A movie I watched
Dec. 18th, 2006 01:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ff00ffI like kung-fu being married to color correction. House of Flying Daggers was even more beautiful than Hero, though not quite as good a movie over all. I'm glad China is supplying the US with it's own martial arts movies because once you've seen x many sincere online discussions about whether or not a katana could cut a tank in half you sort of get queasy any time you see one. There's a world of exotic edged weapons out there, and I'm glad there are good new movies in which to see them.
Rob Zombie and Zhang Yimou aught to team up and make a movie called House of a Thousand Flying Dagger Filled Corpses, about slow motion wirework martial artists slaying redneck zombies.
Also, I tried to watch The Devil Wears Prada but shortly into the movie I decided that if they had a scene where the main character gets help from her coworkers to make herself "pretty" then I would stop watching. They did, so I did. There is a correct way to call Anne Hathaway fat to show that her coworkers are completely out of touch, but nope, it does seem we were really supposed to accept that she is fat so uh... sorry movie. Nothing I can do, I tried!
Update: I watched The Devil Wears Prada and it was about as thematically toxic as I feared. My brother and I have this working theory that there are only 2 types of movies marketed to black people. There are movies about getting out of the hood, and movies about staying true to the hood. These two categories encompass a lot of other types of movies as well. On the surface you are supposed to take DWP as a stayin' true movie because a "regular" New York Journalism student who hangs out with her trust fund baby pro-chef/artist friends is suddenly plunged into the zany world of fashion publishing. We are treated to scenes of her drifting away from her friends, and aww it's so sad.
Over the course of the movie she changes from "ugly" and "Fat" (which the actress couldn't pull off if they beat her half to death with a bat made out of fudge) to stylish and savy. Her Life becomes entirely consumed by her job assisting the titular devil. She screws over her co-worker, taking some trip to a big important event in Paris, she cheats on her boyfriend with a guy who knows people in the field of work she wants to do when she's done being a PA for the devil, and she tries to save the devils career when she uncovers a plot against her. Then she sees the titular devil screw over her only friend royaly, but she's sort of cool with it. At the end of the story we are treated to the devil recapping our heroin's arc from earnest journalist to career hit woman, and then only then does she quit, after the recap. Now, if you're a traditional Hollywood movie watcher then you are supposed to actually believe that she hadn't realized what she was becoming, even though there were numerous giant milestones she crossed, like using sex to get contacts just to name one.
So if you follow Hollywood logic she realized what she was becoming only after the devil pointed it out to her, and then repented and went back to her old life. I really really can't follow that logic though, and I think only a cretin (like my brother) would be fooled by such superficiality. She screwed over a co-worker, cheated on her boyfriend, and hardly batted an eye as her boss crushed her best friend's dreams. I think the revelatory scene, the recap in which the devil recounts the heroine's arc is more like a passing of the torch. Its like the Kung-fu master telling her student that there is no more she can teach her. That is why she quits, because she has impressed her boss too much. She herself has become an alpha bitch and it is time for her to strike out on her own.
There is a montage of the heroin reuniting with her boyfriend, her old group of friends, and applying for work in journalism which is what she wanted to do in the first place, but the thing is she's using the Devil as a job reference to get a job that she was pointed to by a guy she cheated on her boyfriend with. She didn't repent! She learned the devils ways and she is using her voodoo, just walking over peoples faces to get what she wants. That is why DWP is not a stayin' true to the hood movie, it's a gettin' out movie.
Rob Zombie and Zhang Yimou aught to team up and make a movie called House of a Thousand Flying Dagger Filled Corpses, about slow motion wirework martial artists slaying redneck zombies.
Also, I tried to watch The Devil Wears Prada but shortly into the movie I decided that if they had a scene where the main character gets help from her coworkers to make herself "pretty" then I would stop watching. They did, so I did. There is a correct way to call Anne Hathaway fat to show that her coworkers are completely out of touch, but nope, it does seem we were really supposed to accept that she is fat so uh... sorry movie. Nothing I can do, I tried!
Update: I watched The Devil Wears Prada and it was about as thematically toxic as I feared. My brother and I have this working theory that there are only 2 types of movies marketed to black people. There are movies about getting out of the hood, and movies about staying true to the hood. These two categories encompass a lot of other types of movies as well. On the surface you are supposed to take DWP as a stayin' true movie because a "regular" New York Journalism student who hangs out with her trust fund baby pro-chef/artist friends is suddenly plunged into the zany world of fashion publishing. We are treated to scenes of her drifting away from her friends, and aww it's so sad.
Over the course of the movie she changes from "ugly" and "Fat" (which the actress couldn't pull off if they beat her half to death with a bat made out of fudge) to stylish and savy. Her Life becomes entirely consumed by her job assisting the titular devil. She screws over her co-worker, taking some trip to a big important event in Paris, she cheats on her boyfriend with a guy who knows people in the field of work she wants to do when she's done being a PA for the devil, and she tries to save the devils career when she uncovers a plot against her. Then she sees the titular devil screw over her only friend royaly, but she's sort of cool with it. At the end of the story we are treated to the devil recapping our heroin's arc from earnest journalist to career hit woman, and then only then does she quit, after the recap. Now, if you're a traditional Hollywood movie watcher then you are supposed to actually believe that she hadn't realized what she was becoming, even though there were numerous giant milestones she crossed, like using sex to get contacts just to name one.
So if you follow Hollywood logic she realized what she was becoming only after the devil pointed it out to her, and then repented and went back to her old life. I really really can't follow that logic though, and I think only a cretin (like my brother) would be fooled by such superficiality. She screwed over a co-worker, cheated on her boyfriend, and hardly batted an eye as her boss crushed her best friend's dreams. I think the revelatory scene, the recap in which the devil recounts the heroine's arc is more like a passing of the torch. Its like the Kung-fu master telling her student that there is no more she can teach her. That is why she quits, because she has impressed her boss too much. She herself has become an alpha bitch and it is time for her to strike out on her own.
There is a montage of the heroin reuniting with her boyfriend, her old group of friends, and applying for work in journalism which is what she wanted to do in the first place, but the thing is she's using the Devil as a job reference to get a job that she was pointed to by a guy she cheated on her boyfriend with. She didn't repent! She learned the devils ways and she is using her voodoo, just walking over peoples faces to get what she wants. That is why DWP is not a stayin' true to the hood movie, it's a gettin' out movie.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 11:27 am (UTC)She got everything she wanted from that job, contacts in journalism and heavy hitters to use as personal references, and all she had to do was walk over the people who were closest to her. She used those references and contacts after her apparent repentance, didn't she?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 11:36 am (UTC)Speaking of giving back ill gotten gains did you miss the part where she calls up the former co-worker she screwed over by taking her place to go to Paris and offers to give her all the dresses she got in Paris? I dunno what fancy thing they call it in head-up-your-ass land, but where I was raised that's called making amends! She went on a journey only to realize that she was better off right where she started out.
There's nothing in the film to indicate that she left more twisted evil and harsh than she had been at the beginning, just that she found she was capable of it and ultimately rejected taking her career in that direction.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 11:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-18 08:40 pm (UTC)