I recorded this movie off of Cinemax even though I've seen it before. In fact, I saw it when it was released, in the movie theater, when I was 14 - my mother bought me the R rated ticket and I went with a boyfriend (not the kissing kind, the boy who is my friend kind).
This movie could not get made today. A comedy where a main character has an abortion? That doesn't ruin her life? Teenage girls who want to have sex but aren't deemed sluts or whores?
It is more flawed than I remember - the emotional lives of the female characters are given short shrift, and there is little style in the direction. I have some problems with the storyline for Jennifer Jason Leigh's character, Stacy. I like that she is not afraid of pursuing a sexual relationship, but the fact that she seems to be motivated by peer pressure from her friend Linda (who is clearly fronting about her own sexual experience) makes her pursuit of a sexual relationship to be somewhat coerced.
The male characters are generally more richly drawn, I assume this is due to the source material being written by a young man (Cameron Crowe).
Not as good as I remember, but this movie would be positively revolutionary if it was released today.
Imagine Me & You
The good: it's a very pretty movie. Matthew Goode is completely charming as the husband of a woman who falls in love at their wedding - with another woman. Giles is in it!
The bad: it is 35 minutes of Piper Perabo moping. There is no chemistry between the two women who are in love. It's boring.
Latter Days
This is a low-budget movie about a West Hollywood boytoy who falls in love with a Mormon missionary. That is a rich topic. Steve Sandvoss was terrific as Aaron Davis, the Mormon missionary who knows that he is attracted to men, but still fights against it because he believes in the religion in which he was raised. Wes Ramsay plays Christian, who makes a bet that he can bed a Mormon, but ends up (as they always do in these "I made a bet" kind of movies) finding the good within himself.
My only problem with the movie (aside from the low-budget, which negatively impacted the appearance of the film, and a couple of the supporting performances, which were amateurish) was the sex scene between Christian and Aaron. I love a good gay sex scene, my friends - men or women. This one was hot, no doubt. But it took me out of the movie - it was movie, movie, movie, soft-core porn! movie, movie, movie. I didn't think that with everything Christian had been through, the sex would have looked like that. It's a quibble, the movie could stand without the sex scene, since the truly intimate moment happens the morning after.
Alphaville
Jean Luc Godard's most accessible and linear film. It's still not terribly accessible or linear, but it is interesting, even if the ending seems simplistic. Since we kept going back to see things we missed, it took Loki and I about 4 hours to watch this 1 hour and 40 minute long film.
No comments:
Post a Comment