Malibu Eyes
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: D Main Program: C-
Films about sexual obsession and anxiety have sometimes
been successful, but in a more sexually explicit time like that in which we
live, it is not as easy to pull off.
Writer/producer/director Norman Ollestar tries such a thing with Malibu
Eyes (2004), which does this on tape and throws in some of Steven
Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies & Videotape, but lands up looking like a bad
amateur XXX film.
The story had the chance to bring this above that, dealing
with one young woman’s voyeurism, but the narrative never develops the
characters, and the situation of why Hannah (Courtney Cole) is alone to begin
with is never convincing. What’s worse,
all the sexual scenes are shot as badly as amateur and professional taped
hardcore taping, which means flat, formless, and with a laughable
predictability that hardcore customers expect.
This film is trying to be some challenging art housework, but it can
forget it.
The result is that nothing here is very erotic or
interesting. The character motivations,
for whatever is developed of character here, is either back-stabbing or more
voyeurism and some scenes cannot decide if they are fantasy or reality scenes
of intimacy. The actors are not bad
looking, but the acting is limited, furthering its inability to break away from
the regressive images of human sexuality it thinks it is above.
The letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image is fair, but nothing too
impressive, trying to look amateur to the point of faux “record” signs in the
upper left hand corner. The simple
stereo has been remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, but all it does is spread
the flatness. I guess that could
describe the dullness of the sex scene here.
The only extra is a trailer, which shows you just about everything you
need to see in the short 82 minutes this runs.
- Nicholas Sheffo
