Director: Matt Roth
Starring: Chris Messina, Marin Ireland

It starts with sex. And while, yes, it then follows up with more sex, that’s not what it’s about. The beginning of a film can be both deceptive and revealing, and the beginning of 28 Hotel Rooms is no different. When the first scene of a movie opens and the title appears, we start to form opinions and expectations; we do this with every movie we watch. But they can change, these ideas, they are forced to change as the movie itself changes. And that is why we keep watching; to see if our assumptions pan out or if we get to be surprised.

The Movie

The beginning of the film is the beginning of a relationship; sex, laughter, sharing, uncertainty. And as the two unnamed characters get to know each other, we start to know them too. The man, a writer from New York, has a girlfriend, but travels alone promoting his new book. The woman, an analyst, is married but leaves her husband at home to work all across the country. The two begin an affair that spans, you guessed it, twenty-eight hotel rooms. Their relationship starts out based on physical attraction, desire, and loneliness, but quickly turns into much more.

As what started out as a few trysts becomes a relationship, life gets complicated. The closer the two become the harder it is to let go, the harder it is to be away. And when they’re away, when they are participating in their every day lives, there is always the knowledge that waiting in the next hotel room is a person who turns them on, who understands them, and who is everything they want in life but are too afraid to take.

It’s safe to say I was surprised by this film, even though it was relatively what I thought it would be. When I first heard about it, it sounded decent but not special. Ok, so two people meet up in hotel rooms, cheat on their significant others, and become closer than they thought they would. And while that is exactly what happened, I reiterate that it’s not what the film is about. Decide for yourself what the true meaning is, but you’ll get more out of watching 28 Hotel Rooms than a cheap ploy. You’ll get passion, sensuality, pain, heartbreak, love, intimacy; basically everything that a relationship brings to you in real life. All in all, the film is a summary of love; eighty-two minutes of life put on film.

Perhaps what surprised me most was the acting. Every line but one was spoken by the two main characters. So, obviously, they had better be able to carry a film with no help, and they did. Messina, who you might recognize from a dozen projects but might never be able to put your finger on, was excellent as a goofy, angry, idealistic writer who wants love above all things. Ireland, who has been around but hasn’t done anything big, was solid as a structured, success-driven, closed-off young professional who takes what she wants and pays the price later. Both actors did what it took to pull off an adult and modern version of what amounts to a classic love story.

Speaking of adult, this film is not for everyone. Both characters are shown nude, having sex, screaming obscenities, and leading lives that are not morally exemplary. However, putting those themes aside, the film is one that can speak to anyone. It has global appeal, as it is about what we all desire; love, companionship, and the feeling that we are wanted. 28 Hotel Rooms is a deceptively poignant film that somehow is not typical, despite being simple and universal. It is anything but lighthearted, and it may not be for the fragile or frigid, but give it a chance and it might surprise you.

The DVD

Video: With an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, the video quality was good, but it doesn’t catch your eye. For one thing, all of the camera work takes place inside hotels, often with sunlight purposefully glinting off the camera, or else in the semi-darkness, as the couple is in bed quite often. But even without being used to its full potential, the quality is high.
Audio: All options here are in English, with the choices being between Stereo, 5.1, and subtitles for the hearing impaired. As with the video, various hotel rooms are not ideal for showing off Hi-Fi sound. Only two characters speak, there is almost zero action, and the music that is present is either playing softly in the background or else creating a haunting mood.
Extras: The features here are minimal, which is surprising given the very attractive Oscilloscope DVD case, which is big, paper, and has an insert that folds out to reveal various screenshots. However, don’t go searching through the folds looking for a bonus disc, because you won’t find one. All that the unusually large case holds is a single DVD, which has about as many extras as the box. There is no commentary and no “making of” sections. What you get are some interesting deleted scenes, including an alternate beginning and an alternate ending. There is also an interview with director Matt Ross during the Sundance Film Festival that is intriguing, especially his ideas concerning improvisation and organic cinema. And lastly, you can watch the original theatrical trailer, and also four more Oscilloscope trailers including Monogamy, Bellflower, We Need To Talk About Kevin, and Four Lovers.

Final Thoughts

Recommended. 28 Hotel Rooms is a surprisingly touching film that, although flying underneath the big budget radar, is worth watching. It is sexy, deep, sad, and darkly real. The fluidity of the acting and natural feeling of the movie are worth seeing. The audio/video elements are all that you need, but won’t blow you away. The extras are interesting, but the DVD itself won’t be the crown jewel of your collection. All in all, a solid and intriguing film that could find a place in the hearts of a surprisingly large number of audiences.

Olie Coen
111 Archer Avenue
111aa.blogspot.com

THE FILM 

Please Note: The screen grabs used here are taken from the DVD-R check disc provided for review, not the official DVD edition of the film.

Jafar Panahi, the Iranian filmmaker whose best-known film outside of his homeland is probably 1995’s The White Balloon, is by most definitions a successful artist, and he wears his success with an assured but humble degree of comfort and confidence. In his 2011 movie This Is Not a Film, a quasi-documentary in which Panahi is present in every shot, his demeanor and temperament are even-keeled and relaxed; he seems perfectly at ease as he discusses the ins and outs of every aspect of his work and craft from writing, pitching, and revising scripts to casting, location scouting, and rolling with the serendipitous accidents of shooting. But what makes Panahi’s normal-seeming calm collectedness in his role as well-established auteur surprising at first, then very moving as the film progresses, is that he maintains it so well despite his unasked-for role as an embattled artist, a filmmaker who’s found himself on the wrong side of a state censorship apparatus that has the power to shut off his living and his lifeblood by banning him from making films or leaving the country, and even by sentencing him to prison. This is, in fact, a power that the Iranian censors and prosecutors have used, to international public protest, in retaliation for Panahi’s recalcitrance, his insistence on continuing to make and release (outside of Iran) his officially-unapproved films (like 2003’s Crimson Gold and 2006’s Offside). Panahi’s charming, chatty appearance as a slightly rumpled, middle-aged urban intellectual/successful artist belies his role as a rebel and artistic freedom-fighter, even as this deceptively self-deprecating film, subtly packed with urgency as it is, manages to evade any sense of rage or desperation to which someone in Panahi’s position would have every right.

That clear-headed, pragmatic, down-to-earth quality, both in Panahi’s persona and in the form of the film itself (it was shot on digital video, with some gorgeous framings but a raw, available-light quality to the images, mostly by its nominal “director,” Panahi’s colleague Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, who at the time of shooting was not himself banned from filmmaking) keeps the film from ever being a soapbox or merely topical (as understandable, again, as that would be). At first, the film takes on the guise of a day in the life of Jafar Panahi, hanging out with him in his comfortably upper-middle-class flat amid the Tehran skyline. Much of Panahi’s routine seems to consist of embroilment in ongoing legal proceedings, pursuing most likely futile attempts to lighten his sentence or reduce the 20 years’ ban on any filmmaking activity he’s been slapped with, and illustrative moments from his never-ending slog through the red tape of his persecution were bound to make their way in, so we’re never unaware of what he’s dealing with daily or the grim creative and personal future he faces. The magnitude of what we’re experiencing in This Is Not a Film, then, isn’t immediately clear; during the first 15 minutes or so, as we see Panahi begin his day at home, eating breakfast, fielding calls from lawyers and colleagues and family members out running errands, gently but firmly refusing to dog-sit for a neighbor in the building (who, like all the film’s women, are heard as they speak from outside the doorway/frame but are not seen, as Panahi refuses the hypocrisy of falsely showing women wearing veils indoors — a depiction required by the censors, though Panahi claims it’s almost never the way Iranian women actually appear inside their homes), the film has all the appearances of nothing more (or less) intriguing or important than a direct-cinema video diary. It’s when Mirtahmasb — to whom we’ve been introduced via Panahi’s speaker-phone conversation with him, the setting of the stage for him to come over — arrives that the film begins to reveal its profounder subject, the unstoppable flow of creativity that is Panahi’s vocation/work, and part and parcel of his apparently mundane life.

Panahi, after discussing some of the ins, outs, and recent developments of his case with Mirtahmasb (an effectively subtle way to fill in the viewer on the facts without breaking the conversational tone of the film), decides to make an experiment with his colleague, figuring out ways to “tell” his latest, censored and forbidden screenplay without actually shooting it for real, with actors on locations. The attempts that follow are enthused, illuminating, sometimes humorously awkward: In front of Mirtahmasb’s high-end consumer-quality digital video camera, Panahi verbally relates the film’s story; uses his camera phone to show tentative location-scouting video for the never-to-be-made film he’s trying to tell us about, and his big-screen TV to run DVDs of his prior, completed films as a way to illustrate and discuss his ongoing thematics, aesthetics, and working methods; and finally uses masking tape and household items at hand to “block” a scene on his living-room floor, playing the part of the protagonist (a young girl who, in an eerie parallel to his own restrictions, has been legally consigned to life as a shut-in) and describing in a flight of intently focused imagination exactly how the shot would go, what it would look like, its duration, its meaning, etc. This experiment, which constitutes the film’s middle third, is a huge risk for Panahi, not just on the legal level, and we feel that: A well-established, well-regarded, internationally-distributed and -acclaimed filmmaker reduced to hiding his now-forbidden work from the world and enacting a make-pretend version of his new script in his apartment could so easily be a vision of humiliation, a bitter protest in which dignity has to be sacrificed to make a point: “Look what they’ve reduced me to, how wrong and insulting that is.” But it’s the relentless attempts of ignorant, repressive forces trying to ground him down, not Panahi, that come off as impotent here. What Panahi is doing is an act of protest (or at least of defiance), to be sure, but one so joyful and redolent with meaning about the state of mind, the way of life, that comes naturally when one is an artist by vocation that you smile or laugh, not ruefully or in derision, but in complicit, carried-away excitement and engagement as Panahi stubbornly insists on practicing his vocation despite his sentence. He visibly needs to do this, needs to tell stories and share human experiences through this medium, and that need, as instinctive as hunger or thirst, must be slaked, to hell with any limitations of resources, petty legal restrictions on activity, or punitive government disapproval.

 After thereby so compellingly illustrating that Panahi’s quotidian life and his creative vocation are inseparable and continue to be so regardless of his predicament, This Is Not a Film‘s final third goes even further, into another dimension of simultaneous protest and allegory relating to the filmmaker’s need to create: As Mirtahmasb departs, leaving the camera on and in position to continue documenting Panahi without the man’s banned hands actually touching the camera (demonstrating once again that Panahi doesn’t actually need to forcefully underline the ridiculousness of the terms imposed upon him through his banning), a young man, the building’s substitute trash collector, edges by the two filmmakers to Panahi’s kitchen and is intrigued by the camera watching him from the table. Panahi’s interest in the life of his fellow citizens in particular, and in human experience/stories in general, kicks in when he discovers that the man is a fan and a struggling student of the arts himself (no mean feat in Iran’s high-unemployment economy, which, like ours, hits students and the young especially hard). The filmmaker grabs his blurry/fuzzy camera phone for an impromptu interview (or is it We’re not quite sure at this point of what’s spontaneous, what’s been pre-planned/staged for This Is Not a Film) with the young man, and when the poor visual quality of the phone is questioned by his subject, Panahi’s impulse carries him even further back into his nature and into punishable “offense” to pick up and handle Mirtahmasb’s camera with his own hands (it’s his hands operating the camera that would be the criminal act, and it’s a gesture we don’t see him make until this point; overhead phone conversations in the film suggest that others in the Panahi household have framed/focused and left the camera on before leaving). He follow the young man on the rest of his rounds, engaging him in a genuinely inquisitive, empathetic, and revealing conversation while he documents him at his work — i.e., an unexpectedly, unemphatically triumphant conclusion comprised of Panahi’s full-fledged re-engagement in the kind of Neorealist-influenced, subtle, patient, humanistic filmmaking he has done so well for so long and from which he is now legally prohibited. This blissful, unexpected immersion for Panahi (and us) in his most creatively life-giving waters is cut short, however, and what feels like a happy ending is complicated, when the elevator door opens on the lowest floor and the garbage collector emerges through gates outside which, we and Panahi seem to soberly realize at the same moment, Panahi would surely be recognized and arrested for his “crime” of holding the camera in his hands.

Throughout the film, we’ve heard fleeting mentions that it’s the Persian holiday Nowruz (first day of spring, New Year’s Day on the Persian calendar), and that the government, questioning the pre-Islamic roots of the celebration, will be cracking down on celebrants and their traditional fireworks. That conflict and tension, we realize, is at the root of the blazing mix of celebration and unrest glimpsed in the night outside those gates as we see them through Panahi’s fully ready, capable, but reigned-in camera, and so This Is Not a Film has something of a tragic ending after all, an image of an uncrossable barrier coming on the heels of Panahi’s nimble, eager storytelling-against-all-odds and his brief indulgence in freedom with the trash collector. This concluding note feels just right, though; in the end, the film does full justice to Panahi’s restriction at the same time as it remains perfectly in keeping with his aesthetic vision, closing on a single, simple, highly loaded image, with the most possible being said through the least force or manipulation: There is much more life, many more important stories, to be engaged with out there, and for now, the eminently worthy Panahi will be officially and systematically denied the opportunity to do so in the way that’s proved so essential and fruitful for him and for cinema audiences worldwide.

 This Is Not a Film is an oddity, to be sure, and it inevitably carries with it its real-event historical actuality: Its star/director cannot legally be credited as the filmmaker, and so he pre-emptively shares a vague “an effort by” credit with his cameraman, Mirahsamb; the remaining credits are mostly redacting blanks because those involved in the film’s making risk prosecution; the widely-reported way it was hidden in a cake to be smuggled to its audience outside of Iran has the air of a whimsical adventure story; and the title itself is a winking, ironical denial of accusations that have no legitimate grounds to begin with. But novelty has nothing to do with its intention or the way it works as a film. Panahi has somehow — right in the midst of an ongoing persecution of the most serious consequence for himself, his raison d’être, and his family — managed to take the long view, the broader perspective, the opportunity for contemplation and clarity about what his purpose is and what being an artist means when the chips are down. Like his other films, it’s a fable that uses everyday life (his own, in this case) as its raw material and observes it in a way that subtly renders its significance much broader and deeper, revealing the specific events onscreen as relevant and meaningful far beyond their immediate moment. Panahi’s case, whatever its outcome (and, following Panahi’s unbelievably inspiring brand of undefeated stoicism, one hopes for the best while preparing for the worst), will lose its headline-grabbing status as time marches on, but the power of This Is Not a Film will outlast Panahi’s tribulations. It works, certainly, to raise one’s awareness of what is happening in the here and now, and it hardly trivializes or sells short the reality of Panahi’s situation or the injustice of rightful freedom of expression so arbitrarily curtailed. But, effective as it is as a necessary, unavoidable act of protest, it also has an unusual, amazing foresight, one whose larger subject (to which it pays such ample, illuminating tribute) — the impelled, inexorable human need to create, envision, express, communicate through art — has a more timeless, eternal importance that can never recede into the blur of a historical timeline, an immediacy that will never fade.

 

THE DVD
Video/Sound:

The DVD-R supplied by Tartan Palisades for review cannot be taken as a final indication, but what I saw there is a very good 1.78:1 anamorphic-widescreen transfer of the film that’s entirely up to conveying the higher-def digital-video visual quality of most of the film and the blurry/rough hand-held-phone video imagery of some sections, with only a bit of aliasing and a minimum of edge enhancement/haloing, with no other compression artifacts at any point to distract from our time spent in the Panahi flat. This is, intentionally, far from a pristine-looking film to begin with, and if the check-disc format is this capable of getting its picture quality right, I imagine the finished product will easily pass muster.

As for the sound, the Dolby 2.0 stereo soundtrack (in Farsi with English subtitles, non-optional on the check disc) also sounded entirely up to snuff on the check-disc, perhaps even better than the limited-technology/no-crew approach of the film would lead you to expect, with every bit of spoken dialogue and ambient sound both solid and free of distortion.

Extras:

–The best extra is eight minutes of excerpts from an interview with Panahi by Iranian expat film professor Jamsheed Akrami, in which the filmmaker offers further insights into his own experience and currently embattled situation as a frequently-censored, now-banned Iranian filmmaker, and his thoughts and positions on the general oppression of filmmakers in Iran, the demands and sacrifices they undergo as they work (and they do continue to work, against the odds) under the thumb of state censors who, according to Panahi, generally don’t understand cinema and whose ignorance is slyly mocked by many Iranian filmmakers whenever possible.

–A feature commentary by Jamsheed Akrami, which unfortunately is an object lesson in how not to do a commentary. Akrami, clearly an expert, has a handful of insightful things to say, but he wastes at least three-quarters of his (and our) time getting to the actual commentary by merely describing, as a play-by-play and nothing else, what’s going on at this moment onscreen (“so now…he’s making some tea”), the redundancy of which — unless deployed as a distancing device by Robert Bresson, for example — is deadly. A textbook illustration that commentary is not just description, but description (when used) parlayed into an observation (or, otherwise put — a comment!).

–The film’s theatrical trailer (which seems a bit misleading and trivializing with its added sound effects and hyped-up editing), along with several previews for other Tartan Palisades DVD releases.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS 

Is it a documentary, or something that just effortlessly attains the spontaneous appearance of documentary as part of its aesthetic strategy Is it a day in the life, or an allegory pointing to a more general theme Is it an act of protest or a work of art Jafar Panahi’s This Is Not a Film is, successfully, all of these things at once, a movie very much of its moment that will also retain its impact decades from now — a handmade, intimate act of filmmaking spun into something momentous in the way only a very inspired and very resourceful artist could manage. As politically important and immediately consequential as Panahi’s case is (it seems very likely that he will actually serve prison time for no more egregious an “offense” than making films that don’t quite meet the Iranian government’s theocratic standards), what makes This Is Not a Film so unique, elating, and devastating is neither the martyrdom of Panahi at the hands of his bureaucratic oppressors (he seems bemused and worried, but not at all defeated, either as an individual or as an artist), nor any (probably misbegotten) hopes that his right to free expression will be vindicated as his case plays out in the Iranian courts. Rather, it’s the film’s (that is to say, Panahi’s) brave, bold, unbelievably imaginative repurposing of a horrendously unjust situation, its use of Panahi’s own suffering and highly uncertain situation to conjure up a lens through which we glimpse a broadly, perhaps universally recognizable idea about what it means to be an artist — the true, bone-deep necessity of creating that drives someone like Panahi, all limitations or barriers be damned — that makes it so unshakably resonant, and such essential viewing for all. Highly Recommended.

THE PROGRAM

When looking over the list of film adaptations of Elmore Leonard’s work (both in the western and crime genre), it is actually a bit of a surprise at how many were at least decent overall. “Freaky Deaky” is one of the most recent big-screen adaptations, specifically of the 1988 novel of the same name; what sets it apart from your average crime film and is liable to catch the eye of Leonard fans, is the heavy 1970s look, that instantly telegraphs its vibe as a darkly funny farce of a tale. Running a scant 93-minutes, “Freaky Deaky” throws viewers into an increasingly confusing world of washed-up cops, two-bit psychopaths, and delusional B-movie producers. Directed by Charles Matthau (the son of the late, great Walter Matthau), “Freaky Deaky” is a film that struggles with adhering to a cohesive identity on both the visual and narrative front, ultimately proving it is leagues from being placed anywhere near the truly great Leonard adaptations like “Jackie Brown” or “Out of Sight.”

The cast of “Freaky Deaky” is often, simultaneously it’s biggest asset and biggest hindrance, with an eclectic band of B-actors handling the pseudo-labyrinthine plot, often to poor effect. The casting of Billy Burke as the film’s lead Chris Mankowski, who on paper is supposed to be a down-on-his-luck, boozing detective, comes off as well as you could expect from an actor most well known for playing fourth-string backup in the “Twilight” films. Burke has the physical demeanor down, but struggles to stay consistently surly or sly; instead his performance could easily be confused at times for narcoleptic. Likewise, his leading lady Sabrina Gadecki seems terrified at times, failing to convincingly portray a thinly sketched caricature. The supporting cast however, makes up for the two leads’ shortcomings in spades, with Crispin Glover and Michael Jai White stealing the show as an insane B-movie producer and his bodyguard/personal assistant, respectively. Glover is a natural fit for the hapless, eccentrically out-of-touch, Woody Ricks, while Jai White is a riot as Donnell Lewis. Jai White has been an underrated supporting player for years, proving his ability to be a leading man in “Black Dynamite” and he brings the best out of others (some of Burke’s best work is working opposite him here).

Not doing anyone any favors though, is the film’s script, which raises a questionable eyebrow almost immediately by adhering to the tired cliché of breaking itself into chapter-like segments. When done in moderation, such a concept can be refreshing or a stroke of narrative genius; here it just shows a filmmaker unwilling or unable to film a twisting plot without literal on-screen cues to viewers. At it’s core, the film is little more than a crime caper that intersects rape accusations against Ricks by social climber Greta Wyatt (Gadecki) with a extortion plot involving two mad-bombers (played by Breanne Racano and an unhinged Christian Slater), catching both Donnell and Mankowski in the middle, with the former looking to put one over on everyone involved. Unfortunately, not a single bit of this is either straightforward or properly paced, with the film’s first act serving as a shaky introduction to a rather small ensemble. Eventually after numerous clichés, increasingly poor acting, and plenty of time padding, “Freaky Deaky” comes to a conclusion that defies all logic by being both fitting, darkly amusing, and very much in the Elmore Leonard vein.

“Freaky Deaky” by no stretch of the imagination is a great film and on a different day, I wouldn’t argue the case that it’s even good, but it has flashes of brilliant and technical prowess. Matthau’s film is just one key element off from being a minor hit; if the two leads had been cast with more accomplished players or the film’s tone matching the 70s look rather than betraying the original novel’s 80s origins (and to be quite a honest a few scenes look like an 80s TV cop drama), “Freaky Deaky” could have been a breakthrough directorial effort; instead it has just enough good will and consistent, darkly comedic tone to justify its existence as a direct-to-DVD diversion; it’s decent fun, but the odds of you remembering much about it a day later are slim to none.

THE DVD

The Video

The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer feels artificially polished at times, with digital noise/grain levels feeling a tad dialed back, possibly suggesting some minor DNR work was done. Detail isn’t firmly in the above-average range and the 1970s look of the feels lessened as a result. Colors are on the warmer end of the spectrum, but still retain a fairly natural look and do offset detail/grain issues, in terms of giving the vintage feel.

The Audio

The Dolby Digital English 5.1 audio track comes across as a punched-up stereo track; with dialogue having an aggressive tone. Dynamic range is evident, but not nearly as immersive as it could be. The low end gets a minor workout with the funky score and a few loud, set pieces, but at the end of the day, it’s generally a modest audio offering. English SDH subtitles are included.

The Extras

The lone extra is a promotional style, making-of featurette that offers no critical insight into the film.

Final Thoughts

“Freaky Deaky” is definitely not the worst Elmore Leonard adaptation, but it’s a long ways from even being classified as second-tier. Still, the period vibe and amazing supporting cast, coupled with the script’s one consistent element, its darkly comedic nature, makes “Freaky Deaky” worth a rental for Leonard fans and those wanting something a bit different from the crime genre. Rent It.

Whores’ Glory, the new film by Austrian director Michael Glawogger (Megacities, Workingman’s Death, checks into three countries around the globe to investigate the personal and professional lives of professional sex workers. The director and his crew visit “The Fishtank” in Bangkok, the “City of Joy” in Faridpur, Bangladesh, and “The Zone” in Reynosa, Mexico, where the women and their customers are surprisingly happy to speak to Glawogger about their experiences.

In terms of the conditions in which the women are asked to work, Glawogger goes roughly from best to worst. At The Fishtank, the women sit in a brightly lit room that equates to a showroom floor, complete with male employees who pitch the women (identified by number nametags) to potential customers. Inside, the women have regular conversations, about their lives and work, while they wait for someone to choose them. The business seems pretty professional: the women punch in and out, there’s a senior staff member to comfort them if they have any problems, and the clientele generally appear to be professional businessmen. Still, there are some soul-crushingly awkward moments, such as the one where a customer repeatedly tries to barter the price down with his woman of choice standing right in front of him.

In Faridpur, the situation is more desperate. The women appear to live in some sort of apartment complex with other sex workers on every floor, and they fiercely compete with one another for business. Repeatedly, Glawogger shows us the women cutting their own rates in order to keep a reluctant client, as well as one of the women in charge (“pimp” seems like the wrong word) screaming at one of her employees who screwed up a rendezvous and began to cry. The situation in Bangladesh is the most outwardly sad. An older woman is interviewed, who quietly notes that her age is impacting her business, and another, younger girl confesses that she wishes life was easier for women. However, two interviews stand out above all others: a barber who casually theorizes that without the sex industry, rapes and sexual assault would be far more common, and one of the “managers,” who calmly and philosophically reasons that her five-year-old daughter will almost certainly end up being a whore herself.

Lastly, in Mexico, the situation is sad, but a different kind of sad, one that the residents and workers don’t seem aware of. The Zone is a muddy little “city” with rows of tiny, 10 foot by 10 foot “apartments.” The girls stand in the doorways while cars, mostly with tinted windows, crawl along the streets until they find a woman they like. Glawogger gets a little distracted here, following a woman who wanders the city, shirt pulled up and pants pulled down, cheering to nobody in particular. More on-topic: brief, explicit clips of an actual session to really drive the point home, and close out the picture.

The Bangkok segment raises the film’s most interesting questions. The women working in Bangkok don’t seem to have a second thought about their profession. Glawogger follows along as they discuss getting a second job to help pay the bills, like becoming massage artists who offer happy endings. Some of the women also discuss their relationships, which legitimately sound worse than their work. “At least it’s only two hours at a time,” they lament; their abusive boyfriends want it all the time, and their actual relationships put them in a far more subservient position than sex at work. For some it will beg the question whether or not it’s more dehumanizing to not give sex work a second thought or to depend on it like the women in Banglaedesh and Mexico do, but from what Glawogger shows us, this is a safe, professional environment and the women have plenty of control over what they will and won’t do. He also gets the most intriguing interviews, including a bunch of guys who embody the worst aspects of male victimhood, blaming their wives and the monotonous nature of marriage. “We’re the commodity!” says one man, in a way that is both kind of true, yet clearly indicates he doesn’t understand at all.

On the other hand, the contrast between Bangkok and the other two countries makes for a tonally confusing film. Glawogger has a real eye for visuals, capturing the atmosphere and awkwardness of the whole business, but he often gets distracted by natural metaphors without wanting to make a specific point. In Bangkok, he includes a few minutes of dogs desperately humping outside the establishment, but it’s not clear if he’s condemning or forgiving people’s animal nature. In Bangladesh, there’s more of a focus on victimized women, but there are also women who seem no more or less in control of their work as the women in Bangkok, raising the question of whether this is just the difference between the two countries or an indication of selective focus. The film is visually memorable, painting a vivid picture of life in a certain field in three drastically different countries, but without a driving disposition or statement, Whores’ Glory is little more than a snapshot without a caption.

The DVD
Whore’s Glory comes with art straight out of the documentary template: a strip with the title on it, and a bunch of photos. Most of the women in the photos are not actually from the film itself, captured in the same places at the same time as the documentary, but not actually from the film itself. The disc comes in a standard plastic-conserving eco-case, and there is no insert.

The Video and Audio
Presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 “German” audio (nobody is dubbed, so it’s really just a general “original” audio), this looks and sound like the average documentary does on DVD. The image and sound are generally impressive, with Glawogger preferring 16mm to a digital format, but the image is nonetheless a little rougher around the edges than a fictional feature film would generally look on DVD. Some posterization, artifacting, and aliasing are visible if one is looking for them, but colors and detail are generally impressive, especially in Bangkok, where neon lights are nicely rendered. The audio accurately captures the environments in which the sound was recorded: the interior of a club, a grungy apartment hallway, and the dull echo of the tiny rooms in The Zone. Subtitles are burned in, which is never optimal, but the real crime is how small they are.

The Extras
Just a photo gallery. An original theatrical trailer for Whores’ Glory is also includes, along with trailers for Elles and Meet the Fokkens.

Conclusion
Those with an interest in the nature of the sex industry in foreign countries will probably find this documentary more interesting than reading about conditions online, but Glawogger is reluctant to make any sort of judgment call on what he’s seen in these three countries. Through the first and most of the second segment, the movie is fine without his disposition, but by the end the film lacks something to bring the three segments together into some sort of cohesive message. Rent it.

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The Movie:
The Lake Placid franchise isn’t dead yet. It has one last (so they claim) entry with Lake Placid: The Final Chapter, and while it looks quite slickly produced, it leaves a lot to be desired.

This is the fourth in the series, and though I have missed the second and third, I don’t think the experience suffers for it. Yancy Butler reprises her role from the previous film as Reba, the mouthy, somewhat unstable game warden. She kills off a croc in a bloody convenience store right at the beginning, but soon becomes embroiled with the efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers to surround the lake with an electric fence, so that the species can be studied. Ryan (Paul Nocholls) leads the engineers, with his son Max (Benedict Smith) working for him as a contractor, while Sheriff Giove (the lovely Elisabeth Rohm) worries about the safety of the local townsfolk, and specifically her daughter Chloe (Poppy Lee Friar).

Since this is a horror movie, we know that things don’t exactly go as planned. Scientist Dennis (Ako Mitchell) wants to capture a croc, so he lets poacher Jim Bickerman (Robert Englund) into the enclosure. And due to Max’s negligence, the gate is left open, and a distracted driver takes a wrong turn, depositing a bus full of high school students (including Chloe) at the killer croc infested lake, instead of the nice, predator free one. Blood, gore, people eating, and rescue attempts proceed forthwith.

In some ways, Lake Placid: The Final Chapter looks great. The image is crisp and bright. The sets, locations, props, etc. are all high quality, and the cast for the most part performs unexpectedly well. (Yancy Butler’s performance is just weird, however, bitterly spitting out her lines every time she opens her mouth. Though, it seems that the writers took pains to give her the worst written, most clichéd dialogue possible.) Elisabeth Rohm and Robert Englund are pros. They’ve been doing this a while, and unfortunately have had in the past to make do with somewhat less than stellar material, so they’re used to this kind of thing. They do the best that can be expected of anyone. And the rest of the cast do pretty well too.

Now for the bad stuff. Most obviously, the CG crocodiles are awful. They look very fake and do little to inspire any real fear in the audience. The blood and gore effects are okay, but they are mostly CG as well, and stand out as artificial. Also, when major plot points depend on people being unbelievably stupid and unobservant, it tends to diminish the verisimilitude. There are lots of false character beats as well. The story is awkward and forced, and the energy and efforts of the actors simply can’t get it to make sense or seem natural. Is this a legitimate complaint about a cheaply made killer croc movie Probably not, but it doesn’t help when it feels like the producers didn’t care enough to meet the basic requirements of storytelling.

There’s plenty to be annoyed at in Lake Placid: The Final Chapter, but also some things to enjoy, so it’s not a total loss. Rent it.

The DVD

Video:
The video is 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, and looks quite good. The colors are luminous and the image is very crisp. Unfortunately, the CG effects are so bad, that this surrounding quality only highlights their shortcomings.

Sound:
Audio is Dolby digital 5.1 channel, and also sounds very good, but is not exploited to its full extent. Dialogue is always clearly audible, and no hiss or other problem can be heard. Subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai are included, and alternate language tracks in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Thai.

Extras:
The only extras included are trailers for Company of Heroes, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Iron Man – Rise of Technovore and Kill For Me. Final Thoughts:
Lake Placid: The Final Chapter is not a good movie. It’s not particularly scary or funny, but is at times somewhat enjoyable. If you keep your expectations low, this one won’t hurt too badly.