A Certain Sacrifice

1st watched 2/24/2005 - 2 out of 10(Dir-Steven Jon Lewicki): Cheap, exploitation film featuring Madonna in her first starring role??? The only reason I'm giving this movie more than 1 star is because of the business sense of the filmmakers to put this together and make money off of the Madonna name. Other than that, the film itself, is pretty much about a low-life who becomes lower and lower, up into the very end of the movie. This low-life meets the Madonna character who runs around with a gang of lovers, and basically gets involved in satanic rituals, murder, and whatever else turns them on. Even a couple nude scenes of Madonna doesn't help this from being a cheap thrown together mess of a movie.

Complete crap! The biggest joke of the year, no wait, the biggest joke ever! Waiste of VALUABLE time and effort. Worse than basement junk. The only thing it's better than is sitting in bed vomitting, eh, even then doubtful. Even the story plots of the Smurfs cartoons seem like Oscar winning story lines compared to this complete, worthless, mindless, empty, pathetic, stupid, forsaken, unbelievable, no effort, cheap, no money budget, not even any snacks at break time during shooting, no class, boring, no pride, valueless, meaningless, piece of old car junk engine, "human made noises below the waste" of a sound track, embarrassing, shameful, and "cover your face for eternity for being seen in this" of a movie! The writer/director should be sacrificed!

First off Madonna appears VERY briefly in a few scenes ..the rest in an incoherent mess that looks like it was made by a NYC film student..a student that didnt pass. This is REAL bad..the worst drama i have seen.. avoid at all costs...dont say you werent warned.. On a scale of one to ten... 0

this "film" wants to be esoteric, but it fails to succeed. i wouldn't go as far as to say "don't watch it," because i sort of enjoyed it's campy, home-movie style. camera work and sound quality are no better than home movies that were made around the same time--when home video cameras were made available to the public. Interestingly, it seems Madonna has had her faux British accent since she was young. ;-) a large portion of the movie focuses on Madonna's breasts--they are exposed in many scenes throughout the movie. Seems right up her 1980's alley... The music in the flick is terrible and it is evident that Madonna is just a supporting character as none of the music is hers, nor is it her voice.

A Certain Sacrifice is a basement film, or more accurately a guest room film. As the person who convinced S. Lewicki to finish this film I must stand up for it. This film has a small, but hard core, cult following because it is genuine and unvarnished. The technical quality may be non-standard in some spots, but the film itself is a true time capsule of New York in the late 1970's.

The actors were responsible for their own words. The camera work was dynamic and free flowing. The grim and gritty nature of this movie will stand the test of time as a testimony to all film makers that reality can be captured…that even the `home producer' has a chance to get his work seen by an international audience if the conditions are right.

This film is a "Blair Witch" cinema verite style revenge drama that may disappoint those who look for slick production values, but there are few films that can match it for its raw and natural portrayal of New York before it became a cleaned-up mega mall.