Lauren (Tripplehorn) makes out with her lover Rose (Hayek) in a limo and then eavesdrops jealously as Rose goes to have sex with movie producer Alex (Skarsgard) at the rear of his screening room between meetings. Alex's wife (Burrows) announces she's leaving him, breaks down in a women's room, then walks home with a cocaine-sniffing actress friend and may later have sex with her. Drunken Alex laughs as various people pitch movie projects, and puts off Rose when she requests an audition. Another director says she'd be perfect for his project, and she excitedly calls Lauren, who is still steaming with jealousy. Holly Hunter, Kyle McLachlan, Glenne Headly, and Julian Sands turn up in cameos. The plot of this film is fairly stupid and forgettable (there's even a hokey earthquake sequence); what's memorable is that its entire 97 minutes was shot in one basically continuous sequence, by four cameras rolling simultaneously at different locations (mostly on the 8800 block of West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood), which run continuously on screen and have occasionally overlapping action. Writer-director Figgis, who made "Leaving Las Vegas," concocted a bare-bones plot, let the actors improvise much of their dialogue and action, ran them through the entire sequence 15 times over 2 weeks, and released the 15th "take." The result is a technical -- and to a lesser extent, acting -- tour-de-force that only partially and fitfully works as meaningful drama.
Click here to see the rest of this review...
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
