Today is clearly "outraged letters" day.
For the important things, I have written to President Obama regarding his office's contemptible views on DOMA. I know it probably won't help, but I just had to express my shock and betrayal that someone who was so assiduously courting the gay and ally vote during the election would issue this kind of statement.
In the silly things...
I wrote to Columbia Tri-Star Marketing about why I won't be seeing District 9 in theaters. This letter was more sarcastic than outraged -- I sent them a thank-you note for saving me from spending $11 on their movie. And not just my $11, but that of everyone I know and can reach. If they think we're not their demographic, fine. I'll spend the money on something or someone else. It's not like they're trying to turn a profit here or anything.
I also wrote to Fox about the ten hours of intro stuff to the current season of So You Think You Can Dance. I like the show -- it requires a certain amount of actual talent and skill to get onto the show, and it's focussed on performance rather than on internal psychodrama. But sitting through five pre-show shows to get to the selection of the final contestants is beyond the pale. So I wrote them to tell them so.
It feels good to be writing indignant letters again. I don't expect them to accomplish much, really, but I have said something about the things in the world that are upsetting me. (Yeah, okay, the SYTYCD one isn't really that big of a deal, but it was incredibly annoying, and as long as I'm writing letters...)
Later today, we're going to go to a BBQ at a friend's house, where I will work on my travel project and smoke too many cigarettes and eat home-made pulled pork. Perhaps this will soothe my outrage.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
REVIEW: Dance Flick
This movie was dreadful. "I almost walked out" levels of bad.
Look, I love a good dance movie, but they do really all have the same plot -- upper-middle-class white girl wants to dance but can't for some reason, meets non-white/poor (or both) boy who teaches her how to express herself through dancing different from anything she's ever learned, she accomplishes something she never thought she could using these new skills, and then leaves. Boy will not appear in the sequel in any way.
This is a set-up ripe for lampooning, and given that DF was made by the same people who did "Scary Movie," which was apparently a treat for horror fans, I had high hopes of them bringing the funny.
If the writers had watched any dance movie other than "Save the Last Dance," they'd have had better luck. The movie was entirely a remake of STLD, with bits of other things thrown in (almost all of which were much funnier than the main plot-line/satire). Pieces of it were *very* funny, but there wasn't really a whole lot of dancing (although what little existed was fun to watch). Unfortunately, a great deal of the humor is in race jokes, some of which are funny (mostly because they ring of truth) but a large number of which just made me uncomfortable, and all of which became boring after they'd been beaten into the ground, resurrected, re-flogged to death, and then presented as warmed-over leftovers five minutes later.
I'm having a hard time unpacking the bits that made me unhappy because they weren't funny, because they were racial humor (and I have privilege I need to examine there), because they weren't true to the style of the movies they were parodying, or just because they presented the kids in the movie as shiftless, futureless losers who chase "respect" at the cost of anything that might make their lives better. (Which is so not the message of any of the original movies, and isn't really even suggested by them, as far as I can tell, so it's not even like it's a funny reversal of a "dance can get you anywhere, stay in school, don't do drugs" message.)
So yeah... Not enough dancing, too much uncomfortable and overblown humor. Save your money and go see Star Trek instead.
Edited to add later: I see I left out my rant about the terrible ten minute "your mom is dead and it's all your fault" "ballet" sequence. That's probably just as well. It was every bit as bad as you think it was.
Look, I love a good dance movie, but they do really all have the same plot -- upper-middle-class white girl wants to dance but can't for some reason, meets non-white/poor (or both) boy who teaches her how to express herself through dancing different from anything she's ever learned, she accomplishes something she never thought she could using these new skills, and then leaves. Boy will not appear in the sequel in any way.
This is a set-up ripe for lampooning, and given that DF was made by the same people who did "Scary Movie," which was apparently a treat for horror fans, I had high hopes of them bringing the funny.
If the writers had watched any dance movie other than "Save the Last Dance," they'd have had better luck. The movie was entirely a remake of STLD, with bits of other things thrown in (almost all of which were much funnier than the main plot-line/satire). Pieces of it were *very* funny, but there wasn't really a whole lot of dancing (although what little existed was fun to watch). Unfortunately, a great deal of the humor is in race jokes, some of which are funny (mostly because they ring of truth) but a large number of which just made me uncomfortable, and all of which became boring after they'd been beaten into the ground, resurrected, re-flogged to death, and then presented as warmed-over leftovers five minutes later.
I'm having a hard time unpacking the bits that made me unhappy because they weren't funny, because they were racial humor (and I have privilege I need to examine there), because they weren't true to the style of the movies they were parodying, or just because they presented the kids in the movie as shiftless, futureless losers who chase "respect" at the cost of anything that might make their lives better. (Which is so not the message of any of the original movies, and isn't really even suggested by them, as far as I can tell, so it's not even like it's a funny reversal of a "dance can get you anywhere, stay in school, don't do drugs" message.)
So yeah... Not enough dancing, too much uncomfortable and overblown humor. Save your money and go see Star Trek instead.
Edited to add later: I see I left out my rant about the terrible ten minute "your mom is dead and it's all your fault" "ballet" sequence. That's probably just as well. It was every bit as bad as you think it was.
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