After Fall, Winter

If all of the other reviewers on this site watched the same "After Fall, Winter" that I did. All of these stars and all of these gushing reviews feel like deck-stacking on the part of the filmmaker and his friends, and this phenomenon seems to follow Eric Schaeffer wherever he goes. He is like a male Bebe Buell in that regard. This particular group of reviews reeks of this tactic; all of them rave extensively over the movie but reveal no plot points and devote most of their text to praising Mr. Schaeffer.

I rented this movie because I'm a BDSM person, and on that level this picture is profoundly insulting. Without revealing any specific plot points, I will only remark that as a long-term dominatrix, I was deeply offended by the implication that one of my fellow older pros would ever, ever refer a client to a fellow practitioner with whom she felt he would not be safe, no matter how much he begged to be referred to such a person.

Another thing that leads me to suspect that these reviews are ringers is that none of them specifically praise the only person who seemed to be trying to bring this often-implausible script to sincere life - the lead actress, Lizzie Brochere. The only pleasure I was able to derive from this depressing, insulting film occurred when she was on screen. I feel like she really tried to make a decent movie that would be watchable for people other than Eric Schaeffer's friends but was subverted from that end time and time again by Mr. Schaeffer's colossal overestimation of his own ability to arouse sympathy and interest.