Rating: 
Summary: Don't forget to view the documentary
Review: OK, The movie was good but the documentary with the DVD was better. DH placed alot of effort into her character and produced a documentary that gives real insite into the dancers. I had a friend that danced and never really understood the experience, this movie and the documentary opened my eyes.Thanks DH for taking the time and effort to produce an informative and entertaining piece of work
Rating:
Summary: Yes I gave it 4 stars without hesitation
Review: Okay folks, two things: 1. "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" is not another "Showgirls", so don't expect to find another Elisabeth Berkeley in there. 2. Amid thousands of cliche-filled Hollywood movies, you will get to appreciate this unconventional filmmaking approach using improvisational workshops done by the actors themselves (as seen in the DVD's documentary). Now about the "girls": Okay, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly & Sheila Kelley might not have reflected the images of young dancing babes in L.A. today, but they all performed their roles quite well. Sandra Oh also did a standout job in portraying the double life of Jasmine/Cathy. And Charlotte Ayanna's voice was no less beautiful than her appearance. (Recalling the fact that she spent 12 years of her childhood in foster homes and won Miss Teen USA in 1993 wearing a $37 evening gown only made me love her even more).
Rating: 
Summary: A day in the life
Review: Or a couple days. This well-meaning film gives us a decent look as to what is probably a realistic view of the life of a stripper. Unlike "Striptease", which takes a more comical view and tries to throw in some social issues as well, this one takes a more documentary-like approach to the subject. While insightful, it doesn't match "Striptease" for total entertainment value. The big problem is that there is not much plot. We see characterizations. There is the wild, uncontrollable one who is headed for a crash-landing in life, especially when she finds she's pregnant and insists on smoking in the pre-natal doctor's office. There is the nice, but very dumb one who thinks that just because she thinks kids are cute, would qualify as a foster parent even though the kids would be treated like cute stuffed animals. There's the poet who shows her sadness on stage, and shows big reluctance when it comes to relationships. The movie also shows the very thin line to prostitution in the biz, and while stripping itself pays very well, going beyond that is even more lucrative, albeit with risks. There is a hint at the tie to organized crime. Of course drugs are all over the place, not only because the girls can afford them, but it either eliminates boredom or helps buffer the guilt some of them have about what they do. Finally, there is the issue of overly possessive men, be it former acquaintances or customers. All of this is presented in a somber, realistic manner. But maybe too somber. And no real plot to tie it all together. There is little joy shown in the lives of these women. While I'm sure they are accurate portrayals of many types in the life, these are still young, good-looking women making a lot of money, and there has to be some degree of security in this. "Striptease" might have shown an overly optimistic view of the life, but thousands of women make their living this way, and it can't be as bad as portrayed in this movie for all of them. On the "eye candy" front, very, very good. We do get, among others, Darryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly, and the lady from "Arliss" all going down to their g-strings, and the views are generous. The big star they bring in at the end is also a knockout. While they fall short of it being an all-nude club, those wanting to view it just for the "good parts" will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: A day in the life
Review: Or a couple days. This well-meaning film gives us a decent look as to what is probably a realistic view of the life of a stripper. Unlike "Striptease", which takes a more comical view and tries to throw in some social issues as well, this one takes a more documentary-like approach to the subject. While insightful, it doesn't match "Striptease" for total entertainment value. The big problem is that there is not much plot. We see characterizations. There is the wild, uncontrollable one who is headed for a crash-landing in life, especially when she finds she's pregnant and insists on smoking in the pre-natal doctor's office. There is the nice, but very dumb one who thinks that just because she thinks kids are cute, would qualify as a foster parent even though the kids would be treated like cute stuffed animals. There's the poet who shows her sadness on stage, and shows big reluctance when it comes to relationships. The movie also shows the very thin line to prostitution in the biz, and while stripping itself pays very well, going beyond that is even more lucrative, albeit with risks. There is a hint at the tie to organized crime. Of course drugs are all over the place, not only because the girls can afford them, but it either eliminates boredom or helps buffer the guilt some of them have about what they do. Finally, there is the issue of overly possessive men, be it former acquaintances or customers. All of this is presented in a somber, realistic manner. But maybe too somber. And no real plot to tie it all together. There is little joy shown in the lives of these women. While I'm sure they are accurate portrayals of many types in the life, these are still young, good-looking women making a lot of money, and there has to be some degree of security in this. "Striptease" might have shown an overly optimistic view of the life, but thousands of women make their living this way, and it can't be as bad as portrayed in this movie for all of them. On the "eye candy" front, very, very good. We do get, among others, Darryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly, and the lady from "Arliss" all going down to their g-strings, and the views are generous. The big star they bring in at the end is also a knockout. While they fall short of it being an all-nude club, those wanting to view it just for the "good parts" will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Sad view of beautiful strippers
Review: The movie was an improv or so I read. It was really quite good and funny in some parts. It mainly was sad showing how stripers were lonely using drugs to fill all the empty spaces, or men, or just plain dreams that never seemed to materialize. The acting was overall pretty good considering that this was all done without having an exact script. I was surprised to see some of the faces in the film, such as Daryl Hannah and Jennifer Tilly. These girls took on some really scary stuff, by getting up in a roomful of men and stripdancing. The dances were very intense and erotic and because I am a girl and was in an audience of mostly men I felt a little, no alot, uncomfortable. There were alot of dances with very little clothing because that was what the movie revolved around, unlike Striptease with Demi Moore, where there was I think maybe one or two times that she actually danced. This movie has endless dance sequences with all the major stars and some minor ones as well. There are also lap dances but they are not as intense as some I have seen in other art films. There was one movie I saw that had the most erotic lap dance ever, it was a movie called The Center of the World. These scenes in the Blue Iguana did not sizzle. But thats ok, I think the movie didn't want to show that side as much as it wanted to show how lost and unhappy these girls were. Some were just plain angry, trapped in a lifestyle they could not escape from. There were some beautiful poems in the film which enhanced the theme of the film. It is definately worth checking out, just be aware there is alot of female nudity! I wouldn't give it 5 stars because there were some parts that dragged, overall I rated it 4 stars. Lisa Nary
Rating: 
Summary: Arthouse Skin Flick
Review: There's little about DANCING AT THE BLUE IGUANA to make the film relevant for repeat viewing. While the film's credits explain that the film's script was the result of a workshop by some of the most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen, the advertising materials quote a specific pair of writers ... so it's hard to know whether or not this was a creative film exercise that lured in some terrific looking actresses or it was little more than an arthouse skin flick. Sadly, the point of the film has been made in other flicks with much less exploitation of the ladies: strippers -- even the professional high-priced ones -- are people, too.
Rating: 
Summary: A most pleasant surprise
Review: This film is astonishing. What started off as an actors' workshop became a deeply moving piece of work about a group of women and their coworkers in the Blue Iguana strip club. This movie is not intended to be soft-core pornography, although there is plenty of exposed breast and provocative dancing in evidence throughout. Rather it is about the (mostly dysfunctional) relationships that informs the lives of the dancers, the club owner, and the bar staff. The determinates of those relationships are sometimes revealed in detail, but are more commonly and powerfully, simply implied. We are given just enough evidence to make a judgement about those relationships, but never enough to be relieved of our ambivalence about them (Is he a nice man or a bad man?). The resulting tension makes them immediate and demandingly relevant. Individually and collectively the actors all succeed in developing characters that, while not always appealing or even admirable, invoke pathos. And while each is worthy of praise there are outstanding performances. Darrell Hannah's character Angel, is desparately attempting to achieve a measure of adequacy simply to be loved...by anyone. Her encounter with a policeman who finds marijuana in her car after she has asked him to photograph her in front of a billboard advertising the Blue Igauana invokes feelings of desparate, truly awful empathy. If there is anyone who deserves not to be "busted" it is Angel. Her "dance of love" to her unknown benefactor, when all ambient noise is obliterated by Eric Claptons' "River of Tears," and when we are thus left with nothing but the dance and its plea for intimacy, is wrenching. Jennifer Tilly as a dominatrix simultaneously having to cope with a submissive trick wearing a leather dog collar, and an intoxicated, profoundly disinhibited coworker who needs a place to stay following a beating, is a nugget of comedy ad libbing ("Don't touch him, you don't know where he's been!") delivered so rapidly that it needs to be watched two or three times simply to appreciate the sheer volume of dialogue and acting that gets crammed into three or four minutes of movie time. Sandra Oh delivers an understated performance that leaves us feeling drained by its restraint. We keep hoping that she'll follow what we know to be her true desire, grinding our teeth as she equivocates, tending to the needs of her fellow dancers to avoid the inevitable. There is not a wasted character portrayal in this movie. The sound track alone is worth the purchase of the DVD. This is an adult, intelligent and ultimately life-affirming look at subject matter too easily trivialized by social preconceptions to commonly warrant such care and finesse. Although it is a sad movie it is never disheartening.
Rating:
Summary: Improvisation Opens New Territory & Tilly Superb
Review: This film was made without an actual script but instead grew out of improvisations from an actors' workshop. I wish someone else would try this technique as it brings a fresh, immediate, quasi documentary feel to the whole work. I've long been looking for a bridge work between documentary and feature film and this may be it. The film is also character driven instead of plot driven because of this original premise. It is an intense exploration of the underside of the women in the LA strip club scene but it could have been set anywhere. The actress who nails such a woman leading this life dead to rights is Jennifer Tilly. You have never seen her in a role like this and would scarcely recognize her as the scheming Jim Carrey client from "Liar, Liar" or the woman with the voice worth killing in "Bullets Over Broadway." Her character spins out of control as she finds herself pregnant and in no position to be so. She has many brilliant scenes but my favorite is when she is in the waiting room at a medical clinic sitting next to an annoying goody two shoes who is an even more pregnant, obviously coddled suburban woman. Tilly eventually blows up at this woman and ends with a hilarious closing line about her kid will end up selling "goody's" kid drugs on the playground some years hence. In fact, if I had one quibble, it would be that I wish the entire film could have been Tilly's. Everyone else does a fine job too but I think a lead, sole role by Tilly here could have been Oscar worthy. Someone should give her a chance to show her full dramatic range again.
Rating: 
Summary: This blows!
Review: This has to be one of the worst films I've ever had to witness. Slow and very boring. For its subject matter the film is very un-sexy and has many many flaws. The main one being the truely dire acting courtesy of Daryll 'Splash' Hannah and Jennifer 'Bride of Chucky' Tilly who's character is obnoxious and annoying. I could not possibly reccomend this film it ... big time and you will be very disappointed if you rent this one out, never mind buying it!
Rating:
Summary: Smokw and Mirros
Review: This movie had the promise of something wondeful. If is about a strip club and it stars Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly, Sheila Kelly and other beautiful actresses. Unfortuneatley like Goldie Hawn's Criss Cross and other stripper movies, the mai nstars are too self important to degrade themselves with realistic nudity. The inside of the Blue Iguana looks NOTHING like a real strip club and if the director is gonna make a movie about strippers he needs to hire some actresses who don't mind taking off their clothes.
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