Quote of the Day

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Shame on me for never having written anything substantive on Fish Tank. This is the closest I've gotten (and then this post on Michael Fassbender's hotness within.) Still, it's been weeks since I saw the film though and it's stuck in my brain something fierce. It might help that I see it on the marquee at the IFC theater every day to and from work. But still. It's a wonderful film (that just happens to exploit Michael Fassbender's hotness with the right degree of exploitation, meaning LOTS). Anyway leave it to the always on-point Kim Morgan to write the review the film deserves. Check it here. Choice bit:

"In a scene near the end of the movie, we watch Mia, little sister Tyler and Mom dance to "Life's a Bitch" (the lyrics continue with "and then you die, that's why we get high, cause you never know when you're gonna go") in an empty room, a rare moment when all the girls connect. Starting out lifelessly, Mia and Tyler follow their mother's joyless attempt at cheerfulness almost instinctively, and their dance builds into a moment of near ebullience. If this were a Hollywood movie, if Goldie Hawn were their mother, they'd be singing in their hairbrushes, smiling and laughing and whipping their hair around to "Respect." Here, the girls are actually coming up with a routine, and there's something really sweet and yet, incredibly sad about that -- like they're trying to create order in the midst of attempting to escape.

I said earlier that it's tough for a teenage girl -- but in this moment you see how tough it is for all of these girls/women -- these generations of teenage girls, past, present and future. For a second, you actually wish they were dancing with a little more wild abandon, whipping their hair around and laughing hysterically -- having some fucking fun. And not for our benefit, but for theirs. After all, they're not here to amuse you."

So that's the entire final two paragraphs to her review, so perhaps I've spoiled her summation. But all that leads to this is worth reading as well so go read it already. But I love the way she compares this moment to the hairbrush-montage from the chick-flick repertoire of cliched scenes and proves how Arnold undercuts such sentiment, while at the same time making you yearn for it. It's a nice summation of the push-and-pull the brilliant film causes inside we viewers.
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