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Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
The Workshop
If the truest sense of documentary is to transport the viewer to a particular time and place beyond where they'd normally go in their ordinary lives, and introduce them to people they otherwise wouldn't meet, and capture on film the unfolding of life and human experience, then The Workshop is a success. Yes, it is about a 10-day New Age retreat in Northern California. And yes, it had nudity. Yes, it discusses adult situations--monogamy, marriage, and sexuality. These issues, deeply rooted in our culture and Christianity, cause many viewers to flag this film as offensive, morally corrupt, and self-absorbed. And, to a point, that is part of the beauty of this film.
In The Workshop, individuals who feel lost in their current lives and are seeking some form of guidance turn to silver-haired British guru Paul Lowe. Some viewers may pity them, but filmmaker Jamie Morgan does not. He presents a candid "behind the scenes" to the retreat of which he is both observer and participant. At times he turns the camera on himself (a la Ross McElwee in Sherman's March) but mostly he allows the camera to be a voyeuristic eye, meeting many of the participants of the retreat and following their emotional journey as they attempt to break down their preconceptions, social conditioning, and self-defeating attitudes.
There are both humorous and tender moments. There is self-conscious performance for the camera and also genuine candid human interaction, including jealously, anger, and affection.
Despite the low-rez digital camera, the shots of a couple nude in a swimming pool at night are some of the loveliest in any film since the 1934 classic Tarzan and His Mate.
Do the participants of the workshop find happiness and joy and all the answers they sought--no, not exactly. What they do find is a better appreciation of themselves, and others, for all their beauty and flaws. Taken in the same spirit, this documentary, with its flaws and its truly beautiful moments, is something special.
SUMMER LOVERS
If you were a teenage boy in the mid-80s, Summer Lovers would be the perfect documentary of your greatest fantasy.
The film begins with a montage of a Greek beach, packed with young college students on summer break. There are boobies. Lots and lots of sun-bronzed boobies. And it's instantly nostalgic, a time long before "Girls Gone Wild," when the absolute hottest thing in movies was the shower scene in Porky's.
In Porky's and the films to follow, like Revenge of the Nerds, our protagonist are awkward teens, trying to get the girls, but always spying from an awkward distance. In Summer Lovers, our male lead not only gets the girl--but he gets two.
Peter Gallagher (in the days before he was a hyper-tanned self-parody) and his girlfriend (the young and pretty damn hot at the time) Daryl Hannah go to Greece for their summer break post-graduation. They settle into a white-washed villa perched above a Greece cliff, overlooking the Mediterranean.
They visit sites, they soak up sun, they get on each others nerves. Some bad dialog ensues. And our guy Gallagher meets and then hits on a young French woman, who is supposedly an archeologist on a major dig. Yeah, right. But that's beside the point, folks. The main concern is the big dilemma of what to do when you are a early 80s stud muffin in short shorts and you are torn between your hot American girlfriend, and your new French fling.
Luckily for the lame-ass whiny boy, his hot American girlfriend steps up. She not only introduces herself to her new competition, but invites her over to drink ouzo. Sadly, Daryl never really gets naked in any shot, and we never get beyond implication for girl-girl action, but with an R rating in the early 80s, well, what can you expect.
If you were a teenage boy in the mid-80s, Summer Lovers would be the perfect documentary of your greatest fantasy.
The film begins with a montage of a Greek beach, packed with young college students on summer break. There are boobies. Lots and lots of sun-bronzed boobies. And it's instantly nostalgic, a time long before "Girls Gone Wild," when the absolute hottest thing in movies was the shower scene in Porky's.
In Porky's and the films to follow, like Revenge of the Nerds, our protagonist are awkward teens, trying to get the girls, but always spying from an awkward distance. In Summer Lovers, our male lead not only gets the girl--but he gets two.
Peter Gallagher (in the days before he was a hyper-tanned self-parody) and his girlfriend (the young and pretty damn hot at the time) Daryl Hannah go to Greece for their summer break post-graduation. They settle into a white-washed villa perched above a Greece cliff, overlooking the Mediterranean.
They visit sites, they soak up sun, they get on each others nerves. Some bad dialog ensues. And our guy Gallagher meets and then hits on a young French woman, who is supposedly an archeologist on a major dig. Yeah, right. But that's beside the point, folks. The main concern is the big dilemma of what to do when you are a early 80s stud muffin in short shorts and you are torn between your hot American girlfriend, and your new French fling.
Luckily for the lame-ass whiny boy, his hot American girlfriend steps up. She not only introduces herself to her new competition, but invites her over to drink ouzo. Sadly, Daryl never really gets naked in any shot, and we never get beyond implication for girl-girl action, but with an R rating in the early 80s, well, what can you expect.
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