I watched Sebastian Gutierrez's saucy comedy-drama Women In Trouble a few weeks ago, and found it tremendously entertaining - if perhaps occasionally somewhat in the 'guilty pleasure' category - and I find I am much looking forward to the subsequent episodes in a projected trilogy. Yes, one feels slightly awkward that the prominent themes of lesbianism, prostitution, and pornography might have been included partly for titillation of the male audience, and the director is playfully pushing the gross-out envelope with some of this material (there's one scene in particular, an extended monologue in which apprentice porn star Holly Rocket explains the origin of a career threatening hang-up she has about a particular sex act, which is going to be rather too much for a lot of people), but, really, it's mostly very innocent; it's done with great zest and charm, and very well acted by the ensemble cast. Despite its melodramatic contrivances, it works pretty well as a straight drama most of the time, and it's also very funny.
And, well, colour me titillated, I suppose. I haven't seen a film which makes such provocative, devastating use of 'eye candy' since Patrice Leconte's Tango (in which a trio of male misogynists go on a road trip through the south of France together to try to get away from women, but keep on having fortuitous - or not so fortuitous - encounters with such stunning sirens as Miou-Miou, Judith Godrèche, and Carole Bouquet). I don't like to think of myself as a complete slut, but I was serially smitten with just about every single actress/character in this film: it's really hard to choose between Carla Gugino as the world's leading porn actress, Adrianne Palicki as her ditzy understudy, Emmanuelle Chriqui as an upscale hooker, Marley Shelton as a starstruck air stewardess (also very eyecatching as the woman in the red dress in the prologue to Sin City), Samantha Shelton as a club singer, Rya Kihlstedt as a feisty lesbian bartender, Cameron Richardson as a guileless Canadian masseuse, or Caitlin Keats as an adulterous wife (alas, her appearance here is very brief; I remembered her fondly from her similarly blink-and-you'll-miss-it role as one of Uma Thurman's doomed bridesmaids at the start of Kill Bill, Vol. 2).
However, I think the pick of this delightful crop were the gorgeous Sarah Clarke (remembered as the treacherous Nina in the early series of 24, and now apparently suffering even greater cult fame as a regular cast member in the Twilight films) as Maxine McPherson, a psychoanalyst with problems enough of her own...
... and the even more gorgeous Connie Britton (if I have 'a type', this is it) as troubled mother Doris (actually, one of the least sympathetic characters in the film, at least initially; but I swooned anyway).
4 comments:
Fun posts like this sometimes make me wish that I myself had chosen an untraceable alias for my Web identity.
The Missus and I just saw the most recent Twilight flick last weekend. I kept looking at the woman who played protagonist Bella's mother, wondering where I knew her from. Thank you for resolving that for me -- now that you have, of course it's obvious. But I'd never have put her and Nina together on my own.
The little word-verification prompt of the moment seems itself to suggest, but only suggest, a mysterious perversion one might not want to discuss in public: proonful.
P.S. One of my favorite Linda Ronstadt recordings -- I doubt it ever became a hit, and may not even have been released as a single -- was on her 1980s-era album, Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like the Wind. It's called "Trouble Again," and resonates (I regret to say) for me personally, in both the song's first- and its second-person references. Although I haven't seen Women in Trouble, from your description here I can easily imagine the song on the soundtrack.
I think we need a new tag for "Froog's blindingly obvious posts."
Wow - color me surprised. You have the hots for a taller than average redhead. Couldn't have seen that one coming. :)
JES, I don't know if there's something else particularly chameleon-like about Ms Clarke or her acting abilities, but I think the hair is a big part of it. She had black hair and a severe, short cut as Nina; in this film she was a blonde. It was almost the 'uncanny valley' realm of cognitive discomfort: Gosh, darn, she's familiar, but... I know who this woman is - why can't I place her?
Thanks for the Linda Ronstadt, a fine little song.
Don't tease, Cowboy. Just find me a tall redheads bar, so that I can happily unhappy the next time I come to visit.
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