January 23, 2007

"'Teeth' is, more than anything, a coming-of-age story."

Just checking the news from Sundance:
Monday, in one of the festival's first deals, the Weinstein Company signed on to distribute "Teeth," in which a teenager discovers vaginal teeth that emerge when she is attacked.

Director Mitchell Lichtenstein says "Teeth" is, more than anything, a coming-of-age story. "Besides whatever other element it has, it's about a girl growing up and learning to accept her fate"....
Now, now. Don't confuse art movies for the elite with sleazy movies for bad people. It's a coming of age film.
Other films that include references to sex this year include "Zoo," a documentary about a man who died having sex with a horse. Here, the incident became a means of exploring universal human emotions, like loneliness.
How about the universal human emotion of bullshit detection?

7 comments:

Palladian said...

The director of "Teeth", Mitchell Lichtenstein, is Roy Lichtenstein's gay son, who I know from Ang Lee's "The Wedding Banquet".

What's with the quote in the article from some guy who has a girlfriend named "Ryan"? That inserted a weird note of gender confusion perfectly fitting with the creepy sexuality that seems to be the theme of artsy movies this year. Maybe that's always the theme of artsy movies....

No, what am I thinking, the theme is always "universal human emotions" no matter how creepy and wrong!

KCFleming said...

Re: "...the universal human emotion of bullshit detection"

That comment cannot be topped.

Unknown said...

So now filmmakers have aestheticized the sleaze...or whatever, out of vaginal teeth. When will Sundance hit bottom?

Ars gratia artis!

Ken Stalter said...

'How about the universal human emotion of bullshit detection?"

First reaction to that comment: Truly laughing out loud. Great.

Second reaction: Unsettled. Is is really all that universal?

Anonymous said...

Yawn. V@gina dentata is nothing new.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentata

Revenant said...

How about the universal human emotion of bullshit detection?

If you knew nothing about "Gates of Heaven" and "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control" beyond what their subjects were, you'd never imagine they had anything interesting to say about the human condition, either. But has there ever been a better film made about how we deal with life and death than "Gates of Heaven"?

I have little trouble believing a zoophiliac was a lonely person. Why is it unthinkable that his life story might have something to say about loneliness?

As for "Teeth", I'd point out that it is listed as "Comedy/Horror" on IMDB. It sounds like neither a "sleazy movie for bad people" or an "art film"; it sounds like a ridiculous black comedy about puberty.

Joe Giles said...

Can't remember where I was when art died, but I remember the words of Eve Ensler in the background.