eyeslice.com

That's right, eyeslice.com

I'm officially moving, and saying goodbye to blogger. I have opened a wordpress with a real url, eyeslice.com

Check me out there,

And smell ya later.

Hollywood Representing Transgender: What's the solution?

In 2013, Jared Leto's performance is Dallas Buyer's Club netted him an Oscar for his portrayal of Rayon, a trans woman who suffers from AIDS and drug addiction. Despite awards and acclaim, some have called out the portrayal as a "Trans 'Mammy'" that will age poorly and a 'prop' that at least could have been played by a real trans woman. Of course, the backlash got its own backlash, with tons of people defending Leto and the filmmakers for the role and character of Rayon.

Despite some harsh criticism, Hollywood certainly didn't learn. Eddie Redmayne stars in this year's upcoming The Danish Girl, and has received the same backlash as Leto for playing transgender pioneer Lili Elbe. The Danish Girl isn't in theaters yet, so I can't speak about its portrayal of a transwoman and transgender topics. However, the casting of a cisgender actor again raises a lot of questions.

First, the criticism of Leto and Redmayne isn't exactly fair. They're playing a role, and they're doing it very well. Sure, the script has problems, but that isn't there fault. Leto is very good as Rayon, although I can see the insensitivity of some of his lines and character details. That's more of the script's issue than Leto's. But to be honest, Rayon *should* have been played by a trans woman. It's a role, but there needs to be some sort of authenticity. Blackface obviously isn't acceptable anymore, and I don't think a cis actor playing a trans character will be acceptable in the future.

However, look at this list of trans actors that could have played Leto's role. Obviously, none of them are as big as Jared Leto. I only heard of a very select few of the listed actors. Not a lot of people are going to see a movie because Laverne Cox is in it. Hollywood, point blank, is about making money. I could see a studio taking a risk on a role like Rayon in DBC- it's a supporting role, and Leto is already backed by stars like Matthew McConaughey. However, casting a relative unknown is a big risk, and Hollywood doesn't like to take risks of that nature. Movies like Dallas Buyers Club always struggle to make money, and independent producers can't take many risks when trying to make a profit.

So what's the problem? Is it Hollywood? Is it the public? It's a bit of both. Hollywood won't take a risk, because people want familiarity. They like seeing famous actors in roles like Rayon. If Eddie Redmayne was replaced by an unknown, I doubt many people would care about The Danish Girl. However, despite the gridlock between the public and Hollywood, something needs to change. Trans actors need to get more work and let their own artistic voices influence the depictions of trans people in media.

I think it will happen, but the process will be slow, and rooted in independent film. My favorite film of the year so far, Tangerine depicts trans women with humor, sensitivity, and above all, honesty. The film uses non-actors to great success, and quite frankly just would not work if cis actors were used. There are several other independent films that use transgender actors that catch on with niche audiences. Eventually, the jump will be made to mainstream film, and I doubt that Hollywood, and the public, will look back.

The Cubs are no punchline

The Back to the Future 2 joke is over. The Cubs aren't a punchline anymore. They are a really good baseball team. I'm a rabid Cardinals fan, and today, the Cubs eliminated the Cardinals- the team with the best record in baseball- in four games.

Honestly, the Cardinals weren't at their best. They were injured all year, and especially at the end. Their pitching was worn out. Stars Yadier Molina and Matt Holliday were clearly not right. But the Cubs dominated. And maybe this isn't the Cubs year, despite the prophecy delivered to Marty McFly. The Mets, Dodgers, and the four remaining AL teams are all serious threats. But it's unlikely the Cubs faithful will have to wait another 107 years for a ring.

The Cubs are built on their young position players. 2B (former SS) Starlin Castro has been around for years and is still improving. The team has three other young shortstops of the future: Addison Russel, Javier Baez, and Gleyber Torres (who has not reached the majors yet). It looks like Baez will move to second base, while Russel may go to the outfield. Some of them may be traded for pitching, further improving the stunningly talented Chicago team.

The Cubs offense is downright scary. Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Jorge Soler round off the electric offense. But the worst part about it is that the oldest player is Rizzo. He's 26. That's right, he's not even at his peak. Catcher Miguel Montero is 32, but will soon be replaced by another young stud Kyle Schwarber.

It's easy to go on and on about their offense, but I've kept it short. They're great. They have power. They have depth. They have speed. And their offense isn't even their most talked about feature.

Jake Arietta has gone on an unreal tear, which likely will net him the Cy Young. Personally, I think it's just a tear, and he'll fall back to earth next year, if not during the playoff run. Regardless, he'll be a solid starter for years to come. Jon Lester, their big off-season acquisition, has performed as expected: he's an ace. The rest of their starters are solid: Veterans Jason Hammel and Dan Haren have been solid, although not great. Their bullpen has been a weak spot, although they delivered against the Cardinals.

What makes the Cubs truly scary is that they're in such a great position to improve. They have many pieces they could trade. They have money to throw at free agents like David Price and Zach Greinke. And they have the best manager in baseball.

Joe Maddon is a bastard. He orders players to be hit. He's a salty and arrogant, which makes him one of the best managers in the game. He plays hard, and makes tough calls without flinching. In today's Game 4 victory, he almost took out his starter after 2 innings. The situation didn't work out, and Jason Hammel stayed in, and even got an RBI single that at bat. But Maddon didn't hesitate.

Theo Epstein, who guided the Red Sox as they broke their curse, seems to have worked his magic again. They are aided by great draft picks and smart signings, and just generally great management. Between Epstien and Maddon, they have the experience to build a dynasty. The Cardinals and Pirates days of dominating the central are over.

However, anything can happen in Baseball. You could have written this article about the 2006 Mets, or even the 2003 Cubs, teams that fizzled and sent their franchises into years of mediocrity. The Cubs have all the marks of a special team, both in the 2015 Playoffs and for the future.

"NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (Dan Aykroyd, 1991) and the beauty of the "blind watch"

Look at that above picture. Just look at it. That's all you should know about the unreal plot of "Nothing but Trouble" before you jump in and watch the 1991 horror comedy. It's a film I knew I needed to review, but didn't know how.

I simply don't know what to say about "Nothing but Trouble," which stars Chevy Chase, Demi Moore, John Candy, and Dan Aykroyd (who also wrote and directed). An incredibly obscure movie with four of the biggest stars of the day in it is an immediately terrible sign. I'm trying not to spoil the film, but I don't even know what to say from a critical level. The production design and the sheer oddity of it makes it worth the time spent watching.

Before I watched it, I only vaguely knew of it's existence. When I saw it at the New Beverly as a part of a very strange double feature (this and Haunted Honeymoon another horror comedy flop), I only knew the stars and the fact that Aykroyd is in old person makeup. Honestly, the film isn't good by most means, but it's ridiculously strange and entertaining. I don't understand how it was even made.

At the heart of Nothing But Trouble there's a lot of imagination in its set design and the oddity of many of the characters. Demi Moore and particularly Chevy Chase are barely characters at all, just playing their familiar selves. After they are arrested in a former mining town in Pennsylvania, they are placed in the custody of an ancient judge and a grotesque town. People perform in heavy makeup, genders are swapped, and there's a special musical guest. That's already bordering on too much information.

The film bombed upon release, and was universally hated. Not only is it incredibly goofy at times, its also can be dark and gross. There's poop jokes, deformed mutant-things, and literally thousands of dead bodies. It's easy to see why it was so hated, but it's so strange and goofy. At the end of the day, it may be a train wreck, but it's impossible to look away. Sure, the plot falls apart at the end, but it's still entertaining as hell. The oddball performances and strangely detailed and inspired set design make it totally worth watching.

I think if I knew more about Nothing But Trouble I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much. I probably wouldn't have seen it at all. I think the best way to watch a movie is going in with as little information as possible. Most of the time it isn't practical, but it's easier and cheaper than ever with Netflix, although it's also easier to learn everything you want to know about a film. I know a lot of people that need to watch a trailer before seeing a film. And it makes sense, as two ours is a lot of time to devote to something that may be pointless.

Trailers are also how people learn about movies of course. With Netflix, YouTube, and everything else, it's easier to find both great movies and ridiculously horrible movies. It's important to know if the movie's tone will fit you and if you will likely enjoy it. I like watching trailers in the theaters- knowing if I should spend $12 on movie at an AMC or something- but I love getting a movie recommendation from a friend or putting on something with an interesting plot summary on Netflix.

Besides going with my gut and friend's recommendations, I love going into a movie blind after hearing about it from a critic or another source. The New Beverly Cinema, with its films hand selected by Quentin Tarantino, is a great source of entertaining and odd films, many of which are forgotten. If I hear that a movie is good, I'll just wait to see it instead of watching a trailer. My favorite film so far this year is Tangerine, and I saw it without knowing  anything about it. I think part of the reason I loved it was how unexpected it was, and how every twist and joke was fresh.

Watching a movie blind is a gamble, but for me, there's a huge payoff. Sure, you may be disappointed and unsatisfied with the movie. But it makes the film more effective in a lot of ways. Everyone has ben mislead by a trailer or crushingly disappointed anyway, so with no information, it's easier to have no expectations and allow the movie to just prove itself. If the movie's great, it can be a great feeling, and even if the movie's bad, like Nothing But Trouble you allow yourself to be shocked and even more entertained.

Where I've Been and stuff

Although I posted last week, I really haven't been active on this blog. Honestly, I didn't think anyone actually read this, but the website metrics say I'm getting viewers all over the world. It's probably an army of spambots, but I still appreciate it.

I don't usually talk about myself on here. It's mainly because I'm not that interesting. However, I guess I'll bring everyone up to date. I graduated from Temple University in May, and moved to Los Angeles. As you can tell, film is my passion, and I'm trying to break into the industry while working on my writing. It sucks. Really, it's hard, but I'm making it work.

I've kept writing on a few different sites. I've been logging all of the films I've seen and write shorter reviews on letterboxd.com. I've also started writing for redcarpetcrash.com. I'll post some links to my best reviews. I'm trying to tweet more.

I'm going to keep writing for this blog, but I'm going to change up my content a bit. I'm going to move away from reviews for the blog, and start talking about general film topics, as well as news, sports, and other newspaper sections. So thanks for reading, spambots.

Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980)

I don't even know what to say about Popeye. It's definitely one of the strangest films ever made. It's an adaptation of the Popeye comics and cartoons, which I never really enjoyed, and it's clearly faithful to the cartoons in tone and style. It's also a Robert Altman movie, and it's clearly a Robert Altman movie in its tone and style. It just doesn't make any sense how this would work together, and it doesn't.

I always thought that Popeye was pretty boring when I was younger. It's definitely a different style than Warner or Disney cartoons. The cartoons move at a pretty slow pace. There's a lot of build up to jokes and repeated animation. They just felt a lot cheaper than Disney and Warner cartoons (because they were), but they were very popular. I think they haven't really stood the test of time like Looney Tunes, but they remain somewhat popular with a new movie coming in 2016. Altman is incredibly faithful to the cartoon, almost to fault. He mimics how cheap the cartoon felt. Need to animate a village? Let's just show 15 people. Need a bunch of kids? Get 10 random kids, adding the charm of Sweethaven, a town with a crippling street urchin problem for only one scene.

Altman's strange, strange comic book adaptation captures the cartoon's style in a lot of aspects. The acting is all quite strange and animated- which is its intention. It's the closest to live action animation I've seen. However, it's live action cheap animation. Robin Williams and Shelly Duval are excellent, although some of their lines just don't work well in live action. In one scene, Olive Oyl gets scared by the very mention of Rattlesnakes, and hops up onto a rock, where she shrieks "Rattlesnakes! Oh Rattlesnakes! Rattlesnakes!" for at least ten seconds. It's probably one of the most irritating things ever put onto celluloid. I wasn't actually watching it on celluloid. I watched it online, so compared to all of the irritating things put online, it's really not that bad.

I think that rattlesnake scene is a good example of the film's problem, where it fails to be a good Popeye movie or a Altman movie. That scene works in a Popeye cartoon: Olive's shrieking with some goofy old music playing. But here, no music is playing, and it's just Olive's shrieking, made even worse by Altman's characteristically poor sound mixing. At times, the film perfectly matches the style of the Fleischer cartoons and the comic strips, but other times... it's Robert Altman. The film has gritty cinematography and muted colors, incredibly atypical for a cartoon adaptation, and even stranger considering everyone still *is* a cartoon. In the middle, Popeye fights a championship boxer. The color is muted, and it looks like its a scene from a gritty underground boxing movie or something- until you look at Popeye's goofy squint and giant forearms.

The opening is the same way. After opening with an old Popeye cartoon and Popeye announcing that he's in the wrong movie- a pretty cute, though at this point rather lame gag- we get a very Robert Altman opening. When you think Popeye movie, I'm sure you think of an eerie, silent opening of a ship bobbing in the sea, right? That's what I think of! I also think of charming classic Popeye moments like Popeye walking into a whorehouse with an incredibly seedy looking prostitute who's clearly on something strong, crawling around in the corner. I didn't make a word of that up. Popeye actually warns Olive about not getting a venereal disease, I swear to God.

This movie is so pants-on-head crazy, that I didn't even mention the craziest thing about it. That's right, I talked about a Popeye movie for quite some time, and didn't even mention that it's a musical. I guess there were some songs in Popeye, but I only remember the title. I don't think of Popeye as singing. I also don't think of Shelley Duvall singing.

Let's just get this out of the way. I love Harry Neilson. I really do. But these songs are really, really, really horrible. They're probably the worst musical songs I've ever heard. "Everything is Food" is probably one of the downright worst songs I've ever heard. I know some people like this soundtrack. I just can't see how. The songs are mainly the characters saying the same thing again and again and again, with what sounds like a Casio preset playing in the background.I have zero musical talent, and I think I could write the music and lyrics for something pretty similar. I could probably write "I'm Mean" too, although I couldn't sing like Bluto. His voice is pretty awesome. I admire Altman a lot for taping the audio live, but a lot of the time it's just awful. The chorus sounds flat and amateurish. The process does Shelly Duvall no favors at all, and Williams is pretty uninspired as well.

There's a lot to admire in Popeye. Altman was certainly ambitious in handling a comic book and old-time cartoon in a way that mixed his signature style- naturalistic, honest performances, the use of quiet slower moments, and the ensemble cast- with such overtly goofy and over-topic characters and cartoon visuals. That's what makes the movie so strange and sets it apart from literally everything else.

The clash of Altman's and Popeye's original styles just took me out of the movie and just had me constantly questioning what the hell I was watching. However, I think it's worth checking out if you're a fan of Popeye or Robert Altman. Even if you're not particularly fans of either, it's such an oddity that it's worth checking as a total oddity of cinema and the end New Hollywood.

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW (Randy Moore, 2013)

       It took me a little longer than I would have liked to see Escape from Tomorrow. I knew it about for a while. I had chances to see it. Hell, it was on Netflix for a while. It enticed me by its guerrilla filmmaking and use of Disney property. However, it seemed like a movie that only existed for that purpose. There was nearly no way it could actually be a good movie, right? I expected to see some fragmented looks at Disney, that was all. Some weird camera work, making fun of the mouse, and that's it. But, to my total shock, Randy Moore, in his debut film, didn't just make a good film, but made a great one, despite its flaws.
       Moore captures the hyperreality of Disney World that Jean Baudrillard discusses in Simulacra and Simulation. Disney World, Baudrillard argues, is a simulation of something that never existed- the perfect town in the perfect country where the perfect family can visit. This is key to understanding the complex hilarity of Escape from Tomorrow. Often, the film is incorrectly labeled as a horror movie. In fact, it's poster- Mickey's glove dripping blood- captures audiences and takes them on a totally unexpected ride. Jim, the film's struggling father, witnesses his world fall apart in Disney World, where his wife, children, and the Disney icons all seem to taunt him, and the entire world seems against him.
       Clearly, much of the film isn't real.In fact, we don't know what is real, and what is a product of Jim's imagination. Although this is fairly common in film, even mainstream film today, Escape takes it to a deeper level, with only a few sequences in the film clearly being a part of the absolute reality. Escape can best be described as a David Lynch family vacation.
       The film in't perfect, but what film is? Some things don't work, like the bizarre scene nearly an hour into the movie where strange science fiction elements are introduced and soon abandoned. Perhaps with better special effects the scene would be less goofy and out of place, but it serves its purpose and builds on the madness of Jim's world. The black and white digital photography is unexpectedly gorgeous and terrifying at the same. Because of it, we are constantly aware of the bizarre nature of the film. We aren't supposed to see Disney World in black and white. Disney World is color. Moore manipulates the park's surroundings, getting uncomfortably close and twisted with It's a Small World and superimposing naked women onto Soarin'.
       Technically, the film is just stunning. Anyone who is vaguely familiar with Disney will be floored that they could shoot full length scenes. The film contains multiple scenes, with full scripted dialogue, on the rides. Escape could exist solely because of Moore's ballsy feet, but instead, the film is all-around well crafted.
       Many criticize the films ending, claiming it makes no sense. However, when taking it with the hyperreality and the impossibility of a perfect existence- both for the world (or Disney World) and for Jim- the ending excels and ends the film on a perfect note. Although the final shot of the French teen fairies seems ridiculously out of place, given the somewhat grounded existence of the teen girls, it is forgiven after the excellent end sequence with Disney, or D(beep), hiding their park from the realities of life and seeming to create a perfect memory for the imperfect family. In many ways, Escape from Tomorrow just has to be seen to be believed, but it's more than the shock of the perversion of the brand. The film disassembles the magical fantasy of Disney, leaving behind the skeleton of a nightmare.