Dirty Pictures, Marie Antoinette, 1776, & The Weather Underground

Dirty Pictures was a movie by Showtime made ten years after the events depicted: the Mapplethorpe/Contemporary Arts Center trial in Cincinnati. Of course I was interested in seeing this, since I actually remember this whole thing. I am pretty sure my parents went to see the exhibit. The pictures themselves are really nothing more than typical porn, with the exception of the urolagnia picture and the two "child porn" ones, of which neither are anything more than a typical picture of a kid in a bathtub, which I'm sure most people have. Just because you see a penis doesn't make it erotic. Just take a look at, say, Ken Davitian in Borat. He's naked, and man is he not attractive. Unless you're into overweight bears. I've gone off topic. The film is quite well done, with real interviews interspersed with reenactments. And I'm, of course, completely sympathetic to the film, with its message of free speech, along with the dangerous threat of the bringing of completely spurious lawsuits that go to trial because of biases. There's also the epilogue of the creepy People for Community Values guy explaining why these lawsuits without merit are brought, along with the threats made against those willing to put up art. Just made me frustrated. I hate me some bigots.

Marie Antoinette has a good soundtrack, but ultimately disappointed me. I get that Marie-Antoinette may have been a young woman who didn't really understand anything outside of her life. Then again, it fits in perfectly with Coppola's other films, with a young woman struggling with her location in life. And this has outstanding costume design, well deserving of its oscar, no matter how stupid that "it's literally a feast for the eyes" line in the telecast was. Really it's just not as good as I was hoping, even if I'm not entirely sure how to make it better. There already was a monkey in it.

1776 was long, the songs were boring or stupid, and beh to it all. Yeah, that's all you get 1776. I'll give you three sentences.

The Weather Underground is an interesting look at a violent leftist organization that bombed many establishment places to protest violence against blacks or Vietnam and the like. I really didn't know very much about them, so it was nice to learn a lot. Also, Ian MacKaye, Jerry Busher, Amy Domingues, and Brendan Canty were involved in the music for it, giving it that added bit of DC indie rock cred. The music is reminiscent of Philip Glass's scores for Errol Morris's films, so I bet it was successful in that plan.