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Dancing at The Blue Iguana
TVA International // R // December 26, 2001
List Price: $24.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
The individual at the helm of "Dancing At The Blue Iguana" definitely isn't the person you'd expect - director Michael Radford is more widely known for the particularly well-recieved "Il Postino". While "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" isn't awful, there's nothing particularly remarkable about it - in fact, most of it seems like something you'd see when you can't sleep and click on the cable at one in the morning.
The film actually has a fairly interesting history, though. Radford encouraged his actresses to improvise and create their characters and their history from the top down. Afterwards, filming began and apparently, these stories were threaded together. The result is a picture that feels like it included every one of the bits that the actresses came up with, rather than trying to single out the most interesting elements and keep the pace going - at 123 minutes, the picture feels simply endless.
The film revolves around Jo (Jennifer Tilly), Angel (Daryl Hannah), Jasmine (Sandra Oh), Jessie (Charlotte Ayanna) and Stormy (Sheila Kelley), all strippers who have their own problems to deal with, both on and off-stage. Of course, there's the sensitive one, the ditz, the tough one, the new girl - all the stereotypes are covered. Some of the biggest problems with the film are really the characters; none of them are really well-developed enough to care much about, while their stories are too thin to actually fill out the 123 minute running time.
It doesn't help that the performances are not particularly great, either. Although I must say Darryl Hannah still looks terrific, the character that she's created is a cartoony ditz that gets shrill and embarassing after a while. Tilly has played tough to better acclaim in "Bound". None of the lesser-knowns really make a whole lot out of their character, either. The script seems peppered with an absolutely unncessary amount of curse words. I certainly don't mind profanity, but scenes where it seems to be every other word coming from a character's mouth gets tiring.
If anything, at least the film looks good, as cinematographer Ericson Core ("Payback", "The Fast and the Furious") gives the club scenes a slick, flashy look. It's little help, though, when the movie seems to be at a standstill. It's an interesting idea to workshop with your actors and develop characters, but obviously, the actresses involved weren't exactly prepared to create much of a personality for the characters they play.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Dancing" is presented in 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen by TVA International. The presentation is generally okay, given that it does at least have Ericson Core's slick, strong cinematography to display. Yet, it's not faultless and there are some concerns worth noting. Sharpness and detail are generally satisfactory, as the picture can occasionally boast nice depth to the image.
Problems do arise, especially early on. Print flaws really show up during the first half of the movie, as several scenes early on displayed a considerable amount of little specks and marks. The second half seemed cleaner, but still did show some minor flecks and specks. Grain was also apparent during several scenes. A few light instances of pixelation and were seen, but thankfully, the film seemed entirely free of any edge enhancement or other problems.
Colors looked terrific throughout. The neon colors of the club and the film's color palette in general seemed rich and vibrant, appearing well-saturated and without any smearing here. Black level was also strong, while flesh tones were accurate and natural. Not without some blemishes, but this is a nice transfer overall.
SOUND: The film is presented here in Dolby Digital 5.1, but there's little envelopment offered by the rear speakers. The film is mainly a front-heavy audio experience, focusing on the music and dialogue. What little the surrounds do offer is some reverb of the music and the occasional very light ambience (the sounds of, like, 3 people clapping in the audience). Audio quality seemed a bit subpar, as the music sounded rather flat, as did the few sound effects. Dialogue came through clearly and crisply, though.
MENUS:: Slightly animated main menu with animated transitions to sub-menus.
EXTRAS::
Strip Notes: This is an hour-long documentary done by Darryl Hannah that focuses on the actual research that the actress did about strip clubs. It includes a good deal of actual backstage footage at these kind of clubs as well as some rehersal footage of Hannah at work. The documentary shows how these clubs operate - there's a lot of money, a lot of eye candy and the occasional tense moments. Aside from the rehearsals, we also see more about how the actresses improvised and worked on their characters. It's a fairly interesting documentary, certainly more interesting than the film itself. The only problem is that the image quality is so-so, with some pixelation and an overall "digital" appearance.
Commentaries: There are two commentary tracks included, one with actors Sheila Kelly, Sandra Oh and Robert Wisdom. This is a decent, subdued track that provides a good amount of detail about the film's improvisational process and what it was like working with the other actors on a low-budget. The other track is a commentary from director Michael Radford, which further details the improvisational process and what it was like working on the script, as well as some technical and production comments.
also: 9 deleted scenes.
Final Thoughts: "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" did have an interesting production process with its improvisational nature, but the results are extremely dissapointing. It's a movie that doesn't have engaging characters, but does have weak writing and a running time that is horribly overlong. TVA's DVD does offer fairly good audio/video quality and way more supplements than I'd expect for a film like this, but I still can't recommend it as anything more than a rental, tops. This is the Canadian release of the DVD - a US version from Trimark will be available, but whether or not it will have the extras that this version does is unknown.
The individual at the helm of "Dancing At The Blue Iguana" definitely isn't the person you'd expect - director Michael Radford is more widely known for the particularly well-recieved "Il Postino". While "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" isn't awful, there's nothing particularly remarkable about it - in fact, most of it seems like something you'd see when you can't sleep and click on the cable at one in the morning.
The film actually has a fairly interesting history, though. Radford encouraged his actresses to improvise and create their characters and their history from the top down. Afterwards, filming began and apparently, these stories were threaded together. The result is a picture that feels like it included every one of the bits that the actresses came up with, rather than trying to single out the most interesting elements and keep the pace going - at 123 minutes, the picture feels simply endless.
The film revolves around Jo (Jennifer Tilly), Angel (Daryl Hannah), Jasmine (Sandra Oh), Jessie (Charlotte Ayanna) and Stormy (Sheila Kelley), all strippers who have their own problems to deal with, both on and off-stage. Of course, there's the sensitive one, the ditz, the tough one, the new girl - all the stereotypes are covered. Some of the biggest problems with the film are really the characters; none of them are really well-developed enough to care much about, while their stories are too thin to actually fill out the 123 minute running time.
It doesn't help that the performances are not particularly great, either. Although I must say Darryl Hannah still looks terrific, the character that she's created is a cartoony ditz that gets shrill and embarassing after a while. Tilly has played tough to better acclaim in "Bound". None of the lesser-knowns really make a whole lot out of their character, either. The script seems peppered with an absolutely unncessary amount of curse words. I certainly don't mind profanity, but scenes where it seems to be every other word coming from a character's mouth gets tiring.
If anything, at least the film looks good, as cinematographer Ericson Core ("Payback", "The Fast and the Furious") gives the club scenes a slick, flashy look. It's little help, though, when the movie seems to be at a standstill. It's an interesting idea to workshop with your actors and develop characters, but obviously, the actresses involved weren't exactly prepared to create much of a personality for the characters they play.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Dancing" is presented in 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen by TVA International. The presentation is generally okay, given that it does at least have Ericson Core's slick, strong cinematography to display. Yet, it's not faultless and there are some concerns worth noting. Sharpness and detail are generally satisfactory, as the picture can occasionally boast nice depth to the image.
Problems do arise, especially early on. Print flaws really show up during the first half of the movie, as several scenes early on displayed a considerable amount of little specks and marks. The second half seemed cleaner, but still did show some minor flecks and specks. Grain was also apparent during several scenes. A few light instances of pixelation and were seen, but thankfully, the film seemed entirely free of any edge enhancement or other problems.
Colors looked terrific throughout. The neon colors of the club and the film's color palette in general seemed rich and vibrant, appearing well-saturated and without any smearing here. Black level was also strong, while flesh tones were accurate and natural. Not without some blemishes, but this is a nice transfer overall.
SOUND: The film is presented here in Dolby Digital 5.1, but there's little envelopment offered by the rear speakers. The film is mainly a front-heavy audio experience, focusing on the music and dialogue. What little the surrounds do offer is some reverb of the music and the occasional very light ambience (the sounds of, like, 3 people clapping in the audience). Audio quality seemed a bit subpar, as the music sounded rather flat, as did the few sound effects. Dialogue came through clearly and crisply, though.
MENUS:: Slightly animated main menu with animated transitions to sub-menus.
EXTRAS::
Strip Notes: This is an hour-long documentary done by Darryl Hannah that focuses on the actual research that the actress did about strip clubs. It includes a good deal of actual backstage footage at these kind of clubs as well as some rehersal footage of Hannah at work. The documentary shows how these clubs operate - there's a lot of money, a lot of eye candy and the occasional tense moments. Aside from the rehearsals, we also see more about how the actresses improvised and worked on their characters. It's a fairly interesting documentary, certainly more interesting than the film itself. The only problem is that the image quality is so-so, with some pixelation and an overall "digital" appearance.
Commentaries: There are two commentary tracks included, one with actors Sheila Kelly, Sandra Oh and Robert Wisdom. This is a decent, subdued track that provides a good amount of detail about the film's improvisational process and what it was like working with the other actors on a low-budget. The other track is a commentary from director Michael Radford, which further details the improvisational process and what it was like working on the script, as well as some technical and production comments.
also: 9 deleted scenes.
Final Thoughts: "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" did have an interesting production process with its improvisational nature, but the results are extremely dissapointing. It's a movie that doesn't have engaging characters, but does have weak writing and a running time that is horribly overlong. TVA's DVD does offer fairly good audio/video quality and way more supplements than I'd expect for a film like this, but I still can't recommend it as anything more than a rental, tops. This is the Canadian release of the DVD - a US version from Trimark will be available, but whether or not it will have the extras that this version does is unknown.
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