Fast Food Fast Women

At first, Anna Thomson's bot-ox lips, nose job, and silicone distracted me. I notice that this look is big in Hollywood, the bee stung lips of so many movie stars, their big boobs on a starved stick of a body makes the young guys pant, but the girls can't possibly match the impossible can they? Anna is an educated woman that has rejected Wall Street to work as a waitress in a diner. She's 35 and her mom's applying the pressure. Her Broadway paramour, a married man has strung her along since she was 23. Enter Jamie Harris, starving taxicab driving, failed novelist. Suddenly ex-wife dumps Jamie's kid plus one on him. Naturally through a series of unlikely big city moments, Anna and Jamie hook up, lose each other, and love.

Then there's the autumn autumn match of still spry, 70 year old Robert Modica and Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, ex-Woodie Allen wife Louise Lasser. This relationship of seasoned citizens so rare in film took the show away from the yougen's. We cared whether or not sweet, only had sex with someone he loved, Modica can get it up for willing Lasser. We hoped the drugstore was stocked with Viagara.

The screenplay offered some silly city shtick, New York City hip, but these scenes fall flat; nevertheless, this one, the babe and I enjoyed.

It's a shame people compare this film to indie dogs like "walking and talking". This film is a work of art. Strangely compelling, clunky, human, passionate, deranged and ultimately uplifting -- this is one of the most mature and honest portrayals of women and loneliness I have seen in a long time.

For me it's up there with Hal Hartley and Woody Allen's freshest and most honest work. It's real credit that it was selected in competition for Cannes - - they understand the way elliptical themes and complex characters are often the most challenging and satisfying for a thinking audience.

For people that don't get it : Stick to TV cinema. You won't understand art if it hits you in the face.

"Fast Food, Fast Women" has little to do with either. A somewhat inept, light-hearted slice-of-life indie, this flick revolves around a single 30-something woman, Bella (Anna whatever-her-name-is), who waitresses in a NYC diner, and her assorted friends/acquaintenances with loneliness and the need for relationships being the central theme. A very forgettable flick, "FF,FW" is not without its moments and manages some poignancy, quirkiness, and heart. However, in the grand scheme of all things cinema, this is just another marginally entertaining film with a bunch of where-have-I-seen-him/her-before character actors which will never be more than a so-so small screen watch. (C)

Today I'm happy that I'm from Israel. This is directly connected to the fact that the director of this film is from Israel either.It really makes me proud to know that the brain who create this wonderful film,grew up here. It is a comedy about life, and all the regular components of our routine: love, sex, work, children, money, getting older... All characters are looking for love and warmness, in their boring life, and they all get connected in some way... We can find ourself in each characters, even thought it present strangeness, and something bizar.This is why I enjoyed watching the film- you can't tell what happened with the character a minute after you've seen her\him on the screen. You won't get any big ideas from the film, and you won't find a message that will make you think allot after the film ends, but- it has a positive atmosphere, and you'll get out from the cinema with a big smile, and with an optimist opinion about life.

As Robert Altman's Shortcuts this film is about different people with different linked stories. This film from Amos Kollek belongs to the new independent American cinema wave: fresh, clear and very direct.

Bella is an insecure girl that works in a fast food restaurant with a tremendous need of love. Bella is very fragile so fragile that walks with the stiletto heels in order to see things with a panoramic and upper position view but with the fragility, detachment and embarrassment of a teenager. She has a periodical love-making relationship with a married man.

Three elder men, one looking for a female friend through a lonely heart advertisement, getting disappointed when the lady realizes that he has never made love in his life. The other two, very pathetic, talking and chatting about unlikely sex all the time. The mature woman stresses the fact that "merchandise is no longer valid" (at that age). The love happiness and kindness of elder people has reminded to me the Marco Ferreri's film: "La Casa del Sorriso".

All these stories that are linked by two common factors: loneliness and lack of love. The film has also to be seen not only for its cleverness but also to understand that in America not only commercial films are being produced.

Rating: 6/10