Feminism goes Wild!
I love Charlize. She's a terrific actor. She's beautiful. She really commits herself to her roles. And she usually takes roles I find interesting. She's one of those "I could watch them read a phone book" actors for me. It helps too that she's athletic, and if I weren't gay, I think I'd like a girl in that vein. Those round-shouldered, Jennifer Aniston-types that just manage to look like they could outrace you, beat you up, give you a wedgy. But since I am gay, I'd really like to be her friend, the kind of guy who tags along because she has to do pick-up shoots for her latest movie in Australia.
Australia just so happens to be the setting for her latest movie Apex which is about sweet boy Taron Egerton hunting you-know-she's-gonna-win Charlize Theron. The movie is thrilling and has lots of surprises, but to me it's just more tough girl porn I can go back and watch repeatedly like Atomic Blonde, Mad Max: Fury Road, and the last few Fast & Furious movies. Maybe we'll get to see more of her as Clea in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It just so happens, I am a tough girl connoisseur. I think it started with Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien, which I saw at too young an age. 7. I missed out on Star Wars on the big screen and I guess to punish me for whining about it for three years my mom dragged me to see Alien with the promise it would be a stellar space opera like Star Wars. It was just Star Wars then.
I used to keep a running list of women in roles where they kick names and take ass, but it's lost in the sands of time. Debra Winger was on there, but I am not sure what for. Possibly the underrated gem Betrayed. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis would make the cut for Thelma & Louise. But Geena Davis gets a special place in my heart for a movie that has no right to be as fun and funny as it is, The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Somewhere along the way Rachel McAdams made the list, as she should. Her star-making turn as Regina George in Mean Girls is terrific, but what really put her over the moon in my eyes was Wes Craven's Red Eye which is an elegant Hitchcockian thriller with Sam Raimi sensibilities.
Like Charlize, Rachel spent some time in the wilds, but not Australia. She starred in Sam Raimi's Send Help, which is a great premise though poorly executed. But it is Sam Raimi with Rachel McAdams so I still enjoyed it a lot even with all of its flaws. She plays a kind of gross woman at some big corporation where she thinks she's going to be promoted to a vice president only for the son of the company's owner to take over and install one of his golfing buddies in the slot meant for her. One savage plane crash later and McAdams and her boss, played by an oily Dylan O'Brien, are marooned on a tropical island. But McAdams' character was made for just this situation. She's been sending audition tapes to Survivor for years, and she knows just what to do. Consequently, O'Brien's toxic character becomes dependent on her while still trying to be the macho, macho man. This does not end well for him.
Apex and Send Help couldn't be more different. Where Apex is trauma, grief and survival, Send Help is campy, ludicrous, and takes a weird turn at the close. But both movies deal with the same cat and mouse quickstep where neither woman is the mouse. If I had to recommend one for you to take to a desert island, it would be Apex ironically enough though there are many useful tips to be gleaned from Send Help like how to catch water properly when it rains, how to temporarily paralyze your boss and pretend to castrate him, and how to start fires with just the wilds of the jungle around you. It's a very political, #metoo kind of film, and I love that about it.
Apex on the other hand is a true adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft somewhat darkened by a villain that would feel comfortable in the pages of a Jack Ketchum novel. If you know what that means, you know, if you don't, I am not going to elaborate here. What makes Apex even more exciting is that there is mountain climbing, river kayaking through some gnarly rapids, and much to my dismay, lots of falling, which always leaves me feeling a little ill.
Watch them both! Apex is on Netflix already and Send Help will be on some streaming service any day now.
