I love Thanksgiving! It's a national holiday, so we're all included, and it integrates well with any religion (or lack of one -- you can always thank a person, after all). Plus, it taps into our American desire to eat to excess! Brilliant!*

As an added bonus, Thanksgiving involves catchy national mythology, featuring some touching interplay between Pilgrim and Indian. It tries hard to convince us that we were freely offered maize/this continent in exchange for smallpox/a romanticized portrayal once a year in November. I think at this point, most of us are uncomfortably aware of how shady a deal that was and even more uncomfortably aware of how little we can really do about it. Because of this, we've constructed an almost mystical reverence for the wise, proud people whom we (irreverently) dumped from their homelands and channel it into the arts whenever possible.**

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn grateful for the sacrifices they made. I mean, what have I done anyway? I sit around, think thoughts about movies and buy clothes online [this post is my official entry into ModCloth's Thanksgiving Thank-a-thon contest]. It's pathetic.

Unfortunately for my conscience, all that post-colonial romanticizin' has resulted in some Hollywood portrayals that are pretty difficult to resist, especially when you're crammed full of mashed potatoes and unable to get out of your dad's recliner. The following are four movies with which to indulge yourself and one that'll help you reclaim a measure of your self-respect.

Pocahontas

Get this one in before the kids go to bed! It's a surprisingly enjoyable Disney animated feature in the old style that suffered much due to criticism that the history is almost 100% inaccurate (although the animals in this film don't talk, so obviously some attempts were made to keep things realistic). Try to ignore the fact that this pretty musical doesn't quite fit in with Disney's usual line of dry, historical documentaries and instead focus on hearing the wolf cry at the blue corn moon.

Dances with Wolves

If there's one thing the 90s were good for it is sweeping epics. If there are two things...I don't know what the second one is,*** but I know it's not Kevin Costner. Nevertheless, that toneless man really put some excellent movies together, did he not? If you haven't seen this film in awhile, it's time to refresh your memory. Don't pretend it's just your mom who loves that sentimental John Barry score -- you'll have a tear in your eye as the drums play while Lieutenant Dunbar forges a relationship with Stands with a Fist. She's not only sassy, she's white! It's the choice with which everyone can feel comfortable.

The Last of the Mohicans

Rumor has it that the noble Mohicans and the rest of the Native American actors and actresses experienced less-than-favorable conditions on the set of this movie. I try and fail to make my indignation overpower the heart palpitations I experience when Daniel Day-Lewis tells Cora that he will find her. I hate being manipulated! I love this movie!

The New World

I recommend this not because it is any good but because knowing what you know now, you can use your viewing of this movie as a post-turkey game to keep your mind sharp. Give yourself points every time a white man helps a hot indigenous babe learn the ways of civilization. Give yourself extra points every time she teaches him something about the ways of nature in return. Down an entire bottle of wine every time a woman's fate bodily passes from one male to another.

Dead Man

I threw this one in last in case your colonial guilt is starting to flare up beyond all reckoning and you crave some relief. One of my favorite films by one of my favorite directors and starring an actor I think about at least once a day, Dead Man will remind you that a colonist can indeed portray the colonized in a thoughtful and respectful manner. Not only that, it's still a kickass movie that will provoke all sorts of emotions, even if no one jumps into waterfalls.

*This is an argument for another time, but Fourth of July might be better, since it taps into our American desire to drink in someone's backyard. Also, the revolutionary ideals of the founding fathers are a whole lot more fun to celebrate than those of the Puritans. Just saying.

**For real, it's a real thing. To read more about it, check out this article about aboriginal representation in media, and this one about the "noble savage," and this one about Squanto, just for kicks. That guy had a rough life.

***That's a lie. I do know what it is, and it's Pearl Jam.

Originally posted on RVANews.

Here's the review I wrote on Sunday evening:

Who'd have thought fifty years ago that there would be a day when a major film studio uses the bargain basement price tag of a film as a marketing tool? As special effects technology improves and all those ghosts and explosions and zombies look more and more "real," our ability to be shocked and impressed has changed dramatically.

But you knew that already. Remember when Jurassic Park hit the theaters and everyone went nuts? I remember hungrily reading a Newsweek article about computer animation, astounded that those lifelike beasts were simply drawn on a computer. For weeks afterwards, I imagined waking up to a giant T. rex eyeball at my window. Only 16 short years later, we sit through the trailer for 2012, (whose tagline should be "This can't possibly end well,") and don't bat an eyelash as we are shown real-as-hell images of our entire world literally falling apart. The other day, in fact, I'm pretty sure we spent our time during that trailer teaching our friends how to eat popcorn without using their hands.

Now that realistic looks false, we gotta move forwards by moving backwards, so the way to make things seem hyper-real is to make it look awful. Even as early as 1999, The Blair Witch Project scared the crap out of me and everyone else I knew. One of the reasons horror movies are satisfying is that you're able to remove yourself (hopefully) and appreciate your snug surroundings for what they are, i.e. cheerful, pleasant, and above all, not haunted. During Blair Witch, you're sitting there thinking, "I, too, have held a camcorder, and I, too, have gone camping, and I, too, will almost certainly meet a spooky and gruesome end the next time I set foot out of my house."

Instead of a camera in the woods, Paranormal Activity sets up shop in the average comfort of average couple Katie and Micah's average home. Katie's been relatively cheerfully dealing with some sort of demon in her life since she was eight years old. Lately, though, the bumps in the night have been getting a little more distressing, so Micah decides to bring in a camera and a microphone to try to catch evidence. His reasons aren't entirely clear -- he's either trying to prove her wrong or prove her right, and at some point, as evidence does begin to pile up, he seems to think that the more he films, the faster a solution will present itself.*

Katie has the opposite view. Supported by the recommendations of a psychic, she feels keenly that the entity whose noise-making shenanigans disturb their sleep most nights will only ramp up its efforts if they continue to try to toy with it. Considering what sorts of things they view on their own tapes in the morning (and I'm not going to elaborate - go see it for yourself), they are surprisingly cavalier about the fact that something supernatural and clearly malevolent is dogging Katie's steps. If Blair Witch tapped into our fear and guilt of wandering through the older, wilder parts of nature, Paranormal Activity attempts to top that by bringing evil into our own home.

And that's where the truly tense moments in this film lie -- the quiet hours in the middle of the night, hours in which we all have looked down that dark hallway between our bedroom and our bathroom and thought, "Do I really have to go that badly?" That snug sense of satisfaction other horror movies allow us evaporates as we realize that we are going home to that exact same house to have those same relationship arguments. As the tension builds with the couple's obvious terror night after night, we brace ourselves against the ending of all endings.

But luckily for me and my sleep patterns, it's the ending that doesn't come. Anti-climactic and disappointing, the film's ending wasn't even worth closing my eyes over (although I did admit I missed a little of it, squeezing my eyes shut and substituting a mental image of a cartoon demon strutting into the bedroom and doing a little dance -- a defense mechanism that I highly recommend). For I'm the sort of person that firmly and boringly believes in nothing. My only personal demon limits itself to putting on pinstripes and creaming the Phillies, yet I continue to be infuriated by the toll that horror movies take on my nerves. This movie, despite its claims of unprecedented fearmongering, failed to scare me. Sure, I was startled a little and generally creeped out, but the underwhelming resolution couldn't hack it for me. After my viewing, and this will mean something if you've seen the movie, I unabashedly charged up a ladder into our tiny attic to peer around at our hundred-year-old roof beams with their creepy old nails looking for a leak. I didn't even flinch when, alerted by my husband's screams, I ran into the hallway to see his legs dangling and flailing from said attic as if a demon were dragging him upwards. Nice try, buster, but I'm still pretty sure those thumps in our hallway at night are our cats.'

...And here is the review I wrote in my head this morning at 4:30am:

HOLY SHIT THERE IS DEFINITELY AN EFFING DEMON IN OUR HOUSE.

*This was pretty scary, actually. An asshole boyfriend who ignores your frantic pleas and instead invites the scariest thing you can imagine to torture you further.

I was formerly a little bit embarrassed sometimes at how much I mention these guys.  FORMERLY.

I’ve been stressing about how to handle the delicate subject matter within The Invention of Lying. One might assume based on marketing, that the new Ricky Gervais* film is merely a clever romantic comedy jam-packed with amusing cameos and self-deprecating humor, but it’s so, so much more. In fact, you so, so might walk out of the theater, even, and that’s because the Jim Carrey-esque premise is actually an excuse to wax philosophic about human nature.

And you may not be thrilled with some of the conclusions.

Let’s cover the less controversial ones first! Delay the inevitable! OK, so in the world Mark (Gervais) lives in, nobody has ever lied. Ever! And because it’s never happened, they can’t even fathom the concept. For some reason this also causes them to speak their minds at times when they should shut their traps, and I’m not sure if that’s just for the sake of comedy (imagine a waiter handing you your drink and letting you know that he took a sip on the way over) or if it’s our sense of well-intentioned deceit that we DON’T say exactly what we’re thinking.

It’s interesting to think about. Dumpy, depressed Mark is really into Anna (Jennifer Garner), who is not only beautiful but, we’re told, is also an angel inside. This is a little hard to swallow sometimes, because that woman sure thinks some shallow things – people wearing glasses (??) sitting on a park bench are “losers” and she can’t be with Mark simply because he’s not attractive enough to provide her with pretty kids. Even “I’m just not attracted to you and it’s important that I’m physically into a guy that I’m with” would have been better than “Beautiful genes are the most important thing to me, sorry.” It seems as if the writers (Gervais and Matthew Robinson) believe that in our world, Anna would be a perfect female specimen because she'd be keeping judgmental stuff to herself. I find that a little difficult to swallow.

However, the comparison of Truth World to Real World reveals a lot of things, usually humorously, occasionally poignantly, and sometimes shockingly. For instance, without lies, movies really blow. Fiction, you see, was never invented. Advertising’s purpose is to remind consumers that a product exists and to plead them to buy it. Life in general is a little drab, and the ability to lie is a good thing. That suicidal guy in your building would probably be relieved if you told him that everything was going to turn around for him one day. A part of a doctor’s bedside manner is largely based, we now see, on half-truths and hopeful expressions. We tend to think of lying as a bad thing, but Gervais and Robinson make it very clear that in certain situations, we do each other a disservice when we tell the truth. Or, at least, the truth as we see it.

All right, the time has come for me to grit my teeth and go for it, here. A huge part of this movie is about how religion is a lie. Mark develops the ability to say things that aren't true, and as a result can convince anyone to do anything he wants. This includes telling his dying mother that the terrifying eternity of nothingness that is her death staring her in the face will actually be a lot more pleasant than she thinks. It’ll be a place where you’ll go on living forever, he says. Where you can have your own mansion, and everybody you love will be there waiting for you. To Mark, the relieved look on her face as she finally passes away is worth the deception, but the unintended consequence is that the hospital staff members who overheard are very, very interested in this whole afterlife idea. Within 24 hours, he’s mobbed by an entire planet that has obviously been oppressed by the fear of death and is desperate to hear that there is something more to life than this. Under enormous pressure, he sits down at his desk and invents religion. The effects are hilarious and eye-opening. Or a little infuriating, depending on your views.

I figure there are enough movies with religious undertones that a blatantly (and literally) agnostic film shouldn’t cause any riots, especially since the movie as a whole is consistently both uproariously funny and sweetly touching. But who knows, maybe knowing about the subject matter before buying tickets will help those who may not agree to accept that this is one point of view and will allow them to sit back and enjoy the writing. And if they can’t, maybe they’ll just opt to see something else instead. Either way, you can’t say I didn’t tell you the truth.

*...whose position in the rom-com world is rising to a surprising prominence, don't you think?

To be archived here later on!

In other news, I....am on Twitter. I don't really know how to use it well, but I am trying! Maybe someone will find that endearing??? Follow me at: twitter.com/susanhowson.

In no way does the following statement mean that I am happy that such a cool dude died, but it was very CONVENIENT that a movie-related thing happened on my watch.  You may find it, and you may graciously comment upon it, here.

Seriously, comment on it please. I need some good quotes with which to pepper the site!

In the last month or so, I have seen two bloody, gory, sickeningly violent movies, one of which I loved (Inglourious Basterds) and one of which I hated (District 9). I spent a good amount of my theatre-going time buried in my husband's shoulder, and during both films I briefly considered Walking Out.* Then later I made a solemn vow which came back to bite me in the ass. Won't you read on??

The violence in Inglourious Basterds is typically Tarantino - gratuitous and shocking-on-purpose - but underneath it was such a pretty, clever story that I forgot about a lot of it, like it was limp lettuce and a mealy tomato before an excellent dinner. I try to hate Tarantino. It's not clear to me why, unless it's because I can't stand listening to him talk, but I usually end up being all captivated and whatnot. It's the isolated quirky elements that end up bugging me almost more than somebody beating someone else's head in with a baseball bat in a sequence that is two minutes longer than it needs to be. He's always throwing in titles and narration where they don't belong, in an effort to show how much he treasures his influences, I imagine. Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't. In Inglourious Basterds, it doesn't work, but I'll put it aside with the lettuce and tomato - a too-thick slice of yellow onion. It was there, and I bit into it hopefully, but my disappointment with it was forgotten when I tasted the main course. These onion moments ALMOST bother me more than the grossness, but not quite. Well, I should say, not as much as the miggles** that erupt all around every time someone's head explodes in a shower of brain and skull and scalp. They even laughed during the scene in which Hitler laughs at a violent movie (though inwardly, I'm sure, they were dealing with some really troubling self-comparisons that are sure to have kept them up late that night.)

District 9, guys, was stupidly the exact opposite. The film began with a neat allegorical premise (aliens, deposited in Johannesburg through no fault of their own, are hated by everyone else, who think they're pretty gross, so they get stuck in their own ghetto, aaand we have Apartheid.) (Although you gotta wonder about the implications of this - the aliens, except one guy who has big Wall-E eyes and is therefore acceptable, are pretty much made out to be worthy of everyone's hatred and disgust). Half false documentary, the film could have been something special, but instead it leaned farther and farther into the action/thrills genre until it stumbled over the line and became a sci-fi action flick.

So anyway, after all the chunks of alien/human meat flying around all the time, I swore off violent movies for awhile. Instead, I've been devoting every spare second to watching the BBC television phenomenon, Monarch of the Glen. It's a sprightly show about a young Scottish guy who is sort of thrown into managing his family estate. Every episode ends satisfyingly, there are one or two seriously good jokes, and I enjoy the rampant sexual tension between just about everybody. Plus I get to see beautiful highland scenery (every scene is shot before some kind of fantastic waterfall, it feels like), beautiful highland guys, and hilarious archetypes of old, rich aristocrats. Best of all, nobody's body explodes before my eyes! Win/win!

Unfortunately, I watched about ten episodes in a row this weekend while I struggling with some sort of stomach illness. As a result, the cheerful saxophone theme song and the garish lines of plaid that intersect the opening titles now fill me with Pavlovian nausea. Bitter irony?

* It's so liberating to do that, but also constricting because you want to save that insult of all insults for only the truly despicable boils upon the face of cinema. Not to mention that so many terrible movies are so terrible that one enjoys feeling gleeful contempt and wants to see it through so that every drop of suck that can be wrung from it will be duly appreciated and mocked. But sometimes things just blow, and when it not only blows but murders Beatles songs, I'm outta there.

**Noun, man giggles. Made up by my sister last week. Sooo much more useful than you might think.

No complaints thus far. Of the movies I've seen lately, I've only got nitpicking to do. John Dillinger puts the sexy in sexism in Public Enemies. I was angry at myself for rooting for a chauvenist with a fairly inconsistent regard for human life, but it wasn't my fault. Michael Mann threw Johnny Depp at me, who was able to complete a movie without indulging in any delightfully spooky makeup or characterization. I wouldn't have even recognized him if I hadn't seen his face in my dreams every night. Have I said too much.

He robs banks and orders women to be his life partners! Yet I am smitten!

Last week I finally caught Away We Go, which I'd heard was only meh. Sure, it was typically over the top with tiny emotional climaxes, as Sam Mendes is wont to do, but brush all that painful poignancy aside, and you've got a funny couple with that charming tousled-and-a-little-lost look, who are refreshingly devoid of relationship problems. It's not that they're better than you, it's that they are you. In some ways it's the opposite of his last picture, Revolutionary Road. Solid couple with a really imperfect life that turns out to be perfect anyway. Just reverse all those meanings and you've got ol' Leo and Kate, chasing each other through the woods and having awkward affairs.

I'm not sure I could find much fault with Drag Me to Hell, however. Adorable, deliciously scary (as opposed to the kind of scary that keeps you up at night. Maliciously scary?), and impeccably timed are things I would say. But no matter how much I try, I can't get anyone to believe me. "It's campy and great!" I say. "The trailer is terrifying. I'm not into being scared," they say before not sharing their chips. Bitchez! I'm not into being scared either. What's wrong with my guarantee that you will not wake up in the middle of the night terrified that the corpse of an old woman will spew embalming fluid on you?

On DVD, I've had some good finds lately as well. I don't know why it took me so long to watch Mystery Train, having warmly embraced most of Jim Jarmusch's other films long ago. I think a girl in a class I had once gave a long boring presentation about it, so in my mind the poor movie would be tedious and involve a lot of Xeroxed handouts. It's Jarmusch in Memphis, only more colorful than usual, and a little more precious than most of his older films. Other than that, it's been a lot of True Blood and The Wire lately, as I just moved house, and our energy at night isn't what it used to be. I mean, like, a month ago.

While packing I re-re-rediscovered some brilliant Mr. Show moments. Discover Josh Fenderman, won't you?

With all the right, what the public didn\'t see coming were all the wrongs

My sister is one of the few people in the world* who could conceivably convince me to help her pick up blood and guts and bits of bone from crime scenes (but luckily our collaboration efforts have thus far not exceeded blogging together about an insane magazine). She'd have to try REALLY hard though, and we'd definitely need the "My kid needs money for school and both of us are getting nowhere with our current jobs" motivation that the adorable sisters Rose and Norah Lorkowski have in Megan Holley's first film, Sunshine Cleaning.

Holley's put together a pretty standard, no-frills, "my life hasn't quite turned out like I'd like it to be," boutique flick. It's at times charming and at times distressing, like The Savages, only replace Philip Seymour Hoffman with Amy Adams (which might be a good tactic to lighten up lots of other drab movies as well -- just stick Amy Adams in dark corners to provide a little cheer and you're done!). Everyone is sort of wrily pitiful and no one has it all figured out, but flaws are eventually embraced and family ties strengthened. I don't need to cover any of the plot in more detail.

The standout parts of Sunshine Cleaning are the distinct talents of Adams (who plays the older sister, Rose, who was something of a beauty queen in high school but now struggles to raise her kid alone) and Emily Blunt (younger sister Norah, who I'd describe as an excellent aunt but confusingly costumed). Of course, Alan Arkin is no slouch, and it was somehow comforting to see him in a heartwarming movie so soon after I'd seen Wait Until Dark. Unfortunately, he's a little typecast in his role of doting yet shady grandfather, but it's all right. What family relationship hasn't been done to death?

When I saw Waitress, which comes across similarly, I swore it was moving and fantastic, but I think it took me about a month to forget it existed. Sunshine Cleaning would run that same risk if it weren't for its particularly morbid setting, that, is the world of an aspiring crime scene cleanup crew. They do say "crime scene" in the film a lot, but what they really mean is "gory or disgusting death in fetid living spaces," which is what Rose and Norah seem to end up cleaning most of the time. The job pays well, they hear, so they start from the blood-soaked ground and work their way up, finding that, for Rose at least, cleaning up someone's terrible demise makes her feel a little more complete. Nora has other issues, which you'll discover, that also involve grisly endings that can't be cleaned up so easily, but in the meantime, we get to learn all sorts of things about a niche industry that are fascinating in a disgusting way.

Although, the main character in Waitress found her completeness in pies, which I find fascinating in a delicious way, and I still forgot about it a month later, so we'll see.

*Also, George Clooney.