naq-1

Simply awful. One of the all-time worst I have ever seen. I cannot understand why it even got released, let alone made a huge splash and was awarded all the Oscars. What's Russian for Payola?

I will have to give the filmmakers one kudo, and that is for the location, the lush imposing house that the leading man (really should be "child man") lives in. It is truly one of the best locations in any film about the top 1%.

Mickey Madison as an actress is another mystery. Why would anyone give her an award for performing faux sex on camera? I don't think we even felt one iota for her performance -- it was as if she just phoned it in, acting like a stripper who was lured in by money and then did it in every position, and provided some very unimpressive sexual simulated dancing as well. The one thing I will give her kudos for is that she apparently had to learn Russian for the role.

The worst part of the screenplay, which is really just about as minimal and predictable as can be, is that there is absolutely no explanation for anything that the Russian family does -- they seem to be involved in arms trading, but then again, that is also completely avoided. So of course, we have no clue about any of the characters and couldn't care less about any of them.

Even Igor, who is supposed to be the one and only character that we have any idea of what he is feeling, is completely glossed over. I suppose this is a result of the current trend in major films - writers sit thru screenplay lectures in which they are cajoled for explaining what each character's motive is, and so the script is made up of just lame dialogue in which every other word is a common 4-letter word, and we can only imagine what might be motivating each one. So Igor is somehow supposed to be sympathetic, but we never really understand why. Maybe the concept is to hold off so that they can make an "Anora 2" so that we can at least understand something about what is going on.

Overall, no point in wasting time watching this -- it really doesn't have any redeeming value whatsoever.

This film is outstanding, mainly because the subject, Q Lazzararus (Diane Luckey) is magnificent. She is a force of nature. There seems to be a serious disconnect in the music industry which doesn't recognize a superior talent like this, and it extends to the indie film industry as well. Those programmers at Sundance and Slamdance and SXSW are all falling over themselves trying to secure the rights to secure the productions of rock royalty and are ignoring the work of a significant underground artist like Q. She is miles above any of the winners at the Grammy Awards this past year, and needs to be awarded a Grammy immediately. Her work is completely misunderstood, since she is a black woman fronting a heavy metal band, and the music industry has no precedent for how to market such a phenomenon.

As far as the documentary is concerned, it is the unbelievable result of the filmmaker, who is a fan of Q herself, getting into a cab driven by none other than Q herself. How is this possible? It sounds like something that would be considered absolutely implausible if it was a script, yet it was real life. If this is not evidence of the abstract phenomenon known as FATE, then please explain how something so amazing could happen.

The documentary is one of the best I have ever seen, and this is written by a documentary teacher, who studies them and presents them to students in major arts colleges, so there is reason to believe that the filmmaker deserves some recognition here. How is it possible that this is not getting worldwide recognition? Oh yeah, because the subject is a black woman who is fronting a heavy metal band. I guess that says it all. Do yourself a favor and see this. Absolutely riveting.

This is a very contrived piece of work in that it uses a technique which would never stand up in another art form -- sort of similar to eating dessert before the main meal, and then starting on the salad, and then having appetizers, and seeing them all spread out while you can only eat a small part of each one at a given time -- delivering a meal like this would get a chef and/or waiter fired at a restaurant. It compares to the idea of "Stunt Casting" (a classic example: casting Paris Hilton as Mother Teresa) -- this is the directing equivalent, where the Director just fishes out any scene they feel like and then showing it -- maybe sort of like an artist taping a banana to a wall and putting a price tag on it, or the urinal on a wall which was supposed to be an artistic statement. Sure, anything can be art, but does it stand the test of time? Not really. The angle that the Director takes to the subject is as important as the subject themself. When this is missing, there is an emptiness to the project. I for one cannot tell what it is that makes Eno a great artist as well, I only know that I like what he creates from a musical perspective but this documentary doesn't give me any kind of insight into it -- it just slams me with one idea after another and then I completely forget what the previous scene was all about and ultimately ignore whatever it was anyway.