As Divas do Blue Iguana

I had skipped this title on cable even though I knew it was about strippers. I then saw a newspaper article about Sheila Kelly's stripper dance classes, book and video called the S Factor. Being a former stripper I was intriqued because I am interested in teaching women what strippers know. So when I had the chance I watched Blue Iguana wanting to see if the actresses nailed the dancing part. While they "got" some of the moves, I saw no truly impressive dancing. Tilly's brash in your dancing face style was realistic, showing one need not have dancing ability to play the crowd. The rest of the women showed no variety in their moves. I do think they were trying to show how drunk Angel was on a nightly basis. Only in the scene where the club is not open and she practices her pole work do you see a sober Angel dancing like she can. Contrast with her performance where she slides off the stage onto her head. I loved the way no one reacted and she just rolled back up there. Angel's dumbness is totally realistic. The dressing room dialog was very realistic. What did not ring true is Jasmine's boyfriend not knowing she is a stripper and walking out when he saw her dance. Most men would have stayed.

This movie is a film that has a lot of heart to it in a industry where most women are viewed as tramps and bimbos this movie actually shows that strippers have their ups and downs just like women in every other profession. The plot may have lacked at times as other commenters have stated but at least this film is a breath of fresh air from many of the typical strippers being stalked and killed and explotative Cine-porn films out there. Strong performances from Sandra Oh and Jennifer Tilly and up and coming actress Charolette Anyanna is a stand-out as well. Please before you judge this film too harshly look at the other films that represent strippers in cinema as nothing more than T-n-A and you'll realize this movie is just trying to show them as women with the same joys and heartbreaks of life as everyone else.

I was really impressed with Sandra Oh's performance in this film. Everything else aside, she was brilliant. Her Jasmine is a sensitive poet who has real potential, but she's stuck in the sex trade and, like so many real women in that position, is afraid of trying to get out. The familiar, even when it is terrible, is easier to face than the unknown. (For the same reason, battered women stay with the men who beat them.) She takes some steps, but when her boss cruelly tells her that her job is who she is, she gives up. Any tentative confidence she felt is gone. Later, she dances in front of her new boyfriend, not so much to say "This is who I am" but "How could you possibly love me?" It's like, on some level, she was daring him to still love her. How the audience, and especially her boyfriend, could not see how this was killing her soul, is not amazing, but typical - people see what they want to, and in a strip bar, it's T&A, not despair or no self esteem. Her poetry, beautiful, but so cynical and sad, also show the despair she feels. Having been in a damaging relationship, I can say for a fact that Sandra Oh's performance is right on the mark - from trying to be tough, to pushing away someone who cares (while hoping he'll "save" you by continuing to believe in you), to sharing feelings of despair with someone in the same boat - this is all so completely real.

I was also struck by Daryl Hannah's performance as the airhead, always high, who has hopes that are completely out of reach because her lifestyle is sabotaging her dreams. Without two brain cells to rub together, I wonder what she did with all that money...

Jennifer Tilly's character was good too, and provided some fairly uncomfortable humour - when she ripped into the happy mom at the doctor's office, saying "I'm gonna have this baby, and he's gonna sell your kid drugs in the schoolyard" I laughed, but it had an Oh-my-gawd-she's-completely-off-her-rocker quality to it. Plus her scene as the dominatrix trying to deal with her battered and boozed up stripper friend was priceless.

Yeah, the plot (what plot?) goes nowhere, but watch it as a very realistic few days in the emotional lives of some very sad characters.

OK, so "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" features wall-to-wall naked gyrating women. But don't let that put you off. Despite the subject matter - the lives of five strippers who work in the eponymous club (played by Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly, Sheila Kelley, Charlotte Ayanna and Sandra Oh) - and the frequent nudity, "Blue Iguana" is not a T&A movie. Rather, it's a compelling insight into the lives of the underclass of Los Angeles, or indeed, any one of the world's major cities.

If your cinematic tastes run to tightly plotted fare where all the loose ends are tied up with a big gift-wrap bow in the last five minutes, you'll probably it find frustrating. But if you can appreciate a film in which some issues are never quite resolved and some questions are never quite answered - just like real life - then you may be seduced by the "Blue Iguana".

The film has been panned by so many critics that I must admit I started watching with some trepidation, expecting to be embarrassed for the actors. But I became so engrossed in the world of the Blue Iguana that I was actually disappointed when the film ended.

Much of the criticism of "Blue Iguana" is based on the fact that it was made without a script. The actors started with only two things: the title of the film and the fact that it was set in a strip club. Everything else, they worked out themselves - their characters, their storylines, and their dialogue - in an intense series of improvisational workshops. This approach may be unconventional, but it gives "Blue Iguana" a freshness and immediacy which is rarely found in mainstream films. As Michael Radford explains, improv relies on nailing the scene in the first take; once it becomes too polished, it loses its sense of realism.

The female cast has been another target for critics - not because they're not superb actors, but because, in their late 30's to early 40s, Daryl Hannah, Jennifer Tilly and Sheila Kelley would be too old to work as strippers in LA where beautiful young women exist in a buyer's market. But they bring a depth of sadness to their characters - you can't help wondering where they'll be a few years down the track.

Sandra Oh's performance as Jasmine is a standout. Jasmine leads a double life, stripping on the Blue Iguana stage and secretly writing poetry in the dressing room. After persuading her to read one of her painfully beautiful works at his poetry group Dennis (Chris Hogan) starts to fall in love with her mind. But Jasmine realises the fledgling romance is doomed. In the film's most heartbreaking scene, when Dennis seeks her out at the club, she performs her routine to Moby's "Porcelain" with its haunting refrain "So This is Goodbye". The camera focuses on her face. It's an impassive mask, but her eyes betray incredible sadness. She's wordlessly saying to him, "This is the real me. Do you still want me now?"

Putting aside its improv-based development, "Blue Iguana" succeeds on its own merits. If you want to see a T&A film, rent a copy of "Showgirls". If you want to see a haunting, thought-provoking slice of life, see "Dancing at the Blue Iguana".

This was a movie about the lives of 5 different strippers (Jennifer Tilly, Charlotte Ayanna, Sandra Oh, Daryl Hannah & Sheila Kelley). Supposedly, the original script was intended to be built around Kelley's character "Stormy", but as the actresses got to know their own characters and grow into them, the script was adapted to feature all 5. In fact, I think the Stormy character had the least amount of screen time. It was probably the worst story of the five. None of the five stories stuck out as being great. All were average, thus, the movie was average.

The five co-stars here are all good actresses in my opinion, and that saved the movie from the horrible movie it could have been. One thing I did like about the movie is that the actresses that played strippers were not afraid to play strippers. I mean that in a couple of different ways. First, and in many ways most importantly, they were not afraid to be nude on camera. Usually, even in B-movies, there is one actress who wants to play the character but does not want to do what is necessary to play the character. Lets face it, we watch this movie because it is about strippers, and therefore, we expect to see them strip! The second point I want to make here is that the actresses did their homework as far as how the stripper routines work. They obviously took a class or studied on their own the art of "working the pole" and lap-dances, etc. This gives the movie credibility. Not one of the girls looked out of place dancing in the nude. If I was grading this purely on the striptease portion of this movie, it would get a 10. Pretty good stuff.

Unfortunately, this movie is being graded as a whole, and as far as the plots go, they are not quite up to par. The actresses went as far as they could with the given material and more often than not, the movie dragged on, despite the acting, itself, being quite good. I've just recently noticed Sandra Oh and I have to say, she is a pretty versatile and darn good actress.

Jennifer Tilly also stepped up a bit as the rough, biker chick stripper/dominatrix on the side. She played the most troubled girl at the club, Jo, who had to deal with the fact that she was pregnant, on drugs, etc. Everything that could be wrong with her was wrong with her.

Robert Wisdom also did a great job as the sleazy strip club owner, Eddie. His character was strong and was the guy who kept the girls in line at work.

Overall, this was a pretty average story, despite how well the girls and rest of the cast did. I have a feeling a different cast would have made a complete mockery of the movie. As it is, I give it a 6 of 10.