(no subject)

[andrewducker]

Just added this one to the archive. Ooh, I got to use the word apposite!

It's amazing how much the context of a film changes its impact. I loved Fight Club because I knew almost nothing about it before I walked into the cinema, I felt let down by The Matrix because so many people had told me it was intelligent and deep, I was put off U-571 by knowing that it was factually inaccurate and I can happily say that watching Trainspotting with your parents makes it feel like a whole different film...

I'd seen Gingersnaps a year or so ago, and it came across as a fun, smart horror flick. Nothing hugely special, but definitely better than the huge number of churned out slasher movies. Watching it with a couple of girls, however, definitely moved it up the scale a several notches.

Scenes which were merely background to me assumed new significance when they obviously resonated with the girls. The whole menstruation/puberty/transformation/lycanthropy metaphor seemed much more apposite and the whole mood of the film clicked into focus far better than when I watched it with an all male audience.

So, if you fancy seeing a darkly humorous take on the werewolf genre, where a young woman is cursed to an obsession with blood, strange physical changes, unexpected hair growth and mood swings that go just a little further than most, I recommend you pick this one up. Especially if you have someone female to watch it with.

Score: 6.5, 8 if watching it in female company.

ObQuote:
Brigitte: Are you *sure* it's just cramps?
Ginger: Just so you know, the words 'just' and 'cramps', they don't go together.
__
Ginger: "No-one ever thinks chicks do shit like this. A girl can only be a slut, bitch, tease or the virgin next door. We'll just coast on how the world works."

Comments

[broin.livejournal.com]

I hated that movie. Not just because the references to femaledom felt shallow, but because it was *incredibly* predictable.

It was like 'She's All That'. The message is: Don't be true to yourself - instead, get a makeover and boys will love you for you you rally are, sort of.

It was clumsy. I was sorely disapointed. But coped. =)

[andrewducker]

I don't understand why you think that was the message of the film. In fact, I can't see any message to the film at all. It certainly commented on some things (like the ascribed positions of women in society), but I cant' see that it came to any conclusions.

And you didn't cope, unless ranting in your LJ about your hatred of it counts as coping :-P

Re:

[broin.livejournal.com]

Well, it was the bit where the chick walks down the hallway, and is the Sexy. It felt like such a humdrum thing for a movie to do. Y'know?

And it was in slo-mo, too. Real turn off.

[andrewducker]

That was showing off the animal magnetism and the fact that she was using and exuding sexuality. It wasn't, to me, saying "do this", it was trying to get across the affect she was having on those around her.

The best bit of that scene, for me, was the shocked looked on her sister's face at the end of it, because she knows exactly how badly it's going to end for all involved.