Choose Me: Sag ja

I drove a long way to see this film, from Riverside to Santa Monica. Well, it was long way for me back then anyway. I loved it so much I sat through it twice that night, and came back a few nights later and sat through it twice again.

This film works for me on so many levels I can't fully describe it, but I definitely identified (and still do, to be honest) with Keith Carradine's Mickey. Chong and Bujold are appealing (especially the latter) and Leslie Ann Warren has never been better.

Rudolph and Carradine have at least one connection, by the by--the both worked on "Nashville".

Lesley Ann Warren owns a bar in LA. She has the habit of sleeping around with almost any man--she's just looking for love. Genevieve Bujold plays a radio relationship talker, Dr. Love. She has severe issues herself with love and sex. Keith Carradine is a drifter who enters their lives...and things go barreling out of control.

Very strange but great movie. It's shot mostly at night in beautiful film noirish settings (look at all the smoke in the bar and at a card game). It's also one of the most romantic films I've ever seen. There's a virtually nonstop score by Teddy Pendergrass--soft romantic songs that perfectly set the mood. All the dialogue is about love, sex and relationships but on a very adult, intelligent level. It's full of great lines and sharp insights. It all leads up to a happy ending (sort of).

The cast is just excellent. Warren is fascinating--sexy and beautiful but deeply damaged. She shows it through her face and expressions extremely well. Carradine plays the whole role with a blank face--but that fits his character (a compulsive lair). He is so many things to himself and everybody else that he has no identity. Best of all is Bujold in a very difficult role--she has the play a sex radio therapist who is perfectly in control and a woman who has NO control over her life and loves. Everything about her (especially her voice) changes between the characters and you always see both inside her at the same time. She also has a few monologues that are fascinating and funny at the same time. Rae Dawn Chong is pretty good in a supporting role--love her apartment (check out the posters on the wall). Patrick Bauchau is pretty bad in another supporting role--but not enough to destroy the movie.

Direction by Alan Rudolph is great. He bathes many scenes in red lights and I LOVE how the camera moves back and forth during a conversation between Bujold and Carradine. He also wrote the great script. One minor complaint--Bujold has a few short, dark fantasies which are never explained. What was all that about? This was a big art house hit back in 1984 and deservedly received a cult following. But it seems to have disappeared since then (the DVD was released with no fanfare at all). Still it's well worth seeing.

I love stories with overlapping characters. This is one of them and I really enjoyed it. Interesting and somewhat mysterious characters, some seemingly separate but unknowingly linked together in an intricate pattern. I always liked Lesley Anne Warren who, along with Keith Carradine, Genevieve Bujold, Rae Dawn Chong and an early John Larrouquette provide some good performances. If you're into character driven movies I think you'll like this one.

This film has always struck a special chord with me, although not all of the friends I've recommended it to over the years have liked it. I think you have to be a city person who's gone through some hard knocks in love to really embrace it. The scenes featuring Rae Dawn Chong aren't so special...(she's the weakest link)...but the scene where Bujold chats with Carradine after sex while getting dressed for work, the scenes with Dr. Love on the radio, the scene where Warren comes home from work to find that her roommate has stolen her boyfriend...these all have an immediate, bittersweet quality that's very haunting. Overall, the acting is flawless, and the whole film is an original. I only wish it were longer.

My mother famously tells all who will listen that she only reads true stories. She takes offense at implausible fiction, dismissing it as ridiculous. She heaps abuse on the television while viewing such stuff as"You Can't Take It With You," Olivier's film of "Hamlet," "Wings Of Desire," Fred Astaire pictures, The Simpsons. She can't abide the long stretches of zero plot development in musicals, ballets, operas. She hates characters who put on airs, and she really doesn't "want to watch" sexually evocative behavior among consenting adults. My mother loves Bob Hope monologues and says Jerry Vale has a beautiful voice.

I'm not bringing this video over to my mom's house for movie night. I'm going to make a hard drink with ice and watch this movie while lying on the sofa, with the lights off and the surround sound up to medium with the bass boost. And when it's over I'm going to get up and email an old flame. The one who could really kiss.