Change Your Image
doctormatt
Reviews
Cashback (2004)
pathetic, immature objectification of women
I saw Cashback at the 2005 Seattle International Film Festival, in a showing with four other shorts. It was easily the worst of the bunch. The treatment of women in this film is deplorable. There is a long sequence in which the main character "stops time" in a grocery store, then undresses all of the women and sketches them. Or, I should say, sketches their breasts, asses, and hairless groins: their faces, and anything about them other than their bodies between their knees and their shoulders is apparently irrelevant. To make this worse, the sketcher blathers about his love of the "beauty of the female form", when it would be more honest for him to say that he's obsessed with tits and shaved pussies. I can't think of a more repulsive objectification of women on film (though, to be fair, I tend to avoid films that might offer competition in this area).
Lorna Doone (1922)
good music by Iijima
An excellent silent film.
I like the modern music score on the version shown on TCM in March 2005. It was composed by Mari Iijima (if you're going to bad-mouth a composer, you ought to spell their name correctly...), and has nice Philip Glass-like qualities. I love modern music scores for old silent films generally (for instance, the Alloy Orchestra's work).
The film has some great cinematography, and it's worth seeing just for that. The shots of the water in several places, the beach where Lorna is kidnapped, and of mad villagers chasing on horseback are really excellent, with great texture and lighting.
Shockingly silly, abrupt ending.