LO: So, remind me again why we wanted to see The Brave One?
EM: Um, because we wanted to see Jodie Foster kick ass?
LO: Haven't there been a few articles about the make-up of the audiences...mostly women over 30? Or about its feminist implications?
EM: Yeah apparently more than 70% of the audience was 30 or older, and more than half of that group was female, which is apparently pretty rare for a violent, urban film. Do you think it has feminist implications?
LO: I think those numbers suggest that we gals like to see depictions of once-abused women taking matters into their own hands, being mad as hell and not taking it anymore, being strong and tough and taking down the bad guys. Maybe it's because we saw all those Farrah Fawcett movies when we were little, like The Burning Bed and Extremities.
EM: Plus, it's like psychic revenge for her Accused character. They definitely gave her plenty of cheesy bad-guy payback lines, like "Unlock the door or I'll be the last super-cunt you'll ever see," and "Who's the bitch now?!"

LO: Her acting was great, as usual, but the writing was atrocious.
EM: I hated the sequence where they spliced together footage of her getting it on with her fiancé, and the two of them being admitted to the hospital...as he takes off her shirt to expose her nipple, it cuts to the paramedic cutting off her bloodied shirt to, yep, expose her nipple.
LO: Why?
EM: It just seemed so heavy-handed, like, "SEX! VIOLENCE! SEX! VIOLENCE! We're being arty because we're mixing sex and violence, and possibly suggesting that they're somehow related!"
LO: I didn't think of it like that; it didn't seem so CSI-ish to me. I took it more to mean you can have these incredibly tender physical bodily moments one minute, and the next minute you go outside and that same body can experience so much pain and destruction.
EM: That's a good point, I hadn't thought of that way. I like it more now!
LO: Not that sex and violence are related, but that they can be experienced by the same body. Haven't you ever thought about how vulnerable your body is, just walking down the street, something could happen--hit you, fall on you, run you over, attack you--and you could end up limbless? And maybe those thoughts creep in after you just had incredibly tender sex with your fella?  
EM: Your body ain't a wonderland no more! You're right, my sister is an ER nurse in London, and though she's been in this job for years, she's still really disturbed when she has to cut a really nice dress or sweater off a woman around her age. She always thinks, "This girl didn't think that this is how she'd be undressed at the end of her day."
LO: Of course, just focusing on the sex clips, they were pretty cheesy, and it was hard to get past seeing Sahid from Lost getting it on with Jodie. He's cheese incarnate.
EM: I always thought he was sexy on Lost until I heard him interviewed and realized that his real accent is actually more cockney than Iraqi. But I have to give him props for being with Barbara Hershey. She's 21 years older than him!
LO: Tru dat. And while I was a bit bored with the whole thing, I must say I loved her wardrobe. Loved that they didn't shy away from the lesbian casual look. As a straight girl, I love dressing like Ellen. And thought it was cool they didn't try to make her look like a typical girly straight girl.
EM: Apparently Nicole Kidman was originally cast in this role. How much would that have sucked?
LO: Ugh. I would have been rooting for the bad guys.