Change Your Image
haley-jeffrey
Reviews
Flesh (2005)
The Naked Women Limit this Short's Potential
This short film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. The Director didn't bother to come to the screening, we understood once the film began just why a director would avoid his audience entirely. The film is pornographic. Flesh raises some great questions and I think opens a good dialog. The standard rhetoric of liberals that 9/11 happened because we abused World economic relationships, and of Concervatives that "they hate our success" is not what this film is about.
I believe the filmmaker suggests that the conflict that Muslim Fundamentalists have with Western culture is that we treat and portray women in a sexually objective manner that reduces them to lesbian porno fantasies. I think this idea is a powerful one that should be discussed, we might change some of the great societal problems that independent filmmakers claim to exist to combat.
Unfortunately the sexual content of this movie becomes offensive within the first 10 seconds of the film. It is stylistically well done, but it wreaks of a great idea implemented so poorly that no one will ever see or hear about it.
I wish that we could open a dialog about the sexual objectification of women in western culture without being dismissed as Neo-Feminists, this film tried to open a dialog but foolishly fell victim to its own distasteful sexual imagery.
This film was the best edited, most well intended, complete piece of crap I saw at Sundance.
Thank You for Smoking (2005)
A Thinking Man's Comedy You Can Take Your Parents To
This was the most enjoyable film we saw at Sundance. Smart and funny is not an easy pairing to find these days. Thank You For Smoking provides thought provoking content delivered through a network of great acting performances that make this film so thought provokingly hilarious.
This comedy, unlike many that grace the screen these days, is clean enough to take your parents to, and funny enough that you will forget you are at the movies with your mom. It was truly refreshing how no one in the film was filmed smoking a cigarette. Rob Lowe's character provides a wonderful satire of the corporate film world. I only hope that the intelligence level of this film does not keep it from gaining mainstream appeal.