The “Boob” in Boob Tube

It's Not Degrading If She's A Hero!...No, Wait. She's Not A Hero If It's Degrading. That One.

I yell at TV. I don’t like to, but it compells me like the power of Christ compells demons at an exorcism. It’s just that TV is mean to ladies. TV makes pictures that look like ladies do stupid things like wash cars in their bikinis to sell hamburgers, be married to a 2 when they’re at least a 7, and fight crime in their underwear and heels. Ladies can’t get old  on TV. Ladies rarely get good jobs on TV. Ladies on TV are mostly just strippers or housewives or failing, messy, single girls who can’t land a man and whine about it all the time. That’s why TV makes me yell at it.

People roll their eyes at me a lot.

Miss Representation (dir. Jennifer Siebel Newsom), which showed at the Landlocked Film Festival, was a wonderful scented bubble-bath of validation for this angry girl’s angry heart. It was all like “Yeah, women ARE being portrayed unfairly, and are being underrepresented and misrepresented! You were totally right all along, and people should ALL be yelling at TV!” …only it did it in a rational, methodical, and very sleek, entertaining way. I nearly swooned.

There are some sappy parts where the director/narrator sits poetically under a sunlit tree, gazes up at the sky with a weary expression and wonders “what kind of world will my unborn baby girl child inhert etc, etc.?” (women, am I right?) but most of this film is incredibly snappy and smart. It’s as entertaining as a Michael Moore documentary, but without that sick “I just ate a whole large tub of cheese-blasted popcorn” feeling afterwards.

You want haunting statistics? You got ’em. You want frustrated eloquent teens? You got that too. Rachel Maddow, Condaleeza Rice, Geena Davis, Katie Couric, and tons of other famous and intelligent female humans? Yes, ma’am. How about a little hope at the bottom of the box? Yuuuuup!

Please, everyone, see this movie. I beg of you.

 

Marshmallows, Demons, and Marshmallow Demons

What Happens When A Girl With A TV For A Head Falls In Love With Two Men...And One Of Them Is Jesus?

In these trying times of political strife, of red versus blue, of noodle-armed vegan pit-hair wavers versus mullety gap-toothed hog-stranglers, sometimes we need to chill out, remember to put down our kindles and pitchforks, and just love each other.

Paradise Recovered (dir. Storme Wood) remembers. It’s a charming little indie flick from the heartland about a suuuuuuuuper-Bibley girl who believes that eating marshmallows and watching even the G-est of movies will allow actual-factual demons to infiltrate her brain and tear her away from livin’ the sweet Jesus life. She is brain-washed-ish by a TV evangelist and her boss/minister/father-figure (low-budget evil Tom Hanks) into being a nannyslaveprisioner at crazy Tom Hank’s house. He also arranges a marriage for her to his Bible college son, who is actually also kinda evil.

Bibella decides to spice up her hum-drum life by getting a job at the health food store where she meets the smug philosophy student manager and instantly sparks FLY! After Philosophy guy “She’s All That”‘s Biblette with lipstick and low-cut tank tops, they, as unlikely as it may be, fall in love even though he has utter contempt for her deepest beleifs and she beleives he will spend eternity skinny-dipping in a lake of fire. But at least she’s hot now.

It’s low budget. There are weird things like a comic-releif roommate who I’m guessing is normally a straight-up clown in real life, and a guy who talks in his best Bill Clinton immitation for all of his lines (the preacher-dad of smug Romeo). BUT, and I say BUT, this movie was fun and it warmed the cockles of my fridgid little prejudiced-against-both-smug-college-kids-and-religious-fanatics heart. Seriously. The characters were likeable and human, the issues were complex and compelling, and there was a nice story development which is dandy for people who like their heads not to explode because of retarded monkey scribble writing.

As I left the theater, I was left with a sense of understanding and divine grace.  I was brimming with a deep love for my fellow man and hope for the future of what seems so often like a divided world. …Then some little punk squeaked out a terrible attempt to pick me up and I was once again left with familiar old ire.