(Black) Rock Paper Scissors

First, a rant.

I'm a woman. Been so for 32 years and counting, leaving me a realistic 27 years to make, keep, and occasionally lose friends, many of whom are female. In these 27 years of BFF comings and goings, both of myself and within groups of friends who are friends, there is one thing that has never happened:

I have never, in 27 years of conscious awareness, personally witnessed a friendship end because one female was intimate with another female friend's partner.

Is this a thing that a lot of women DO? According to cinema, yes. The same women who keep their bras when lounging at home, exercise with their hair down and go to sleep with full makeup on are the norm, and the norm also sleeps with or has to watch their beloved sleep with a girlfriend. 

Movies don't lie, right?

Anyway, that's my preluding gripe with Black Rock, the otherwise fairly believable female-centric thriller.

Quick Plot: Sunny Sarah (Kate Bosworth) attempts to reunite two childhood besties with a surprise weekend getaway to a New England island they partied on as kids. As you might guess from my prolonged prologue, some tension is afire due to Lou (Lake Bell)'s previous romantic entanglements with Abby (director Kate Aselton)'s then-boyfriend. 

Now in their early 30s, the ladies attempt to make the best of an awkward situation by humoring Sarah's quest to find their old clubhouse, where a VHS of The Goonies surely awaits in watchable condition (remember: VHS tapes are the cockroach of media). Before pillow fights can ensue, the ladies bump into a trio of young hunters, one of whom Abby is quick to drunkenly flirt and share a can of Spaghettios with.

NOTE: Share a can of spaghettios is not a sexual term I'm aware of. But I also tie my hair back when working out, so I might just actually be a dude.

All is not so carefree once Abby goes a little too far with her new friends, quickly revealed to be recently dishonorably discharged soldiers. Before you can spit on anyone's grave, the ladies are running, swimming, and tree climbing for their lives. 
There is nothing particularly new about Black Rock in terms of plot or style, so let's just address the main reason this film has found some footing: it's a genre film directed by a woman.

As much as I wish this wasn't something that needed to point out in 2014, it really, really still does. In Black Rock's case, this is especially important because we're dealing with the type of film that has so often found itself stewing in debates of gender and misogyny. While not exactly a 'rape revenge' flick (despite critics like Rex Reed's assertions, suggesting that he apparently doesn't watch the films he gets paid to review), Black Rock does put pretty women on the run through the wilderness from very bad men. We know where this usually goes.

It's refreshing then to say that while not officially or aggressively a feminist film, Black Rock handles its gender issues quite well. The men are stronger because of their size and military training, yes, but put three healthy thirtysomething females against them and the fight becomes realistically even-handed due to their smarts and will. The film even manages to deal with, without OVERdealing with, Abby and Lou's complicated boyfriend past. When the going gets rough, the lingering feelings of betrayal are acknowledged, resolved, and ultimately made into a good and necessary laugh. If a trio of sociopath soldiers were hunting me down and the only help I had was a former friend who ruined my love life, I tend to think that's exactly how I'd deal with that too.

Even more vital to seeing what makes Black Rock a little more knowing than some of its peers is how it handles that always complicated cinematic issue, nudity. Hey guys, did you know that women take their clothes off every day? Actually, TWICE a day, and sometimes more. Again, a century of cinema has taught us that nudity is only useful for stimulating its presumed male audience. Observe the token camera leering breast shot that seems so central to even the most rushed rape scene, something so clearly focused on for all the wrong reasons in films like Silent Night Deadly Night and Blood Games (a film so female unfriendly that rumor has it, the studio tacked on a fake female name as its director).

Side Note: I still love Blood Games. It's a vengeance flick about a female baseball team. But just as I love Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and don't pretend Kevin Costner is even trying, I can also adore A League of Their Bloody Own without ignoring the fact that it's got quite a bit of misogyny in its running time.

My point, and maybe I do have one, is that seeing how Aselton handles nudity is vital to understanding why Black Rock is a worthy film, even if it seemingly offers nothing new in its storytelling. In many ways, this is indeed just another Deliverance-inspired thriller. But the fact that it's so deliberately FEMALE in its execution helps to point out some of the problems these types of films can so often run into. 

High Points

I've been awfully hard on Kate Bosworth following her Lois Lane in Superman Returns (if there was a more offensive case of miscasting in Hollywood, I've yet to see it) but watching her in Black Rock was a pleasant reminder that she has genuinely likable screen presence. No, she wasn't and probably never would be believable as a 25 year old Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with spunk, but as Sarah, Bosworth really does have a sense of ease in front of the camera that helps to sell not just her character, but her character's friends.

Low Points

For the most part, the protagonists of Black Rock behave the way you want them to in this kind of situation. But it behooves me to mention such key frustrating moments as 'survivor holds gun, then seems to drop it (I think offscreen) to better fight her enemy with a child-friendly pocketknife'

As the reigning queen of the I Don't Have An Indoor Voice Club, even I was shouting "Shhhhhhhhhhh" at key moments

Lessons Learned

Black rocks are the hardest rocks of all

Always bury a useful treasure. You just never know when you’ll need that junior pocket knife in the wilderness

Seriously ladies, SSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!

Rent/Bury/Buy

Black Rock is a slick and efficient little survivalist thriller not without its flaws (GRAB THE GUN!) but well-worth a visit. There are better tellings of this tale, but the utter female-ness of a film in this genre makes it a prime discussion piece for the topic. 

Take Me Out to the Blood Games

You must understand something before reading my thoughts on 1990’s girl-powered revenge film centered on a female baseball team: I love A League of Their Own. It’s watched every year without fail and quoted just about any time the subject of crying, swing dancing, Jon Lovitz, charm school, or penis in hats comes up. Had Labyrinth not started with the letter L, it easily would have made my cinematic alphabet. Part of this comes from the fact that it's an absolutely wonderful movie, a rare successful studio comedy containing an entire team's worth of worthy performances and sharp writing. The other part is that I love baseball.

Hence, when Netflix told me that queuing up the forgettable Steve Austin actionfest Hunt to Kill implied I Might Also Like 1990's Blood Games, I took the following description:

A team of sexy female baseball players whips the local rednecks -- and things turn violent when the men refuse to pay up for losing in this campy thriller. While team manager Midnight (Ross Hagen) tries to collect the cash, the locals attack some of the babes. Soon it's an all-out war, with the hometown hicks hunting down the women, who start fighting back after a few of their teammates wind up dead.

and imagined--quite correctly--that I had finally found the movie to complete my grand slam of baseball cinema (for the record, the other two runners are Field of Dreams and Major League).

Quick Plot: Meet the Ball Girls, a sassy team of female baseball players who cruise through small towns to challenge the locals to friendly games while Coach Midnight earns some dough betting on their victory. The money, sadly, does not go towards uniform expenses as the girls play in roomy cotton hotpants, presumably to distract their male opponents or because they're all masochists who love nothing more than a good sliding bruise.

After a whopping 17-2 win over a team of crass and grope-happy hillbillies, Midnight is stiffed by the Sam Elliot-like opposing coach but the badass Ball Girl boss takes matters into his own hands in the men’s room of a Double Deuce-like roadhouse. Too bad a few infielders get nearly raped in the process, leading to a chaotic brawl that somehow ends up with Not Sam Elliot’s son car-crushed and Midnight stabbed in the belly.

What’s a frazzled coach-less team to do? Certainly not drive their bus to a hospital or call the police. It’s far better to flee the scene of the crime with a dying man until a few intense car chases lead to a breakdown and backwoods Rambo-esque escape. See, that passing line about how Not Sam Elliot is a cheap mercenary actually has some merit: although he wouldn’t pony up a grand to pay Coach Midnight, he’s more than willing to drop $1000 for each pretty hair tie-less head his other goons can bring him after the death of his son. 

The battle rages.

At a certain point, half the girls vow to take vengeance while the pitcher and team captain Babe preaches that they must stay together. That actually means that the brunettes will continue on towards safety while the blonds are left on their own to serve up some seductive payback.

Oh, and get gang raped. Just because this is directed by a woman (maybe) doesn’t mean we’re going to skimp on the misogyny! It’s not just that there’s violence committed against women; it’s HOW it’s filmed. Take, for example, the early attempted rapes which find reason to cut to closeups of the almost-victim’s bare breasts. Sure, we’d just spent a good ten minutes ogling the same women as they lounged around the locker room, but the shots are deliberately sleazy in a meaner manner than is necessary for an exploitation film.

That doesn’t mean that Blood Games isn’t the greatest thing of all time. This is primarily evident in the final scene, where

SPOILER ALERT

The last redneck standing has Babe’s little sister (and team catcher) in a sleeper hold. Using her pitch calling skills, Kit--I mean Dottie--I mean, Little Sister In Blood Games gives Babe a sign for a fast ball up and inside...of the redneck’s FACE.

Eff. Yeah.

High Points

An early bathroom brawl scene has Not Sam Elliot fist-fighting with his pants around his ankles. For whatever reason, this made me happy

Low Points

There’s a reason All the Way May and Doris didn’t want to wear those skorts when playing ball: because no self-respecting ballplayer would EVER slide with that much exposed skin. I know, I know: the audience of Blood Games has higher priorities than sporting accuracy, but still. Have a little respect and if nothing else, LET THEM TIE THEIR ENORMOUS HAIR BACK

Lessons Learned

Maybe your team wouldn’t be losing 17-2 against an all-female squad if every player didn’t swig a beer before stepping up to the plate

If a team is named “Ball Girls,” you should have no reason whatsoever to think that they might have some skills at throwing balls at your own

After being stabbed in the gut, the best course of action is to drink water and dab the wound with a fluffy towel

The Winning Insults:

Redneck 1: You drink beer the way you piss.

Redneck 2: You piss the way you drink beer.

I’m not sure who got the better zap!, but I’m totally cool with using both.

Missed Marketing Opportunity

The final scene of Blood Games features a slow motioned montage highlighting all the women that died in the last 90 minutes. TELL ME someone didn’t take these screenshots and turn them into tradeable baseball cards?

Rent/Bury/Buy

Now streaming on Instant Watch, Blood Games is fairly wonderful dose of late ‘80s sleaze that offers something for everyone: bare breasts of tough chicks for the gents and girl powered vengeance for the ladies. Yes, it’s a dreadfully sexist movie that might prove offensive to some viewers, but those who love the stench of Cheese Wiz will find it to be a homerun.