great_sphinx_42

It was funny, because I was standing in the video store looking back and forth between "Ginger Snaps" and "The Grinch" (they were both in the G section, after all), trying to decide. I tried to go and see "The Grinch" a year ago, but the sound in the theater was screwed and I didn't get to. So here's my chance. But something about this lone box with two morbid-looking girls on the front of it vs. the panorama of Jim Carrey roused the rebel in me, so I snapped up the indie and left the commercial geegaw behind.

So anyway. "Ginger Snaps" concerns two sisters, Ginger and Brigitte (known as 'B'), living in a town called Bailey Downs, which I think is supposed to be a satellite town of Toronto. Ginger and B are just-turned-16 and not-quite-15 respectively, and they really, really hate the suburban mundaneness they're stuck with. They might well be called Goths, as they do dress in a good deal of black and are obsessed with death. They spend their time on wholesome activities like faking fatal accidents for school projects and planning the details of their suicide pact. The post title up there is their motto. All the boys are hot for Ginger, but she and her sister scorn them. They are both enormously proud of fact that neither has menstruated yet, as it sets them apart from the simpering girls they see all around them. One of these girls is particularly annoying to them- a stereotypical bimbo-bitch named Trina. Another of the girls' greatest joys is imagining the horrible deaths of their peers, so they decide to really freak Trina out by doing something evil to her big-ass dog. Dogs are important in this movie, in part because "something" around town has been mauling them and in part because they're obviously related to wolves. And in case you didn't know, "Ginger Snaps" is a teenage horror movie about werewolves. On the way to Trina's, they discover two things: one of the town dogs mauled to death and Ginger's first period. And whoops! Two seconds after this second discovery a huge, incredibly ugly dog-man thing attacks Ginger and bounds off with her into the woods. And here we discover just how surface-only the girls' death obsession was. This is the single scariest scene in the whole movie, and there is no question that Ginger wants to live and that B wants to save her. Eventually Ginger does get away from the thing and she and B start running like hell. They do make it to the road, which proves advantageous as the thing is subsequently run over by the friendly neighborhood drug dealer.

So now Ginger has been chomped and clawed by this thing. And pretty soon all kinds of weird stuff is going on. And that's all I'm gonna say about the plot. Now I'm gonna yap about the acting. It's good- really good for a horror movie. In fact, how often does the acting in horror movies even merit mention? With this one, it does. The two central actresses are terrific, and the whole movie hinges on whether you can be concerned about them and believe in their very strong relationship. I'm hard pressed to say who gives the stronger performance, because they are significant for different reasons. Ginger is, quite literally, the libido-driven crotch of the flick while B is it's sad, neglected heart. The drug dealer turns out to be an important character, and even he has a bit more depth than you initially imagine. Mimi Rogers- an actress primarily known for her role as The Wife in Tom Cruise's first marriage- plays the girls' mother with some sort of disturbing mixture of psycho glee (she makes a strawberry cake to celebrate Ginger's period) and over-earnest intent to bond.

Their are streaks of humor to be found in this movie (although they are so pitch black I fear not everyone would catch them), which is delightful in that its not the typical ironic `Scream'-inspired post-modern sort of humor. A word of warning to anyone with a delicate stomach: this movie absolutely gushes gore. Some truly gross stuff is here, but really I don't think it matters. I don't like gore, and except for the occasional flinch it didn't bother me. I was concerned with the characters and what would happen, and the gore was incidental. It feels almost classic, in a way, as it's focus is the struggle inherent to werewolf lore, the one that makes it such a great metaphor for (particularly female) puberty- the fight for and against one's own body and its impulses. That said, the ending does veer into far-too-familiar territory toward the end, only to be saved by its final, quietly shattering last shot.

"crazy/beautiful" is among the most frustrating films of 2001. There are two ostensible reasons why this is so, both of which are partially true. One is that a family-friendly studio had one too many fingers in the director's rather daring pie. "crazy/beautiful" is among the most noted victims of the push for PG-13 ratings. If the director's dark R-rated original vision had been allowed to stand, then perhaps the entire thing would work better. The other reason is most obvious and less a matter of speculation. Most of the ingredients were second rate from the get-go and the acting so accentuates those weaknesses that they seem far worse than they would if all aspects of the film were equally bad. You want the whole movie to be worthy of the transcendent Kirsten Dunst, whose performance as Nicole seethes with raw, adolescent power. You want it to be worthy of Jay Hernandez's quiet, conflicted grace as Carlos. You want it to be worthy of Bruce Davidson's lovely if slightly confused humanity as Nicole's congressman dad. But it is not worthy of them. Few movies would be. As it stands, they elevate a movie otherwise is so cliched and standard that you wish you could lift them out of it and put them in one that does them justice.

The movie's major problems are these: the voice-overs at the beginning and end could have been dumped entirely. The characterizations of everyone but the main three and Nicole's best friend (who also gives a terrific performance and is shamefully abandoned two-thirds of the way in) could have been miles better. The plot could have been more original. The relationships between the characters could have been more clearly drawn. The ending needs to be redone almost entirely; "the talk" could stay but things aren't resolved so easily. The ending comes too quickly and feels like a cheat not worthy of the emotions the performances have evoked. An entirely different and unhappy ending would undoubtedly be more powerful, but I don't know if my heart could have taken it.

The movie's primary strength, and I cannot stress this enough, is the acting. Great as Davidson and Hernandez are, though, it is Dunst who truly breathes as her character. Kirsten gives a performance I do not hesitate to call worthy of an Oscar nomination. The finest work yet of this young actress's already remarkable career, it bodes very well for her future. She has incidental gifts- her beauty, lithe body and youth- but she is one actress with which you can dismiss those in favor of her primary one, which is acting. Not looking like a glossy Xerox of a human being on-screen, but acting. She is a young, thin, pretty, blond actress who can force people that automatically dismiss all young, thin, pretty, blond actresses to admit that she is talented. Here, buried underneath wane skin, dirty hair and a lost smile, she is complex and heart-breaking. Here, in a movie that treats teenagers as the complex people they are, I wanted to see and know more about her. I wanted the movie, despite its flaws, to be two hours long so that I could.

I've heard it suggested that "crazy/beautiful" is a pale imitation of a handful of movies, like Larry Clark's "Bully" (which also features some powerful performances by young actors), that strive to show adolescents as they truly are in the face of the sparkly barrage of teen flicks. I don't believe this is so. Very few kids are murderers or rapists of big-time drug addicts. Those are the extreme cases. The biggest tragedies of youth are relatively quiet ones, the kids who can be saved and sometimes aren't. Kids like Nicole- and we all know kids like her.

A largely ignored entry in the sci-fi genre, 'Strange Days' has its problems but ultimately proves worthwhile.

Ralph Fiennes hits the nail on the head as Lenny Nero, a cop-turned-crook dealing in the drug of the future. His eyes are so vulnerable and his words so sleazy, you don't know whether to kick him or hug him. Angela Bassett is tough and brittle as Mace, a straight-arrow limo-driver whose one weakness is her unrequited love for Lenny. It's not at all surprising that James Cameron wrote this script- he is very big on strong female characters, and Mace continues that tradition. Unfortunately, none of the other characters are so interesting as these two. For reasons unknown, Bigalow cast the very fine actress Juliette Lewis as Lenny's ex, Faith, and then gave her nothing to do except smoke cigarettes and look sexy (which she does) in a series of ever-more revealing outfits. A total waste of Ms. Lewis's talent, no matter how much fun it is to look at her. Terrific character actors Tom Sizemore and Michael Wincott could both do all they're called on to do here in their sleep. Vincent D'Onofrio does his scuzz-bucket routine as a murderous cop- but that routine is always compelling, so that's okay. The artificial reality thing is hardly original, but this movie's realization of 'playback' is intriguing. The violent scenes in which the victims are wired to see what's being done to them through the eyes of the perpetrator are highly unsettling and creepy; the POV and an understanding of how the wire works make these scenes seem less than entirely distant- the viewer feels a bit too close for comfort. The whole rap-star murder aspect of the plot seems a bit too pointed and obvious; it works well enough as a device, but comes off exactly like that- a device. Bigalow portrays 'the future' in Blade Runner-ish fashion, with the city of Los Angeles as a virtual war zone where the law and the citizens are equally out of control. The climax of the film could have been taken from a zillion other sci-fi/action movies and is less than satisfying. But despite the ending, this dark piece of futuristic noir works as a whole, primarily due to its two leads and a well-realized atmosphere.