martyminnich

Jezebel's Kiss (1990)

A Hopefully Humorous, but Truthful, Dissing of the "Movie"

I bumped into the last 45 minutes or so of this show on a local TV station while channel surfing after yesterday's (1/6/01) football games. I stopped to see the end of the film since, when I clicked in, I saw on screen a beautiful ingenue (Kath Barrese) and one of my favorite actors (Malcolm McDowell), so I figured it had to be worth a look.

Alas, no. With a cast like McDowell, Meredith Baxter and Meg Foster, this movie had the potential to be good. It was apparently defeated by the scripting and, most importantly, the direction.

There was no particular meaning to the story line that I could see, except perhaps that people who live in small seaside towns shouldn't drink too much. And the direction was so boring and choppy (even allowing for some apparent editing for TV, since it appeared that Ms. Barrese did at least one scene in the part I saw without the requisite minimum coverage) that the only reasons I stayed on channel was to see just how bad the movie could be, and to see a little more of Ms. Barrese. One might say that the only two worthwhile attributes in the movie were, in fact, Katherine Barrese.

Every actor plowed through their lines as if they were automatons, which I believe must have been the effect the director wanted to achieve (as I know McDowell is anything but an automaton). And the characters' behaviours and interactions were inconsistent to the point of distraction. Additionally, rather than following the famous "W" formula (good times, followed by bad times, rising back to good times, dropping again, etc) to maintain viewer interest and excitement, the last half of this show at least was constantly "down". I believe the director was trying to instill a feeling of hopelessness; if so, he succeeded, since this movie is quite hopeless.

Good Grief, even the film stock the movie was shot on was grainy and de-focused! And the character development, besides being inconsistent, made them ALL seem like they were zombies made of cardboard! By the time I saw 10 minutes of the movie, I really didn't care WHAT happened to any of the characters.

I think this movie may be rated "R" for excessive boredom. You may feel the urge to go rent it (assuming you can FIND it anywhere; it's probably not popular enough to be stocked in any but the largest rental parlors), to see if Ms. Barrese does indeed do any interesting nude scenes. I recommend you resist that urge with all your moral fortitude; your money would be much better spent on "X-Men" trading cards or some such. But if you must do so, then at least find some discount place where you can get it for 99 cents (plus tax, of course). For even at that price, you will have spent more than 50 times the value of the viewing; I don't consider this movie worth 2 cents.