Please set aside one hour of your life immediately for the greatest piece of film analysis. Ever.

Hat tip to dreidelhustler.

The Final Girl

One of the blogs I follow on Twitter is GeekTyrant, and I stumbled on a term there today that I had to read more about -- "the final girl." I wound up on Wikipedia, and will just copy-and-paste the good stuff for you to read and consider -- all about horror films and gender roles and feminism, especially in the writings of Carole Clover.

... the final girl is typically sexually unavailable or virginal, avoiding the vices of the victims (sex, narcotic usage, etc.). She sometimes has a unisex name (e.g. Teddy, Billie, Georgie, Sidney).

... audience identification is unstable and fluid across gender lines, particularly in the case of the slasher film. During the final girl’s confrontation with the killer ... she becomes masculinized through "phallic appropriation" by taking up a weapon, such as a knife or chainsaw, against the killer. Conversely ... the villain of slasher films is often a male whose masculinity, and sexuality more generally, are in crisis. Examples would include Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, or Billy and Stu from Wes Craven's satirical horror film Scream. Clover points to this gender fluidity as demonstrating the impact of feminism in popular culture.

The phenomenon of the male audience having to identify with a young female character in an ostensibly male-oriented genre, usually associated with sadistic voyeurism, raises interesting questions about the nature of slasher films and their relationship with feminism. Clover argues that for a film to be successful, although the Final Girl is masculinized, it is necessary for this surviving character to be female, because she must experience abject terror, and many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male. The terror has a purpose, in that the female is 'purged' if she survives, of undesirable characteristics, such as relentless pursuit of pleasure in her own right. An interesting feature of the genre is the 'punishment' of beauty and sexual availability.

Wall-E and Watchmen Trailer Mash-up

[Hat tip to GeekTyrant.]

Movie Novelizations, Covers by Saul Bass*

*Not really; it's this guy.

Simpsons and Fine Art:A Compendium

Poorly structured, but incredibly thorough -- a must-see for all fans of The Simpsons and/or art history. It shows SO MANY references in The Simpsons to fine art -- with little JPEGs of them all. Lots of work went into this site.

Click here.

UPDATE

To see a comparison of Simpsons scenes with famous movies, check this out.

12 Monkeys: Why You Must See It

Just watched "12 Monkeys" (1995 - Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt) on cable -- been meaning to see it for years. It's a must-see for one reason alone: Brad Pitt plays the most convincing crazy guy I've seen in a long time. First, in a mental hospital, then six years later in a tuxedo at a fancy dinner, and then in guerilla terrorist mode.

Seriously -- you may not care for dystopian scfi-fi, time travel, and viruses, but Pitt's performance is worth your investment of two hours.

Friday!

On The Mark -- Penis Fear Remedy

You have to hand it to Judd Apatow, who brought us movies such as "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy."

According to an article in today's Los Angeles Times, Apatow says, "America fears the penis, and that's something I'm going to help them get over...I'm gonna get a penis in every movie I do from now on" (the L.A. Times sourced World Entertainment News Service for this quote).

Apparently, his new movie, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," will be doing its best to help America get over this fear.

Why My Wife Doesn't Always Like Watching Movies With Me

I watched the movie "Modigliani" the other day -- starring [Cuban] Andy Garcia as the Italian-Jewish painter -- and enjoyed it, as I do most biographies/biopics of painters. One sticking point: an art director with little sense of responsibility for historic typefaces. One example should suffice to outrage those of you who care about such matters (and though more would increase my credibility, it would do so at the risk of alienating the 99% of the audience who are, naturally, not typophiles).

Eurostile is one of the most important creations of the Italian font designer Aldo Novarese. The font reflects the Zeitgeist of the 1950s and 1960s, giving text a dynamic, modern feel. Eurostile is intended for headlines and small bodies of text. So what better place to put it than on a window in Paris circa 1914?

The Misanthrope at the Movies

Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.
José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), Spanish essayist, philosopher

We went to the movies last Saturday afternoon, the 4 p.m. show in order to get the discount. We proceeded to the last row so no one would sit behind us chewing their popcorn in my ear (actually those are my requirements, wife could care less). Because it was still 20 minutes before the show started they had some commercial video playing that promoted the crap out of myriad television shows and upcoming movies.

Meanwhile the theater was filling up, and why not, it was the first weekend for "American Gangster", which did $40 plus million, I watched each person come in dreading that they would sit in front or beside us carrying their buckets of popcorn, barrels of diet Coke. We brought our own little bag of microwave popcorn and a couple of candies in a baggie.

A couple seated themselves in front of us even thought I attempted to keep my foot on the arm of the chair as long as I could without appearing to block the seat, the entire penultimate row was empty and he had to sit in front of us. I, of course, commented about that and he got up and moved to the center of the row, then the other five members of his family came in took up the middle section of the row. Another couple ignored my dirty shoe on the arm of the chair and sat down, he was huge so I kept my mouth shut.

The previews started and ended maybe 15 to 25 minutes later. Eventually the movie started and the family in the middle of the row in front of us spent the next 10 minutes, maybe longer unwrapping all their goodies.

From my perch atop the back row, I surveyed the crowd and realized that I paid nearly $20 to watch a movie with all these people. I once again decided it was not worth it to be subjected to noisy eaters, aisles with no leg room, tight uncomfortable seats, and people all around us. Hell, we could have been flying cross country for all this discomfort.

The only movie theater I will go to is the Arclight in Hollywood. It’s about a 30-minute drive, costs $2 to park, $11 for a ticket, but I can get the tickets in advance, select my seats online, and use the points from buying the tickets to get nearly free snacks. There are no commercials and the movie starts on time.

"American Gangster" was okay, but not great.

Sunday Filler two days late

People are interested in birds only inasmuch as they exhibit human behavior—greed and stupidity and anger—and by doing so free us from the unique sorrow of being human.
Douglas Coupland, author

Foreign movies. Why is it that I have to turn the volume up to make sure I don’t miss anything said, when it is all written out for me and I wouldn’t be able to understand a word if it wasn’t? The movie I was watching was Volver with Penélope Cruz, which turned out to be a nice movie.

"Stranger than Fiction." I thoroughly enjoyed this Will Ferrell movie that featured Emma Thompson, along with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah.

Writing this. I am sitting here in my den trying to think of something to write when I notice several birds flying into the garage. I walk into the garage to kick them out and it’s like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, they came after me, and then left. We have an issue with birds around here; well I have an issue with birds around here. They think they own the place. They have made homes under the eves of the roof, from which I have had to evict them because I am not excited about cleaning up their droppings. Now before you think that I am just mean, we have a little bird feeder on the tree out front, but are they grateful? No. Instead they attack the windshield wiper’s on wife’s car. I go out there and pull the wipers up to stop them. I tried to get the bird in action, but the digital camera is too slow.