speak. But despite her obsession with her looks, Joan is, in an interesting way, completely without vanity. The film opens with her bare face, shot closer-up than any of us would allow for ourselves. One can see the veins in her eyelids and hints of scar tissue around her eyes and nose. She looks old, unhealthy, fragile, almost dead. Gradually, thick stage makeup is slapped on, in a healthy golden shade that gives no hint of the ashen, ruddy skin beneath. Heavy eye shadows and liners, lip liners and lipstick, until the Joan we know from photos finally emerges. It is a complete transformation. Joan has really let us see the real her underneath.

She even allows the camera to run right after she returns from a session at the dermatologist, where she’s been all “shot up.” Her face is splotchy from the needle, her cheeks puffed up so high it looks as though she’s suffering a horrible allergic reaction. But what Joan needs more than anything, far more than dignity, is attention. If the camera wants to roll, she’s game.

In the same way she is completely open about the ups and downs of her career, her relationships with her husband and daughter, the humiliations, anger, fears and needs that drive her. She even agrees, for the money, to a celebrity roast she finds mean and hurtful. She needs the money to fund her unbelievably lavish lifestyle. She has ridden in only limousines “since 1986.” And she lives in insane palatial comfort. Her manager says it’s like “the Queen of England.” Joan says it’s like “Maria (sic) Antoinette.” Let’s just say poor Bernie Madoff lived like a pauper compared to Joan. But she is also generous to her numerous staff. They are paid well, and Joan takes care of their children’s private school tuitions too. No wonder they are devoted. Good thing. It looks as though her staff are the only ones celebrating her 75th birthday. And one of the saddest moments in the film is when she says she has probably only three friends whom she can call to share a piece of good news.

And so it’s work, work and more work for Joan, who is perhaps just as driven as the legendary Martha. From Florida to Connecticut to the backwoods of Wisconsin, from plane to plane, convention hall to casino to QVC to shill the jewelry that makes her millions, despite the indignities, humiliation and exhaustion, Joan soldiers on.

Joan is all the things we young Barnard women abhorred back in the day: rude, obnoxious, offensive, freakish. But she is also a woman who recognized what she needed and went out to get it. Self-made, self-perpetuating, hard-working and indefatigable, Joan Rivers is a force to be reckoned with, indeed a piece of work.

Cross-posted at Frothygirlz.com

Written by: Grace @ Frothygirlz.com, August 3rd 2010

Soul Kitchen

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Fatih Akın

Corazón International

Soul Kitchen is a lot like cotton candy—sweet but, ultimately, not very satisfying. Like many festival favorites, the plot of this independent German film revolves around a cast of lovably quirky characters who get themselves eye-deep into trouble.

Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos), a German of Greek descent, has a lot of stuff on his plate. He’s the proprietor of Soul Kitchen, a struggling eatery in a rundown section of Hamburg. The tax people, led by Frau Schuster (Catrin Striebeck), are knocking at his door. His ne’er-do-well brother, Illias (Moritz Bleibtreu), seeks employment at the restaurant wanting “to go through the motions” of working so that he can make parole. Neumann (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a shady real estate agent, is sniffing around in hopes of acquiring the property. An uninsured Zinos makes the mistake of trying to move a heavy dishwasher by himself and gets a herniated disk for his trouble. On top of all this, Zinos is pining away for his girlfriend, Nadine (Pheline Roggan), who has hightailed it to Shanghai.

Attempting to revamp the restaurant’s simple cuisine, he hires the temperamental Shayn (Birol Ünel), a culinary snob who lost his last job for pulling a knife on a paying customer who asked for hot gazpacho. Things start looking up for Zinos when Shayn’s gourmet creations take off with the hip crowd. Eager to reunite with Nadine, Zinos makes plans to move to Shanghai, leaving Illias to manage the place. Illias gambles the restaurant away to Neumann. And poor Zinos discovers that Nadine has been cheating on him and aggravates his back injury on the same day. Zinos burns down his apartment in a fit of painkiller-induced pique. Homeless, loveless, jobless, and broke, Zinos has to figure out a way to get his restaurant back.

The script, co-written by the director and the leading man, is chock full of sly jokes and the dialogue is genuinely inspired. The filmmaker wisely decided not to let the food upstage the story. The problem is that the characters, with the exception of Zinos, are mere stereotypical sketches. Too much of the plot rests on contrivance—the romance between Illias and the surly waitress Lucia (Anna Bederke), for example—and things wrap up a little too neatly at the end. I never could root for the burgeoning relationship between Zinos and Anna (Dorka Gryllus), the physiotherapist who treats his back injury; the two don’t spend enough time onscreen together for me to care.

Full of whimsy, Soul Kitchen is definitely a film I would watch again. I can also see how it won the Special Jury Prize and the Young Cinema Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. It should enjoy a respectable run on the art-house circuit when it’s released in the States later this summer; however, the film is much too flawed to ever make any “best of” list, and it definitely isn’t Fatih Akin’s best work.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, July 31st 2010