Conference bookie::movies

    
    It's a classic film noir ... with the twist that the, say,
    "Humphrey Bogart" role is played by a woman, Gina Gershon.
    
    If you like noir, this is a good one.
    
    

    Went to see this at the cinema at the weekend (in Blighty). 
    
    Once the story kicked in I thought this film was on a par with "Fargo".
    
    Had the misfortune of fumbling for a sweet(/candy) at an inappropriate
    moment.... For those of you who have seen this movie, it was in the
    first half hour and everyone went incredibly quiet. (The kind of quiet
    where you imagine people can hear your heart beating.)
    
    ;-)
    
    Stephen

    I saw this on video tape a couple of weeks ago and found it to be very
    good.Its a bit slow to start with but when the story kicks in it's
    riveting! 8)
    
    
    
    I got kinda annoyed when I saw there was a "Tilly" in the cast(all
    Tiily's are annoying)but it was an all out/intelligent movie.
    
    						ian

    
    	Jennifer is annoying, but what a body on that girl.
    

    
    actually,her friend in the movie is very cute!
    
    
    both characters are very strong,independant and intelligent!A couple of
    good roles for women
    
             						ian
    					

    
    	Gina Gershon?  If so, I'm sure she was.
    
    	She looked pretty good in "Showgirls".
    

    
    Just caught this over the weekend! Thumbs up! Good pick from my brother
    (who told me to check it out, he's rented it twice, and what surprised
    me was his wife liked it!) ;-) I was trying to call him to give him a
    razzing since we both like some of these "noir" (I call some of these
    sick and/or twisted)! Good movie! You really can't miss much if any of
    it! Good job with women leads here, and Tilly does have a nice body,
    Gershon looked familiar, but don't remember her from Show Girls (I do
    remember the pretty blonde though! Yowza!). Not for the kiddies to say
    the least with the implied stuff between the women and the violence,
    but pretty darn good! Have to catch it again (like my oldest bro did!).
    
    

    How was Joe Pantoliano?   He was great on EZ Streets (not that many
    people saw it)

Yes, not for everyone, but pretty suspenseful and believable. I liked how they
jumped around in time and some of the interesting camerawork. I sometimes wish
they would leave more to the imagination in the mobster scenes, though.

I thought Joe Pantoliano as Ceasar was great, as were the two female leads.

-Jeff

    Gina Gershon was the lead dancer, the "star", in Showgirls.  The one
    that gets knocked down the stairs so that the little "Saved By the
    Bell" upstart can take over and prove to everyone she's not in high
    school anymore.
    
    
    E

    
    SBTB upstart??? Hmm, I barely put up with watching that afternoon show
    cept for a couple cute females in it, I couldn't stand the blonde
    parker lewis kid, nor pretty boy wannabe big muscle kid nor screech.
    Are you saying she was the tall blonde built rather well or another one
    of the cast? I haven't seen this whole flick yet....mainly see bits and
    pieces ;-) while surfing channels.
    
    Saw other (I think) cutie from SBTB with Keanua(sp) reeves last night
    driving in the car with him, not sure name of movie though, it was on a
    pay channel. Brunette, real cute, but I would take Kim Catrall over her
    any day! ;-) Cept maybe tall blondie there from Show Girls.....tough
    choice!  But this movie was pretty good, I'll have to watch it again,
    and the camera work was pretty slick. What other "noir" films are like
    this (and Get Shorty/Pulp Fiction) style movies?
    
    I've seen Fargo (most of), and thought it was ok, Buscemi his usual
    self....
    
    

    The tall blond that goes to Las Vegas to make her fortune as a show
    girl is the one from Saved By The Bell.
    
    
    E

    
    Ah, so she dyed the hair....I think....ok, that was what I was
    thinking. Thanks.
    
    

  I appreciated the cinematography in this film, several of the shots were
  artfully done and the editting was perfect. 

  However, I was a little disappointed in this film.  I had heard so much about
  it when it screened, that I've felt as though I'd missed out on a top film of
  the year back then.  If I (like the original critics) had seen this film with
  no advanced information, perhaps I would not have felt the "that's it?"
  reaction that I did last evening.  Another part of it is that I tire _very_
  easily of mob-story films.

  I kept wanting more artful shots, and less typical mob dialogue and mob
  posturing.  But the shots that were there I really appreciated.  I also enjoyed
  how they used the interesting elevator and landing floor patterns to build
  tension.

  I liked the two female leads quite a bit.  Both were very well acted, and
  both were strong female characters (yet in a realistic believable way)
  despite their widely different personalities.  It was a very sensual film
  during their scenes as well.  ["Corky, what _are_ you doing?" wow].

  Potential spoilers...

  The conclusion to the story was indeed very suspenseful, I really enjoyed it.
  However, I felt slighted at the end and cheated by their 'lying' time jump
  shots.  I'm not sure if I own this (mad at myself) or if they deserve blame
  for this 'cheap trick'.  The scene with one of the women bound, flashed
  throughout the film, I took to be the endpoint of the story, where the events
  would end up.  So by the conclusion, my mind was racing trying to figure out
  what would happen to change the easy typical happy ending scenes the story
  had been building toward, to instead result in that "something in the end
  failed" bound scene.  When it never happened, and it turned out that the last
  ten minutes of the film was indeed just a typical boring mob-film friends-
  share-the-dirty-mob-loot happy ending as the scenes had been building toward,
  I felt as though I'd been cheated.  Yet, to their credit, I was enjoying the
  mental jumps and suspense that their cheap trick created, waiting for one
  woman to cross the other.  Perhaps they deserve credit for it, or blame, or
  perhaps I own the blame for seeing the bound scenes as the endpoint of the
  film, not the midway point which goes by without any mention that this scene
  was indeed the same bound scene despite it seemingly haven been shot from
  different (future time) angles (to me).

  I really enjoyed the film until the ending though.  But whether I get credit
  for this with my own internal writing trying to get to the apocryphal
  counterfeit ending, or they do, I'm not clear on right now.  Basically you
  could take any similar seen-many-times-before mob story film, throw in the
  same false outcome cut-away scenes into the typical happy ending story, and
  perhaps the viewer would have the same suspense.  ("I know it feels like a
  seen-coming-a-long-time-ago happy ending, this is suspenseful, how are they
  going to get from here to the false ending?").

  _Bound_ was very good, I enjoyed it (the suspense, the strong female
  characters, capturing the two women's sensuality, the few artful shots), but
  from the critics' reviews I expected the writing to be a little bit better
  than I thought it was. Four out five stars (for a film billed as five star).

  -Erik