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To me it just sounds like the difference between a good film (and filmmaker) and a bad one. Argento is a master and his primary motivation is to entertain by frightening while Roth's primary motivation is to make you sick, which is just a byproduct of Argento's film not their raison d'etre.

"There is something deeply perverse about a man who strips his daughter naked and has the camera linger on her body parts. But unlike Roth, you get the feeling he loves that body that came of his genes. And with Roth, you just get the feeling he, like a frat boy, wants to have sex with the body and then leave it on the side of the road to fend for itself."

DUnno if I can overcome the yuckness of either.

I have the same response as when I realized that Igrayne in "Excalibur" was John Boorman's daughter...(he lingers on her being "visited" by Uther in an unsettling way)

a little creepy, 'dad'.

agree with Noah...one nows how to make a decent movie even though I am not a huge fan of Argento either.

LYT coincidentally posted a column that misses the point (totally) of "torture porn."
http://www.laweekly.com/film+tv/film/why-torture-porn-isnt/17170/

Yes... the creepy dad thing... not cool. Not cool at all. That aside; I am curious as to the reaction to Diary of the Dead.

TEARS is hilariously awful entertainment. Fans expecting a return to form will be pleasantly pleased that this is more PHENOMENA than PHANTOM but its still a long long way from the other two in his trilogy. The late night crowd roared with every over-the-top mutilation and idiotic death scene. Toss in some very fun boo moments and wobbly acting by Asia and you have a heady brew in store. It has zero atmosphere and is not scary at all but its not boring. Any film that decides to have its supposedly creepy witches appear like screeching extras from a Cyndi Lauper music video deserves some sort of award. To show you how raucous the film is the fire alarm went off in the next room to the theatre and no one noticed for 10 minutes - it simply matched the insanity and caterwauling during the extended finale.

from wikipedia - "Sarah Mandy (Asia Argento), an American studying art restoration in Rome, examines an urn found at an ancient, decrepit grave. Inside are the relics - a robe, dagger, three statuettes - and ashes of a long-dead witch known as the Mother of Tears, Mater Lachrymarum (Moran Atias). With the return of the beautiful yet malefic sorceress, the world is plunged into chaos. A wave of suicides and crime sweeps over Italy's capital as witches congregate to pay homage to their reborn queen. Sarah must eventually discover her latent supernatural powers[4] with the help of her deceased mother (Daria Nicolodi) and confront Lachrimarum at the opulent Palazzo Varelli."

Seriously?

I've only seen one Argento's film, The Phantom of the Opera (or whatever it's called in Italian). I didn't know what to make of it. I don't think Thailand has any other films of his for rent.

jeffmcm arrives to expose DP's glaring hypocrisy in 5...4...3..2..1...

Wow Lazarus, how'd you do that? I just got out of seeing Death at a Funeral and this.

Seriously, though, I have no real comment because obviously I haven't seen the Argento movie. It would certainly be nice if this was a return to form for him. But merely from reading this review, I have no idea what it is (except possibly for Argento's typical stylishness and control of mood) that marked the difference between the two movies for DP. Most of these phrases could apply equally to Hostel 2, especially "just having a nasty good time".

Who knows.

Argento will never again reach the heights of his ´75 - ´82 period, when he made four truly terrific movies in a row, Deep Red, Suspiria, Inferno and Tenebrae. Just crazy, heady stuff filled with incredible visuals, mood and crazy set pieces. The plots, acting and dialogue are always secondary to Argento, but somehow, his movies can work regardless. Don't know any other filmmaker I can say that about.

His last really good film was ´87's "Opera", so news of Mother of Tears being good make me a happy gorehound indeed.

I dont know... my main problem was that is *was* boring. Particularly the first 45 minutes. There are some great shots, but in my opinion they are few and far between.

And the dialog... oh man. I know what I'm expecting from a B-movie, but this was something much worse. Much much worse. It probably would have been better in subtitled Italian.

Asia Argento is still a shitty actress.

I dont know... my main problem was that is *was* boring. Particularly the first 45 minutes. There are some great shots, but in my opinion they are few and far between.

And the dialog... oh man. I know what I'm expecting from a B-movie, but this was something much worse. Much much worse. It probably would have been better in subtitled Italian.

Asia Argento is still a shitty actress.

lazarus - speaking of GLARING hypocrisy...

Let's see....

In the morning, DP is reviling JW for his lewd objectification of women, specifically a juvenile description of his lascivious obsession with the breasts and body of a certain actress & his (huge) desire for photos of same, which he reveals to a director in a private email that was never meant to be common knowledge, but due to a certain blogger, it ends up splashed across the internet.

In the evening, DP is supporting a director's "horrible" horror flic that revels in the lewd and violent objectification of women, and he proceeds with a detailed description, supporting the director's lascivious obsession with his own daughter's body and the breasts (real and otherwise) of the various actresses who all end up naked except, it seems, for two. This movie, one hopes, was never meant to be common knowledge, but due to a certain blogger, it now is, and we can only hope it will not end up splashed across the internet.

But hey, it's all in good fun, right? DP assures us that the director is "just having a nasty good time." Boys will be boys? Dads will be dads, and Director Dads will express their love for their daughters by, er, stripping "his daughter naked" and having "the camera linger on her body parts." It's "perverse," but, it's okay, DP assures us, because this FATHER "loves that body that came of his genes"! And this FATHER is "like a FRAT BOY," who "wants to have sex with the body and then leave it on the side of the road to fend for itself." (!!!) It may be creepy love, DP says, but at least it's not hate! Naw, this "feels like good clean fun..."

Wait a second, while I pick up my jaw from the floor.... okay...

Congratulations, DP. You have just managed to make JW look like a BOY SCOUT - hell, an EAGLE SCOUT, looking for some relatively "good clean fun." And your ostensible defense of Vinessa Shaw, and the juvenile objectification of the breasts of actresses everywhere that had nothing to do with past baggage w/ JW, well, you're kidding us, right?

And what was all the hullabaloo awhile back about Nicole Kidman making a movie about a kid who thinks he's her husband? Wow, good thing there's no double standard in this industry.

Sheeshka, DP. I sure hope you don't email the director for stills. But if you do, copy me, and I'll see that it, um, gets forwarded to the right, er, person...

This would be a good time to mention that what Jeff Wells did was reality and what Dario Argento is doing is fiction.

Argento filming his daughter naked in "horror porn" isn't fiction.

And my point was: DP reviling the perverse, negative objectification of women in one blog entry, and then reveling in the "perverse," "creepy," "violent," negative objectification of women in another, while praising and rationalizing the perversity of the director filming his daughter naked, etc, in the terms he used that I already noted above.

The juxtaposition of the two blogs - very funny stuff. And inevitable, really, in an industry where the films are 95% made and critiqued by men. And I have to laugh at myself, too, whenever I forget that.

Critics through the ages have always preferred horror films they don't have to take seriously, even if now that film is a bloody "grotesquery" that provides a peek into the wacky mind of Dario Argento. Successfully or not, in Hostel Roth meant to deal with something actually disturbing. Fear, the unknown, the possibility that the film might go farther than you're prepared to go. Yeah, that's why people like Stephen King, etc, appreciate it. And squeamish dilettantes (that is average reviewer's job description) dismiss it. They love to sashay out of a movie like Argento's going "Oh, wasn't that a lark?!", but they don't want to be shocked, shaken. They don't like horror movies. Because the genre's "beneath them."

And this has fuck-all to do with Jeff Wells and Vinessa Shaw.

Seenmyverite, I'm afraid your judgment of what is or isn't offensive about Dario Argento's film is basically meaningless since you have not seen it.

Winslow, I disagree that critics praise Argento and put down Roth simply because Roth "goes there' more. I think the reason is that Argento is a true artist while Roth is simply regurgitating artists like Argento and Bava but forgetting what made those films scary in the first place. I have no problem with Roth, except for the fact that his movies are NOT scary.

Some of my favorite horror movies aren't scary.

Well, Jeff, I guess that leads to a discussion about what the intent of the film is. If the intent of the film is to scare you and it doesn't, then the film failed at what it was trying to do. If you enjoy a horror movie that was trying to be scary but wasn't, but had a kitsch factor that you connected to, then you can't really call the filmmaker a good one. I enjoy silly horror movies as much as the next person, but in order for one to be a truly successful one it should at least make me a tiny bit uneasy.

I guess I need to be more specific - I'm a horror fan, but there are only ten or twenty movies in the history of film that I really find genuinely scary.

I think I would agree with you there. I guess it comes down to the difference between what is "good" and what you "like." I love Night of the Demons, but it's a bad movie. I think that Eli Roth's Hostel movies are trying to be scary, but they don't scare me, so it fails on a very basic level. But they aren't "bad" enough to be fun. Therefore, they are just mediocre, unscary horror films (to me, of course) and I think that is the worst kind of horror movie.

Ah, and I think they aren't trying to be 'scary' as much as they're trying to be 'funny' and 'gory'.

You would have a point, Seenmyverite?, if you were considering what I was actually writing and not the bits and pieces you seem to want to take out of context.

Argento explained it best himself this morning... his work is not sadistic, while some others are. That is why it doesn't feel disgusting.

I made the point that the Argento is NOT horror porn. It is something else. And if you don't know the history of the Argentos, you might want to look into how very odd it really is.

When you write, "DP reviling the perverse, negative objectification of women in one blog entry, and then reveling in the "perverse," "creepy," "violent," negative objectification of women in another," you have created your editorial - and incorrect - read of what I wrote.

If I felt that Argento was negatively objectifying women in his film, I would not like it. When I feel Catherine Breillat is negatively self-objectifying, I object and she is a woman. (Or maybe you think that is objectionable, because a woman has more right to self-objectify than men have to objectify women.) I did object when I felt Eli Roth was degrading women wontonly. I even objected when I felt Lars Von Trier was using the pain of a character (female) as a way of manipulating the audience without respecting the subtext of her pain in movies like Dancer In The Dark, whereas I felt the violent behavior towards Nicole Kidman in Dogville had a purpose in instigating a discussion of issues more complex than that character's personal story.

Ironically, I have had the argument with your position most intensely during DePalma's hey day, during which I felt his objectification of women was not anti-feminist, since I felt his work was far more about the powerlessness of men than of women. Body Double was about a weak man who was drawn into a murder plot because he was so drawn to his idea of ideal women. Dressed to Kill was about a man who had lost his sexual identity and sought revenge on women who held possession of theirs.

I don't know you and I don't know how politically correct (or not) you want your films. All I do know is that there is a big difference between movies and reality. (I'm surprised you didn't berate me for berating a woman for exposing the negative female objectification.) And for me, there is a wide degree of variation between how women - or men for that matter - are objectified in art and when it becomes objectionable.

With due respect, even beyond reality vs fiction, I'm not sure you'd be making the same argument if I berated Gaspar Noe for smashing someone's head open in Irreversible with a fire extinguisher and the next day wrote about how great Bugs Bunny. cartoons are. (As it turns out, I am a fan of both filmic efforts.)

Anyway... I kind of see what you are getting at. But I think the comparison is fatally flawed. And it seems to purposely avoid the conversation I am trying to engage in. If you think that something as described in Mother of Tears is disgusting, it would be more helpful - I think - to offer what offends you rather than to obscure it by tying it to a real life perversion that has real life consequences. Or perhaps you think movies have a powerful effect on lives. Think is, what you write closes this conversation, it doesn't move it along so we can really discuss it.

And WinslowLeachtheComposer... I am thrilled to be genuinely moved by a horror movie or a movie of any other genre. But I don't appreciate sadism with no purpose in any genre.

I love Demme's Something Wild, but I don't want any 13-year-old's seeing the extreme, personal, real violence of the end of the film in the context of, "Wasn't that fun?!," which is the cultural subtext of Hostel II.

And I imagine you would object to a kid watching documentary footage of The Jewish Holocaust offered by an authority figure as "isn't it cool what you can do with a person right before and after they die?"

Context matters. But even more, the sense given by the film itself of what its intent in matters quite a bit to me. I'd take the even more horrible on the surface Necromantic over Hostel II any day. At least it was trying to explore something.

I'd agree that the end of Hostel 2 is pretty flip - "upbeat", if you will, compared to anything in the first, which ironically does more to validate your point. But the point about the Holocaust footage is familiar sophistry: Hostel, Mother of Tears, all of these are play-acting. Make-believe. They're just movies. A single shot of real violence would violate an unspoken agreement that exists between the filmmaker and audience. (Which is why shots of the WTC preceding the Omen remake, for instance, repelled people.) Roth has admitted real violence disgusts him. This is not counterintuitive or hypocritical. But it illustrates the shoddiness of the Holocaust analogy.

Look, it comes down to the fact you don't think much of Roth as a filmmaker and don't think there's much there. I actually thought the same thing - till I reluctantly saw Hostel and found that there was a lot more to the movie than I expected. Perhaps it is a matter of expectations. And a lot of people have complained that the Hostel movies aren't scary. But maybe horror isn't isn't necessarily about being "scary" (honestly, it's hard to imagine being scared by a movie these days), so much as...horrible? Maybe we can all agree on that.

I disagree that the ending of Hostel 2 is flip - if it's anything, it's bitter. In fact the ending of the first Hostel is more compromised because that's where Roth and co. are urging the audience to really root for the death of a character categorized as 'other' (in this case, a perverse man coded as possibly gay).

"Roth has admitted"?

Roth is selling his position. Nothing new. Based on his anxious tap dance when trying to get out from behind the ugliness of Hostel 2, I have no idea what he really thinks or feels or if he feels, but I do know that I don't trust him to admit anything that sticks.

You may find the comparative argument wrong on its face, but it is not an argument about real vs fake. That particular tack is about how narrative is presented, real or fake. Context matters. This is why Stephanie Zacharek can laugh about "the old pike up the vag," in much the same way I do.

I don't much care about the expectations of Hostel 2. I reacted to one scene in particular and then, the breaking down of a movie cliche (guy with chainsaw pulls out cord in the nick of time) while still victimizing The Girl in a more grotesque way than simply killing her.

Using the second item as reference... Argento would not only use the chainsaw, he would have the woman pull out her own organs one by one, consider what was happening to her, then watch the monkey yank away the organ from her hands. But oddly, that never feels like an objective position. Argento's characters are conscious of the horror they are experiencing until they are dispatched, in fairly quick order. Roth's idea of Hostel 2 is that the victims start as objects, get tortured, are reduced to semi-conscious objects, then remain barely conscious as they are further objectified by his camera.

And now that I think of it, Takashi Miike, who is as graphic as anyone ever has been, also walks that line and some ends up on what I see as a reasonable side of it.

I do think there is an objective, if very hard to define, set of standards for all of this.

And no, this whole thing was never about how I feel about Roth as a filmmaker. It is about his film. And it is about Argento's film. They simply do not feel the same... and that is hardly a reach. I am sure someone will feel differently about it, but I am pretty sure you will find a pretty strong consensus on this point amongst viewers of both films.

I agree that there is a way to read a director and see what he or she is really thinking, and that there are specific lines to cross between good and bad work.
Which is why I think Roth is clearly a better director than Darren Bousman, Marcus Nispel, James Wan, or Dave Meyers.

What monkey?! I confess I haven't seen Mother of Tears yet, and I'm even reluctant to get back into this, David, but you've brought up the one scene where Roth's intent is clear and his execution is spot on. The guy with the hand-saw is larking around and making a joke out of it and horribly taunting and teasing the girl (really, the audience - they're both acting) and then WHOOPS! And he's horrified. And she's not dead, she's MAIMED. It's AWFUL. That's the point. He actually reaches for her face to try to...I don't know...help. For this guy it's suddenly real, and he doesn't have the guts for it. Which of course means he gets eaten by dogs.

Man, I like Argento's movies a hell of alot more than I like Eli Roth's, but I can't figure out how Poland comes to the conclusion that Argento is just in it for chuckles and a fun time but Roth is some sicko. Is there anyone else in the world who could watch their movies and come away with that conclusion?

Argento at his best seems to be ACTUALLY INSANE. When you watch his movies you believe that there really could be something wrong with him. He even looks like a horror movie villain! And not only has he filmed scenes of his own daughter being raped and killed, he likes to have his own hands appear in his movies as the hands of his killers! It's that kind of crazed conviction that makes them so intense.

Roth on the other hand is the guy who grew up watching Argento and other horror movies, his movies are postmodern, filled with homages, references, cameos and jokes. Clearly he's the one who's only joking. And that's one of the many reasons why he's no Argento.

Anyway I'd like to thank Petaluma Films for posting the link to that LA Weekly "torture porn" piece. I got no idea why that was supposedly "missing the point" but I was glad to finally see somebody write a reasonable piece about all this torture porn hysteria. I have been pulling my hair out and making many of those same points for months, especially the opening one about how there actually is such a thing as torture porn available at your local adult video store. What are those guys supposed to call their porn now, "surprisingly tame studio horror that outrages non-horror fans for some weird unexplained reason"? That wouldn't be fair, they need something catchier.

Dave -

I was away all day and didn't get in until the wee hours, but let me see if I can tackle this, as I don't think I'll have time tomorrow, er, today.

First, I don't think you're a misogynist, or I wouldn't read your blog, much less like it. You've given a lot of intelligent responses to this sort of thing in the past, which is why I questioned you on this. Second, your response reinforces that it's an issue you give a damn about. Third, your review seemed to be partly fueled by humorous exuberance. My response was fueled by the same, and maybe I should use those smiley faces but they tend to annoy me, and my point was real enough.

I wasn't commenting on the film (haven't seen it) or its director or his daughter (don't know them), but your response to them. I wasn't trying to be obscure - I thought I was overstating my case, and in both cases I was speaking mainly of your take on real life perversions with real life consequences and also movie perversions with real life consequences. My point was to compare one anti-perversion blog entry followed by a pro-perversion blog entry which seemed to make the former pale in comparison. Again, I don't know the director so I'm not talking about his motivations, but about your take on his motivations and feelings ("you can feel the feelings of the man sitting in the director’s chair").

I don't think I was incorrect to say you reveled in the film, as you say you enjoyed it, it's fun, fun to watch, it's good clean fun, etc. I also don't think I was incorrect to say you reveled in the perversity of it, when you say things like "there is something deeply perverse about a man who strips his daughter naked and has the camera linger on her body parts. But unlike Roth, you get the feeling he loves that body that came of his genes. And with Roth, you just get the feeling he, like a frat boy, wants to have sex with the body and then leave it on the side of the road to fend for itself. It's love - creepy love - versus hate", etc.

I would suggest the perversity of your beliefs supporting what you term the film's perversity - to wit, that while it may be deeply perverse for a father to strip his daughter naked and have the camera linger on her body parts, it's okay as long as it's motivated by loving that body that shares his DNA. You also seem to be suggesting a tolerance for a father that, like a frat boy, would want to have sex with that body (um, it's his daughter, not just a body) and then leave it on the side of the road. You appear to defend this, labeling it as "creepy love, versus hate," which seems to indicate that a father having sex with his daughter and leaving her on the side of the road to fend for herself isn't an action motivated by hatred, but love, albeit creepy love. (Defense attorneys, take note.) I would also suggest that, at least for the daughter, if this scenario were played out, it would not feel like "good, clean fun."

Maybe I'm naive, but I'm laughing as I write this because it's so ludicrous and I really don't believe you believe it. I chalked it up to humorous exuberance and a hectic time & sleep-deprived environment. Then again, DP, perhaps you hide a heart of darkness (or a hefty S&M closet) whose depths we have yet to plumb.

Also, I was comparing your earlier defense of the Objectification of Vinessa Shaw with your subsequent details of a movie that, while perhaps good, clean fun, certainly seems, by your description, to objectify women's breasts and bodies up one side and down the other, including "the director’s daughter, is wearing a white silk shirt that shows off the details of her breasts" and "A completely gratuitous shower sequence with her..." Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, and I don't want to quote you out of context or misrepresent things you said that were obviously meant to be in a humorous vein. ("No one in ArgentoVille ever wears a bra, so no need for detailed spearing. We did learn in Argento’s film, however, that the darkest evil possible on the planet owns a set of implants.") So, to be clear, are you saying this movie does not objectify women's bodies at all? Is it your belief that because a movie is "good, clean, fun" or even an outright comedy, that that nullifies any objectification of women's bodies? (I can think of alot of frat boy comedies whose cups runneth over in this sort of thing, no pun intended.)

In conclusion, while I am in no way defending JW for his actions, I would submit that a father who has sex with his daughter and then leaves her on the side of the road to fend for herself outweighs the perversity of JW's actions. On a more arguable note, I would also submit that a father filming his daughter in the scenes you describe creeps me out on the subject more than JW's actions, and finally, that the objectification of women, their bodies and bazooms, thrives in both circumstances.

I hope I've made my case more clear.

I am dividing this here, and will put part 2 in a separate entry, which continues on a more serious note, in an attempt to move the discussion along versus closing it, as you put it.

Part 2

You mention "the argument with [my] position," but I'm not sure what you think my position is.

As far as being politically correct, I tend to have a knee-jerk reaction to that term because it's both highly subjective and highly abused, especially when used as a pejorative synonymous with "cramping my style" and hence a red flag for an area where someone doesn't want to grow up and take responsibility for the pain caused. Russell Means has talked about his childhood and coming out of a John Wayne western and getting beaten up by the neighborhood kids because that's what they'd just seen John Wayne do. And of course there are similar examples with women and other minorities. Yes, there's a difference between movies & reality, but movies influence reality.

The violence in Bugs Bunny cartoons doesn't offend me and to me can't be compared with live action gratuitous violence, especially against subservient, helpless and/or moronic women. And I agree, there's a wide variance on what's considered objectionable, even with me. I liked Shoot 'Em Up, but that was thoroughly tongue in cheek, men against men, and I'd also argue that the tongue in cheek worked in part because Clive Owen has an image as a good guy, father and husband. The violence in Sin City was harsh, but the film had a lot to admire, and the women in Rosario Dawson's group could handle themselves just fine. I like Gerard Butler, but 300 did nothing for me. Unlike Braveheart, the violence wasn't anchored in anything I could rally behind (but then Randall Wallace wrote an outstanding script, some of which was echoed in 300 & other films "First learn to use this (taps young Wallace's forehead) and then you can learn to use this" (taps the sword). And "I know you can fight. But it's our wits that make us men.") And while Braveheart was a man's story, he wrote some good intelligent women's roles into it.

But it's no revelation to point out that when we sit down to see a movie, we're almost always getting a male perspective, and ipso facto there are far-reaching ramifications. And when it's largely men that critique or comment on those films, that bias is rarely contested, unless it's so obvious that it has offended everyone anyway.

Lillian Gish famously commented, "When I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived, I'm sure I would have played his mother." If you want to go further back, in Persuasion, Jane Austen had a man point out, "I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon a woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." (Still holds true.) Melanie Griffith had a line about it in Woody Allen's Celebrity, something about being glad she had skinny legs and big boobs so she could be an actress. Then there was a quote in an article in the LA Times Calendar section years ago, I think it was Jamie Lee Curtis, who said words to the affect: "I'm tired of getting scripts where I show up on page 6 so the leading man has someone to screw on page 60."

You don't have to go to B-movies to see it, or even R-rated films. I think the influence is sometimes greater and more dangerous when it is subtle and under the radar, and when it has the widespread audience and cache of A-list talent. It pulls me out of the picture because suddenly I realize the demographic targeted doesn't include women, at least not in any respectful way, or I realize the writer or director is telling me more about their personal frustrations, fetishes and fantasies than the story. Or because I wonder about the young girls or women that will view it, and if they'll buy into it, and how it will shape their view of themselves.

I'm pulled out of the story when:
- the women are naked and the men are covered from head to toe (Eyes Wide Shut is the first that comes to mind, but it happens all the time)
- the women are vapid, young and beautiful, and the men are smart, old and homely, or a Hollywood facsimile (again, commonplace, but some excel in the worst way, like Love Actually, AKA The Primer for Older Men Going After/ Leaving Their Wives for Younger Women)
- the director lost the plot so an actress can play out a fantasy (Melanie Griffith vacuuming in stilletos and lingerie in Working Girl, Tarantino licking tequila off Salma Hayek's feet in Dusk Till Dawn, Jamie Lee Curtis's striptease in True Lies, the scene starring Julianne Moore's Crotch in Short Cuts, a certain lingering shot of Charlize Theron in The Cider House Rules, too many scenes played in strip joints to list)
- the director uses a scene, or an entire film, as an outlet for a juvenile streak (Wedding Crashers, scene where a string of topless women fall on a bed so we can watch how their boobs jiggle. Sure won't find a male counterpart to this scene.)
- the writer or director vents his dysfunctional frustration with women (X-Men 3, where the guy tells the girl he loves her right before he kills her; somewhere in the film it's declared, "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," domestic violence statistics notwithstanding)
- hell hath no fury like a writer/director scorned (Oleanna, Disclosure)
- a female lead is given no enobling motivation/backstory for her bad/dysfunctional behavior (When a Man Loves a Woman). Or when that motivation is taken away from her, so a would-be noble character becomes the woman (or shrew) that didn't stand by her man, or trust what a helluva fellow he was (The Upside of Anger, though the director gets points for writing it with Joan Allen in mind).
- a loser/nutso guy gets a great gal (As Good As it Gets, and also recently pointed out by Jeannette Catsoulis in her NYTimes review)
- men can cheat, steal, etc, and the woman is a bitch if she doesn't take him back or stand by him (commonplace, but pretty scary in Philadelphia Story because it seems to go unnoticed - Katherine Hepburn w/her father, her mother w/ her father, Ruth Hussey & Jimmy Stewart )
- the Good Long-Suffering Guy Saves/Transforms the Bad Girl/Hooker (w/ a Heart of Gold) - (commonplace - everything from Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and North by Northwest to Milk Money)

These aren't all great examples, partly because I'm half-asleep and not recalling the movies that really pissed me off, and partly because I try to avoid movies that look over-the-top immature/dysfunctional in their treatment of women.

I don't buy that it's all right for women to self-objectify. In general, I think it compounds the problem and validates the stereotypes. And I've been discouraged by so many vapid "women's movies" that I think a lot of women subscribe to the same limitations male writer/directors would give them. In some cases, men write better women than women do, though that isn't necessarily a high accolade. It takes humanity, heart and maturity, and it no doubt helps if they're not coming off a bad divorce. Writers/directors that come to mind: Richard LaGravenese (Living out Loud), Jim Sheridan (The Boxer), John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck), and characters like Sigourney Weaver in Alien or Madeleine Stowe in Last of the Mohicans. I would give Apatow points for raising the typical male-oriented comedy in 40-Year-Old Virgin with a love interest like Catherine Keener's character, and for casting someone like Catherine Keener in the part, which I'm sure helped it towards 4-quadrant.

Apologies for the length.

Well, Seenmyverite, it strikes me as terribly hypocritical that in the middle of your blast on Poland for liking an Argento film, you go and say how great Braveheart is, a film that wears it's homophobia on it's sleeve so much that it gets it's biggest kick out of throwing the gay prince out the window. Just disgusting. But apparently in your black & white world, it's perfectly fine.

Look, I don't disagree with a lot of your points about specific films, but...what the hell are you talking about? Are you suggesting we have a feminist hall monitor make sure all these scripts are "ok" before they start rolling? Sounds like Soviet stuff to me.

If your point is to make Poland look like a hypocrite for thinking it's disgusting for a peer to be pressing a director for naked pictures of his starlet while simultaneously defending a film that has naked women in it, well, I think that just shows that you don't know the difference between real life and a movie.

Seriously, the fact that you can prop up disgusting misanthropic garbage like SIN CITY or homophobic hate like BRAVEHEART while throwing away half of American cinema because you don't like the way women are portrayed....

Please, look in the mirror before you start calling other people hypocrites.

it's moral equivalency. to seenmyverite? all female objectification is bad and equal. that there is no difference his/her (i'm not sure what sex you are seenmyverite?) between enjoying a dario argento movie and what wells did proves it.

and i'll take katherine hepburn in "the philadelphia story" over rosario dawson in "sin city" any day

Carpetmuncher -

I wasn't blasting Poland for liking an Argento film. I was calling him on the dichotomy of reviling the perverse in one blog, while supporting it in the next - regarding Poland's take on the director filming his daughter, which is real. I stand by my opinion re the conflicting juxtaposition. Your 3rd paragraph baffles me, as I thought I went out of my way to make it clear my point was not about "a film that has naked women in it." Though that benign description pretty much makes its own point. (insert smiley faces at will)

Notice I prefaced my statements on violence by saying there's a wide variance (that is, very gray and not at all black and white) on what's considered objectionable, even with me, and then mentioned several highly controversial films to make the point. I wasn't thinking about the homophobic scene in Braveheart, which GLAAD did a good job of decimating, and which underscores my point that movies obviously reflect the preferences and prejudices of the writer/directors, which influence reality.

I'm just pointing out it's an obvious influence. To say male influence doesn't enter into the equation would be absurd. Stereotypes come out all over the spectrum, and it's something to wince at (or more) when it comes up. Homosexuals certainly get their fill, as do African Americans and Asians (especially in films before the 60's, still of course shown on TV). How can we be anything other than relieved at the consciousness of the denigrating stereotypes in some old movies and television shows? The Mayan Indians didn't like their violent depiction in Apocalypto, which is understandable considering the Mayans and other Indian populations suffered horrific enslavement, genocide and extinction at the hands of the Europeans. Does it lessen us to be aware of that? Middle Easterners have to sit through bad guy stereotypes ad nauseum as the Germans and Japanese did before them, and if you think that doesn't influence reality, spend some time in Europe and watch their reaction when they hear your American accent and listen to them rail about American cinema. And most of the "white males" I know literally wince at the term "white males," which is another stereotype. As I said, this isn't exactly revelatory.

We can chafe at those who point out our stereotypes, or we can grow from them and see that it is a part of moving beyond lipservice and finally integrating the notion that all men, er, people, are created equal (darn those rascally forefathers). Though GLAAD and similar watchdog groups are great at pointing out our weak spots and are unfortunately still necessary, I like to think it's largely a self-correcting marketplace, because most people won't support those films, and money tends to be the ultimate decision-maker in the film industry. Small-minded films tend to attract small-minded & small audiences, and their weakness and/or cruelty only becomes more obvious over the years. The films that last are invariably films with great heart and humanity.

hendhogan - i think your comment was only partially posted, or i'm not understanding your point. If you're saying that I'm saying all female objectification is bad and equal, or that the issue had anything to do with the difference between enjoying a dario argento movie and what wells did, then you didn't understand my comments.

you have equated the enjoyment of a horror movie to the actions of wells. by pointing the finger at dp, you have made these two issues equal.

now, if that is not your intent, i suggest you start over. because that is the impression you are giving.

if that is your intent, i would disagree. but i don't believe i could convince you otherwise.

I am on the run and can't really begin to give all of that a fair amount of consideration, Seenmy, but I do appreciate the effort to communicate with earnest sincerity, whether we agree or not... more in time...

hendhogan:

not my intent, but shiza, considering the current word count - start over?!

The rock and roll landscape has changed much since the days of Suspiria and Opera. This fact would be reflected in Argento's latest film. Argento's films sync very extensively with a very broad range of rock music dating back before the nineteen-seventies. In fact, the set designs used in Suspiria hint at the sync between Suspiria and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Suspiria, like practically every major film made between 1966 and present-day, track and express symbolically the life and times of a severely molested as an infant army brat boy who was living in Virginia and was ten years old just prior to the creation of Suspiria, a "super queen," thus the gay and sunny sets used in Suspiria, which also reflect the mood which drove rock music of all types in the seventies, verses the more "dark-metal" and "closet gay" settings of Opera. This molested one has been observed continually by occult means and is often portrayed by the Mia Farrow archetype used and abused in movies by the Argentos, Francos, Sarnos, and Metzgers of the world amongst others (yes, he was Rosemary in Rosemary's Baby which is his baby film of sorts). He became a young man in the army stationed in Bavaria in the mid-late eighties and this was captured in Opera which was really a US Army barracks life-style film (as was The Brady Bunch Movie and The Long Kiss Goodnight). This also explains the hidden reasoning behind the incest theme whch pops up in movies from time to time, including the "incest aura" about some movie productions.

Anyway, Balls to the Wall/Restless and Wild: A Compilation of the Best of Accept syncs real well with Opera, as does Judas Priest's catalog (including Priest Live) and that of The Cure. The above-mentioned studied subject listened to Priest and The Cure in his hi-fi equiped Barracks corner quite a bit (symbolized by the bedroom and stereo used in Opera) not long prior to the creation of Opera (before comming back to the US in 1988).

I would look for a sync between The Third Sister and the Grindhouse productions made by Tarantino and Rodriguez of late. They sync with both Suspiria and Opera. Suspiria is right up there with The Wizard of Oz, Rosemary's Baby, and Rocky Horror as far a popularity as sync material used by rock and roll musicians is concerned.

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