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Loving Jezebel
List Price: Unknown [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Theodorus Melville (Hill Harper) has a problematic love life. It's not that women aren't attracted to him, because they most definitely are. Falling in love is also no problem; he goes head over heels for practically every woman he meets. The problem is that he always falls in love with "Jezebels": women who are involved with another man... often his best friends, to add fuel to the fire. Loving Jezebel is Theo's story, narrated by himself, as he searches for the perfect woman who will truly love him back.
The first half of Loving Jezebel is the best, showing off writer/director Kwyn Bader's creativity. The movie starts with a frame story of Theo in a very tight situation, and then cuts to a long flashback to Theo's life to show how he got into this situation. These flashbacks are quite engaging. We first see Theo as a lovelorn kindergartener, longing for elusive Nikki Noodleman, who prefers another boy; then we see him in high school, falling for his best friend's girlfriend, and so on, showing his various love affairs up to the present moment. The flashback section is quite engaging and amusing with its wry look at the difficulties of relationships in high school and college.
When the movie catches up with Theo as an adult, however, the movie starts to drag. At this point, I started wondering where the movie was going, and when it was going to ever get there, and by the time the movie wrapped up, the ending didn't really have much punch to it. If there had been maybe one fewer "Jezebel" story in the second half of the movie, Loving Jezebel might very well have been able to keep up its snappy pace to the very end for a more satisfying ending. As is, it starts feeling a little long at only 88 minutes.
The acting is decent overall. The characters are distinctive, probably in part because the acting is slightly exaggerated. This slightly over-the-top acting style does seem to fit the premise of the story, though.
The cinematography is quite imaginative, and is one of the best parts of the movie. Director Bader takes a free hand with surprising close-ups and angles, as well as using different color filters or black and white film to convey different moods. It works very well and fits the overall "feel" of the movie as Theo's idiosyncratic memoir.
Picture
Loving Jezebel is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. The picture quality is acceptable for a rental, but it's not great. There's a lot of noise in the image throughout the film, which definitely detracts from the viewing experience. Colors are bright and vibrant.
Sound
The Dolby 2.0 surround is fine for this dialogue-driven movie. Speech is always clear, which is the most important part here, so while there's nothing outstanding about the sound, it's perfectly satisfactory for this movie.
Extras
Loving Jezebel is just this side of being a bare-bones disc. It features a trailer and "recommendations," which are the standard "three other titles published by the same company, that more or less fall into the comedy/romance category."
Final thoughts
Loving Jezebel is not what I'd consider a true comedy. It has amusing moments, but it doesn't look for laughs. Rather, it sets up a series of mildly absurd situations and plays through them, provoking smiles either from Theo's response to the situation or from our own recollections of similarly absurd situations in real life. Overall, though it probably won't sustain repeat viewing, it's imaginative and charming enough to be worth watching once.
The first half of Loving Jezebel is the best, showing off writer/director Kwyn Bader's creativity. The movie starts with a frame story of Theo in a very tight situation, and then cuts to a long flashback to Theo's life to show how he got into this situation. These flashbacks are quite engaging. We first see Theo as a lovelorn kindergartener, longing for elusive Nikki Noodleman, who prefers another boy; then we see him in high school, falling for his best friend's girlfriend, and so on, showing his various love affairs up to the present moment. The flashback section is quite engaging and amusing with its wry look at the difficulties of relationships in high school and college.
When the movie catches up with Theo as an adult, however, the movie starts to drag. At this point, I started wondering where the movie was going, and when it was going to ever get there, and by the time the movie wrapped up, the ending didn't really have much punch to it. If there had been maybe one fewer "Jezebel" story in the second half of the movie, Loving Jezebel might very well have been able to keep up its snappy pace to the very end for a more satisfying ending. As is, it starts feeling a little long at only 88 minutes.
The acting is decent overall. The characters are distinctive, probably in part because the acting is slightly exaggerated. This slightly over-the-top acting style does seem to fit the premise of the story, though.
The cinematography is quite imaginative, and is one of the best parts of the movie. Director Bader takes a free hand with surprising close-ups and angles, as well as using different color filters or black and white film to convey different moods. It works very well and fits the overall "feel" of the movie as Theo's idiosyncratic memoir.
Picture
Loving Jezebel is presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. The picture quality is acceptable for a rental, but it's not great. There's a lot of noise in the image throughout the film, which definitely detracts from the viewing experience. Colors are bright and vibrant.
Sound
The Dolby 2.0 surround is fine for this dialogue-driven movie. Speech is always clear, which is the most important part here, so while there's nothing outstanding about the sound, it's perfectly satisfactory for this movie.
Extras
Loving Jezebel is just this side of being a bare-bones disc. It features a trailer and "recommendations," which are the standard "three other titles published by the same company, that more or less fall into the comedy/romance category."
Final thoughts
Loving Jezebel is not what I'd consider a true comedy. It has amusing moments, but it doesn't look for laughs. Rather, it sets up a series of mildly absurd situations and plays through them, provoking smiles either from Theo's response to the situation or from our own recollections of similarly absurd situations in real life. Overall, though it probably won't sustain repeat viewing, it's imaginative and charming enough to be worth watching once.
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