Great Film overall

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The Life is one of the most inexplicable films I've ever watched. I not only can't imagine what the filmmakers were trying to do, I can't understand how they thought what they did do made any sense at all.This is a movie about whoredom and all its many flavors. It's about 65% documentary (or pseudo-documentary) and 35% fictional story. The alleged documentary footage is of prostitutes, man-whores, johns, pimps, madams, porn stars and porn directors. The fictional story is about Rebecca (Denise Richards), a college student going for her PHD who's running out of money when she discovers her neighbor, Adriana (Daryl Hannah), is a prostitute and considers that line of work as a way to solve her financial problems.I'm not entirely sure the documentary stuff is on the up and up because while it looks and sounds like the real stories of real sex workers, why in the world would you take those revealing and disturbing words and splice them together with a generic sex thriller you can find on late night cable? The film also seems to sometimes be oblivious or indifferent to how sad and pathetic most of the whores, whore-users and whoremongers it features, yet at other times seems to be self-consciously exploiting them. We hear awful stories about the lives of prostitutes but we also get lots of naked women on screen in deliberately provocative poses. If I had to bet, I'd say that it is real documentary interviews, just with a lot of show biz slathered over them.I think that because the supposed whores who talk about themselves and their business are mostly unattractive skanks. The few johns interviewed all appear genuinely socially inept and the porno folks spotlighted are just sleazy enough, but not so screwed up that you can't understand how they get through the day. If those folks are actors, they all deserve Academy Awards.The story of Rebecca and Adriana, as I mentioned, is like one of those late night Skinemax movies that everybody knows about but no one ever admits to watching, except it's shrunk down to about 30 minutes long and neither Hannah or Richards gets nude. It's impossible for me to conceive of what the filmmakers thought it was going to add to the film. It's not even like Richards and Hannah are big enough stars that putting them on the DVD cover, which they are, is going to drum up any significant sales.This film does have a lot of arty editing throughout it - images morphing into each other, the whores and others are interviewed in front of a green screen and different backgrounds are thrown up behind them, the interviews and intercut as though the prostitutes were talking to each other - but these techniques are used over and over and over. What was sort of interesting the first time is boring by the 5th time.I'm not sure why anyone would want to make a film like this or why anyone would want to watch it. It doesn't tell you anything about prostitution that dozens of TV news segments haven't before, it has no real point of view or perspective on whoring that it wants to share with the audience and the fictional portions are empty of any possible entertainment.But I guess if you want to see some skanky ho's and point and laugh at Denise Richards as she tries to pass herself off as a 24 year old student going for her doctorate in anthropology, this is the only movie I know of where you can do both.

Still not sure what it exactly was that I just watched here. This is a strange mix of documentary and a scripted plot, featuring both actors and real prostitutes.Exactly what does the movie try to achieve? What is its message? Does it just try to give us a view into the world of porn and prostitution? If so, than what is the point of it, since this movie shows and tells very little new or interesting. It's filled with interviews that just becomes too much of the same after a while. Even though the movie is only 87 minutes short, it feels much longer.The movie feels like a rather weird and failed experiment to mixes documentary with a scripted story and characters. The movie is made in documentary style mostly but the style, scripted situations and actors makes the whole movie feel rather artificial. A weird and failed fusion of fact and fiction.Especially the style was a problem to me. Fast, pointless cuts but the weirdest thing to watch, was that the backgrounds, during the interviews, were all obviously added later to the movie. The movie tries to be style full and beautiful but it just isn't. It instead is fake looking and for most part the style seems pointless and overdone.Also a big problem is, that the movie just isn't interesting to watch. The movie doesn't say or show anything new or refreshing and even those who are interested in the subject will find very little to enjoy in this movie. It makes the movie very tiresome and boring to watch, already after the a couple of minutes.The 'plotline' featuring Denise Richards and Daryl Hannah is like the entire movie; pointless and boring. Amazing to see that two professional actors lend their talents for such a production. Joaquim de Almeida also shows up in the movie. I'll bet they all thought they were making something refreshing and revolutionary here...Avoid. That's the best and most sensible thing I can say about this movie.3/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

I saw this on Showtime, just before the 147th showing of Spidergirl.This gives you an idea of what we're talking about here. T&A between interviews of Ho's Pimps and Gigolos from the legal trade.OK in the beginning they all talk like it's their choice and what they want. By the end they're whining about wanting to get out and have a normal family with kids and all that. Right down to the interview with the faceless Russian mobster talking about force, violence and keeping the passports to keep the girls working for them. All pure stereotype and nothing we haven't seen better before by real documentaries. Oh except they have flashy sexy sets from inside tacky euro-trash whorehouses complete with the red satin and mirrors.Denise Richards and Darryl Hannah provide the titillation to keep the viewer interested with one of those horribly lame plots like you get in soft core porn like the Red Shoe Diaries.A long time ago Umberto Eco wrote an essay on how to tell if you're watching a porno film. If the drive to the house takes way too long as a setup ... ie. if the fluff is just to fill time then that's what you got.Not the worst ... by far ... of porn producers trying to justify themselves.Personally Spiderbabe was much better.

Many things could be said about this film - misleading, clichéd, style over substance, but in the end the most important aspect plays the decisive role: this film is boring.The authors decided to present the film as a pseudo-documentary, but instead the viewer is subjected to seeing poorly acted commentary dialogue about prostitution over and over again. Maybe that would be interesting if the commentary itself had at least a spark of originality, alas... Person after person, every participant in this unwatchable boring mess says nothing but stereotypical b.s. It is almost as if the filmmakers made their product for someone from Mars - someone who has never seen or even heard of a prostitute in their entire life!Oh, there is also Denise Richards in this movie. Yes. We all know that Denise Richards adds credibility to any movie! Seriously though, Richards and Daryl Hannah are in this film, but why they are here is anyone's guess. Their scenes could be easily taken out - they are not important. Well, in fact, the whole film is not important - just skip it altogether and watch something else.