Early March Films for Chris

White Chicks * I laughed a few times. It skirts around but manages to exploit racism, sexism and homophobia while being ambivalent about them. It's not about what unacceptable things aren't actually said, it's about the assumptions behind the things they do say, and where the laughs come from. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it?

There is a big black guy who's penis is so big that you are left in a wheel chair after a night with him. He falls in lust with one of the white chicks, who is actually a male black FBI agent in drag and made up like a white chick they are protecting. - No explanation of why they had to use male agents - They go to a disco, and the white chick resists his advances. The next morning, we find a young white male socialite, whom we saw last night, smooching inappropriately with a dog; in a wheel chair with the black guy telling him to hush up. (Because brothers do it on the down-low, geddit). When the black guy finds out that the white chick he liked is actually a black man, he is disgusted. The FBI agent sympathises, he's a man, ha ha! No, says the black guy, it's because he isn't white, bleugh!

Van Helsing *** Somehow, despite this being as silly as Sky Captain, this was much better. Great camera works swooshing about and pretty good CGI and fast paced vampires and werewolves.

The Watchmen **** Well, I haven't actually seen the film yet, instead I read the book, the graphic novel. Set on an alternative timeline where super-heroes, more like Batman than Superman exist, this is a story of the point, or no point, futility or miracle of humanity. Even though it is set in 1985 and is VERY 1980s, it resonate and translates quite well to today, that 80s setting inspires some hope. The nuclear threat was so obvious and real and seamingly insolvable in the 80s, and yet a few years later it was solved but only to be replaced with new problems that also need solving. The new problem is in a way harder than the old problem, but is the solution and message in the book the same answer we need to find today, or is it futile because our solutions will result in new problems? But is that a reason to give up? If the film captures this it will be great.