Movie Snark: Stripptly Ballroom
Even as I write this, I am wearing the Magic Mike t-shirt my friend got in a goodie bag for getting up and dancing with the two strippers that the Chelsea Clearview provided as an, ahem, warm-up act. In the interest of teasing, and for those who want to be unspoiled or restrict their movie viewing to projects with more class or more explosions,
We really had a good time. Everybody in the theater had a really good time. At first I thought it was going to be like Gypsy only with guys--i.e., taking off your clothes for money as a source of freedom, autonomy, and ability to follow one's own dreams instead of someone else's. Or perhaps Strictly Ballroom, where Mike, like Scott, just wants to create his own steps instead of being constrained by tradition. Or The Full Monty, where erst kommt das Fressen dann kommt die Morale. (For completists, queerty.com has a feature on seven pre-Magic Mike male stripper movies.)
But, bear with me, there's a moment in Behan's play "The Quare Fella," where I think it's the priest who says that being hanged for murder really isn't so bad because you can confess and get absolution, and the warden who says keep your mouth shut, if we advertised "Commit murder and die a happy death" they'd all be at it, because it's a highly religious country.
At the beginning of the movie, we see a WWII bomber crew* of strippers. They're pals! They devote tremendous effort to their art!** They're just the opposite of Coriolanus (movie review of that also TK, but I figured you'd rather have the one with the naked guys, yeah?) True, since the DJ pumps out loud beats, before them they carry noise, but behind them they do not leave tears. Although the pockets quickly disappear, everyone is glad to see them.
Yet, in order to create a third act where no third act exists, the film finds it necessary to say that getting paid for nudity and small-scale sexual acts*** only appears to be fun, actually it leads to drug use and drug dealing by people who don't know how to handle either.
I think we're supposed to be glad that Mike (played as if Russell Tovey were USian, worked out a lot, and wasn't a werewolf) gives up this hiding to nowhere and is able to settle down to building furniture and the Love of a Good Woman. Unfortunately he's a really good stripper, and the furniture is awful so I can't rejoice as I was prompted to.
It's fair to say that this is not a strongly characterized ensemble film, and I truly wish we hadseen more Matt Bomer with actual lines because from now on I shall refer to him as Matt-Argument-From-Design-Bomer. If you were a Renaissance painter and he was your model, you could sell as many St. Sebastians as you could fabricate before the paint dried.
Professor Jeanine Basinger, Joss Whedon's mentor, wrote a book about 30s movies where she argues that even though the first 75 minutes showed the heroine being smart, independent, competent, and sexy, and the last five minutes showed her realizing that what she REALLY wanted was to be baking muffins for some hunk of beef, nobody actually paid any attention to that tribute of vice to virtue. Same here, kinda.
*Thus making the typo in Queerty.com, "Matt Bomber," all the more amusing although by fall that may be the predominant style of leather jacket.
**There is a brief scene of a rehearsal, with the hint that this is a regular event. I WOULD WATCH A DVD OF THAT UNTIL THE PIXELS FELL OFF.
*** Book Sale does not have a cash box. Book Sale has Bob's child-size fanny pack, although fortunately not when he is wearing it. It felt REALLY WEIRD putting dollar bills into it.
We really had a good time. Everybody in the theater had a really good time. At first I thought it was going to be like Gypsy only with guys--i.e., taking off your clothes for money as a source of freedom, autonomy, and ability to follow one's own dreams instead of someone else's. Or perhaps Strictly Ballroom, where Mike, like Scott, just wants to create his own steps instead of being constrained by tradition. Or The Full Monty, where erst kommt das Fressen dann kommt die Morale. (For completists, queerty.com has a feature on seven pre-Magic Mike male stripper movies.)
But, bear with me, there's a moment in Behan's play "The Quare Fella," where I think it's the priest who says that being hanged for murder really isn't so bad because you can confess and get absolution, and the warden who says keep your mouth shut, if we advertised "Commit murder and die a happy death" they'd all be at it, because it's a highly religious country.
At the beginning of the movie, we see a WWII bomber crew* of strippers. They're pals! They devote tremendous effort to their art!** They're just the opposite of Coriolanus (movie review of that also TK, but I figured you'd rather have the one with the naked guys, yeah?) True, since the DJ pumps out loud beats, before them they carry noise, but behind them they do not leave tears. Although the pockets quickly disappear, everyone is glad to see them.
Yet, in order to create a third act where no third act exists, the film finds it necessary to say that getting paid for nudity and small-scale sexual acts*** only appears to be fun, actually it leads to drug use and drug dealing by people who don't know how to handle either.
I think we're supposed to be glad that Mike (played as if Russell Tovey were USian, worked out a lot, and wasn't a werewolf) gives up this hiding to nowhere and is able to settle down to building furniture and the Love of a Good Woman. Unfortunately he's a really good stripper, and the furniture is awful so I can't rejoice as I was prompted to.
It's fair to say that this is not a strongly characterized ensemble film, and I truly wish we had
Professor Jeanine Basinger, Joss Whedon's mentor, wrote a book about 30s movies where she argues that even though the first 75 minutes showed the heroine being smart, independent, competent, and sexy, and the last five minutes showed her realizing that what she REALLY wanted was to be baking muffins for some hunk of beef, nobody actually paid any attention to that tribute of vice to virtue. Same here, kinda.
*Thus making the typo in Queerty.com, "Matt Bomber," all the more amusing although by fall that may be the predominant style of leather jacket.
**There is a brief scene of a rehearsal, with the hint that this is a regular event. I WOULD WATCH A DVD OF THAT UNTIL THE PIXELS FELL OFF.
*** Book Sale does not have a cash box. Book Sale has Bob's child-size fanny pack, although fortunately not when he is wearing it. It felt REALLY WEIRD putting dollar bills into it.