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Sunday, March 8, 2020

8½ Women (1999)

A British Netherlands Luxembourg German drama directed by Peter Greenaway, starring Toni Collette and Amanda Plummer.
An old woman dies, leaving her husband and son together after the funeral. Being astronomically wealthy, hey decide to build a harem for themselves and collect women who sign contracts to be their concubines.
Excellent! I would put this in a folder with La Grande Bouffe (1973) and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), labeling it "too much of a good thing". The plot took a little while to develop clearly, but it definitely got interesting. I liked the middle section most, which is weird because I usually like film beginnings most. The characters weren't that great, but this was more about plot anyway. Amanda Plummer played Lydia in The Fisher King (1991), Yolanda/Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994) and Claude's mother in Ken Park (2002) (one of my more popular posts). Toni Collette played Princess Yum Yum's Nanny Witch in The Thief and the Cobbler (1995), Mandy Slade in Velvet Goldmine (1998) and Lynn Sear in The Sixth Sense (1999). Video all looked good. I liked how each section started with script text. There were also manufactured earthquakes which looked convincing. An odd note, this movie about sex has no graphic sex scenes. Audio was terrible. Everything except the helicopter landing was really quiet. The father spoke mostly in whispers. I'm rating this awesome because it's a keeper. If you like the weird, but coherent stuff like I do, this would be a great choice. Watch it.

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