Weekend Movies: Five Reasons to Watch Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle

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The Charlie’s Angels movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. The stunts are completely unrealistic and the plots are pretty goddamned out-there. However… they’re fun. Yes, they’re relatively stupid. But they make me happy, and considering that it’s the doldrums of February, we could all use a little bit of fun in the wintertime. Strangely enough, I love the second one even more than the first, which is odd considering my deep love of Sam Rockwell. So here are five reasons to head on over to Netflix and watch Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle this weekend.

I should hate myself more than I do.

 

#1 – It’s completely fucking ridiculous

Two titanium rings containing all the names of the witness protection program participants and someone stole them? That’s your plot? As if that’s not enough defiance of logic, we’re also expected to buy the love story between Jason (Matt LeBlanc) and Alex (Lucy Liu), and the fact that Shia LeBeouf is from a Catholic orphanage while still somehow managing to participate in expensive, high-stakes motocross racing. And our ladies can run in heels without any issues whatsoever; not a single one bitches about her feet hurting. It defies all logic. But you watch it because it’s shiny. Plus it’s got Drew Barrymore (seriously, Drew, call me. I’m up for it if you are.).

#2 – Lucy Liu

I hated Lucy Liu for the longest time. That changed with these movies. I like her comedic timing, and the deadpan delivery of lines hits a sweet spot. I love the fact that she looks so stern and serious, but she’s a total goofball. Plus she wears shoes that I could never hope to walk in. I tip my hat to her.

#3 – The return of Crispin Glover

Glover’s Thin Man is such a freak. The screaming, the ripping of the hair, the fierce smoking of a cigarette. You can’t help but love Thin Man. He’s back in this go-round, and he gets a backstory that’s just as batshit as he is. I love him.

Welcome back, Thin Man.

 

#4 – The Emoting Eyebrow

There are few things that give me the giggles in this life more than watching Justin Theroux ACT. The intensity the man tries to convey by working his brow is just fantastic. It’s enough to make you wonder how melodramatic he is in real life when he’s doing something completely mundane, like opening a jar of peanut butter or cleaning the pool. The eyebrow is a thing of wonder and perplexity because nothing going on is intense enough to merit that kind of performance. I mean, come on, this is a Charlie’s Angels movie – it’s not a fucking redo of Serpico. You can dial it back, dude.

#5 – The outtakes at the end

Watching a bunch of adults ham it up in outtakes is always hysterical. Doing it in fun costumes (yes, I’m a pig) is even better. If you’ve seen this before and know the outtakes, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat.

Brief, but fun.

 

You may feel slightly dirty after watching this, but don’t worry; you’re amongst friends.

Looking for Love: Parental Rejection in Willow

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As a kid, I loved Willow. Two years ago, when it came out on Blu Ray, I received it as a Christmas present and spent that evening staring at the screen, once again a child watching a favorite story. As a kid, it’s pure magic. As an adult though… I can’t help but get the feeling that there is something terribly wrong with the female relationships in this film. Specifically, there’s a whole lot of parental rejection issues going on here. From the baby that has to find the right parents to the adult warrior princess Sorsha (JoanneW Whalley), Willow presents both the good and the bad that can come from maternal rejection.

SQUEE I LOVE THIS.

 

Let’s start with baby Elora, because she’s the one that has the most to gain in this scenario. At birth, she receives a type of rejection from her own mother, but only under the condition that her continued presence with her mother will lead to her death. Elora’s unnamed mother (which is really depressing if you think about it, seeing as the woman that birthed the new queen doesn’t merit a name) begs the midwife to take the baby and run, pleading, “Please. They’re going to kill her.” The midwife steps right up to the plate, protecting the baby for some time: when we first see Elora, she’s a dark red, angry newborn, but by the time the midwife parts with her, the baby has sprouted hair and has achieved the developmental milestones of cooing and smiling. This isn’t to last, however, as the midwife – the second mother figure for this baby – dies while literally sending the kid down the river, thus reinforcing that motherhood means that you sacrifice yourself for your child. The only hope for Elora to gain acceptance from a parental figure is the Ufgood family, who accept the baby without a second thought… save for foster father Willow (Warwick Davis). At first, he wants nothing to do with the baby, telling his young son that they can’t keep the baby and that “we’ll push it downstream.” It’s Kaiya (Julie Peters) who eagerly takes in the baby, despite that her husband declares, “Absolutely under no condition is anyone in this family allowed to fall in love with that baby.” Willow is the one concerned with the baby being perceived as a bad omen, but he does display emotional attachment to her when he refuses to allow the child to be returned by Burglekutt (Mark Northover): “They’ll kill her, you can’t!” High Aldwin (Billy Barty) confirms this stance, asking, “Do you have any love for this child?” to which Willow affirms he does. From that point forward, he becomes the stalwart protector of the baby, going so far as to tell friend Meegosh (David J. Steinberg) upon parting, “Tell [Kaiya] I’m not going to let anything happen to the baby.” The mother can’t protect the child, but the father can; maternal rejection, in this case, means that the mother places her life in between her child’s and harm’s way, while the father has the ability to guide. Rejection therefore is a life-saving act when performed by the mother.

 

Get those hugs while you can, kid.

Sorsha doesn’t fare so well in this department. While baby Elora is saved by rejection from her mother, Sorsha is forced to endure verbal abuse and emotional distance from her mother in the name of self-centered maternal gain. Sorsha establishes herself as desperate for her mother’s approval at the start of the film, as evidenced by her unquestioning bidding of her mother Bavmorda’s (Jean Marsh) will. After all, she’s willing to kill a newborn at birth to make her mother happy. When the baby is not there, Bavmorda turns to snide remarks to cut her daughter down: “I didn’t ask you to bring me a dead nursemaid. Sorsha, you’re useless!” It doesn’t stop there: she tells her general in full earshot of Sorsha, “Help my daughter find that tiny, helpless baby the somehow continues to elude her!” Bavmorda’s henchmen can sense that this is going to backfire horribly, telling the queen, “One day, I fear your daughter will betray you.” Here’s the kicker: the mother does not doubt the power of the cycle of abuse and how difficult it is to break free from the patterns. So sure is she of her hold on her daughter that she declares, “I trust her loyalty more than I trust yours.” Bavmorda knows that this is a tough habit to break, and that her child will rely on her, continuing to come back despite the abuse. Maternal rejection in Sorsha’s case is a control mechanism: her mother does not seek to protect her life or help her live longer, but to leverage it into a type of service. The only instance we see of Bavmorda displaying emotion upon learning of daughter’s switching of sides comes in an angry facial expression; there’s no forgiveness later, as Bavmorda first turns her daughter into a pig, then later attempts to impale her on some spikes. This is not how a normal parent behaves – the goal is to keep your genes going, not to murder your kid at the first sign of deviation from your values.

This is where the theme of maternal rejection comes together: both Elora and Sorsha represent the opposing extremes of maternal rejection. In Elora’s case, she was sent away from three mother figures in order to save her life, as well as preserve the greater good. Motherhood for Elora means that someone will throw herself in front of a crazed beast to ensure that she survives, even if that means that she won’t have a mother around to care for her. In order to resolve this issue, she needed someone who couldn’t do this; she needed the Father, who stepped into the role of combative protector as opposed to meat shield momma. Sorsha, on the other hand, was the meat shield for her mother: of use only when she could help her mother achieve her ends, and available for slaughter when she expressed autonomy. We saw a demonstration of two poles: selfless and selfish, moral conviction and amorality, genetic perservation and solipsistic advancement. There’s no middle ground in this film – you’re either so caring that you’re willing to die for your child, or willing to kill your child.

 

The face of motherly love.

 

The only exception we get to this is Kaiya, owho stays home to raise her two children while her husband takes care of his charge. I would have loved to have seen more time with her, considering that the only ther mothers we got were either not around for more than two minutes pre-death or abusing their progeny to the brink of complete rebellion. And while it all worked out in the end, wouldn’t it have been nice if Elora – who had already gone through three mothers at that point – had the chance to be raised by someone that didn’t come from an abusive family, that, oh, I don’t know, knew how to give love and devotion without falling on a sword first?

Shooting the Messenger: Honesty And Mortality in Donnie Darko

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Donnie Darko has a great score, some biting one-liners, and deals heavily with concepts of time travel that fascinate me. To this day, I still have conversations about what exactly happened with other people, in part because I find the sacrifice to be beautiful. It also holds some excellent commentary on the truths that people don’t want to face, which is another topic I love to examine. This film has a lot to offer in the honesty department, but it has a conflicted message about the bearer of truth. In acknowledging searing honesty in the world around him, Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) simply can’t be allowed to live past the finale because he represents the truth, something that many perceive to be too dangerous to suffer to live.

Some people can’t handle truth.

 

It’s clear from the offset that Donnie operates on a level of feeling and honesty that others simply cannot comprehend. When we first meet him, he’s asleep in the middle of the road. From there, we find out quickly that he’s been labeled mentally ill and has stopped taking medication; as such, he’s prone to biting, sarcastic comments, which makes him likable to the audience because we can identify with the smart ass stuck in with the rest of the characters, who lead fairly cushy lives from a socioeconomic perspective. Thing is, Donnie’s illness isn’t all that terrible: it gives him license to present an honesty and clarity that many in the film lack, and not all of it is bad. He tells Gretchen (Jena Malone),”I’m really glad school was flooded today… Because you and I would never have had this conversation.” He can appreciate that moment in time with her in a way that others couldn’t articulate, and that makes the bumbling comment more romantic; it’s something that most of us won’t get to hear from another person, but the gesture and thought behind it is something deeply touching. This lack of filter therefore puts beauty into the world in his instance. Likewise, Donnie isn’t one to tolerate a dumb conversation: he sets his sex-obsessed friends straight in the great debate on whether or not Smurfette is a sex slave to the other Smurfs, causing the young men to drop the bullshit of relating everything to sex in light of greater evidence to the contrary. There he really shines is the confrontation with Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze, in what I consider his best role) by calling out the delusional nature of his self-help spiel, referring to him as “the fucking antichrist” in the process. We’re all thinking it watching the videos, but Donnie is the one actually saying it, voicing dissent when everyone else would rather tune out. He won’t even take it easy on spirituality, as evidenced when he gets to stare into the nature of life, death, and the sense of being alone in the world with Dr. Thurman (Katharine Ross):

 

Dr. Thurman: “The search for god is absurd?”

Donnie: “It is if everyone dies alone.”

This is a truth with which many will struggle throughout life, yet a teenage boy is tackling it in a therapist’s office. It spills over into his interactions with Mrs. Farmer (Beth Grant, who killed it in this role) during the Lifeline exercises. When asked to categorize situations into either Fear or Love, she’s asking him to select an either/or answer to define all of human emotion and reaction. Donnie doesn’t see things in black and white, though, and presents an argument for the various shades of gray: “Life isn’t that simple… There are other things that need to be taken into account here, like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can’t just lump everything into these two categories and deny everything else.” He presents truths that leave the rest of the film’s characters uncomfortable or applauding, and he does so from a view point that leaves them uneasy regardless of if it’s agreed with or not. No one wants to think that the guy who is supposedly crazy is the one that makes the most sense, yet Donnie has the clearest picture because he stares unflinching into that which terrifies everyone else.

 

Because it comes down to two emotions. Just two.

 

The other characters have reason to be afraid and resistant to his questioning and presentations: they do not have good lives in the timeline of the film, in part because they don’t want to admit out loud that things are really that messy. Cunningham is found to have a child pornography collection. Rose (Mary cDonnell) doubts herself as a mother, and receives slam after slam from Mrs. Farmer regarding her parenting, yet does not defend herself. Gretchen, whose mother is missing toward the end, is killed by Frank (James Duval), who is then shot to death by Donnie. Cherita (Jolene Purdy) has an unrequited crush on Donnie, and is on the constant receiving end of verbal abuse from classmates. Karen Pomeroy (Drew Barrymore) loses her job after a colleague that doesn’t like her accuses her of poor teaching. These are all people that present a different face to society: the put-together self-help guru, the fabulous suburban mother, the hardened new girl, the studious immigrant, the free-thinking teacher. Deep down, they are all afraid, but don’t want to admit it to those around them; the most we get is Karen’s primal scream and Gretchen’s tears. Really, these are not easy existences: the hell each experiences, from a sexual attraction to children to an isolated adolescence as an immigrant to a parent of a child that’s not like the others, is painful and crushing. Everyone’s got demons in this town, but Donnie is the one that is voicing his dissent the loudest while everyone remains silent in the hopes that acceptance will make it easier. It’s this insistence of clinging to the face presented to the society that marks the rest of the characters as grossly inauthentic: for them, it’s safer to pretend that everything is fine and accept that as truth rather than take steps to correct that truly ails them.

 

It makes sense, then, that Donnie dies – he needs to in order for life to go on for everyone else in a few different manners of speaking. His actions and words strip away the facade for a lot of characters, leaving a vulnerability that many find uncomfortable and psychologically unacceptable. His actions leave Cunningham exposed, and it’s Donnie that is the one that stands up to Mrs. Farmer and challenges her pathetic exercises when no one else wants to. And it is Donnie that forces his mother to finally admit that her child is mentally ill when he asks her, “How does it feel to have a whacko for a son?” Donnie isn’t content to just see people for who they are – he wants everyone in that room naked right along with him, and that type of social and spiritual nudity is something for which the others aren’t prepared. Despite that he’s “sick,” Donnie has the best outlook and the most authentic life. It makes sense that in his sacrifice – his refusal to get out of bed and start a time loop – is required to prevent the world from ending, because he is the only one that can see the world around him for what  it is. In doing so, he erases the events of the film, which means that everyone gets to carry on in the carefully-constructed lives that hide the pieces they don’t want anyone else to see. By being Donnie, he ultimately allows everyone else to save face and continue denying what they truly are.

 

Despite that it’s hell, it’s familiar hell.

 

Donnie promises Cherita at one point of the film, “I promise that one day, everything’s going to be better for you.” Donnie follows through on this, making life possible for everyone by dying. Jim gets to carry on his double life in secret; Rose doesn’t have to deal with her imperfect child and the questioning of her parenting skills; Karen gets to keep her job for the foreseeable future; Gretchen and Frank are alive. Before you can say it though, note that I didn’t say a damn thing about anyone being happy, which is enough to make you wonder: can honesty really make someone happy? Does denying the darker aspects of life make you happy? Will holding up a mirror really change anything? Is that truly the gauge of a better life?

Coming This Week

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After two months of breathless anticipation, winter has finally arrived.

First person to complain about the heat this summer gets throat punched.

So while we’re bundled up and waiting for the great thaw, I’ll be keeping you company with good, old-fashioned analysis concerning the nature of parental abandonment (Willow) and how honesty can mark you for death (Donnie Darko). We’ll round out with a recommendation for a guilty pleasure. So grab some hot chocolate, turn up that electric blanket, and snuggle up on the couch. It’s going to be deep.

Saturday Shorts: Bedtime Is At 10

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Disconnection is the damnedest thing: try as you might to engage with others, sometimes, it’s just easier to put on a pair of headphones and do your own thing. Such is the case with Noor Hamade and Dimitri Yuri’s Bedtime Is At 10, which I must admit works better if you’re watching it while wearing a pair of headphones. Check it out; it’s only five minutes.

Click here for Bedtime Is At 10.

Sometimes, even someone that should be there — like, oh, say the person you’re paying to watch your kid — checks out and leaves electronics to babysit, which is both a blessing and a curse for this little girl. Let’s look at where the differences of tuning out get our characters: young Heather is immersed in her tablet and content to be alone, but then puts it down when she suspects that there is something wrong; as a result, she’s not harmed by the ghost/demon/thingie because she listens to her other senses, refusing to get completely sucked in by her electronic nanny. The one that the ghost comes for is the neglectful babysitter, who left the child to her own devices. True, she may try to snuggle with the kid later, but at that point, the damage has been done; she’s not a reliable adult. What’s up for debate is the nature of the supernatural creature that’s stalking them: is it trying to punish the sitter for checking out, or is it rewarding the little girl for allowing herself to be open to the possibility of its presence?

And with that, happy Saturday.

Weekend Movies: My Bloody Valentine

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It’s no secret that I love horror and hate rom coms. If you’re anything like me, you’re counting down the days until February 15th, also known as Half Priced Candy Day. What better way to pass the time until then? Why, a Valentine’s Day-theme horror movie, of course! Here are five reasons to head on over to iTunes and GooglePlay this weekend for this one.

Thanks for this one, Canada!

 

#1 – An honest look at a love triangle gone wrong

T.J.(Paul Kelman) left his small hometown for broader, greener pastures, then couldn’t hack it and came back. He left behind Sarah (Lori Hallier), who is now dating Axel (Neil Affleck). There’s a ton of unresolved issue between the three of them, and really, it’s nice to see a love triangle that’s not a clear-cut case of misunderstanding that’s led to anxiety. This is someone who treated his ex like shit, left her and is throwing a fit because she’s not running back to him the minute he decides he wants her back. It’s a depth you normally don’t get in slasher flicks, and it’s worth checking out just for that.

#2 – The deaths/disappearances are easy to explain

I hate it when horror movie characters will actually say out loud, “Oh, Scott went down to the basement to get some hamburgers out of the freezer a few hours ago. He must be busy reading. Or getting more beer. Or playing Bocci.Yeah, that’s it.” This one features disappearances that make sense, which makes it a little unnerving because no one quite gets that something has gone really, really wrong. That makes it somehow scarier.

“I’ve got a great idea — let’s party at the mine!”

 

#3 – Canadian accents

Okay, we’re being a little too serious, so let’s go low-brow. There are some incredible Nova Scotia accents in this film. Yes, that’s petty and stupid (and rather rich for a chick from Rochester). It’s also entertaining to anyone in the United States. Oh, and Canadian readers: I’m only pulling your leg. You know I love you (in fact, your country is a far sight more mature than mine is). Feel free to rip on my accent, as well as my political system. We’re all friends here.

#4 – The concept is ridiculous

Our concept: the town has refused to celebrate Valentine’s Day in any way, shape or form for the past 20 years because they’re worried that a lunatic is going to kill people, much like a massacre years prior. So, rather than, oh, I don’t know, upping the security measures and making sure that people are safe, the town lets a murderer dictate holiday celebrations. This is so fucking ridiculous. I don’t cancel all family Easter celebrations because I used to work in a bakery where I decorated more loaves of Easter bread than I care to admit; I’m told to suck it up and not growl at the pastry on the table. Maybe it’s the fact that the holiday in question is not really a good one. I have so much trouble buying that rational adults would shy away from hanging a heart on the door, but then again, people still watch 19 Kids and Counting, so I guess rationality and adulthood don’t really go hand-in-hand all the time.

I made that face too, dude.

 

#5 – The ending is creepy

I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say that it’s enough to make you shiver.

It’s a creep fest for sure. Have fun couting down until Half Priced Candy Day!

Can You Feel It? Physical Sensation as Personal Necessity in Amelie

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Amelie is a film I’ve loved from the first time I saw it. Loved the color scheme, loved the storytelling, loved the cast, loved the message it had. It’s one of those rare films that makes you feel good about the fact that you’re alive and part of the human race, and let’s be honest: we need those reminders now more than ever in our messed-up world. It restores your faith in humanity by doing nice things for others. If you’re not paying attention, you might miss out on another theme throughout the film: in order to have enduring relationships, one must clutivate a sense of simple pleasure that is unique to the individual.

The green in this film has always gotten me as well.

 

One of my favorite parts of the storytelling in this film is slipped in as a charming aside: the descriptions of likes and dislikes of the characters, which offers insight into the things that make life enjoyable for each person. More often than not, these are sensory pleasures, as opposed to a mental stimulation achieved through medium of thought (book, film, music). We first get this theme in the introduction, as the child Amelie has age-appropriate fun: letting glue dry on her hands, painting a face on her chin and talking, making paper cut outs, tipping over dominoes. As the character grows into the adult Audrey Tautou form, we get her adult pleasures: cracking creme brulee, skipping stones, dipping her fingers into sacks of grain. It’s not just her that we’re allowed this insight: her father likes peeling large strips of wall paper; her mother likes polishing the floors; Bretodeau (Maurice Benichou) loves carving and picking the hot meat off of a chicken; Gina (Clotilde Mollet) likes the sound of bones cracking; Joseph (Dominique Pinon) likes popping bubble wrap; Lucien achieves joy through handling produce carefully; hell, we even have revealed to us that a cat likes listening to children’s stories. Each of these pleasures is highly sensory in nature, whether it’s a sound, a touch, a scent, or a sight. These treasured sensations help craft a sense of joy in each character, which helps flesh the character out into a three-dimensional person with likes, aspirations and desires. Moreover, these sensations are pivotal to achieving a sense of joy, marking this everyday experience as something that needs to be fostered and cherished.

 

Great, now I want raspberries.

 

When these characters rely on machinations rather than the sense of self developed based upon individual likes and dislikes, we get relationships that fail. Amelie has difficulty relating to parents who refuse to touch her, and as a result, her relationship with them is arm’s length and unfulfilling. Amelie later engineers a relationship for Joseph and Georgette (Isabelle Nanty) with ultimately disastrous results, as Joseph cannot help but turn obsessive attention toward his partner. Likewise, Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Amelie’s relationship is placed into a state of jeopardy because they play games: the masked assailant, the secret messages, the mystery of the man in the photos. The running theme in each of these is that happiness backfires because these relationships are based on emotional manipulation rather than the true self. The misunderstandings, honesty, and authenticity issues that arise from these situations stem more so from a lack of connection between the people engaged in the relationship and the true self, which has likes, dislikes, hopes and dreams. Without the ability to engage the senses in acts of interpersonal relationships, the relationship is doomed to fail.

 

The two best illustrators of successful relationships that integrate the senses are, ironically, Amelie and Bretodeau. When Amelie is finally confronted with the reality of Nino in her apartment, she does not wish to speak with him; she chooses instead to kiss him on the face, neck and brow, all intimate areas (mouth, heart, and mind, symbolically). It is in the subsequent moments that we get to see a new side of her: for someone that failed previously at relationships – remember, we got to watch her try not to laugh during sex earlier in the film – she demonstrated content attachment as Nino curled up on her chest and she ran her fingers through his hair. While nowhere near as sexually intimate, Bretodeau shares his tradition of picking apart a chicken carcass with his grandson, passing on a valued habit to someone whom he loved enough to set aside parent-child squabbles. His use of sensory activity bonds him to his grandson, which, as an audience, we somehow know is going to lead to a long, happy relationship between these two characters. By stripping away the verbiage and allowing the other senses a chance to express happiness and bonding without language, the characters establish a true sense of happiness.

 

Really pay attention to the sensation of being kissed.

 

At the end of the film, we know that everything is in its rightful place as Amelie and Nino ride through the streets on his bike. She nuzzles into the back of his neck as she holds onto him, both smiling and content. It is this state of simple pleasure, of simple being, that the two achieve their great happiness. They get the personality quirks, but both know that the small pleasures in life – the feeling of grain, the assembly of a picture, the unspoken joy in the world around you – craft the understandings that bring about greater happiness. If you’re like me, that’s just dandy.

The Monstrous Feminine: Maternity as Strength in Aliens

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Aliens is typical Valentine’s Day fare at my place, so I’m continually revisiting it this time of year. I have a soft spot for it that cannot be contained; that’s simply part of who I am. Part of why I love it has to do with the kick-ass woman in the lead. In its predecessor, Alien, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) gains the bulk of her strength by abandoning her femininity: she is seldom referred to as Ellen, she’s not fawning over a love interest, and her take-charge actions border on masculine. The sequel, though, presents a curious reversal of this stance, as Ripley becomes more and more feminine throughout the film. Namely, we get to see Ripley as a mother, which was not the case in the first film. So much, in fact, that I’m willing to wager that Ripley is a far more ferocious fighter in the second film due to the embrace of her maternal side.

Nothing like defending your baby from evil pods.

 

Ripley begins as the tough, battle-weary soldier at the start of the film, with all of the masculine connotations still attached to her from the previous installment. She argues at the disciplinary hearing to no avail: “I don’t know how many ways you want me to tell you the same story,” she tells the group, arguing for hours that her version of events (and the destruction of property) was for the greater good. Her word is doubted, and her cautionary tale becomes a moot point as she begs them, “Please, you’re not listening to me… Kane saw thousands of eggs.” Ripley was the lone survivor, and uses this experience to assert her expertise in what the group may deal with if they go back to LV-426; however, her license is revoked and it is recommended that she receive monthly reviews by a psychiatric technician. Ripley is reduced to the powerless woman by acting as the strong survivor. Those masculine traits she adopted for survival in the first film backfire, stripping her of hard-earned status as both the fighter and the voice of reason. In the meantime, she’s also rewarded for her efforts with continual nightmares and the knowledge that her child has grown up and died while she was in hypersleep. Traditionally (at the time this film was made), quite a few mothers were raising their children at home rather than participating in the work force; the guilt she feels is swift and acute, murmuring, “I promised her that I’d be home for her birthday. Her 11th birthday.” This is a scenario that we often see played out in 1980s cinema, but with the father in the role of not being present: this aspect works to further assert that Ripley adopted the masculine breadwinner role of the time. By adopting the masculine role, Ripley not only gained status which was subsequently stripped away, but also lost out on involvement in her child’s life.

 

The face of working mom guilt.

 

Which means that once she gets a chance to go back and exterminate the aliens, Ripley does so at first under the masculine intention of dominating the enemy. She asks Burke (Paul Reiser, whom I still sort of hate for this role)’s assurance that the species will not be studied or brought back; only then does she agree to go to Hadley’s Hope. Remember, she notes that families are on that colony at the hearing – however, the large draw for her is the promise of wiping out the species rather than saving other people. Ripley writes the families off as dead, which means that she’s acting on a sense of domination rather than maternal protection. She’s still entrenched in the masculine role, directing the team and weilding weaponry in her efforts to annihilate the aliens. It’s when she sees Newt (Carrie Henn) that she begins to transition out of this role, and even then, it takes time. We see her caring for the traumatized child and cleaning her face, but while she’s opening up and becoming more gentle in her questioning, Ripley still needs the information in order to perform her mission. That side of her is still stuck in the masculine role when she declares Newt to be a survivor to Hudson (Bill Paxton), which Newt models by saluting her while wearing a military helmet. In this respect, Newt has had to adopt the masculine role, as she has had to conceal herself from the aliens in order to survive. “Survival technique” best suits the assumption of the masculine role for both females: each has had to abandon the more emotional side in order to remain alive. Each does what she has to rather than nurture others, which flies in the face of traditional constructs of femininity up until this point in film.

 

It’s when Ripley decides to latch on to Newt in a maternal role that we get to see the most intense will to survive. Newt responds to the positive attention at first by modeling the behavior with her doll, reassuring it, “It’s okay. Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.” The bonding goes both ways very quickly: when the escape ship crashes, Ripley immediately grabs Newt and turns away to protect her from any fallout. Newt then begins questioning the concept of monsters with Ripley, who levels with her not only about the subject, but her lost child as well. She gives Newt her watch for luck and tells her, “I’m not going to leave you… I promise.” Ripley remains true to that: when the face hugger comes after them, her first actions are to protect Newt; when they get the chance to escape through an air duct, Ripley won’t let the child go first, while listening to Newt’s directions in a show of trust; when Newt falls through the gears, she immediately turns her attentions toward finding her at all costs. It’s this determination that leads her to the alien nest on a time crunch, which is where the greatest display of defense of one’s progeny occurs: upon spotting the alien queen laying eggs, Ripley demonstrates that she has fire, which causes the other aliens to back away at the signal of the queen. Once they’re a distance away, Ripley begins to torch the nest in order to remove the threat to the girl she’s adopted as her child; the queen famously retaliates by going after that which has killed her babies, culminating in the infamous fight in the ship dock. This point in the film presents the most intense fight in the context of the most primal of urges: defend your young, kiling your opponent if you have to.

 

Something for which to carry on.

 

It is the urge to reproduce that makes the aliens a threat to humans, and it is the urge to protect one’s offspring that needs to be awakened in Ripley in order to make her the warrior necessary to take on this challenge. Without it, she was merely surviving: a nightmaring, traumatized mess that wanted to snuff out the threat. Once she had something to fight for – once she had a little girl that mirror that which she had left behind in her pursuit of a masculine role – did she fully embrace her feminine side to triumph over the menace. And triumph she did, proving that timeless addage once again: don’t poke the momma bear.

Coming This Week

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We are eight days away from my favorite holiday of the year: Half Priced Candy Day.

Potato juice is a beautiful thing.

This week, in honor of the social experiment known as Valentine’s Day, we’re going to mark the occasion by taking a look at motherhood in Aliens, the senses as personality necessity in Amelie, and a recommendation for a horror film that’s a bit of a staple this time of year. So grab your fermented potato juice, park it on the couch in a really comfy-yet-unattractive bathrobe, and get ready for some good times. It’s just you and me, baby.

Saturday Shorts: Presto

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Some days, you just want to go back to being a little kid, where everything is funny, possiblities are endless, and you don’t have to be an adult with grown-up problems. I have to admit that this has been one of those weeks. So instead of doing something scary today, I’m going with one that many have seen. It’s funny, and it will bring you back to a Saturday morning spent watching slapstick cartoons. Here’s Pixar’s Presto.

I love Alec more than life itself right now.

Yes, it’s a Pixar film, which means it’s gotten coverage galore and certainly doesn’t need my help to find an audience. However, it’s also funny as hell (I’d have to say that my favorite part is the rabbit miming chewing). Sometimes, you need something funny. Happy Saturday.