Klimt

2006

Klimt is pretty much of a self-reviewing movie. It was written by a native Spanish speaker in French, then translated into German for the crew in the Austrian and German filming locations, then translated into English for the actors to perform. The director produced a 127-minute cut which the producer deemed totally unmarketable and cut to 93 minutes.

And that's not the worst of it. The icing on the cake is that the script was written to be surrealistic in the first place! Although it is supposed to be about the Jugendstil artist Gustav Klimt, the writer/director conceived it not as a biopic, but as a "phantasmagoria" - "a constantly changing medley of real or imagined images, as in a dream," and it is told through the stream of consciousness of a man dying in the last stages of syphilis.

Knowing all that, how much of a review do you need?

Even if you could have read the original version, it would have made little to no sense, not even if the director had written it in his native language. Since it began its life incoherent by design, you can imagine what it's like now, many generations removed from its original conception.

Essentially the film ignores the real Gustav Klimt, other than the fact that he lived in Vienna during the fin de siecle and was recognized for having painted some works which were as controversial as they were important. The real Klimt never died of syphilis, as pictured here, and he never had a lover named Lea de Castro, who is pictured here as a composite of many of Klimt's paramours. As I interpret it, "Lea" was Klimt's Dulcinea, his romantic ideal, and he thought every one of his true loves was the real Lea - until the next one came along. Confusingly, but perhaps appropriately, all of the Leas are played by the same actress (Saffron Burrows). Even more confusingly, the film is not consistent in its presentation of multiple identities. There are also alternate Klimts, but they are all played by different actors! Although other characters ask Klimt why he is talking to himself, is it not completely clear to the audience whether that is the case. If all that isn't confusing enough for you, there are some elements of the film which just seem like outright flubs. Although English represents the German actually spoken by the actors' real-life counterparts, a few exchanges of dialogue are in German, and the appearance of these exchanges (with no subtitles) appears to be completely random! If English represents German, what does German represent?

You could probably create many other equally defensible explanations of the multiple identities and shifting time frames, since the film is itself a work of non-representational art and thus subject to many possible interpretations. Remember again that the story we watch exists in the jumbled logic of a man in the feverish recollections of his death throes. 

If the film succeeds at all, it is in providing pictorializations of the opulence and decadence in that era just before the Great War, as well as of the work of Klimt himself, awash in gold paint, sexual imagery, symbolism, and swirling floral patterns. If you want to see a film which IS abstract art, it might have some appeal for you. If you want to see a film ABOUT the art or artists of that time, take a pass, because you'll learn nothing here.

D

The film might have been a C- if so many things had not gone wrong. As it is, it's impossible to recommend to anyone because it's an incoherent mess, albeit one with some pretty images and some lovely naked women.

The DVD package isn't a complete waste of time. The special features include some interesting insights into the process of make-up and lensing, including some long shots of the cinematographer at work, as photographed by another cinematographer making a documentary. This is particularly interesting since it features one of Saffron Burrows's nude scenes, and even shows her being filmed!

She was topless, but was wearing underpants, although the character was supposed to be naked at the time. The body double did the full body nudity for her before and after this footage. Saffron did finally lose the underpants, albeit with her back to the camera, when she appeared as another of the Leas.

"Dangerous Passions" (2003)

Dangerous Passions is an erotic whodunnit. A music producer has been found dead of an apparent suicide. He has a bullet in his head, powder burns on his hand, and there is a suicide note as well. Detective Randy Spears suspects foul play, and as his suspicions increase, so does the number of suspects. Meanwhile, his reporter girlfriend is reporting leaked facts in the case, and people suspect he is feeding her information, which causes tension between them. We have the grieving widow, who has sex with her female tennis coach and confides that the two hadn't been getting along too well, a secretary, a coin dealer who is after a rare coin that he thinks the deceased owns, and a former singing sensation, played by Dick Smothers Jr., son of Dick Smothers, who was seen entering the building at the time of the murder, and had a fight with the deceased.

Wendy Rice as the detectives girlfriend and Jezabelle Bond as the secretary do full frontal and rear nudity. Julia Kruis as the widow and Nikita Cash as her tennis coach do shaved full frontal and rear.

Only 6 IMDb readers have weighed in on this one, making the 4.5 score meaningless. This film has plenty of sex and nudity, a pretty good plot, girl/girl, and the famous son of a celebrity using his real name in a porno. That is certainly enough to rate a C.

Jezebelle Bond

Julia Kruis

Nikita Cash

Wendy Rice

Ray is a minor hood who is released from doing eight years in prison in London after being set up during a robbery. He'd like to get even with the crooked cop and other assorted scumbags that set him up, but he wants to keep his nose clean.

The father of one of his buddies, who had been killed during the robbery, offers Ray a good deal of money to go to Los Angeles to confront the guy who had masterminded the double-cross, and is now hiding out.

Things don't go perfectly in L.A., and after he is shot, Ray is aided by a "fixer" hired by the father to assist him. This is a relatively small part but is really handled well by Val Kilmer. In fact, his performance may be the best in the movie.

Ray returns to London where things continue to twist and turn leading to an ending that you'll most likely not expect. Despite it's flaws, Played is a decent watch.

Emma Ryan

MAN SAVED BY STRIPPER
Still Waiting For Her Tip - Early Friday morning in Port St. Lucie, Florida, exotic dancer Karnesha Nantz was hired to perform a private strip show for Daniel Karpinski, 46, at his home. During her routine, she faced away from him for 20 seconds, then turned around to see he was having trouble breathing. She called 911, and he fell unconscious and stopped breathing. Paramedics arrived to find her administering CPR. He's now in stable condition, his life having been saved by a stripper.

*Doctors now expect him to live until his wife returns from out of town.
*Her act can make a dead man rise.
*She must really have a tush to die for.



FUN DENTIST SEEKS COMEBACK
A Date With Dentistry - Waterville, Maine, dentist Dr. Denise A. Nadeau’s license was suspended for six months and she was put on five years' probation by the State Board of Dental Examiners for a variety of complaints. In addition to charges of bad dental work that left patients swollen and infected, she was accused of running a practice gone amok, including writing fake prescriptions for staff members; holding after-hours parties with liquor, sex and people sipping rum off an office manager's bare breasts; and treating patients while wearing a belly-dancing costume. Her lawyer is appealing the rulings and her suspension runs out in September, when she hopes to reopen her office. One fellow dentist said most of the time, her patients were very pleased with her work.

*She’s really a fantastic belly dancer.
*Wouldn’t you prefer a shot of rum off a woman’s bare breasts to a shot of Novocaine?
*It was the only dentist’s office where the patients enjoyed the drilling.