Choose Me

My mother famously tells all who will listen that she only reads true stories. She takes offense at implausible fiction, dismissing it as ridiculous. She heaps abuse on the television while viewing such stuff as"You Can't Take It With You," Olivier's film of "Hamlet," "Wings Of Desire," Fred Astaire pictures, The Simpsons. She can't abide the long stretches of zero plot development in musicals, ballets, operas. She hates characters who put on airs, and she really doesn't "want to watch" sexually evocative behavior among consenting adults. My mother loves Bob Hope monologues and says Jerry Vale has a beautiful voice.

I'm not bringing this video over to my mom's house for movie night. I'm going to make a hard drink with ice and watch this movie while lying on the sofa, with the lights off and the surround sound up to medium with the bass boost. And when it's over I'm going to get up and email an old flame. The one who could really kiss.

With atmosphere to spare. If you've never wandered LA's back-streets at night, this movie will give you a taste.

The theme of this movie is a common one, the search for love.

Highly stylized. Overloaded with delicious details and clever ideas. Characters with quirky (and intriguing) personality traits. What male viewer wouldn't want to be like the main protagonist, Keith Carradine's character? Fighter pilot, spy, expert mechanic. What female viewer wouldn't identify with either of the two lead female roles? Tough yet vulnerable, sexy, desirable, but unable to play the mating game and win.

All the characters are interconnected, but they don't always know it. The writer/director gets full marks for interesting characters and a story that twists and turns in on itself, but now comes the challenge of making it cohesive and comprehensible. That's where the movie doesn't hold up as well.

There is not enough "glue" between scenes. There are too many places where the plot takes a leap and the viewer is expected to fill in the gap. I found myself asking, "where did that come from?". I kept wanting to replay the previous scene because I had missed the transition, but there wasn't one.

I wish Rudolph had a collaborator with the screenplay and the directing. I feel the casting was very good, but the performances are often stilted, like what you might find in a high school production. Awkward pauses and intonations in the dialog. This also makes the story hard to follow and hard to believe. I can't decide if this was intentional or not. Reminds me of Hal Hartley.

This movie is not for everyone. Personally, I love it, warts and all. I've seen it three times and own the DVD. The Teddy Pendergrass songs are wonderful and I would say under-used in the film. Very surprised to see Maltin give this 3.5 stars, even if it is "a critics movie". He must have been in a good mood that day.

Lesley Ann Warren owns a bar in LA. She has the habit of sleeping around with almost any man--she's just looking for love. Genevieve Bujold plays a radio relationship talker, Dr. Love. She has severe issues herself with love and sex. Keith Carradine is a drifter who enters their lives...and things go barreling out of control.

Very strange but great movie. It's shot mostly at night in beautiful film noirish settings (look at all the smoke in the bar and at a card game). It's also one of the most romantic films I've ever seen. There's a virtually nonstop score by Teddy Pendergrass--soft romantic songs that perfectly set the mood. All the dialogue is about love, sex and relationships but on a very adult, intelligent level. It's full of great lines and sharp insights. It all leads up to a happy ending (sort of).

The cast is just excellent. Warren is fascinating--sexy and beautiful but deeply damaged. She shows it through her face and expressions extremely well. Carradine plays the whole role with a blank face--but that fits his character (a compulsive lair). He is so many things to himself and everybody else that he has no identity. Best of all is Bujold in a very difficult role--she has the play a sex radio therapist who is perfectly in control and a woman who has NO control over her life and loves. Everything about her (especially her voice) changes between the characters and you always see both inside her at the same time. She also has a few monologues that are fascinating and funny at the same time. Rae Dawn Chong is pretty good in a supporting role--love her apartment (check out the posters on the wall). Patrick Bauchau is pretty bad in another supporting role--but not enough to destroy the movie.

Direction by Alan Rudolph is great. He bathes many scenes in red lights and I LOVE how the camera moves back and forth during a conversation between Bujold and Carradine. He also wrote the great script. One minor complaint--Bujold has a few short, dark fantasies which are never explained. What was all that about? This was a big art house hit back in 1984 and deservedly received a cult following. But it seems to have disappeared since then (the DVD was released with no fanfare at all). Still it's well worth seeing.

I love stories with overlapping characters. This is one of them and I really enjoyed it. Interesting and somewhat mysterious characters, some seemingly separate but unknowingly linked together in an intricate pattern. I always liked Lesley Anne Warren who, along with Keith Carradine, Genevieve Bujold, Rae Dawn Chong and an early John Larrouquette provide some good performances. If you're into character driven movies I think you'll like this one.

This film strides with confidence into the netherworld of sexual politics. The story is overloaded with allusion, and the actors all render brilliantly nuanced performances inside characters that bristle with sexual energy and conflict.

Geneviève Bujold, as Dr. Nancy Love, is adept at giving radio talk show advice to her listeners, but cannot interact with people in real life. Had the internet been popular then, she would have been an AOL Chat Room Goddess. Her vulnerability blossoms like a rose as she gets caught up in the lives of her new roommate and her lovers.

Keith Carradine plays Mickey, who may or may not be a compulsive liar, but can often substantiate the wild boasts with which he regales anyone who will listen. He is deviously seductive, literally, and his ability to weave truth and lies into a delicate web ensnares and at the same time repulses the women he meets.

Lesley Ann Warren, as Eve, is a former hooker who owns a bar she just had to buy because it had been named for another Eve, who provides a connection to Mickey, maybe. Similarly, every character is delicately, and sometimes most indelicately, connected to every other character. Usually they don't know it, but their lives revolve around one another's secrets. The underlying message appears to be that to know someone, one must discover their secrets, and perhaps that is a bit too obvious to bear comment, but a more universal and ironic truth lies beneath. We want people to accept us as we present ourselves to them, but we demand of those we would care for that we see their inner selves.

Rae Dawn Chong and John Larroquette head up a sterling supporting cast, but Bujold, Keith and Warren are dead solid perfect in their fragile and complex portrayals.

This is one of my all time favorite films, and if you notice that it has a decidedly Altmanesque feeling, it's because director Alan Rudolph was, in fact, an early protégé. I watch it when I want to remember the 80's and wonder how any of us survived, but it's an acquired taste. There should be a warning on the cover; "Caution. Watching This Movie May Require an Intellect."