Movies

I think they only sold 2 tickets, including mine, to the 2:45 showing. About 5 people snuck in part way through, several of them left disgusted.

Movie is rather crappy. It has interesting moments, but it's deeply, deeply misogynistic with nearly ever short ending with the female lead being tortured, usually by herself.

The first short is probably the best, with a woman meeting her fiance's 15-year old daughter for the first time. The girl's mother killed herself over postpardom depression. The father and the daughter are close...maybe a bit too close. They talk about sex, he lets her drink, lets her have loud sex in the house, takes her out clubbing, and even sunbathes nude with her. Each and every turn is more disturbing, but the father always has a somewhat reasonable explaination. Eventually, the fiance retaliates for the percieved wrong-doing, with brutal results.

Everything is downhill from here. Most of the film's runtime is taken up by women being coerced into sex acts, psychologically tortured, committing suicide, or being ridiculed. 

All of the stories focus on women, except for the film's 3rd story, which is easily one of the most overtly anti-gay and homophobic things I have ever seen. And somehow it manages to throw a little black girl into the middle of it all...and make her into a literal "spear chucker."

Another story centers on an girl who goes all Lady McBeth after her boyfriend asks her to shove a finger up his butt during sex. Think of it as a scat variation on Black Swan.

The film does get some credit for the final story involving Zoe Saldana. Whereas a great many films feature scenes of women being raped and then "liking it" (The Fountainhead and Blade Runner immediately spring to mind), this short has the integrity to literally be about a woman who gets raped...and likes it. It takes some guts to be so open about this old and grotesque stereotype. But even though Saldana is very good in the role, the whole thing still amounts to nothing. She gets raped, she likes it. She hunts the rapist down and asks him on a date, then begs him to rape her again because she's just THAT lonely. The end.

I saw this movie because one review compared it to the work of Todd Solondz. This is NOTHING like Solondz. His movies are beautiful, thoughtful, deeply human, and funny because the characters share so many of the traits that we pretend not to have. Burning Palms is filled with characters who do not resemble any human being I have yet met, nor any human being whom I would hope to encounter.

This film has not yet reported box office, but I'm pretty damn open to dark comedy and this film did not work for me at all. I'm really keyed into this genre (I rode a bus for 2 hours each way to see a double feature of Happiness and Life During Wartime last summer) so if it doesn't play to me, I can scarely imagine an audience for it of any type. If they even bother to report box office it will be VERY poor indeed, and I cannot imagine that they will expand this wretched thing onto any more screens.

My bet is that the the stock never reports grosses and delists at zero. Keep in mind how this will affect Saldana's starbond. She had 2 movies come out last weekend, Heart Specialist DID report. If Burning Palms reports then both Avatar AND Star Trek will be bumped from her TAG. If this film does not report, only Star Trek will be dumped.

Please note, I am not advising anyone on how to play any stocks. I have no insider information on the future of any stocks mentioned here. I am simply recounting accurate theater count information and giving a brief review to contextualize what this film is for the vast majority of HSX players who have not had a chance to see it and most likely never even saw the trailer. Do your own research before buying or selling anything.

[BPALM] [ZSALD]