Women's Month - Day twenty-two (belated)

Female Agents

Female Agents is a French film based on (Edit)true stories (end edit) about female members of the Special Operations Executive during the second world war, a department which dealt with espionage and sabotage. It's one of the few war films I've ever seen starring mostly women, and while it's not about life on the front lines obviously, it's tense and brutal all the same. I saw it around the same time as I saw Inglorious Basterds, and the difference between the death scenes in this film for women, and the slow, loving close-ups on women being murdered in that were almost shocking to me, despite them both supposedly being the same sort of film. Maybe Quentin Tarantino isn't the best director to compare things to, but it was the experience I had at the time. It's a great film, filled with great characters and touching moments, and Louise Desfontaines is my hero, and Louise/Jean forever.

Women's Month - Day twenty-three (belated)

Naomie Harris

Naomie Harris is an actress, and I think a wizard? Or a chameleon? Because whenever I see her in a film I think "who is this amazing, unheard-of actress? She's great. I wonder if she's been in anything before", and I look up who it is and find out it's Naomie Harris. She was Tia Dalma in Pirates of the Caribbean, and I had no idea. She was in 28 Days Later, and I had no clue. She was in Ninja Assassin, and I didn't know her. She was Eve Moneypenny in the new Bond films, and I was like 'who?'. She was the female lead in Rampage and I think I'd already heard beforehand it was her, but I don't know if I would have recognised her if I didn't. At some point during all this I looked back at her past work and realised she was in The Tomorrow People when I used to watch it as a kid, I had no idea. And while researching this entry, I realised she was the main star of Black and Blue, which I haven't watched but saw multiple trailers of, and thought 'she's good, a new breakout star', and had no clue.

I don't understand it, because it's not even like she's a bad, bland actress that just sort of fades into the background. Every time I notice her and think she's a great actress and look her up, which I don't do for just anyone in films. And then it's Naomie Harris and I feel like an idiot. All I can think is that she's such a good actress, and a good physical actress, that the literal expressions on her face are slightly different for each role, and that and the power of her performance make her unrecognisable to me. She's going to be in Venom maybe, maybe I'll recognise her there. But either way, I think she's a great actress, and possibly even better for the fact that every role she has is so distinctly different I can't connect one to the other. I mean, maybe I'm just an idiot, but I'm willing to put it down to her talent. Either way, she's a mystery to me. It's like the Vincent D'Onofrio effect, but without his wild physical changes for each role. Put her in more films, Hollywood! Make me recognise her!

Women's Month - Day twenty-four

M.I.A.

I love MIA, and should buy more of her albums. She's probably made some of my favourite songs, and her songs are so powerful and so fun. I mean, they're tough to listen to sometimes based on the subject, but she actually tackles things, and in her own style, and with a lot of depth too. This is Paper Planes, a song I literally never get sick of listening to: