Curtsies and Hand Grenades

Taken on it's own "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" is a very striking title. It conjures up real world horror of being a woman and existing after the sun is down. However, the film belies any notion of investigation into those very words and the complex dangers of being a woman. Instead of delving deep into feminist text or analyzing the horror of violence against women it brandishes itself as vampiric cinema, and tends to have more in common with conventional boy meets girl romance despite it's interest in terror. If anything this is closer to quirky cinema, and wouldn't make a bad double feature with Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive considering both films follow similar narrative structures, but A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night feels like the first chapters of a budding relationship between two loners instead of the stagnant problems of eternal life.

The first thing one would notice about this movie is the stylization of the image. Night time cinematography gives way to dusty digital black and white in what has to be one of the first usages of B&W digital to grand effect. Lights feel hazey and street lamps decorate streets row upon row as far as the eye can see creating a sense of almost suburban trappings meets the old west. Amirpour's intentions of making the picture feel like a western aren't lost on her sensibilities to reach back to cinema of the past to give weight to some of her ideas. The urban streets traveled by no one except a cloaked girl aren't entirely separate from wanderers of the old west like Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter. The old drunk trope is replaced by an elderly relative stricken by grief and hooked on heroin. These are tropes certainly, but Amirpour works well within them, and her knowledge of cinema past increases the effectiveness of her concrete wasteland. Aside from those western locales there is an intense interest in interior design with each room signifying the attitudes of specific characters. Her first victim lives a chic lifestyle that is coded by tacky animal print everywhere. The Vampire lives in a basement with paintings of Madonna on her wall, and the rest of her room seems to be corroding around her. The insertion of character dynamics via interior design and cinematography that doesn't feel watery like other BW Digital work (Frances Ha) are some of the more impressive feats here.

Scenes of violence tend to forgo the western and dip back into horror, and occasionally feminist horror. The black and white of Abel Ferrara's The Addiction is handled with much more chaotic-frenzied-brutality than this picture, but The Addiction came to mind specifically in feeding sequences while I was watching this. Lily Taylor's vampire intellectual and Shelia Vand's vampire, misandrist, queen both have no predisposition towards softness, and their killings often revel in the sensuality of the feast. Vand's vampire specifically only attacks men, and I think that codes this with some feminist text, even though the picture refuses to analyze these things much deeper than her only killing males (though the way she does kill the first man in this picture is reminiscent of Teeth). It can be read that she is cleansing the streets, but that's only the case until she falls for a boy dressed as dracula.

The romantic angle often gets bogged down by the male character's problem life at home or his persistent blandness, but Amirpour manages to wrangle their story into something cohesive by the end. The meet-cute (meet-fang?) of their first time spent together is very sweet. Dracula finds someone he can relate to, and she finds a boy she doesn't want to kill...yet. They end up heading back to her place on a skateboard she just stole from a boy who consistently behaved badly in the neighbourhood. They don't have a ton in common, but they enjoy each other's silence and there is a level of comfort between the two. The grandest scene of the entire movie comes just a little bit later with the two of them back at her apartment. The vampire stands to the far right, a disco ball twirls in the room sprinkling light all over, and as the boy approaches her as music washes in and out in ever quiet waves she stares into his eyes, and then his throat. We know that she is a vampire so the precedence of this scene has viewers asking Will she kill him or kiss him? She eventually puts her head on his shoulder, and it's the finest scene in the entire picture. A moment where Amirpour's rough, but often interesting vision coalesces into a purely perfect moment.

Amirpour's horror picture isn't the groundbreaking feminist picture it's title implies, but it doesn't need to be. There are some ideas about patriarchal violence, and images that back up the strength of a female figure daring to push back at this, but this is mostly a gorgeous amalgamation of ideas she struggles to tie together. There's enough here though to warrant further explorations into the future work of Amirpour and plenty talent on display to be excited about what her next movies may look like.

I still remember everything about arriving in St. Johns by airplane in September last year. I was on the way to finally live with the person whom I had been in a relationship with for years, and I distinctly recall the the feeling of purity that seemed to fill up my entire body. I'd check the time and know that with every passing minute I was another mile closer to the person that I loved, and reaching towards a place I could finally call home. For some reason I remember the chill on the windows of the aircraft and the fog that had crept over the city the most, and as it became darker and darker it felt like I was entering into a black hole, but when I came out on the other side I knew I'd be in paradise. The headphones that I had snuggly around my messy, blonde hair were feeding to me sounds of warmth, even if I was heading into an area more commonly associated with brutal cold. My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" swept over me in wave after wave of sonic distortion making my ears feel like pillows, and my body feel like mush in the airline seat. Still, I kept looking out the window knowing I'd soon be in a place where feelings of easiness, serenity, pleasure, and safety were boundless and the constrictions of growing up transgender in the American South would finally be unshackled from my subconscious. More importantly though, I'd feel his arms around me for the first time in my life. We skyped as often as we could, often drifting into a haze-y area of sleep as we watched each other through computer screens knowing someday this would all become physical. It would be the single greatest moment of my life. I built it up that way, and I knew it wasn't going to disappoint me. I just had to get there. Cocteau Twins was next, and then something shimmered in the distance of the window through the impossible density of the fog, a tiny light, a slight burst of angel's breath through the darkness telling me I was here. I couldn't contain myself. The cliche of losing control of one's body is not something I believed in until that moment when I started giggling to myself, and the smile didn't seem to end on my face, but instead wrapped me up like a blanket. I still think back to this day of that music selection I had at the time, and the dissonance of feeling absolute warmth and stepping off the plane into a land of bitter cold. But I never felt the cold, because he was here. I was here. And his arms were as good as I thought they would be.

A funny thing happened the other night. I felt the shockwaves of that initial arrival once more, but it came with the images of a music video and a song that felt like a spiritual successor to the band I was listening to upon arrival in Newfoundland, and again I couldn't push down the joy that seemed to be seeping out of my body. I felt that effervescent billowing of purity that I had only experienced once in my life. This music video triggered those feelings, and Claire Boucher's stunning love letter to her fans in Asia is a testament to kindness and sincerity within art that felt connected to the type of love I was inundated with since arriving in Canada. REALiTi was never supposed to see the light of day, and this music video is mostly made up of shots Claire captured throughout her tour. It's a scrapbook, but it's also a statement to love, home, and people.

REALiTi is autumnal music. The kind of song that would play in a movie as two people desperately in love, clinging onto each other in this world finish their day and walk home. This is the essence of a hand outreaching for another or getting your hair pushed back long enough for a lover to bend in for a kiss. The anticipation of moments like that is REALiTi's core structure musicially. Those hazing synths just eek out of the fibre of the song and Claire's layered voice push everything up into the sky. Her voice is not one you can decipher lyrics from upon first listen, but words like scared, beautiful, love and home are enunciated and elevated for importance, and all those words connect to romance. Those words along with the icy, tenderness of the music paint REALiTi as something stunning. Claire never finished the song. She lost the original file so mixing and mastering never took place. It's rough around the edges, and the chorus feels incomplete, but isn't a pause important to the uncertainty of emotion? It only makes the song feel even more reflexive of humanity. And then there's the video, a testament to colour, tone and architecture.

The bombast of the video's colour palette in digital handheld cinematography is nothing short of extraordinary. Claire stands on a ledge at the beginning of the video only to be surrounded by lavish purples and golden street lights, her orange hair announces itself in the midst of all of the colour. As if it were her soul brightening in the face of all the mistiness surrounding her. There's an abstract quality to her simply standing and existing within frame due to the offsetting colour of her hair and the decisions of her placement within the video. In another frame she stands with her back against a kimono painting that seems to swirl into her body that recalls the abstract. The most striking function of all the images throughout though is the relationship between nature and architecture. Grimes is shown dancing through jungle at some points, standing with the ocean to her back at others, and bathed in neon concert halls only moments later or shown moving up escalators into towering buildings. The beauty of what we have created and what we live in is not lost either way. Claire extends a level of interest in all of her subject matter and imagery finding them all equal of her lens as well as her body. Everything is worthy of being a dancehall or being shot on film with an eye for love, because this is our home, and she feels comfortable here among people with whom she's never even met. That spark of humanity runs throughout the video, especially in the closing moments where specification on Grimes as a performer turns into Grimes as a uniter of people as they dance in the rotating yellow lights of a concert venue and join together in a singular moment of shared enjoyment.

There's a moment in the video when everything begins to feel overwhelming where I get to the point where I'm about to cry and it's closer to the end in the repeated lines "I go back alone" which sounds like "I go back home". At this point Grimes is just dancing, moving her body to the music, and the video cuts to skyscrapers and fan reaction shots. Her music is her home, and the connection she has with these fans is the place where everything becomes perfect. I'm reminded of figuring out my place as well when watching this video. Since arriving in Newfoundland I've walked the streets, I've loved the people, and I found my place. My humanity was always locked up in this island rock of ice, because the person I feel truly connected to is located here. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a place separate from earth, like I lurched into some other existence that day, that I transcended my past life and was reborn into something different, because my heart's full of love these days, and I had never felt that before. I want art that reflects the love I have for existence, and the warmth and joy we should have for the earth, each other, and the work we create right now, and Claire Boucher's music video for REALiTi is informed by all of those things.

I love films about the relationships women have with one another. The sheer willingness to do anything for another woman, and the strength that comes through in knowing you have an un-severable bond guided linked through a connection of soul. Sisterhood, the very words mean a close relationship among women based on shared experiences, concerns, beliefs. That definition opens up the doors to experiences of women both far and wide, and on the basis of activism, within feminism, sisterhood means a lot. A connection through a struggle and a constant push and pull to unravel oppression. For Marianne and Juliane their sisterhood is through blood and through activism.

I'm struck by the relative simplicity of Von Trotta's imagery. Her openness and empathy in showing power of sisterhood through ongoing support. The recurring image of Marianne and Juliane is one of sisters embracing when they need it. It's an image of love, of power, of purity. When Marianne goes to jail for terrorist activities related to her feminism her sister supports her without any reservations. She'll put her hand up to glass dividing them as they discuss her incarceration, and make a joke about how her sisters hands feel cold, relieving the tension of her stressful situation. In a flashback sequence both sisters meet up in the girls bathroom of their schooling to shed tears over Holocaust footage, knowing their people did this. Their activism is born in this moment, but it also shows Von Trotta's humanity towards the girls as they know they must never allow this to happen again, but through it all they would have each others support. Another moment of sisterly interaction has both women swapping sweaters after Marianne visits her in prison for the first time, and Juliane needing something warmer. This act of giving what was on her back to her sister is emblematic of their relationship. They would do anything for one another at all times. It's a simple moment, but speaks to a larger loving relationship between the two, and Von Trotta's ability to get across meaning through workmanlike imagery is essentially what makes Marianne and Julianne such a striking, devastating film on relationships, sisterhood, feminism, systems of oppression, and motherhood.

That strength in imagery carries over into all facets of the film's political intentions. The scene I mentioned above about the holocaust showed actual footage in a classroom demonstration, but Von Trotta does not shy away from her countries history of violence. It is curious then why Marianne chooses to fight for her own rights through means of violence. When she weeps with her sister in the girls bathroom after seeing these images one would think she would lean towards pacifism in her own activism as these images seriously affected her, but she becomes a terrorist. It may then make sense that she sees those who were oppressed at the time of World War II and identified with them so greatly that she assumed the only way to fight this level of violence is to then work with those tools. This is a question the film doesn't answer, and the ambiguity of her activism is interesting to me, and more powerful than a straight response, because it opens up debate among viewers.

Marianne and Julianne's feminism is equally interpreted through simplistic, raw, but nonetheless affecting imagery that she also gave to their sisterly relationship. In one flashback sequence when Julianne is writing about Marianne's upbringing the film shows the two of them at a dance. A dance that Marianne had trouble going to because she refused to wear a dress, but eventually gave into. When the DJ begins to mutter over the microphone it's time for a boys and girls dance she approaches the dancefloor, but not with a boy, by herself. The looks of confusion that spread across the adults faces at this dance show this act as something of a rebellion. She didn't need anyone. She'd be an independent woman. Von Trotta chooses to close this scene with an elderly woman smiling on at her as if to say feminism has always been present in Germany. Marianne's later death in the movie is given the same raw treatment that she has shown throughout all of the movie. When Marianne's decaying corpse is opened to view for the public she hasn't been made beautiful, but instead her body is wrecked with decomposition, and her face frozen in an image of terror. Von Trotta doesn't sugarcoat that Marianne's death is a political one, and by showing Marianne's broken body for what it is, the tragedy of the scene overflows. Julianne's grief is also delivered in a similar manner with consistent close-ups of weeping, moaning and sorrow. The scenes between the two sisters early on code the grief of the picture as something significant, but the acting of Jutte Lampe is something else entirely, tapping into Rowlands-esque levels of emotiveness. Von Trotta is wonderfully laid back in these moments, and let's Lampe act out her breakdown, and this creates another lasting, straightforward, blunt image. That's the lasting effect of her camera, and the thing I'm most impressed with. She shows no inclinations towards breaking the mold, but she knows how to get across the message she intended to by simply showing and not overdoing.There's simply no need to shoot something differently when a close-up of a face gets across everything you'd need to know about the pain of the scene.

The final feminist coded strand of this picture is within motherhood, and choice. The film is bookended by abortion and choosing to raise a child. Marianne and Julianne begins with an introduction of Julianne as a feminist woman. She is fighting for the right to choose through her abortion activism. At the beginning she is seen making signs and handing out pamplets to get the word out to other German's about her personal choice to have children whenever she wants, something all cis women should have. Her sister Marianne has a child, but hasn't seen him since he was two years old, and ultimately decided she wasn't in the right place to become a mother at the time. We see the child throughout, but he's used more as a totem for a woman's choice than an actual character. If the movie has any weaknesses it's in this segment where Von Trotta's falls prey to cramming a bit too much into her movie. The connective notions of choice are tied up a little too cleanly in the closing moments when Julianne chooses to adopt Marianne's long lost son after losing her sister. This could have maybe ended on a stronger note with the loss of Marianne and having Julianne fight for her sisters reputation as a great woman, but nevertheless Von Trotta pulls a final great moment out of this otherwise loosely connected storyline issue in the final frames. When Marianne's son and Julianne sit down for the first time he tears a picture of his mother up, because he resents her having left him, much to Juliane's dismay. She tells him that she was a great woman, and he listens. He wants to know everything. Julianne looks at him and the film closes on a still image of her face. Women are always telling the stories of other women. Our history isn't buried when we're talking about each other. I'm brought back to something Kathleen Hanna once said about creating art for women and fighting through the difficulty of it all. In The Punk Singer, she simply said “Women would understand”. Von Trotta made a picture that answers that call, and in her images she made a movie women would understand & relate to whether you're an activist or not, a mother or not, a sister or not. This film is implicitly about women, and I'm grateful there are movies about that connection we have as women to people like ourselves.

Female Misbehavior isn't much of a movie. I've watched a lot of documentary-esque features lately and it all becomes a bit wearying when they drop the pretext of cinema and movies just become an interview. Female Misbehavior falls into that category of talking head essay driven feminist documentary neatly, and it's much to the film's detriment this time around. It's not that these four stories aren't needed or these lifestyles are not valid, but in the context of creating a portrait of women who don't fit into the neat mold of what is generally seen as appropriate behaviour it doesn't really work. Instead this more loosely resembles four separate videos that have been taped together with the pretense of making a grander statement on how women are supposed to act, and how they buck those trends with how they treat their bodies, sexuality and choice of gender presentation. On paper it's a tantalizing subject, but Truet doesn't seem to have much in the way of an eye for images, or even insertion shots to break up the monotony of the constant talking heads, and only one of these subjects is truly transgressive, and its placement in this movie is a statement of misgendering.

The film begins with Annie, a performance artist who uses her body as a means of economic support while finding her exhibitionism thrilling to the point where she has complete control of it. She cites that she loves "tit art" and invites people up on stage to take a look at her cervix. It's the shortest segment in all of Misbehavior, but it's brevity is much appreciated, and Annie remains chipper and an engaging presence throughout. The next two segments are poor. The first is a long often repetitive account of a woman who found pleasure in s&m, and the detheorizing of sexuality though pain and pleasure. She talks about how this unlocked her own body, and how much she wants to bring other women to her side of things, but a long take of her accounting what brought her to S&M amounting to her just standing in front of a mirror and trashing the uptightness of female sexuality does not a fascinating subject make. It would be arduous to recount the loose colonialist, and sexist ramblings of Camille Paglia so I won't bother. But there's one segment in this film that cuts through the rest of the filler, and it's entirely devoted to a trans man named Max simply recounting the story of how he came to be. Max discusses identifying as a lesbian, but it never fitting right, always feeling like a boy, and eventually the medical transition he is going through in order to align his body with his internal mael gender identity. It's very simply told, and for the early 90s to have a trans man discuss his life is something entirely new and different. When Trans Women were starting to get some level of visibility people like Max were still largely invisible in the public eye, and while no one saw Female Misbehavior the fact that Monika Truet gave him as much time as Paglia is noteworthy, and her understanding in not speaking over Max was impressive. This is just his story, and by recounting it Truet stumbled onto something actually definitively ordinary, but ultimately rebellious, but it was in the narrative of a man not a woman, and there in lies the problem of including Max in this picture. I'm sure Max agreed to participate knowing this was a movie about women, but his story clashes strongly with the rest. His presence here alone is bothersome, not because of anything he said, but because he is a man, and any other assertion strikes me as being transphobic, even if it was unintentional. Unfortunately this unfairly casts a pall over the wonderful final segment in this otherwise forgettable documentary about Women.

I stood, staring in the mirror at a Target in Philadelphia after I slid on a pair of ripped skin tight jeans and a simple blue and white stripped top with an open neck and it felt right. I had been wearing clothing cut for girls since I was a child, but I always did it in secrecy and it was never something that I had actually picked out. It was always clothes belonging to my mother, exaggerated Halloween costumes or dress-up with the few friends I had who I could trust with my being a transgender girl. The instances of trying to find an appearance that lined up with how I felt internally when it came to gender was never something resonant in the clothing I tried on until I bought some myself with my own money. I dove into fashion very slowly, but it didn't take long for me to figure out that I loved the idea of clothes mirroring my personality or my mood. I didn't jump in head first and buy dress after dress or layer up with earrings, necklaces and other accessories, because I'm still a very jeans a tee shirt kind of girl, but the power within finding yourself and your identity through clothing and finally reconciling a part of your gender identity that had long been denied was powerful. Those jeans don't fit anymore, and I hardly ever wear that top for the same reason, but I don't think I'll ever get rid of those clothes, because they were "me" in a time when I was first finding myself, and when I was figuring out what kind of a woman I wanted to be. Fashion has been a huge part of that. Now, whether I'm wearing skirts or jeans, black or white, flats or heels I'm always myself, and that freedom was resonant in the first year of my coming out. Now clothing is just a normal everyday part of my life, but I still get a thrill out of finding something that is so resolutely me that I must own it, or at least try it on, and I'm still obsessed with gazing at clothing.

What I find most interesting about these two Susan Seidelman films is their insistence upon fashion being a defining characteristic for these women and for her lens.

When Seidelman shoots her characters often times it is from the feet up, but it's not about a sexual gaze or the leering of bodies, but instead it's to get a full look at an outfit. Her lens becomes a mirror that moves from heels to hose to dress to necklace to make-up to hair, and it's almost always shot through the eyes of a character who happens to be a woman. There's a lovingness in gesture towards this camera movement that screams "Look at this outfit!", that personifies a covetous feeling that is most present in Desperately Seeking Susan's role model as New Wave Goddess imagery through Madonna, and it's entirely about the ensemble instead of the body which makes Seidelman's lens feel intrinsically linked to clothing. In turn this makes the way she shoots women to feel both a celebration of women and femininity.

In Desperately Seeking Susan Roberta (Rosanna Arquette) is a housewife stuck in a boring marriage reading books about unlocking her sexuality and trying to figure out how to love herself. She gets swept up in the romanticism of following a woman who seems to live the life she wants in the classified ads containing the oft repeated phrase "Desperately Seeking Susan". Who is Susan? What does she have that I don't? When she finally runs into Susan she's the embodiment of everything Roberta is not. She's carefree, cool, in complete control of her life, and rebellious in a way that that Roberta seems to want. So she follows her constantly and begins to adopt her look to get a taste of what these clothes feel like, because if she couldn't be Susan she could at least feel like her through clothing. She even goes as far as buying a jacket that once belonged to this chic-woman of the street, and begins to feel like herself after she adopts Susan's wardrobe. This isn't that different from finding yourself through pop culture or your look through women in television which is something I've often tried to repeat myself with the likes of Lorelai Gilmore from Gilmore Girls, because I too was looking for myself through the fashion of another woman. I wasn't happy until I finally started being myself, and that wasn't until I started to try and adopt the characteristics of fashion from someone whom I admired. It took a long time, but I found my own voice, and the accessories that ended up becoming Willow Maclay, but there still remains hints of Gilmore throughout my look. The pink coat below being one such example. Roberta does the same thing with Susan.

Smithereens and Desperately Seeking Susan also share women who break out of the screen through effortless cool with Wren & Susan respectively. Both of these women become models of affection towards everyone around them, because both the characters in the movie, and audiences are drawn to how comfortable they are within themselves & the "boom" of their look. Wren and Susan stand apart within crowds due to their fashion, but also how they carry their fashion. Notice the differences in how Roberta and Susan wear the same clothes, but the clothes do not have the same power for Roberta, because she's unsure of herself until the very end of the movie, but with Susan she controls every pair of eyes in the room with her sparkling boots, and dissonant black/pink ensembles. Wren is less put together than Susan, but that's also a part of who she is, and just as effective. Her look seems to be haphazard which is perfect for the dying NYC punk rock scene she inhabits, and those oversized t-shirts, dresses, Blondie sunglasses and ripped hose aren't anything different from what everyone else is wearing in the movie, but she carries it like she's the greatest rockstar in the world. So does Susan, even when she's drying her pits in the ladies room.

To put it very simply Wren and Susan completely control how they're presented, and even if their looks seem very devil may care they are always precisely on point, and that is what draws audiences and people alike to them.

Susan Seidelman's first two movies are also ahead of the game in terms of Selfie culture, and once again Wren and Susan are the focal points of this activity. Wren plasters her face all over punk clubs in an act of self promotion, but in the comfort of her own living space, and even others, she is not shy to take out a polaroid camera and take a picture of herself. This isn't an act of vanity as much as an act of self confidence. Susan similarly carries around a polaroid camera and takes snapshots of her appearance whenever there's blank spaces in time. The Selfie as a revolutionary act of self love for women specifically who are constantly told by society that their appearance isn't good enough, is something I adhere to so it's interesting how this is captured in a movie as early as the 80s, and being done by women as cool as Wren and Susan. The Godmothers of the Selfie if you will.

Susan Seidelman's first two films are an argument for her auteurism through fashion and her muses are these bohemian new wave 80s icons. Madonna has never been presented more lovingly, and in the first phases of her career it was no surprise that her look captivated a nation of millions of teen girls looking for an idol just as strongly as they did with a frustrated New Jersey Housewife (Roberta). Wren did not carry with her the cultural cache of Madonna's Susan, but her look is altogether just as impressive in a grunge-y gutter punk vibe that would echo the coming fashions of people like Pat Benatar. As time capsules of the fashion of the 80s these pictures are remarkable, but evenmoreso these are great women's pictures emphasizing something often seen as unimportant in the cinematic world, but Seidelman treats fashion as power, and the Women who create these outfits as figures of importance.

Best for Business will be a recurring series at Curtsies and Hand Grenades discussing one year of pay per views currently available on the WWE Network through general overiews, a ranked list of matches, shows, a most valuable player, worst wrestler and final thoughts.

I came upon the idea to feature a column called Best for Business when I attained access to the WWE Network, and considering my wrestling fandom was spinning out of control into full blown obsession I thought it'd be interesting to navigate an entire calender year of wrestling through the special events that were held. Now, I don't have the capabilities to research or go through every great match on Raw so those matches will be absent from any discussion, even if I so badly want to talk about the revolutionary status of the Monday Night Raw headlining match featuring Lita and Trish. I do however, want to get into why 2004 would be my first year. I long since got into wrestling and recounted that story in various places on tumblr, here and my creaky "I swear we'll get back to it" blog over at Push-Cesaro, but for something less serious and more fun I wanted to diagnose a year, and my boyfriend was the main factor for choosing 2004, because that was the year he became a fan. His favourite wrestlers were Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero. You can already see why he'd quit watching in 2007, because when discussing 2004 there is a giant elephant in the room. Chris Benoit is one of the greatest workers to have ever stepped into the ring, but I can't dismiss his personal life when bringing him up. I'm going to talk about his matches here and some of his biggest moments, but it should be noted that I do not in any way condone, dismiss or sweep aside his actions that are entirely reprehensible. His matches are hard to watch, because his in ring style seemed to contribute to his brain condition. Wrestling isn't a pretty medium, and tragedy seems to follow it around constantly, and even when matches are beautiful (and Chris Benoit has a lot of matches that are) it's often trailed by something far sinister, and in Benoit's case I hope never happens again.

2004 is characterized by two opposing ideologies that split up the year rather neatly. The idea of rewarding the hardcore wrestling fans who care about workrate, match consistency, underdog mentality and formal brilliance is the first of these narratives, and it culminated at Wrestlemania 20 with the crowning of Chris Benoit (and one month prior Eddie Guerrero for the SmackDown brand) as champion of the Raw brand. Benoit and Guerrero toiled away for years and years in different companies, most notably WCW and ECW, before making the trek to WWE and finally capturing the biggest titles, and in Benoit's case on the grandest of all possible stages. They did this by beating men who seemed more company approved in Triple H, Shawn Michaels and Brock Lesnar. In Benoit's case he would beat both Triple H and Shawn Michaels clean in consecutive months at the Wrestlemania and Backlash pay per views. You cannot put someone over more strongly than they did here, and for the most part Benoit's reign as champion was strong and only ran into issues when matches became overbooked (a common trend after mid-year's SummerSlam). His title defense against Triple H at Vengeance is especially great until Eugene's narrative of friendship or betrayal overshadows a near 5 star match that would have easily been a notch in the belt of both men and quite possibly the greatest pay per view match of 2004. Benoit would drop the belt to Randy Orton, but I'll get to that shortly. The other champion, Eddie Guerrero defeated Kurt Angle at Mania. Both men shared in celebration to close out the ceremony at Wrestlemania 20 in tears in what would be one of the most purely joyous Mania moments of all time if not for the Benoit Murder-Suicide Tragedy. On this pay per view is my personal favourite match of the year in that title defense against Kurt Angle. Both men are technical wizards in the ring and in 2004 both were in their prime. Guerrero's Lie-Cheat-Steal mantra proves to be true as he finds a way to get around Angle's signature Submission finisher and eventually takes the victory. Guerrero's matches do not suffer the consequences of overbooking like Benoit's occasionally did, but he did run straight into the oncoming storm of JBL's Texas Fetishist heel which disrupted an otherwise beautiful run with the belt that featured incredible matches with Lesnar (where he won the belt), Angle, and JBL twice. His rematch with Angle at SummerSlam also happened to be one of the best matches of the year. However, he'd drop the belt to JBL around the same time Benoit dropped his to Orton and the time of form over all else champions came to a close.

The other narrative of 2004's booking is one of rewarding more typically ideal wrestlers for the WWE mold. This included HHH, Randy Orton and JBL. Evolution was one of the biggest factions of all time, and their presence clouds over every ppv, just waiting for the proper time to overwhelm a match in favour of the heel faction. Wrestling fans at the time had to have known that Benoit would be a short term champion with the strong push from Randy Orton in his legend killer days. It was all but over when he took out Cactus Jack in a tremendous hardcore match following Mania. He'd be the champion at some point this year, and while his reign was short (the belt went to Triple H almost immediately) he was set for life as he became one of the stars WWE counted on for the next ten years. HHH, oh HHH, the bane of the hardcore fan's existence. Would it be strange of me to say that I'm a fan of his? Dropping all pretenses of context and future booking out of the way HHH is a solid ring general whose Hemingway with Muscles style of Wrestling is either perfect for the given situation or so hilariously overwrought that one can't help but find him ludicrous in the most overdramatic ways. That was never more apparent than in his near year long feud with Shawn Michaels where both men would bleed at a stiff breeze, and lie exhausted, nearly beaten to death and telling stories with their bodies that were EPIC in all capital letters 100 percent of the time even if they never quite reached the heights they were so obviously going for. The two didn't always deliver classics, but it's hard for me to ever fault Shawn Michaels who has a way of pulling a decent match out of even the most average of wrestlers and Haitch is far above average. JBL is the only curiosity here, as he isn't as typical as the men of Evolution. He has the size one would expect from a stereotypical WWE title holder, but I guess sometimes that's all you need. It'd be dismissive of me to say that's all he had though as his heel character was actively cowardly, detestable, and toxic to the entire SmackDown roster in a way that made me actively hate him. It's just too bad he didn't have much more than a Lariat as far as in ring talent goes, and his limited ability inside the ring really showed when he was asked to carry matches with Taker (who was still too reliant upon striking and spooky booking at this point) and Booker T (spinning kicks for days that never make any sort of impact). For my personal tastes I prefer the earlier title runs of the year, and find something of great merit in Eddie Guerrero especially whose in ring ability has always been second to none. He even made a cowbell on a rope match bearable and if that's not enough to be considered the MVP of the year then I'm not sure what is.....

So that takes me to the MVP of 2004. Based purely on statistical analysis of all main eventers Eddie Guerrero comes out on top with a baseline 3.8/5 for his matches on the year. Chris Benoit and Randy Orton come in at 2nd and 3rd with Shawn Michaels and Triple H following closely behind. In my gut and in my heart Eddie is also my MVP. His strengths as a character come through, and his ability to use loveable heel tactics combined with lightning precision created something wholly unique and in his matches with Angle specifically he was given the chance to showcase the very best of his abilities as a wrestler and as a narrative force with slight alterations on his cheating mantra while still creating matches that were textbook choreography built around either technical or physical wrestling depending on the opponent.

The Worst wrestler of the year is an easy one and it will feel like I'm going after a predictable target, but it's John Cena. The most remarkable thing in exploring Cena in 2004 to Cena in 2015 is seeing just how much he's improved over the years, because as he stands now he is one of the most reliable in ring hands the company has. This isn't the case in 2004 where his gimmick was in overdrive, and the doctor of thuganomics sloppily bungled his way through matches. His presence and the seeds of the wrestler who'd become one of the most popular in the history of the medium are here, but one would be hard pressed to present a significant example of wrestling ability at this point in his career. It doesn't help that he was saddled with Booker T and Big Show throughout 2004 and in the dungeon of SmackDown, the very obvious B-show, where everyone but Guerrero suffered. This didn't stop Cena from getting over though, and the difference between the crowd's reaction to his fun mid-card, hokey gimmick into main event level pops by the end of the year is interesting to chart, because by the time Survivor Series rolled around in November he was a member of Team Guerrero, but easily the most over member of that squad so I cannot fault them for booking him the way they would following his earliest years. Luckily he proved to be an ace hand with years of improvement later on.

My final thoughts are those of both exhausting and appreciation. I wouldn't have watched wrestling in 2004 in WWE consistently for one specific reason I haven't brought up yet. The rampant sexism of both Raw and SmackDown is extremely offputting. It would take me far too long to list all the examples of shitty actions towards women, but a few that easily stand out are playboy evening gown matches, Lita's lack of choice in the Kane/Matt Hardy feud that leans towards rape narratives, and Tyson Tomko versus Steve Richards at Unforgiven echoes queerphobia and transphobia as one wrestler beats another in drag for what feels like half an hour as the crowd laughs. These things don't make the otherwise solid wrestling year passable. I wouldn't necessarily wish I had my time back, because almost every show delivered a match that was commendable, but WWE in 2004 was not for me, and I guess wrestling still isn't because these problems still persist, but I love the fake punch sport and I'm willing to step on these land mines if it means I get things like Kurt Angle versus Eddie Guerrero, even if I question if it's worth it almost constantly.

Finally the 20 best ppv matches of 2004
1. Kurt Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero (WMXX, *****)
2. Cactus Jack vs. Randy Orton (Backlash *****)
3. Chris Benoit vs. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels (WMXX *****)
4. Chris Benoit vs. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels (Backlash **** 3/4)
5. The Royal Rumble Match (Royal Rumble **** 1/2)
6. Kurt Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero (SummerSlam **** 1/4)
7. Billy Kidman vs. Paul London (No Mercy ****)
8. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels (Royal Rumble ****)
9. Eddie Guerrero vs. Brock Lesnar (No Way Out ****)
10. Eddie Guerrero vs. JBL (Judgment Day ****)
11. Chris Jericho vs. Christian (Unforgiven ****)
12. Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels (Bad Blood ****)
13. Rock N' Sock Connection vs. Evolution (WMXX ****)
14. Billy Kidman vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero vs. Spike Dudley (Survivor Series ****)
15. Chris Benoit vs. Triple H (Vengeance *** 3/4)
16. Shelton Benjamin vs. Christian (Survivor Series *** 3/4)
17. Eddie Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero (Royal Rumble *** 3/4)
18. Victoria vs. Lita (Backlash *** 3/4)
19. Chris Benoit vs. Randy Orton (SummerSlam *** 3/4)
20. Chris Jericho vs. Christian (WMXX *** 3/4)

Grades for Each Show
1. Royal Rumble- B+
2. No Way Out- D
3. Wrestlemania 20- B+
4. Backlash- A
5. Judgment Day- C-
6. Bad Blood- B
7. Great American Bash- D
8. Vengeance-B-
9. SummerSlam- B
10. Unforgiven- C-
11. No Mercy- C
12. Taboo Tuesday- D
13. Survivor Series- C
14. Armageddon- D-

Overall Grade for the Year: B-

Abstract Images, Dual imagery and a focus on bodies through intimate gestures in Point Break are used to represent the paralell arc of both Bodhi and Johnny Utah. Once they crossed paths they were destined to both be the love of each others lives, destroy each other and ultimately unleash a chasm of similarities between both men that made them starcrossed romantic figures at the center of this action movie. Kathryn Bigelow's camera is lithe and graceful through the eyes of Utah as he watches on in idol worship towards Bodhi, a man who is unshackled by the boundaries of rules or society, or so he says at least. Bigelow puts these magnificent images through the surf, finding a way to track the sun and the body into one fluid motion capturing the beauty of Bodhi as a figure, and through a personification of his personality while he cuts through the earth on a board. Like Icarus he is framed through the sun as he soars ever higher, moving in a way that seems both sexual, alien and god like.

In a moment of bonding Bodhi teaches Utah his way of life. Point Break's spirituality comes through it's closeness towards the water, and how we use it to our benefit. When Bodhi takes Johnny on a rendezvous surf lesson in the dark of night Utah reaches something akin to nirvana, and Bodhi could not be happier for his friend who he grows ever closer to by the day. Swayze's face ellicits an emotion of happiness, and radical joy. Bigelow slows the camera down to lock into Swayze pumping his fist, because Utah gets it, and afterward his girlfriend says Utah finally seemed like he dropped his pretenses and let himself flow with Bodhi, her, and surfing. Bigelow's imagery never becomes more abstract in these moments as the surfers and waves roll in and out of one another often jumbling their movements with waves that are inching closer towards a camera to crush the image and the surfers.

Bigelow frames surfing as a spiritual act, but doesn't shy away from it's sexual connotations as well. After Utah's transcendence into Bodhi's religion Bigelow cuts to the morning after where Tyler (Lori Petty) and Utah lie on a beach caressing one another. Their bodies are shot in a loving, warm way and the afterglow of sex is apparent through the imagery of having all of this taking place directly after surfing, but instead of sex it was this ritual which in turn had become an equal to sex, but Bigelow never shows sex in Point Break. Instead, surfing replaces the act, but the following bedside manner follows it up.

But the romance of Point Break is not exclusive towards Utah and Tyler, because Bodhi exists at the center of this narrative. Bodhi and Utah are on opposites side of the law, but share personhood. Utah understands Bodhi on an intrisic level, and from their first encounter on the beach playing football, until their last encounter on the beach as he whisks Bodhi off to fly too close to God they share a romance. Bigelow uses body language and mirrored imagery to explain Bodhi and Utah's closeness. In one sequence Bodhi and Utah both lose grasp of their respective plans, with Utah being the cop and Bodhi being the robber, and lose someone close to them. They share an identical reaction.

Body language is even more important to Bigelow's framing of their bond. A lot has been said about the relationship between characters who exist as a found family in the Fast and Furious pictures, but they are merely disciples of Bigelow's cinema, and even going back further than that to movies from John Carpenter and even Howard Hawks. She uses Bodhi and Utah romantically, and they grasp each other often. This is how they show their love. They won't let go of one another no matter what. In dual sky diving sequences placed in the 2nd and 3rd acts Bigelow showed Bodhi and Utah holding each other's hands as they fell towards earth. She calls back to this in the 3rd act freefall when Utah doesn't have a chute, but Bodhi still clutches at his drawstring to save them both, even after he feels betrayed by Utah working for the FBI. Utah pulls the chute to save them both, but Bodhi's hand is right there.

Neither of these sequences is the greatest example of their love towards one another. That scene would be the on foot chase after the failed bank robbery of Bodhi's crew is interrupted by Utah and his FBI partner played by Gary Busey. Utah has Bodhi dead to rights. He is pointing a gun dirctly at his face. Bigelow cuts back and forth between the two zooming in on their facial reactions and the gun. Will Johnny Utah murder his best friend? It's the most anguished moment of the movie, because he is torn between his job and someone he has grown to love. Bodhi is just as hurt. You can see it in his eyes. His best friend trapped by a duty to uphold a badge. It's not radical. But Utah does not kill his best friend. He lets him go, but he's hurt. He knows he'll be forced to make this same decision again later, because it's the nature of these things. They're cursed to fight each other, because of the lines they've drawn in life.

and he is faced with the same decision in the closing moments of the movie, but putting a bullet in his greatest friend's head isn't nearly as bad as sentencing a bird to a cage. Bodhi remarks back to Johnny "I can't live behind those walls man", and Johnny knows this. Earlier in the film Bodhi talks about wanting to ride the greatest wave that only comes around once every fifty years due to nature's cyclical habits, and they are both staring right at this opportunity. He has a moment to let his friend go and release him once more to the world, and because he loves him he does. Bodhi surfs into the void, being swallowed up by what he loves and dying as he lived. Johnny Utah tosses his badge into the ocean and says goodbye to his past life and his very best friend. The rain falls all around them. It's appropriate that it would rain at a funeral.

I've always tried to unpack why horror appeals to me and why I like to tread closely to the edge of some of the most depressing and upsetting violent cinema that there is but I've never been able to come up with a clear cut answer. I think part of it has to do with having grown up feeling fractured and broken, and horror is oftentimes about women who are trying to figure out how to put the pieces back together in their lives. I haven't watched nearly as much horror since I've grown happier, which lends weight to that theory I suppose, so I have to assume it's accurate. Up until last year I lived a pretty miserable life, and horror ended up being the safety net I latched onto oftentimes in all those years prior. Not all of these films fit the bill of being about fractured characters, but a lot of them do. I like horror that lingers and sticks with me. The kind of horror that slips into your bones and can't be scrubbed out. I suppose I like trauma then, and the effects of dealing with it. Laura Palmer comes to mind when I think of horror, and Laurie Strode, Carrie White and Rei. These are broken characters, and up until last year I considered myself among them. I still slip into those modes, but not nearly as often as I used to. I'm grateful I had women who actually felt like me along the way though, and I still sometimes go back to them and wish I could help fix them.

Having said all that. Suspiria still sits at number one, because above all else just give me witches. For I've been called evil in my life simply for my life choices so why wouldn't I align myself with those of Satan? I appear to be already if my family is any indication.

Hail Satan.....Hail Horror.

1. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)

2. The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)

3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (David Lynch, 1992)

4. End of Evangelion (Hideaki Anno, 1997)

5. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hoober, 1974)

6. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

7. The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)

8. Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

9. Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

10. The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)

11. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

12. Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon, 1995)

13. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)

14. Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)

15. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2014)

16. Inside (Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury, 2007)

17. Valerie and her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jires, 1970)

18. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

19. The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963)

20. Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)

21. The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)

22. [SAFE] (Todd Haynes, 1995)

23. Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999)

24. Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960)

25. Halloween 2 (Rob Zombie, 2009)

26. Day of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1985)

27. In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1994)

28. The Happiness of the Katakuris (Takashi Miike, 2001)

29. Gremlins 2: The One With Hulk Hogan (Joe Dante, 1990)

30. Bastards (Claire Denis, 2012)

31. Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)

32. Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977)

33. Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)

34. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

35. Ginger Snaps (Jon Fawcett, 2000)

36. The Thing From Another World (Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks, 1951)

37. Martyrs (Pascal Laugier)

38. Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)

39. Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzout, 1959)

40. Wake in Fright (Ted Kotcheff, 1971)

41. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2011)

42. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)

43. Kwaidan (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)

44. Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)

45. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

46. I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

47. Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter, 1987)

48. Gozu (Takashi Miike, 2003)

49. The Devils (Ken Russell, 1971)

49. After Hours (Martin Scorsese, 1985)

50. Alucarda (Juan Lopez Moctezuma, 1976)

51. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar, 2010)

52. Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009)

53. Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

54. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, 2004)

56. The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1983)

57. Evil Dead 2 (Sam Raimi, 1987)

58. Tenebrae (Dario Argento, 1982)

59. Rosemarys Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)

60. Don;t Look Now (Nicholas Roeg, 1973)

61. Christine (John Carpenter, 1983)

62. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1919)

63. The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)

64. Blood and Black Lace (Mario Bava, 1964)

65. Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

66. May (Lucky McKee, 2004)

67. The Hitcher (Robert Harmon, 1986)

68. Martin (George A. Romero, 1977)

69. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)

70. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2009)

71. Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)

72. The House of the Devil (Ti West, 2009)

73. The Stepfrod Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975)

74. 3 Women (Robert Altman, 1977)

75. The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)

76. The Ghost of Yotsuya (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1959)

77. The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)

79. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)

79. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)

80. Ghosts of Mars (John Carpenter, 2001)

81. The Loved Ones (Sean Byrne, 2009)

82. Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)

83. The Curse of Frankenstein (Terrence Fisher, 1957)

84. The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)

85. Cigarette Burns (John Carpenter, 2005)

86. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)

87. Village of the Damned (John Carpenter, 1995)

88. Trick 'R Treat (Michael Dougherty, 2007)

89. The Virgin Spring (Ingmar Bergman, 1960)

90. Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (Benjamin Christensen, 1922)

91. The Brood (David Cronenberg, 1979)

92. Witches Hammer (Otakar Vavra, 1970)

93. A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)

94. Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)

95. Girly (Freddie Francis, 1970)

96. Sinister (Scott Derrickson, 2012)

97. The Abominable Dr. Phibes (Robert Fuest, 1971)

98. Dracula's Daughter (Lambert Hillyer, 1936)

99. The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

100. Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010)

Girlhood. The very title is more than any movie could handle, and being brandished with such a huge name would speak to the very complexities that girls go through as they reach womanhood, and the difficulties of portraying that in a film. The idea of a universal girlhood is a misnomer as no such thing exists. Girlhood is then chiseled down into something singular. Girlhood is what you make it. Girlhood is a film about one teenage girl growing up, but the connotations of her narrative speak to the type of movie that isn't as easy to pin down as an exhibition of sisterhood, as Vic's tale is more important than the relationship she has with her friends along the way. Bande de Filles is then a misleading title as Bande de Filles turns into the story of Vic, but it was always only about her, even with diamonds by her side through much of it.

Celine Sciamma's film is a portrait of a young girl fumbling through adolescence without a lot of options. Marieme (soon to be redubbed Vic by her friends) is refused the chance to retry the last year of schooling she failed, her home life is constricting to her internal sense of freedom, and she doesn't appear to have any sort of connection with anyone except her younger sisters, and a rocky relationship with her brother. That all changes when she befriends a group of girls who give her life a spark, and some sort of meaning. She gains confidence through the group's overall strength and eventually starts to find her footing. It isn't perfect, but then what life is? The group engages in petty crime and sometimes fighting, but it's all through the guise of youth. These tools have always been extensions of films about white characters, but in the hands of characters who aren't white there's often this sense of concern trolling over where their lives are headed (in Hollywood this often means the inclusion of a white saviour, even though the white saviours kids participate in the same kind of victimless crime, look to Dazied and Confused and Boyhood for similar instances of Adolescent Crime), and it's refreshing to see Sciamma giver Vic the space to explore her age and her choices.

In one transcendent scene Vic reaches the apex of her teenage years, and finds an identity through her friends and a song. That song is "Diamonds" by Rhianna. Sciamma frames the sequence in close up shots of her friends respectively, and doused in shimmering blue (the films colour palette is extremely strong). They begin lip singing to the track in the dresses they just took from a department store. In this one moment the entire world takes a back seat to a singular emotion and the film itself also becomes secondary to the song that it cuts a hole through everything, movie included. It's the sort of thing that sounds regular on paper...."And then the girls sing a song together", but when treated as the single most happy moment of growing up it becomes something else entirely. In a moment of finality Sciamma takes the close up angle away from her friends and onto Vic's face as she contemplates letting herself go completely and singing along to Rhianna with her friends. She decides to join in, and in doing so closed one chapter of her life and opened another. When the moment ends the film struggles to gain back that momentum, but it speaks to the importance of seemingly small moments being the most memorable in growing up.

Girlhood's narrative feels so fresh, and Sciamma's confident filmmaking are joys to watch, but despite remaining fascinating throughout Girlhood struggles to maintain consistency When the film takes a steep right turn in act three and becomes a narrative of personhood and choice after she sheds her gang of friends to move forward with her life the movie seems to be confused of where to go. This could partially be seen as an unsureness on Vic's part, but I think it has more to do with Sciamma having 2 parts of 2 separate films. On it's own the third act, which cycles back into Sciamma's queering of gender (See chest binding above & which relates to gendered presentation in Tomboy) is strong, but within the context of the first two acts there's a real struggle to find it's footing once more. That isn't to say that the final 20 minutes aren't worthwhile, because they absolutely are, but there's an aimlessness that makes the final third feel more plodding than it should. Which is a shame, because Sciamma is entering into Fassbinder territory by way of her own applications of gender that are really interesting. Vic's hyperfemininity in her new job, the rejection of said hyper-femininity in favour of masculine presentation in her home life, and the possibly queer relationship between her and another girl are all threads left stranded that could have been made more interesting if she gets to this segment of the film a little quicker.

More cinema like this should exist, because it's unfair to be burdened with the weight of an entire group of people to deliver something resonant. We don't often ask that question of films about White, Straight, Cis Men, because they've been given the chance to be everything they could possibly be in cinema. Those same opportunities haven't been granted to other kinds of people. Girlhood isn't a perfect movie. It's far too shaky in it's delivery to be given the highest of accolades, but it's very good. If cinema is to reach it's truest heights then Girlhood needs to be bested time and time again. Cinema humanizes in a way that is like none other. It makes the different relatable, and gives life to those without a voice, but those voices must first be heard. Hopefully Girlhood will be the first in a trend instead of an outlier in a sea of adolescent pictures of white boys. Who knows, maybe even one of those hypothetical films about a black girl will have her become a boring photographer heading off to college, and we'll all call it a universal masterpiece. I hope cinema gets there.

Dyketactics: tactile cinema by way of lesbian expression and complete reclamation of the body in the face of a longstanding history of male gaze upon women's bodies and the fetishization of queer women's sexuality. Notice how Hammer subverts the idea of nudity in imagery throughout art in her insistence to show the vagina in extreme close up instead of the more male associated fixation on breasts. As Hammer would recall in this interview with BOMB magazine, at one screening for Dyketactics in the 70s a man screamed at the close of the movie upon being shown a vagina to which the women in the audience replied "Haven't you seen one before?". One can infer that he had not been this close and personal before seeing Hammer's short, and there in lies the power of the image. The meaning of saying "This is my body, and it is not for your consumption or your sexualization, but instead it is my reality". This also supports the theory that this is not cinema made for men, but with it's everflowing love towards lesbian sexuality and the female body it would reject all things male, and it does. The recurring image of the camera in the hands of women taking pictures of their own bodies is another example of the control in which women have here, and the lens being shown focused specifically on genitals and breasts shows a specificity towards taking control of parts of women's bodies that men otherwise seek to control (breasts through the male gaze, and genitals through reproductive lawmaking).

Dissolves are the most consistent cinematic technique on display here with images surging in and out of one another with an ease and grace that is only empowered by the insistence upon showing fleeting moments of touch. A foot glides up against a calf, a hand runs through a blade of grass, a mouth clasps over aureola, and everyone is nude or in an embrace through all of this. Hammer drops all semblance of the dissolve in the final minute and instead shows two women in the process of having sex. Her camera glides through the sweeping curves of their bodies and slides around limbs and crevices of flesh. Closing on an image of two women wrapped up together as close as they can possibly be, symbiotic, as one.

Barbara Hammer week at Curtsies and Hand Grenades will continue tomorrow with a look at Menses.

You can watch Dyketactics on Vimeo here
https://vimeo.com/101192467

There's this Heavens to Betsy song that surfaced out of the riot grrrl movement entitled My Red Self , it's an angry anthem about how menstruation is treated as something to cover up and hide by society at large. In that song Corin Tucker would sing "So you make me hide the truth from you"and it's a direct attack on how a normal bodily function is treated as something to shield away and how unfair that is to those who menstruate. That song was recorded in 1993, nearly twenty years after Barbara Hammer made a short film with the same intentions. It's embarrassing that nothing had changed in nearly twenty years. Second wave feminism led into third wave feminism, and today things are very much still the same. Only a few days ago Canada lifted their taxes on menstruation hygiene products, much to the chagrin of men who felt the tax should have stayed in place, even though the taxing of such products is ridiculous when if anything it should be a human right to have those products. Even then it's been 41 years and nearly nothing has happened to de-shame menstruation cycles so Barbara Hammer's, Menses still feels very relevant.

In style Menses feels connected to her previous feature Dyketactics, but her intentions are much more blunt this time, and instead of creating something sensuous and graceful in motion Menses prods at viewers aggressively. She still uses the dissolve technique and the nudity of women is present in almost every frame, but otherwise the sunny, warm textures of Dyketactics are replaced with dark reds that fill up the frame and in one case, at the close completely fill up the frame in a mural of women connected through a menstrual cycle. Menses is at its strongest when dissecting the notions of period blood as horror and turning it into a badge. In one frame a woman exists as a sanitary napkin completely covered with blood gushing out of her and staining the napkin before she rolls down a hill, and in another a woman stands before a white towel before droplets begin to form underneath her. She then takes the towel and drapes it around herself. This is a part of her, and not something she should be ashamed of, and that's the general message of Menses whether it be conveyed through the dismantling of a Kotex box or through a blood mural in the final frames.

Barbara Hammer week at Curtsies and Hand Grenades continues tomorrow with Superdyke.

If Themyscria is a supposed feminine ideal and a place of paradise for Amazonian Women in Wonder Woman then Barbara Hammer's movies seek out to create Themyscria for lesbians within her cinema. SuperDyke specifically works as a document to a very specific time in queer rights where the mainstream was just starting to get wind of queerness and a post-Stonewall, Second Wave centrism on lesbian feminist identity was becoming more pronounced. The idea of SuperDyke extends beyond the political though as Hammer's lens once again finds its greatest meaning in the personal, quieter moments of sexuality instead of the more on the nose examples of women kissing in front of a bus with words like "Lesbian Express" scrawled across the front. Those moments, however, are not brought down by the superiority of Hammer's more sensual, individual eye as they remain fun, tongue in cheek and at the time radical because of their intention of taking the queer space and extending it into the public eye. Another fun moment which calls back to it's comic book title is a scene where two women kiss in a phone booth, don vibrant yellow tank tops which say "SuperDyke", and step out into the open. The image is both interesting for it's cute call-back to the Amazon signs at the beginning of the picture to represent a Wonder Woman, as well as being a lesbian version of Clark Kent to Superman, and the political context of it meaning a coming out of the closet.

Hammer keeps the filmmaking interesting as well, and it'd have been easy for her to go back to the quick cutting and dissolve heavy imagery of her previous shorts Dyketactics and Menses, but here she goes for home video, with fleeting moments of interaction between her lesbian superwomen to create a portrait of life, love, happiness, and rightful personhood. The film is structured into a few sections, "On the Street", "In the Home", "In the Court", "At Macy's". Each representing a facet of life as seen through the eyes of her filmic figures. In the House is the most impressive as Hammer focuses on the foreplay of two women in a way that calls back to the way she shot sex in Dyketactics, but without the aggressive abstraction of constant dissolves. Here, she focuses on the smaller moments of sex, like the rubbing of shoulders, the look in another woman's eye when being in a complete state of effervescence, and the thrill of existing within one another. In that moment queer cinema never feels more present and alive. Away from the tragedy of Hollywood martrydom, and fetishization of the unknown, queer cinema lives and breathes in Barbara Hammer's worldview, and it's beautiful.

It's easy to say representation doesn't matter when you have all of filmed media to choose from. White boys grow up knowing they can be anything and do anything, because film and television lets them know that they are the heroes and makers of their own stories. They can go out and achieve whatever dreams they want, because the entire world is at their grasp as long as they work hard or in some cases luck into it, but that isn't the case for everyone else. When characters on television and film represent some sort of cultural identity and definition, especially in the case of minority persons, the few characters that actually end up having their stories told become of utmost importance to those with little or no representation. It's even rarer when one of those characters is created by someone adjacent to the lived experiences of that minority character. More often those narratives and characters are constructed by the same white men who grew up wanting to be writers, and that isn't to say they cannot create great characters that aren't of their own lived experience, but it can be revelatory to see that character in the hands of someone who truly knows the ins and outs of a lived experience another person may only have tertiary knowledge of. In the case of Sense8, Lana Wachowski has given trans women a character so wholly different from the normal palette of transgender women in film and television that she feels like a springboard moment in what is hopefully more respectful and understood characterization of an often completely botched segment of people in film narratives.

The history of transgender female representation in movies and television is a constricted, damaging, limited, and completely toxic presentation of our lives with only a few bright spotlights throughout the last 100 or so years of movie making. Before the advent of Netflix's transgender duo (Nomi in Sense8 and Sophia in Orange is the New Black) there wasn't a significant role for transgender women where they could play a character who wanted to be more than a corpse (CSI, Dallas Buyer's Club) , a murderer (Dressed to Kill), a joke (Family Guy, Ace Ventura) or a sex worker whose life decisions were damned by whoever was writing the character (Law and Order). There wasn't an opportunity for us to exist beyond these confines so preconceived notions of who we are formulated in the minds of those without any direct relation to transgender people. It painted a portrait of a non-existent humanity, something (not someone) to be feared, mocked or pitied for having decided to become a deviant.

Even well meaning liberal motion pictures like TransAmerica and Dallas Buyer's Club reek of allyship and an understanding that our bodies are constructed through maleness, rough exterior, and a kind of damaged femininity that is more akin to clown make-up and dress-up rather than an internal sense of womanhood. In those pictures we cannot escape a body that came to being through an assumed male socialization, because in these pictures transgender women are not women, but men to be pitied for having taken on the guise of womanhood which is in and of itself a deeply misogynistic line of thought that completely undermines who we are, how we got to be, who we are, and how our bodies are structured. Notice how transgender women are almost always portrayed by cisgender men, because in the opinion of Hollywood there is no way we can achieve a body capable or close to the cisgender female beauty standard placed upon all women by society at large so instead of showing real transgender bodies Jared Leto, Jeffrey Tambor and Eddie Redmayne occupy our space and define our place as women through masculinity. When they do write transgender women as beautiful characters or love interests for men it's never enough to actually give them a happy ending and romance, but instead our bodies are upended by a reveal that categorizes us as male by focusing on a phallus. The man in the relationship has been tricked, and the entire relationship has been an affront to his sexuality. Take for instance the scene in Family Guywhere characters vomit upon knowing they've slept with a transgender woman, only to have creator Seth MacFarlane say this is the natural reaction of men afterward. This both distances the narrative away from a transgender woman and focuses on a misogynistic, male viewpoint and a token punchline in a joke that our bodies are vessels of disgust. When dissecting that idea even further one finds that our humanity is then weighed on our attractiveness and our ability to please men, which goes beyond just a transmisogynistic idea of our standing in culture, but women as a whole, because if women's narratives in film or television are only there to be attached to the pleasures of one man then this is wish fulfillment instead of reality, and strips all women of anything resembling character, cis or trans.

This is obviously a problem, and becomes exhausting when looking for anything resembling direct text relating to transgender lifestyle. Personally, I have always looked for subtextual readings of motion pictures where I could find something genuinely relatable to my own life experiences. I wrote about this earlier this year when I analyzed Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skinas a transgender narrative, and while that film means a monumental amount to me it's closeness towards transgender themes are something created by accident and completely in the realm of subtext. Girls like me don't exist in the pictures is something I used to say to myself. I'm a young woman, and I look like these girls on the screen, but they don't have my dysphoria or the problems present in my life. I didn't find a single relatable character to my own personal existence until I watched Paris is Burning and found a closeness with Venus Xtravaganza who wanted nothing more than to live a normal life, and make her body complete in her eyes by having vaginoplasty, but in the final moments of the movie her body is disposed of, cutting short a life that was in it's earliest chapters and extinguishing the chance she had at feeling home in her own skin some day. It's devastating, it's documented, and it's real. I was left aghast at the brutality of the world, and wondered if I'd ever make promise on completing my own body or if someone would take that chance from me someday. It's uncertain, because we aren't safe even 25 years later. Paris is Burning is the greatest piece of transgender art that has ever been created, because it offers a glimpse into the lifestyle, bodies and humanity we have to offer this world. We are completely driven by the same desires and goal oriented ideas about career-making, family and creating a lasting effect on this world that all humans are even if our time is shorter. I fully believe we can change the ideas presented about our worth of life, and in the last few years there have been significant strides in the mainstream media regarding our lives, but things still have an exceedingly long way to go, but the trickle effect of gaining agency on our own narratives is beginning.

I'm forever grateful of what netflix is allowing to happen on their network, because they've finally given me a mirror in a fictional narrative of someone who I can finally say is like myself. When Nomi is introduced on Sense8 she's having sex, her body is there for the entire world to see, and it's not sorrowful to gaze upon her flesh, because it's like mine. It belongs to a woman, not a man acting. Her sexuality is treated as belonging to her, and it's her orgasm that the show is intent on capturing. This is agency, and the reveal of her girlfriend using a dildo on her afterward presents this as a narrative that won't end with her feeling betrayed at knowing her body completely, because she loves every inch of her. They embrace, and their queerness is beloved by this show. Their warmth goes beyond the bedroom as well, and in a later scene at a pride gathering Nomi is confronted by a trans exclusionary radical feminist who refers to her as a colonizing male. This visibly upsets Nomi, but something remarkable happens just moments later when her girlfriend defends her place as a woman and in the LGBTQ community. Nomi is crying and then simply says to her girlfriend "No one has ever defended me before". That is love. I know it because, the same thing happened to me just 24 hours earlier to me when my boyfriend called out some people for using the word "Tranny" when I was visibly upset by it. The parallel example of these two things happening alongside one another really hit home that this is my show. This is the truth. This is made for me and not for cisgender people. Nomi belongs to people like me, and after 23 years of existence I have someone. I guess girls like me do exist in the movies after all.

(this is a still from Jools Holland, not the 9:30 club, but you get the point)

Sleater-Kinney: Live at the 9:30 Club

The news of Sleater-Kinney's resurrection surfaced sometime in early October. There were rumblings of an unmarked single containing a new song being featured in their box set "Start Together" that set my corner of the internet abuzz. When those reports were signaled as true it was a cherry on top of what was the best birthday I had experienced in my entire life. I was looking at a cake that for the first time had my real name, I had a ribbon pinned to my chest that said "Birthday Girl", and there was a 5 second clip of a new Sleater-Kinney song on youtube. I couldn't have been happier at the prospects of new music from a band that felt less like a trio of musicians and more a reflection of something that apparated out of my soul. I knew that I'd never get the chance to see them live so I held onto any and all clips that surfaced on youtube, but then NPR announced they'd be streaming an entire show. This was going to be the closest I come to seeing this band that I love so dearly. I turned the lights off, put my headphones on and turned the volume up to unhealthy levels and wept at the first notes of "Price Tag". I wasn't there, but it felt like I was and when Corin Tucker lifted her hand out into the audience during "Gimme Love" and sang with the ferocity that made me fall in love with her I reached out too.

Dean Ambrose becomes WWE World Heavyweight Champion....sorta

1...2...3...and I jumped what felt like 10 feet. I squeeled and repeated over and over again he did it! he did it! I was lost in the moment of my guy conquering the man who betrayed him and as a consolation prize he was becoming world champion. Only the moment was taken away seconds later to my eventual cries of "what just happened? why did they do this?". Emotional Whiplash. Dean Ambrose pinned Seth Rollins in the middle of the ring clean, but before all this happened Seth pulled a referee in front of Ambrose as he hit a diving elbow. That referee was unconscious afterward so another ref came out to count the pinfall. When the unconscious ref awoke he threw the match out and ruled it a disqualification. Dean Ambrose had won, but it didn't count. My emotions did though, and the teasing of that moment was downright cruel, but Ambrose decided to take the belt anyway, and I can't blame him, because he did earn it in that specific moment. I rode the highs of Ambrose holding that belt for the next 2 weeks even though in the back of my mind I knew this was false. Dean Ambrose has been yanked and pulled around by WWE decision makers for the better part of 8 months now, and despite his organic ascent to becoming one of the most popular wrestlers in the company they refuse to give him much in the way of anything to celebrate. Even as I type this he has suddenly slid back into the middle of the card after a few weeks of flirting with the main event scene. It's brutal being a Dean Ambrose fan, and even this moment which made me fall back in love with WWE isn't exactly real. Dean Ambrose never became champion, but it felt like he did for about sixty seconds, and in that sixty seconds I felt a joy that can only be administered from professional wrestling. I've never leapt into the air at the close of a film. I did when I thought Dean Ambrose won.

Fury Road: Autuerism, Minimalism, Feminism

For all we've talked about the feminism or the bombastic over-saturated colour scheme we haven't discussed Fury Road's minimalism. This is a straight line. As soon as Furiosa heads east there are no divergences from that path. When she turns and goes outside of the course she has been set everything becomes a chase predestined towards forward momentum. We're heading home, to the green place, away from oppression. The movie never wavers from this thesis of lunging forward as Furiosa and her gang of women (plus Max and one Warboy) push through the dust and the dirt and the rocks towards an area of peace, but as soon as they get there they realize there is no serenity to be found in running away. So they double back on that straight line they traveled at the beginning of the movie and attempt to make peace with where they're from and create a heaven of their own, but they're still moving forward. They're just heading back. All the while Miller is riffing on the same action sequence that he introduced at the close of the first Mad Max, and through years of restructuring and building upon that forward momentum of a straight road stampede of engines he perfected his craft. It's even more astounding he did this in Hollywood where branding has been centralized over auteurism in years of late.

Madness and Magic: The Abstract in Adventure Time

When Adventure Time announces an episode featuring The Magic Man it always graces the creators of the show reason to become abstract and imaginative in a way that other episodes do not offer. Magic Man is a creature of pure chaos whose only limitations are his desires at the moment. With his magical power he can transfix any given scenario into something horrific, and here we finally see his backstory as well as the next chapter in Ice King's unraveling as Adventure Time's most sympathetic character. Magic cannot exist without madness in the land of Ooo and when you give yourself over to that power you lose control of yourself. Magic Man's hat, like Ice King's crown, is the origin of his destruction. He is not an evil man, but one being controlled by external forces. When his hat is removed later in the episode by Betty who had been working as Magic Man's assistant she also becomes infected with magic, and she is now in the same boat as her former lover Simon (Ice King). If this all sounds convoluted it's because it is impossible to explain the complexities of Adventure Time's backstory as it goes far beyond the depth of most shows by consistently building upon narrative threads and characters, sometimes even seasons apart. What truly makes "You Forgot Your Floaties" a classic episode of the shows willingness to engage with the absurd. In a dream sequence Betty finds herself in a monochrome world of black and white (resembling a soulless Yellow Brick Road) before slowly being sucked into the mouth of a statue resembling Magic Man after she dons a mask of his deceased wife who is later revealed to be at the center of his need to meddle with magic. Monsters appear later, and they sift in and out of phases of dreamspace, meeting up with gods and rulers alike, until finally coming upon Ice King's muted voice speaking in severe close-up (in an homage to Robert Altman's 3 Women of all things) about the presence and core of magic. Betty takes that risk of madness to try to save Ice King when she steals magic man's hat. She already suffers under the effects as her eyes glaze over and her sense of self drowns in power. This is all setting up a later confrontation between Betty and Simon where they will likely confront their past and their future, and a storyline that Adventure Time has been playing with since the beginning of the show may finally come to a close. ,

Bitch Better Have My Money: Taking Back the Anti-Hero

Mikki Kendall (follow her on twitter, @Karnythia) tweeted shortly after the video for "Bitch Better Have My Money" dropped that Black Women hardly ever occupy the space of anti-hero outside of the music video space, and she's absolutely right. Only Pam Grier comes to mind when I think of the Black Woman Anti-Hero, but many more come to mind when asking the question of white women, and one would need to go no further than looking at last year's Amy Dunne from David Fincher's Gone Girl. It's appropriate to bring up Gone Girl, because the image of a woman caked in triumphant blood bookends both this video and the height of Amy Dunne's revenge. The image of a woman taking back what was hers by becoming violent can be a powerful image, and I think Rihanna's extreme close-up is one of the best single images in all of cinema this year. Rihanna shows a clear understanding of the types of influences that are sprinkled throughout Bitch Better Have My Money like Nicholas Winding Ref's penchant for neon coloured violence as seen in Only God Forgives, the seaside excess of something like Wolf of Wall Street or the Tarantino-esque still captures of characters like Mads Mikkelson's "The Bitch" as seen here. Rihanna refashions all these cinematic tools into a point blank statement that is only strengthened by her song's directness. It's totally cinema of her power, and what happens when you get in her way. It's anti-heroic, and it's also exhilarating. God only knows what else Rihanna might have in mind when it comes to movies, but if this is any indication she has the talent to take the world by storm.

Other Movies, Television Shows, Music Vidoes, etc that will stick with me
Michael Mann's"Blackhat"
Takashi Miike's "As the God's Will"
Sean Baker's "Tangerine"
Peter Strickland's "The Duke of Burgundy"
The Wachowski's "Sense8"
Bjork's "Stonemilker"
Grime's "Realiti"
Mad Men: "The Milk and Honey Route"
Penny Dreadful: "Fresh Hell"
Better Call Saul: "Marco"
NXT: "Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch"
NXT: "Hideo Itami's Wrestlemania Experience"
"Wrestling Isn't Wrestling"

Rachel Talalay wanted to make an action picture that was like nothing else currently on the market. She was fed up with the idea of female action heroes whose characteristics were identical to that of men, but transferred to a female body. She loved the Tank Girl comics and with it saw a chance to make good on that promise of a completely unique woman action hero with an adaptation of that text, and in some ways she completely succeeds, but the film as a whole suffers from some unfortunate pacing and narrative decisions that nearly undo an incredibly unique character.

The 1990s saw a birth of grrrl power and riot grrrl aesthetic that informs the type of character Tank Girl exists as. Part Wendy O. Williams and Mad Max with a riot grrrl mix tape in her walkman the titular character is a punk ideal while exhibiting the same underground comic aesthetic she was birthed from in the 1980s. To say the least she carries the entire world of her movie on her back, and the film lives and dies by her frequency on screen. Lori Petty perfectly encapsulates the kind of character Tank Girl needed to be and appropriately sets herself apart from every other woman character in the history of the comic book to film medium. Often, women characters are relegated to being love interests even in the best comic book adaptations (Spider-Man 2, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) , but this is Tank Girl and this is 100% her movie up until the narrative is blindsided by a handful of Kangaroo mutants (who are present in the comic) who I would lovingly refer to as Jar-Jar's by just how much they disrupt an otherwise good movie.

Tank Girl is at it's very best when it is loosely jamming many different parts of cinema (comic book animation, dance sequences, music video montage) together into a jumbled mess that fits the kind of thrown together look of the titular character. Riot Grrrl is an easy thing to come back to when discussing the form here, but the collage like nature of Tank Girl is reminiscent of zine culture that came out of Olympia, Washington in the early 1990s. Tank Girl's feminism is most present in how the main character carries herself, and as a production it's one of the few pictures of the time that seems actively influenced by the form of riot grrrl music and art. It's ironic then that Courtney Love was the mastermind behind the soundtrack as she always kept the genre at arm's length due to the limitations of the genre's Stepford quality in bands cannibalizing each other and none of them being able to stand apart, whether that be true or not is an entirely different issue. Sprinkled throughout the set design are even more remnants of that music's influence on the preceding's as "Lunachicks" stickers are taped all over Tank Girl's hideout. This all mirrors the look that Arianne Phillips put together for the lead as her ripped stockings, paint brush fingernails and goggles is a constructed look that exists totally for the inner self of Tank Girl and no one else. Her clothes don't really match, they don't fit perfectly and they are tattered, but it completely works, because really there are no rules as to what is or isn't an acceptable look, and if her clothing wasn't optimal it would betray the attitude Petty gives off in her performance. It's similar to another film I looked at earlier this year, Desperately Seeking Susan, where so much of the film's visual language comes from the fashion of Madonna. Both of these film's wouldn't work nearly as well if the clothing wasn't on point, but in both cases these characters became fashion icons in distinctly different ways.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Naomi Watts (Jet Girl) whose short time here accompanies Lori Petty's performance remarkably well. Watts is a side character but as a Velma to Daffney or even Jane to Daria she is absolutely perfect, and their friendship works so well because they're extremely different from one another, but end up banding together and bonding to survive through the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Australia (also centered around water if you want to get back to Mad Max comparisons). Malcolm McDowell seems to be having fun as well as a tongue in cheek villain who literally would dissolve his henchmen into water and drink them on sight to intimidate his fellow employees.

Tank Girl cannot sustain it's eccentricities, energy and formal decision making throughout though, and as Talaly described, studio edits ran amok of her vision. I truly believe her, as the third act sees a detour into silliness that doesn't really feel tonally acceptable to the first two acts. Jet Girl and Tank Girl take a detour to stay with the rippers (The Jar-Jar's) for a while and the movie gets side tracked and slows to a crawl. The narrative leans further away from Tank Girl and Jet Girl and the movie loses complete grasp of pacing and trudges towards the credits until finally things are resolved and Tank Girl rides off into the sunset. Talalay also struggles with shooting competent action so the final third isn't in her forte of zingers, verbal comedy and music. As much as I dislike the last 30 minutes of the movie though the first 90 or so showcase something that Talalay truly wanted to make, and one that feels unabashadly 90s in a way that situates itself firmly in a time of third wave feminism. Today's comic book heroines could learn a thing or two about how Tank Girl carries herself......even though I'm pretty sure no studio would be willing to greenlight a superhero character who happens to be a woman, and give her this much freedom twenty years later, and knowing that regression makes me sad. It also makes me appreciate Tank Girl despite finding it heavily flawed, because there really isn't anyone else like her.

I cannot speak objectively with movies about dance. There is no greater sense of joy than the intersection of music, plus cinema, plus movement. The moments where characters simply decide it's time to move and are accompanied by song stick with me like nothing else in all of filmmaking. The final frames of Beau Travail, Frances running through the streets to "Modern Love", Gene Kelley stomping through the rain, The Red Shoes: that's my cinema. So when Dance, Girl, Dance begins with eight lithe, graceful women in top hats, all moving symbiotically in frame to a jaunty tune I knew I'd love this movie, but it offered so much more than just dance.

It's ironic that a movie "dance" in it's title wouldn't be a traditional musical, but instead a comedic drama, but either way Arzner and Ernst Mantray have a resolute interest in capturing the beauty of movement. Arzner's blocking is incredible throughout and becomes especially significant whenever she is shooting the dancing sequences. Whether individualistic or in group movement her cinema becomes minimal and so defined by the shifting of legs, arms and hips when song begins. The action is completely linked to how they get around the room. The shadows fill out the picture, and the windows, chairs and mirrors give layering to how the dance takes up space. When Maureen O' Hara dances, as seen above, Arzner's lens accommodates her symphony by never over cutting or turning the entire event into directorial virtuosity. Instead Arzner humbly hands her camera over to O' Hara who simply moves. That's all the movie needs here.

Once again, Arzner sits back and let's O' Hara's movement dictate the emotional heft of the scene, as this time she begins to work as a stooge to Lucille Ball's more brash and anti-ballet burlesque performer "Bubbles" and in doing so is booed relentlessly.

She does the same for Lucille Ball's more playful sequences while never shaming her body or her decisions. This is important as it doesn't betray the film's final moments by throwing Lucille under the bus for O' Hara's character. Her image making is of equality. They just move for different reasons.

If this were just a film about a series of consecutive dance sequences I would still love it, but it far exceeds the confines of formal craftsmanship and digs into something much deeper when O' Hara longs to exist in show business. There's a sequence of images throughout that show O' Hara's base desire and sadness at not having what she wants. Seeing the angelic light on the dancer in the production she covets, the morningstar: the dream, the sadness at applying make-up for a job that doesn't give back. One woman scratching and clawing and climbing to survive with the help of only a few others and working as hard as she possibly can. That is the greatest humane quality of the picture. She never gives up, and this boils over in one stridently feminist and eye opening moment in the closing moments of the picture.

She gets a twinkle in her eye right before she decides to speak her mind. They've been tormenting her for months, and while she appreciates the kindness her friend offered her with this job has turned out to be a thankless one where she is depreciated night after night. But she always danced, because her tutor told her to in her dying breaths. She's had enough though, and the booing must stop. She lets go and finally lambasts the men for ogling women in a way they can't even their wives, she criticizes their enjoyment of haranguing a hard-working woman for a peek at titillation. She detests that they seek to commodify her body when she wants to be celebrated for it. She moves with grace, but she's treated like swine and for what reason? Because she doesn't take off her clothes. One woman stands and claps at the close of her speech. I wanted to join her.

I'm excited. A final still frame of Elisabeth Moss trapped in laughter gives way to credits and I feel disheveled, invigorated, surprised and unsure. I want to say what I experienced was something close to amazement, but everything is hard to grasp, because Queen of Earth is the type of movie that one cannot place their fingers upon fully at the close. It's a little too vague in every way imaginable to simply be about one thing, and Perry is a genius at structuring his pictures so that narrative feels resolutely important to the proceedings. In Queen of Earth's case the one-day-for-a-full-week horror movie as anti-vacation at a Lake House recalls the first act of Je, Tu, Il, Elle refashioned through Roman Polanski's Apartment Trilogy, which makes things feel familiar, but altogether different from the disciples it so obviously takes from.

Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) and Virginia (Katherine Waterston) are best friends, but they seem to hate each other. They share every last detail of their lives in long conversations that link them as spiritual sisters. When Catherine's father dies after killing himself Catherine shuts herself off from the world to rehabilitate herself and her career as an artist at Virginia's vacation house that belongs to her parents (they both benefit from nepotism in some regards). While spending the week in this cabin things begin to unravel for Catherine as the vacation from herself becomes a series of avoiding contact with other people, bodily breakdown and an evolving sense of inwardness that leaves her in a panicked state of depression. The same thing that eventually killed her father.

The narrative of how close these women are slightly indulges in the persona/swap trope made famous by Mulholland Dr., 3 Women and godmother picture Persona. Moss and Waterstone at first seem to only exist in front of one another, and a long take sequence of a conversation physically links them. "This makes us the same", Virginia says at one point. Catherine enters in one frame and Virginia reappears in another. This is all perhaps just a smokescreen though, as a means of perpetuating the idea of female friendship as both endearing and toxic that Perry seems to buy into. The yin-yang quality of good and evil and love and hate seems to exist in every moment between the two. It's ludicrous, but quickly twists into a singular experience, and the picture that had once presented itself as a sister to those others becomes Catherine's film entirely.

That movie would not work if Elisabeth Moss were not on fucking point throughout. Her ascension as one of the best actors working today began with Mad Men, and has brought us other fine performances such as Top of the Lake and another Alex Ross Perry picture, Listen Up Philip, but it is here in Queen of Earth where her skills as an actor have been brought to the forefront and should, hopefully, guarantee her the chance to play any role she desires in the future. There's one scene in this movie where Catherine has been sabotaged, and her reclusion has been disrupted by a party that Virginia is throwing. Something seems off though, and her anxiety in being around others forces her to have a panic attack and she envisions them touching her body. She's been discussing with Virginia the pain her bones are causing her previously so this is at the apex of her uncomfortability around people. She cannot handle this in the slightest, so the following morning when another woman innocently touches Catherine's face, it is a moment of utmost horror, and Moss' reaction to this is devastating. I could barely breathe in this moment, and it was then that I knew the insular nature of her character was something I was completely enveloped in due to Moss' performance.

Queen of the Earth is also a testament to the power tone can have over a horror movie. Perry has cited Roman Polanski's The Apartment Trilogy in interviews when discussing his work here, and it shows, and as he considers these movies to be comedies in one way or another his movie isn't without moments of bleak laughter. This however, is an unsettling movie, and with each passing day of Catherine waking up in the same outfit with the garbage of barely eaten food piling up around her the claustrophobia of the setting overtakes any sense of black comedy and Queen lurches towards pure horror. There's a disorienting effect surrounding Perry's camerawork and Sean Price Williams incredible super 16 cinematography. Perry astounds with his ability with a camera, creating split screens out of real space and framing bodies in opposite ends of functionality in one moment and dissolving imagery of the nature that surrounds them the next. I'm most impressed by his ability to shift gears when the film calls for it, because when Queen of Earth moves into the depression fueled failings of Catherine after a male neighbour (Patrick Fugit in a role that undoes his Almost Famous popularity) is interjected into the plot he deftly captures her inability to function by altering his lens from Catherine and Virginia's shared mental state to just Catherine's. His repetitious framing on her ever-dirty nightgown and unkempt hair, the dirtyness of her body, the bed she lays in, and the cave she is building around herself creates a sense of isolation within the character and the viewer and with the power of Moss' note for note perfect performance Perry can achieve everything he set out for.

This is a great movie, maybe an amazing one, but that's unknown after a single viewing. At current times the feeling of being overwhelmed takes over me. The thought of chasing this movie and trying to pin down what it means or how it gets there is an ecstasy. Unlocking a picture can bring with it its own merits, but unraveling the mystery of why a film is so effecting towards you personally is something else entirely. Queen of Earth feels like the sort of luggage I'll be carrying with me for the rest of my life.

Queen of Earth will be in limited release August 26, 2015.

The two images above offer a snapshot of the stylistic differences one can come to expect from Xavier Dolan's attempt at stripping down his aesthetics to suit the text surrounding his queer thriller, Tom at the Farm. In Laurence Anyways and Mommy, Dolan's style could be more easily associated with fashionable romanticism and blunt metaphorical imagery (especially in the case of Laurence). Tom operates on a different level; replacing the vibrancy of colours with muted browns, and grandiosity substituted for something more altogether minimal.

What is most fascinating about the sudden shift for Dolan is how it plays into how queerness operates on a metropolitan and regional level. In some ways, arriving in this small town, and in making this movie Dolan has closeted what has distinctly made him a remarkable filmmaker to date, and that is perhaps the greatest metaphor he could have offered in visualizing the differences between small town and metropolitan queerness in Canada. It doesn't completely work, but it's a fascinating idea. When push comes to shove Dolan can't help, but overemphasize things. Aspect ratios shift, Tom's (played by Dolan) hair matching the cornfield exactly as he sprints in a breath-taking sequence, and the karaoke flashback seems more appropriate in his previous films. The closet then, cannot hold Dolan, just like it cannot hold Tom.

From a form perspective Tom is perhaps Dolan's greatest achievement, because it doesn't falter nearly as frequently as his previous movies when matched up against the themes he wants to present. Tom is about sheltering queerness, and the danger of the closet. The violence present throughout the movie and threat of more violence is most present when Tom is confronted with his dead lovers (Tom is attending his lovers funeral) brother (Francis) who is doing the best he can to keep his brother's bisexuality a secret from the other citizens of this small farming town. In a scene later on Tom is talking to a bartender who tells him about a time that Francis ripped another man's mouth open for even bringing his brothers sexuality up. This is made even more interesting by the sense that Francis is also queer. There's a real attraction between Tom and Francis that ponders the idea of this picture becoming closer to a persona/swap narrative than a thriller based around the reveal of queerness.

There are moments of softness between the two, like this moment where Francis helps Tom wash the blood off of his hands after helping deliver a baby calf. They share a dance together later on, and Tom even admits to wanting to stay at the farm house and help Francis run the place. Is this some attempt at delivering themes on stockholm syndrome or has he fallen in love with Francis because he reminds him of his dead lover? There, however lies the problem of Tom at the Farm, it's too overstuffed, despite being an exercise in Dolan's minimized style, to deliver on many of the ideas that are presented in the script.

The ultimate undoing is vagueness. Dolan has previously laid things on incredibly thick to get a point across. He does that in an incredibly beautiful way in Laurence Anyways, but when that is inverted into a chorus of maybes and almosts as it is here it feels like a betrayal. Perhaps, that is the ultimate point of Tom at the Farm and why the eventual ending feels closer to relief rather than catharsis, but it feels unsatisfying to leave so many of these ideas about internalized homophobia, small town bigotry, and the parallel love/hate between Tom and Francis barely explored. Instead when Tom finally gets away he buries everything behind him. He'll never fully understand this week, and we won't either.

An apocalyptic pall hangs over an unnamed land and one girl lurches forward in the shadows. Her spaghetti hair is knotted and overtakes her frail body, tattered oversized clothing covers her alabaster flesh, and she's hiding something. An oval of adoration. A piece of life in a land that has none. A future in a world devoid of such things. She continuously walks, seemingly reaching towards some sort of peace, cradling a singular egg that could be the only thing worth fighting for left in this world of overbearing darkness.

Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg is coloured by tragedy, and exists as a post World War II picture in the lens of Japan. The setting is never explicitly named, but something has been taken from wherever this ragged fairy tale is set. Elaborately painted backgrounds convey a world on the edge of total destruction. All that is left are fragments of nature and ghosts of buildings that once stood tall. Cracked ceramics and broken childhood toys are furniture. This sense of loss is so exquisitely manufactured through landscape imagery that as purely a reaction to the devastation caused by the atomic bombs this would be an undeniable example of anti-war cinema, but there is more present here than that. A maternal cinema that captures a primal need within some to give birth, in this case metaphorically, to a new world.

The Christian imagery is everywhere in this movie, and perhaps the strongest of these images is the idea of the virgin mother. Our lead character represents this idea, but a stronger idea is present in the simplicity of carrying a child and the potential for what this child could bring by existing. The unbound questions of possibilities of pregnancy or in this case bringing this egg to hatch. She adores this egg with everything in her, and it's her only hope in a world that has torn itself apart with war and hatred. She is the only light that shines in this visual painting. Occasionally the reflection of her hair creates a halo effect. She is a mother, She is love, and she is god overseeing the last of humanity.

Is every mother a god in the sense that she gives life? Oshii's film positions the girl as that figure. A bringer of life in a world that only sees a void. The machines and creations of men have killed the world so the purity of a girl as a representative figure of hope is evocative. A forward moving, abstract narrative calls upon a journey as she tries to keep this egg safe. She oversees the wreckage of the world, and she only grows closer to what it is that she's carrying. The tragedy of Angel's Egg is that everything passes, and men, even in worlds that don't fully represent our own, will shatter everything that is beautiful.

She screams at the grave of the earth, and the tragedy that has been wrought. A mothers child is lost. A god weeps over her planet.

There is a devastating moment of clarity within my own personal cinema when she cradles her now flat stomach. That image is of pure grief, and perfectly illustrates in direct blunt imagery the hollowness of losing a potential child. In my own case, it is theoretical. Grieving over something never afforded to my body, with the lingering empty feeling of knowing this is for you, but not for you. I'll never give birth. I am infertile. Viewing cinema within the personal creates an ache in my body when that image is presented in front of me. It is a mirror of my own need and desire for pregnancy, and ultimately grasping at nothing but loose cloth and things that will only exist in dream.

*Analysis of a scene will be a feature on Curtsies and Hand Grenades where I take a look at specific scenes in movies and discuss them. Today I am going to look at 4 moments from Magic Mike XXL and how they tie into the film's central ideas on satisfaction*

Magic Mike XXL is a film overflowing with life and positive energy. At it's core it is a road trip of friends getting together for one last hurrah, and those pockets of love that spread throughout a group of friends in doing a job. That work is specifically the business of male stripping or as the characters in this movie refer to themselves "male entertainment". Unlike the previous the film there isn't much cynicism to be found here and the camera shifts from the performers to the audience. When I saw Magic Mike with my girlfriends back in 2012 it was a bit of a letdown to everyone in my core group of friends except me, and it was because they were given a movie that didn't satisfy their needs as viewers. They came to watch a stripper movie, but what was delivered was a story about economy. Magic Mike XXL still features some of those same ideas, but they are appropriately slight and only mentioned offhand. The satisfaction of the viewer- specifically the heterosexual women in attendance- is paramount and a few scenes in the movie act as a fulcrum for the type of audience reaction Magic Mike XXL is trying to elicit.

Scene 1: Backstreet at the Gas Station:

"I bet you can go in there and make her day...That's your goal. Just go in there and make her smile"

Mike is persistent that the boys change up their routines as they head to Myrtle Beach to the World Summit of Male Stripping Contests, and Big Dick Ritchie is unsure if he should stop doing the fireman routine. He hates fire, the music he dances to, and everything else about the dance, but it works. So, Mike asks Ritchie if he's a fireman to which he replies "I'm a male entertainer" so Mike asks him to go into a gas station and make a girl smile. It's a test, but it also works as a barometer for where the movies heart is at. Magic Mike XXL consistently toes the line between the bro road trip movie and the filmic equivalent of an idea of female satisfaction. Women are first and foremost the #1 priority of the men, and I'll get into that more later, but this is a simple scene where one man dances for a one woman's approval. Approval, being a running theme in XXL.

There isn't a whole lot of room to play around with camera movement or an elaborate dance routine due to the confined nature of the aisles in the gas station, but graceful camerawork, editing, and image selection make the scene pop exactly the way it should. The scene begins with Ritchie being unsure of himself as The Backstreet Boys "I Want it that Way" begins to play over the radio station. Ritchie begins to sway his hips and ass in tune with the song to get her attention, but she's still preoccupied with her phone. The camera sweeps back down the aisle and when the songs first drums kick in Ritchie does a turn and pops open a bag of cheetoes all over the floor. There is a cut to his face and hers. The mess finally got her attention. She seems unamused, but Ritchie's going for it. At the very least he's livening up her mundane day. The scene follows Ritchie to a pepsi machine, and there's a subtle zoom on Mike and the boys cheering him on. This is his moment to really take a chance. He takes a water bottle out of the machine and simulates ejaculation with the bottle right when the song is hitting the biggest part of the chorus. Perfect. Ridiculous. His boys think this is BRILLIANT in all caps and Mike is screaming "yes! yes! yes!" outside as Ritchie dumps water all over himself. The camera follows Ritchie right back up the aisle as he takes his shirt off for the girl (who still appears unimpressed) and now he's as vulnerable as he can be, until he starts humping the floor. She stares down at him, he looks up into her eyes. Ritchie thinks he has things in the bag. This is what girls want right? He finally asks her how much for the cheetoes and water, and then she smiles. Mission Accomplished.

I love a handful of things about this scene, but especially the absurdity of the male idea of female sexuality. The biggest moment in this sequence is the simulated ejaculation. These guys can't stop thinking with their dicks. Mike and the rest of the crew lose their shit when he faux ejaculates in the gas station. She never smiles at this moment. She only smiles at his comment asking about the cheetoes and water, because it's so absurd and played straight. The sheer audacity of this guy to do all of this in her store is eventually what makes her crack, not the dancing. It also just barely opens the door for the sort of lengths they'll go to satisfy women in this movie, which remain pretty ridiculous.

Scene 2: Serenading a Queen

"Queens, ain't she beautiful?"

Magic Mike XXL is inspired in part by fourth wave feminism. Women are often referred to as "Queens" and each man in this movie seems like he reads the Critique My Dick Pick blog set up by @moscaddie. There is a softening of masculinity in each of the male characters here that shows masculinity not as something toxic, but vulnerable, nurturing and sensitive while still being hard enough to not make men lose what makes them so appealing. Andre (Childish Gambino-Donald Glover) raps about this. The very first thing Andre does is ask Caroline her name and after hearing that she is named after her grandmother he asks "what she do". He remarks that Caroline's grandmother was a strong woman. He respects women.

And then he freestyles. He sets Caroline down and stares right into her eyes and delivers a message about how she's worthy of being loved, and then the chorus happens. Caroline, this could be something special, this love of mine it will never let go, ooh if I could make you mine I would treat you so special, be mine Caroline. She smiles. Once again, the endgame of the men in Magic Mike is to bring a smile on a woman's face. Caroline was just out with her friends trying to have a good time and she did. Andre put her feelings out there in the open for everyone to see, but instead of being the ridiculous almost laughing response from the woman in the gas station this one is of genuine affection.

Much has been said of how Soderbergh's digital cinematography equalizes skin tone in Magic Mike XXL and makes everyone stunning, and that isn't just something happening in the colour. What's so radical about this is that the images are also backing up how everyone is lit to look. There is one scene earlier on in this section of the movie where former pro football star Michael Strahan dances around a woman who is black, and fat, but that woman's enjoyment isn't treated any differently than any of her white or skinny counterparts. Her arousal, her happiness is put on equal footing with everyone else. That's beautiful. That's not just lip service for calling women in the film "queens", because when you're calling women who usually aren't represented in movies and treated as beautiful "queens" that's something remarkably feminist, and rare.

Scene 3: Heaven

"We're healers."

Andre and Ken (Matt Bomer) talk about the joys of making women happy in a scene preceding the one in the above screencap. Andre says "We can be healers. We can give these women what they want just by listening to them. Their boyfriends and husbands don't but we do.". All of that is put into effect directly in the next scene. Mike and the Boys meet back up with a group of girls they befriended at the beginning of the movie, because they needed a place to crash. What they find upon arriving at the lavish mansion is that the Zoe's (Amber Heard) mom (Andie MacDowell) and her girlfriends are having a girls night out. They're all drunk. They're all impressed with the men that have just walked in their door, but what could have been an awkward situation quickly turns into communion.

Everyone in room begins to have a conversation about sex- more accurately, the women talk and the men listen. When Ken finds out that Mae (Jane McNeil) is upset that her husband never wants to have sex with the lights on he begins to ask her why and about her fantasies. Ken, being the "healer" that he is does his best to re-enact what this woman said she wanted. Like Andre, Ken has a budding music career so he sings her a song. He looks into her eyes and holds her. The distance that she had been feeling with her husband is still there, but this encounter gives her the confidence to know what she wants. It's some facsimile of pure joy.

A fascinating thing about Magic Mike XXL is that the episodic nature of the road trip is given weight by a cyclical narrative. Everything eventually comes back around to mean something greater later on. The healer conversation is one example, but the final act is even more resonant. Mike invites Zoe to Myrtle Beach, because she's depressed. He tells her he's going to win back her smile after they have a long conversation about cake versus cookies and her personal life. The line about cookies comes back around in his song selection for that final dance, and even Ritchie's fireman routine is dropped in favour of an earlier mentioned marriage proposal dance. Every little thing in Magic Mike XXL gets a payoff, but the greatest of all these moments are when happiness is given back to women, and by effect to the audience.

Scene 4: All I Do is Win

"I'm a cookie monster"

The most lavish sequence in the entire movie is the final set piece where 2 dancers mirror each others moves in a sequence that's like if Cocteau and Minnelli decided to craft a scene around stripping together. It is gorgeous, perfectly choreographed and resonant. Despite all of the attention paid to dancing one thing becomes clear, Zoe's face is the true focal point of the action. She's always lit just a little bit brighter than everything around her and the framing and choreography work around her reaction. There is one moment where Mike picks her up and places her head between his legs and there's a zoom in on his face, but then goes right back to her own reaction. The camera pulls out from the action to showcase the symmetry and dancing, but always comes back looking for her approval by focusing on her face. She goes from embarrassed to flattered to enraptured by the time things close up and Mike asks her if she got her smile back. She did.

The stark difference between the first movie and XXL is the intended audience of the dance. In Magic Mike XXL the women are always key instead of the act of stripping itself. Soderbergh's movie was never about getting a warm reaction out of the audience members, but Gregory Jacobs picture is obsessed with earning a smile. DJ Khaled's "All I Do is Win" plays over the films closing moments, and winning in this instance was about approval from the woman in the gas station to Zoe and in the audience. This was about making women happy. It made me happy.

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I Want It That Way: Magic Mike XXL