Anyhow, one particular film that kept jumping out at me was The Girlfriend Experience. It looked interesting. After digging a little deeper, I found it was directed by Steven Soderbergh. If you aren't familiar (I'm guessing as you're reading a movie blog that you probably are) he directed the the 2 part Che, the Oceans Trilogy, Out Of Sight, Traffic, Erin Brockovich, and Sex lies and Videotape, to name just a few. Promising right?
The only thing that deterred me from buying this movie on Blu Ray was the price tag. HMV were kicking this out at twice the price of a normal DVD. Baffling! Why could this be? Ok, I don't know the answer to that so lets move on.
A little tip I have, if you're not fussy, is to pick up some 2nd hand Blu Rays on ebay. Search for "Blu Ray", then refine the results to show "ending soonest" and select your price range. I normally go for under £5. You'd be surprised at the amount of Blu Rays that go on ebay and receive no bids at all. Anyhow, long story short, I picked up a pristine copy of The Girlfriend Experience for £4. A saving of £21.
So I decided to watch it last night. I turned on the sounds system, fired up the good ol' 1080p and enjoyed a visual treat.
The movie is shot very well. The camera angles are interesting, but they work. On the extras, the star Sasha Grey details how Soderbergh evaluates each location in great detail before shooting. It pays off because I felt the style of the movie, complimented by the choice of shots, was extremely stylish and atmospheric. The soundtrack adds another layer to this, highlighting the stylish mood.
In terms of actually story and plot, I'm not sure there was quite enough there for me. I didn't flag at any point, which was a good sign. Nevertheless, I wasn't on the edge of my seat at any point. The main character was intriguing enough to keep me interested, but I didn't really like her. I don't think the audience is meant to in fairness.
The film kind of feels like a documentary. It's partly narrated, as the subject, a "high class" hooker, is being interviewed for a potential book. Now when I say documentary, I don't mean the rawness that documentaries tend to have, and nobody talks to the camera, but if you watch it, I'm sure you'll agree it has that feel. Another similarity it drew, surprisingly to me, was Lost In Translation. Now Lost in Translation is one of my favourite all time movies, and in no way am I putting this up there, but the mood aspect really brought them movies into a similar realm for me.
Would I recommend this movie? Absolutely. Is it revolutionary? No, but definitely worth 77 minutes of your time.
Lastly, I do have to make an apology to Mainstream Ross. It seems I may have been a little harsh with the Mainstream label. This was mainly in reference to the comic book movie obsession he has. Watchmen, Superman, X Men, and so on. In actuality, he does watch many foreign language films. Mostly involving Ninja's. So I was going to re-brand him as McNinja. This probably wouldn't sit well either so let's go for Ross. All jokes aside, he's hosting movie night on Thursday and I believe the film of choice is Rian Johnson's 2005 indie flick, Brick. Looking forward to that.
Ciao, for now.
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