The Drink Tank 226 (2009).pdf

The Drink Tank 226- garcia@computerhistory.org

That is another amazing abstraction

from Mr. Steve Stiles. I love them. I think

that Steve’s really hit on something with

them. I now will quote from Dave Hicks, a

guy I only briely met in the UK who had

this to say about Steve’s irst Abstraction

cover.

Chris,

I’d just like to commend, support and

encourage Steve Stiles for the cover. There are

artistically conservative undercurrents in SF and

SF fandom (and someday I shall get together my

thesis that much of ‘orthodox’ SF illustration is the

last refuge oft landscape painting) so it’s pleasing

to see some abstract art and doubly so to see

some good abstract art.

I’d assume that Steve is familiar with

Frank Stella (one of my heroes when I was an art

student) but there’s also a British artist called

John Hoyland and some wonderful stuff and a less-

know American,

Frank Owen (whose early stuff isn’t showing up on

web searches -

shame) who I encountered in a London gallery -oh

- 25 years ago.

Jennifer’s Body: A Review and More

The following will be surprising to some

who believe that I’ve been joking about how

much I’ve loved the ilm Jennifer’s Body. Maybe

you think that it’d be hard for a guy to believe

that a horror ilm with a plot that could have

come out of the PowerBook of the latest

Hollywood Hack could possibly be the best

movie he’s seen all year. The answer to that is

very easy: because it’s the only ilm I’ve seen

this year that gets it. The it is the entire point

of this article. Explaining that it will take a bit of

time.

Let’s start with that plot. There’s this

girl called Anita who goes by the name Needy.

She’s a cute girl who is a total nerd and has a

wonderfully nerdy boyfriend. Her best friend is

the total sex pot, hot-bodied, ever-loving blue-

eyed thing, Jennifer. Jennifer and Needy head

off to a concert and a massive ire breaks out.

Jennifer and Needy end up getting separated

after the ire and Jennifer goes off with the

band that was playing. She meets with Needy

later and it’s obvious that she’s different. There

are a series of murders and Needy knows that

Jennifer is evil and she has to stop her.

OK, you know where this is going.

The entire thing just kind of folds-out,

doesn’t it? It’s obvious what happens,

who the good guys and the bad guys

are. You’ll know the second a character

comes on screen what they’re inal

disposition will be. You could literally go

down the list of characters and go ‘lives,

dies, lives, dies, lives barely…’ and never

be wrong. This is not the reason for

this ilm. This is not like, say, The Dark

Knight, where the plot is the driver. It’s also not

Friday the 13 th , where it’s supposed to scare

you. It’s also very much not Scream. I’ll talk

about that at length in a bit.

First off, there’s the obvious need to

explain the cast, because they are the key to

the presentation of the script which we’ll be

dealing with in a minute. The cast is very strong,

though on paper, it would not seem so. Amanda

Seyfried plays Needy. She’s the Plain Jane of the

pair. Amanda has giant eyes and is amazingly

gorgeous. It’s much like Rachel Leigh Cook

playing the Plain Jane character in She’s All That.

She’s gorgeous, but they put her in glasses and

she’s nerd! They help themselves by giving her a

very human boyfriend who isn’t Jonas Brothers

cute, but has a certain charm. He’s obviously

the most realistic character in the entire ilm,

and he’s really good. Johnny Simmons is his

name and he plays the role with good natured,

All-American joy. He’s also smart, which is

something that’s utterly important to the entire

ilm.

Jennifer is played by Megan Fox. She’s

perfect in the role. She’s quite possibly the only

modern ilm star who could have competed

with those beauties of the 1930s, 40s and

Dave Hicks

I love Stella. He’s a star who has

gone into so many ields. I met him at the

MFA in the 1990s. Here was our entire

conversation- ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. Stella.’,

‘Hey.’

It was magic.

This issue has a long piece from me

about the most kick-ass movie of all-time:

Jennifer’s Body, and a piece from Taral and

more! Let us begin.

50s. She is so amazingly hot. It’s insane how

gorgeous she is in this ilm. The hair, make-

up, costuming and so on are all perfect for

her. They knew exactly what they wanted to

make her into, and from everything I’ve heard

about Megan Fox, it wasn’t that dificult. Some

will say she’s pretty much playing herself. No

doubt that’s true, and it takes balls to play

yourself when you’re often accused of being

vapid, self-centered and obnoxious. I’d never

say that about Megan Fox, and I’ll gladly offer

my shoulder to cry on if Megan needs it after

reading whatever Perez Hilton is saying about

her. J.K. Simmons plays the teacher, the only

teacher we see for any length in the ilm, and

Amy Sedaris plays Needy’s mom, though she

has almost no screen time. It actually works for

the character and again, it’s something I’ll deal

with later.

The acting here is not completely over-

the-top, but the ilm slips through genres at

the drop of a hat, and it’s the acting that really

tells the tale. When Amanda is playing Needy

over-the-top, it’s a horror ilm, while she’s more

naturalistic when it’s a teen romp. Megan Fox

does similar gymnastics with her character

as well. Fox here is not at all one-note, which

is something that you could accuse all of her

previous roles of being. She alternates naturally

as the cycles of her character lows (not like

that!), but there’s more to it. When Needy goes

one way, Jennifer goes tangentially with her. It’s

an interesting way to play off each other.

Now, the acting gives us all the clues

as to how we’re supposed to be taking the

action, but the real strength in Jennifer’s Body

is Diablo Cody’s script. Yes, the plot is weak,

and I will maintain that

it’s supposed to be. She

was writing a satire. A jet

black satire, but a satire

nonetheless. Diablo Cody

smartly wrote a script

that takes best parts of

Teen ilms (which I adore)

and mixes them in a

completely new way with

the elements of horror.

Now, you’re thinking ‘Hey,

wasn’t that what they

did with Scream?’ and I’ll

answer ‘Shut up and let

me inish!’

You see, Scream

and Jennifer’s Body are

two completely different

went up so quick while

a band was on stage and

everyone freaks out. Then

there’s the entire thing

that Jennifer is at her

most beautiful right after

she’s dined on the innards

and blood of young men.

This certain references

Elizabeth Bathory and her

quest for youth through

the use of blood. It’s

the focus of my friend

Alisa M. Libby’s The

Blood Confession. It’s a

good book. Anyway, the

fact is, at the same time

as playing in the ield,

she manages to avoid

ilm. Scream was a referential horror ilm that

hung all its references on the horror ilms

of the last twenty-ive years. Jennifer’s Body

is a satire which certainly does referential

moments, but the referenced bits are from

the real world, not from the world of ilm at

all. Scream recreates Johnny Depp’s entrance

in the ilm A Nightmare on Elm Street with

Skeet Ulrich, who could have been Johnny

Depp. There are a dozen other references, but

none are quite as clear as that one. Scream is

self-aware, every character having a thorough

knowledge of the world of horror ilms.

In Jennifer’s Body, the references are to

actual world events. There’s the obvious one:

the burning of the local roadhouse bar. This is

certainly a reference to the White Lion Fire in

Providence, Rhode Island. The fact that a bar

repeating any of the same games that have been

played there before. This feels so much smarter

than Scream because it casts its net far wider.

The other difference is that while they

both deal with teens, Scream is not a teen ilm.

Almost half the time, Jennifer’s Body is a teen

ilm. Take Needy. She’s the Pretty/Ugly girl, the

exact same type as played by Rachel Leigh

Cook in She’s All That. In fact, Scream is deeply

tied to Friday the 13 th and Nightmare on Elm

Street, while Jennifer’s Body is more closely tied

to Cruel Intentions and Donnie Darkko. There

are some great teen ilm moments, and what’s

amazing is that Jennifer’s Body is far more real.

The ‘Pretty Girl Who Is As Insecure as The Ugly

Girl’ isn’t what Jennifer is. She’s hot, sexy and

she knows it. She never gets called on it. Even

when she’s low on male viscera and looking

weak, she’s still

amazing. She’s

almost like Miss

Dalloway, only

without the

depth. You may

also say that

the glasses and

overalls that

Needy employs

are direct

references to

She’s All That,

but I actually

bet that it’s

more a lazy Art

or Costume

designer using that same technique to cover up

the amazingly gorgeous Seyfried.

Why people do things in Jennifer’s Body

is pretty easy: hormones. Why can Jennifer get

boys to do stupid things? Not because the

guys are stupid (which is something you can

certain accuse Sid of in Scream), but because

they’re horny. Plain and simple. Jennifer knows

exactly how to use sex to her advantage.

She’s conident, both before and after her

transformation. The non-monster form of

Jennifer could just as easily have committed the

crimes that the Evil Jennifer does. She could

have used her body to get the boys. It’s not at

all a stretch. Whereas Scream, and honestly all

horror ilms, require the characters who are

not the evil ones to be either stupid or naïve,

Jennifer’s Body features characters that aren’t

stupid, just hormonal. There’s no other way

horror ilms can work. That’s where the Teen

ilm aspect comes in. it has a smart character,

Needy, who knows exactly what’s going on, and

she can’t do anything about it because there’s

the traditional statutes that exist between BFFs

in Teen Films. She also has to structure of high

school to ight against. It’s something that’s

obvious, though not explored as completely as

it could have been.

Sex plays a big part, but it’s almost

reversed from the typical horror ilm. In

Halloween, you have sex, you die. In Jennifer’s

Body, everybody has sex. Jennifer does, and

because she lies about it, she became evil.

Needy has sex. The boys in the town all want

to have sex, which makes sense now, doesn’t

it? Sex does not equal death in Jennifer’s Body.

Falling pray to the desires of a beautiful woman

does kill, though. Whereas the heroine chooses

to open that closet door because she’s dumb

and has no concept of the reality of what’s in

that closet, the goth kid enters the yet-to-be-

completed home because he wants to get laid.

He knows what’s in there, Jennifer’s hot ass, and

that just overrides everything. He’s not dumb,

in fact, he’d be dumb if he DIDN’T go in for the

sure thing.

The characters in Jennifer’s Body are

smart, but smart in an entirely different way

than those in Scream. In fact, you could say that

they’re of completely different generations.

Scream is the 1990s while Jennifer’s Body is the

50s. The settings are so different, Scream taking

place in a regular town while Jennifer’s Body is

set in this strange, Picket Fences sort-of town

with a weird waterfall and sink hole.

The ultimate difference between

Scream and Jennifer’s Body is the element of

the fantastic. There is none in Scream, just

the illusion of the supernatural that the team

of killers employ in pulling off the killings. In

Jennifer’s Body, it is a ilm of the Supernatural,

and furthermore, it’s a ilm about the aspects

of the Supernatural as a piece of the entire

modern youth movement. This is perfectly

analogous to my time in high school when

there were either hard-core Christian kids

or way-out Pagan-esque kids who dabbled

part time in ritual and research. Some of them

went on to do serious Occultery (my buddy

Christian being one who really ran with it

later in life and really discovered the root of

it all) and most would snap back into some

traditional form of religion and go all the way

with it. My friend Tasha was one who went

from Wicca-to-Wesleyan in one relationship

lat! The fact that it’s young folks who don’t

understand what they’re doing that make the

twist that gives us the monster is certainly

a commentary on that. This is an interesting

stream that a lot of work could be done in.

Someday, when I write Jennifer’s Body: The Text

of Our Times, I’ll look into that most deeply.

OK, so there’s a lot to think about just

in there. The biggest thing that I kept coming

back to was that this dialogue was so weird,

and yet also natural. Maybe you’ve noticed that

I talk funny. I noticed that there are people who

have cadences, who have phrases they turn like

a 5-4-3 Double Play, and so many screenwriters

are fond of writing those. Cody goes in such

a different, and highly intelligent direction. The

phrases roll, and sometimes it’s high-brow

and sometimes it’s low-brow, but they all help

establish that there is a land of Diablo Cody. It’s

The Lovely Diablo Cody

probably somewhere near Diego Garcia. There

are great moments in the dialogue. My favorite

is an exchange between Needy and Jennifer.

Jennifer- My tit.

Needy- No, your heart.

That is the perfect summation of the

thought patterns of the characters, and so

simply sums up every push in this ilm. It’s so

simple, so clean, and when it comes at the end,

you realise that this dichotomy has been there

all along and you’re sure that the fact that it’s

been acknowledged in the text means that

it no longer applies. There’s a moment in the

opening which pretty much shows that switch

has happened, and now you see why.

Oh yeah, and there’s a hot make-out

scene between Seyfried and Fox. It’s so damn

hot. Hotter than Selma Blair and Sarah Michelle

Geller in Cruel Intentions. Much much hotter

than Denise Richards and Neve Campbell in

Wild Things. In fact, I described Jennifer’s Body

as Wild Things meets Buffy, but that’s neither

here nor there. Maybe it’s clouding my reason.

It’s even hotter than the Mad Men season three

seduction of Sal, which is the Gold Standard at

the moment. Anyhow, the Seyfried-Fox scene

is incredibly hot, and there’s some awesome

backstory dialogue afterwards. I can not

express how incredible it was. The best phrase

from that dialogue: We can play Boyfriend-

Girlfriend like we used to. Much FanFic was

created in that line. I saw it in a theatre at

Midnight illed with teens. The guys were hella

into it.

They still say Hella, right? The kids, I

mean…

As always, it’s a busy time in the land

of the Garciazines. The Drink Tank has a

special issue dedicated to trains coming up.

James Bacon is my Co-Pilot for that one

and it’s got some good stuff coming. I’m

excited for it.

Journey Planet is quickly becoming

one of my favorites to work on and we’ve

got good stuff coming for issue #5. It’s the

Alternate History issue and if you’ve got

something, send it along now-ish! It’s going

to be a fun one and I’ve found some good

stuff from this side of the Atlantic for it.

And there’s always Exhibition Hall.

Issue #2 is due out October 1st and it’s got

Howard Hendrix, Mike Perschon, James and

Ariane, some stuff from me, and a great

deal about Continuum. I’m really having fun

with this one, even more so than The Drink

Tank, which has always been a ton of fun.

I’m not sure if it’s the topic or the fact that

so many people who I appreciate have got-

ten invloved. I’m working on a piece about

Richard Lupoff and Steve Stiles that you’ll

want to read, but it might have to wait as

long as issue 4. That’s not until December.

Issue #3 will be good.

Luckily, October is also a month with

Cons and I’ve always produced a lot during

cons. At WorldCon, I managed a few articles,

despite running around all day! It’s what

allowed me to write so much of my report

while I was still on my TAFF trip.

There’s also a new Claims Depart-

ment coming out featuring the art of Selina

Phanara, which I really should have released

months ago!

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: