- Review– Coraline (the movie): Coraline is 140 minutes of brilliance. SPOILERS a-hoy! Do not read further if you do not want to be spoiled! You have been WARNED! Assuming you haven’t read the book, know that the movie is faithful to the feel, spirit and mood of Neil Gaiman’s novella. Aside from the masterful animation and color palate and use of space within the movie, the characters are true to themselves. Coraline is a sassy, sarcastic, been-there-done-that tween with parents who concentrate more on their lives on ... READ MORE
Horror/Thrillers
- Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Major Spoilers): Hellboy II: The Golden Army is another visual masterpiece from Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola, but like its predecessor it falls down when in comes to its female characters. In the first film, Liz Sherman’s role as a dangerous, unstable pyrokinetic was overshadowed by her role as Hellboy’s love interest (an element not found in the original comics). In the sequel, she has clearly gained much more confidence and control in her powers, but instead of addressing this character ... READ MORE
- Rogue: I recently saw the Australian horror movie Rogue which was promoted as ‘Jaws with a crocodile’ but was surprisingly better than the second-rate rip-off I expected. It was quite creepy in parts, but largely, I was disappointed with the main female role. Said female is Kate (Rhada Mitchell). She runs crocodile tours in the tidal rivers of the Northern Territory. On one tour, she has what I assume is her typical assortment of tourists – locals, interstate travelers, the odd overseas ... READ MORE
- Infidelity is OK, Pt II: Swimfan: In 2002, Fatal Attraction was loosely remade into Swimfan. The cheating husband, Dan, becomes devoted boyfriend Ben, to girlfriend Amy (reincarnated from Dan’s wife Beth.) The woman – although more of a girl – he cheated with becomes Madison (Erika Christensen), the new girl in town. Initially, I thought this movie was the better of the two because it wrote Ben’s infidelity as a one-time moment of passion, and didn’t try to justify them through Madison’s insanity. But watching it ... READ MORE
- Infidelity is OK, So Long as She’s a Bunny Boiler: About ten years ago, I first saw Fatal Attraction. Even then, in my mid-teens and a burgeoning feminist, the movie annoyed me. I saw it again recently, and pinpointed exactly what I didn’t like about it. You have Dan (Michael Douglas) a successful man with a loving wife and daughter. He meets Alex (Glenn Close), they have a sexual connection, they run into each other again while the wife, Beth, is out of town. A chance meeting turns into dinner, and ... READ MORE
- The Ring: When seeing horror movies, I’m usually the one sitting in the back who’s been coerced by her mates to come, giving a running commentary about how lame this movie is. And here some random female gets slashed up; here the heroine finally realises who the killer is, even though the rest of us worked it out half an hour ago; here the heroine runs up the stairs, even though we all know that’s a dead end – and whoops, wouldn’t ... READ MORE
- The Fly: Saw The Fly recently, and was pleasantly surprised to see a fairly strong female character in a horror flick. The film revolves around Seth (Jeff Goldblum), a scientist who is working on teleportation. He becomes involved with Ronnie (Geena Davis) a journalist who initially is out to report his findings, then agrees to document him in return for exclusive book rights, then falls for him. Their relationship appears to be based on mutual attraction, respect and intelligence. When Seth attempts to ... READ MORE
- Dolores Claiborne: recovery: Spoilers below. Triggers: child molestation. Surprisingly, Selena St. George may be the least sympathetic female character in Dolores Claiborne even though she’s the victim upon whom the story’s events center. Fictional female abuse victims written by people who either don’t have a clue what abuse is like or think the audience wants it sugar-coated tend to go in one of two directions: they are a bit sad and tragic, but somehow happily married and working normal jobs, or they take on ... READ MORE
- Dolores Claiborne: entitlement: Spoilers below. While Dolores has an understandable reason for killing her husband, Vera Donovan is a different story. She killed her husband because he regularly committed adultery and ignored Vera completely when she tried her utmost to win his affection through displays of niceness she reserved for him alone. My first reaction is to think murder was not really called for in this situation, so I had to ask myself why Stephen King included this little wrinkle. Was he endorsing Vera’s solution ... READ MORE
- Dolores Claiborne: a woman’s options in a man’s world: Spoilers below. Triggers: mentions of child molestation. The first aspect of Dolores Claiborne I want to talk about is its raw demonstration of what it’s like to be a woman abused by a husband. Joe is far from a criminal mastermind, and yet he manages to hold his wife and daughter in bondage to him, and the system helps him every step of the way. Abuse tactics are honed through generations of repetition, imprinted on child by parent so that even ... READ MORE
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