Um Novo Capítulo Para o Amor

Five minutes into this movie about women at a writer's retreat had me reaching for the remote...., but I'm sticking it out and it isn't getting any better. Each character is just posing, as three-dimensional as a life-size cardboard Alice B. Toklas. The pretty one smokes clove cigarettes (or something in a box) and seduces men simply to use their bodies. Each woman is an idiot. I'm watching as they mug their disapproval when they're not given ponderous dialogue to regurgitate (like this line I just wrote). After 45 minutes of this, I'm starting to think that lesbianism is unnatural, the way these characters discuss how "it happened." The acting is mostly bad, the sound makes some of the voices sound like shrill noises, the cinematography is flat, and the writing is really, really sucky.

I saw this movie years ago and really liked it. Neither the acting nor the storyline was the greatest, but it was a sweet and eye-opening love story. Many times we suppress feelings we may have for a person because of societal fears. But we must be true to ourselves. In the end, both of the main characters were. Sweet.

I hate this rule the lesbian community makes up, where if a film featuring lesbians is made and none of the aforementioned lesbians wind up killing themselves or going straight (as if that were possible) before the end credits roll, all of us are supposed to hail it as some masterpiece of filmmaking. Particularly in the case of this train wreck of a borefest, I refuse to join the crowd on this one.

The characters (particularly the woman who owned the lodge, the Southern-belle romance writer, and the nice-little-mom-of-two-in-her-jumper-outfits-writing-her-first-book) were offensive stereotypes, caricatures of what they could have been. It's possible for a straight woman to find the idea of lesbianism repellent without portraying her as some strange replica of Tammy Faye Bakker. And -- surprise! -- it's also possible to portray a lesbian lodge owner as something other than a hard-ridden, raspy-voiced, rough-n-ready bulldagger.

The plot dragged. AND dragged. AND dragged. If I learned a single thing from watching this movie, it's that I have an incredible reservoir of restraint -- I didn't stalk out of the theater in disgust. But then I'd paid $7 to get in, and that was in 1992 at an artsy-fartsy house. LOL

My take? Not a classic. Not even a contender.

This movie used all the right tools to pull at this romantics heart strings(I loved the score). My only criticism is that I wish more time was spent on the two main characters attraction to one another and less time talking,the ending left me wondering about the day after( maybe there's a sequel in the works). This really is a cool love story and I've seen it over and over again(Trisha Todd is HOT!). A little on the intellectual side but, I overlooked it for the sake of romance.

Set in a women's writing retreat in Oregon, Claire of the Moon begins it's long and tedious journey. The first time I saw the movie, all I could think is, "When are they going to do IT?", but when I saw it for the second time, I got the message Nicole Conn tries to convey. Buried under the rather stiff acting of Trisha Todd and Karen Trumbo (and for that matter, all the other actors in this movie) is the most complicated problem in any relationship: exploring intimacy. The intentions are good for all involved in revealing Clare and Noel's fear of intimacy, but poorly followed throughout the tale. Conn tries too hard to make this view analytical and intelligent but succeeds in making it so intelligent that it becomes tiresome. Not that I did not like this movie; I did. But I endure this movie only for the final scene. The end leaves us wanting for the real story to finally begin, but it is too late...the movie is over. Now for the confession: I really like this movie, but only with a grain of salt, and that is how it should be viewed.