Fashionably L.A.

This is a positively delightful comedy. It traces the stories of several aspiring models who are trying to survive in a business where the slightest imperfection is the end of a career. These are women who will do just about anything for a job, and pretty much do in the course of the movie. What is amazing is how much you find yourself caring about what happens to these incredibly shallow women. The movie mixes B&W and color very effectively to symbolize life vs. the art. The acting is surprisingly good for a low budget production. The fashion industry will never look quite as glamorous to you after you see the movie. The modeling gigs they get are always a surprise. I particularly liked the "hand" (you'll have to see it to know what I'm talking about). I would definately recommend this movie to any adult.

There's explict language about sex, though very matter of fact and often silly. There's less nudity than you would expect from the video box, and it's all pretty tasteful and not gratuitous (at least for us).

I won't claim that this is the worst movie ever although many would award it at least a honorable mention. It's out on DVD by some outfit called "The Asylum" which appears to actually have a worse library than "Troma Productions". I watched this because "Jenya Lano" is one of the stars; she is the only one associated with this thing who has actually been able to find real work in the industry since its release. She may wish now that she had used an assumed name, worn a mask, and disguised her two enormous talents.

Imagine film students Leah and Vincenzo from the cable show "Film School" (The Tisch School of the Acts at NYU) collaborating on a feature length pseudo-documentary as their class project. They take a few girls with modeling experience from an acting for the camera class, get $10,000 from Parker and Jennifer to buy film (Parker's Visa card again), and enlist a bunch of unpaid volunteers for a one weekend shoot at a car dealership and a skid row motel.

Unfortunately they don't buy film until late on Friday. Parker buys color film and Jennifer buys black and white film. They don't discover this until Saturday morning and by then the film supply store is closed. They decide to improvise and shoot with both film stocks. Since the apparent objective of the screenplay is to show the "real world" of modeling and since Leah had just watched "The Wizard of Oz", they come up with an interesting solution. They decide to use the color film for the modeling assignments (think Oz), and the black and white for the behind the scenes stuff (think Kansas). Unfortunately the color film stock is expired high-speed stuff that looks grainy and needs lots of color correction. So the transformation possibilities don't really work as both film stocks look gray and dull.

But the real problem is that the premise, "blowing the lid off the L.A. modeling scene", is of interest only to insiders who already know everything the film is about to reveal. Which is pretty much the same with any vocation, do you really want to see a movie that "blows the lid off the Youngstown actuarial scene"? Couple that with a screenplay that makes "Coyote Ugly" seem like "Citizen Kane" and this thing is dead in the water before it can even leave the pre-production stage.

Which is probably just as well because Holly Gagnier volunteered to be the casting director. Now while Holly is the biggest name associated with this project, she once starred in an exercise video and she did a great job as the "Veruca Salt" spoiled rich girl character in "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", she does not seem to have much casting director experience on her resume. Holly's cast is game (I even spotted her briefly in one scene) but they don't really have a coherent story to tell.

Incredibly entertaining, strikingly funny, witty and sexy insider's account of life as a Los Angeles model -- which is clearly not as glamorous as one might believe. Writer-director-star Tamara Olsen shows a flair for comedy AND drama. The gorgeous and compelling cast kept me smiling and interested throughout. I loved the soapy storylines as the movie follows the models' lives trying to make it in L.A. and hold their fashionable worlds together. This is a perfect rental -- I watched it with my girlfriend and we were laughing the whole way. I'm also wondering about the afterlife of this movie... it seems like the kind of film that would make a great TV series. And Olson has that star quality you don't often see in one of those indie films. Meanwhile, I couldn't recommend a rental more highly.