SnoopyStyle
In New Orleans, Zandalee (Erika Anderson) is married to poet-at-heart Thierry Martin (Judge Reinhold). He's struggling to keep afloat his father's business. Their marriage is in trouble. Childhood friend Johnny Collins (Nicolas Cage) comes back into his life after a bachelor party. Zandalee starts an affair with the wild painter Johnny.This is a lifeless movie. The stone-faced Erika Anderson lacks any kind of acting charisma. She was probably much better as a model. Her main contribution to the movie is nudity. Director Sam Pillsbury tries to inject nudity to spice up this tired melodrama. It doesn't work. The dialog is clunky as heck. The pace is as slow as molasses. This is sexploitation B-movie with a lot of great actors and Erika.
FatMan-QaTFM
This is the first of many Nick Cage (or is it Nic Cage?) movie reviews. I'm trying to make a bit of a formula so we have a good standard. I think it'll go something like this:Opening Rant: We start off with an early-90s gem that looks made for TV, but has far too much nudity to play on the Super Station. Director Sam Pilsbury appears to be banished to TV movies after this, although he did direct the critically acclaimed Free Willy III. For whatever reason Zandalee only played in Hong Kong and Italy, which would explain the Chinese menus on the DVD from Netflix.The Plot: Zandalee is married to a former-poet-now-exec who has no attraction to her whatsoever. Enter Nick Cage, long haired, cocaine addicted painter who sweeps Zandalee off her feet... in the other room... while her husband is entertaining guests. She falls for him, he falls for her, husband is unhappy, everybody's dead by the end except Nick Cage, who is very very sad.Favorite Nick Cage Line: "I wanna shake you naked and eat you alive."Favorite Nick Cage Moment: Nick Cage is very upset, strips down to booty shorts, and rubs paint all over his body while screaming. Alternate: Nick Cage shoveling a mountain of cocaine into his lover's vagina as though the cops are at the door and he's gotta hide the stuff.My Impression: Frankly, it was embarrassing to watch. Everybody was trying so hard to act, and obviously had no idea what they were doing. The filming was awkward, the bar scenes were quiet enough to hear a pin drop, and the ADR and sound mixing were typical TV terrible.That wasn't so bad, was it? Far easier to read than Zandalee was to watch.
Woodyanders
Bored and unhappy young babe Zandalee (a winningly sultry and vibrant performance by luscious brunette knockout Erika Anderson) feels trapped in a stale and loveless marriage to failed poet and decent, yet dull businessman Thierry Martin (a solid and credible portrayal by Judge Reinhold). Zandalee has a torrid adulterous fling with sleazy and arrogant artist Johnny Collins (deliciously played to the slimy hilt by Nicolas Cage). Can the relationship between Thierry and Zandalee be salvaged? Or is everything going to fall apart and go to seed? Director Sam Pillsbury and screenwriter Mari Kornhauser lay on the tawdry soap opera-style histrionics something thick while attempting to tell a wannabe serious and insightful story about desire run amok and its potentially dangerous consequences; the plot goes gloriously off the rails in the laughably histrionic last third. The dialogue is likewise hilariously silly and vulgar (sample line: "I wanna shake you naked and eat you alive"). Better still, this flick certainly delivers plenty of tasty female nudity (the gorgeously statuesque Anderson looks smoking hot in the buff) and sizzling semi-pornographic soft-core sex scenes (Johnny and Zandalee doing the dirty deed in a church confessional booth rates as a definite steamy highlight). The tart'n'tangy New Orleans setting adds extra spice to the already steamy proceedings. With his long, scruffy black hair, greasy mustache, foul mouth, and coarse manners, Cage's Johnny is an absolute hoot as the single most grossly unappealing "romantic" lead to ever ooze his way onto celluloid. The cast deserve props for acting with admirable sincerity: Anderson, Cage and Reinhold all do respectable work with their parts, with fine support from Joe Pantoliano as Zandalee's merry flamboyant homosexual friend Gerri, Viveca Lindfors as Theirry's wise, perceptive mother Tatta, Aaron Neville as friendly bartender Jack, and Steve Buscemi as a funny, blithely shameless thief. Walt Lloyd's sharp and gleaming cinematography gives the picture an attractive glossy look. The flavorsome, harmonic score by Pray for Rain likewise hits the spot. A delightfully campy and seamy riot.
Boris Todorov
The movie is not as bad as the overall rating shows. I presume too many people saw it on account of Nicholas Cage and got disappointed. The problem is that the drama does not develop in one direction. It ended as a banal story about adultery culminating in a theatrical suicide and an unconvincing tragedy. Cage (Johnny), the outsider, turned up to be the guiltiest of all. Yet, until the middle the movie had developed around Anderson (Zandalee) and at some point it looked as if the victim of the drama would be exactly Cage who fell desperately in love with beautiful Anderson while she was using him to overcome her frustrations with husband Thierry. That seemed to be the purpose of the two supporting characters: Tatta and the gay shop-attendant who were pushing her into adultery, so as to save her marriage. At some point, either when shooting or when cutting, the concept changed and the triangle lost everything even remotely intriguing.
AD
