2001's Spy Kids was either going to be awesome or horribly annoying. That's how movies written for kids work. Lucky for us, it's awesome.

Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino play Gregorio and Ingrid Cortez, spies on opposite sides who fell in love and have since married, settled down, and had two children. Their children, who have no idea their parents were once spies, are Carmen (Alexa Vega who is half Colombian) and Juni (Daryl Sabara, who is Jewish and as far as I can tell, has no Hispanic background.)

When Gregorio and Ingrid are called back into action, then abducted by the forces of evil, Carmen and Juni have to work together to find and save their parents. Their "uncle" Felix (Cheech Marin) comes to get them, but the forces of evil show up soon after and overpower him while the children flee. Then it turns out that one of their parents' colleagues, Ms. Gradenko (Teri Hatcher), is in on the abduction, so the children are basically on their own.

I loved the film's cues that it's the female half of this family that's starving for a little adventure. This movie starts off with Ingrid's barely hidden longing for the life she left behind. She loves her family, but she also wishes she could have that thrill back. Gregorio is the one who downplays the practicality of combining spying and parenting (although he seems to be doing a little more work on the side than he lets on, and he assumes that he would be the one to go on a mission if necessary.) Carmen, it is revealed, has been sneaking away from school and basically leading a double life (an international one, no less).

After their parents' abduction, the children eventually track down Machete, Gregorio's estranged brother (Danny Trejo) and steal a vehicle and a bunch of spy gear from him so they can free their parents. As they take on the type of work their parents do, Juni realizes that he's perfectly capable, and Carmen learns to be a better sister. By the end, the children have become full-fledged agents themselves. Machete reconciles with Gregorio, and the entire family vows to stop keeping secrets from each other and work as a team.

I particularly appreciated Ingrid's role in this film. She's a mother and an agent, but she doesn't head off to fight the good fight because she's a mother, to save her children. She does it because it's her job, and she loves it. It makes her a whole person. She's smart, determined, and tough, and watching her work as an equal with her husband is lovely.

Her daughter, Carmen, has inherited many of her characteristics, and even when she's being a brat to her brother, she's fun to watch. She starts off as a dreamer and ends up as a tough, capable girl with a bright future in espionage. The presence of both mother and daughter in the film gets away from the Only Woman scenario. It also seems perfectly normal for her to carry on her family's trade, just as it's normal for her brother. (The presence of evil robots that look just like the children provides an opportunity for us to see Evil Carmen as well, and that's fun.)

Tracy McLoone, in her review at Pop Matters, argues that the Cortez family is a step forward for Hollywood: "a kind of harmless difference: exotic, but with enough Hollywood familiarity to make them - and the movie as well - charmingly offbeat rather than threateningly disturbing. [...] These are actual Latino characters - albeit distinctly upper-class - who are neither peripheral nor criminal nor Rosie Perez." I don't agree with McLoone that Ingrid is possibly supposed to be from another Latin American country, unless the name Ingrid is more popular in Latin America than I would have guessed. It was absolutely refreshing, though, to see an entire children's film about a healthy, happy Latino family. On the other hand, it was somewhat depressing to realize that if someone who looks like Danny Trejo had been cast as Gregorio, or the other three family members spoke with as much of an accent as Banderas does, it would probably never have been made.

Baby steps, I guess.

While the clownish antics of bad guys Tony Shalhoub (whose parents are from Lebanon) and Alan Cummings get old with multiple viewings, overall this is a solid film and I would recommend you give it a whirl if you're in the mood for some light entertainment. Carmen qualifies as one of the very few women or girls of color in action roles that we've been able to review and enjoy here at Heroine Content. Ingrid is also a treat. I appreciated the way the filmmakers respected her and the kids - when women and children are far too often dismissed.

By Heroine Content standards, it deserves props. Four stars.

Posted by Skye in 4 Stars: Greatest Hits
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If I actually played video games, the number of video game movies I see would make a lot more sense. Despite my complete lack of playing, I have to admit that I saw both Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation in theaters. On opening day. And I bought the soundtracks.

You can stop judging me now. It's not like I think they're good movies. My schedule was a little more free back then, and some people I know wanted to go, so I went.

Okay, that's only an excuse for the first one.

Rewatching these films made me realize how far I have come in viewing my entertainment with a critical eye. Meaning that I apparently had no critical eye whatsoever back then, despite a bunch of liberal arts schoolin', or I simply declined to think while watching these films because otherwise it would be too depressing.

In case you have so far escaped exposure to the glorious and complex storytelling that is the Mortal Kombat universe, let me introduce you. Lord Rayden, who is the deity of a group of Asian monks but who is played by uber-white guy Christopher Lambert, lures three possible Chosen Ones to a boat so he can sail off with them and convince them to save the world. It seems that Earth has been getting its backside handed to it in a series of tournaments that will decide the fate of the world, and this is our last chance to win and keep Planet Home from being overrun by nasty evil crawly things.

Our three potential Chosen Ones who can defeat the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, whose mother was Japanese) include Liu Kang (Robin Shou, whose parents were from Shanghai), who is trying to avenge his brother's death; Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), a white boy action film star who wants to prove that he's more than a pretty boy; and Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson, also white), a former police officer who is investigating her partner's death. As Lord Rayden says, any one of these three could be the one who defeats the bad guy and saves the world.

That's not really true, because what are the chances that a woman in an ensemble cast is going to be the Chosen One? I appreciate the effort, but it lacks plausibility.

The film starts off pretty well. Sonya is dressed appropriately for a commando mission, and her second in command, Jax (Gregory McKinney) is an African-American man who is treated like a competent professional and a good friend to boot. Johnny assumes Liu is basically the bellhop, presumably because he's dressed a little scruffy and he's Asian, which means he must be part of the crew? Unclear. Anyway, comeuppance follows quickly, and the audience is supposed to think Cage is kind of an arrogant twit for that incident.

Things start to go downhill pretty quickly once the trio arrives on the island where this round of the tournament will take place. Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto, of Puerto Rican descent) is introduced, billed as the "most dangerous adversary" on the Bad Guy team, but then fails to do much of anything to merit such a warning. (But hey, a woman of color in an action role! How many times does that happen?)

Sonya's big fight is a parody, which lavishes much attention on her pained reactions to being hit and little attention to any useful undergarments which women in athletic situations would generally employ. I believe at one point I yelled "Get some undergarments, lady!" and my husband yelled "Hell, get some overgarments!" I guess her tank top and hot pants did not qualify as overgarments to him, especially for someone about to be in the equivalent of a mixed martial arts smackdown.

Aside from Kitana and Sonya, there aren't any other women - which might explain why the male characters provide constant commentary on both of their looks. If there were more women, you could spread it out more. Sonya also does the cliched "I don't need your help, I can take care of myself" thing even though the audience is being telegraphed that this is completely untrue. Especially when the bad guy grabs her by the hair, kidnaps her, and puts her in a studded leather mini-dress and Tawny Kitaen hair.

Like most lower budget action and martial arts films, the casting in this film is more diverse than blockbuster films. That's not to say they use this resource wisely. For example, Art (Kenneth Edwards), an African-American fighter who is in the tournament, is basically sacrificed to one of the bad guys in a "save the white folks and the Chosen Asian Guy" maneuver.

But in the end, Liu Kang saves the world, and isn't that what really matters?

"Wait!" you may say, "If the world is saved, then where does the second film come from?"

It turns out that the bad guys cheated. Oh the shock! Yes, the forces of evil have decided to screw the rule book and invade Earth anyway. So once again, the fearless trio of Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade must ride to the rescue. Except Princess Kitana is with them because it turned out she was not actually bad and she's Liu's girlfriend now.

As the fight begins, Sonja is (unsurprisingly) the first to fall, and poor Johnny Cage gives his life to protect her. She swears she will kill Kahn, the bad guy who took his life, but since Kahn is the star bad guy for this installment, we know that's an empty promise. At least in this film, she doesn't get abducted... because it's Kitana's turn! Bye bye, Kitana, have fun sitting in an iron birdcage.

To defeat the forces of evil, Liu and Sonya each need reinforcements. Liu is sent by Lord Rayden to... wait for it... a Native American shaman! For wisdom! (The character's name is Nightwolf, he is played by actor Litefoot, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation.) And this half naked woman named Jade shows up and she's pretty much a Dragon Lady! (Jade is played by Irina Pantaeva, whose ethnic background is a Siberian minority group called Burkat, related to Mongolians.) And Liu sees visions of Kitana in his dreams, and she looks like she's been subjected to a Glamour Shots makeover, because everyone knows that women aren't really fighters, they're soft and pretty! With lots of eye makeup! Meanwhile, Sonya goes to find her old partner Jax (now played by Lynn "Red" Williams), last seen as a perfectly normal dude who happens to be African-American. Now he has cybernetic arms or some shit, and he's all about the street slang. (It's really, really, really bad.)

Then Sonja ends up in a chick fight mud wrestling scene.

No really, I'm serious.

(Do you see why I'm afraid of the next Resident Evil movie? They're heading this direction, I tell you.)

Throw in some additional commentary on women's bodies, including Lord Rayden who is supposed to be the younger god of all enlightenment or whatever asking "Can she fight as good as she looks?" Defeat Sheeva (Marjean Holden, a woman of color), the badass female general from the dark side by simply dropping a cage on her (oooh, the symbolism). And this time, it's Princess Kitana who saves the world.

Huh? A woman is going to save the world?

Okay, let me clarify. Liu Kang defeats the bad guy. However, we are told it would all be for naught if Princess Kitana doesn't love her mommy enough to make her stop being so damn evil. Yes, the undead Queen Sindel (played by Musetta Vander, who is white) is the key to undoing the partial fusion of the Earth Realm with the Outworld, and it's up to Kitana to bring mommy back to the side of light.

I don't think even the writers would claim it makes sense. If you've been keeping track of the casting though, you may have noticed that quire a few people of color and women got acting jobs because of these two fine cinematic productions. So I will give the Mortal Kombat film oeuvre one star.

Posted by Skye in 1 Star: Typical
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So Grace and I were all excited about our new! weekly! posting schedule, and then my hosting company got infected and all my blogs went down and wow, it's really hard to get back to posting once the wind has been taken out of your sails by evil hackers right as you're staging a posting rally. Thanks to everyone who emailed to ask if everything was okay with us while the blog had completely disappeared. Y'all make us feel like rock stars.

Let's do some links, and then we'll get back on the whole "movie review" thing shortly.

Jennifer K. Stuller over at Ink-Stained Amazon has released her first book, Ink-Stained Amazons and Cinematic Warriors: Superwomen in Modern Mythology. She quoted Grace twice and me not at all, because Grace is more of a thinker and thus is more quotable, so I retaliated by keeping the review copy I was supposed to send Grace and buying her one of her own instead. (See? Not much of a thinker = terrible revenge plan.) We are planning to exploit Jennifer and her book ruthlessly to produce content for our blog in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that.

If you disliked my review of Book of Eli, which at last count included everyone, you will probably like Girls on Film: Women Are Doomed if the Apocalypse Hits by Monika Bartyzel on Cinematical much better.

If anyone out there reads German well enough to tell me what the heck this article is saying, that would be awesome: X-Men Origin: Wolverine. They totally quote us! And for the record, now that I have read a bunch of X-Men comics, I am WAY more offended by this film making Emma Frost anything other than the badass she always has been. Teenage captive for whom the diamond thing is her primary mutation, indeed.

Going Native: Avatar on Every Day I Write The Book and The Evolution of "Avatar" on Reappropriate (which you have all probably already seen) were my two favorite pieces on this film. I'm never going to see it, and I like to laugh, so these two posts together were pretty much all I needed.

Speaking of movies I will never see and laughter, The Buffy vs. Edward mashup video that I found via the post Bella vs. Buffy on Fouth Wave Feminism is hysterical. You've probably all seen that too, but if I post about it here then I can find it later.

On the upcoming film front, since I posted back in September (omg it was that long ago?) about what I was seeing on the horizon for 2010, I've unsurprisingly come across some additional items of interest.

The Losers (April 9th) somehow totally got by me until about a month ago. I think it's going to piss me off based on the trailer, and I can't decide whether to track down the comic first. When I saw the Whiteout movie before I read the comic, ignorance was bliss. Here's the trailer for The Losers:

The trailer for Salt (July 23rd) is not embeddable, so here's the link to the Salt trailer on YouTube.

Others on our possible 2010 list include Robin Hood (c'mon, Cate!), Jonah Hex (Megan Fox and "voodoo," surely this won't be problematic!), Knight & Day (yikes), Red Dawn, Red - and yes, Predators.

What else is going on out there, peeps? What have we missed while on fall and early winter hiatus?

Posted by Skye in Linky Goodness
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First, the warning: this film includes a fairly graphic, though short, rape scene. It's also graphically violent in a way kung fu is often not.

The basis is this: Madame M (Almen Wong Pui-Ha) runs a high-end assassin business. At the beginning of the film, she kidnaps a load of young teenage girls with special martial arts and athletic talents, taking them to remote island to train them up to become the next generation of assassins. This is not your friendly Kill Bill-style assassin school, though--the girls are pretty well tortured, culminating in a competition in which they have to kill each other or be killed, with the winner(s) coming out as the new top killers.

The film's lead, Charlene (Maggie Q), a martial arts prodigy who was abducted from her politician mother in Hong Kong, develops a very close friendship on the island with an orphan street boxer, Katherine (Anya, called Kat). When it comes down to it, Charlene and Kat, as well as one other girl, Jing (Jewel Lee), are the only ones left standing.

The fairly plot-less film follows Charlene and the other two assassins through a few kills, interactions with Detective Jack Chen (Daniel Wu), who is investigating the "China Dolls" assassins, and Charlene's brief reunion with her mother. All the things you expect to happen do: the romantic relationship between Charlene and Jack; Charlene being forced to kill Jing; Kat's death and Charlene's avenging it; Charlene's struggle with who she was and who she has become; and so on. And then it ends.

As far as plot and acting are concerned, I have nothing good to say about this movie. It's bad. The martial arts, too, are something less than I'd have expected, especially since the director, Siu-Tung Ching, is a former choreographer who worked on Hero and Shaolin Soccer. There are some good fights, but the best one takes place in the film's first scene, so you spend the rest of the movie waiting for the next great one and coming up disappointed.

The women in the movie aren't treated terribly, though. The assassins are basically slaves, and at first I was indignant about that, but now that I think about it, the trope is used in male-centered action films regularly as well (that horrible movie Unleashed comes to mind), and at least the captor is just as female as the captives. I hated the romantic relationship between Charlene and Jack, but Charlene is totally the one in charge of it, and in charge of walking away from it, which is a pleasant change. I am also always a fan of friendships between women being highlighted, and that happens here, with Charlene and Kat.

Racially, the film is about as diverse as could be expected. The group of girls that Madame M gathers on the island are supposed to be from all over the world, and that seems to be the case. The major characters are all Asian, and they are a fairly diverse representation. Maggie Q is a Hawaiian native of Polish-American-Vietnamese descent; Almen Wong Pui-Ha is Chinese; Daniel Wu is Chinese-American; and Anya is Taiwanese. Sadly, the only black person I saw in the film is one of the men who gang rapes the new assassins as part of their training, which I could have lived without.

I had to really give some thought before I decided on the rating for this film. Ultimately, I'm going to give it two stars, one for cool female martial arts, which somehow never gets old, and one for the relationship between Kat and Charlene. If it were a better movie, or didn't include an unnecessary gang rape scene, or had somebody black in it's multi-racial cast who wasn't a rapist, it might get one more.

Posted by Grace in 2 Stars: So Close
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While everyone's busy tearing up Book of Eli, one of the comments did bring something to mind.

In our reviews, would it be necessary / appropriate / appreciated that if there is a scene involving sexual violence, for us to disclose that in our review?

In both Watchmen and Book of Eli, I have not commented on those scenes because for various reasons they weren't major factors in forming my overall opinion of the films. However I'm finally starting to catch the clue train here, several years late, and realize that this may be information that our readers would want to know before they watch a film based on our recommendation. If anyone actually does that.

Thoughts?

Posted by Skye in Odds and Ends
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When we got home from seeing The Book of Eli Friday night, my husband got on the web and started reading critics' reviews. I wish he hadn't, or that I hadn't sat behind him looking over his shoulder, because now all I want to write about is why Peter Howell of Toronto's thestar.com is a jackass for calling the two main female characters in this movie "hot hookers."

Allow me to sketch out a few things for you, so you can understand my annoyance, and then I promise to move on.

The title character, Eli, is played by Denzel Washington. He is traveling across post-Apocalyptic America (as directed by God) with the last surviving Bible. After introducing us to his character's amazing ability to hack up bad guys, the filmmakers start off the film's conflict by bringing Eli to a dusty small town controlled by Gary Goldman's Carnegie. Carnegie's control over the town is based on his knowledge of water sources and willingness to pay thugs to use violence against people who oppose him. His female companion, Claudia, played by Jennifer Beals, was born before the Apocalypse just like Carnegie and Eli. She is blind. Her daugher, Solara, played by Mila Kunis, works in Carnegie's bar.

Carnegie routinely uses physical violence against Claudia to control Solara, including ordering her to seduce Eli to gain his cooperation despite Claudia's pleas for mercy. Solara also seems to live with constant low-level harassment from Carnegie's chief henchman. Later in the movie, Carnegie uses her as a bargaining chip to secure the cooperation of said henchman.

So Peter Howell calls them "hot hookers." Gee, I wonder what he thinks of non-fictional women who are in abusive relationships, or who are forced into prostitution by threat of violence?

We now proceed to the actual movie review.

The Book of Eli wasn't a terribly original movie. I'm not very good at guessing the ends of movies, but I could pretty much see where this one was going once it got underway. Good guy, bad guys, etc. It was, however, a well paced story with engaging characters in a reasonably solid post-apocalyptic setting. From a Heroine Content perspective, it also offered a couple of treats: Eli himself, and the eventual transfer of his quest/calling to Solara.

Washington's Eli is not the typical "omg he's so deadly" action hero. His moves are mind-boggling, but they aren't filmed the same as the hero-worshipping action scenes I'm used to. My point of contrast was the initial shooting scene in The Replacement Killers, where the point of the choreography and the soundtrack is to make the shooting beautiful, to make Chow Yun-Fat this almost supernatural being, gorgeous in his deadliness. With Eli, what we get instead is efficiency, and a sense that the violence basically happens to him, as a distraction from the real story of his life. It's something to avoid, or if it happens, to end quickly.

Instead of a killing machine, Eli is a person. He nurses his somehow still-surviving IPod, tries to keep himself clean in an environment where water is scarce, feeds a tidbit of his precious food to a mouse. He's been alone for a long time, we think, but he still has social skills. When he and Solara begin traveling together, he starts to loosen up and show some of who he might have been before the war. He quotes Johnny Cash. He makes jokes. He starts to remember that making the world a better place is something that needs to happen along the path of his journey, rather than just being the prize at the end of the road.

Solara, whom Robert W. Butler of the Kansas City Star called "a local wench," is (in my unpaid non-professional film critic opinion) an actual, full-fledged character who also finds her meeting with Eli a turning point. She was born after the war, so this is the only life she knows, but she knows that the way Carnegie runs things is wrong. Her fear for her mother's well-being is part of what keeps her at Carnegie's beck and call, but part of it must also be the lack of anywhere else to go. Post-apocalyptic wastelands are difficult that way. When Eli leaves town, her mother sends her after him for her own safety and she gladly takes the opportunity to get out from under Carnegie's domination. Something in her also responds to the religious message Eli is carrying, and she wants to learn.

Solara also goes from being someone who stands there and cries while her mother is being abused to someone who throws a grenade under an oncoming vehicle and then goes to drive off with a dead body in the passenger seat. (She doesn't even scream when it comes back to life, which I totally would have.) I was pretty impressed. When it comes time for her to make a choice between safety and risk, at the end of the film, she chooses risk and the chance to "change it" as Eli had challenged her when she first set out on the road with him and complained that she hated her town. She takes on his mission.

In my ideal world, there would now be a sequel where Solara is the lead. Apparently I'm the only one, because there was a lot of laughter in the theater when she suited up to head back home and kick some ass. The couple behind me commented that she would last two minutes, and the first person who came up to her would just kill her. Y'all know that I have derided the supposed ass-kicking qualities of faux heroines before, so I am willing to call that out when I see it. But given the revelations about Eli towards the end of the film and what that implies about the source of his abilities, I have no problem believing that a transfer has taken place, of a sacred duty and the accompanying skill set from one man to his successor. Usually I roll my eyes when a woman's ass-kicking ability is granted from an external source, a la Red Sonja, but in this case that puts Solara on an even footing with Eli and it builds on some strong raw materials so it's fine by me.

I will fault the film for lack of casting diversity. Beals is of both African-American and white background, which I didn't know before. Mila Kunis is Jewish, originally from Ukraine, though my guess is that many people assume something else, or a variety of something elses. There are a couple of people of color here and there in the background, but even with an African-American lead, the rest of the world looks awfully white. As usual. Can I just write a stock paragraph now and start including it a review by default, and then strike it though when it doesn't apply?

Without spoiling, I'm also sensing an issue with those revelations about Eli, and how they could be construed to reinforce a prejudice about the capabilities of individuals with certain characteristics. This question becomes even more disturbing if you agree with Cynthia Fuchs at Pop Matters in the third paragraph of her review about the filmmakers' construction of Claudia. I disagree that the filmmakers were using that tired trope but I do appreciate her monitoring for it. If that was the filmmaker's intention, then it would make me more suspicious about their perspective on Eli. THIS IS SO HARD TO DO WITHOUT SPOILING. In any event, I don't believe that Eli's innate capability is diminished by the revelations but I think some people would. See the film and let me know what you think. If you can make any sense of this at all.

I give this one three stars. Since our focus here is on women, and Solara comes to her ass-kicking fairly late in the game, I can't rank her up with our other faves. However, the pairing of this origin story of an action heroine (as I see it) and the strong performance by African-American Washington are a great mix.

Posted by Skye in 3 Stars: Strong Contenders
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I thought it was bad when I was seeing films that were adapted from video games. Then I saw Mutant Chronicles, which was adapted from a role playing game. So not good.

Mutant Chronicles takes place on some kind of 28th Century steampunk Earth that feels like it's an alternate World War II. Corporations rule the world and spend all their time fighting, until they are unlucky enough to break open an ancient machine from space that turns human beings into zombie mutants with primitive scimitars grafted to their right arms.

What's not to love?

Posted by Skye in No Stars: Setting Us Back 20 Years
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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.

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.

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.

Posted by Grace in No Stars: Setting Us Back 20 Years
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