Let me entertain you: reviews by ash

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Starry Eyes
2014, Kevin Kölsch

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A struggling young starlet becomes involved in more than she ever bargained for and discovers the price of fame and beauty come with the most grave consequences.

The main theme of this movie is transformation. Just how far are you willing to go to acquire your dreams? Would you be willing to sacrifice everything, including life as you know it? As we follow the story of Sarah, a young starlet/part-time waitress at a Hooters-esque diner, desperate to make it in Hollywood, we can feel her desperation and deep desire to break out of her failed attempts as she travels from audition to audition, hoping to finally catch her big break. She has very little support, as all her 'friends' are fellow struggling actresses who begrudge and resent her for any success she might acquire, and she also suffers from low-self esteem and depression as seen in her Trichotillomania (yep, that's the mental disorder where people compulsively pull out their own hair. eugh.)

Lady luck seems to smile down on her, however, when she has an audition for Silver Scream,
a seemingly low-budget horror film being backed by a prestigious, well-established production company. Originally, she thinks the audition has gone horribly as the casting director seems unimpressed, and she runs into the bathroom and has a fit, ripping her hair systematically from her head. As luck would have it, one of the casting directors sitting in her audition happens to be in the bathroom and overhears her fit, and intrigued, asks her to come back in the audition room and re-enact her fit in front of them. Reluctantly, she does, and it goes from there.

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As Sarah rises steadily from a call back to meeting with the producer of the film, things go from exciting to creepy, to downright scary. The film has that feel to it where you feel like everyone else seems to know something else is going on except the main character, sorta like the husbands in The Stepford Wives, the townsfolk in Wicker Man, or the creepy upstair neighbors in Rosemary's Baby. The film does a good job capturing that feeling of isolation and helplessness as you watch Sarah literally transform and deteriorate both mentally and physically right before our very eyes. The film does get extremely graphic and bloody, a bit overkill, to be honest. However, the ending is pleasantly satisfying and unexpected and worth waiting for.

Overall, it's a mediocre film. The lead girl does a very good job, and the story is intruiging, but there's nothing here that is ground-breaking or hasn't been done before.

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Barbarella
1968, Roger Vadim

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A young, female, earthling space traveler is introduced to the world of sex, kinks and other antics when she travels to a nearby planet in search of an astronaut.

This movie has me torn. Easily my favorite things about it are its beautiful technicolor backgrounds, exquisite costume and set designs, and the fun 60's pop soundtrack that pretty much made me grin every time, but the dialogue is stilted and sometimes off-putting. Between the music, the sets, and the nonsensical dialogue, the film does a good job keeping everything light-hearted enough for me to never take it too seriously, but I'm still trying to decide if it was trying to be lighthearted. Is the comedy intentional? Surely, some of it clearly must be (the earthling-styled sex, for example, is similar to the sex that takes places in Demolition Man where there's never any actual physical contact because "it's too dangerous" and the scene that takes place from this is obviously very tongue in cheek). But then there's other scenes that are absolutely terrifying (see: doll scene and bird scene. This movie is obviously used as homage to many others).

I found the vignette-styled plot to be slightly frustrating, too - it's like the writers wanted to jump from one silly situation to the next without giving any closure or explanation for what just happened. When I read up on this film last night, I learned there's 7 writing credits on this film... which is only a little over an hour, by the way. Still, despite the ADD writing, with each scenario being more outlandish and silly than the next, it was kinda hard to hate the film.

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Probably my biggest grievance, and the thing I'm most torn on, is the political side of it, which was the sex, and how this 'brave new world' has evolved to a no-sex approach. A young Jane Fonda plays the voluptuous Barbarella, and is clearly supposed to be a strong female character, but she's objectified at every turn. It seemingly creates a world where Earth has been pacified and its inhabitants have supposedly been purged of their insecurities, while at the same time characters make suggestive puns about meeting Barbarella "in the flesh" and having her give "mouth to mouth." It's like it wants to have its feminism and objectify it, too, and the feminist in me couldn't help but roll her eyes at that.

Still, though, despite all its flaws, it's hard to deny that I enjoyed Barbarella. It's hokey, it's campy as all hell, and at times downright ridiculous, but it's fun, and even Jane Fonda's awkward acting is charming in its own right. I can see why it's considered such a cult classic.




Great review! I enjoyed reading it and we're on the same wave length on Barbarella. I love the camp, the costumes and the humor, but the story gets quite inane....still a fun flick to watch.



Starry Eyes is mediocre like you said, but I did like the crazy ending, so that made it worth watching for me.

Barbarella was too campy for me, but it's a little bit of fun.

Awesome reviews!!



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Girlhood
2013, Céline Sciamma

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A young girl from a Paris housing project comes out of her shell when she joins a girl gang and is introduced to the vibrant world out from under the controlling fist of her older brother.

This film's title loses some of its meaning in the English translation - its literal translation Bande de filles, or Gang of Girls, is more indicative of what this film is actually about. This female centric, coming-of-age drama focuses on Marime, a young girl from a housing project suburb in Paris. Marime is shy and inward, though over the course of the film we see her come out as she navigates through her day-to-day life and deals with issues surrounding her race, class, gender, and sexuality. Marime's world would probably seem outdated to the typical American audience of today - in Marime's world, a girl can't have sex with a boy she likes lest she disgrace her whole family, though the young boys can pretty much do whatever and whoever they want. Struggling with rigid sexist rules and the limited educational and job options offered to black youth, the young women of color in this film literally fight to escape poverty. They find strength, kinship, and safety in their gangs, and are often drawn to them to begin with because they are lacking those things in their own homes.

The gang that this film focuses on, Lady's gang, reluctantly accepts Marime as one of their own after she accompanies them on a trip to the city for a day of shopping/stealing, drinking, smoking, and doing whatever they like while having very little consideration or regard for anyone else. Marime, who becomes bewitched by this way of life, finds herself becoming stronger, more assertive as she slowly climbs her way up the status quo, from gang fighting to stealing, sex, and drugs.

While on paper the tale is repetitive, this execution is anything but. Marime may not know who she wants to become, but she knows what she doesn't want to be, (her mother is forced to work such a strenuous schedule as a maid that she is basically raised by her brother, forced to protect her younger sister, and look after them both in the meantime).

The director, Céline Sciamma, has said her inspiration for making this film was to give voice to women of color, specifically lower-class, French women of color, whose stories are very rarely told. This is exactly what she does. From the beginning, we see that these girls find their strength in numbers. From the opening sequence, we see Marime's sense of comfort after playing a spirited game of football with her friends before walking the gauntlet back to her apartment building. These girls may be uneducated, poor and have very little control over their lives, but they've learned how to survive and adapt in the streets of this poor suburb where you don't look a man in the eye while at the same time, holding your head high if he calls out to you.

Actually, it reminds me of Charlize's advice on 'how to walk like a queen."



Girlhood is as much of an emotional journey as it is visual. One scene in particular reminded me of some of the electronica dance sequences in Harmony Korine's 2013 Spring Breakers. In the scene in question, the girls, after having dressed up in beautiful, expensive dresses they never could have afforded to pay for, dance around their hotel room in carefree unison with one another to Rihanna's Diamond, a song I'd never heard before watching this film. While these girls obviously dream of a better life, they are, at least in this one instance, making the most of what they have now. It's a very moving scene, and with the song, the bluish tones and hues, and the actresses themselves, this couldn't be more fitting.



Do yourself a favor and watch Girlhood. You won't regret it.




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i'm gonna get back into writing reviews. and i'm posting that here as motivation, cause now there's proof i said it.

well, unless no one will bother to read it, i guess. i kiiinda want to, though. i'll never be Iro or anything, but...



Agree with what you said on Barbarella. It's plot is pretty over-the-top, but the great visuals, chimerical spirit, and humorously bizarre characters make up for it.

Plus, a young Jane Fonda's smokin' hot physique. Nuff' said.



i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
And a week later...
...you finally sign on?

no, but seriously, i was planning on doing one tonight. i actually watched a movie today. so HAH in yo face ho kid