Breaking the Waves (1996) - by Faro

There is a moment in this film when a great sacrifice is offered, the ultimate sacrifice of life and death and sex, and the martyr who offers it comes to think in her last breaths that her sacrifice has been in vain. That all that she had dared to offer was of no value, that no victory had been achieved, no miracle was forthcoming. She dies in doubt, disillusionment, and deeply afraid.

And like so much of the rest of this movie, the beautiful and harrowing truth is that this compassionate and loving woman is wrong to doubt herself and her paradigm of belief... though we, the cultured and comfortably secular audience, have doubted her and her bizarre religiosity all along. Her sacrifice does prevail, the miracle does happen, the glory of giving is upheld and sanctified. The bells of heaven ring to praise her life, but she is not here to hear them.

A Clockwork Orange (1971) - by Faro

Ahhh Kubrick... you are missed.

This film has had plenty of ink (real and electronic) spilled about it already, and I’m not going to waste anytime trying to encapsulate the whole thing. Yes, it’s violent. Yes, it’s got the music of Beethoven. Yes, the story explores issues of morality and free will; specifically by examining to what extent and in what ways we must socialize people in order to maintain society. And yes, it introduces us to the Karova Milk Bar... and when we see it we know we’ve never actually been in, and probably never will be in, such an ultra-cool, ultra-hip bar despite all our attempts to find one. 

I mean, come on... the milky white naked statues of provocatively posed women... men dressed all in white, with little black hats, and with enormous cod-pieces strapped out-side of their clothes... strange opera singers stopping by for a drink and spontaneously performing arias from Beethoven... random bits of vaguely Slavic text written in bulbous white lettering on dark black walls... some sort of demented drug-laced milk being served directly out of the nipples of the afore-mentioned naked statues... clearly this Karova Bar is way cooler than we are and will always be behind some closely guarded door at an address we will never even know.

But enough of that... what I really want to talk about is the last image of the film. Our hero, Alex, laying in some sort of white sand while fucking a girl wearing nothing but long black gloves and long black stockings with white-lace trimming at the tops. To the left and the right of them stand two rows of men and women dressed in Victorian clothing. What does this mean? A visual representation of the contradictions inherent in our sexual morality codes? Bourgeois hypocrisy confronted with animalistic lust? Glorification of the animal inside of us that can never be truly tamed? Condemnation of sexual brutality that is never truly socialized, no matter how formalized we structure our surface appearances?

The beauty here, from a filmic sense, is the ambiguity... we know the sorts of questions being asked, but we haven’t been force fed an unqualified and absolute answer. Kubrick has cleverly and graphically explored themes of coercion, socialization, and domination through out the film, but by concluding with with this uncertain and intriguing ending he makes sure that (at least in the context of this film) our Free Will remains intact.

How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998) - by Joan de Newyark

{Note from the author:  I would not spend time watching "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" even if it was free on an airplane or being shown to me between commercials while I'm in the audience of the Tyra Show. So actually, this review is my response to hearing of a new local Food Co-Op starting up in my neighborhood...}

This does look amazing... 

If I was a better person I would cook more.

I would spend more time in my apartment's kitchen and not the bedroom.

I would call my mom more.

I wouldn't treat my sister the way she treats me.

I wouldn't punch people in the penis. 

I would save more money. 

I would travel and not worry about work.

I would have a tomato plant on my fire escape. 

I would ride a bike every day. 

One day I will join this new street-corner food co-op. And I will know what to do with 30lbs of kale. And I will have a roof deck and fabulous outdoor dinner parties and we will laugh because I will be perfect! 

Hahahahahahhaha!

xoxo,

Joan de Newyark (Sent from my BlackBerry)