icanstilltellyourwifebill.com

Rating:
Summary: icanstilltellyourwifebill.com
Review: Absolutely not the movie I expected. The style of this film although appearing to take some time for thought on the part of the producer, held few surprizes. It is obvious why other film makers appear not inclined to follow suit. Most people read enough at work all day and will surely be "eye weary" after viewing this film. Even with a second attempt to evaluate this film...I found myself disappointed...finally, I gave myself the choice of returning or discarding this dvd, the content being to sortid and depressing.
Call me old fashioned...but I need entertaining action, a little drama and a thrill, maybe two. I can't imagine anyone finding anything thrilling about the degradation of humanity depicted in this film. Both men and women scurry around like vermin seeking
fulfillment from the lowest of moral value. For adults? Maybe. If, they are into the preverse and like to spend money with little expectations of a viable return. But my granny "ain't" gonna be watching it and I "ain't" gonna be reading it to her.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting New Type of Storytelling
Review: Let me say first off that this is not a "movie" in the conventional sense. I first heard of this project on the internet, and decided to order it without really understanding what it was. I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm always looking for films that push the envelope of what entertainment can be, and this story definitely does that. The only way I can describe it is: if you only had the special features on a DVD with which to tell the story--what would the film be like? To me, the results are a vision of what the future of filmmaking could be. The Director, Tim Street, provides you with a wide variety of video clips, journals and other stuff from which you can glean the story. Now, this isn't really like those old first generation CD-Rom computer games where you're essentially following a branch structure of "watch clip A, then choose clip B or C to continue"--it's more open ended and the story comes from what you're putting together in your head, not what is laid out for you on the screen. Definitely a cure for the common Hollywood brain numb-er

As for the story, it's a fairly simple one, along the lines of Fatal Attraction meets Monica Lewinski. Essentially, a jilted woman blackmails her married ex-lover "Bill", a kind of protean politician from Washington, by posting things about him on the internet, and intrigue ensues. Not going to spoil anything for anyone--I'll just say I was hooked.

The woman who plays Hartley, the blackmailing ex-lover of "Bill" was quite captivating and pulls off a pretty big feat--she takes on a role that mainly consists of looking into a handheld video camera and taunting her prey and makes it a sexy, chilling, funny, and layered performance. Since this makes up the bulk of telling the story, and it's a fairly long tale, this is an impressive performance indeed. It's doesn't hurt that she's gorgeous too.

This is not to say that the film is without its flaws. I can't rave about some of the other acting in the film, and I could have wished for more interesting visuals in some of the scenes. The sound isn't the greatest in places either. Obviously, Street went for realism rather than "movie" style cinematography and sound, a bold choice. Though some scenes didn't grab me visually, I appreciated (in retrospect) that someone didn't insult my intelligence by creating perfectly-lit movie-style scenes that would require a great suspension of disbelief to sell as reality. In the same vein, some of the menu screens could have looked a little more slick, but again they were within the boundaries of the story.

All in all, I'm hoping this kind of storytelling catches on. It really could be the bridge between books and movies--films that don't tell you how to think, but actually let you do it yourself for a change.