The Girlfriend Experience review

The Girlfriend Experience

2009

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh is certainly one of the most interesting directors working today. Whether he is making big summer blockbusters like Ocean’s 11, Epic bio-pics like Che or crazy indie flicks like Bubble he always achieves some degree of success. The Girlfriend Experience, his latest experimental film is another triumph for the director, who’s able to find the most human side in the most messed-up of characters.

The film follows the trials and tribulations of Chelsea (played by porn actress Sasha Grey), a New York City escort who is paid to provide her clients “the girlfriend experience” where she acts as girlfriend for lonely men for a short period of time. This period may or may not involve sex as part of the experience depending on her customer’s needs. She has to balance her work with her relationship with her boyfriend (Played by Chris Santos).

The story is presented in a non-linear fashion and is told via an interview between Chelsea and a reporter, a conversation with a fellow escort friend and by herself as she narrates her blog entries. This storytelling method proves to be confusing as it makes the story hard to follow, but after the first hour or so it’s easier to connect the dots and enjoy it.

Soderbergh and his writers (who also wrote Ocean’s 13) do a great job in letting the audience understand the characters and their problems. You never feel disgusted with Chelsea as she is shown as strong, smart and not ashamed of her job yet you cheer for her to get out of that lifestyle and make a transition towards a more stable life and relationship. You also never feel sorry for her customers when you know you probably should because for the most part they’re pathetic men. The way their stories are put together and evolve makes you feel sympathy for all the characters, you certainly won’t but at least you’ll understand them.

Technically the movie looks very amateurish, you can tell Soderbergh was just messing the hell out of some cheap cameras and editing software yet it’s composed of some pretty great looking shots and the editing, though a bit rough, gives it a great style that fits the tone of the movie really well. Some of the shots, especially the camera movements reminded me a lot of Hideaki Anno’s Shiki-Jitsu and Love & Pop, which is not a bad thing.

Perhaps the most surprisingly good thing of all is Sasha grey’s performance. If you’ve seen a porno movie before you’ll certainly notice that it takes absolutely no acting talent to be in one which is why I wasn’t expecting much from her, but I was blown away by her role. She portrays Chelsea as strong, intelligent, likeable, emotional yet not vulnerable but most of all human, she is not the sex doll some of her clients see her as and Grey does a fantastic job at revealing her inner emotions.

My only complain with the movie and the reason it’s not rated higher is because it lacked closure, which left me immensely unsatisfied as I felt there was a final act missing and the final scene is all kinds of ambiguous. Yet despite that I still strongly recommend this movie, it's beautifully well made and surprisingly well acted and best of all, unlike most experimental films it doesn’t feel pretentious at all, it truly is a fantastic movie.

Machete review

Machete (2010)

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Machete is one of those meta-ironic movies that are just too awesome to be true. It’s a real movie based on a fake trailer that features the most random list of actors you can ever think of and the result is a goofy movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still manages to entertain the hell out of its audience.

Machete stars Danny Trejo, AKA that Mexican guy you’ve seen in every movie ever albeit with a lead role for (I’m pretty sure) the first time, as Machete Cortez, an ex-Federale whose family was killed and now lives as an illegal in the United States. He is hired by a mysterious man to kill a racist senator (played by Robert De Niro in his best role since the 90s) but is soon set-up and finds himself not only trying to clean his name but also in the middle of an ongoing war between the senator’s anti-immigrant vigilantes and the pro-immigrant Network.

He's one angry Mexican

Danny Trejo is not the best actor in the world, but he does a fantastic job as Machete, perhaps because he is not playing Machete as much as he is Machete. But he is not alone, co-starring are Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez who do a fantastic job playing their characters and being hot when needed and Robert De Niro being eerily accurate as a racist southern senator. 

The cast also includes the most random collection of forgotten stars with varying degrees of success; Cheech Marin is hilarious as Machete’s brother and priest, Jeff Fahey is functional albeit not great in his role as the senator’s right-hand man, Lindsay Lohan is unsurprisingly bland yet surprisingly hot as Fahey’s daughter. But the most surprisingly good performances come from Don Johnson and Steven Seagal as a racist border vigilante and a Mexican drug lord respectively. Seagal’s best days might be past him but godamn does he nail the Mexican accent and he is pretty much the best thing about every scene he appears in.

But it’s not only the cast that makes Machete the great movie it is. It’s the fact that it pretty much nails the style it was going for. The film pays homage to the exploitation films of the 70s and early 80s as well as the ridiculously cheesy and gory action films of the late 80s and 90s, but it takes it a step further and is gorier, cheesier and more ridiculous than any of the films it pays homage to.

Rodriguez direction is what allows Machete to be all those things and not be a bad movie. Yes it’s ridiculous, but it knows it is and never takes itself too seriously. The action scenes in particular are hilariously over the top. There are decapitations, boobs, crucifixions, guts being used as a rope, stabbings, boobs, martial arts, shoot-outs, boobs, explosions and much more.

Did I mention boobs?

Machete is not for everyone, those who are looking for a serious action movie will certainly not find it here, nor is it meant to be watched as one. It’s great for what it is, a one and a half hour cheesy and gory journey with actors who are all in the joke and having fun. And that’s just what it is, just plain fun.