Reviews

I applaud Harry for shining a light on the dark dynamics that contribute to generational trauma in so many families. His savvy refusal to accept the assumptions of the loaded questions fired at him by the press is impressive and inspiring to watch. The amount of press and pundits shaming him for whistleblowing just shows how dysfunctional our default cultural ideas are about family dynamics. Good for Harry for speaking up and speaking out. I think this interview is very brave and will help many others to speak out about their experiences of normalized bullying and abuse within their own families. I agree that the silence of the royal family in responding to Harry's transparency speaks volumes. Healing cannot begin without accountability. I hope the royal family steps up. Thank you, Harry. You are a prince in name and in deed.

I applaud Harry for shining a light on the dark dynamics that contribute to generational trauma in so many families. His savvy refusal to accept the assumptions of the loaded question fired at him by the press is impressive and inspiring to watch. The amount of press and pundits shaming him for whistleblowing just shows how dysfunctional our default cultural ideas are about family dynamics. Physical assault is a crime, whether done within a family or not. Good for Harry for speaking up and speaking out. I think this interview is very brave and will help many others to speak out about their experiences of bullying and abuse within their own families. Thank you, Harry. You are a prince in name and in deed.

This documentary did a good job of exposing a wolf in sheep's clothing, One Taste founder, Nicole Daedone. However, like with many "cult" documentaries that are in vogue, it ends with lazy tabloid "this could happen to anyone" scaremongering instead of doing the investigative journalism to expose the common threads that left the victims they interviewed more susceptible to falling prey to this type of brainwashing. In this case, the documentary could have explored our dismal sex education for women in particular, our cultural shaming of female sexuality, our epidemic of child sexual abuse in all sexes, and our failure to teach both trauma recovery and critical thinking skills. Some friends and I attended an introductory One Taste lecture describing the "Om" meditation in the late 2000's and because I had expert knowledge of my sexual response from a young age from women's health books and had training in critical thinking skills, I immediately recognized the cult tactics of groupthink and gaslighting--and I saw the glazed look in the women's eyes who were devotees. It was truly creepy.

Documentaries on cults should examine how our culture at large grooms people to be vulnerable. But every time we try to have that conversation, it's seen as "victim blaming" rather than what it really is...empowering to avoid victimization. Documentaries like this have a responsibility to look at the bigger picture, instead of just creating more fear about how any of us could be next which, in my experience, is not true.

This production is another example of today's media trend of dumbing down great past works of art that appealed to mind, body and heart and instead writing sophomoric scripts full of insultingly expository dialogue, gratuitous sex, and non-existent character development. Oh...and somehow it's ok to anachronistically race flip historical characters, but not gender flip any. Instead, this adaptation reinforces cliche false sex stereotypes about men and women and turns the delightful cat and mouse game of the original tale between a female and her male equal into a cringeworthy catfight between two women spewing the comically insulting female tropes we (unfortunately) see everywhere else these days. Skip it. I had to go back and watch the Glenn Close/John Malkovich (1988) and Annette Bening/Colin Firth (1989) versions just to cleanse my palette. Oh, what Leslie Manville could have done with scripts of that caliber! But...now we'll never know...

This narrative was original in that it asks women to consider if they are codependently complicit in enabling predators by giving mixed messages, an important topic that I have not seen addressed elsewhere. I could have done without all of the extended scenes of the wife character shaking, crying, vomiting, etc. It's a lazy script that just makes female characters fall apart emotionally instead of writing expository dialogue that reveals their complex inner lives.

Unfortunately, Ken Branaugh's latest Christie adaptation (like his previous Murder on the Orient Express) follows the current trend of using the brand recognition of exemplary icons (Christie, Tolkien, Roddenberry, etc.) to create dumbed down drivel stripped of its original intelligence, humanity, complexity and nuance and instead padded full of

1) tired regressive one dimensional sex stereotypes (women = slight and sexy and men = buff and violent) and 2) preachy political propaganda that is 3) made to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to make the most money.

There ought to be a law preventing people from rebranding Agatha Christie's name or her characters with these all-spectable-no-substance adaptations that pervert the art of the world's best selling author and diminish her estimable legacy in the hearts and minds of new generations. Christie must be turning over in her grave.

Thank goodness for David Suchet, who used his clout and own incredible talent to insist on bringing Christie's authentic Poirot stories to audiences in all their brilliance. To the discerning viewer, those who are writing and directing these recent adaptations for profit at the expense of her art are a cringeworthy embarrassment to her canon of incomparable work.

Here we go again. Another story that's going to focus on race and class and sexual orientation, blah blah blah while playing up to tired old one dimensional female tropes like shy but plucky ingenues and cliche catfights between malevolent matrons. Newsflash: in 1882, women of all races, classes and sexual orientations were the legal property of their husbands under common law coverture with no legal identity or civil rights of their own, including the vote. To make it look like "rich white women" had all this formidable power is a gross misrepresentation of this historical time period to pander to today's zeitgeist. This is made for the Harlequin romance reader with regressive ideas about women. Skip it.

I loved this musical. Finally, we get to hear the real story of a real woman rebel from that woman's own perspective that focuses on her triumphs and not just her tragedies. No wonder the (male) critics can't wrap their heads around it. They gaslit and trivializeds Diana while she was alive, now they're doing it to her musical decades later. When was the last time you saw a musical with profound scenes from actual epic humanitarian moments of history that could move you to sobs? "Still exploiting Diana?" Pah-lease. Now "telling a woman's story in her own voice" is "exploiting her." Whatevs. Glad it's streaming now so everyone can see it.

This documentary is excellent in showing how white women supported black women and how black men did not support black women with respect to black women's civil rights as women--a balanced intersectional analysis that is generally ignored in other recent documentaries on black history and/or women's history.

I subtracted one star because (like other historical documentaries on black history and women's history) it went into graphic detail about INTERcommunity racial violence against black men, but did not go into graphic detail about INTRAcommunity gender violence against women of all races perpetuated within their own communities (i.e. Coverture, marital rape, femicide, human trafficking, etc.)

I also subtracted one star because they glossed over Murray's brilliant "Jane Crow" analysis, in which she demonstrated how the arguments to keep blacks and women in an inferior status are the same. The filmmakers kept the two issues of race and sex discrimination apart, but Murray rightly connected them, which is one of her most brilliant intellectual contributions to legal theory.

So, Darren Aronofsky makes this graphically violent horror film in which Jennifer Lawrence has every type of violence perpetrated on her body for the audience's entertainment. But that's OK, see, because it's this METAPHOR for how CHRISTIANS are raping the earth (mother!) by a blind devotion to a patriarchal god. So, you know, male ego/bad, female creator/good. Christians/bad, seculars/good.

So here we have 1) Aronofsky manipulating the theater going public using shock value to sell a movie to line his own pockets 2) That shock value being at the expense of a woman's body 3) Traumatizing the general public 4) A man speaking for women 5) A filmmaker normalizing binary stereotypes (newsflash: all humans have an ego and all humans are capable of being creative) 6) Creating an "us vs. them" smug superiority of non-religious people thinking they are morally superior to religious people (not necessarily, folks)

So now the discussion/controversy is all about RELIGION and the BIBLE and how men SUCK and women are AWESOME and how STUPID religious people are, but it's not even women telling the story and it's USING THE VIOLATION OF WOMEN'S BODIES to make a point. What it IS is traumatizing women watching and normalizing violence against women's bodies that are apparently metaphorical objects to represent "nature" in allegorical tales. It's white male progressive finger pointing using "standing up for women" as cover to promote a wholly unproductive (not to mention reductive) black and white view of "religion."

This film is supposed to be this super clever bait and switch. Like, "we are going to trick you into watching a film that you think is a horror film but is really this feminist film about how we should all be nice to nature because it's female." If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck--it's some man making millions off of psycho-porno-pathic violence against women for entertainment. But it's 2017, and Aronofsky wants to think of himself as progressive, so this "allegory" is how he's keeping himself in denial that he's being just as exploitive of women's bodies as every other horror film.

It's just crap piled on crap piled on crap masquerading as some sort of profound allegory. But it's just crap. And offensive.

It would be easy to view this film as all about gender. (Is it feminist? Is it anti-feminist?) Or even to focus on race issues. (Did Coppola whitewash the story?) But that misses the point of this sumptuous, visceral, superlative movie.

Coppola made a film about what humans do under extreme conditions that is refreshingly devoid of the gender tropes Hollywood loves to spew such as "lusting male manipulator" and "frigid female spinster." In this film, every character is first and foremost human--complex, nuanced and struggling with their conflict between survival, desire and morality. Coppola's film shows that humans (male and female) struggle with the same conflicts. Yes, women lust. And, yes, men have moral struggles. Because both women and men lust and have moral struggles. And both have the instinct to survive.

The experience of the film was a unique blend of powerful sensuality--the intimate sharing of music, food, and prayer, acts of care and service like bathing, bandaging and even gardening, exotic rich nature scenes, the distant sounds of war and the sparse but compelling soundtrack make this a film you want to crawl into and touch, taste, and smell as well as see and hear. The exquisite costuming creates mesmerizing tableaux as well as expresses both what's common and unique to each of the female characters--not an easy feat to accomplish. The leading stars shine brilliantly, but we also see a depth and profundity of character and acting among the 4 young girls in the film. A truly ensemble drama, not usually seen among a cast of such varied ages.

The emotional ride is also a powerful experience. Sexual tension, flirtation, desire, and eroticism alternate with fear, suspense, and even horror. And, of course, the brilliant direction makes you not want to blink for fear of missing even one of the impeccably designed and composed ethereal, exotic, dreamlike visions in scene after scene.

I do not give a 10 rating lighting, but this film really deserves it. It is so far above the normal Hollywood fare.

After seeing the film, I understand and agree with Coppola's explanation of why she chose not to include racial diversity in the cast. Because of the time period, the film would have had to address the racial divide of slavery and to do that justice would take the film in the opposite direction of Coppola's vision, which is to use an isolated group of people to show how fundamentally alike men and women are, even in a sex segregated society. A film can't be all things to all people. There are plenty of African-American films, for example, that do not address the issue of sex segregation in black culture even today.

If you make sense of the world through the lens of gender stereotypes, or need big explosions to feel anything, you are probably not going to enjoy this film. But if you like complex human characters and sensuous subtlety, brilliant acting and virtuoso directing, don't miss seeing this film on the big screen.

I just want to point out to readers trying to decide whether to see this movie or not that there is a serious gender gap with regard to the votes for this film. As of this writing, the film's overall average rating on IMDb is a 5.8 but 18,200 males gave it an average of 4.7 and 14,700 women gave it an average score of 7.0. So men are dragging down the numbers here, lol. I think one reason for this might be that the male viewing audience is still getting adjusted to films where men are eroticized for women's visual pleasure. Of course, women have had to watch hot young women eroticized in films for decades so we're used to it, but I suspect it still makes a lot of men nervous in our homophobic society.

I enjoyed this film, not because of the acting (hey, after 5 films, we know Kristen Stewart can't act!) but because it is very sensual. I enjoyed all the uber close ups that took us into her vampire reality in a very visceral way. And that cabin in the woods! What a dream! That's paradise wish fulfillment on film if ever I saw it.

Was this film great art? Heck, no. But for this red-blooded heterosexual female it was great ENTERTAINMENT. Thanks, Hollywood, and keep up the good work of making films that pander to people's capacity for fantasy stories rooted in LOVE, with an adventurous female protagonist who rejects gender stereotypes, eroticized supporting male characters who are also gender conscious, sensuality, passion, eternal romance and epic battles fought for love. How refreshing to go through an entire film without having to cringe at some neanderthal unconscious objectification of our strong heroine! Goodness knows, we are STARVING for THAT type of movie! I'm not surprised these film's are making BANK at the box office, lol. :)

As a huge fan of the LOTR trilogy, I have to say first that I loved the High Frame Rate 3D format which created Middle Earth On Steroids and made me not mind so much how repetitive most of the film was of LOTR elements because we got to see them more up close and personal. So I would definitely recommend seeing it in HFR 3D, otherwise it's kind of redundant.

Second, this film has a huge gross out factor that was not Tolkein's doing. If you like jokes about bird poop, belching, butt scratching and nose boogers, this is the film for you! Add in an ad nauseum (pun intended) amount of over the top traumatizing CGI battle scenes (this film is rated PG-13, really?!?) and you figure the target audience for this film is 5-10 year old boys who play video games all day.

All in all, a huge step down from the LOTR in class and message. In LOTR we are led to believe that Elves are kinda sorta more evolved than Dwarfs because they are into things like peace and beauty and consciousness instead of food and gold and drunkeness (Dwarfs). But I guess you can't have a movie starring thirteen Dwarfs that disses Dwarf culture so in this film it's the Elves that get made fun of, being made out to look like prissy hippies. Great...

I do believe Tolkein is turning over in his grave...(sigh)

Of course it's a special effects spectacular. The epic panoramas of Middle Earth are breathtaking. And there are some shots in the film (like Bilbo's first look at Gollum) that are genius direction.

But for perverting Tolkein's message 180 degrees and glorifying violence and dumbing down the message, I have to give this film a very conflicted 5 star rating.