Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012)

Director: Quintin Tarantino 

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerri Washington, Samuel L. Jackson

2012 was a bizarre year for movies. On one hand, we had about a dozen films that were highly anticipated because they were the newest works of certain high-profile directors, such as Amour (Michael Heneke), Argo (Ben Affleck), Lincoln (Speilberg), Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow), Life of Pi (Ang Lee), The Master (Anderson), Silver Linings Playbook (Russell)... and of course Tarantino's newest. I suppose last year was largely considered to be this great year of film. On the other hand, in my opinion, very few of these (competently made) movies lived up to their hype. All of them are strangely, almost hypnotically, underwhelming. That doesn't mean several of them aren't great-- Lincoln, The Master, and Django most certainly are-- but the rest weren't, and in any case something very subdued and morally ambiguous pervaded in all of them. 

I saw Django Unchained in theaters last fall when it first came out, and just saw it again last night. After a second viewing, I've decided it's a very peculiar movie indeed, from the pace of its narrative, its three part structure, strange closeups (Shultz pouring pints of beer), and even the wonky music accompanying certain scenes (a montage featuring Django and Shultz "training" in the cold mountainous wilderness).  At times the movie comes off cutesy (a gang of southern slave owners, including an inexplicable Jonah Hill, humorously bickering about their makeshift KKK masks); at other times, the realistic sadism and violence is stomach turning. 

Initially, I theorized that perhaps the movie can be simplified as beginning light-hearted and fun, and then delving into the horrific. The scene where we first meet Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he gruesomely orchestrates a Mandingo fight in his posh quarters perhaps serves as that pivotal scene where the tone of the movie shifts. However, now I doubt this shift in tone is the case. The light-hearted, playful elements extend throughout the film, and the disturbing gruesomeness is abundant in the early portions of the film, such as Django's flashbacks of his wife Broomhilda whipped as he begs for mercy. 

The fact is that the bewildering structure and narrative of Django Unchained refuses interpretation. It's nearly impossible. There are three parts to Django. 

The first part of the movie is about Django assimilating into the business by Shultz, and a "revenge tale" is set up: these two will spend the entire film finding the Brittle Brothers. But this tale is not the central plot. After the two heroes find and kill the Brittle Brothers, the plot shifts to a second part, a second "revenge tale"; however, Django never actually says he plans to kill Candie to get his wife back. In fact, Django and Shultz's plan is to prudently purchase her from Candie by entering the estate disguised as Mandingo enthusiasts. After a second viewing, Shultz's plan comes off as a very, very bad idea. But what was Django's plan going in? Did he foresee that the only way to get his wife back would be through enacting "revenge", the demolition of Candie's entire foundation? This remains unclear.

Once on the plantation, Candie's savage slyness and cunning makes Shultz and Django seem way in over their heads. Candie is not the same plantation owner our heroes cleverly (too easily?) outwitted in the first half of the movie; even worse, Candie has a watchful and keen guard protecting Candyland, a "House Nigger" named Stephen, played by an almost unrecognizable Samuel L. Jackson. We know this will end badly for everyone. We know Django and Shultz aren't just going to walk out of Candie's stronghold without a trail of blood behind them. 

Christoph Waltz's Dr. Shultz is one of the most interestingly moral characters set to screen. In the opening scene, he throws away a handful of money at the slave trader whose leg is broken by the horse, then frees the slaves. Money is important to Shultz, but not at the sake of something so objectively immoral as the institution of slavery. He even says straight up that he "detests" slavery. Moreover, he despises Candie, and certainly deserved the Oscar for the scenes in which he must mask his disgust at Candie's sadistic acts. In the end, Shultz gives his own life (and possibly even Django's!) to watch this epitome of human depravity suffer and die. 

After Shultz's death, the movie enters it's third part, a different movie altogether. With Candie and Shultz dead, Django alone must return to the plantation not just to take his wife back, that would be too simple, but to destroy every fiber of the inhuman structure Candie represented. This includes not only Candie's sister, all his men, and his faithful servant Stephen, but also his entire plantation, an ostentatious mansion filled of horror and pain. 

If Django Unchained is a great movie, it's because it brings to mind an alternative history. How many people suffered like Broomhilda, crying in bed and praying that her husband would come to save her, and yet never being saved? How many ostentatious plantations still stand unaltered  preserved relics built up by the hands of suffering generations of African-Americans? The most horrible part is that Django's alternate history is our real history. By the movie's final explosive scene, Tarentino has given his audience everything they wanted; a moral white man who sacrificed himself for others, a relentless and triumphant hero, and a protected beautiful damsel as they literally ride off in the sunrise. But, exactly like Shultz's German fairy tale, Django Unchained is merely the stuff of fairy tales. None of it was real. There were no happy endings. And if nothing else, this painful remainder of our dark and sordid history makes Django great.

A

    

The Golden Age of Horror: An Exposition

Someone's going to their room without dinner.

After an extended hiatus, I'm back! It's been a very long time, and I hardly know where to begin. How about a list of the 10 best horror films from the last 10 years that I watched recently? In no particular order:

May (A)

The Woman (A)

The Descent (A+)

Sinister (A+)

The Pact (A)

The Exorcism if Emily Rose (A-)

Dread (A)

Absentia (B)

Silent Hill (A-, seriously, what the hell was that?)

V/H/S (B+, or an A for its brilliant low-budgetness)

*Spoilers Below!*

It really is The Golden Age of horror, as this guy put it. So Golden, in fact, that the bar has been raised ridiculously high. Awhile back I was watching so many high caliber scary movies in succession that I would become convinced that I had exhausted all the best, and then, low and behold, I would watch something else that surpassed the last. All the movies listed above are primarily responsible for me quitting the last season of The Walking Dead right after that zombie devoured Laurie and Rick had some stupid nervous breakdown. 

                                                                            Seriously, chill out dude.  It's only a zombie.

What really gets me is how many of these movies revert to fascinating and archaic supernatural themes and even fairy tales to explain their dark forces. For example, Absentia, although not great, is a sophisticated movie about an insect-troll that resides in another dimension beyond the walls of a tunnel, kidnapping people ala Billy Goats Gruff. The monster in Sinister-- which is in fact great, a pitch-perfect shockingly horrifying, scream-inducing nightmare film-- is explained as a pagan deity (!) that coerces children to murder, two horrifying concepts in one. And then there's the six (count 'em six!) demons that possess poor Jennifer Carpenter in Emily Rose. And who doesn't love a good demon, let alone six?

These days, when horror isn't revolving around other-wordly folkloric beings, it's surprising us with some truly unsettling man-made monstrosities and concepts.  Honestly, the word unsettling doesn't even begin to describe them. We have the innate fear of cannibalism and deafness in Dread, societal exclusion and sexual madness in May, male-dominated violent misogyny and psychopathy in The Woman, and a serial killer family member hiding in our basement and watching us through the walls in The Pact. These concepts aren't just brought about to spook us a little; they are so completely calculated and meticulously constructed to scare the living shit out of us by evoking our innermost terrors.  Oh yeah, and no one cares about you and no one is coming to save you, not even your family, FYI.

What a great age to be born into! Reviews forthcoming. Welcome back.

The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Michael Cain, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard 

Has there ever been a blockbuster trilogy so riddled with tragedy? There was Heath Ledger's death before the release of The Dark Knight in 2008, then the movie theater shooting on the night of the premier of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado. In addition, a stuntman was killed during the filming of the second film. The fact that Nolan's trilogy presents some of the darkest, most villainous subject matter ever to be manifested on film only makes these tragedies more exceptional and disturbing. 

Batman Begins was a promising version of the Batman saga that neglected the fantastical world of most superhero movies in favor of a realistic interpretation. Billionaire Bruce Wayne's spiritual ascent from his anger over the murder of his parents is propagated by his mentor, Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson), whom he must defeat in order to save the city he strives to protect. At the end of Batman Begins, his childhood love Rachel (Katie Holmes) tells him she will be with him once he no longer needs Batman. But does Bruce need Batman more than the city needs him? The finale of the first film ends with an eerie foretelling of a new villain, the Joker, and Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) comments that the presence of Batman, a faceless vigilante, has created a new brand of criminal, one also masked and with a taste for the "theatrical". In other words, we have the irony that Batman exists to protect Gotham, yet in doing so, propels the most insidious and nefarious criminals to come out of the woodwork. 

The ending of the first installment presented a terrific set-up for The Dark Knight, a cinematic force of momentous consequences. The Dark Knight represents a world so close to ruin by a villain so terrifying and relentless, not only in his intentions and achievements, but also because he paradoxically refers to himself as "an agent of chaos". As Alfred (Michael Cain) warns Bruce in the second film, "some men can not be negotiated with." They only want to see the city burn.

Throughout The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne is frequently in over his head. Nearly out shadowed by the Joker's maniacal plots, it becomes clear early on that in order to continue protecting Gotham, Batman must rescind any desire to be recognized for his heroism. This was the purpose of the character Harvey Dent (Aaron Erickerson), a politician and therefore a legitimate (i.e democratic) hero who upholds our society's most benevolent intentions. Dent's fall is anticipated when he claims to be Batman, thinking this would appease the deranged Joker. Maimed and ruined by the death of his fiance Rachel, Dent wears a mask as well, but it's a grotesque and vertical monstrosity-- a two-faced, hypocritical concoction-- very much unlike the meticulous creation of Batman, or the apathetically splashed on make-up of the Joker.

Batman must take the fall for Dent's failures to prevent the city from losing hope for the goodness of Gotham. The reasons are delightfully ambiguous, and perhaps, as Gordon puts it, "Because he can take it." And herein enters one of several primary themes that pervades the films; the importance of hope and the threat of its demise.

When I first heard that The Dark Knight Rises would not pick up where we left off, but begin several years after the last film ended, I was disappointed. However, I see now that in order to complete the trilogy, Nolan would have to establish a back-drop for Wayne's selfless herosim; namely, that he is essentially a lonely misanthrope keeping a watchful eye over Gotham's period of piece. All that is torn to shambles with the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy), whose character's fortitude and motivation are as insurmountable as, let's say, scaling the walls of the pit of a prison from which no man has ever escaped.

The Dark Knight Rises is already a cinematic classic, a powerhouse of sequences and characters not easy to erase from modern memory. Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle represents how society forces members to resort to illegal means as survival, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Blake serves a practical role of both bringing Batman back from seclusion and serving as the point of view of a city crumbling to ashes.  

Is there any metaphor in film more uplifting and perfect than that of Bruce Wayne emerging from the pit, after his body has been broken and his city razed? Is there any other villain so diabolical and yet shockingly sympathetic as Bane? It is hard to imagine that there will ever be another director that will create such a complex narrative, nuanced characters, and thoughtful social commentary with Batman in years to come. This is the primary reason Nolan's Batman trilogy is so important, and overtime, will help overshadow the terrible tragedies surrounding it.

Paul Thomas Anderson: An Exposition

Hi everybody! It's been awhile since I posted but I've been quite busy with my second full-length screenplay, which I have just finished last week! Congrats to me, I know.

On the subject of screenwriting, one of my favorite film writers has a new movie coming out in October, The Master. Have you seen the trailer? Here it is!

Joaquin. Philip. Paul Thomas Anderson. WWII-era. This is such a treat for me, as I didn't think the year of film could get more promising with the release of Django Unchained.

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of only several great narrative filmmakers working today.  Ask me what my favorite movie is, or which one I would chose to send in some time capsule to aliens or what have you, and I would say Boogie Nights alongside Breaking Bad, if there is room in there for a series. 

Like Breaking Bad, Boogie Nights has every necessary element required for a spot in the apex of narrative drama. It has a perfectly defined protagonist with a definite dream, Dirk, played by Mark Wahlberg, who is perfectly likable and engaging because he is innocent and child-like in his pursuits of being a star, even when he is fucking up and hitting rock bottom on his journey to self-acceptance. It has the wise seer mentor Jack (Burt Reynolds) who takes our young hero under his wing, and who represents an artist with a passion for his film and the family of benevolent outcasts he has cultivated. We have the unfortunate mother-figure, Amber (Julianne Moore) who has a large heart and a painful history,  and who's single flaw is that she has too much love to give and nowhere to place it. Then there is the cacophony of terrific characters played with keen sensitivity by our current 21st acting titans: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Don Cheadle, John C. Reilly, Alfred Molina, William H. Macy. 

We like these people because they are good people, and it is surprising to consider that they are all porn stars and some are drug addicts and the world Anderson has created is not filthy or dirty by any means, because its characters are childish and kind and love one another, and the tragedy that happens to them is tragic because we care about them. Likewise, the finale of Dirk reconciling with father-figure Jack, who immediately forgives him and welcomes him back into his home, is the kind of beauty and parable simplicity only found in the best literary works. Did I mention that the film is really about the history of film? How Jack'sprinciples regarding the making of genuine art on 35mm are compromised by the advent of digital reproduction and subsequently, the shallowness of cinema in the 80's and 90's?

Boogie Nights doesn't belong to any decade.  It doesn't belong to the 90's anymore than it belongs to the 70's. Instead, it is a universal tale set to the music of a decade notoriously rife with pain, loss, hopes, mistakes, love, and of course, forgiveness.  It's a great precursor for the films of our current century, and its boy-meets-world tale belongs to all of us.

There Will be Blood is also a majestic force of cinematic art, but for entirely different reasons. Decidedly more methodical and punctual, it is more important for solidifying the canon of Anderson's unique brand of analogy driven American historicism, a brand I am certain will continue with The Master.

So here's to The Master! May it be everything we've hoped for 2012. 

Dim the lights.

Prometheus

Prometheus (2012)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron

*The following review is written by our guest editor, Stephen Spencer*

There’s nothing better than a film you want to watch again immediately after it ends.  Then there are films you never ever want to see again because they’re just so bad (the much hyped and disappointing The Watchmen comes to mind).  Ridley Scott’s Prometheus falls somewhere between these two extremes.  It’ll leave many viewers outside the cineplex groping for explanations and clarifications, but unfortunately, it doesn’t have many of the answers.  This isn’t to say that it’s a bad film, however; it is good on many levels but seriously flawed on others.

For the good, we need look no further than director Ridley Scott.  Like Blade Runner and Kingdom of Heavenbefore it, Prometheus is absolutely gorgeous and cements Scott as a living legend in terms of cinematography and visual style. From its lush intergalactic set pieces to its hideously bizarre monsters, Prometheus is a jaw-dropping adventure from scene to scene that engages viewers in its epic universe. Not for nothing, Prometheus begs to be seen in all its optical grandeur.

Many suspected that Prometheus shared the same universe as an earlier Scott film: the claustrophobically horrifying Alien.  As rumors turned to virtual fact, fans rejoiced at a fresh take on the iconic series from its original visionary, one that seemed to promise a hyper expansion of the Alien mythos.  But this is where the film makes its first mistake.  Fans watching Prometheus with Alien in mind will be sorely disappointed, not because of the lack of tie-ins (there is one overt tie-in, and it’s huge), but rather because they feel shoehorned in.  Prometheus could have stood on its own, but it chooses to stand on the shoulders of Alien to distracting and detrimental effects.  

Further hurting the film is it plot and characters.  Alien was so successfully captivating because it cultivated a low-key tone and organic pace through its realistic characters, with a plot punctuated at key moments by the Xenomorph.  Prometheus has the opposite problem: there’s too much room to breathe and not enough good breathing. Noomi Rapace and Logan Marshall-Green play Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway, fellow archaeologists/lovers that discover several interlinked cave etchings, leading to Prometheus’s intergalactic journey in search of the “Engineers” (the creators of the human race).  Rapace and Green’s on-screen chemistry never takes off, partly because the parameters of their characters’s romantic relationship is unclear.  Overseeing the Prometheus mission is Charlize Theron’s Meredith Vickers. Theron ably plays the role of the stern corporate suit, but it’s her skin-tight body suit that most (male) viewers will be interested in.  Commandeering the ship is Janek, played by Idris Elba, who is severely underutilized. The script can’t decide whether he’s a maverick loner or a born-and-bred leader, but one of these characterizations is forced on him without enough preparation.  Perhaps most disappointing character is Guy Pearce’s Peter Weyland, the aging billionaire CEO and financier of the Prometheus expedition.  Seeing Pearce in “old man” makeup is the film’s only visual gaffe; to put it bluntly, he looks ridiculous.  Why the filmmakers did not cast an actual senior citizen is beyond comprehension, and Pearce’s brief inclusion brings the film to the border of camp.  

Saving the best for last, Michael Fassbender plays David, the ship’s android.  David is idiosyncratic, super intelligent, and utterly emotionless, yet Fassbender imbues him with a unique type of humanity that alludes almost every other actor on screen (save for Rapace).  Scott is clearly interested in the concomitant themes conjured by the android archetype (Alien and Blade Runner), including that of creation, technology, and humanity.  Fassbender’s David is a new and interesting take on this character, and he ultimately provides the film with its existential and philosophic underpinnings.

Fassbender cannot, however, save Prometheus from its loose plot.  Looseness can be an artistic virtue, but this isn’t jazz; it’s more akin to a band student in her room with un-honed technical chops.  Many of the character’s decisions either go unexplained or are simply unrealistic; “reveals” are often dramatically unnecessary and confusing; and finally, some of the plot elements are downright confusing.  All this adds up to a film that begs post-screening discussion, discussion that does nothing more than reveal the shoddiness of its narrative.  

Prometheus does gain points for tackling the big themes: faith, family, and the pursuit of knowledge, among others.  But these should emerge from a well-structured plot and engaging characters, not the other way around.  InPrometheus, the thematic cart comes before the story-telling horse.  But the cart isn’t all that bad.  Prometheus is certainly worth a watch, particularly on the big screen, where its visuals and thrills are highlighted.  But don’t expect to be absorbed into a deeply layered universe -- it’s a black hole.

B  

The Grey

The Grey (2011)

Director: Joe Carnahan

Cast: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo

Remember a long time ago when I wrote how B+ horror movies, like Insidious and Orphan, are solidly paced and solidly scary, but receive little attention or acclaim? My point was that B+ movies, horror or otherwise, have a niche, too, and need our love and support,even if they don't warrant immediate recognition from audience or critics (critics, bah!).  The reason is these movies are more likely to stand the test of time than many other films that were popular and supposedly iconic this past decade, but which are also B+ movies in quality and content. These uber-hyped movies have since withered away into pastiche and no one really watches them anymore, like one-hit-wonders or that popular jock from high school who now works at a mattress store (I actually know a guy). The one's that immediately come to mind are many of the Best Picture Winners: American Beauty, Crash, A Beautiful Mind, Slumdog Millionaire and The Hurt Locker. These mediocre movies can go straight to hell via the river Styx forever! Goodbye overblown mediocrity!

The Grey is a B+ movie that will likely gain more attention and praise as the 21st century progresses, and the reason is because it features so many classic film conventions in addition to many literary motifs as well. Obviously a film doesn't need literary motifs to be great, but it certainly needs a universal theme that can transcend the fact that -- let's say-- it's an airplane disaster wilderness survival flick with wolves starring Liam Neeson opening in January. But The Grey is that movie and a killer thoughtful and touching piece, something that Slumdog Millionare never achieved! (Clearly I hate Slumdog Millionaire, however, impending review of Boyle's far superior Sunshine coming soon).

First of all, the reason The Grey is only B+ is because it refuses to delve too deep into these universal themes, which is ironic I guess, depending on how you look at it. In the beginning we get Liam Neeson kneeling in the snow with a shot gun to the face, stopped at the very last minute from killing himself. Why is he so sad? We don't know why he's sad except that he has a daydream of  his hottie wife looking at him in bed. No matter. He boards a sketchy plane with a group of blue-collar workers which crashes (awesomely) in the middle of the frigid Alaskan wilderness. The remaining survivors are soon faced not with starvation or cannibalism ala Rugby team circa 1972 (RIP!), but rather with ferocious territorial wolves who lure each member into a gory death one by one. Therefore, what we have is a classic man versus beast saga, with abundant ubiquitous allusions to the similarities between the men and the canine beasts.

Let's just agree that this movie has some pretty sick scenes, like when My Best Friend's Wedding (Dermot Mulroney, I know) must zip line (shimmy) from a cliff to a gigantic tree a hundred feet off the ground, or when one member bleeds to death after the crash and Liam Neeson effectively consoles him into the light. We also get some promising actors, like the guy who plays Xaro Xhoan Daxos in Game of Thrones (RIP Daxos!). The movies also features a beautifully catchy Irish verse which is relevant to the story's conclusion, evokes the title's namesake, and is also an original piece, not some trite reference to a famous poet. (SPOILERS AHEAD) If you recall, the trailer featured a scene where our hero is about to engage in a battle to the death with a wolf, but the conclusion of this scene is not provided. By the end, do we really need it? Is there any question who will win? The answer is no. It is understood that Liam Neeson escaped a cowardly death for a noble demise, therefore experiencing life (and death) to the fullest. 

A final reason this film will stand the test of time is because Neeson recently lost his wife to a tragic skiing accident and has most likely drowned his grief in his work, as evidenced by the multiple movies he's starred in in the last few years. With The Grey, Neeson obviously channels some inner demons into his powerful and hypnotizing role, so when the Academy finally gives him his due of a life time achievement award many years from now, guess what? The Grey will also come out victorious once again.

B+

Girls (Season 1)

Such a rags to riches story.

We women live in terrible times. I know this because of the show Girls.

I knew we were in trouble with Girls from the very first episode, when Lena Dunham's pathetically reckless Hannah consents to passionless doggie-style rape with border-line mentally handicapped Brooklyn loser, Adam. The scene, like so many others in the series, is so desperate to spark repulsion and awkwardness from the viewer that it fails to elicit just that, instead merely calling attention to itself as a show desperately craving a post-modern gag reflex.  

Girls is a disaster of epic proportions, a show so self-conscious and pandering that it's constantly distracting from itself. In ignorantly assuming to be the voice of a voiceless generation, Lena Dunhum's despicable series actively refuses to partake in any substantive statements or opinions on the current role of women (girls, if you prefer). Instead, these twenty-something liberal-arts-grad heroines repeatedly demonstrate disregard for their so-called best friends and lovers, and worse, any semblance of respect for themselves.

Such irresponsibility is inexcusable, especially considering the current media and political debacle concerning women's rights in contemporary American society. That being said, such despondent observations of our generation's trails and pitfalls might be excusable if the narrative cared an iota for the basic tenants of character development. At the end of the first episode, Hannah leaves her parents' hotel after being cut-off financially, a precedent that presumably would result in her character evolving from an economically-challenged post-grad to an empowered, independent protagonist. No such luck, as Hannah succeeds in making increasingly stupid mistakes in her social life and career, even engaging in activities that border on disastrously harmful-- namely, offering to fuck her 50 something grope-y boss and then blackmailing him when he refuses. Such plot developments, which are wholly inconsequential to the plot anyway, are horribly damaging in the context of media depictions of women, considering that Dunham has made it clear that her aim in writing the show was to represent the lives of twenty-something women.   

Irregardless of this, the show refuses to have its characters account for their foibles and change their lives for the better. In this respect, all the female leads, not just Hannah, are boggling suppressed. Take "bohemian" (whatever the fuck that means) Brit Jessa, who can't simply meet with an ex-boyfriend without screwing him in order to prove that she's still desirable since he got a new girlfriend. Meek Shoshana is a virgin, and so obviously she can't engage socially with anyone without coming off as insanely awkward and so completely out of touch with  social conventions that she unknowingly smokes crack at a Bushwick party, strips, and runs down the street screaming (isn't this girl, like, 22 years old?) Even prissy career woman Marnie, who seems to kinda have her life in order, can't take the first step in actively pursuing a crude sexual encounter with a misogynistic sleeze-bag artist when he says, "The first time I fuck you, I might scare you a little because I'm a man" (ew). Instead, because she is so turned on, she runs and hides in the bathroom to ferociously masturbate....at her place of work, nonetheless.

Offensive anti-female depictions aside, the show suffers from repeatedly inane and unfunny plot devices-- such as when Hannah visits her hometown and has (awkward, of course) sex with a charming pharmacist and her father falls in the shower while having sex with her mom. Or when Jessa babysits and loses her employers children in the park. Or any other of the countless pointless scenes that do nothing to advance the plot or spark engaging conversations about gender and sex.

It is ironic that these four women have been referenced in the context of 90's- era Sex and the City. Would Samantha Jones run to the bathroom at the first sexual advance? Would Carrie Bradshaw be defeated by a molesting boss, or humiliate herself with an emotionally abusive fuck-buddy? Come now, let's not pretend that the characters of Girls, all played by the daughters of famous millionaires, are any more "real" than those of Sex and the City; their characters are just as insipid and contrite and shallow as those of the former , except at least the former featured women who acted on their own accord, and appeared earnest in its own botched goal to achieve a notion of female empowerment.

The only thing Girls achieves is portraying the self-hatred and resentment we feel about ourselves, a pervading marginalized group with no identity and no clue on how to move forward.

F