Short Rants on The Lucky One

I could go into garish, grotesque detail describing every single problem with The Lucky One, which starts with the first frame and doesn't let up for the entire 100 minute runtime. I could tell you about the film's dead-in-the-water dialogue or its sickeningly awful, one-dimensional Bad Guy, who makes every Bad Guy in every Tyler Perry movie look nuanced and carefully characterized, or the complete miscasting of the charismatic, energetic Zac Efron as an introverted, bland Iraq vet who couldn't even convince me that he has flown over Iraq, let alone fought there. Yes, I could do all this, but I am in absolutely no mood to rehash any of this vile, repugnant film. You see, I've sat through many bad films in many years as a cinephile. Some were hilariously bad. Some put me to sleep. Others made me rolls my eyes every five seconds. But never have I hated my life as much as I did when I sat through The Lucky One. Somewhere near the 40 minute mark, I began to question why I go to the movies in the first place. By the end of the film, I could barely contain my anger at this film, not only as a whole film but as a vehicle for my beloved Zac Efron. He has made some questionable choices in the past (New Year's Eve being the most recent), but he is always watchable and, at the very least, you see what drew him to a project. With The Lucky One, I don't understand what he was thinking, other than the obvious box office allure of a Nicholas Sparks project. There's stretching as an actor and then there's taking roles that you are not cut out to play. I know this sounds like I'm being particularly harsh to my Zac, but sometimes it takes a loved one to ask, "What in the fuck are you doing?" In terms of both Zac's career and my affection for him, The Lucky One is comparable to Channing Tatum and Dear John: after two big fat zeros in a row, I'm beginning to question whether or not my obsession is a tad out of control. Hopefully, Zac has a 21 Jump Street up his sleeve to revive my interest in his career and show us something we haven't seen yet. Or, at the very least, a film that doesn't make me want to burn my local cinema to the ground. F

The Dashing One

Currently, I'm going through one of my sporadic phases where I'm obsessed with watching WWE Raw and Smackdown every single week. The reason I'm watching? While it's always nice to see my boo John Cena, my main obsession of late has been Cody Rhodes. Son of legendary wrestler Dusty Rhodes and brother of the infamous Goldust, Cody is the newest member of this family to emerge in the nepotistic wrestling world. He's a fine wrestler, and he does play the heel (aka bad guy) very well, but I must admit that the main reason I'm obsessed is because of how damn good looking he is. There's a very good reason his nickname is "Dashing" Cody Rhodes. Of course, we can't talk about Cody's attractiveness without mentioning the ridiculously short wrestling trunks he wears on a weekly basis. He certainly has no problem showing us the goods, and God love him for that. Whenever I see him running around in those trunks, all I can think about is how much I want him to throw me against the ropes and pin me, if you know what I mean. Take a look for yourself:

 

My new goal in life is to become Cody's manager so he can carry me on his shoulder like Randy Savage did with Miss Elizabeth back in the day. I may not be as beautiful as she was, but I can certainly pull off the worried look she made her trademark.

The Dame's 2012 Playlist: Nicki Minaj "Starships"

"I don't like 'Starships' because it doesn't make sense," someone recently complained on my Twitter feed. "Was it ever supposed to make sense?" I counter. The song is an absolute clusterfuck, with its massive RedOne production threatening, at times, to drown out Nicki Minaj's inimitable rapping, the insane, almost nonsensical, chorus combined with the raping of a classic children's tune. But amid all the nuttiness, which is Nicki's forte anyways, something about "Starships" clicks into place. Even more than "Super Bass," it pushes Nicki into the popstar realm she clearly doesn't want to embrace. This is a complete shame, as (a) Nicki views being a "popstar" as being a negative thing and (b) if she wanted to embrace it, she could be the most fascinating popstar around. "Starships" is proof that Nicki knows how to combine her rapping with her singing into something completely original (unlike her Guetta single "Turn Me On," which relies far too much on her singing). No, "Starships were meant to fly," makes absolutely no sense, but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.

The Dame's 2012 Playlist: Avicii "Levels"

Yes, technically, it's a 2011 track. But, like most ignorant Americans, I wasn't even aware of this Avicii track until the "Levels"-sampling, vastly inferior Flo Rida hit "Good Feeling" came out last December. When I did discover it--along with a number of other brilliant Avicii/Tim Berg singles--there was an instant spark. Together, "Levels" and I had a blazing chemistry most romantic comedy pairings could only dream of. And, like every romantic comedy ever, it was a case of opposites attracting. Avicii, with his house music stylings, and I, who normally can barely stomach extended remixes of pop tunes let alone straight house music, shouldn't have gotten along. Yet here I am, singing along with "Levels" despite that 95% of the song is instrumental. We've overcome the odds and proved that we're a match made in heaven, and it's all because of "Levels."

The Dame's 2012 Playlist: Dragonette "Let It Go"

Dragonette has always been a band that I've appreciated far more than I've ever loved. They had a couple of great tracks on their Fixin to Thrill album from 2009. Their collaboration with Martin Solveig, "Hello," was nice the first ten times or so I heard, but it quickly wore out its welcome. So, color me surprised when I fell head over heels with "Let It Go" the minute I heard it. This doesn't happen very often, so I knew that this was not a drill. If someone asked me to describe "Let It Go," I could only use one word: euphoric. I absolutely adore the way that infectious, pulsing beat nearly drowns out every lyric in the song. It's a risky stylistic choice, especially considering that the lyrics aren't even bad by any means (and that the way the lead singer howls "Let it goooooooooooo" is the best part of the song), but it pays off in aces for the group. With one triumphant single, Dragonette has gone from "meh" to a "must listen at all costs"; in other words, there is hope for you still to turn things around, Keri Hilson.

The Dame's 2012 Playlist: Lana Del Rey "Off to the Races"

The main reason I allowed all songs released in 2012, not just the "singles," to be eligible for my year-end list is because of "Off to the Races," a track so good I couldn't disqualify it because some bonehead executive decided not to release it. I will admit that I was initially dismissive of Ms. Del Rey, not completely understanding the hype surrounding "Video Games" and most of the sneak peaks from Born to Die. Actually, I believe my exact words were, "Wake me up when she does a dance track." Despite my reservations, I gave her album a listen when it came out, and, color me surprised, I actually liked a good portion of it. The album's standout, without a doubt, is this five minute magnum opus. From the moment Lana moans that first lyric, "My old man is a bad man," I was enamored. I love the almost sinister vibe the song gives off, which, combined with its already frank sexuality ("He likes to watch me in the glass room, bathroom"), makes for an intriguing pairing. I've mentioned this before, but when I listen to music, I rarely listen to lyrics. Usually, I base my opinions on how the song makes me feel. "Off to the Races" is no different, but the lyrics here add even more texture to a song I already can't get out of my subconscious. Lana Del Rey hasn't given me a dance track like a requested. Instead, she has given me something more than I could have ever hoped for: a living, breathing, unequivocal masterpiece.

The Dame's 2012 Playlist: Justin Bieber "Boyfriend"

Even if "Boyfriend" doesn't end up as my favorite song of 2011, it will most certainly be the smartest song. Bieber has somehow managed to find a song that matures his sound and style while continuing to appeal to the kiddies who made him famous in the first place. And if you don't understand how difficult that is, just ask Miley Cyrus, who grew up too quickly on Can't Be Tamed for her teen fans. Yes, the fondue line is still atrocious, but Justin has so much swagger, you barely notice just how bad it is. Perhaps what is most impressive about "Boyfriend" is that it sounds so sexy, like a song you could easily see yourself having sex to at some point in the future, even though it's never extremely explicit or profane. Bieber gets the message across without turning into a Justin Timberlake sex machine. How he does it I'll never know. I'm just glad that the Biebz learned from the mistakes of so many other teen heartthrobs who have fallen once they reached the other side of puberty.

You Need to Practice Backing That Ass Up

When I tweeted a few weeks ago that Juvenile's "Back That Ass Up" was a seminal part of my childhood, I wasn't being facetious. And when I say that every time I think of the song I think of my mother, no, my family wasn't as fucked up as you're probably thinking. I've already spoken numerous times about how TRL ran my life between the ages of 11 and 14. One of the great things about the show was that it introduced me to music that I never would have heard otherwise. An obvious example of this would be "Back That Ass Up," a raunchy rap song that wouldn't have played anywhere near the Top 40 radio stations I listened to. The reason I remember this song, and especially the accompanying music video, so much is because my mother would literally force me to change the channel every time the video came on. Although my mother isn't the biggest fan of rap music--oddly enough, however, R. Kelly's "Ignition (Remix)" is one of her favorite songs ever--she was mainly offended by the video. As you may remember, it featured a fair amount of curvacious women with luscious bottoms shaking what their mama gave them in front of the camera. While it looks like nothing more than a parody of late 90's rap videos today, something about it really irked my mother. Maybe she felt that the women were being exploited, which is a valid response. Either way, I always found it funny that my mother reacted so strongly to something as inconsequential as "Back That Ass Up."

Fast forward twelve or so years. On a whim, I decided to listen to Drake's Take Care, a decision based upon the fact that I loved "Find Your Love" a couple years ago and that I've claimed on many occasions that Drake could get it in anytime he wanted. After listening to the album, I decided that he could still get it in and that I liked the album. It didn't strike me until a day or so later that one of my favorite songs on Take Care, "Practice," sounded strangely familiar. After another listen, it clicked into place: "Practice" samples "Back That Ass Up"! In stark contrast to the original's bluntness, Drake's song uses the infamous chorus as a smooth, sexy come-on. By the end of the song's four minute runtime, I certainly wanted to back my ass up on Drake even more than I had before.

Okay, okay, I hear some grumbling, so I better get this out of the way: "Practice" isn't a completely perfect song. After you get over the initial boner-inducing hotness of it all and you pay attention to the non-Juvenile lyrics, the song loses some of its amazingness. "Practice" is about Drake coming to terms with his girlfriend not being a virgin and how he must rationalize this as her getting some "practice" in for their sexual relationship. Can you say ick? Have straight men not evolved to the point of accepting that girls get horny, too, and that it's completely unrealistic to expect a woman in 2012 to remain a virgin for one man some point in the future while he gets to go out and bang as many chicks as he wants because that's what men do? It's almost enough to hate the song, but then Drake gets back to that chorus and I forget any and all moral misgivings I have about the song. No one ever said I was a great moral crusader.

Now that I've reached the end of this post, I realized that the point of this whole essay was probably to post pictures of Drake. Ah, such is life. At least you all get a reward for reading this damn thing!

Violence & The Hunger Games

From the moment the advertising campaign for The Hunger Games kicked into high gear, a lot of questions were raised about the film's central conceit of children murdering other children for sport. How would the film handle it? Would they embrace the violence or sanitize it completely? Just how much could they show and still get a PG-13 rating? Surprisingly, The Hunger Games handles this delicate balance between genuine suspense tastelessness gracefully. In the process, it becomes a commentary on the role of violence in contemporary cinema. No, it's not the most thorough, nor is it the most insightful investigation we have seen. But it's probably the best we were ever going to be given in a PG-13 studio-produced blockbuster aimed at both teens and adults. Besides, this is the film our blood-thirsty culture needs to see and reflect on right now.

Our culture's obsession with violence, particularly in the media, has been discussed ad nauseum since the Columbine shooting over a decade ago. We have no problem letting teens watch people gleefully kill one another in endless action films or sadistic "torture porn" horror films (Show a woman receiving oral, however, and suddenly we must think of the children and protect them). The Hunger Games is one of the few recent mainstream films I can recall where we are forced to stop and think about the violence going on. The first image we see of kid-on-kid violence doesn't occur until about 30 minutes into the film, after only hearing about it up until then. The Hunger Games commentators are showing clips from previous years, explaining how the game works. At the very end, they pause on this photo of a kid holding a brick, standing over another kid with blood coming out of his head. I laughed at first but quickly understood what I was watching was not funny. Instead, I was uncomfortable. The image only appears for a couple seconds, but I'm sick to my stomach thinking of it now. The context it's presented in passes the moment off as an ordinary moment, just an instance of one kid bringing glory to his district by winning the Games. But it's clearly not what the filmmakers want us to come away with. They are asking us to think about how anyone could not only condone this but actively participate in it every single year, looking forward to it like a six-year-old child looks forward to Christmas.

When the film gets to the actual Hunger Games, the violence becomes even more confrontational. Most of the murders take place off-screen or are obscured by rapid editing and blurry camerawork. The ones we do see, however, are just as uncomfortable to watch as that first image. We don't celebrate any of the deaths or wish for more gore as we would in a typical action film or, at least, one that starred adults; what we see is enough, thank you very much. Even when one of the contestants is killed by another to save Katniss, we don't cheer on her demise. The gleeful, psychotic monologue she delivers as she has Katniss in her clutches makes it easier to watch her death, sure. But we're only relieved that Katniss is okay, not that one of the villains is dead. Her death is just another sad consequence of this game and this culture.

When people do die, it's often presented in a surprisingly unsentimental way. There is no excessive outpouring of emotion, just the bare minimum needed to get through the scene. While watching The Hunger Games, I was reminded of Grave of the Fireflies' presentation of death: a scary reality of this harsh, unpredictable world the protagonists are thrown into. The lack of sentimentality makes the film sadder, but it also makes the deaths scarier and more realistic. Rue's (relatively) quiet death forces us to ponder the violence much more than if there was an emotional buffer to distract us. We have to question how anyone could allow such a thing could happen to such a little girl because there's nothing else to think about.

The Hunger Games makes no definitive statement on violence on cinema. To do this, the film would have needed someone like Michael Haneke to confront us openly and directly with these murderous children instead of hiding behind a blurry camera. What The Hunger Games does, though, is start the conversation by directly addressing the very same audience who goes to see these gratuitously violent films. I'm not saying it will change the world, but maybe The Hunger Games will get some people to start questioning why they enjoy watching people mutilate and kill other people at the cinema.

Britney's Videography: "Do Somethin'"

Britney Spears "Do Somethin'" # # # # #

Released during those dark years that I stopped following Britney's career, this was my first time watching her "Do Somethin'" video, the final single released from her first greatest hits collection. Expecting the worst, I was pleasantly surprised by this video. It's nothing groundbreaking by any stretch of the imagination, but it's cute and fun and sometimes that's all you need. What struck me the most about this clip was the fact that this was Britney's tribute to (maybe even a parody of?) the stereotypical hip-hop video from around this time period. There's Britney and her crew in her gas-guzzling (pink, of course) Hummer, showing off her bling and throwing cash around like it's nothing. When she finally steps up into the club, everything around her literally stops as she becomes the focus of all the club-goers. There's even a scene where Britney sits in her throne and her crew pushes her through the club like the Queen that she is! Whatever she is attempting to pay tribute to, the video comes off as genuine Britney, something only she could pull off. It's no classic, nor is it something I'm likely to watch again anytime soon, but it was a pleasant way to spend three and a half minutes.

Rants on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

What sets David Fincher's version of the Swedish bestseller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo apart from the original adaptation (and, I'm guessing, the book itself) is the punk rock spirit that drove the marketing campaign and provides the foundation for the film itself. It's certainly an interesting way to set the film apart from one of the few foreign language films in the past decade average movie-going Americans actually saw. The problem is that it's an inappropriate choice for this film. What Fincher is attempting to do is bury Dragon Tattoo under so much style and edginess that you forget that what he is actually trying to sell is a conservative, middling, over-long mystery that, apart from a couple of sodomy scenes, would have been tame 40 years ago. I give him (some) credit for trying to turn this turd into something, but, in the end, it's like putting lipstick on a pig: no amount of stylization is going to make up for the deficiencies of the story or the fact that I've had more fun at family gatherings, cramped with 14 other people in a single-wide trailer, then I had watching this movie. It's the first of many failures in this attempt at making this dog of a story cool.

My main gripe with the film, even before I saw it, was the fact that it has a nearly three hour runtime. I saw the original on a whim and detested it, one of my main complaints being that it was far too long. Surely, I thought, Fincher or someone on the team will realize this and cut something, anything from this story. Nope. In fact, it's even a little longer than the Swedish version. How is it even possible to need 160 minutes to tell this story? The problem is that both films cater far too much to the Lisbeth character. I understand that she's supposed to be this edgy, instantly iconic, teetering-on-the-edge-of-sanity firecracker, but did we really need a whole hour to introduce her character? I got it after a couple of scenes, thank you very much.

The bloated adaptation is actually very indicative of a major problem in Hollywood today. When fans of a huge bestseller, particularly one that's part of a series, go to see its inevitable movie adaptation, they don't want to see an adaptation that works the best for the film medium. Oh no, they want to see the entire damn book on the screen, length or narrative sense be damned! This ideology is what ruined the Twilight franchise (I know I said it's like putting lipstick on a pig, but they could be mildly enjoyable if someone had said no to Stephenie Meyer along the way) and makes the Harry Potter movies incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the book beforehand (never has the phrase "Oh, that made more sense in the book" been used more freely and treated as if it isn't a problem then with the Harry Potter franchise). Dragon Tattoo suffers the same fate and not only because of its coma-inducing length. One of the big criticisms thrown at the film was that it was still set in Sweden even though everyone speaks English and no one seems particularly interested in attempting an accent. While it was a silly choice, I understand why everyone was hesitant to change the setting. The fanboy uproar that this film takes place on an island not off Sweden but Maine and that Mikael Blomkvist's name had been changed to Michael Bloom would have been much larger than the tiny dissent that arose from keeping it the same. "How dare you change our beloved novel!" they would have protested. "How dare you hold these books captive so that we can't get adequate, film-appropriate adaptations from them!" I respond.

As I mentioned earlier, the character of Lisbeth Salander, with her severe haircut, tattoos, clothes and lack of social skills, is meant to be instantly iconic. Noomi Rapace, the original Lisbeth, went on and on about how difficult it was adjusting back to her normal self after living with Lisbeth "insanity" for the duration of the Swedish trilogy. Rooney Mara earned raves and an Oscar nomination for "transforming" herself into such a "dark", "disturbed" character. While neither of these actresses were "terrible" in any sense of the word, I'm still not clear on where all of these adjectives showed up in their respective performances. In Mara's case, we learn everything about the character a couple of scenes, just from the way she is dressed and the way she interacts with people. Mara doesn't add anything to Lisbeth to make her appear as dangerous as she allegedly is. Aside from one notorious revenge scene, Mara's Lisbeth comes off more as a bored, bratty teenager who lacks the proper manners to thank those who have helped her or make basic conversation with others rather than the anti-social psychopath she is supposed to be. Just like the film, Mara is all style with very little substance. You can try to put black lipstick on her, but it's like putting...well, you know where I'm going with this. C-

100 Hot Men and a Dame: #84 Gregory Peck

 84. Gregory Peck

Occupation: Actor

Nationality: American

Peak of Hotness: The mid-1940's through the early 1950's.

Best Known For: Playing (and winning an Oscar for it) everyone's favorite, idealistic father Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Another day, another hot man. This time I'm flying solo discussing this hot piece of Golden Age ass. An underrated one, no doubt, but a hot piece nonetheless.

Like many people, my first encounter with Gregory Peck was in To Kill a Mockingbird. I saw this film in my ninth grade English after, what else, reading the book (to "enrich  the experience," I'm sure). My cinephilia was still in its infancy at this point, so although I knew about the film, I had never encountered Gregory before. I don't want to say that this is where I first fell in love because a) that seems so completely inappropriate given Mockingbird's content, legacy and Peck's character and b) the film, appropriately, de-emphasizes Peck's sexuality. What I will say about Peck in Mockingbird, however, is that he certainly made an impression on me and didn't exactly dissuade me from seeking out any of his other work.

Looking back now, I guess the moment I fell for Gregory was in the film Roman Holiday. It has been far too long since I've seen it, but I was totally enamored with that movie--especially by the idea of a tall, gorgeous, deep-voiced man whisking me away on a whirlwind tour of Rome. I mean, who could say no to that prospect? More than Mockingbird, Roman Holiday plays up his sexuality, or, at the very least, the sense that Peck is a man who enjoys and desires the company of beautiful women. Gregory's not the typical romantic comedy lead: he reads a bit "serious actor slumming it in a light movie" and he's certainly not a Cary Grant. Against all odds, though, Roman Holiday works for him, finding a charm and attractiveness not seen in many of his other films.

I hate to keep talking about Peck's sexuality, because, for the most part, he wasn't a sex symbol in the same way someone like Clark Gable was. Even in his early films like Spellbound, The Valley of Decision or Gentleman's Agreement where his prettiness was at its absolute peak, Peck was sold as a thinking man's sex symbol, never as a sexual object of lust (Duel in the Sun excepted). Sure, he usually got the girl in the end like nearly every male lead during the Golden Age, but sex was never the first thing on his mind. There's no doubt that Gregory liked to get down in the bedroom. You can rest assured, though, that he wasn't going to kiss and tell with his dumb friends. He was a gentleman in every sense of the word.

With his persona firmly in place, I want to talk more about two performances of Peck's from 1945, his breakthrough year in Hollywood. The first, The Keys of the Kingdom, I only want to mention because he plays a priest and, as you will see, this is a recurring motif in the countdown (e.g. Belmondo, Clift, Ruffalo). There's something so wrong but oh so right about lusting after a hot guy in a priest outfit, especially when they're playing the saintliest of all saintly priests. I suppose that's just the bad Catholic in me, though. The second film is Hitchcock's Spellbound, which is about a female psychologist (Ingrid Bergman) who helps her male co-worker (Peck) recover his memory after a traumatic event causes him to be an amnesiac. Unusual for its time, Spellbound is fascinating because it's one of the few films I can think of where the male lead plays the damsel in distress while the female lead is the strong catalyst for change. Emotionally damaged men make me weak in the knees and Peck in Spellbound is no exception. I saw both of these films a couple of years ago and, in their own way, they both solidified my attraction to that tall drink of water Gregory Peck.

Of course I couldn't write this post without at least mentioning Ethan Peck, Gregory's grandson who is also an actor. I've never actually seen Ethan in anything, but there's no denying that he got his grandfather's good looks. So, who do you want to be with, Gregory, Ethan or both?

Crazy 80's Project: Brazil ["Love Conquers All" Version]

EDIT: After publishing this review, I learned that the version I watched--the "Love Conquers All" version--was not the theatrical version and, in fact, never saw the light of day. It was only included as an extra on the Brazil Criterion, perhaps as a warning as to what can happen when a studio interferes way too much on a project. I'll keep this review up, as it's the only full version of Brazil I have available at this time, but you are officially warned about which cut I am actually reviewing. With this new information, however, I will definitely be seeking out the director's cut as soon as I can.

Let me tell you, dear readers, the struggles I went through just to watch this damn film. I rented the Criterion edition of this film, which contains both the 90 minute theatrical version released in the U.S. that director Terry Gilliam does not endorse and the 2+ hour director's cut containing all of the scenes and storylines cut from the theatrical version. Originally, I opted for the director's cut, figuring that this is the version I should see if I wanted to get the full Brazil experience. Of course, halfway through, the disc started skipping and at least a good 15 minute chunk was missing. I could deal with a couple minutes but 15? That is entirely way too much to miss and still have an adequate opinion. So, I went with the theatrical release and that's the version I am grading. Comparing what I saw of the director's cut and the theatrical version, it's very easy to see to why Gilliam is not a fan of the latter. Whereas his cut is a lush, perhaps to the point of being overstuffed, take on dystopian literature and films, the theatrical version is a complete bastardization of Gilliam's vision. Ninety minutes is not nearly enough to tell this story. Brazil is so busy moving from A to B it is forced to sacrifice characterization, motivation and, most importantly, a chance to get to truly become involved with Gilliam's world. From what I saw of the director's cut, Gilliam really gets the chance to explore the insane inner workings of this not-quite-dystopian future (even if it meanders a bit in spots). There's this great scene between Jonathan Pryce and Ian Holm where they struggle to give a refund check to the widow of a falsely accused suspect. Not surprisingly, it's completely butchered in the theatrical version, but it nails the absurdist tone the film is going for. Perhaps one day I'll get to see the director's cut of this film and maybe then more of it will click into place. Until then, however, consider me one of the unconverted. C

"The Worst Episode of RuPaul's Drag Race Ever"

I highly doubt that after 20+ years of development hell, Glenn Close intended for her dream project, the gender-bending drama Albert Nobbs, to be laughed at as uproariously as I did when I finally got the chance to see it. But there I was, forcibly biting my lip to the point of it turning white in order to (unsuccessfully) stop the torrent of inappropriate laughter coming out of me. It certainly didn't help that my friend would, out of nowhere, come up with comments such as the title of this piece and send me into another fit of hysterics. Just to be clear, Albert Nobbs is not a hysterical comedy in the vein of Bridesmaids. It's actually the exact opposite in nearly every way. Albert (Close), a butler at a late 19th century Irish hotel, leads a very quiet and reserved life. Day in and day out, he keeps to himself while doing his job, never stepping out of line, getting in anyone's way or even raising his voice. Albert is the sort of man you'd never expect to have a dark past or any sort of secrets, but he has the most surprising secret of them all: he is really a woman, driven by poverty and desperation years ago to dress up as a man for a waiter job and continuing to do so to remain employed. The most surprising thing about this, to me anyways, was that anyone bought that Albert was a man. Granted, I knew going into the film the secret but come on. Albert was able to go decades as a man without someone going "Really, Albert?" These comments apply doubly to Janet McTeer when her character, Hubert, first appears in the film. He accidentally discovers Albert's secret, only to reveal later on that he too is also really a woman. No shit, Sherlock. The make-up work in Albert Nobbs is fine, but no amount of it on the planet will ever disguise the real sex of Janet McTeer. I mean, did you see her tits busting through her shirt?

In the first of two scenes that sent me in a fit of hysterics, Hubert shows Albert his real gender by opening up his shirt and fishing out her gigantic tits, letting them hang out as free as the wind. Even funnier is Albert's reaction: he recoils in fear as if Hubert had pulled a knife out of his shirt and was about to murder him in cold blood. The second occurs later in the film as, after a series of rough patches in their lives, Albert and Hubert decide to recapture their femininity by putting on dresses and taking a stroll along the beach. If the idea doesn't already have you chuckling, just wait until you see hulking Janet McTeer in a dress easily three sizes to small waddling down the beach. I had a hard time believing her as a man earlier in the movie, but after that scene, I didn't buy her as a woman either.

The problem with these scenes--and the rest of the film, if we're being honest--isn't that they are funny in and of themselves. It's that they clash so violently with the downbeat, middle-brow drama that the rest of the film is aiming for. Albert Nobbs is really four or five downbeat, middle-brow dramas rolled into one, none of which are really interesting enough to be developed into a feature on its own. The main crux of the film, a character study of Albert, works to a certain degree, but I feel like there may have been a more imaginative way to explore this than in the conventional way Close chose. Albert is a character who has spent so many years hiding his identity, (s)he has no idea who (s)he really is anymore. He's a dull character because he has to be in order to survive. Albert couldn't risk becoming close to anyone, so he became someone so dull and uninteresting, no one would bother him. The problem for Close, then, is how to portray a human being without a personality and make them a character worth following for two hours. I'll say she gives it her best--"A" for effort, as they used to say on Idol to contestants they loved but sucked that week--but the challenge is too insurmountable for even someone with her talent and skill. The scene where she reveals her past to Hubert is quietly heartbreaking, thanks mostly to Close's subtlety. However, the entirety of Albert Nobbs is so vociferous, Close can't keep up and her performance suffers. As wild and nutsy as Albert Nobbs is, I feel like I should mention that I had a wildly good time at this movie. Sure, most of it was terrible in the traditional sense, but it was a good deal more entertaining than any of the "feel good" movies nominated for Best Picture this year. Although she may have not intended this in her 20 year struggle, it looks like Close may have accidentally made a future camp classic. C

Bukkake!

For the third installment of our Queer Anglo Films series, Dave and I tackle avant garde director Derek Jarman's debut film, Sebastiane. In the post, we discuss the film's take on homosexuality and Christianity, it's nakedness and influence on modern porn, "love vs. lust" in the gay community and why homoeroticism is deemed okay in films set in Ancient Rome. We even discuss a bukkake scene! So, join us. There's plenty of fun to be had!