mooseman01 Reviews

Skintight (1981)

Search for "Skin Tight"

[23 August 2006]

I have been searching for a DVD of this film to no avail. Can anyone help? I would consider (depending on cost) to buying VHS and transfer to Disk.

Annette Haven may be the sterling porn performer I have ever seen. Others play similar roles in their movies, but she seems able to transfer from character to character as in mainstream movies.

I have seen enumerable references on Google and elsewhere about this film but to date I can't get hold of one.

many thanks

[e-mail] LA

[e-mail]

Being Julia (2004)

A One Woman Show, if not a one woman actor's workshop.

[6/10 · 26 December 2004]

I approached this film strictly by way of word of mouth. Reviews and blurbs went over my head. I haven't read Maughm (sp?) in years and forgot what I may have read. I went into the theater with a clean slate. Ms.Benning displays an awesome range of technique, but that doesn't describe her or the film. She was able to draw me within her to sense her triumphs and doubts, and challenges, all of which appeared and felt quite real to me.

In the hands of others this picture might easily have fallen into soap, surely with its "come-upance" finale, all quite expected and predictable, I thought. Still, having said that I was totally absorbed by Ms Benning and her surrounding players all of whom added to the vitality of her performance without negating or diluting their own. I am not an actor yet I felt I understood the lessons she was displaying and the courage to so open herself in such a revealing way.

She is the film, with respect to the director and writer, and the film is her, not a great film, but one worth while seeing on its own, but more so for the opportunity of truly witnessing great craft and talent.

Sideways (2004)

Inner life of (a) man portrayed in two characters.

[10/10 · 26 December 2004]

I have not read the book or reviews of it. We saw this film last night in LA. The log lines mainly and correctly tell the surface story, but diminish the vital roles of the women, whose characters become the necessary bonding for us. Ms. Madsen is outstanding in expressing the vulnerability of those surrounded by the terrors of neurosis. For me. it is a study of "the one" in many of us, living side by side: SIDEWAYS, certainly for this male, who is both of the men on the screen: as are "both" of the men on the screen. It is the conflict of anxieties within many of us. I think it is the single best depiction of inner-life I can recall. I am a recovering alcoholic but neither concerned nor put off by the use of so much wine and wine talk; indeed I found it easier to identify with and relate to all the characters, although I feel the "alcohol" was more symbol and facilitator than exposing the dreaded disability of Narcissistic Sensitivity. The portrayal of taking one's own life to the brink of total destruction driven by one's own inner demons triggers the very anxieties from which we run. This film omits nothing. It is all there to be absorbed.