Femme Fatales

I've watched three episodes of this so far and have become a fan.

As someone who is tired of reality crap and the same stale, safe plot formulas playing out on network and cable (please kill me before I watch yet another cop/CSI show), "FF" takes a collection of familiar elements and tosses them in a pop culture mix master set to high. Yeah, it's corny at times, but it's also alternately funny, suspenseful, sexy, smart and scary — all depending on the episode.

There are a lot of "grindhouse" elements here but without the gore or general "torture porn" mood of that genre. And while "Skinamax" fans are offered plenty of eye candy, the female characters are never debased or pointlessly exploited, and generally have the upper hand in the end. Yes, the femme fatales are the stars of "FF."

The most recent episode, "Something Like Murder" offers the most traditional "film noir" style of the show so far. And while it depends heavily on familiar characters — the plot was pretty clever, and the cast game. Dialoge-wise, it reminded of what Pauline Kael said about the modern noir classic "Body Heat": "Sounds like the characters have been boning up on Chandler novels." But is that so wrong? Just a wink and a nod to the source material inspirations.

I'm not sure where "FF" is going, but I'll stay along for the ride.

Just got Femme Fatales Season 1 and 2 with a Christmas gift card for myself and loved them. I don't have Cinemax so I never saw any episodes on TV but I did see a panel at San Diego and thought the show looked really cool and the women talked about how empowering it was for female characters which is something I like to see. I was not disappointed. While there were one or two clunkers, most of the episodes were terrific and it only got better as it went on. I also thought the special features were really good. There's a very funny blooper real and some great deleted scenes and behind the scenes material. All in all, I really recommend this show and thought it was very smart and sexy and the DVD is just as good with a lot of extra stuff that helps give insight into the episodes. I especially enjoyed the commentary with the girls talking about the episodes they're in. What I think is great about this show is you don't know what to expect. Just like The Twilight Zone or Tales From The Crypt or even Tales from The Darkside, each episode is it's own story so it's different. One can be a mystery, a sci-fi, grindhouse and most have some of my favorite cult actors. Early 1st season was Robert Lasardo, the guy whose head gets cut off in Death Race. He's great as a gangbanger who takes a hostage at the local hospital. Also Charlie O'Connell plays a sleazy video promoter who gets his due in another one of my favorites from the first season. Second year is even more consistent in terms of quality but each feels very different. I can't recommend this show enough. It isn't a dark brooding study of the human condition, but rather a fun, pulp show that's well written, acted and is incredibly entertaining.

Femme Fatales is a truly great anthology series and I'm not sure why it's not getting all the love it deserves. I've never seen an anthology show done quite this well before since The Twilight Zone...and that includes The Outer Limits, new and old. If you can imagine a sexy version of the Twilight Zone mashing up different genres with a sultry host and cool characters, then you have some idea of the show "Femme Fatales." There are great special appearances by cult stars such as, Agnus Scrimm & Paul Mazursky, to name some of my favorites. The other thing that deserves a shout-out is the cast. The acting is terrific and the "femme fatales" usually aren't only smoldering, but they're also really good actresses as well. Femme Fatales is way more edgy and entertaining than previous stabs at doing anthologies in the last few years, like Masters of Horror and Fear Itself, which I wanted to love, but kinda blew. For example, "Behind Locked Doors" is a woman in prison romp reminiscing 70's exploitation and grindhouse. "Something Like Murder" is an old school sexy noir. "Haunted" is a straight up horror episode in the realm of Paranormal State type shows. "Help Me Rhonda" is a home invasion thriller and a sort of prequel to "Behind Locked Doors" which I've never seen done in anthology before where episodes actually connect to each other even though they're different stories. "Speed Date" is a hilarious action comedy. "Girls Gone Dead" is a sex charged revenge episode. Seeing how they tackled all the different genres this season, I can't wait to see what they do with season 2. The one thing I've come to expect with "Femme Fatales," is expect the unexpected.

This might sound nuts to you, but with no Mad Men on TV this summer, my favorite television show right now is a little late night guilty pleasure called Femme Fatales. I know, I'm shocked too. But after seeing a few commercials on Cinemax after a movie I was watching, I thought I'd hit the record button on my DVR and check it out when I was really, really bored when my girlfriend wasn't around. Last night, I ended up starting the first one and watched all three ofthe first episodes and I didn't just like it, I loved it. There's a lot sex but the stories are so interesting and completely different from anything else on TV that I wondered if I was crazy so I actually sat down and showed a few minutes to my girlfriend and I ended up watching all three again with her who liked it as much as I did. The acting across the board was great. I really liked the lead in the premiere and in the second one, the guy I loved in Niptuck was in it and he was great. I almost spit out my soda when he started quoting lines from White Heat which is probably when I realized there was something a tad subversive about this show which I thought was just some late night stroke show and turned out to be something else entirely. So far, none of the three episodes I watched had anything to do with each other which kept me surprised since I didn't know what to expect. And in last night's episode there was girl that I thought was one of the most stunning women I ever saw on TV, the blonde who kills her husband. This is not the kind of show I would have expected to like or even watch but I will definitely be watching from now on and if you happen to be reading this and don't know if it is for you, I would say give it a chance because it's a pretty smart, hip, fairly subversive little show. Who knew?

It's always nice to see more anthology shows on TV. Femme Fatales is probably the first erotica/crime anthology show since The Hitchhiker.

Femme Fatales shares The Hitchhiker's wildly uneven nature, as it luxuriates in gunplay, murder, and exploitation of women, all while trying to give lectures on violence and the exploitation of women (see the "Girls Gone Dead" slam with Charlie O'Connell pitch-perfect as the sleazy producer). The main difference between the two shows is the adrenaline jolts of humor and pure insanity which kept The Hitchhiker going. Femme Fatales usually takes itself very seriously, and often seems very flat, in everything from lighting to acting. It's half-baked noir. Worst of all is they continue to have a host who can barely read her lines and who was presumably hired solely for a British accent and for her large breasts. Imagine Alfred Hitchcock Presents hosted by the local sweater girl.

When you watch old Hitchhiker episodes, you can ogle the absurd fashions, hairstyles, pulsing synthesizers, and general paranoid cocaine blindness which makes up so much of 1980's TV. You get an extra kick from nostalgia. You don't get that with Femme Fatales. The show represents the directionless blandness of so much of today's pop culture.