Her Niceties Are The Nicest: Top Hat (1935)

I have been away from the blog for longer than usual, I openly admit this.  I could blame it on the reality that I am knee deep in graduate school and have been afforded little time to do anything beyond heavy paper writing, a few within the grasp of academic publication.  I could blame it on this and it would probably be accurate.  However, while on Thanksgiving break I found out that one of the great modern atrocities will be occurring in the upcoming weeks on a major network channel.  Apparently Carrie Underwood and one of the vampires from True Blood are going to do a live on television version of Sound of Music.  This hurts my soul and it too should hurt your soul.  However, instead of ranting on about purity and how some works should not be tampered with or recreated I have decided to pull forth a planned month of movie marathons and spend the entirety of December watching and reviewing musicals.  While my marathons for Kungfu films and westerns were inspired by my illiteracy in the genres (still so even after knocking out thirty films in each situation) I am somewhat more versed in regards to musicals.  At least I thought I was more versed in this sense, but I began looking at lists of suggestions and getting a recommendation here and there from a friend and it turns out that I am quite lacking in both contemporary and classic Hollywood musicals.  As such I will take it upon myself to watch thirty musicals some from the burgeoning moments of sound right through to the recent popularly successful but critically panned Les Miserables.  I am hoping that by doing so I will bring more awareness to the genre, even if only a handful of people read the posts and expand my understanding on one of cinema's most misunderstood and mocked genres.  While I am still deep in school for at least another week, I also hope to crack into some literature on the genre and begin to consider the more complex layers of cinematic narrative and diegesis at play, which is fitting since I begin the marathon with the delightful and charming Astaire and Rogers number Top Hat, made purely cinematic with the inclusion of an Irving Berlin score.

Top Hat focuses on Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) a prominent song and dance man who has recently been recruited to work on a show in London.  His boss and friend Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton) hoping that Jerry will prove the exact spark necessary to drive his show to the top.  While Horace is a bit bumbling and well-meaning, he is no match for the guile and constantly devious ways of Jerry, whose willingness to tap-dance at a moments notice lead to a confrontation with their downstairs neighbor the equally adept performer Dale Tremont (Ginger Rogers).  Jerry instantly falls for Dale, finding her confrontational manner delightfully open not to mention her looks stunning.  Dale initially oblivious to this becomes to point of Jerry's adoration when he begins sending gifts to her, including a large horseshoe shaped bouquet, much to the frustration of another of Dale's suitors the idiom misusing Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes).  Yet, Jerry the constant trickster decides it will be funny to send the gifts in the name of Horace as a way to assure that he and Dale will meet up again, which he manages to make happen on a variety of occasions.  Horace oblivious to this occurrence, is berated and eventually hit by his angered wife Madge (Helen Broderick) who thinks him to be flippantly having an affair.  Indeed, Dale even believes Jerry to be Horace, making the insistence on the part of Madge that the two become partners that much more confusing since she thinks Jerry to also be the very Horace that Madge has mounted complaints against.  All the while, Alberto attempts to swoon Dale, eventually dragging her to Paris and convincing her to get married when she believes Jerry to indeed be married to Madge, thus sad as she has genuinely grown to adore his company.  After a series of even more comedic encounters it is revealed, in a rather underwhelming way, that Jerry is not Horace thus saving Horace from more abuse.  Fearing that the two will not be able to marry, it is revealed that the ceremony was overseen by Bates (Eric Blore), Horace's butler and not an official priest, thus allowing Dale and Jerry to happily, and literally, dance of in their new life together.

Top Hat is probably the best place for this marathon to begin because it manages to enigmatically traipse between the space of the diegetic and non-diegetic in a way that makes the musical decidedly fascinating.  Indeed, one of the main critiques mounted against people who "like" movies is that musicals are impossible in the willingness for characters to break into song and dance for little to no reason.  While this is true, it is often within the context of adding emphasis to scenes or to consider the way in which space works within cinematic language, never mind that the people who often deliver these same criticisms are themselves huge proponents of the horror genre, which I find to exist in a cinematic space more implausible than the musical.  Either way, I digress, because what I find fascinating about these films is that there seems to be, at least it is the case with Top Hat, a knowing navigation between the space of the cinema and the music that non-diegetically invades the film.  In the opening dance number Jerry begins to dance to the music, the tapping a response to the music that assumedly exists outside the cinematic space, yet it is his dancing that leads to Dale responding to a very loud and very diegetic sound, the large thumping coming from above her hotel room.  In this sense the film works not only within the diegetic and non-diegetic, but arguably also an extra-diegetic space, wherein a response to a sound, is a response to music and the two, at one point occur simultaneously.  This does not only consider the music though, as there are also scene which are purposefully staged, as is the case with the delightful "Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails" which happens to also possess a bit of narrative extension.  This staginess, however, also comes to be replicated when the cast moves to Paris, where the gondola rides and the like are also indicative of a theatre stage, as is Horace's apartment.  Indeed, the only space of the film that seems to certifiably exist within the diegesis, is that of Dale's bed, where she incidentally hears Jerry's tapping.  It causes one to wonder about the layers of the imaginative at work in the film, particularly since all the action moves from the reactions of Dale, right through to her idyllic closing dance with Jerry.

Key Scene:  Fred Astaire gunning down dudes with his cane is great choreography in a film full of genius music and dance.

This is a great film, one of the certifiable classics and certainly worth your time.  It is justifiable as a rental, but also a worthwhile buy.

Did You And Shirly Temple Have A Bad Rehearsal?: Girls Just Want To Have Fun (1985)

I am beginning to realize that the 1980's is a veritable treasure trove for excellent cult comedy, whether it be Splash, or a film I gave a lot of love to awhile back Earth Girls Are Easy.  It seems that in order for these films to work they necessarily need a decidedly absurdist plot mixed with the presence of stars, who were still coming into their own.  In the case of Girls Just Want to Have Fun, viewers are provided with this exact cocktail.  The absurdist plot coming in a town seemingly filled with more expert dancers than Footloose and a ton of musicals combined, as well as serving the excellent combination of then, still up and coming actresses Sarah Jessica Parker, Helen Hunt and Shannen Doherty.  I am glad that this film made it into the inclusion for this month of women in film, because it is decidedly lesser known, and focuses on women, in this case teenage girls, in a way that has yet to make an appearance, coming into their own, decidedly preoccupied with boys and looks and especially innocent to the woes of the world.  Usually, I would be quite dismissive of this methodology, but director Alan Metter handles the script with such care and humor as to remind viewers that it is not a film about condemnation or satire, but, instead; about the woes and silly pains of growing up and experiencing the seeming absurdity of one's teenage years, where parents are assumedly overly authoritative and everyone fits beautifully into their respective cliques.  Girls Just Want to Have Fun does not exist to deconstruct the heteronormativity, or class divides of this particularly conservative era in The United States.  The film never takes itself seriously, and there is no reason it should, instead between its theatricality, surprising degree of metacinematic qualities and an awesome up on your feet soundtrack, one cannot help but accept the frilly, fluff that is this film, it is by no means culturally profound or socially critical, instead, it is escapist cinema fully realized, with such a predictability that to hate it is to hate being happy.

Girls Just Want to Have fun primarily focuses on the experiences of Janey Glenn (Sarah Jessica Parker) a new girl to Chicago, who is used to traveling the world, considering that her father is an officer in the Army.  Her newest arrival at a private Catholic school makes her an instant outsider and a point of mocking for classmates who see her love for dance as silly and immature.  However, she does make friends with the witty and wily Lynne Stone (Helen Hunt) who takes no time helping Janey break out of her shell, when they bond over a shared love for the local dance show "Dance TV," in fact, it is during their first time watching the show together that they are informed of the show seeking new dancers from the Chicago area, a task they find themselves both up for attempting.  At the same time we are introduced to the other-side-of-the-tracks tough guy Jeff Malene (Lee Montgomery) who is also surprisingly good at dancing, leading to his awkward trickster friend Drew Boreman (Jonathan Silverman) pushing for his involvement with the competition.  Furthermore, another girl, the rich and conniving Natalie Sands (Holly Gagnier) is convinced she can enter the competition and win solely off of her father's influence and money.  The first encounter of the entire group comes during the initial tryouts where Janey and Jeff find success, while Lynne is knocked out of competition, due to the trickery of Natalie.  This, of course, leads to Janey and Jeff spending more time together, much to the concern of Janey's parents whose conservative upbringing is being thrown out the window, not to mention Natalie's continual extension of monetary power to attempt to assure victory.  However, in the end the two are able to dance together and blow the competition away, while Janey is also able to show her parents the true value her dancing brings to her life, particularly her father who sees first hand the happiness that is involved.  Janey and Jeff are now a couple, and will appear as dancers on Dance TV, even Lynne finds success being an announcer within the show due to some fortunate timing.  However, that is essentially the plot of the film, aside from some dance number here and there, it is pretty simple, enjoyable and straightforward.

So it is hard for me to glean any intense critical views from an admittedly simple and straightforward film, however, it was made in the middle of the 1980's, therefore, considering the highly conservative nature of America at the time, one could certainly read Girls Just Want to Have Fun as a direct confrontation to those ideologies, particularly a slight against the notion that white males can control the outcome of events with their money and influence.  This most obviously manifests itself in the party scene where a decadent "coming out" party, not in the contemporary civil rights sense, but in the showing off to the elite class of a young woman, is destroyed by a bunch of punk rockers, whose anti-establishment mentality seems to catch aflame on the cinematic stylings of the film, whether it be the use of twins to break the cinematic assumptions of symmetry, or the decidedly experimental nature of the dance sequences.  Surprisingly, one expects Jeff's dad to be an alcoholic, working class stiff who would spout of slurs about his son's desires to dance, however, he proves to be entirely supportive of his son's career choices, even if they threaten his own job security.  The film, of course, makes a larger statement about women's mobility in this era, both through Janey and Lynne whose desire to be nothing more than dancers, flies directly in opposition to the hyper-conservative ideals of their nuns, and, subsequently, the era of America in which the film was released.  Sure it is acceptable for young women to be gymnasts or choir girls, but the assumed vices associated with dancing, make certain that the film is blatantly riding on the waves of the success of Footloose a year earlier.  However, where that film takes religion as its blatant authority figure of oppression and suppression, Girls Just Want to Have Fun draws out a larger map of authoritative obstacles that bar women from entering into the world of dance, some tangible, while others are theoretical.  Fortunately, for the generation watching this film and growing up in that era, they quickly rejected such absurdist notions and pushed towards liberal notions of gender, mobility and performance, perhaps helping to explain the seemingly simplistic desires of the film, as I look back on it with nearly thirty years of detachment.

Key Scene:  The final dance competition is quite fun, the music is hip and the moves are quite impressive, and it is a nice payoff to follow up the relatively slow portions leading up to the scene.

This is a film that I took a liking to, but am fully aware is not for everyone, as such, it is worth renting first before purchasing.

Simplicity Can Only Be Achieved By Great Agony Of Body And Spirit: The Red Shoes (1948)

A viewing of The Red Shoes has been a long time in the making, it was probably the biggest gap in my film viewing catalogue and was always a point of shame when I would have to admit to having never seen it when talking with fellow cinephile.  Finally, on Friday I had yet another individual with excellent taste in film mention it to me and I decided then and there that I would go home and watch it without hesitation.  Going into it I expected nothing short of perfection and I can say with every degree of certainty that the film still overwhelmed me with its magic, its madness and its sheer cinematic mastery.  The Red Shoes, has made a very welcomed come back thanks to the diligent work of some film preservationists at UCLA, the tireless efforts of the gang over at Criterion and a surprise advocation for the film coming from Martin Scorsese whose filmmaking oeuvre certainly does not reflect this ballet heavy, musical influenced film from the masters of Technicolor Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.  There is not a moment within The Red Shoes that is not entirely entrenched within the cinematic spectacle, much like Singin' In The Rain the film exists as a work of grandiosity so artistic that to profess to disliking it would essentially be admitting that you hate living.  As pretentious as that may sound, The Red Shoes seriously is an impeccable film and aside from a few moments of wry British humor there is nothing about this film not to completely love, in fact, it manages to the cross the seemingly divergent lines of classicist filmmaking styles and highly expressionistic experimental filmmaking with such fervor that it has the feeling of being a colorful rendition of an early Busby Berkeley dance number.  Furthermore, like the aforementioned Singin' In The Rain you can easily go into this film assuming you know the plot to the film, yet it will very much unfold in front of you with such expertise and layers that when the close finally does come in its climactic intensity you will realize that you may well have stopped breathing for a few minutes.  It is still baffling that this highly realized film is essentially just an adaptation of a children's fairy tale, all be it a dark one.

The Red Shoes begins with a crew of students rushing an auditorium to witness the performance of an acclaimed ballet piece from Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) whose prestige has led to all group regardless of class to view his work, including Julian Craster (Marius Goring) an aspiring conductor who is immediately baffled to realize that his own pieces are being lifted for the performance.  Also in attendance is Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) an aspiring dancer whose ties to high places afford her an opportunity to meet the elusive Lermontov post performance, using her charm to assure a chance to audition.  Craster via letter confronts Lermontov about his theft, only to regret his decision, in the process meeting Lermontov who hires him on the spot.  Both Craster and Page become witness to the insanity and deception latent within the world of ballet performance, and begin to fathom how much power Lermontov truly wields.  Each, nonetheless, takes their turn in making an identity for themselves, Page by dancing wildly at a minor performance for the company, where as Craster jumps at the opportunity to rewrite a ballet adaptation of The Red Shoes, which he does brilliantly leading to Lermontov choosing it as the company's next pieces.  It is within this performance of The Red Shoes that harmony comes together beautifully as Craster and Page unleash a chemistry undeniable in a ballet performance that literally transcends the space and time of the theater.  The show of course receives rave reviews and the names of Page and Craster become well known, yet they fall for one another, much to the disapproval of Lermontov who sees it as a risk to his newly found cash cow.  He demands that they split leading to a deep depression in the two and the subsequent falling apart of the company.  Lermontov, nonetheless, manages to convince Page to return to the performance, which leads to a falling out between her and Craster who leaves dejected.  Realizing her mistake Page attempts to return to Craster, only to encounter her demise in what is easily one of cinema's most harrowing moments.  Of course, The Red Shoes is danced on, although the lack of Page is a very real thing when the troupe decides to perform without the presence of their leading lady, or any person in her place.

I once attended a conference where I saw a presentation comparing The Red Shoes to the then recently released Black Swan.  A majority of the discussion grounded the comparison in a use of Jacques Lacan's mirror theory which at the time was something I was unfamiliar with making for a rather difficult to understand talk, although I certainly think, upon seeing The Red Shoes that something is to be said about the notion of identity, sanity and the affects of performance demands on the individual.  Both films feature female performers whose quest for perfection and acknowledgement lead them to spiral into a degree of madness, although in Aronofsky's film the madness is tied to sexual inexperience and clear mental distress.  In the case of The Red Shoes it is a desire for success and a clear passion for the art of ballet, which by all accounts is probably the most labor intensive art one could choose.  Furthermore, where as Black Swan is about a singular individual, The Red Shoes focuses on a group of peoples' experiences, viewers have just come to associate the film with Moria Shearer, because it is her image the dominates the most magical and cinematic portion of the film.  The Red Shoes is much more a film about navigating the world of art, which has inherent ties to prestige and bourgeois power moves.  We see this in Page's complete disconnect from the fact that she is able to attend and leave practice in a chauffeured car, where as her fellow dancers must walk everywhere.  In sharp contrast is Craster whose identity as a student means he has little wealth or power to navigate, making his being robbed of his musical identity the exact thing to push him into impassioned action, which has relative success, up until the films closing moments of course.  Where The Red Shoes and Black Swan seem to come back together is in the closing moments of both main female characters, each arguably perform their last leap of perfection with dire results, but both also raise the question as to where one can go but down after achieving perfection.

Key Scene:  This is a no brainer, the entire dance sequence in the middle of the film could play on repeat on televisions and I know I would watch it countless times.

The Criterion bluray really is something to be amazed by and well worth owning.

You Have Poor Social Skills. You Have A Problem: Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Silver Linings Playbook may prove to be the biggest surprise for me from 2012, not because it is a particularly revolutionary film, or because it came out of nowhere as a huge surprise in filmmaking.  I enjoy David O. Russell, however, the seemingly onslaught of praise directed at this film, not to mention  the claims that it was deserved of every Oscar possible had me a little uncertain, particularly considering that it is essentially a dark romantic comedy.  Why then is it my biggest surprise of last year, well...I would have to say it has everything to do with it proving to be a really great film, regardless of me rooting heavily against it before ever watching even the trailer.  I am honestly trying to be better about actually viewing and considering a work before dismissing it completely, and has proven to benefit my opinion of a work like Silver Linings Playbook, as well as something like American Pie awhile back, although it does prove at many times to confirm my preconceived notions about the film, which is certainly the case with Gone With The Wind.  Hell, who knows, maybe this dedication to seeing before judging will eventually get me around to actually watching a Tyler Perry movie, but I know the likelihood of that is quite minimal.  I say all this digressing from the actual film at hand, which is a rather raw and subtly experimental film by the now well-established David O. Russell who proves to be  impossible to categorize as far as genre is concerned, making everything from his most recent film to the excellent The Fighter, as well as Three Kings, a war movie that I have heard only praise towards.  In a year that saw a lot of directors playing within their comfort zones what Russell offers in Silver Linings Playbook is not only out of the norm for himself, but for many of the performers as well, and while it is certainly not the flawless film people seem so sure it is, I will say that it is certainly worth viewing and evident of what is possible within in the comedic genre, both as a means to make audiences laugh, as well as a way to consider some of the more troubled aspects of a decaying traditionalist society.

Silver Linings Playbook focuses primarily on Pat (Bradley Cooper) an ex-substitute teacher who is being released from a psychiatric ward after being placed their for nearly beating a man to death after discovering him having sex with his wife in the shower.  Pat struggles to maintain any degree of normalcy after this event, especially considering that any sensory experience from the trauma triggers rage within him associated with that event, a particular Stevie Wonder song serving as a perfect example.  Knowing his serious condition, Pat's parents Dolores (Jackie Weaver) and Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro) walk on eggshells around him, although Pat Sr.'s involvement with bookie work after the loss of his pension leads to some very heavy stress within the household.  Regardless of this, Pat seeks safety running in the streets and attempting to get in mental and physical shape in order to win back his wife.  Of course, this task is not easy considering that Pat attempts to avoid taking medication and is so mentally distressed that he has convinced himself of his wife's certain forgiveness.  At a party for Pat's recovery Pat meets a sister of a friends wife named Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) who is facing her own psychological troubles after the loss of her husband.  The two instantly create a derisive chemistry mocking one another in their mental duress, yet clearly drawn to each other in a more than platonic way.  Tiffany convinces Pat that she is capable of assuring communication with his wife, despite a restraining order if he is willing to, in turn, serve as a partner for her in a dance competition.  Needless to say this task proves challenging, both in regards to their respective mental issues, as well as a slew of outside forces attempting to interfere, all culminating into their performance that, at this point in the narrative, has taken on a more than recreational element and indeed possesses very high stakes.  All the while Pat's wife has decided to make an appearance and see how he is doing, much the the dismay of Tiffany, although as the closing moments of the film suggest Pat may have grown to understand his own relationship to his troublesome past, as well as his own necessary detachment from it as well.

This movie takes the possibility of mental breakdown very seriously, positing that it only takes the right troublesome event to lead a person into a depressed self-destructive existence and is something that I think often fails to be appropriately considered within cinema, as was certainly the case with the terribly uninsipring Young Adult.  Sure the whiteness of Silver Linings Playbook, as well as the economic safety of the characters involved should not be ignored, yet it has no qualms showing the very destructive actions a person suffering from complete mental decay goes through, whether it be dangerous sexual engagements, or working out to the point of counter productivity, Russell makes it quite clear that people can snap and when they do it is necessary for those around them to become exceptionally unified.  Much of Silver Linings Playbook then becomes not about Pat and Tiffany's own struggle with their psyches, but instead; a film about those close to them learning to help their psyches evolve back to something remotely normal, at least this is certainly the case between Pat and his brother who seems to think that he can cheer his troubled brother up by boasting on his own successes.  Although the true narrative evolution comes via Pat Sr. whose own failures as a paternal figure have led to him being overly aggressive in stress, yet his has not resulted in the injury of another individual, therefore, he has not been othered by society like his son, although there are moments in the narrative where one considers whether or not he is more insane.  Eventually, however, it is Pat Sr. coming to his own senses about his failures and missteps that drives a major portion of the narrative along and makes viewers consider mental breakdowns and equally problematic mental barriers as they relate to interpersonal communication in the familial sense, one of the main underlying elements in this exceptional dark comedy.

Key Scene:  I am, and always will be, a sucker for Bob Dylan and the use of "Girl from North Country" in this film was beyond stellar.

Movie theater, go now. It helps one to appreciate this film if they see it with others around.

Here's To Our Kids, May Their Parents Be Fucking Rich: Magic Mike (2012)

I am a huge fan of Steven Soderbergh, offering favorable reviews in the past year to both his blockbuster epidemic film Contagion, as well as his low-fi study of anger and isolation in a small town community via Bubble.  The director has received a high degree of very deserved praise for his seamless ability to transfer from big-budget films to small independent works repeatedly, often more than once in the same year, however, these worlds rarely ever crossed and viewers were either given star-studded spectacular bits of film, or a movie whose actors were all incredibly amateur in their delivery.  Then came one of the most unusual films in the directors oeuvre to date, Magic Mike, which gained a footing and reputation all its own, simply for choosing to focus on the life of male strippers.  So much was made of the film being "female-oriented" that it certainly failed to gain the reputation and respect it so blatantly deserved.  Firstly, Soderbergh manages to capture a world quite unfamiliar to many individuals, not to mention without any clear biases, one way or another.  Also, and much to my elation, Magic Mike manages to blend these two previously divided worlds of Soderbergh's films, in that we have bit time actors such as Matthew McConaughey and Channing Tatum, as well as lesser known performers whose only notable roles came through brief television appearances, as such the film exudes a display that manages to capture the monotony and tragedy of day-to-day struggles irregardless of lifestyle choices, as well as the showy and over-the-top nature of the sexually fueled world of male dance reviews.  Furthermore, as seems to be the case so many times in the works of Soderbergh, particularly in the case of something like Traffic, viewers are given more than one narrative to congests and while they are all invariably tied together, it is clear that individual desires and internal struggles emerge, often in explosive and intense ways.  It is nearly tragic the level of dismissive rhetoric thrown at Magic Mike simply because of its subject matter, hell if people can muster up the courage to watch more than one masculine oriented Expendables film, there is absolutely no excuse not to check out the much superior film by a well-established auteur.

Magic Mike, as the title suggests focuses mainly on the life of Mike (Channing Tatum) a construction worker and furniture designer, who also happens to moonlight as a male dancer to pay for some debt occurred prior to the film's beginning, his stage name is the title's sake, although he is not the owner of the bar in which he performs, instead he relies on the guidance and somewhat sly business ways of aging performer Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) who clearly has a devious past that fails ever to be mentioned.  During one day of construction, Mike meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer) a down-and-out young guy who for one reason or another has resorted to taking up residence on his sister Brooke's (Cody Horn) couch.  Realizing rather quickly that he might prove decent at the job of being a dancer, Mike pull strings to get Adam into the revue, under the name of The Virgin Kid.  After a rather bold, but fortuitous first showing, Dallas agrees to allow Adam to train with the crew, eventually leading to his becoming a regular fixture in the revue.  All of this occurs, much to the disdain of Brooke who concerns herself with the dangerous lifestyle associated with late nights and heavy sexual activity, all the while dealing with the growing advances of Mike who becomes quickly infatuated with Brooke.  The life proves a bit problematic for Adam who cannot handle the constant drinking and drug use, eventually blowing a large amount of money on a sketchy drug trafficking deal, one that blows up in his face when he leaves his entire stash at a sorority party that turns sour after Adam gives a girl an ecstasy pill.  The large loss of money and a failure to gain money for Dallas leads to a falling out between the veteran performer and Mike who is tired of working in the unappreciative shadow of Dallas.  Refusing to subject himself to the lifestyle, Mike leaves bitterly on their last night in Tampa, but not before taking care of Adam's debts.  He then stops off at the house of Brooke to beg a few moments of conversation, however, Brooke is well aware of the aid he provided her brother and invites him in for much more than light discussion.  We are led to assume that their romance will succeed and that Mike will discover a way to pursue his dreams without subjecting himself to a less than desirable lifestyle.

As noted earlier and constantly joked about on various blogs, Facebook posts and Twitter updates, Magic Mike was jokingly (or perhaps not) condemned for making heavy use of the semi-nude, if not entirely nude male body.  When one considers film theory, particularly feminist film theory this provides for an unusual moment, because as many know Laura Mulvey coined the term of "The Male Gaze" to explain the pleasure men earned from gazing upon the female body in cinema.  She of course used Marilyn Monroe as her example and led to an entire academic discourse on notions of the female objectified in cinema.  This ideal proved to dominate the manner in which individuals discussed and created cinema well into the 2000's, perhaps not really changing until Daniel Craig's James Bond stepped out of water in a noticeably revealing Speedo, completely reverting notions of who is to be "gazed upon" in a film.  Of course, this occurrence is rarely discussed and has proved to disappear in newer works in the franchise.  Yet, we cannot ignore the means by which Magic Mike does similar acts, we are certainly shown the male form in a sexualized manner, often close-ups on the various actors butts, abs and genitalia, Soderbergh goes so far as to show one performer's penis as it is being made artificially erect by a air pump.  Viewers are asked then to consider their own relationships to gaze in cinema, because for the reactionary males who found the concept of Magic Mike to be inherently gay seem to remind society that the critiques Mulvey posited nearly forty years ago still ring true, it had just become an assumed thing that the female body was acceptable for a depiction of nudity and sexuality and that the male body was not to be subjected to such things.  In fact, the Motion Pictures Association of America still seems squeamish to allow for full-frontal male nudity to be shown in films, often slapping films with an NC-17 rating for such acts.  The fact that Soderbergh chose such a subject shows his willingness not only to tackle the more unknown lifestyles in America, but too that he wants viewers to consider their own objective relationship with cinema, it truly is a slyly brilliant work by the ever interesting director.

Key Scene:  The "It's Raining Men" scene is some rather stellar choreography in so much that it allows viewers to understand the dynamic of the groups characters, both in the overly committed manner of Mike, compared to some of his more drug-fueled colleagues that struggle to keep up pace with the young dancer.  It works both on a action level, as well as a metaphorical one, much praise should be given to Alison Faulk for her subtle and brilliant choreography.

The bluray was a pseudo-blind buy for me, in that I intended to rent this, but damn if it was not quite good and well worth owning, although perhaps renting is appropriate for those who may still be hesitant to watch a film about male strippers.