I’ve seen and vastly enjoyed several movies recently: Ong-Bak, Sideways, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, and Hotel Rwanda. This post contains brief reviews of all four films:
Ong-Bak: There are two kinds of martial arts movies: Those that actually attempt to be good films, well-written, acted, and filmed (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero are my favorites in this category) and those that just try to stun the audience with amazing physical feats. Ong-Bak is firmly in the latter category. Astounding, jaw-dropping stuntwork, all done without wires. Thai action star Tony Jaa – running across opponents’ heads, leaping higher than you’d think possible, and sliding under moving trucks – is physically as astounding as Jackie Chan at his peak.
As “wow, look at the amazing physical stunts I can do” movies go, the story – about a small-town martial arts master forced to go to the big city to retrieve the head of his village’s sacred Buddha statue, which was stolen by an artifact thief – isn’t bad. Yes, it’s not much more than an excuse for fight scenes, but at least the main character has an interesting, admirable motivation.
There’s only one decent female character, a good-hearted college student paying tuition by being a con woman, played by the charismatic and funny Pumwaree Yodkamol. Odd-looking and with a grating voice, Yodkamol was a great casting choice; too many action films would have just cast a typical “babe” actress for this part and gone shopping for short skirts. Still, this movie utterly, completely fails the Mo Movie Measure.
(What’s the Mo Movie Measure, you ask? It’s and idea from an old Dykes to Watch Out For cartoon. The character “Mo” explains that she only watches movies in which 1) there are at least two female characters with names, who 2) talk to each other sometime in the course of the movie, about 3) something other than a man. It’s amazing how few movies can pass the Mo Movie Measure.)
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle dusts off a well-worn movie genre for another outing – “uptight guy and non-uptight guy go on a road trip.”
(Are these movies always about “guys”? No. Think of Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, for example, or Thelma and Louise, or Outrageous Fortune. But there are probably a hundred of these films about men for every one that’s made about women, alas…)
Plus, it’s a stoner movie. But it’s also smart and funny, and under the crudeness this is one of the best treatments of race you’ll ever see in an American comedy. Racial politics is always present (Harold is Asian-American, Kumar is Indian-American), and the characters fairly constantly run into racism; but at the same time, the characters have lives and interests outside of dealing with racism. The movie doesn’t pretend race and racism don’t exist (which is the approach most American movies take) but never becomes didactic, either.
One touch I liked is the inclusion of two Jewish potheads – minor background characters who pop up again and again, named “Rosenberg and Goldstein,” which gave me serious giggles. They’re a lot like the title characters – they even spend the entire movie on a parallel road trip for fast food – but things keep on mysteriously working out better for the Jews than they do for Harold and Kumar. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it struck me as a very funny play on the “model minority myth.”
Anyway, this isn’t a movie you see for how it treats intellectual issues. If you like juvenile pothead flicks (and I generally don’t), then this is one of the funniest ever made.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for movies that can meet the Mo Movie Measure, then run the hell away from this thing. Female characters barely exist at all; of the three I can recall, two of them are there only for the male protagonists to lust after. (The third is a way-too-earnest student who runs a college Asian-American society). Needless to say, the female characters are not shown talking to each other in this film.
UPDATE: Bean pointed out that I’m mistaken – there is, for lack of a term I’m willing to use here, a “farting contest” between two minor female characters. So they DO talk to each other, and not about men. Technically, Harold and Kumar passes the Mo Movie Measure.
Sideways, like Harold and Kumar, is a “uptight guy and non-uptight guy go on road trip” flick. (And I bet that I’m the first person ever to suggest that those two films have anything in common.)
This is a beautifully written, funny, smart film. The story is about Miles, a fortyish, divorced schoolteacher and unpublished novelist, with a passion for fine wine (especially merlots) and guarded emotions. Mile’s more outgoing friend Jack is getting married, and Miles and Jack have agreed to spend the week before the wedding touring California vineyards. Jack is more interested in getting laid “one last time” before he marries, though, and starts a fling with Stephanie, while Miles is at first reluctantly pressured into dating Stephanie’s friend Maya.
What I’ve read over and over in reviews of Sideways is that “this is a grown-up movie,” and damned if that isn’t my reaction as well. Not “grown-up” in the sense of having lots of nudity or sex (there’s one brief nude scene, and for a change it’s not just female nudity) Grown up in the sense that the humor (and there’s a lot of humor) is rooted in the quirks and interactions of complex, believable characters.
And here’s a miracle – the two female characters are real characters, not just pretty faces with no interior lives stuck in so the boys have something to lust after (see: Harold and Kumar). And, although there are no scenes at all without Miles present (the movie is told from his point of view), I think this movie nonetheless squeaks by under the Mo Movie Measure – Stephanie and Maya talk to each other (and to Miles and Jack) about wine. (I’m not quite positive about this, I’ll have to watch more carefully for it the next time I see this movie). In any case, Maya and Stephanie are both written with interior lives, concerns other than men, and an actual (although not necessarily close) friendship.
There’s so much to like about Sideways; the storytelling is energetic and smart (there’s an amazing restaurant scene in which a long conversation is depicted almost entirely visually, with only snatches of dialog – but which nonetheless gives a perfect idea of what the conversation was like), all four actors are extraordinary without ever eating the scenery, and the script actually makes wine – in my opinion one of the world’s dullest subjects – seem interesting.
Hotel Rwanda is a movie about two guys, one uptight and one non-uptight, who go on a road trip to – no, no, just kidding. I’m sure that “Alas” readers already know the basic plot of Hotel Rwanda: it’s a fictionalized version of a true story, how Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager and Hutu, provided shelter and protection for over a thousand Tutsi refugees during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which half a million Tutsis (about 75% of all Tutsis living in Rwanda) were murdered by Hutus.
Paul Rusesabagina, in the film’s portrayal, is someone who knows how to work the system, which palms to grease and who to suck up to; at one point, he relates bribing the employers of the woman who would become his wife to transfer her to a closer location (so he could see her more often). It’s these skills that allow Paul to desperately plead, bargain and bribe to keep the murderers from massacring everyone in his hotel. I wish the movie had played a bit more with this theme; that the same character traits in Paul that in ordinary times are not totally admirable, are what made him a hero.
The acting is terrific, the storytelling and writing solid (the screenplay has an eye for how power relations change people, and is not at all sparing in its criticism of Western powers), the suspense is sometimes unbearable, and the story of a real-life hero is undeniably great. But it’s the compelling, chilling, and very persuasive portrait of a world suddenly gone terrifyingly psychotic that sticks with me about Hotel Rwanda.
The movie features two strong and well-portrayed women, Paul’s wife Tatiana (who gets the funniest scene in the movie – it involves a shower nozzle) and an Australian Red Cross worker, Pat Archer, who takes it on herself to rescue Tutsi orphans. Nonetheless, I don’t think this movie meets the Mo Movie Measure. Maybe that’s not a fair criticism, in this one case. This is a true story of a man dealing with a war run by men, after all. A novel (or non-fiction narrative) would have the space to flesh out the lives of other characters more fully, but a movie has to stick closely to the main narrative – and in this case, the main narrative simply doesn’t involve many women.
The Mo, in “Mo Movie Measure,” has no “e” on the end.
Just, you know, as a point of information.
Whoops! Well, I spelled it right about half the time. I’ve got terrible spelling; words that can’t be spell-checked are my bane. Thanks for the correction.
And for what it’s worth, Miles (and Maya) are obsessed with Pinot Noir, not Merlot.
Before the first dinner the four of them have together, Jack orders Miles to be polite and have fun even if the women want to drink Merlot, causing Miles to flinch. Probably the second-funniest moment of the movie for me.
I still haven’t decided whether I would recommend the movie or not (and to whom), but it definitely had its moments.
Corollary to the Mo Movie Measure: a female character makes it to the end of the movie without being a) dead or b) married.
I would also make a corollary that female characters that stand in for The Mystery That Is Womanhood should be considered a violation.
Would a valid corollary to the Moe Movie Measure be films/TV in which women have non-romantic/sexual friendships with men? I’m thinking, for example, of the new Battlestar Galactica, and Starbuck’s relationship with Apollo and Adama, which is strictly on the level of being a friend and colleague, same as a male pilot.
“the main narrative simply doesn’t involve many women” urks me to no end.
some woman’s husband, child, father, mother, sister, brother, and yet women are not a part of the main narrative. I get it, I understand it, but it urks me that moviemakers can only tell war stories if they erase the woman.
I am not going to drink any fucking merlot!
I saw Melinda and Melinda on Monday. It was pretty good. Review.
Ok, i’m dense. What is the ‘Moe Movie Measure”?
Trey: It’s the last paragraph of the first review– “Mo explains that she only watches movies in which 1) there are at least two female characters with names, who 2) talk to each other sometime in the course of the movie, about 3) something other than a man”. A movie with these three traits passes.
I’m loving the new layout, but as to the sidebar seperator, I would go with your original ideao of a spiral up top, the block thing over the dude’s head just doesn’t look right to me. Also, the illustrations you use to seperate posts and comments are a little repetetive. Other than that, I’ll vouch that you’ve got the best-designed site on the WWW! Great job. (And wonderful comment, too.)
Those movie rules are from DTWOF!? I thought they were handed down from the dawn of second-wave feminism. They’re great fun to spring on vaguely feminist but not terribly politically engaged men — the process of watching them think “That sounds reasonable,” and then start mentally riffling through movies trying to find one that passes, getting kind of desperate as they realize how few there are, is very entertaining.
oh, i am dense. I didn’t read the first review…oops. I am not a martial art movie fan at all…
I guess I’m vaguely feminist (though terribly politically engaged) then. Never heard of it.
Question for Ampersand about Ong-Bak: I have a bizarre quandry concerning martial arts films. I love the action and the physical ballet of martial arts fight scenes. Unfortunately, I have an almost phobic aversion to seeing compound fractures (in any film or media, including say sports highlights). This has ruined more than one martial arts movie experience for me, like a couple of older Hong Kong Jet Li movies. Oddly enough I can take anything else, such as samurai sword beheadings. But not compound fractures. For instance, I have to turn my head away during a couple scenes of Starship Troopers with compound fractures.
Anyway, does Ong-Bak have any scenes with visible compound fractures? Because your description and others I’ve read make the movie sound awesome, particularly your “Jackie Chan in his prime” comment.
“Visible compound fractures?” If by “visible” you mean that they had a special effects budget and did up realistic-looking makeup with bones sticking out or whatnot, no.
If you mean do characters break other character’s limbs on-screen, yes, it happens. Not in every fight scene – not at all – but in a couple of instances that I can recall.
That’s a relief. Yikes, that level of detail definitely would freak me out. Even “just” breaking limbs wigs me out too, unfortunately. But if it’s only in a couple instances then maybe I’ll suck it up and check it out. Hopefully those occurrences are really quick, as is usually the case in martial arts films. Thanks for the tip.
Hey, if you (Amp) are around Saturday night, I’ve got Bubba Ho-Tep to be watched. Wheeeeeee!
have to say i do not get why so many folk are trumpeting the greatness of Sideways (in the media & whatnot)…
it did have some funny moments, but on the whole i found it about on the level of a college road trip movie, and about as cheap & superficial. the women in the film are used & lied to, little more than fantasy objects of the two male characters – who are both played as sympathetic, even charming, even though both are total assholes.
there was also an ugly classist strain going on in the movie – from the romanticized glowing portraits of mexican laborers working the vineyards to the spectacle of the truckdriver & his waitress girlfriend/wife having sex & being played for laughs (and wow, with that whole sequence we were also treated to a college road trip movie favorite: fat chicks like it up the ass – so charming, so witty).
i admit i also don’t share the sentiment that the movie was well written. i found the speechifying about wine was pretentious & trite (except for the one brief moment where Maya is allowed to show she has a brain).
don’t i have anything good to say at all about it? when Sandra Ong beats the shit outta what’s-his-face, the actor playing the actor – that was enjoyable.
but i think Mo would hate this movie…
What did you think of the scend in “Sideways” where he gets smashed in the face with the motorcycle helmet?
I thought it was hilarious.
Note, however, that because I think something is funny in a movie, it does not follow that I approve of people acting that way in real life.
Serious question:
Would it still have been funny if he got up and hit her back?
Amp:
I still call it The Ginger Test, as I did before I knew anyone else had gone so far as to give it a name. It was Ginger’s idea after all in the original strip, wasn’t it ?
I’ve been dealing with the comedown of my noxious commute this week by watching mr_xeno’s The Tick discs again. I’m pretty sure that there’s not one of the nine eps that comes close to passing the Test, but I love ’em anyway. A couple of years back, I decided that every show/movie that I’m reluctantly fond of despite the sexism has a parallel dimension somewhere in which all the major characters are the opposite gender. It takes a little of the sting away.
Also, that actually happened on Malcolm In The Middle, so it’s not an idea totally without precedent. I don’t know whether that ep was the funniest thing I’d seen in a million years, or if I was just impressed that they read my mind.
Actually, it was in the comic strip before Ginger or Mo or any of the other main characters of the strip had been draw into the strip. (I misremembered it as being Mo when I called it the Mo Movie Measure).
Probably it should be called The Bechdel Test, but I like alliteration. :-P
In the context of that scene? No, of course not. Part of the humor was derived from the fact that Jack had been such an asshole throughout the film, and especially in his abuse of Maya’s trust. And part of the humor was derived from petite, tiny Maya unexpectedly beating up the quite large Jack.
Even if they had been a lesbian couple, it would not have been funny in that scene for Jack to hit Maya back. If you don’t see that, then imo you have a tin ear for humor.
Could it ever be funny for a male character to hit a female character? Sure it could be. If you’re a “Buffy” fan, think of the scene in which Xander fights Harmony in the episode “Harsh Light of Day.”
But the context has to be right. And because men in our culture are far more likely to beat up women then vice versa, it’s harder to write funny scenes about men hitting women than vice versa.
Well my take on the movie was that both characters really were out of control. Jack was out of control with his emotions in the way he clings to unrealistic ideas of intimacy and always thinking he’s going to fine what he want’s through sex.
She was out of control in the way she immediately opened her life to him and in a way that seemed to disregard her daughter. I mean, she starts sleeping with the guy after like two dates, smokes reefer in front of her and has jer calling Jack “Uncle Jack” as she asks him (a relative stranger) to put her to bed.
The way I saw it, she was as obsessed with getting a steady man into her life as Miles was obsessed with wind!
She was a good character, sure, but I have to say that that scene in the movie really was a disturbing affirmation of the domestic violence double standard we see every day.
I think it’s also important to note that that scene wasn’t in the book (at least I don’t think it was) and was added to the movie.
Chris H.
In Battlestar Galactica Starbuck and Apollo doesn’t have a non-sexual friendship going on – there are heaps of UST going on. And Adama views her more as a daughter than as a soldier under his command. Her relationship with the other soldiers seems to be non-sexual and friendly though with no gender issues going on.
Heh. My memory isn’t worth a plugged nickel, aparently. I don’t have any of Bechdel’s books anymore. :/
I just wanted to report that the latest Almodóvar movie, Volver, fails (or passes) the reverse Mo Movie Measure: there are two named male characters, and they don’t come remotely close to talking to each other.
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