Skip to main content

Talking smack to some old bird

Giovanni-Ribisi

Weaver's character -- her name is Dr. Augustine, and she's modeled, at least loosely, on Ripley from the "Alien" films -- is most believable when, in her human incarnation, she's puffing on her nearly ever-present cigarettes. (A chain-smoking scientist: Now there's something you don't see in the movies every day. I wish Cameron would show us more of his naughtier side.) (Stephanie Zacharek, “‘Avatar’: Dances with aliens,” Salon, 18 December 2010)

Still, I think many of us have been wondering: What will become of Michael Cera? It's hard to be a sex symbol when you resemble a beatific, unassuming, preadolescent Jesus on a holy card. (Stephanie Zacharek, “‘Avatar’: Dances with aliens,” Salon, 18 December 2010)

[. . .]

But "Youth in Revolt" suggests, at least, the possibility of something more for Cera. He won't be able to do much about that baby face. But when he's wearing Francois' Eurowardrobe, his gait and his carriage are different. He has more swagger, more attitude -- in fact, he's more successful at getting at theidea of sexiness than even some so-called sexy actors are. (The handsome but chilly Jude Law, as good an actor as he may sometimes be, comes to mind.) Cera may be reaching the end of road as far as playing the eternally sweet, baffled kid goes. His future may lie in his ability to channel his inner shit. (Stephanie Zacharek, “‘Youth in Revolt’”: Michael Cera, sex god?,” Salon, 6 January, 2010)

All might be good on that score. Just saw Michael Cera in the park with Signourney, chain-smoking and talking smack to some old bird who just ain't down with all the what-all, of all that the kids have it in them to say, these days. Later I hear they're going to set some dumb old tree on fire, watch squirrel-monkeys scramble about, on fire, snark, "look!, see -- they moved," as a trial balloon for channelling some inner-shit Giovanni Ribisiesque career-action. As I understand it, they're kinda hoping you might join up, and rather than shed "this embryonic reviewer's youthful genderic biases and extremely parochial appreciation of the film experience itself" (Msakel), make it your calling card, and go over-the-top bad-ass.

Link: "Avatar": Dances with aliens (Salon)

Link: " Youth in Revolt": Michael Cera, sex god?

photo from http://byeshane.blogspot.com
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discussion over the fate of Jolenta, at the Gene Wolfe facebook appreciation site

Patrick McEvoy-Halston November 28 at 10:36 AM Why does Severian make almost no effort to develop sustained empathy for Jolenta -- no interest in her roots, what made her who she was -- even as she features so much in the first part of the narrative? Her fate at the end is one sustained gross happenstance after another... Severian has repeated sex with her while she lay half drugged, an act he argues later he imagines she wanted -- even as he admits it could appear to some, bald "rape" -- but which certainly followed his  discussion of her as someone whom he could hate so much it invited his desire to destroy her; Severian abandons her to Dr. Talus, who had threatened to kill her if she insisted on clinging to him; Baldanders robs her of her money; she's sucked at by blood bats, and, finally, left at death revealed discombobulated of all beauty... a hunk of junk, like that the Saltus citizens keep heaped away from their village for it ruining their preferred sense ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Salon discussion of "Almost Famous" gang-rape scene

Patrick McEvoy-Halston: The "Almost Famous'" gang-rape scene? Isn't this the film that features the deflowering of a virgin -- out of boredom -- by a pack of predator-vixons, who otherwise thought so little of him they were quite willing to pee in his near vicinity? Maybe we'll come to conclude that "[t]he scene only works because people were stupid about [boy by girl] [. . .] rape at the time" (Amy Benfer). Sawmonkey: Lucky boy Pull that stick a few more inches out of your chute, Patrick. This was one of the best flicks of the decade. (sawmonkey, response to post, “Films of the decade: ‘Amost Famous’, R.J. Culter, Salon, 13 Dec. 2009) Patrick McEvoy-Halston: @sawmonkey It made an impression on me too. Great charm. Great friends. But it is one of the things you (or at least I) notice on the review, there is the SUGGESTION, with him being so (rightly) upset with the girls feeling so free to pee right before him, that sex with him is just further presump...
3 comments
Read more

The Conjuring

The Conjuring 
I don't know if contemporary filmmakers are aware of it, but if they decide to set their films in the '70s, some of the affordments of that time are going to make them have to work harder to simply get a good scare from us. Who would you expect to have a more tenacious hold on that house, for example? The ghosts from Salem, or us from 2013, who've just been shown a New England home just a notch or two downscaled from being a Jeffersonian estate, that a single-income truck driver with some savings can afford? Seriously, though it's easy to credit that the father — Roger Perron—would get his family out of that house as fast as he could when trouble really stirs, we'd be more apt to still be wagering our losses—one dead dog, a wife accumulating bruises, some good scares to our kids—against what we might yet have full claim to. The losses will get their nursing—even the heavy traumas, maybe—if out of this we've still got a house—really,...
2 comments
Read more