Lord. Have. Mercy.

[Edit: My original attempt at a review for this movie sucked. This is attempt 2.]

The Movie: Gia, directed by Michael Cristofer
Recommendation: Von Gauzen, H
Reason: Von Gauzen got this for me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and H passed me another copy with the rest of her reccomendations. Both pretty much said "Here, have some Angelina Jolie." Am I that transparent?

My sapphic hero! I have gone to my happy place, in fact, I'm certain that for a few minutes I stopped breathing during this movie. Promising, I know. It's not a spectacular piece of work, but I sort of stopped caring. Angelina Jolie is easily one of my favorite actresses, and her work on Gia was utterly spectacular. Elizabeth Mitchell is also awesome (Hi again, Lost!).

Queer cinema rules remain in place (horrible death ahoy!), except for the one that says bisexuals don't exist (right on, Linda!). I guess this would be the place in which I'm supposed to flip out about the exploitation of lesbianism in popular cinema. That it's hot for two attractive women to kiss, but it's not quite so cool for two guys to kiss. That's the extent of my flip out. Yes, twenty minutes into the movie we're treated to an exploitative demonstration of "the lesbians" in action. I refuse to object to two attractive people making out, whether other people are titillated or not. That's other people's problem.

After Oldboy, I was pretty desensitized to the gross stuff, but hey, nothing deglamorizes drug addiction like watching someone shoot up into a hideously infected boil on their hand, followed by pus leaking out. And then later they die of AIDS. I guess that's sort of a service to the community. Gia was one of the first famous people to die of AIDS, or so her wiki page says. Can't help but notice that this was after the fashion industry drained her of her life, beauty and vitality. Also can't help but notice that she died pretty much alone. How nice of them.

-39/365 down, 326/365 to go