Reaper
This is 84 of the most excruciating minutes I've ever spent watching a movie, and I've seen Gigli.The movie opens with a gratuitous shower scene with a naked Neve, before showing parallel scenes of Neve Campbell spewing platitudes on a kind of job interview with a character played by the director, while the boyfriend character (Ford) is spinning multiple lines of nonsense that nobody would believe. The dialogue is clumsy and very superficial in both sequences, and seems to mostly illustrate that both main characters are vapid and unlikable. And all of the scenes, both in the beginning and throughout the movie, go on forever and ever. The introduction of the Count is even clumsier. Dialogue between the count and his flunkies - I mean, his assistants - serve the painfully obvious purpose of showing that he is a Very Important Man. Ford's one successful pitch is to pimp out sweet little Neve, who double crosses both of them, or something. The double cross, when it happens, is actually not bad, but it doesn't make up for the excruciating scenes that go before. Getting to that third act does not justify the previous two. Even beyond the fact that there is not one decent, sympathetic character here, I was ready to scream at scenes that took forever and did nothing.
leahz
I watched this film after first watching "The Outsider" (2005) which is a documentary that follows the director, James Toback, during the shooting of this film. This movie is an interesting and artfully done study of sexual explorations by several interrelated characters. It does not follow the traditional formula of mainstream movies, which is one of the reasons I liked it. It was especially fulfilling to watch this film having just viewed the documentary that delved into the objectives of the director in making this movie, the feelings of the cast before and during filming, commentaries on Toback's style and techniques from other directors and actors with whom Toback has worked, and the challenges associated with shooting the entire film in 12 days.
hcoursen
How could Ebert have liked this film? He tricked me into watching it. Shame on your bad joke, Ebert! This one isn't even episodic -- in that episodes have some meaning, even if they are unconnected to a coherent narrative. Instead, we get random scenes that do not in any way anticipate the ending. In one scene, an unidentified young man is given a large yacht -- why? The ending itself, which I won't reveal, seems to be motivated by the young woman, but since it is an accident, even that won't work. And her diabolical plan just as well could have backfired. Compare the play and counter-play of "Sleuth". That a wealthy Italian count could somehow have developed a passion for this plain and badly dressed young woman -- and even compare it to Dante's glimpse of Beatrice -- is incomprehensible. This is not even a valid study of a psychopathic personality. And the one love scene between the girl and her boy friend is -- literally -- impossible. The director does not seem to realize that certain basic adjustments must be made prior to starting. Awful. To give it a number at all is to insult the numerical system.
trubbleinparadise
I liked this movie. She has many levels to her, but never gets enough credit. She held her own in this movie, but some of the other parts could have been left out. Mainly her boyfriend doing the three women in the park. He was a shyster, that was figured out from the beginning. I'm glad he got screwed. I figured she would have just paid him off and kept the extra. Women need to keep all their earnings! OK, so it was just a movie, but a woman can dream. I'm not sure how I missed this when it first came out, but I'm glad I was able to catch it now and am spreading the word! I was never a big fan of Ria, but really liked the 'Butterflies' song.
AD
