Review-- Suspiria

Well, guys. I totally blew it. It's only been a couple months and I've already found an error. In my review of Black Swan, I said:

[Black Swan] is also quite original. I mean, how many ballet horror movies can you name? Yeah, I couldn't think of any either.

Well, not only is that a sack of bull, but the movie in question was directed by Dario Argento, no less! This movie, called Suspiria, was released in the late 70s, and I'll be damned if Black Swan didn't get a lot of inspiration from this movie (as well as Perfect Blue, but I digress). So let's just dive into this puppy and see how it does.

And unfortunately, the program I use to get screencaps didn't like this movie for some reason, so the edges of the pictures will look jagged.

The name "Suspiria," as far as I can tell, means nothing. I don't know what it has to do with the movie, I don't know if it's in another language... no clue.

Story:

I will try to comment on the story without giving too much away. The plot doesn't actually reveal itself fully until near the end, and once it hits, it's a bit of a surprise. I wouldn't want to ruin that.

The story is about an American girl named Suzy traveling to Germany to attend a ballet school. When she arrives, she witnesses a young woman bursting out of the boarding building and run off into the night. The next day, that same young woman has been found murdered. Series after series of strange events occur, until Suzy's friend develops a suspicion that something more sinister is growing. Meanwhile, Suzy has been struck with strange patterns of fatigue and begins loosing patches of her memory. So what on earth is going on at this ballet school? Imagine young girls at a boarding, ballet school. Makes it a lot more ominous.

Now, this story is actually not too bad. It's almost like a fairy tale. If you ignore the gruesomely violent death scenes. Most important about this movie, and if you want it to be a bit more chilling, is to imagine the characters as children. No really, the characters already behave strangely. I actually popped onto imdb.com to see what they were saying, and, guess what, the movie was written to be about children! They only swapped out to adults so the movie wouldn't be banned. The script never changed, so adults are now speaking childishly.

Otherwise, there's not much to say about the story. It's almost like Rosemary's Baby tied in with The Chainsaw Massacre. That may not be the best example, but there you have it. This is movie is heavy, heavy, heavy on the gore, but definitely better than some of Dario Argento's other films, such as Phantom of the Opera. GAG ME WITH A SPOON. This movie is not too scary, but it's definitely suspenseful. If you don't know what's coming, you'll be in for a little surprise.

Characters:

The main character is named Suzy, and next in line would be her friend, Sara. These are both girls that go to the boarding/ballet school. Suzy gets tired real easily and is put on special diet, no doubt part of the evil presence's doing, and Sara is a bit paranoid. In fact, her psychiatrist speaks with Suzy at one point, making you wonder if this is all a big exaggeration by Sara.

The actress who plays Suzy is named Jessica Harper. It took me forever to realize where she was from so I did an search and she's Phoenix from Phantom of the Paradise! Hahaha, how about that? Anyway, she did a pretty decent job. She pulled off behaving like a little girl really well; plus, she looks a bit like a little girl! Costume crew did a great job with her hair and outfits to make her look a bit younger than she's supposed to be. Sometimes her acting was a bit over the top, but it wasn't too bad. I'm willing to forgive.

This story is not so much character driven as it is plot driven. You're not going to know all about Suzy's long-lost mother or Sara's super dark past.

Sets/Costumes:

Despite their dated look, I actually really liked their outfits. I know that's weird, but Suzy wears this lovely dress that makes her look amazing. The cut is not really in style anymore, but it looked awesome. For the ballet portions, everyone just wore leotards. Hard for that to ever be out.

Love this dress! Plus, check out this set!

The sets also feature really bright colors. These vary from bright red, blue, green, and sometimes just a white light. There's definitely a strong color scheme to the sets. I'm not sure if it's just spotlights or post-production that makes the colors, but I decided to add it on here.

 This really added to the surreal feeling of the movie and made it seem almost dreamlike. It definitely didn't belong in this dimension. I'm a bit tied with whether I enjoyed this effect or not. I'm going to say "like" because it brought the movie up a notch and made it different.

Music:

Wow, music. Well, there was this really annoying banshee music. And it felt like they played the same three pieces over and over during the movie. 

BUT....

The main theme is absolutely amazing. It's the perfect music for a horror movie. It sounds light and dainty, but so dark and eerie. I love it. Hands down one of the best horror themes and it's going on my iPod this Halloween for sure. You can listen to it here.

Camera:

Cinematography was great! No really, it was really well shot. Who knew a horror film could actually do a pretty decent job balancing action?

It's hard to tell here because it's a still picture, but the balance of light and dark, the balance of moving verus static. It's really well done. 

It's quite amazing. And if I noticed, it was probably doing a damn good job because I normally don't pay attention to these kinds of things. Then again, I am doing a review on this, so that may have changed the way I noticed things.

Ballet Presence:

 Okay, so there was almost no ballet. The actors didn't do their own dancing and when the did it was painful. Don't look at me like that! I mean it, they were en pointe but I don't think they had proper training judging by how some of them held themselves. Others did look like they knew what they were doing, but still, ballet was not a strong feature in this movie.

 To give the film credit, they filmed the ballet sequences rather nicely. I liked the balanced shots and how the camera moved in accordance with the dancers. Nice job! Though the writers, Argento and someone else, got some major facts wrong about ballet (for instance, you don't share pointe shoes! They are specifically for the dancer!), but it was nice overall. What little we got of it, anyway.

Overall Enjoyment:

Don't freak out... it's just red wine ;)

 I'm not going to lie: I enjoyed this movie. Quite a bit more than I expected to, actually. I even went into this with strong biases against Argento's work, but still got some entertainment out of it. Any movie that you go in hating and come out liking means they did something right, and I think that this movie deserves some credit for that. Is it kind of hokey? Oh yes. Is there much ballet? No. Did I at least enjoy myself and feel some relation to the movie? Yes. Still, this movie is pretty gory. Don't watch if you don't like that sort of thing.

My leotard is done!!

My leotard is done!!! I just finished it. I made it out of the spandex Lycra first, even though it's probably the most difficult material. I will post pictures, advice about working with this fabric, and advice about using this pattern later once there's more light for pictures! (I was just too excited and had to post early!)

:D

Review-- The Turning Point

 For this week, I watched the movie, The Turning Point! This movie was nominated for a lot of Oscars, but like I say about Oscars, I almost never like the movies that the Academy picks. So, let's see how this movie does!

 Story:

The story is about two women named DeeDee and Emma (played by Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft respectively). Both are friends, and both were fierce rivals in ballet. But DeeDee decides to get married and have children while Emma pursues a career in dance. Years later, two meet again as Emma's company drops by DeeDee's town. Meeting with each other again reminds the other woman of all the opportunities she's missed. Emma, out of either kindness or a longing for a daughter, semi-adopts DeeDee's daughter, Amelia. Amelia is a dancer, too. Emma helps Amelia enter the company. DeeDee is not only worried that she is losing her daughter to her rival, but also that Amelia will make the same mistakes she made. The story is of these two women and of Amelia as they morn for lost dreams and begin new ones.

DeeDee and Emma

Sometimes I really like the story...and then sometimes I find it slightly bland. Sometimes I think it's rather realistic...and then sometimes I feel they are pushing my threshold of bullshit. There are times were the script is well-written and subtle where needed...then there are times when it's pretty much layered on us. For instance, Amelia is making eyes at the Russian dancer. A LOT. It's not too subtle. Then it immediately jumps to this weird dance sequence. I guess it's supposed to be symbolic, but they don't even know each other, so it comes off as sort of a joke. So, yeah...not so subtle. Other times, it shows a great understanding of human behavior. There's this one scene where Amelia and her mother are talking. Both think the other one is mad at her for something. It's a great use of common defense mechanisms.

There was also a bit where Amelia gets drunk but goes to perform. As funny as that was, she would be booted off the corps in a heartbeat. To even let her on, when a ballerina's core strength is inebriated, is also a shocker.
Also, Amelia just casually telling her mom she's on the pill and her mom's just, "oh, good girl." I couldn't imagine anyone's mom being like that. Amelia even says that her mom's straitlaced later on, but what straitlaced mother would be saying, "oh good girl," or even having that conversation to start with?

I did like the theme of "aging out" and becoming too old to make certain decisions. It's one that doesn't come up too often, and it certainly fits the bill for this blog. They did a pretty good job about delving into passion and art, too, and how these never go away with age. They only briefly touched on how perhaps the mother is living vicariously through her daughter, and that was during an explosive argument near the end of the movie. It's actually this argument that I think is my favorite part in the movie. I liked watching the two actresses hurl insults at each other and how all the skeletons came out.

Another theme that I felt was pretty powerful was "life's short; it's okay to mess up once in awhile." The women want to help Amelia from feeling the same pain they went through, but they finally learn that she needs to grow up, too, and the only way for her to do that would be to make mistakes. 

Characters:

The acting was pretty fine. Emma's actress did a great job with subtle facial expressions, though she did have the most convenient, sweet sounding hiccups. I wish mine conveniently didn't interrupt my speech making me sound like a drunken fool, too.

The daughter, Amelia, also did a great job. She was funny during the drunk scene and she did all of her own dancing, which I approve. The male Russian dancer who Amelia falls for was a phenomenal dancer, though maybe not the greatest actor. Granted, he probably didn't have enough lines for me to even judge.

Sets/Costumes:

Nothing much to comment on here. It's a movie from the seventies and it shows its age. And I really wished people in the 70s movies wore bras. Seriously.

 

Music:

Music is mostly played during the ballet sequences, which are often, or the practice sequences, also often. These are classical pieces, and I really can't say much more than that.

Camera:

The camerawork seemed fine to me. There were some times where I wanted to see more of the dancers' body, but it was very rare. They did a good job covering Emma's actress' lack of dancing ability. What they showed me was satisfying enough, but not insulting to my intelligence.

Playbill effect

Near the end, there are several short acts of ballets. They would project the playbill over the beginning of each act so you could recognize which dancer is performing. I really appreciated this since once you get everyone in makeup with their hair done up, everyone looks the same.

When the Russian dancer was dancing though, (and as cool as this shot was) you could see the cameraman's shadow in the spotlight! Whoops!

Oh hi, camera crew!

Ballet Presence:

I liked the dancing a lot. I love it when actresses and actors can dance their own parts. Though the actress that played Emma didn't do her own parts, they did a pretty good job of editing her bits out. When it does come time for her ballet, she was a tad awkward, but she handled it nicely. 

 Amelia's character is a beautiful dancer. She smiles a lot when she dances, but she dances gorgeously. The Russian dancer (I think he's called Yuri?) is also AMAZING. HOLY CRAP. Just look at that air on the picture above. Yeah. He's awesome. I could watch him dance all day.

Ah... ah hem. Anyways, enough with the worshiping... The ballet company puts on several ballets. Some of them were more modern while others were the more traditional types. These traditional ballets were of Swan Lake, Giselle, and Don Quixote.

 

 

See? Quite a bit of ballet! This movie definitely has a strong focus on dancers.

Overall Enjoyment:

I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Is it a good movie? Yes. Is it a great movie that deserves all of the Oscar nominees it was nominated for? Probably not. (But there we go again with Oscars!) Would I recommend watching it? Sure! Why not! This is probably as good as dance movies are going to get. I still like The Red Shoes the best, though I have to give this movie about 6 out of 10 stars. The story was really slow moving, but I would still probably watch this again than Black Swan. Then again, both are rather bland.... oh who cares. Watch what you want. Why do should you care about my opinion anyway?

Fabric Arrived! - Updated 3/1/11

My fabric arrived today and I open it up on camera pour vous!
(I accidentally dropped the f-bomb once since I was about to enter a state of strong exasperation. Otherwise I'm completely chaste. I apologize for the curse but I can't figure how to edit it out.) 

Yeah... Distinctive Fabrics... I don't know if I will shop with them again. This is mostly due to the steep cost of shipping for a small amount of fabric. This would be much better if you are ordering bulk.

Now, with the disorganization. I ordered samples awhile ago, and when I finally received them, I received someone else's samples. I understood this since the woman had the same name as me, but then when the second batch came, not all of my samples were available. I didn't get credited for another free sample in return for the one they couldn't give to me.

Now I have the wrong invoice? Huh, bizarre. Anyway, my fabric looks fine, and it's being pre-washed as I speak! I can't wait to finally have a leotard for class.

The shipping is very, very high. Considering that this is just fabric and doesn't need to be insured or surrounded in Styrofoam peanuts, that seems really high to me. This is definitely something you need to consider when factoring out your price. It seems that the lowest, standard shipping price from them is $10.75 for in the United States. The lady on the incorrect invoice I received ordered a lot more fabric but still had the same shipping cost. I received my fabric about a week after ordering, though it may have been a bit longer than that.

Still, perhaps the shipping price is worth it because you are allowed swatches, and not just any swatches, but free swatches. That's not too bad. The shipping for swatches is also free, but it will take awhile to be delivered since it'll be by snail mail.

Unless I can find a cheaper company that offers similar fabric, I'll be sticking with this group for leotard fabric. Perhaps later I will compare and contrast their Lycra blends with some suitable fabrics I can find at brick-and-mortar stores like JoAnn's, Hancock Fabrics, and other popular fabric stores.


Further Updates:
I have completed my first leotard using Distinctive Fabric's fabric, and I must say, it is definitely a quality fabric. I feel confident using it, and it's just as they said it would be in the description. So though some things have been off regarding Distinctive Fabrics, the descriptions seem to be quite on. The total fabric cost per leotard is about $13. Compare that to other leotards online of similar prices and you'll find that they don't have the same quality fabric and aren't made specifically for me. (Other factors would be the cost of the pattern, but even that would only add about five dollars per leotard.) I'm really happy with my fabric despite all the set backs and delays due to errors this company has made with the swatches, but in the end, I have a really nice leotard for class.

Busted

So the studio I go to called my house when I was gone. Instead of calling back later, they told my mom ballet classes were canceled. Now she knows; luckily, it was one of many things that upset her today, so I'm mostly off the hook. Still, despite all this, she started crying, shut the blinds to the family room, and watched Dr. Phil on the television for awhile.

What a miserable day.