14 Ways to Wear Lipstick

Terrific film as the main character is drawn into the dark side of falling in (and out, and back in) love. Tired of a monotonous and passionless marriage, Carlo decides it's time to move on. Saying goodbye is never easy, so he perpetuates a facade of love, while wishing that his wife, Mary, would stop loving him. Mary is determined to make their relationship work. Domestic politics get thrown into uncharted territory after mysterious events call into question the very nature of their love. A bracing look at the point where unconditional love and deceitfulness meet - not to mention mafia hit men, Mexican soapstars, and seamstressing. What I like about this film is the honesty of the filmmaker to tell his story without trying at any time to please the audience or be commercial. It's an angry film, that mixes love, violence and cruelty, i a very unique way. But aren't most most relationships kind of like that anyway?

This movie is weird with a capital w. Surely the writer knew that no studio in their right mind would come anywhere near this mish-mash of mafia movie, sex movie, art movie, Pulp Fiction knockoff, and about every other movie that they ever saw. It certainly can't be seen as a calling card movie, as the only people calling after seeing this movie were people so confused that they wanted some straight answers from the director. That said, there is a certain charm to this movie. Why it sort of works is something of a mystery to me, but I have a couple of theories I've been kicking around. One theory is that the actress who plays Mary, the female lead, is beautiful and hypnotically attractive. Another is that the manic storytelling is downright charming in its amateurishness. The laws of reason are suspended when you watch this film, which is always good for a lark. Well, I don't know why I kind of liked this movie, but any film with a mob boss's gay son, a Mexican telenovela star, a lady who sues her dressmaker because she got raped in her dress, and a random swingers scene can't be all bad. 7/10