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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 5:24 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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marantzo wrote: I think I know who plays the trainer. 
This goes over my head. Is there in fact a trainer in the movie? |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 5:35 pm |
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Gromit wrote:
Quote: I didn't understand why the guys wanted the fitness trainer to come on the Vegas trip. But I didn't really care either, especially since I hated that home video-ish plane ride. Thematically it helped make the fairly lame parallel between the trainer and his pro girlfriend.
You were talking about The Girlfriend Experience, weren't you? |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 7:01 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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billyweeds wrote: marantzo wrote: I think I know who plays the trainer.
This goes over my head. Is there in fact a trainer in the movie?
Billy--Yes. Tim plays the trainer. He's the boyfriend of the girlfriend.
The Girlfriend Experience is also on cable. I don't understand that but it is. But their charging almost ten dollars to see it!
The critics seem to like it. From what I can tell a lot of others feel the same way Gromit did. They don't like the frugal look of the film. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 7:23 pm |
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| Sounds like a definite pass for me. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 8:02 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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marantzo wrote: Sounds like a definite pass for me.
The combination of Soderbergh and Tim plus four stars from Ebert is the polar opposite of a pass. This has suddenly become a must. (I have actually met Tim and like him enormously, so this may make the difference.) |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 8:24 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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billyweeds wrote: marantzo wrote: Sounds like a definite pass for me.
The combination of Soderbergh and Tim plus four stars from Ebert is the polar opposite of a pass. This has suddenly become a must. (I have actually met Tim and like him enormously, so this may make the difference.)
It's the opposite of a pass for me, as well. I'm just going to wait a bit for the price to drop.
Billy if you go to IMdb.com there is a preview in which you can see Tim. Wait. Here it is: http://www.girlfriendexperiencefilm.com/ |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 9:19 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Actually, Tim Davis doesn't play the boyfriend/fitness trainer. Chris Santos does. Tim Davis is listed as playing Tim, and I have no idea who that is in the film.
I don't think his role can be very large, since the film basically follows Sasha Grey around as she meets with clients, shops, has other business appointments, or hangs with her non-Tim boyfriend.
As for Ebert, he's right that the movie basically watches people talk, but he seems to get much else wrong:
Quote: We listen to them talking. We watch them talking. Most of them want to talk about what she does for a living. There is the polite fiction that she is talking about other men, hypothetical men, and not the one she is with. They like to give her advice about how to invest her money, and who to vote for (the story takes place during the 2008 campaign). Each one has some reason for thinking he is somehow special. Set during the run-up to the stock market crash, it shows both sides more interested in investing than sex.
Most of the guys want to talk about what they do, their troubles, their world. They completely ignore her lack of interest in it ... it's their dime. And the film is definitely pre-election, post-Crash as most of them encourage her to invest in gold, or keep her money in cash, while they whine a lot about how their salaries are down, times are tough, etc.
Quote: More Ebert:
She has been living with one of them for 18 months, and in a way, he may be a boyfriend experience. He doesn't seem much more meaningful to her than a client.
Ebert likes to flip it and talk about the boyfriend experience, but really they want a sexy psychiatrist experience. The title also refers to her relationship with her boyfriend, in which the distance from work is still partly there, as her act of intimacy becomes part of who she is, how she interacts.
But it's hard to judge their closeness or relationship, because the one time we view them for an extended period is when they are having a fight and she goes into passive-aggressive mode, using her professional veneer of non-emotion to wall him off.
I think Ebert watched this a little too quickly.
Not sure why he likes it either.
I really don't think we learn anything about these characters, this world, etc. That late capitalism is a very transactional world is not much of an insight.
A review blurb off Rotten Tomatoes:
Quote: Like a stag movie as conceived by the editors of the Financial Times. |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:05 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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THE GIRL FRIEND EXPERIENCE is close to unbearable.
GOODBYE SOLO, on the other hand, is a deeply moving and wonderfully acted film. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 11:10 pm |
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Thanks for the link, Marj...however I think Rodger Ebert (sic) might take umbrage...they ought to fix that error PDQ...
It looks like an interesting premise but the trailer is a yawner. Haven't heard anything about it till this forum either. How can it be in films but available via video on demand as well? Does anyone know how that works? |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 11:26 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
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Location: Manhattan
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I don't understand it, Lissa. But I'm also confused about Tim's role in the film. So, clearly I'm not the one to ask.
Whatcha gonna do?  |
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| Marc |
| Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 11:46 pm |
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Joined: 19 May 2004
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| I don't know where Tim Davis appears in THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE. There's alot of people meandering thru this polished turd. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 5:44 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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I also failed to see Tim in the trailer. How did you originally hear about Tim's participation, Marj? (You seemed utterly unsurprised by the revelation that he was in it.)
And if it's a "polished turd"--and I trust Marc's attitudes more often than not--it's certainly fooled a shitload of critics. Look at Metacritic. Many others besides Ebert give it their highest rating, and still more give it rave reviews. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 5:57 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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Take Soderbergh's name off it, and remove the lead actress is a real porn star titillation, and nobody would watch this. It's far too slight and impassive.
The drumming seen/heard in the trailer was probably my favorite thing in the movie. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 11:03 am |
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I think critics like to think of themselves as intellectuals and when they get a movie that is slow and dull but has characters experiencing lives that are slow and dull and include things like the lead actress being a whore and includes talk talk talk, they think it is intellectual and actually saying something profound so they rave about it.
Dull is dull and since I found Belle de Jour a snoozefest, I'm sure I would hate this one.
I'm giving it a passadena and I don't even like the director. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 11:05 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Gromit, the drumming was my favorite thing in the trailer! Though the boyfriend is definite eye candy...
Off topic - Marc's new avatar looks like he'd be a good match for Marj's cutie-pie punim*...
*punim: Yiddish. Literally "face"...figuratively, "sweet face" |
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