Review: I'm So Excited!

For some reason I possess a magical gift that many often wish they could have - the gift of bullshitting. Not only that, but I specifically possess the gift to bullshit about films I haven't seen. I can name you every Jim Jarmusch film, in chronological order, with 90% accuracy. I know the twist in The Crying Game. So, although I've only seen two of his films - and only one of them in the cinema - I feel like I'm all too familiar with Pedro Almodovar's work.

I'm So Excited! is Almodovar's 20 millionth film, and a light comedy, something ironic considering that it's set up in the air. Those who found Almodovar's last work, surreal plastic surgery nightmare The Skin I Live In, will surely find this an entirely different affair.  The film bases itself in the Business Class section of an airplane circling around Spain after two of the workers at a Spanish airport (Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz in brief cameos) got distracted and made an error whilst setting up the plane. Basically, the plane's got nowhere to, and everyone's convinced that it will explode the moment it hits the ground. CUE COMEDY HIJINKS. No, really.

I don't know what it is, but European comedies seem so much more charming than English ones. Possibly it's do with with everything being subtitled, warmer weather and generally more attractive people? What the magical ingredients are exactly, I'm not sure, but what I am sure of is the charm and (fairly) sophisticated nature of French comedies such as Priceless and The Intouchables. Obviously I'm So Excited! is Spanish, and Almodovar is known for moments of bathos in his films, even the serious ones, therefore the film does, on occasion abandon the charming route for one that is just on the right side of vulgar. A bizarre sex scene to an Egyptian influenced Django Django song, for example, could easily have been crude were it delivered with the slapdash approach of an American Pie film, however here it is so ridiculous that you are simply forced to laugh. Another thing that is different here than in so many other slight comedy films is that Almodovar offers us characters that become fleshed out throughout the film, as more drinks are poured and more revelations let slip. Those gathered in the Business Class section may sound like the punchline of a joke - "A psychic, a dominatrix, an aging film star and a banker are all on a plane..." but we actually grow to know and like these characters. As well as those gathered on the plane we also meet the three camp air stewards - again, just on the right side of offensive - who act almost as a Greek chorus to guide us through the sheer madness.

I'm So Excited! may not be the best comedy in the world. It may not be the best Spanish film. But it offers something I have been severely lacking in recent cinemagoing experiences - laughter. After the gorefest of Evil Dead and pastel-coloured daze of Spring Breakers, it's all too nice an experience to put your feet up for a while and watch a comedy that offers jokes that are actually clever, and bewildering song and dance numbers to old Pointer Sisters songs. So excuse the poor pun but I can tell you with relish that I'm SO EXCITED (sorry) to see this film and laugh again.

Grace Barber-Plentie

Gettin' Real Tired of the "Funny Fat Girl" Stereotype

I hate Pitch Perfect. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I hated this film.

So, two things happened this week that have led me to write this. The first is that "cinematic treasure" (Please oh please sense the sarcasm in my tone) Pitch Perfect is being released on DVD. The second fact is that the film's star, Rebel Wilson, hosted the MTV Movie Awards, the very classiest of awards shows. (Again, sense sarcasm, although Aubrey Plaza "doing a Kanye West" was kinda awesome.) From the two facts I've stated, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that I hate Rebel Wilson. But, reader, you would be wrong. I like and admire her greatly. I think she is funny and beautiful. It's not Wilson that I hate, but rather the role she is constantly forced to play. Yes, I am talking about the aforementioned "Funny Fat Girl".

Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids. Look how this poster shows how WILD AND QUIRKY she is.

I'm not sure if "Funny Fat Girl" is the precise definition of this type of character, but for the purposes of this feature, I'll continue to use the term. The Funny Fat Girl, or FFG, is most likely to reside within ensemble comedies. Basically what we're thinking of here is the female equivalent of Alan, Zach Galifianakis's character in The Hangover. In Hollywood terms, they're overweight, probably obese. (Regardless of their actual size, because Hollywood sizes aren't like normal person sizes.) They are very confident about themselves, and either ignore the issue of their weight, or make jokes about it - Wilson's character in Pitch Perfect is called Fat Amy so that skinny girls don't call her that behind her back. They will ALWAYS have a wild and crazy personality. They'll say ridiculous things and most likely turn out to be a bit stupid.

I don't have a problem with comedy, I really don't. I love a laugh, and I don't mind laughing at say, Borat, because instead of being controversial just because, which tends to be the American way, Sacha Baron Cohen et al were actually trying to make a point about how people can be dumb, bigoted idiots. But the problem is, despite how subtle and "pro-fat" the writers of these films may think they're being, they are essentially trying to get people to laugh at "fat" women. And it's definitely the case that women have it worse than men. In The Big Lebowski, how many of the film's jokes were about Walter's (John Goodman's character) weight? And in Pitch Perfect, how many are about Fat Amy's? A scene immediately springs to mind where, while the rest of her accapella group are running up and down stairs, Amy is lying on her side, doing "vertical running". These films are simply encouraging an image of "fat" people as being lazy. 

Another awful fact about these films is that, despite these women actually having a healthy self-image of themselves and being sexually confident, any sexual encounters they have are purely for comedy. Megan's encounter with Air Marshall John consists not of playful flirtation and chat-up lines as it probably would in a rom-com and if she was skinny, but of her being sexually aggressive and gross. Yet again, this is putting forward a negative idea of "fat" women, that they are only capable of intimidating men into liking them. And never mind one of these women being the main object of desire or "girl next door" in a film because, as stated in So Outrageous's interesting piece about the limited amount of labels for a "fat" girl:

 "A fat girl can never be a girl next door because her fatness is indicative of excess or lack of self-control, which can not coexist with the wholesomeness and invigorating liveliness of a girl next door."

In my view, characters like these are basically writers attempts to convince audiences that it's a great idea to laugh at someone who may not be conventionally beautiful, but is confident in their own skin. And instead of giving these characters real personality, they just consist of weird quirks and "hilarious" one-liners. Which, to put it simply, kinda sucks.

There's still a lot of things wrong with the world of film (but luckily there are also a lot of things right) so for me to simply snap my fingers and wish away this dreadful stereotype would be stupid. And I have no problem with Rebel Wilson and Melissa McCarthy being in more films. Just please, writers, write some decent roles for them. Give them hopes and fears and families and boys that think they're cute. Don't make the film's biggest laughs about how weird and fat they are. And, most importantly, please stop writing god-awful films like Pitch Perfect.

Grace Barber-Plentie

Review: Spring Breakers

Don’t let the advertising fool you, Spring Breakers is not the Female Project X that those who have never heard of Harmony Korine anticipated. I mean, what did you really expect from the guy who directed Trash Humpers? Although the film doesn’t have a real plot or narrative, Spring Breakers hypnotises you immediately in the opening credits with its Skrillex soundtrack and images of the beautiful and the young getting crunk in the sun. The films hooks you in so much that when I left the cinema, my friend said she felt like she was on something afterwards.

After robbing a diner to pay for their Spring break trip to Florida (sound tracked by Nicki Minaj’s Moment 4 Life – nice touch), our four college girls party hard and eventually get arrested only to be bailed out by James Franco’s mesmerising Alien. This is where the film really get interesting. Korine introduces the girls to a life of crime, pink balaclavas, sex, firearms and Britney Spears covers to last a lifetime – or not, depending on what you take away from the film. This may be my favourite James Franco role to date as he completely steals the film away from our four lead actresses. Not to say that their presence goes unseen. Vanessa Hudgens was a particular stand out – she has a case of the crazy eyes that really works with her wild character, Candy and the three others played by Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez and Rachel Korine all bring it. Perhaps my only problem with the film was the all too obvious character names. Like really, a good Christian girl named Faith? A surreal gangster who shows them a whole new world, named Alien? Come on.

Personally, I have no idea what to take away from it, but I loved it in spite of that. We get the feeling that the girls know exactly what they’re in for. Even in the spectacular finale sequence, their phone calls home aren’t ones of remorse or goodbye, they’re of celebration of their time spent in this surreal world. At one point, they even tell each other to think of it as a videogame. A particular stand out has to be the strangely compelling scene in which Alien sings a cover of Britney Spears’ Everytime to the girls whilst they dance around in the aforementioned pink balaclavas holding guns. That alone should be enough to make you go and see it. 

Something that I found interesting was that as you learn about the characters, you realise that you know these girls, you might be friends with these girls, maybe you even are one of these girls and because of this, our generation watching are likely to understand their hedonistic choices more than the typical middle aged male film critic. Right now, I feel like I can safely say that Spring Breakers will be one of my favourite films of the year. Spring break is indeed forever, bitches.

Beth Johnston

Review: The Place Beyond The Pines

After watching both of his films, it's become clear to me that Derek Cianfrance is an auteur that likes to feed his stories to an audience in chunks. If you're reading this review before seeing The Place Beyond The Pines, or even his heartbreaking 2010 Rom-Dram Blue Valentine, then that will mean very little to you. But upon seeing his latest work, it will all make sense. The film has the distinct feeling of being divided into chapters, with the not-so subtle use of a fade to black used to tell the audience "This section of the story is over now. This is the next section beginning." Sure, a lot of films employ this device, to varying degrees of success, but what's so infuriating about it here is that, well, to put it bluntly, some "chapters" are better than others.

The film's first "chapter" opens with and mainly focuses on a subject that it's now clear Cianfrance is very fond of - Ryan Gosling looking tortured, wandering around and smoking. Oh the tragedy of it all. What an unsightly image to be forced upon an audience. Gosling plays Luke, a carnival stunt driver who learns that a previous fling, Romina (a very underused Eva Mendes) has had his child. Feeling a sense of warmth towards his child, most likely due to his own upbringing, something that is only hinted at, he quits the carnival, stays in town and gets a job. Sadly this job is as a bank robber, which causes him to collide with Bradley Cooper's rookie cop. While comparisons to 2011's Drive are inevitable, sadly the two films are very different. While there are moments, such as the bank robberies and Luke's fleeing journeys on his bike that pick up the pace and carry the furious electricity of Drive, the majority of the film uses the slow, reflective pace of Blue Valentine. Basically, there are lots of beautiful shots (the film, similarly to the "young" half of Blue Valentine is filmed on 35mm, a choice that pays off) of the protagonists looking miserable and reflecting on their mistakes.

It's after the denouncement of this first chapter that the film sadly starts to dip, due both to its possibly over-long running time, and quickly formed characters who were are not given much information about. Character-wise, Pines is the very opposite of Blue Valentine - it gave us a full and detailed view of a couple, told us everything about them that there was to know. Here, we are forced mainly to pick up information with exposition. None of the characters in the film are fully formed, and there simply isn't time to get to know them properly as the film is constantly rushing along trying to show us something new.

It seems to me that while Cianfrance is trying to do something interesting, the film is ultimately flawed. The first forty-five minutes or so are absolutely perfect, but the rest of the film struggles to keep up the momentum, or to actually show us anything that interesting. True, the film does pick up again to give us a beautiful and emotional ending, (If filmmakers want to make me sad, all they have to do is stick a Bon Iver track on the end of their film) but it feels like a lot of time has been wasted trying to get us to that point. But really, despite its faults, who can complain about a film that features Ryan Gosling with bleach blonde hair, pensively smoking and feeding ice cream to a baby?

Grace Barber-Plentie