Tags
Language
Tags
March 2024
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
25 26 27 28 29 1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31 1 2 3 4 5 6

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

Posted By: Someonelse
Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)
DVD9 untouched | NTSC 4:3 (720 x 480) | AC3 5.1 @ 384 Kbps | AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps | 02:03:27 | 7,92 Gb
Lang: English | Subs: English, Spanish
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Exploitation | 2 wins & 1 nomination | USA

Angel is a dancer wishing to adopt a child. Stormy is a dancer with a secret with her brother Sully. Jasmine is a poetess who fells in love with Dennis. Jo is a dancer who became pregnant and Jessie is a woman fighting to survive in Hollywood. The link between them is the fact that they dance at Blue Iguana, a strip-club managed by Eddie. Their personal dramas are the theme of this movie.

IMDB

All screenshots are enlargable.

The San Fernando Valley watering hole at the center of Michael Radford's moody film ''Dancing at the Blue Iguana'' is a strip club in which the bare-breasted dancers writhe and slither to the ominous drone of Leonard Cohen singing ''Dance Me to the End of Love.'' That may not be the sort of music you would expect to hear in such a place. But then the Blue Iguana isn't just any old West Coast fleshpot but a microcosm of this sad, lonely world and its lost female souls who cater to male lust.

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

An ensemble piece developed from an improvisational workshop, the movie exudes a haunted melancholy that recalls such early Alan Rudolph films as ''Choose Me'' and ''Welcome to L.A,'' and it includes several flashy performances. Somewhat confusingly, its close-up shots of its undressed stars sliding down poles and teasing their ringside customers infuse the movie with a current of soft-core titillation.
Although ''Dancing at the Blue Iguana'' interweaves the stories of a half-dozen strippers and some of the men in their lives, three characters stand out. Angel (Daryl Hannah) is a sweet, dim-witted child-woman whose dream in life is to adopt a child. And the scenes of an interview in which Angel is utterly clueless as to how to behave play almost as comedy. Angel also harbors schoolgirl daydreams that appear to come true when she begins receiving extravagant backstage gifts from an anonymous admirer who eventually shows up at the club.
At the high end of the intelligence spectrum is Jasmine (Sandra Oh), who leads a double life. Underneath the cynical, hard-edged surface she presents at work, she is a romantic poet who steals off to a library to attend readings organized by Dennis (Chris Hogan), a literary type who treats her with respect and admires her talent. Then there is angry, bisexual Jo (Jennifer Tilly), who dances like a hopped-up rodeo rider and channels some of her rage into a sideline as a dominatrix.

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

More than anything, ''Dancing at the Blue Iguana'' is an acting showcase that allows its stars to strut their emotional range. If Angel is another one of Ms. Hannah's grown-up baby-doll roles, the actress invests the character with moments of real pathos. Ms. Oh and Ms. Tilly make the most of their opportunities to explore the vulnerability below their characters' hard-edged surfaces. But the movie's driving notion – that these lonely dreamers are too damaged by their work to leave the Blue Iguana of their own volition – has a falsely sentimental ring. At a certain point, the pity the movie lavishes on the dancers starts shading into condescension
Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

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".

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

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.

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

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?"

Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

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".
IMDB Reviewer
Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000)

Download:




Interchangable links.

No More Mirrors.