The Perks of Being a Wallflower

As with all great books, I account myself among the audience that clutches this little yellow-green book to their chests going "please, don't mess this one up hollywood.... If you can grant any wish please let it be this one."

This was the book, that back when I first read it changed my life, some read catcher in the rye with wide eyes singing its praises, while I found Holden whiny and incapable in changing his life without talking obsessively about how truly innocent his sister was, when the likely hood of that delusion being true was probably at the same level as him doing something useful with... well anything. I was the kid huddled close to my battle worn copy of this book going, This Charlie, this I understand... I know where you are, where you've been I've been where you've been this is not JUST a story!

So to say I walked into the theater with sweaty palms and a silent prayer on my lips is putting it lightly, in fact to go see this movie I insisted on seeing it alone at the emptiest showing possible (which i am now grateful for) but then seemed like an obscene request to the woman at the ticket booth. I sat down with bias feeling, horribly high pretending to be low expectations and found them met with a cathartic cry of jubilee.

This movie was a perfectly artistic blend of book and film, along with an expertly written dialogue, a magical feeling flash back sequences that have undertones speaking volumes but almost too quiet for those that have not read the book to pick up on. Characters were cast beautifully, and I found myself on the edge of my seat despite knowing exactly how it was going to end. What can you say to something like that?

Yes, I am bias on this, but i was so happy in the way they did it. All hail the creators of dialogue and its amazing purpose.

Lady Vengence

Lady vengeance 

With concern to the film Lady vengeance I write that I am surprised. The first 20 minutes felt like a foreign puzzle, which I truly enjoyed in an uncomfortable squeamish way. As the movie continued I was drawn in by the alliances she had made in prison more than the main character herself. She was background it seemed... A pale companion for these interesting people placed in her path. Her ways-to-means type of allegiances felt more like a large story that we only caught cuts of. 

I expected a slasher, and got exactly what it promised. Vengeance. But not the normal well placed justice/revenge plot, there was more emotionally (of course) than that. It brought me to tears at the point where the mother saw her daughter hung. Most of the children weren't tortured that we saw, for which I am grateful. For the implication was more than torture could have done.

This movie left space for imagination, space for implied narrative and story telling either cut or written to question. 

However I felt strongly on the subject that it was mediocre. Even with tears in my eyes I could not bring myself to like or sympathize with the main character, mainly because of those exact blanks left in story. The families and girls were the only impacting part that I walked away resonating with. Their grief in silence during the scene where cake is served, was the end for me. 

Lady vengeance was only important for her role in the jail to me. And I feel disappointed in her that she let THEM down. Outside of that, I couldn't connect.  

Not having or losing a child might attribute to that. 

But her friendships forged in the prison were intricate, the hardship of the Thief living with the very man that she was waiting to kill, was more emotionally jarring than she was. The elder lady labeled as a problematic Alzheimer's spy was more interesting.

The gap between how she was in the prison and after left so many holes that I felt like I was more so staring at some red eyelined Swiss cheese than a great female role.  

Heck, I was even more drawn in to the workmanship and effort on her gun than her personality. 

What does that say of me? Probably that I'm a horrible viewer, with a lack of understanding for the true meaning of the movie. 

But in this case...

I honestly think I'm perfectly ok with that.

The Master

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 There is one word and one word alone that comes to mind completely when it comes to this film, and that is Vague. Though I would like to elaborate on that, it seems this movie had no intention of doing that.... ever. 

I walked into this film with a slight distaste for one actor, and a great respect for another. So I was ready for a mediocre movie, and that's exactly what I received. So I guess that's a plus. Throughout the film I watched Joaquin Phoenix play a tortured soul thinking, right. This is new; in fact this is exactly what I expected. The only difference is that this one in particular, Freddie Quell, has no history to grab onto, no torture that seems real in any way but the torture in his own mind and body, (in which he seems to inflict regardless of situation) Then I'm left wandering around in a quiet mindset of "why does Dodd (Philip Seamore Hoffman's character) make me just feel sorry for his ever attentive wife that you know absolutely nothing about because everyone's obsessed with a cause that you don't fully understand"

I felt myself swimming in characters never fully developed, hanging out with snippets of emotion and sexual fantasies, and facing flash backs like they were my best friend from 4th grade that I haven't seen in 20 plus years at an elementary school reunion. BUT NO, that would be too much information, you might actually GET all the undercurrents I’ve send out through the sailing water. The amoeba of the enigmatic never seen shadowy idea of "the Master" is played until there's no tune left in that lute, and as said by his son is "making it all up as he goes along" which is pretty much what I felt about the entire film itself.

 

Pan's Labrynth

This movie is by far one of my favorite films if not just for the terribly beautiful fantasy element it brings to a vivid light. I love all that it has to offer as a whole. The story is haunting; the music is a blend of her harsh reality and somewhat scary fantasy world.

What drew me to this movie however was something i never got to elaborate in class, it was the lack of doubt in the little girl's mind about the fantasy world. Not in its characters or in its effectiveness, but in its existence. The second it came to her there was no period of questioning, she simply took it at face value and believed, up until the very end which made her parting so bitter sweet. From her hardships in reality, facing men that could not come to ever grasp the hopes of controlling her with anything outside of her mother, to her naivety to the violence around her at how her world had truy changed.

Yes it brings up questions as an audience, yes through her eyes we see something fantastically adventurous and brave, and startling child like without regard for consequence, but at the same time with the bold violence and pain around her it is like the only truth in a web of lies. Lies the mother tells to herself, lies of her security, lies of loyalty and allegiance.

This is one of the first movies that MADE me take sides almost mid stride, the feminine presence could not be ignored at every turn, the strength in these characters were subtle but obvious in so many ways, and when the maid finally twisted that knife in the general's (was he a general?) face i could not help but feel a surge of victory facing the same violence that he delt without regard. Mainly because you knew that the maid WOULD regard everything that she did once anger had drained as something that had to be done but at the same time regret. Because you know that she, unlike ophelia's step father, cared about what she did to him.