AMY'S ORGASM
Rating out of 4 stars: 2.5 Reviewed by Harvey Karten Magic Lamp Releasing Director: Julie Davis Writer: Julie Davis Cast: Julie Davis, Nick Chinlund, Jeff Cesario, Mitchell Whitfield, Jennifer Bransford, Caroline Aaron, Mark Brown Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 8/19/02
Self-help books seems always to be on the top of nonfiction best-seller lists, read presumably by people who don't feel like shelling out $150 an hour for psychoanalysis. Do they work? Some swear by them, others say either no way or accuse the writers of being hypocrites. "Amy's Orgasm" is a short, slight bit of fluff which develops only the title character, an entertaining feature but one lacking in originality and trying its best to fill out its brief 85 minutes with a one-joke premise. Its success as a picture depends wholly on Julie Davis, who is its eponymous star, its writer and its director and whose previous low-budget pic, "I Love You, Don't Touch Me!" appears missing from Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide.
Thematically, Davis's discourse will be appreciated most by men and women who believe that the ultra-feminist notion "you can be complete without men in your life" is not only baloney but a hypocritical stance by authors and spokespersons seeking fame, publicity, money and stature. Celebrated 29-year-old author Amy (Julie Davis) is certainly reveling in fame and fortune, besieged by autograph seekers and interview programs to such an extent that her publicist, Janet (Caroline Aaron), considers Amy to be her full-time job. When Amy, who admittedly has not had sex in four years and is not particularly pleased about her condition winds up dating a Howard-Stern type radio commentator who usually raps to women only about t&a, she becomes convinced that everything she has written is a lie. Off screen Matthew Starr (Nick Chinlund) is nothing like his on the air character and, in fact, likes chamber music concerts more than exhibitions at the local strip parlor. When Amy falls in love with him and he, cautious that he may about admitting it, digs her, both characters reach new epiphanies.
While women are still from Venus and men from Mars as shown by a subplot involving Amy's favorite pals Don (Mitchell Whitfield) and Elizabeth (Jennifer Bransford)--Davis appears to believe that the planets can meet up and be all the better for it.
Sitcomish to a fault albeit more risque than the shows you'll find even on afternoon soaps "Amy's Orgasm" has the now- almost-obligatory ribbing of the Catholic Church, with a not-so- neutral priest (Jeff Cesario) listening to and getting turned on by the Jewish woman's confessions regular confessions. The pace is mach 2, making up in part for its shallow exploration with breakneck speed. Davis also throws in the usual silly-parents motif and ties up loose ends just fine, leaving the audience with a smile and, a few hours later the query, "What was that movie we saw tonight?"
Rated R. Running time: 85 minutes. (C) 2002 by Harvey Karten, harveycritic@cs.com
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