The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project will not be Rock: It's Your Decision, as I had previously announced, but instead, Sean Penn's The Last Face, this movie that just got added to TVTropes' "So Bad IT's Horrible/Film" page. Its defining flaw? Mostly being set in a Liberian refugee camp and focusing on this bland relationship between two white people. Can The Reverend be any more specific? Well, I can try...

• Opening titles: “Ten years apart, the Liberian civil war of 2003 and the ongoing conflict within South Sudan today, share a singular brutality of corrupted innocence. A corruption of innocence only known to the West, by any remotely common degree … through the brutality of an impossible love … shared by a man … and a woman …” Is Penn comparing these two civil wars in Africa with a love story? Or is this their way of admitting that the only way these westerners could get a movie about Africa's geopolitical clusterfuck greenlit was by making it about two white people falling in love?
  
  
• "Especially when he would take me with him, I cherihed the days with my father." The wonky syntax that starts a brief monologue by Charlize Theron and a setof flasbacks that look like the crappiest  imitation of Terence Malick. And worse, this keeps happening when we flash back to the Liberian Civil War and we get scenes from her perspective. Once she finally comes  to Liberia, it keeps switching back between a relatively normal film and I Can't Believe It's Not One Of Terence Malick's Crappier Movies.
  
• Is sand animation usually this quick? Something that can be effectively done in the span of a piece of classical music?
  
• So, Charlize Theron is actually from South Africa, just like her character . Is this actually her real accent? Has she just been putting on an accent all this time? 
  
• Huh. It's set in Liberia, and it's taken about 20 minutes for a black person to actually have a line. 
  
• Jesus God, this guy's talking about a girl who was raped (along with her sister), ripped from vagina to anus (something that, thankfully, is not seen), and he's still saying "she's beautiful." Dafuq?
  
• You know what I'm reminded of? I get the feeling Penn wants me to think about Casablanca (admittedly, a bit of a stretch, given how tightly-plotted that film was and how it's based in a different part of Africa, one with darker-skinned residents) or Hotel Rwanda, but what's coming to mind is something very different. Last year, there was a little play on the West End called  All in a Row that caused a lot of controversy, first, for focusing on the raising of a non-verbal autistic oy with behavioral problems that was played by this horrifying little puppet, and then, once the actual content of the show came to light, that the parents were the sort of people who compare the disabled to animals, sexually assault her autistic son's carer while her husband is off in another room but their son isn't, and crap on the pillow and blame his son. And like this movie, it created a patronising portrait of a given issue that was several degrees removed from the experiences of those who had to deal with it. And unlike that show, this doesn't even have the potentially redeeming quality of having the three humanneurotypical characters be complete dumpster fires (I get the feeling that this might have worked if there was some moment where said autistic puppet actually gets to speak, even if it is in an aside and point out how fucked up everything is or even if it's just about the confusion that leads to him having behavior problems because of a fundamental mutual non-comprehension between himself and the rest of the world like it was for me, though, by all accounts, this doesn't happen). I'm 40 minutes in, and I struggle to think of anything that distinguishes Javier Bardem's and Charlize Theron's characters from, well, any doctor characters  I've seen in fiction. Their actors? Javier Bardem owning a green headlamp?
  
• Is she flirting with him by brushing her teeth?
  
• So? Are there any good things about this movie? Well, some of the music is good. Especially the actual African music, and there's also a love scene with the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Otherside", although it's kind of annoying when they decided to switch between three very different versions (a string quartet, the original, and a solo acoustic guitar version). And it's always nice to see Charlize Theron's feet. Sure, they're only in one scene, but it's actually a good one.
  
• Is that Jean Reno? Please tell me that isn't Jean Reno. Fucking Hell, it is Jean Reno. And his name is Dr. Memhet Love. You know what, unless you're making a Blaxsploitation movie, never give your character the last name Love.
  
• And she's upset that he loves "Otherside" that she storms out of the car, he tells her there are snakes around, and when she comes back to poke her head into the car to harangue him, he tries to close the door window on her face and starts to put the car into drive. Jesus fuck, who taught him bedside manner, Dr. Kelso? 
  
• "I've never seen the oppressed not become the oppressors." The sad thing is this is disturbingly accurate. Admittedly, this mostly applies when the oppressed gain power, and this probably should have been stated in a different context, preferably one that points out this is as true in the wealthier, whiter, nations of the world (the French Revolution would be a huge example, and you could probably argue that a far milder example of this is why, say, Clinton and Obama, despite being of the nominally center-left party, and hated and feared by the left, had a lot of policies that weren't all that different from their forebears.)
  
• Huh. Refugees are us. Well, at least we know Lauren Southern didn't write the screenplay. It would have been nice if we got some more of that in the filmproper.
  
• Wait, is the orchestra playing "Peace Train" along with a Pre-recorded Cat Stevens vocal track? Is this just a coincidence? Does Sean Penn just not know that maybe having the band perform and having an entirely different piece of music is really needlessly confusing?
  

So, next week is going to be a horror movie week, and we've got a bumper crop of shitty horror films that are shitty in very different ways, and I'm going to see if we can figure out which one would make the best inaugural entry (All parenthetical titles are mine alone and not something the filmmakers or studios were dumb enough to put into the titles): 

• Alone in the Dark (wherein Uwe Boll makes his first and likely only entry in the Project)
  
• Apartment 1303 (wherein yet another Japanese Horror Movie gets remade by people who strip away any redeeming qualities the original may have had.)
  
• Beast of Yucca Flats (Wherein we actually have a film that Mike and the Bots once riffed that's not exactly So Bad It's Good)
  
• Bless the Child (Wherein Paramount made a very stupid religious horror film and autism is apparently involved, even if it is possibly just psychic ability, fuck if I know.)
  
• Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (Wherein one of the guys who made the Paradise Lost documentary was tapped to do a Blair Witch Sequel, it turns out the studio has a very different idea of what it should be, and they just smash the two ideas together.)
  
• Haunting of Sharon Tate (Wherein Daniel Farrand manages to take a movie about the Manson killings boring as all fuck.)
  
• Life Zone (Wherein a Christian Filmmaker tries to make pro-life  propaganda and ends up with the biggest cinematic Own Goal since the Nazi Titanic movie.)
  
• Shark Exorcist (Wherein, I shit you not, they shoot a shark movie in landlocked Nashville, in what was, for a while, the worst movie I Hate Everything had ever seen.)
  
• Werewolves of the Third Reich (Wherein, somehow, Josef Mengele is married to Ilse Koch who just run Auschwitz for most of the movie, and there are no werewolves until the last 20 minutes.)
  
• While She Was Out (Wherein Kim Basinger has to survive in the woods  and avoids being killed off by the least  plausible gang-bangers in film history by turning into Jeff the Killer.)
  

[Angrboda]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Speaking of Sean Penn, I tried to watch ‘The Crossing Guard’ (he wrote and directed it). I made it to a little less than halfway. Even Jack Nicholson and David Morse couldn’t save this one.

Penn should stick to acting. He’s quite good at it.

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

Speaking of Sean Penn, I tried to watch ‘The Crossing Guard’ (he wrote and directed it). I made it to a little less than halfway. Even Jack Nicholson and David Morse couldn’t save this one.

Penn should stick to acting. He’s quite good at it.

Boru

It’s a shame, since Into the WilD and The Pledge proved he could pull off directing, even if the latter’s ending didn’t quite live up to the heartbreaking ending of the Dürrenmatt original.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Speaking of Sean Penn, I tried to watch ‘The Crossing Guard’ (he wrote and directed it). I made it to a little less than halfway. Even Jack Nicholson and David Morse couldn’t save this one.

Penn should stick to acting. He’s quite good at it.

Boru

It’s a shame, since Into the WilD and The Pledge proved he could pull off directing, even if the latter’s ending didn’t quite live up to the heartbreaking ending of the Dürrenmatt original.

It may have to do with the material, then.

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

Well, since I didn't get any recs from the horror films list I posted last week, in commemoration of the election, and in hopes that this time around, Trump's malfeasance repeats itself as farce rather than tragedy, I've chosen The Life Zone. It's a pro-life propaganda film that's probably the biggest cinematic Own Goal since the Nazi Titanic movie. And it gets stranger when you look at the director, Kenneth Del Vecchio. He's made a few other films, some of them even more cracked than this, like, say, a movie where he plays Barack Obama as a college student who sells his soul to Satan to become president (he's a pudgy middle-aged white guy, by the by), or another movie where he manages to fold a movie about the Aurora shooting (one with no less than four titles), with (I wish I was making this up), a Christmas movie about a kid who thinks if he earns a black belt before Christmas, his father will come back to him. But those two movies are not on Prime, and this one is.

• SpOOoOoOoOKY! Glass bottles we can't tell the context of.
  
• So, about 7 1/2 minutes into the film, we get some clue of what's going on. Robert Loggia plays this guy who's basically Jigsaw, except that instead of killing people with certain vices, he's kidnapping pregnant women who are considering abortions and forcing them to carry their pregnancies to term.
  
• Also, I get the feeling that he looks like a representation of Satan by a director who thinks he's being clever by putting him in the body of an old man in a black suit. I wonder if that will mean something.
  
• "What does he mean, Ms. Posey? If you remember your last whereabouts and that can help us, then tell us." Good fucking God this dialogue is stilted as fuck.
  
• A zombie  like state, but aware of everything?  That's not how zombies work.
  
• What about god's rights? He's not going to do anything, so why does it?
  
• Also, you're seriously going to have Aunt Ruth from The Girl Next Door and the useless mom from 16 Candles play this woman who's supposed to be the voice of reason?
  
• One girl implies she was being pressured into having an abortion by her abusive boyfriend, but apparently, she's still culpable for everything.
  
• Wait, they're all supposed to give birth to their babies at the same time? That's one hell of a coincidence.
  
• So, what happens to kill time before they give birth? Feed them pro-life propaganda, and by pro-life propaganda, we mean a video of vox pops of people  saying their opinion on abortion. And the fact that abortion is a polarising issue is supposed to be a revelation.
  
• And what I want to know is what's happening with their boyfriends/husbands. You'd think at least someone would try and find them in the intervening six-plus months.
  
• Also, they've been implanted with some device that uses electrodes to release a "harmless anaesthetic" that will get them to pass out once they get ten feet from the door. And this is somehow won't harm the baby, even though anaesthetics do, in fact, increase a risk of miscarriage.
  
• And after we get debriefed on what's  happening, we see this random montage of Nazi atrocities, slabs of ribs being passed, ceremonies from I think Burma, clips of Nosferatu, and insects, and the only thing I'm thinking is surely, a Quantum Mechanics professor is working out a striptease.
  
• When does this mass of cells magically become a human being? I'd say when it finally develops a nervous system, which is about four months into pregnancy.
  
• Splitting hairs  about the many babies who were aborted because they were viable in 2009 (5 months) and not 1973 (6 months) isn't much good, when you consider that the vast majority of abortions take  place in the first trimester.
  
• And they're turning it into a seven-month abortion think tank, but the best thing they can do is the director in a baseball cap hashing it out with someone I think is supposed to be his dad.
  
• Or you can argue the pro-choice position by talking about the days before Roe v. Wade when abortion was illegal. Or you can look at some case studies on Wikipedia's "Abortion in Ireland" page. Or you can look at this copypasta by a social worker that I'm going to put in the end. And you don't even have to convince people that abortion is right, just that outlawing it is a horrible idea that only makes it worse.
  
• So, one woman's loved ones ARE AWARE OF THIS HORSESHIT and their only responses to their daughter being falsely imprisoned against her will and their biggest takeaway from all this is "I'm so happy I'm going to have a grandchild"? You know, I'm shocked that I'm invoking Jesse Custer in the Project, but I have to ask, Jesse, help a  brother out will you?
  
  
• And it's the same with another of the women, with her boyfriend going so far as saying that "this was a mutual decision." And somehow, even lawyers are treating this like it's a fucking pregnancy retreat.
  
• So, who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to put a woman seven months pregnant on a ladder, especially when you're trying to force her to carry it to term.
  
• And subjecting us to the sound of babies crying is supposed to make us to sympathise with them? 
  
• Finally! We have a friend of the three women who acts normally to their friend being kidnapped, and calling these fuckers what they are: terrorists. But, of course, that doesn't quite cover it.
  
• And remember when I said this movie is the biggest own goal in cinematic history? It turns out that the big twist, which comes after two of the three women give birth, and one attempts to force a miscarriage, is that this whole thing was created to torture the one woman who ended up miscarrying. It turns out that she died during her abortion, and the two others were imaginary. And it turns out that they were in Hell all along. And Robert Loggia? Satan. Yes,  this pro-life propaganda movie is proudly casting its own side as kidnappers, torturers, and, oh, yeah, Satanic fuckers who care more about forcing women to carry their pregnancies  to term than anything else.
  

And, even beyond that horseshit, the dialogue is either just boring exposition or boring talking points, and the only person who seems to be having fun with this is Robert Loggia. Even if this  movie's morals didn't contradict my own views (or, for that matter, basic human decency), it would just be little  more than an unwatchable horror  movie. But with that, well, if I ever get around to doing another Deep Hurting Awards, I may as well give this the Scooby Doo Mask Off Award for its horrifying look at the extremes of the pro-life movement that at least some are apparently proud of.

And if you want to know how to stop abortion, unhide this spiel:

---

Let me tell you some things.

I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.

First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?

Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?

End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?

You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?

And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)

In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!

Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?

“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.

---

If anyone wants to respond to this, while my words don't have much weight as a non-mod, I'd advise you to either keep the subject to this movie, or start up your own damn thread.

Next week, as promised, will be Sean Connery's last movie: Sir Billi.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

‘Stand Up Guys’ (2012). Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin.

Pacino is released from prison after 28 years. He killed the son of a local gangster during a botched robbery, and now the gangster has order Pacino’s best friend (Walken) to kill him.

This film was MUCH better than I expected. At its core, it’s a study of friendship. Oddly enough, though, it’s at times a buddy movie, a dark comedy (particularly the scene where Pacino ODs on viagra), a revenge flick, etc. Normally, a film trying to be all things at once pisses me off, but it works here.

8/10.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I watch a different weird movie every night. Wake up wondering where dead people are right now. Pretty sure it's the tramadol.

[Angrboda]

I tend to watch bits of movies these days, and often things that I've already seen. So I've watched about 30 minutes of Drag Me To Hell as well as rewatching part of Moana.

[Rev. Rye]

I tend to watch bits of movies these days, and often things that I've already seen.  So I've watched about 30 minutes of Drag Me To Hell

Ah, yes, my waifu Alison Lohman's last starring role in a film before she more or less retired from film.