Sunday, 8 November 2009

Foxy Satanic Sluttiness



Indications were that Fox would sink Jennifer's Body. Not just the inept studio that interferes with most of its productions into bland, crowd pleasing pulp...but the limitations of bimbo Transformers actress Megan Fox, as well.

Fortunately, the hype is right...especially when it focuses on the follow up script to Juno, Diablo Cody's Oscar winning previous effort. It's Cody's script, not the direction from Aeon Flux's Karyn Kusama that makes this so enjoyable. It's daft, it's got cheerleaders, demons, hip teen-speak, cool actors (JK Simmonds / Lance Henrikson) and a conflicted teen heroine (a great Amanda Seyfried). It's a dark and twisted Buffy-style movie...and that my friends is very good indeed.

And Megan Fox? Well, she's called upon to be gorgeous (even when bloodsoaked, possessed by evil and eating boys) bitchy and vacuous. So no a stretch for our dear Megan then.

1 comment:

Nick aka Puppet Angel said...

This was a fun, cheeky and freaky little flick. I really enjoyed it.

I don't understand the hate it has been getting - especially in the US. It ain't briliant but there is more depth and wit to this film plus layers of thematic resonance than pretty much any other recent horror flick. Diablo Cody is a very good writer. She creates interesting, off beat characters with something to say about life and love and relationships. The relationship between Needy and Jennifer is quite complex and not exactly healthy - at least for Needy. And speaking of Needy, Amanda Sayfried does a great job in what is essentially the lead role. She is the proactive character and the one who tells the story. She's a damn good actress. Megan Fox is fine as Jennifer as are the rest of the cast. And it's great to see cool supporting players like the always wonderful JK Simmons and Cynthia Stevenson (who played George Lass' mom in the awesome Dead Like Me.)

Diablo Cody has great fun here with language. She does a Joss Whedon and partly invents her own teenspeak by twisting words and phrases around in odd ways. And the whole femanist/trials of growing in to womanhood theme is ably played out reminding me of another similar (but IMHO better) film: Ginger Snaps.

So a good movie that made me laugh a fair bit, had a wonderful central performance and actually had some smarts behind it.

Fuck me! And it was from Twentieth Century Fox too! What happened?