Closer
Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:51 pm
I went to see CLOSER last night with one of the girls who almost made it past the editing!!!
Girls I recognised were "Gia" , "Scarlet" (both dancers supplied by me), "Poppy" and Estonian Natasha... I'd love to have it on tape so I could freeze-frame to see if I recognised anyone else but the scenes are so fleeting it's difficult to tell who else was there.
As for the film.... how it ever got nominated for any award is beyond me. Absolutely dreadful. I left the cinema thinking "that was a waste of a couple of hours of my life"
None of the four main players delivered a performance beyond wooden. Julia Roberts proves yet again that she can't act, and I expected better from Clive Owen (disappointing) and Jude Law (f**king awful). I don't know if I've seen Natalie Portman in anything else, but based on this performance I won't be rushing to see her next film.
Too many mistakes in it, too. For example Julia Roberts is meant to be a portrait photographer, yet her studio is equiped with what might be either a Linhof or Horsman 5x4 camera that would (in a studio environment) only really be used by someone doing pack shots or similar for commercial/advertising photography. (My friend Tally Noy uses them for all the car photography he does) She also takes a contre-jour photo of Natalie Portman with no fill-in flash or reflector which we later see hanging as a perfectly exposed print!
The scene between Natalie Portman and Clive Owen in the VIP room at the lap dance club also sets a dangerous precedent... anyone who has never been to a club will believe it's the norm for customers to talk to and treat dancers in the disgusting manner in which Owen's character does, and that the girls meekly accept that treatment as part of the job. Not a good advertisement for the lap dance club industry, and it will only re-inforce the arguments of the Julie Bindel brigade that the girls are exploited.
Unless there's a dancer you know and you want to see her (in which case wait till it comes out on video) it's a film I'd recommend you stear clear of.
Girls I recognised were "Gia" , "Scarlet" (both dancers supplied by me), "Poppy" and Estonian Natasha... I'd love to have it on tape so I could freeze-frame to see if I recognised anyone else but the scenes are so fleeting it's difficult to tell who else was there.
As for the film.... how it ever got nominated for any award is beyond me. Absolutely dreadful. I left the cinema thinking "that was a waste of a couple of hours of my life"
None of the four main players delivered a performance beyond wooden. Julia Roberts proves yet again that she can't act, and I expected better from Clive Owen (disappointing) and Jude Law (f**king awful). I don't know if I've seen Natalie Portman in anything else, but based on this performance I won't be rushing to see her next film.
Too many mistakes in it, too. For example Julia Roberts is meant to be a portrait photographer, yet her studio is equiped with what might be either a Linhof or Horsman 5x4 camera that would (in a studio environment) only really be used by someone doing pack shots or similar for commercial/advertising photography. (My friend Tally Noy uses them for all the car photography he does) She also takes a contre-jour photo of Natalie Portman with no fill-in flash or reflector which we later see hanging as a perfectly exposed print!
The scene between Natalie Portman and Clive Owen in the VIP room at the lap dance club also sets a dangerous precedent... anyone who has never been to a club will believe it's the norm for customers to talk to and treat dancers in the disgusting manner in which Owen's character does, and that the girls meekly accept that treatment as part of the job. Not a good advertisement for the lap dance club industry, and it will only re-inforce the arguments of the Julie Bindel brigade that the girls are exploited.
Unless there's a dancer you know and you want to see her (in which case wait till it comes out on video) it's a film I'd recommend you stear clear of.