Jennifer's Body

2009 Directed: Karyn Kusama, Written: Diablo Cody

Score 4/5

This movie was awesome. I've been curious about it for a long time because I was only familiar with Megan Fox from the Transformers (Michael Bay) franchise, so her starring in a horror/comedy film felt surprising. And Jennifer's Body was surprising, and damn if Megan Fox wasn't great in it.

I knew it was going to be funny, but I didn't expect it to be genuinely scary, or heartwrenching, or sorrowful. The opening incident at Melody Lane, Jennifer's experiences out in the woods, her transformation, horrific. The depiction of a small town in mourning, the dramatic zoon over a memorial to the school's star football player, parent reactions to their children being brutally murdered, it was all almost too much to bear. The carefully woven subplot told in all ways but words about the relationship between Jennifer and her best friend Needy, and its tragic end.

I have quibbles about "why did that character say this," "how did these people escape that," but it's pretty much all pedantic nonsense. This movie was awesome.

The Painted Veil

1925 Author: W. Somerset Maugham

Score 3.5/5

First things first, this is a book written in 1925 by an English man about colonists living in British-owned Hong Kong. It's rather horrible about its depictions of the Chinese people living there and the later fictional village of Mei-tan-fu. In this regard, none of the central characters are redeemed.

Where this book is enjoyable is in the relationships Kitty Fane fosters through this slice of her life we're privy to. It's a very satisfying character drama about self-determination, emotional growth, empathy (at least among European to European), and love. I'll be thinking about it's allegorical use of Oliver Goldsmith's An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog and Kitty's time with her father in the last few pages for a while.