Oh hai!
So I decided to return to the blogosphere, this time I'll try to be more active. This is going to be a mixture of a personal blog + movie reviews + fashion style and pretty much whatever I'm in the mood for.
I'll start off with a movie review, since 2 days ago was the ending of MotelX which is an international horror film festival held in Lisbon - in other words: a dream come true for cinephiles, specially horror fans.
The "closing" film for this year was American Mary, and it's the one I pick for today's review.
So I decided to return to the blogosphere, this time I'll try to be more active. This is going to be a mixture of a personal blog + movie reviews + fashion style and pretty much whatever I'm in the mood for.
I'll start off with a movie review, since 2 days ago was the ending of MotelX which is an international horror film festival held in Lisbon - in other words: a dream come true for cinephiles, specially horror fans.
The "closing" film for this year was American Mary, and it's the one I pick for today's review.
Synopsis
American Mary is the story of a medical student named Mary
who is growing increasingly broke and disenchanted with medical school
and the established doctors she once idolized. The allure of easy money
sends a desperate Mary through the messy world of underground surgeries
which leaves more marks on her than the so-called freakish clientele.
The movie
was directed and written by the Soska Sisters, known for their previous movie
"Dead Hooker in a Trunk", which I've never seen, therefore this was
my first contact with their work, and I got to say that I'm not at all
impressed.
First impression I got from this movie was that no real study was made about the body mod culture, so it came across as ignorant one too many times. I thought I was going to watch an horror movie about EXTREME body modifications, when the majority of the mods represented were no way near extreme, they were actually pretty common.
To gain some extra cash, Mary decides to help RealGirl Ruby in her desire to become more doll like, which involved getting rid of her genitals, so she could look as "smooth" as possible. Sometime after the surgery Mary decides to search for body modifications online, when she enters a website some pictures pop up with stretched ears, some genital piercings and what not. Mary quickly closes her laptop in disgust. So... "mutilating" a vagina is weird, but apparently stretched ears and genital piercings are just BAT SHIT CRAZY. Maybe 20 years ago stretched ears would be scary, but today... The way they approached the subject just made the directors/writers look dumb.
Mary decides to drop med school and make body mods for a living, she builds her own doctor's office in her apartment and it's all very secretive and illegal, no one knows her true identity, and some clients are seen being hooded when others are not, not sure if this has an explanation or if it's just a mistake. And excluding the amputations, everything else asked by her clients seemed pretty normal to me. Ok maybe for some people tongue bisections, stretched ears and implants aren't "normal", but it's not something you haven't seen before! And I'm pretty sure it's getting more common by the day.
The idea this movie attempts to portray is that if you want to stretch your ears or to fork your tongue you need to go to a fake surgeon on a back alley (not to mention that you must be some kind of an aberration) when this is completely fake! You can go to professional on a tattoo/piercing shop and they'll do it in a clean legal environment! (EDIT: Ok, I didn't know this but apparently splitting your tongue is not completely legal in the US o.O). You can even stretch your ears at home in an healthy easy way if you read about it - I don't get why this movies tries to make such a taboo out of this stuff.
At one moment a girl shows her heart shaped nipples - which again, reveals ignorance about the subject - since the heart shaped nipples are tattoos, and not achieved by any kind of surgery!
First impression I got from this movie was that no real study was made about the body mod culture, so it came across as ignorant one too many times. I thought I was going to watch an horror movie about EXTREME body modifications, when the majority of the mods represented were no way near extreme, they were actually pretty common.
To gain some extra cash, Mary decides to help RealGirl Ruby in her desire to become more doll like, which involved getting rid of her genitals, so she could look as "smooth" as possible. Sometime after the surgery Mary decides to search for body modifications online, when she enters a website some pictures pop up with stretched ears, some genital piercings and what not. Mary quickly closes her laptop in disgust. So... "mutilating" a vagina is weird, but apparently stretched ears and genital piercings are just BAT SHIT CRAZY. Maybe 20 years ago stretched ears would be scary, but today... The way they approached the subject just made the directors/writers look dumb.
Mary decides to drop med school and make body mods for a living, she builds her own doctor's office in her apartment and it's all very secretive and illegal, no one knows her true identity, and some clients are seen being hooded when others are not, not sure if this has an explanation or if it's just a mistake. And excluding the amputations, everything else asked by her clients seemed pretty normal to me. Ok maybe for some people tongue bisections, stretched ears and implants aren't "normal", but it's not something you haven't seen before! And I'm pretty sure it's getting more common by the day.
The idea this movie attempts to portray is that if you want to stretch your ears or to fork your tongue you need to go to a fake surgeon on a back alley (not to mention that you must be some kind of an aberration) when this is completely fake! You can go to professional on a tattoo/piercing shop and they'll do it in a clean legal environment! (EDIT: Ok, I didn't know this but apparently splitting your tongue is not completely legal in the US o.O). You can even stretch your ears at home in an healthy easy way if you read about it - I don't get why this movies tries to make such a taboo out of this stuff.
At one moment a girl shows her heart shaped nipples - which again, reveals ignorance about the subject - since the heart shaped nipples are tattoos, and not achieved by any kind of surgery!
I think I'm
complaining too much about the inaccuracy of the ""body mod
world"", but it ruined the movie for me, although the ending was also
pretty terrible. There was no build up to it, it looked like they had to wrap
it up in 5 minutes - tried to make a drama/tragedy out of it and failed, was pretty
emotionless and senseless.
Some pros: Beatress, the character played by Tristan Risk, you can't help but to love her, she's an exotic dancer who has had herself altered to look like Betty Boop. Trinstan played this bizarre part in a remarkable and endearing way.
It was also good to see Katharine Isabelle back on the screen, last time I saw her was in Ginger Snaps 12 years ago, and she looks as stunning as ever.
Overall, it wasn’t the worst movie I've seen, but I sure which I hadn't spent the money to go see it either.
Some pros: Beatress, the character played by Tristan Risk, you can't help but to love her, she's an exotic dancer who has had herself altered to look like Betty Boop. Trinstan played this bizarre part in a remarkable and endearing way.
It was also good to see Katharine Isabelle back on the screen, last time I saw her was in Ginger Snaps 12 years ago, and she looks as stunning as ever.
Overall, it wasn’t the worst movie I've seen, but I sure which I hadn't spent the money to go see it either.
I agree
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