The Girlfriend Experience

It seems like every couple of movies, Steven Soderbergh is trying something innovative and cutting edge. Several years ago it was Bubble, which was a mess of real people in acting roles and a plot that was barely present. So enter The Girlfriend Experience. A follow up of sorts. just replace non actors with porn actress. Plot? No we'll stick with the whole no plot thing.

The movie stars porn actress Sasha Gray as a high class prostitute. We ramble around with her as she visits clients, talks to a journalist and her boyfriend. This all inter cut with scenes of her boyfriend going on a trip to Vegas and other random scenes that confused me. I can't even begin to understand what the point is. But Soderbergh seems really committed to finding a way to get a movie to work with non traditional actors. Its like Cinema Verite without anything to make you interested.

I recently saw Sasha Gray interviewed and she listed her five favorite movies. What the hell? Jean Luc Goddard? And Escape from New York? She actually seems sort of interesting. But coming as no shock to anyone ever, she can't act. At all. In fact its rather painful. Especially in her scenes where she is waxing intellectual with her clients.

Oddly enough at one point in voice over we hear a "review" of Gray's prostitute by a vindictive "pimp" which is about spot on as to the believability of Ms. Gray as a high class prostitute. My only hope is that when Soderbergh makes this train wrecks it gets whatever it is out of his system. And then he gives us something like Out of Sight.

A Little Trip To Heaven

After four months of sitting on my desk unwatched, I finally opened up a netflix dvd that I had decided I should see. And as I stared at the disc in front of me I had but one question. What the hell is this? Why did I want to see this? Did I put this on my list back in my Julia Stiles fascination days? Did I want to see what else Jeremy Renner had done after seeing The Hurt Locker? Do I worship the awesomeness that is Peter Coyote? Maybe it was Forest Whitaker? I can not think of one conceivable reason why I put this film on my list. But apparently at some point I thought it was a good idea right? So how bad could it be?

Help me out Netflix movie description?

When a claim is sought on the million-dollar life insurance policy of notorious con artist Kelvin Anderson, crack investigator Holt is assigned to uncover the truth in Baltasar Kormakur's crime noir. Holt (Forest Whitaker) suspects deceit from the get-go, and he stealthily tries to uncover the truth from Kelvin's sister Isold (Julia Stiles) and her erratic husband, Fred (Jeremy Renner). Peter Coyote co-stars.

Oh god. It sounds awful. But that's just a description. How bad could it be? Mr. Whitaker has some sort of british? accent. I have the question mark there because I'm not exactly sure where he's supposed to be from. At one point he is vaguely referred to as being from north. Its pretty much all kinds of awful. And then there is Jeremy Renner. He was surprisingly good in The Hurt Locker. But then again he was also really bad in 28 Weeks Later and SWAT. And painful in this. Ms. Stiles, although I love you, this was not your best role.

And this movie doesn't really have anything going for it. The plot is particularly nonsensical. There is some small suggestion in the end and in some half done deleted scene that Whitaker goes to heaven. There are in fact several references to heaven that seemed strangely out of place. Whatever the directer was going for, it got lost somewhere between his vision and the screen. Next time I think I'll just send it back if I'm not sure why I put the movie on my queue.