End Credits - July 20, 2017

This week on End Credits we've got female issues. Or rather other people have female issues and we have to talk about them. For instance, the man that gave us Pulp Fiction, and The Hateful Eight is tired of made-up violence and wants to tackle real life incidents of monstrous murder, in this case against a Hollywood actress. And then, one critic thinks a made-up test to promote better women characters in film is destroying movies, and Disney can't find two Middle Eastern people that can sing and dance and act out of seven billion humans on Planet Earth. And we'll top all that off with review of a film that's a new spin on an old theme. 

This Thursday, July 20, at 10 am, Adam A. Donaldson, and Candice Lepage will discuss:

1) Good Luck, Chuck. Quentin Tarantino is prepping his new movie, and while it's not about cowboys or gangsters, it is about killers. Real-life killers. In something of a shocking move, it was reported that Tarantino is working on a film about the Tate/LaBianca murders of 1969 committed by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers. Given Tarantino's style, his love for exploitative violence, and the sensitivities given that victims' families and many of the perpetrators of the crime are still alive to be offended, it's a very unusual move for the filmmaker. So it will it be the ultimate statement about the Manson murders, or a disaster picture?

2) Test the Limits. A National Review columnist decided to make himself persona non grata on the internet by saying that the Bechdel Test is stifling artistic liberties. What is the Bechdel Test? In the 80s, a cartoonist included a line in one of her graphic novels about how a female character only sees a movie if there are two named women characters who talk to each other, and not about a man. It was kind of a joke at the time, but a lot of cultural critics now use it as a yard stick to measure how women are portrayed on film, perhaps too much because we ask the important question: Is the Bechdel Test the be all/end all to how women are portrayed on film, and aren't their better ways to gauge good representation?

3) Arabian Slights. Disney is basically trying to turn all their animated classics into live-action remakes, and they've got their sights set on Aladdin next, but there's just one problem: It's hard to find people of Middle Eastern ethnicity that can sing, dance, and act. Or maybe it's not that hard. Disney announced the casting for Aladdin and Princess Jasmine last weekend at their D23 convention, and this after leaked reports that a worldwide casting search had come for not. So was Disney actually having a hard time trying to find ethnically correct actors, and were their expectations way too high given what's typically expected from actors in similar roles?

REVIEW: The Beguiled (2017). Sofia Coppola has established herself was one of the pre-eminent film voices of her generation, but her newest film very pointedly takes on the past. This remake of a 1971 film starring Clint Eastwood takes the same plot, a wounded Union solider finds himself in the midst of an all-girls boarding school in the Confederate South, and his presence starts to foster sexual tension amongst the older students and the remaining faculty until things take a surprising turn. The Beguiled may be one of those films that is mesmerizing to some, and infuriating to others, but did Coppola successfully put a modern spin on a nearly 50-year-old story, or is this, oddly enough, a good-looking movie that doesn't have much to say?

End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Thursday at 10 am.