Variety

This movie was horrible. The description has nothing to do with what happens in this movie. The critical reviews just prove that critics have no taste. This movie is slow paced and goes no where. 80% of the movie is her following a guy around that bought her coke at the * theatre she works at. The rest of the movie is disjointed discussions with her boyfriend or her selling tickets at the theatre. If you like really slow go nowhere movies that are the quality of a movie recorded from TV on your VHS player then this movie is for you. If you are looking for something with a good story, good acting or semi erotic (like this is advertised as) then look else where.

When adult theaters such as the one profiled in this film were prolific, feminist activists would lead tours of Times Square to bring attention to their cause. The main character's regular and extensive swimming exercise is a good analogy for the pace of the film. Steady, slow, heavy. One amusing note, when our heroine follows her mystery man who has just taken a cab, she jumps into another cab, the sax is on the soundtrack, no dialouge, but you can read her lips: "Follow that Cab!" It's also ironic that she follows him to the Fulton Street Fish Market, which in real life became the focus of an extensive organized crime probe.

The combination of Kathy Acker as writer and Bette Gordon as director should have signaled a potent brew, but sadly what we get here is a brilliant idea cut down savagely by the film's low-budget budget. Tracing the seedy, crime-ridden * theater world of Times Square in the early 80s from a what was a post-feminist perspective should have pushed the boundaries of what could be explored in feminist cinema but here the effect is to disengage the viewer from the convoluted action. Every technical aspect from the sound to the acting feels shabby and weak and frankly underwhelming but there is an underground post-Factory (Warhol not WalMart) passion at work that just about saves this oddity. Acker's polemical script presents feminist intervention/investment in the patriarchal world of * with some gusto and ambiguity at times but eventually the direction dilutes itself in a haze of revisionist sexual politics, thanks to the inconsequential scripting and unfocused lensing.

I understand the feminist perspective in this film, but since it's virtually plotless and entirely too long, it ends up being a snooze fest. Scenes in which nothing happens go on for five minutes or longer. Some of the camera work is good, and it's interesting to see the old trashy Times Square of the 80's. But if this is supposed to be a message film, it's too static and boring to make the audience receptive.

Bette Gordon's independent psychological thriller, written by feminist superheroine Kathy Acker, is a stunning noir experiment set in the sex shops of 1983 Times Square. A signifcant film about sexual difference, desire, and gaze. Watch it. And be sure to pay attention to the scenery of 1983 Times Square. It's a different world, aeons ago.

If you only like marvel movies dont bother watching this classic.. you wont get it. The director does a fantastic job showcasing the filth and grime of N. Y. C. In the 1980's. Also if you need your hand held and must have everything explained to you dont watch this film. Do watch this film if you enjoy stories about the dark underbelly of society and descents into madness. I really like it . The film held my interest right to the end and keep me thinking about the film for some time after viewing it.

There is no doubt that feminism is what holds this movie together. Bette Gordon made this movie in the height of the feminist debate over *. She doesn't endorse or condemn * in this movie. "Variety" depicts a woman who uses * as a tool of self-exploration. The movie is also a spoof of film noir. Gordon has fun with the genre by changing the sex of the main character to female. She lets her heroine play the amateur sleuth, which is traditionally a male character. Unlike many genre movies in which women are terrorized, there is no victim in "Variety." Gordon contends that * doesn't necessarily make women victims. It is so refreshing that Gordon never puts her heroine at the site of male violence. Gordon succeeds in keeping the viewer in suspense till the very end of the movie.