Rating: Summary: Sex, but Weird! Review: My readers should know that I do not read the reviews in Netflix or Amazon before I write my reviews. Be assured that I am giving you my opinion. This often puts me at odds with film critics around the world.
Female Perversions can't have it two ways. If Freud didn't understand women, then don't use his interpretations of how women are women. I'm a Freudian and appreciate smart insight, which Susan Streitfeld provides in analytical dream sequences. I found the dreams uninspired however as cinema. I found both straight sex and lesbian action in this film weirdly unsexy. I'm sure an audience of Lesbians or Feminists or both were wowed by near-pornographic sequences - my heart's all-aflutter.
The scene with the three women and the 13 year old was the most interesting for me probably for all the wrong reasons. The stripper is showing career woman, future judge, Tilda Swinton how to shake booty to lure and dominate men. The stripper's sister has no luck with men. She's kind of a Betty Crocker wanna be with nesting desperations. Betty Crocker's daughter is thirteen and hates being a woman. She mutilates herself for thrills. But so does affirmative action lawyer woman. This part reminded me of the film, Blue Velvet. The smart women mingle with the trailer park trash to share tips on menstruation.
Amy Madigan is Tilda's kleptomaniac sister. She's an egg head that steals panties, so she can have an orgasm. Then there's the scene where naked little sisters cause a stir with daddy because Tilda defecates in the tub. Ouch! This one is personal for the director. Sometimes you have to step back a little. The audience has to have a drink.
Rating: Summary: Challenging Questions Review: Not a great movie by any means, but one that raises many gender issues and questions that have no easy answers. Definately a must see!
Rating: Summary: On target. Review: The idea that a career driven woman finds herself disconnected from emotions, vacant in today's society, is the subject of at least one daytime television program daily. The presentation of Evelyn Stevens (Tilda Swinton, of Orlando fame) in Female Perversions, is not the sugar-coated world of The View, but a carefully crafted life-study (accurate to the minute details). Evelyn is an attractive woman, she believes herself a beautiful one. She inappropriately wonders through a shop while trying on a revealing piece of underwear, but the only one available is a disinterested octogenarian. She is a competent attorney, yet she represents herself as a premier legal strategist. Her credit card is rejected while making the simplest of purchases, she drive's a SAAB 900 Turbo-the whole thing is perfect. Further insight to Evelyn's internal monsters are seen though the film's portrayal of her sister, Madelyn-the good soul to Evelyn's evil one. She has chosen a more bohemian existence, and calms her internal monsters through adventures in kleptomania. Let's recap: Driven woman, faux life, dysfunctional family, bad credit cards, soon to be made a judge (with no one to tell, and no one who cares). There is only one place left for her to go. To a deeply invested lesbian encounter. Where else can she go? Her entire life as it stands is moments from implosion. The realization that the new lawyer entering her firm (her 'replacement') is prettier (Paulina Porizkova, no less), smarter, and likely more stable further pushes Evelyn to the inevitable. Wonderfully cast with Amy Madigan (as the sister), Karen Sillas (as the Doctor/Lesbian love interest), and Clancy Brown (as the boyfriend) in a rarely seen beefcake role. Throw in Frances Fisher and Laila Robins for good measure. Must for all art film fans. Highly recommended for the more mainstream tastes who like a small distraction now and then.
Rating: Summary: Explorations of Perversions Review: This is an incredible movie of how women are coerced into different forms of femininity. Each woman has been coerced in a different way--Eve must be the post-feminist superwoman, Maddy is driven to steal, and poor Ed, in her ignorance, mutilates herself. A brilliant exploration of what it means to be female in this culture.
Rating: Summary: Spend your time with a good film -- this isn't it Review: This self-important piece of cinematic twaddle achingly strives for artiness. Instead, it achieves only confusion and irrelevance. "Female Perversions" would make an excellent study for a cinematography class about how NOT to make a film. It was poorly conceived, poorly written, poorly acted, poorly directed and poorly edited. Even the audio engineer didn't get it right: the audio track is low level and sometimes muffled. The angst that oozes from the lead character rides like a thick, noxious fog through the film. Plot situations are never fully explained or developed. The disjointed dialogue often stops and starts seemingly at will. The sex scenes are never fully consummated and are as interesting as Dr. Ruth on Valium. Spend your money on something more meaningingful and entertaining than this dog.
Rating: Summary: Leonard Matlin Missed the Point Review: Wow. I'm sitting here at 6:30 a.m. after viewing this film. There is a much deeper message here than the erotic overtones suggest. Simply put a reminder that the high-powered woman and the no-powered woman lives with the same serious societal demons.
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