The Screengrab : stephen root

Chick Hits: The Girl Power Top Ten

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:00:00 GMT

After the big screen edition of Sex & The City exceeded the low expectations of industry gurus who were shocked...shocked...to discover that people were actually interested in a movie about, y'know, gurlz, Missy Schwartz wrote a depressingly familiar story for Entertainment Weekly: “It was an unqualified triumph...one the industry observed in a stunned, slack-jawed state. As the weekend rolled to a close, news outlets filed their reports with words like unexpected, surprising, and shocking. ‘What do you know?’ they all seemed to be saying. ‘Women go to the movies!’”

And if Sex and the City 2 (or The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 or Mama Mia!) or any other female-centric movie succeeds in the near future, Hollywood will be surprised all over again, and Entertainment Weekly and other publications will run similar articles about the American movie-going public’s "unexpected," "surprising" and "shocking" desire for strong female characters...a desire Hollywood will more or less continue to ignore as it continues its relentless pursuit of teenage boys, no matter how many Speed Racers crash and burn along the way.

Because, after all, many studio execs are just overgrown boys themselves. They dig gadgets, explosions and special effects, and CGI creations are easy to control and merchandise. Female-centered movies tend to rely on well-written screenplays, relatable characters, nuanced direction and...yecccch...feelings: all the things most studio execs pretend to champion but secretly hate.

But we here at The Screengrab aren’t afraid to get in touch with our feminine sides as we raise our Cosmos to these Top Ten “chick hits”: films that put their empowered female characters front and center (without resorting to stripper poles OR big gauzy Prince Charming/Bridezilla wedding porn).

THELMA AND LOUISE (1991)

Okay, so I’m not sure how empowering it is to drive off a cliff in real life, but this Ridley Scott film (based on an iconic script by wunderkind, zeitgeist-tapping Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri) caused a sensation upon its release by (A) objectifying Brad Pitt as a hunky slab of beefcake (thus electrifying and pretty much launching his career) and (B) allowing Susan Sarandon’s Louise to gun down the scumbag who was raping Geena Davis’ Thelma (and later blow up the truck of a leering male chauvinist pig) without even feeling all that bad about it, just like any number of male actors in any number of male-centric revenge fantasies...except in films like Dirty Harry, Death Wish, Taxi Driver, etc., the male heroes didn’t have to die in the end to satisfy Hays Code-style notions of karmic retribution for stepping outside the lines of acceptable social conduct. Still, the film’s outlaw motif energized female audiences by (melo)dramatizing the common stereotypical perception of men as either (a) dangerous assholes or (b) hapless boobs while providing enough action and sex to attract audiences of every gender.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006)

There’s a beloved feminist koan that goes something like this: ruthless, aggressive men who go after what they want are called winners, while ruthless, aggressive women are called bitches. Of course, most thinking people realize that ruthless, aggressive men are actually called assholes...and it’s the universal, gender-blind nature of the eternally confusing success vs. happiness equation faced by Anne Hathaway’s aspiring fashionista “Andy” Sachs that helped to make the film version of The Devil Wears Prada a $300 million dollar monster hit. And, let’s see...two seconds of Googling and...yep! There’s a TMZ article from 2006 with a, shall we say, certain familiar ring to it: “Blah blah blah, female-centered film exceeded all expectations...yadda-yadda-yadda...industry analysts surprised,” etc., etc. etc. As Meryl Streep’s formidable Gordon Gekko-in-stilettos magazine mogul Miranda Priestly might say to those industry Suits who stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the existence of fifty percent of their audience, “Details of your incompetence do not interest me.”

BRING IT ON (2000)

This broadly played late-summer sleeper is actually packing a lot of heavy metaphorical lumber for a teen flick about a cheerleading competition. Kirsten Dunst is the new head of the Toros, who cheer for the (rich, white) Rancho Carne High School in Los Angeles; they're gearing up for the national championships, which they've won the past six years with the spectacular routines provided by departing team leader Big Red. But when a new girl with a gymnastics background and an attitude -- Eliza Dushku, who was too cool for Buffy the Vampire Slayer's school -- joins the squad, she has unsettling news. It turns out that Big Red was stealing her plays from the fly girls who cheer for the (black, poor) East Compton Clovers, thus making the Toros the cheerleading equivalent of Pat Boone to the Clovers' Little Richard. Dunst actually does her best to rationalize this cultural parasitism rather than destroy her cheerleading institution overnight, but the situation becomes intolerable after the Clovers attend a Toros game and mock their blonde plagiarists by performing the stolen moves in the stands. In the end, both teams attend the finals and show that they can use their brains and talents to compete honorably on the field of battle. There is, however, one scene that shows that contemporary standards of empowerment may be thornier, and weirder, than is commonly acknowledged. Dunst offers the Clovers, who have been prevented from attending the national competition by financial hardship, the chance to come by talking her father into getting his company to sponsor them, but the head Clover (Gabrielle Union) contemptuously rejects the offer, telling Dunst that they don't need her charity; they'll raise the money themselves, their own way. Their own way turns out to be going on an "Oprah"-like TV show and raising contributions by guilt-tripping viewers with their tale of woe. I guess it's honest labor and not charity if it helps "Oprah" kill an hour.

JACKIE BROWN (1997)

Such '70s blaxploitation films as Coffy and Foxy Brown may have made Pam Grier a cult star, but it was always a degraded form of stardom, and not just because the movies were cheap genre knockoffs; she may have had the chance to show that she could hold the camera and kick ass in the final reel, but she still also had to get her top ripped off before being raped by guys who looked like the Ku Klux Klan's answer to Uncle Fester, while being called things like "this big-jugged jigaboo." Jackie Brown catches up with Grier more than twenty years down the road, when she's at an age when Hollywood regards actresses as disposable. It's not a great age to be a flight attendant, either, which is why Jackie is working for a low-grade Mexican airline and acting as a courier for Los Angeles-based gun dealer Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). Both Ordell and the federal agents setting up a case against him regard Jackie as a pawn who can easily be taken out of play at any moment. But -- and here's the key difference between this and Grier's '70s vehicles -- the movie respects her. The way she looks through Tarantino's lens, you sort of picture the camera shuffling its feet nervously as it tries to work up the nerve to ask her if she's been seeing anybody lately. And so Ordell, whose fearsomeness would cut him a lot more ice in a different Tarantino movie, is reduced to a comic figure; for all his bluster and firepower, his assumption that the middle-aged black woman with the low-paying job must be a bit player (which Jackie will use against him, and against the feds, too), makes him ridiculous. The only man in the movie who can see Jackie for what she is remains Robert Forster's bail bondsman Max Cherry, who, unlike the film's younger, strutting cocks, lacks the ego and capacity for self-deception that might get in the way of his seeing clearly what's in front of him. Tarantino included a riff (borrowed from Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes) on the arrogance of Superman in the second Kill Bill film, and Jackie Brown is in some ways a black, female Superman fantasy, except that Jackie doesn't have to put on a pair of eyeglasses to trick the dull-witted into thinking she's no match for them.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)

Long before Joss Whedon was a small-screen institution, he was just a fresh-faced young script doctor with a dream. That dream was to create a richly detailed fantasy world featuring nubile teenage girls. Sure, you’re saying: how does that make him any different than millions of other guys? Here’s how: his nubile teenage girls kicked ass. And not just any ass, but demonic vampire ass! Within a decade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer would find its way onto television and prove a major cult hit, giving the country a brand new definition of girl power and adding an entirely new dimension to teen angst as Buffy Summers and her Scoobies battled monsters and bloodsuckers at Sunnydale High. But it all started with this low-budget big-screen number. Whedon, once he’d decided he was a highbrow auteur, more or less disavowed the Buffy movie, but in many ways, it holds up a lot better than people give it credit for: it doesn’t take itself so deadly serious, it has tons of terrific comic turns from Paul Reubens and Stephen Root in supporting roles, and while Kristy Swanson’s Buffy may not carry the emotional weight that Sarah Michelle Gellar’s did, she looks mighty fine in a half-shirt, and she furthers the cause of female empowerment the way only a vampire slayer can. She’s rough, she’s tough, and she maintains her keen fashion sense: what could be more feminine than that?

Click here for Part Two!

Related Posts: Girl DisemPowering: Nine Films That Didn't Do Feminism Any Favors (Part One & Part Two)

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Phil Nugent, Leonard Pierce

Take Five: Romero Alive!

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:30:00 GMT

George Romero's Diary of the Dead opens this Friday, and it's the fifth in his legendary zombie film series. We thought about dedicating this week's Take Five to an overview of each installment, but not only could we not swing a screening of Diary (dammit!), but we figured, what better time to look at some of Romero's other films? Yes, it's true: the man who invented the modern conception of the zombie, who's responsible for one of the most durable and appealing of the Famous Monsters of Filmland, has actually made a couple of movies that do not feature the living dead! We're the first to admit that we're suckers for the low-budget, foul-mouthed, expatriate Pittsburgher, though, and while he seems to save his best stuff for the zombie pictures, that's not all there is to the man. True, he sticks with bloodshed and horror — we aren't expecting a Shakespeare adaptation or a minor-key family drama from him anytime soon — but at least a few of his non-zombie pictures are worth checking out for various reasons. So if you're in one of the many cities where Diary of the Dead won't open for a while, head to your local grindhouse video emporium or fire up your rent-by-mail queue and have a Romero-fest in which the dead don't walk: they just die.

THE CRAZIES (1973)

Romero's fourth film overall, and his best to immediately follow the original Night of the Living Dead, this is similar to his original zombie masterpiece in many ways: the Pittsburgh-area filming locations, the largely amateur cast and the ultra-low budget, and the dreadful atmosphere of paranoia and nameless fear. It concerns the government's attempt to control a bizarre outbreak of a strange virus that causes instant, violent insanity in all who contract it; but the government, as it often is, isn't telling all that it knows, and the faceless federal agents in stark white biochemical hazard suits quickly become as menacing as the maddened townsfolk. A fascinating, underseen movie that creates a terrific mood of terror and insanity, with some of Romero's pointed social commentary; he's currently working on a big-budget remake.

MARTIN (1977)

Perhaps George Romero's most underrated film is this suspenseful, character-driven horror film made just before the release of Dawn of the Dead (and financed by Romero's direction of a TV movie about O.J. Simpson called Juice on the Loose, which would only take on horrific dimensions much later on). Martin Madahas — played compellingly by the young unknown John Amplas — is a drifter of Eastern European descent who has come to believe that he's a vampire, and for everyone who's determined to talk him out of it before he wields the straight razors that compensate for his lack of fangs, there's someone else who's trying to convince him he's right. The ambiguity over Martin's true nature, and his own feelings towards the urges he can't deny, are what make this such an interesting movie. Definitely worthwhile.

CREEPSHOW (1982)

We've discussed this one before, in our Stephen King Take Five, but it's a longtime favorite of ours and one of the gems of Romero's catalogue — not to mention the only time he really seems to relax and have fun. It's his first truly big-budget picture, and while the effects and film quality are much improved, the most he gets out of the money he's given to play with is populating the cast of this campy good time with tons of appealing character actors, from Fritz Weaver and Ed Harris to Leslie Nielsen and E.G. Marshall to King himself and an uncredited Tom Atkins. This isn't high art by any means, but it perfectly captures the atmosphere of giddy vileness in the old EC Comics it emulates, and it's a highly enjoyable romp if, like King and Romero, you surrender completely to the pulp tone of the thing.

MONKEY SHINES (1988)

Monkeys share one thing in common with zombies: they are awesome. As single-word punchlines, only robots can rival them. But with Monkey Shines, a film about a homicidal helper chimpanzee, Romero manages to prove that monkeys are only as successful as the stars of horror movies if they are a hundred feet tall. Monkey Shines isn't nearly as bad as its reputation or its horrible name (it's hootily subtitled An Experiment in Fear); it has a compelling psychological angle, an interesting undertone of moral ambiguity, and a light touch with the social satire. Then again, it ain't all that good, either, and it's largely sunk by dud after dud in the supporting cast, from charmless Jason Beghe in the lead to completely baffled pros like Stanley Tucci and Janine Turner. Still, it's got a monkey, plus Stephen Root, so you'll laugh at least once.

BRUISER (2000)

We were quite excited when we heard about the impending release of Bruiser back around the turn of the century: not only was Romero back, but he appeared to be directing a movie that was more psychological thriller than gorefest. Unfortunately, despite tight direction and some swell performances (especially by Peter Stormare), the story of a repressed, simpering executive who explodes into rage and revenge gives the game away too soon and drifts aimlessly in its latter half into a fog of serial-killer cliches. This is a movie that could have benefited hugely from dwelling on the psychological state of its lead character and leaving open a degree of ambiguity and uncertainty about his actions, the way Martin did, but instead, it's a statement of the kind of potential Romero always has but doesn't always deliver on.

That Guy!: Stephen Root

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:30:00 GMT

Okay, that's enough of the artsy-fartsy European creeps. Let's get back to America! And they don't come much American-er than Big Steve Root, one of the most prolific character actors in the business today. For a guy whose first film role featured him unseen in a toilet (although, considering the movie was Crocodile Dundee II, maybe it's just as well), Stephen Root has a rather highbrow acting background: for years prior to the kick-off of a remarkably rich film and television career, he was a respected member of the National Shakespeare Company. His first major recognition as an actor came when he portrayed the flighty, meddling billionaire Jimmy James as part of the high-powered cast of NewsRadio, and even with dozens of film roles to his credit, he's probably best-known -- and best-paid -- for that role and his voice-over work on King of the Hill, where he plays, among other roles, the hapless Bill Dauterive. A number of directors have enjoyed his work enough to make him a regular member of their repertory companies, particularly Mike Judge, Kevin Smith, and the Coen Brothers; Root's ability to play extremely eccentric roles while never giving the same characterization twice makes him especially sought-after by directors who specialize in character roles, and Root admitted in a recent interview that being killed by the Coens (as he, or at least his character, is in No Country for Old Men) has been the high point of his career to date. Having just celebrated his 56th birthday, Root -- who, to be perfectly honest, looks like he's been playing a 56-year-old for the lion's share of his career -- no doubt has plenty of years ahead of him both on the big screen, playing his specialty of suit-wearing middlemen who have something extremely wrong with them, and in voice-over, where he's proven to have exceptional talent. And with most of his comedic work for television widely available on DVD, a case can be made for Stephen Root as the preeminent comic character actor of the 1990s.

Where to see Stephen Root at his best:

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1992)

There are two kinds of Buffy fans in the world: those who liked the movie and wondered why the subsequent TV show took itself so damn seriously, and those who hated the movie and look at it as an embarrassing shell from whence the brilliant television series emerged. Unfortunately for those of us in the former camp, Joss Whedon -- who created both -- is in the latter camp and all but disowns the movie. But one thing cannot be disputed: the series would have been much improved if Whedon had seen fit to include Stephen Root as the rambling, hilariously clueless Principal Gary Murray, who made the end credits of the film so enjoyable.

OFFICE SPACE (1999)

Outside of NewsRadio and King of the Hill, Office Space forms the third jewel in Stephen Root's crown of 1990s comedy dominance. No performance of his is more memorable, more purely distilled, more quintessentially Root -- in fact, Mike Judge built the entire movie around Root's performance from a series of animated shorts he did years earlier for MTV. While there's plenty to love about this subversive take on the deadening grind of white-collar work, nothing holds the movie together like a single red stapler, and no character is more central to the plot, from beginning to end, than the psychotically ineffectual Milton Waddams. An all-time great comic role.

O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

We hate to keep bringing up members of the Coen Brothers Touring Company in this space, but what can we tell you? The boys know a good character actor when they see one. Stephen Root, in his first film with the Coens, has a small but unforgettable role: edging away from comedy and into (literal) tragedy, playing a variant on Tiresius as the recording studio operator and radio station man who first discovers the hidden genius of the Soggy Bottom Boys. Although Root has some funny lines in his scenes, it's his nearly-wordless performance in responding in a transport of bliss to "Man of Constant Sorrow" that is so astounding here.