The live action Blood: The Last Vampire was released on Blu-Ray October 20th. It was never released in theaters in Austin, and I did not manage to see it when I went to Chicago in July, so I felt like I had been waiting a loooong time for that red Netflix envelope to show up in my mailbox.

The film is set in Japan during the Vietnamese War. South Korean actor Gianna Jun plays Saya, a vampire-human hybrid whose mission in life is killing the demon who destroyed her father. Onigen, the demon, is played by Koyuki, who is Japanese. Aiding Saya in her pursuit is Alice McKee (played by white actor Allison Miller), the daughter of a military base commander whose run-in with the shadowy organization Saya collaborates with does not turn out well for anyone.

So far, that's already a big bunch of differences from the original animated film Blood: The Last Vampire, made in 2000. The introduction of Onigen gives us another powerful woman of color. Unfortunately, though, for most of the film she is just the scary thing in the background. Pretty, young, skinny, white Alice replaces the character of the grownup, plump, Japanese nurse who becomes Saya's unwitting accomplice in the animated film. To me, it's an obvious effort to make the film more American, sexy, and accessible than casting the Japanese equivalent of Kathy Bates. (Now that I think about it, Qiu Yuen from Kung Fu Hustle would have been awesome in this movie.) Alice does a lot more than the character she replaced, but I was put off by the remodeling of the role.

Overall, many of the things that I liked about the animated film suffered a similar fate. Eerie pale little girl who doesn't talk and levitates before turning into a demon becomes trash-talking, bitchy high school girl with a sword. Three terrifying and possibly unstoppable demons become hordes of fairly disposable demon-looking people chasing Saya and Alice down alleys. The creepy, almost breathtaking reveal of Saya's past at the end of the first film does not happen. Instead we are given cues early on as to her nature. Everything is more and bigger, but in the process becomes more prosaic. In the animated film, I got the enjoyable feeling that there were far bigger things going on and we only caught a glimpse. Not so much in the live action film.

To turn a 48 minute animated film into a feature length movie requires adding, so there is plenty of additional subplot and extra characters. The implied shadowy organization from the animated film becomes The Council, with lots of white male personnel. The Council's front as CIA operatives does necessitate them sounding American when they talk, but despite the historical setting of the film, I would have appreciated a tiny nod to people who speak American English being not just white and male. (Especially since in the animated film, one of the guys was black.) We also spend time with Alice's father and his staff, all of whom are white. One of the demons is an instructor at the school, and he's played by black British actor Colin Salmon. Saya's guardian from her childhood, Kato, is played by Japanese actor Yasuaki Kurata, and Onigen's henchman is played by another Japanese actor, who I am having the most difficult time identifying from the IMDB credits.

The animated film felt like it was about an event that happened to two women, since the third main character was a man who functioned mostly as Saya's sidekick. The live action film feels different. We spend so much time away from either Saya or Alice, and there are so many male speaking roles. But Saya is a strong, fierce character, and the film is paced very well. Watching the "Behind the Stunts" feature on the disk gave me a lot of respect for Gianna Jun, too. This was her first action film, and she spent a ton of time in a harness doing wire work and most or all of her own stunts. It easily passes the Bechdel test since Saya and Alice spend a lot of their time talking about demon killing. Neither character is particularly sexualized, and there is no romantic plot or subplot. Alice does scream. A lot. Eventually, though, she gets useful.

This iteration of the Blood story is a straight up action film, though, not dark and haunting like the animated film. Saya is more of a person than an enigma, and even when she battles Onigen her fights don't have that desperate quality that characterizes her fights with the demons in the animated film.

Due to the two women of color as lead and big bad adversary, both of whom kick ass, the casting of three men of color in speaking roles, and the fact that Alice's character finally stops screaming and does something useful, I'm giving this three stars. I wish I hadn't seen the animated predecessor first, so I wouldn't have kept comparing the two, or it might have scored higher.

Now where's my Saya action figure?

Posted by Skye in 3 Stars: Strong Contenders
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At Adventures of a Young Feminist, Laura writes "I'm not even going to try to pretend I didn't love this movie, because I did." You and me both, Laura. It's been a long time coming, my friends, but the Hollywood woman-hating machine has presented us with something that is both fun and not an insult to our collective intelligence. Whip It is really good.

Juno it-girl Ellen Page plays Bliss, a small-town Texas misfit stuck between her own quirkiness and her mother's (the amazing Marcia Gay Harden) insistence that she fulfill her potential as a beauty queen. She's sarcastic, confused, and disenfranchised, like any good teenager. The only person she seems to really connect with is her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat). Then, she discovers derby.

The bulk of the movie takes the viewer through Bliss' discovery of and excellence in roller derby. She falls in love with it. However, it isn't presented as some sort of magic solution to all of her problems. As she builds new relationships with her teammates (an excellent collection: Kristen Wiig, Zoe Bell, Eve, and Drew Barrymore), her relationships with Pash and her parents fall apart. To complicate things, she also picks up a boyfriend at the derby, Oliver (Landon Pigg).

There are several remarkable things about this movie. The first is that it focuses almost completely on relationships between women. Bliss and Oliver's relationship is featured to some degree, but it has none of the complication or importance of the ones between Bliss and Pash, Bliss and her mother, or even Bliss and her new teammates. They could have left the entire boyfriend thing out, but even with it in, it didn't get too much in the way of what was really important.

The second thing I found really fantastic was that the film took on the issue of aging in women. It was addressed in Bliss' interaction with her mom, who had been a beauty pageant queen in her youth as well, but it's even more prevalent in Bliss' rivalry with another skater, Iron Maven (Juliette Lewis). I've wondered how the generational gap is going to play out in roller derby as younger women (like Bliss) start to take advantage of what those a decade or more older (like Maven) have built, and I haven't see anything about it anywhere else, so I was thrilled they addressed it in Whip It.

The third thing I loved was the relationship between Bliss and her father (Daniel Stern). Dad's a good old boy, but he loves his family, and his eventual pride in Bliss' accomplishments on the track tears me up. Dads of girls tend to get a pretty short shrift on film--I can't think of the last really good and realistic father-daughter relationship I've seen--so this is a unique and welcome feature of the film.

The final thing worth mentioning is Bliss herself. I liked Ellen Page in Juno, but this is way better. Bliss is a real teenager--she's fucked up and she's awkward and she's not always right, but she's trying and learning and growing. Plus she's a roller derby badass. She's a heroine.

The movie is not particularly racially diverse. Bliss has one Black teammate, Rosa Sparks (Eve). She's the only person of color in the derby, from what I can tell. Having seen the actual Austin roller derby, I think this is an oversight. Where are the Latina skaters? There is one Latino cast member--Birdman, who works with Bliss and Pash (Ecuadorian actor Carlo Alban), but there really should be some more women of color skating. If the filmmakers had used some of the real Austin derby to fill in their scenes, they'd have had that. Plus it would have improved the skating.

Even though I would have liked to see Latina skaters, I'm still giving Whip It four stars. It's a near perfect girl power movie, skating right into the same place in my heart where A League of Their Own lives.

Posted by Grace in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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Jennifer's Body was not on my must-see film list. I saw the previews, was skeptical, and agreed to take it on because I love Heroine Content. Then I started reading other people's reviews--lots of mentions of Heathers, even a few of Buffy-implications that it was self-aware, if a bit thin, farce. I can handle that, I thought. I liked writer Diablo Cody's Juno well enough, and loved director Karyn Kusama's Girlfight (reviewed here). By the time I actually saw Jennifer's Body, I was almost excited about it.

That excitement was so very misplaced. This movie is terrible. The Willamette Week review called Jennifer's Body "Heathers as a Maxim photo spread," and I'd say even that is too kind. It's not just the stupid teenage sexuality that the film centers around that makes it so bad--I was expecting that. And it's not just the fact that Megan Fox (Jennifer) can't act at all, not even a little bit--I was expecting that, too. But that farce I was promised? It never showed up.

The movie tries to be a farce. The idea--teenage hottie becomes literal man-eater--could be, if handled correctly, very amusing and even a biting (pun intended) indictment of horror film culture and high school and whatever else one felt like indicting. But this movie isn't funny, and it the only thing it indicts is Cody's ability to write believable dialogue. Or construct a compelling plot.

A Flick Filosopher, Maryann writes :

Cody has been saying all sorts of things to anyone who will listen about how Jennifer's Body is supposed to be some sort of allegory about adolescent girls, from their bitchiness to their best friends to their disordered eating. But all that's here are a few placeholders, points in the story at which some allegory could have been inserted later.

This is exactly the problem. The potential for farce, for allegory, really for anything even a little bit interesting, is here, but nothing ever comes from it. I can't help but think about how the same plot would be handled by smart writers, and it's a beautiful thing. Which just makes this complete failure all the more depressing.

The single bright spot in this dismal film (the way it's shot is dismal, too--half of it is too dark to see) is Amanda Seyfried. As Needy, Jennifer's put-upon best friend, and the film's eventual heroine, Seyfried has the honor of being the only person in the entire cast who can act (which those of us who know her from Big Love already knew). I know I'm supposed to have been impressed by Amy Sedaris' turn as Needy's mom, but I wasn't. Seyfried was quite literally the only member of the cast who shouldn't have her Actor's Guild card yanked. She also has the film's only really funny line, which I won't ruin for you, in case you do happen to see this awful movie.

I could go on and on about how bad this was, and list out all the things it completely fails to do, but that would waste everybody's time. I agree, for the most part, with nearly everybody who has already reviewed this everywhere else on the Internet. It sucked. Don't see it. No redeeming qualities. No stars.

Posted by Grace in No Stars: Setting Us Back 20 Years
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I thought I'd take a look ahead at 2010 and see what may be coming down the pike. IMDB's list of action films slated for 2010 is undoubtedly a hazy look into the future, but I did find some items of interest while going through it. Here are some notes, and I'll probably check the list again late this year to see what else has emerged. If you know of anything I missed, let me know!

Films with a scheduled release date:

• The Book of Eli, January 15th: Post-apocalyptic. I think I saw a woman wearing a sword in the trailer, so I'm putting it on the list. Here's the official site with the trailer.
• Takers, February 19th: Bank robbery film, Zoe Saldana is in the cast, no idea what her role is but I'm hopeful.
• Legend of the Red Reaper, March 10th: "For a thousand years, the Reapers guarded mankind from the demons that wait in the dark. Now, at the beginning of a new age, the Reapers are betrayed and slaughtered. Only one Reaper remains - Red, and she's out to exact revenge." Here's a really terrible trailer on YouTube. I like it when the blood spatters on the camera lens. Does anyone use the term C-Movie?
• Clash of the Titans, March 26th: With all the goddesses around, here's hoping at least one of them is actually badass.
• Iron Man 2, May 7th: Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, May 28th: A prince and a princess (theoretically) working together to save the world. No sign of the princess in the trailer on YouTube, though. [Update 9.24 - see Zahra's comment below about the race issues here.]
• Broken Blade, June 4th: There's a hint of a female assassin in the brief plot summary for this one.
• Resident Evil: Afterlife, August 27th: I can't imagine this series is going to get better on Heroine Content criteria.
• Red Dawn, September 24th: Remake of the 1984 film.

Films without a scheduled release date:

• Agustina: "Agustina de Aragón, (1786 - 1857) was a famous Spanish heroine who defended Spain during the Spanish War of Independence. First as a civilian and later as a professional officer in the Spanish Army." Adapted from a graphic novel, here's the official site.
• Armed Robbery: Lesbian lovers rob a bank and run for the border.
• Arena: "A group of soldiers find themselves transported to a strange, terrain-shifting landscape where they must fight the best warriors from different eras and histories in a gladiatorial, kill-or-be-killed battle." Surely there's a woman in here somewhere.
• Dead in the Head: Bounty hunters and zombies. one of the bounty hunters, known as The Babe (haaaack) is played by a woman.
• Her Vietnam: A nurse serving in Vietnam when her base is attacked.
• Jennifer Government: "Welcome to paradise! The world is run by American corporations [...] Jennifer Government, a legendary agent with a barcode tattoo, is the consumer watchdog from hell." I know i read the book, but for the life of me I can't remember anything about it.
• Kick-Ass: Superhero movie (kind of), adapted from the comic book written by Mark Millar who also wrote Wanted. Chloe Moretz plays "Hit Girl." You can find io9's coverage here. I suspect this one will be a bit much for me.
• Kungfused: Some kind of action comedy, there are a lot of women in the cast.
• Maximum Ride: "Six kids who are pretty normal - except that they're 98 percent human and 2 percent bird. They grew up in a lab, living like rats in cages, but now they're free." Adapted from a young adult science fiction / fantasy series.
• Opponent: Alien crash lands in junkyard, owner of junkyard offers a reward for someone to kill it, mayhem ensues. A lot of women in the cast.
• Red Sonja: Still shows a release date of 2010, although news reports say filming won't start until then. The posters are horrifying.
• Roadkill: Female assassin is mentioned in the plot description. Supposedly an action comedy, the guy who directed Blue Crush is slated to direct.
• Sin-Jin: No information, just a couple of visuals on the IMDB page that I find intriguing. Chinese film.
• The Assassin: Taiwanese film about a female assassin in eighth century China who wants to retire.
• The Story of Bonnie and Clyde: Hilary Duff leads. Oh my.
• Witchblade: The television show almost came together for me, we'll see if the film ever appears.

Posted by Skye in Odds and Ends
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I saw Whiteout by myself, in a nearly empty theater, in the afternoon. My perfect film-viewing experience. I'm likely giving it a more positive review than it's getting in most forums, and that may be why.

Whiteout's main character is U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko, played by Kate Beckinsale. That would make her the heroine (it also makes her the only woman in the film). Her first scene, for absolutely no plot-driven reason, features her stripping out of full cold weather gear and taking a shower. Not exactly an auspicious beginning.

It does get better. The beginning shower scene is very much in the same vein as Sigourney Weaver's stripping down to her underwear at the end of Alien--a single gratuitous moment for a character who is otherwise nearly completely sexless. Beckinsale spends the majority of the film in her parka. She is, after all, at the South Pole, and she's working. She's the law in these parts, and she's got murders to solve. No argument from me there--there isn't a ton of physical fighting, but Marshall Stetko does her job, puts herself at risk to keep other safe, and performs in a generally admirable way. I just wish she could have done it without the survivor flashbacks from the botched job that sent her to the South Pole in the first place. Without those moments, she'd have been cool and competent--something like Ripley, or even a bit like Frances McDormand's Marge from Fargo. With them, she's not entirely trustworthy and seems just a second away from needing rescue.

To her credit, though, Stetko never ends up having to be rescued. Though three men assist her, at various times, it's always her show. The male characters by whom she's surrounded respect her and even defer to her. She is also blessedly without either children or a romantic relationship to motivate her. In a really welcome change, Stetko is a heroine because (gasp!) that's her job. A very gender-neutral reason, I'd think. All in all, Marshall Stetko is a pretty good heroine.

On the race front, Whiteout is pretty... well, white. There is one major character of color, pilot Delfy (played by African-American actor Colombus Short). He's a good character--performs his job well, doesn't play into a lot of Black stereotypes. There is only one of him, but this movie's got a pretty small cast, so I'd give this one a pass on race, if it weren't for the Russians.

The Russians are what start it all. The film begins (before even Kate Beckinsale in her underwear) with a planeload of Russians in the 1950s, killing one another and crashing their plane over some sort of mysterious treasure. But first, they drink vodka and say "yah" a lot. Seriously, It's Boris and Natasha level ridiculous.

If I'd skipped the first five minutes or so of this film, I'd probably have given it four stars. No slapstick Russians and no Marshall Stetko stripping and I'd have been hard-pressed to find an HC flaws here. That isn't to say it's a great movie--it's got a pretty thin plot and it's a little bit boring. Given that, and those first five minutes that I did have to sit through, I'm going with three stars.

Editing on 09/17/09: As Skye suggested in the comments, I'm knocking this film down to two stars after learning (thank you Jysella!) that Sharpe was a woman in the book on which this film was based. There was just no reason to make Sharpe a man in the film. I cannot tell you how much better this movie would have been has Lily Sharpe been retained.

Posted by Grace in 2 Stars: So Close
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A few tidbits to share with y'all today.

Obviously we're behind on this one, but the Avatar teaser trailer is up at the official site. I am afraid of the CGI. (Hat tip to The Park Bench for the link, check out their blog if you haven't.)

One of my favorite new discoveries is Mary Robinette Kowal's Reel Fantasy blog over at AMC. I particularly liked Off With Her Head? Why Fantasy Hates Good Queens and The Worst-Dressed Women Warriors in Fantasy.

I disagree with his rejection of Lara Croft (while accepting some of his criticisms), but I Miss Sarah Connor is a good piece over at new blog The Guy's Guide to Feminism.

Real life "Stiletto Spy School" for women. Hmm. (Hat tip to guest poster d for this one and the next.)

Thanks to Entrepreneur Goddess for uploading video of this panel to YouTube: "Comic Con 2009. Sigourney Weaver, Elizabeth Mitchell, Zoe Saldana, Eliza Dushku on being female and breaking the glass ceiling in the entertainment world." I think Zoe Saldana is amazingly generous in her comments about how sexism isn't "on purpose" and "education" is the solution. You can find additional recordings of this panel as you're viewing this one. YouTube is magic that way. Or dangerous. I can't tell.

Skinny vs. Strong: Who Wins? at The Great Fitness Experiment. So interesting to read while thinking about casting of women in action films.

Faux Action Girl at Television Tropes and Idioms.

From 2001: Badass girls on film: Is it a good thing when women beat the crap out of men at the movies? by Gina Arnold in Salon.

Posted by Skye in Linky Goodness
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I have seen Conan The Barbarian several times, but somehow I had never seen Red Sonja. Now that I have, I'm really not sure how to rate it. My grasp of Arnold Schwarzennegger's acting career is shaky, so I was stunned to find out this film was made in 1985. I wouldn't have guessed 1960, but 1985 seems so... modern, for a film with such blatant anti-feminist content. (Perhaps I should brush up on my feminist history again, there's probably a good explanation and I'm just not connecting the dots.)

The premise of the film offers an opportunity for something very feminist, especially since few women had picked up swords in leading roles before Brigitte Nielsen portrayed Sonja. But here's my summary of Sonja's origin story. Notice anything problematic?

There was once a woman named Sonja. The Evil Queen Gedren (Sandahl Bergman) made a Lesbian Pass at Sonja, who was rightfully disgusted. So the Evil Lesbian Queen had her family murdered and Sonja raped (complete with a shot of her grimacing face and the assailant's bobbing shoulder). Sonja then received great physical strength from "the spirits" and learned how to fight so she could pursue revenge.

How different would it have been like this?

There was once a very strong and capable woman named Sonja. She ran a farm with her family, and an Evil Queen wanted them to pay higher taxes. Sonja refused, so the Evil Queen had her family murdered and her farm destroyed. Sonja then spent several years learning how to fight so she could pursue revenge and free the people of her land from the tyranny of the Evil Queen.

(If she were that cool, though, Nielsen might have gotten top billing in her own movie instead of coming in second after Arnold.)

(And the origin story would be just like one typically written for a man.)

Sonja does become a fearsome fighter, but she's continually rescued by Arnold. She's also constantly told things like "you must learn to like men a little better" and "hatred of men in a lovely young woman could be your downfall." The end of the film reinforces the continual theme that without the love of a man, a woman is nothing. Sonja and Arnold are fighting, and if she loses, she basically has to date him. "Why does she fight so hard?" an observer asks, "She doesn't want to win."

Compared to the other women in the film, though, Sonja is a model of self-determination, wisdom, and strength. The Queen is a megalomaniacal idiot, not a grim and determined adversary, and her sexual orientation is portrayed as part of her moral decay. Sonja's sister is in a female warrior cult that prays to the "God of Gods." They're good fighters, and they defend themselves well against overwhelming odds, but when they're captured and thrown into a pit in their own temple, they just cry, beg, and moan. No shouts of defiance, no angry promises of vengeance from their god. Just tears and wails, instead of using the secret escape route they should have built in when they designed the darn thing.

Despite what the screenwriters do to Sonja, though - making her by turns unfulfilled spinster, damsel and distress, and even surrogate mommy - there is something to like here. Nielsen's Sonja is a woman on a mission. She is tough, she has no patience for fools, and she doesn't take crap from anyone. Nielsen is dressed in the traditional "I'll be fighting people with swords but we wouldn't want to cover my skin" type of costume, but it almost seems like she just doesn't have time to indulge in any exhibitionism. She has some important REVENGE to commit, people!

If only the filmmakers could stop shaking their heads and murmuring "poor dear, someday she'll get over this anti-man thing and settle down."

Unsurprisingly, this film had a number of other issues. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but I was unconfortable watching the white woman schooling the Asian child (played by Ernie Reyes. Jr., who is of Filipino descent) in combat techniques and philosophy that she learned from Asian men. The only fat character is a clumsy, subservient servant with a heart of gold for the child he follows.

For a while, I thought I would give it no stars. Perhaps it was my horror seeing the posters for the new Red Sonja movie that Robert Rodriguez is producing that made me give Sonja herself a closer look.

She's trapped in a movie that stabs her in the back repeatedly and disrespects everybody but the glorious white man - but even in this film from almost 25 years ago, I don't think Red Sonja sets us back 20 years. I think it's more typical than anything - kernels of feminist empowerment sabotaged by filmmakers who think women are jokes. If I could rate the character and the film separately, I would, but unfortunately I'm going to rate the film itself and give it one star.

Posted by Skye in 1 Star: Typical
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I did a mini-review of Stick It a while back, but since we've been searching for some positive vibes here lately at Heroine Content, I decided to re-watch it and pay more attention. I was so glad I did.

Stick It tells the story of Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym), a former Olympic-level gymnast who (for reasons unknown to anyone but Haley) walked off the team as they were poised to take gold. Collared by the cops after some good-spirited destruction of a vacant home, she is sentenced by the judge to return to gymnastics training or face jail time.

She's sent to a gym run by Burt Vickerman (Jeff Bridges), a gruff but kind coach who has a rep for injuries in his trainees. If you're sensing there may be a "wiser older man coaching a rebellious young woman so she can find her true potential while he redeems himself" theme coming up, you're right, and it includes all the elements you'd expect to find in a sports movie - lots of prescribed running, some pushing, some mockery. Haley doesn't get any breaks because she's a girl. She's expected to work her butt off, and so are the rest of her teammates. At one point, Haley's voiceover narration goes something like this: "Elite gymnastics is like the Navy SEALS, only harder."

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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I am waiting to be inspired again. I am waiting for another Ripley, another Tank Girl, another Selene. While I am waiting, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a perfectly acceptable way to pass the time.

Despite my misgivings about the ridiculous directorial decision to have Sienna Miller wear a padded bra to play The Baroness, I did indeed head to my local always-deserted-for-7pm-showings movie theater to see the transformation of one of my favorite childhood cartoons into a big budget action spectacle.

Now when I say "favorite childhood cartoons," I don't mean that I actually recall many details about the series. There was a team of good guys called G.I. Joe, there was a team of bad guys called Cobra, and that's about all I got. In this incarnation, G.I. Joe is an international military superforce that swoops down to save Our Hero, Duke (Channing Tatum), a regular military guy, just as he's about to lose some nasty nanomite warheads to an attack force headed up by his ex-honey. Ex-honey, Ana a.k.a The Baroness (Sienna Miller), turns out to be working for the team that officially turns into Cobra by the end of the film, and now we're all caught up, yes?

Posted by Skye in 3 Stars: Strong Contenders
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I know almost nothing about martial arts movies. I don't think I've ever seen anything starring Bruce Lee. I know I haven't seen Prachya Pinkaew's apparently legendary Ong-bak. However, now that I've seen Pinkaew's newest offering, Chocolate, I feel compelled to search his other films out.

From the perspective of women kicking ass, Chocolate is nothing short of amazing. The protagonist, Zen (JeeJa Yanin) spends the majority of the movie running around kicking the asses of people (mostly men) twice her size and three or four times her age. She's flawless, brutal, and never loses. She repeatedly saves her male counterpart, Moom (Taphon Phopwandee), who never fights. And it is her, not her absent father Masashi (Hiroshi Abe), who eventually wins the big last battle.

Zen also has what I assume is intended to be an autism-spectrum disorder. She doesn't talk much, and when she does it is very simplistic. Her expressions tend towards blankness. She has obsessions. She has a pathological fear of houseflies. She actually reminds me, both when she's fighting and when she's not, of River from Serenity/Firefly. This could have been handled very, very badly.

Posted by Grace in 3 Stars: Strong Contenders
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