Crimes of the Future (2022)

 "Surgery is the new sex."

From looking at the iMDb rating, this film isn't rated very highly. I'll come straight to it: I think it's brilliant. Those who dislike it, I suspect, were looking for something else. David Cronenberg doing body horror again after all these decades, after all, creates certain expectations. People will expect this to be like his body horror of the '70s and '80s. And, yes, there's some of that. Yet, like all Cronenberg's films of the last decade or two, this is entirely a film of ideas.

It's a future set in a pleasingly low budget society, claustrophobic, studio bound, beautifully and artistically shot with precious little nature to stop Cronenberg being in total control of his artistic environment. Only the first, shocking sequence, with its plastic bin eating and its graphic scene of filicide, takes place anywhere near nature.

No: this is a world in which both pain and infection are things of the past, and surgery is therefore a light matter, while the human body is evolving fast (let us briefly handwave away that this isn't how natural selection works, just as Saul handwaves away the impossibility of traits arising from surgery being inherited) in order to survive in a plastic, polluted environment.

Only in this world can exist a couple like Captice and Saul, using the routine surgery of the removal of his emerging mutant body organs as performance art. This despite the scepticism of the Detective to whom Saul is reporting, who scoffs at random emerging organs being “Picasso, Deschamps, Francis Bacon, perhaps?

Yet there is also a blatant subtext of surgery as sex, as fetish. This is, of course, not the first time Cronenberg has explored such themes, and one may certainly raise an eyebrow at this. 

Body horror abounds- tattooed organs, a zipped abdomen- but the ideas just keep coming in this thoughtful, disturbing dystopia. Cronenberg has most certainly still got it

Adventureland (2009)

"You don't want 'virgin' to be your signifier."

"He takes one semiotics class..."

Ah, the nostalgia. Those halcyon days of uni, youth, much alcohol, the smoking of certain substances (not entirely off topic for this film!), terrible nightclubs (ditto) and Saussurean linguistics. It takes me back.

First things first, though: in spite of the fact that both films star Jesse Eisenberg, both were released in 2009 and both have similar titles, this film is not connected to Zombieland. Not, despite the uncanny similarities of Jesse Eisenberg's character getting dumped as he's introduced to us, is it connected to The Social Network.

It is, however, a brilliant and justly acclaimed film that deserves to be better known. Oh, structurally it may be a romantic comedy by numbers: boy meets girl; boy loses girl through series of complex event involving love triangles on both sides; boy really goes extra mile and gets girl back. The structure is nothing new. But within that structure it's funny: the dialogue is witty, intellectual and laugh out load hilarious. The characterisation is similarly superb. Basically, it rocks. And Joel is officially the coolest guy ever.

Even better than that, though, is the soundtrack. This film is set in an expertly realised 1987, and the tone is alternative '80s, meaning loads of my favourite bands. We open to "Bastards of Young" by the Replacements, no less, and the emotionally pivotal scene gets "Unsatisfied", a song which I love passionately and which, if you haven't yet heard, you must hear immediately. Seriously. The Velvet Underground are, quite rightly, everywhere and, incidentally, the subtitles tell me I've been getting the lyrics wrong for "Here She Comes Now" for years. Er, "She becomes my mouth", anyone?

Give this overlooked film a chance. It rocks in more ways than one.

The Runaways (2010)

"This isn't about women's lib, kitties- this is about women's libido."

We're all guilty of seeing rock history in terms of a fixed canon of work divorced from its social context, and I can be as guilty as anyone. This has become more acute by this new age we live in, with music of all styles and all eras available at the touch of a screen. But the social context is key to the music, and The Runaways reminds us of that.

The Runaways may have pioneered women with guitars and begat Joan Jett and Lita Ford, but they were not some kind of proto-feminist precursor to Bikini Kill (fantastic band, incidentally) or Daisy Chainsaw. No; they were a manufactured band, manufactured by a creepy bloke set on sexualising these disturbingly young girls for the male gaze. It's disturbing watching this in the UK of 2014, remembering how young these girls were, with Operation Yewtree providing us with endless reminders of what used to go on in the 1970s. It's incredible to think that the band were all so young, yet they went on tour under the supervision of a much older man and were exposed to all of the drugs of the era in a way which surely wouldn't happen now. The golden age of rock may be over, and that may be a bad thing, but there are certainly upsides.

The quirky Dakota Fanning is superb as Cherie Currie and the show here although it's worth noting, after the tragedy that was Twilight, that Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett can actually act. We begin much earlier in the decade, as the young Cherie dares to openly show her love of David Bowie, whose androgyny as Ziggy Stardust was far more transgressive then than it is now. The rock club she visits is just a rock club; there are, as yet, no sub-genres to speak of. Disturbingly we hear Gary Glitter, and there's a disturbingly relevant subtext that probably wasn't intended.

The band is put together by Kim Fowley for entirely cynical, money-making purposes and he does not seem, given the hostile nature of their early gigs, to give a flying fig about the girls' welfare. Certainly he seems to care not a jot about Cherie's issues with her family. How much this reflects what really happened I cannot say, but the events portrayed are certainly a good argument for the urgent necessity of punk at this point.

Cherie and Joan are sympathetically portrayed, although Lita Ford is shown to be quite the bitch of legend. But the band are largely shown to be at the mercy of events, subject to forces beyond their control in a whirlwind of touring, media ("These chicks can actually play!" says one patronising headline) and rock 'n' roll excess. In this age of major labels, cocaine and, in the words of Black Sabbath, killing yourself to live, the amount of agency wielded by any band, let alone one made up of teenage girls, is questionable.

The much-needed arrival of punk is symbolically portrayed by Joan making herself a Sex Pistols t-shirt to the sound of "Pretty Vacant". Cherie is about due a bit of rebellion, bullied and overworked by Kim; is this rock 'n' roll? There is a definite message to the film in which rock 'n' roll is firmly equated with the raw capitalism of the New Right, a plausible message in a world where the Rolling Stones are actually all card-carrying Thatcherites. Sexualised pictures are taken of Cherie- a teenage girl, let us remember- while she is drugged and incapable. Feminism is here bound up with class politics, with rock stars as the downtrodden working class in gilded cages and Kim as the Gradgrind of the age.

Joan is, of course, the strong one, but a tour of Japan in which privacy is non-existent is the end of the road for a drug-frizzled Cherie; the fans breaking through the window are a rather crude metaphor for her breakdown. It's back to reality but not, ultimately, back to the band, and Cherie has to adjust back to the banality and drudgery of everyday life. We end with a sweetly awkward conversation on a radio phone-in between Cherie and a now-famous Joan Jett, showing us that the natural selection of rock 'n' roll lets some rise and others fall. This is an extraordinary film.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

“I won’t kill you. That’d be too easy. You deserve to live with this.”

Don’t expect the next review to be Part 2: I’ll get round to that when I see it. No spoilers please.

The film begins with a lot of wedding stuff, and feels like one of those comic books where one of the protagonists gets married: light, fluffy and full of crap humour. It’s all extremely well shot, though, with some extraordinary touches. There’s some nice switching between monochrome and colour, and the dream sequence with the rose petals looks extraordinary. Still, Bella is marrying Edward, and I’m bloody worried about her. A potential lifetime of abuse awaits.

Alarm bells start sounding very soon; Bella is not to become a vampire until after the honeymoon. Sex is dangerous, so anything before this happens could kill her. And it’s not as though they’re not going to have sex on their honeymoon, however much Edward tries to arrange their time to avoid it. I don’t care how uber-cool their honeymoon suite is: this is a stupid situation which the characters just seem to walk into. Surprise surprise, Bella becomes pregnant: I assume vampires don’t do contraception as it cramps their style. Surprise surprise: the child is not exactly all human, and could kill her. Edward is personally responsible for all of this easily avoided near-tragedy. How on Earth are we, the audience, supposed not to hate the bastard?

And what are we supposed to conclude/ That all sex, even good Christian married sex, is bad, dangerous and to be avoided? That is NOT a good message. And, yes, the issue of abortion rears its head. These films are getting more and more right-wing.

The ending is tiresomely predictable: Bella gives birth, “dies” and, to no one’s surprise, is about to become a vampire in the last shot. And I don’t like all this stuff about Jake imprinting on the baby either: essentially this is just taking a character who disagrees with the authorial viewpoint and making him conform. It’s crude and nasty.

I have to emphasise, though, that although I really, really hate the subtext of these films, they’re increasingly well made as they progress. His film looks gorgeous, and even the CGI for the wolves looks good. It’s just a shame that the central message is so wrong and dangerous.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

“I’m tired of this. From now on I’m Switzerland, ok?”

This film is much like its predecessor; better written, shot and acted than the first, but based around a disturbing and dangerous piece of socially conservative ideology, namely the whole “no sex before marriage thing”, which is a reckless and immoral thing to tell the young girls at whom this series of films is aimed.

The early scenes include a lot of talk about marriage, including a line where Bella describes it as an “institution”. Let’s make on thing clear; it is no such thing. A marriage is a declaration of love and commitment between people, whether gay or straight. It’s private. It should NOT be an “institution”, regulated by the state. It’s usually those on the right who want to privatise things, but I say we should privatise marriage. The state has no right to impose itself on something so private. I hate it when right-wing politicians talk about stuff like tax breaks for married couples; this is Stalinist social engineering.

Don’t worry: I’m off my soapbox now. I still hate that controlling wanker Edward though. Yay for Charlie and his much-needed offer of pepper spray! This film essentially picks up most of the pre-existing plot threads and puts them in the context of Bella’s high school graduation. Edward’s behaviour towards Bella looks more and more disturbingly controlling (NOT kinky, whatever Fifty Shades of Grey may have been based on: this is just straightforward emotional manipulation shading into abuse). As Jacob rightly says, he lies to her. It’s looking depressingly certain that Bella is doomed to fall under Edward’s creepy spell, though. Jake is jealous, but the whole force of the narrative is against him. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t have a massive fight for the position of alpha male, but there can only be one winner.

I really don’t like the scene in which Edward warns Bella that sex with him would be a dangerous, violent thing. The subtext is that sex is scary, bad, and to be avoided except for the strict purpose of begetting children from within wedlock. Bollocks. Nor do I like Rosalie- she dreamed of the sort of life that social conservatives approve of for women until becoming a vampire (for which read pre-marital sex) ruined her life forever. This is dangerous stuff. Stephenie Meyer may seem cool, and put Muse in every one of the movies somewhere, but the ideology she’s peddling is deeply, deeply dangerous.

Bella explicitly declares herself to be a virgin. Edward declares himself to be “old school”. Patriarchy, much? I may be burdened with a Y chromosome, but the Twilight films are really, really awakening my inner feminist. Sadly, though, we end with their wedding being arranged. This is NOT a happy ending.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)

“You can’t trust vampires. Trust me.”

Well, this is much better. Still narrowing my eyes somewhat at the socially conservative subtext, but this film has drama in it, and tension, and actual stuff happening, which makes for a much better viewing experience. Also, the direction is better. And there’s none of that horrible, dull, washed out picture quality that still plagued the first film. All that said, Bella is still as wet as the English Channel and I still reckon Edward is a right bastard, which I suspect is not the effect intended.

Still, this is much better. I like the way that both vampires and werewolves (on which the spotlight now falls) are explained in terms of Native American mythology, which adds a nice bit of cultural tension, although I’m in no position to judge the way that the culture has been depicted. We have a love triangle set up, with Bella torn between Jacob (whom I like) and Edward (whom I don’t). Jacob is cool, a nice guy, and interested in Bella for who she is, while Edward is none of those things as he’s far too busy brooding over things like how he envies those who have the option of suicide. Lovely.

There’s some cool vampirey stuff, though. I love the concept of the Volturi- arrogant, legalistic, cultured Italian vampires. The scene where Bella gets a paper cut and tempts Jasper to go after her blood may be the biggest vampire cliché ever, but it’s fun. But there are some strong religious overtones: Carlisle, for example, wants to be goof “even if I’m damned regardless”. There are theological overtones to the whole concept of vampirism as depicted here. The vampires believe that their very state condemns them to Hell, literally, because of what they are, and this is why Edward doesn’t want to make Bella into a vampire.

If we look at this through the prism of this being a metaphor for sex, though, it becomes disturbing. Are we being told that those of us who have committed fornication are doomed to go to Hell? Is Stephenie Meyer one of those right-wing Christians from red state America who confuses morality with consensual sex? I’m no Christian, but  seem to recall that Jesus spent an awful lot of time talking about the evils of poverty and that his main comment on sex was to refuse to condemn some prostitutes. Just saying.

Anyway, Edward, being a broody, selfish twat, dumps Bella. Good for her. His entire vampire family have to bugger off and adopt new identities as, being ageless, they can arouse suspicion by stating in one place too long. Certain questions arise from this, though: for example, how can Carlisle get a social security number so he can practise as a doctor? How does the whole bureaucracy thing work? Probably best not to think too hard about such things.

Jacob spends a lot of time topless once he joins the pack, which my girlfriend rather likes for some reason. He’s a nice guy, with hinterland but none of Edward’s Byronic arsedness. The wolf pack consists of some rather bad CGI, unfortunately, b ut this bit is rather good drama. They’re basically good guys, but with the potential to lash out in rage and, as the character of Emily rather literally shows us, this is a rather clunky metaphor for men and their capacity for sudden domestic violence.

Bella has essentially been dumped by both Edward and Jacob by the end of the film, so she becomes an adrenaline junkie, as you do. At one point it looks as though Edward may bugger off to Italy and commit suicide, but Bella eventually stops him. Meh. It would have been cool if he’d died, stupidly, just like Romeo, by committing suicide in Italy because he mistakenly thought his lover was dead but, sadly, it’s not to be. And yes, the various Romeo and Juliet references throughout the film are not exactly subtle.

The ending I don’t like at all: Bella has to wait until graduation before Edward makes her a vampire (i.e. takes her virginity). And he has a precondition: she has to marry him first. I REALLY don’t like what’s being said here. Kids, if you’re reading this, do NOT marry anyone before you know whether you’re sexually compatible with them first, because sex is really, really, emotionally important. It’s a central, bonding thing to any relationship. Marriage before sex is stupid, reckless and immoral.

Still, that was much better than the first film.

Twilight (2008)

“You’re my own personal brand of heroin.”

Aha! Bet you didn’t expect me to start reviewing the Twiglet saga, did you? Let’s face it; I’m a thirty-five year old man- not exactly the target audience. The chances of my ever reading the novels are vanishingly low. All the same, though, I’m curious about the recent trend in popular culture for vampires to be portrayed as sexy, evil yet redeemable bad boys in an interesting takeover of a previously male-dominated genre by female authors writing for a female audience. The sexual subtext was always there, of course- it’s certainly there in Dracula- but these days we have whole subsections in bookshops called “Gothic Romance”. That’s an interesting cultural shift, and certainly not something I’m going to knock. More catering to female tastes, and more female writers, are a good thing generally, and much needed. Consider just how male-dominated is script writing in general.

All the same, though, I’ve heard some potentially troubling things about Stephanie Meyer; her books are said to promote the dangerous and irresponsible idea of refraining from sex before marriage. If true, this is a disgrace. We should not be telling young people that relationships matter so little that you needn’t bother to find out if you’re sexually compatible with someone before marrying them. Yes, once upon a time it may have been impossible to do this without risking pregnancy, but not these days. Decent contraception exists. And regarding contraception, incidentally, there are two sorts of people: those who support sex education in schools and those who support teenage pregnancy. Social conservatism is NOT entitled to any sort of moral high ground: it is profoundly damaging, misogynistic and immoral.

Er, yes. So what about the actual film? Well, for a start, it’s not very well directed. The look of the film, in particular, is ill-judged, with muted colours and a very washed-out look simply giving the film an appearance of dullness. The performances are generally a bit blah and, given that the same actors give much better performances in the later films (yes, I’m a bit behind in my blogging), it’s also tempting to ascribe that to poor notes from the director.

Otherwise, though, there’s much to like. I love the awkwardness of Bella’s relationship with her decent but awkward father, and the refreshingly nuanced and n on-clichéd description of American high school life. Bella’s likeable enough, I suppose, although a bit more quirkiness of personality would have been nice. The problem, though, is that I can’t stand Edward. He’s arrogant, creepy (spying on someone, while they’re sleeping, in their bedroom, is psychopathic and stalkery behaviour), and entirely devoid of charm, humour, or personality. I’m well aware that Fifty Shades of Grey derived from Twiglet fanfic, and that Grey is supposed to be based on Edward, but I don’t see anything kinky about Edward- where’s the playfulness, the sexual imagination, the excitement? My reading of the character is that he’s dangerous, self-obsessed and narcissistic. I simply cannot invest in the idea that the female lead should become romantically involved with the male lead. That’s a fairly big problem.

Jacob, on the other hand, is a much nicer guy, but let’s save him for later films. Edward’s family are cool, too, especially Alice. But these are secondary characters. The film suffers hugely from its lack of a sympathetic male protagonist, the long, dull, pieces of exposition, and the lack of wit or humour of any kinds. The scenes with baddie vampires, in particular, just make me pine for the witty scripting of Joss Whedon, who wrote vampires much, much better.

(Incidentally, sorry about the lack of recent posts on Buffy and Angel. Fact is, since I’ve moved in with my lovely girlfriend I’d rather spend time with her, and that means watching things together. It would be silly to just ask her to start watching Buffy and Angel from some random point mid-season. Don’t worry, though: things have slowed down, not stopped. I’ll plough on, but expect only occasional posts.)

The vampire backstory is a bit straightforward and, well, insipid (vampire “vegetarians”?), but that’s fine- this is primarily a romance. But the dodgy subtext I’d heard about seems to rear its ugly head near the end: Edward doesn’t want to make Bella into a vampire in what feels suspiciously like a metaphor for extra-marital sex. I’ll be watching the subsequent films with narrowed eyes.