IMDB Rating: 2.5/10
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1:45
Cast
| Mickey Rourke | John Gray | |
| Agathe de La Fontaine | Claire | Angie Everhart | Lea Calot | Steven Berkoff | Vittorio DaSilva | Dougray Scott | Charlie | Werner Schreyer | Gilles | Faisal Attia | Drug Dealer #2 |
| Director: | Anne Goursaud | Writers: | Elizabeth McNeill (characters) |
| Mick Davis |
“Synopsis”:
John flies over to Paris to find out his girlfriend Elizabeth. He finds a mysterious fashion designer named Lea and her assistant Claire, and it turns out that Lea was Elizabeth's friend in Paris. Lea says to John that Elizabeth married and moved away. The passion starts to appear between John and Lea, when Lea's business partner Vittorio tells John another version of Elizabeth's fate.
From IMDB
What This Movie Was Actually About:
Hmm, well I don't know who wrote that plot summary for IMDB, but they clearly did not watch the same movie that I did. The best way I could describe Another Nine & a Half Weeks would be: Avante-garde softcore porn featuring Mickey Rourke.
I thought this movie wouldn't be that bad; it had several things going for it. First, Mickey Rourke is in it as the main character John Gray - not too shabby. When you combine that with the Mexecutioning abilities of Angie Everhart (Lea Calot) and a tit shot that comes a mere 2:47 into the movie, you have all the trappings of an epic tour de force. Sadly this was not the case.
The main problem with this movie is that it has absolutely no plot (maybe you would understand this movie if you had already seen 9 1/2 Weeks - I hadn't). Another Nine & a Half Weeks isn't so much a movie as it is a random collection of scenes of Mickey Rourke performing a series of increasingly awkward sex acts on Angie Everhart.
The movie starts off with Mickey Rourke caressing a woman's breast with a straight razor. Sounds awesome right? It was, but the movie got progressively worse from that point on. We then see a horse die for some reason and find out that Mickey Rourke has some infatuation with a lady by the name of Elizabeth McGraw. Throughout the entire movie he is trying to find her/find out what happened to her, but he doesn't try very hard and I'm still not sure what Elizabeth's relationship to Mickey Rourke was or why he was looking for her. The most information the audience ever gets about what is actually going on in the movie is this (skip to 3:25):
Seriously, that's all the information you ever get. So now that you've watched that, your understanding of this movie's plot is just as good as mine. Apparently Lea Calot was Elizabeth's best friend and she tells Mickey Rourke that Elizabeth got married and moved to Tangiers. Mickey Rourke is visibly upset by this and isn't sure whether or not he should believe it, but at the same time he doesn't seem to care that much and proceeds to nail Lea in various exotic locales for the next 45 minutes of the movie before he ever mentions Elizabeth again. About 3/4 of the way into the movie Lea's friend Vittorio (Steven Berkoff of Under The Cherry Moon fame) tells Mickey Rourke that Elizabeth died - again he doesn't seem to care all that much and sees this as an opportunity to fuck Angie Everhart some more. More awkward sex scenes follow, some girl named Claire gets punched in the face by some guy named Charlie, and after one final really awkward sex scene Mickey Rourke goes back to America. Roll credits.
2 Reasons This Movie Sucked
Reason #1:
This movie was directed by a woman.
See that picture? That's Angie Everhart, pretty nice eh? Well drink it in boys, 'cause you see more of her in that picture than you will throughout the entire duration of Another Nine & a Half Weeks.
Now what does this have to do with the fact that the movie was directed by a woman? Well, the problem isn't that Angie never gets naked in the movie. In fact, she gets naked all the time. The problem is that her body is constantly obscured by either some perfectly placed object or shitty directing. The entire movie is very poorly lit and thus you never get a decent view of Angie's goods. And that is why women should not direct movies.
I'm sure director Anne Goursaud is able to masturbate to Another Nine & a Half Weeks. It's "seductive" and "sensual" which are the last two words I would ever use to describe something I jack off to, but women go apeshit over that kind of stuff. Since women are largely talentless, when they want to convey that something is sexy or sensual they usually just don't show anything due to their asinine belief that implying sex is more erotic than showing it outright. Every time we should be getting a glorious view of some chick's dangly bits we are instead left squinting at the screen asking ourselves "was that a nipple?" It's just painful. Had this movie been directed by a man, it would have been much better. I wish Michael Bay had directed this movie. If Mike Bay had directed this movie, you can damn sure bet that we would have gotten a brightly-lit, screen-filling shot of Everhart's cans. The deleted scenes would include a clitoral close up that was glistening with passionate, computer-generated fluids - but let's not lament over what could have been.
To her credit, however, Ms. Goursaud achieved two major feats with her "directing" and in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due I feel I must share them with you:
- Anne Goursaud's Directing Accomplishments In Another Nine & a Half Weeks
- The First Reverse Strip-Tease In Cinematic History.
I shit you not. There is a scene where Angie Everhart starts out naked and via some weird reverse strip-tease routine ends the scene dressed head to toe in Mickey Rourke's clothing. Even though the scene begins with her being naked, Anne Goursaud still finds a way to not let us see her nipples. It's quite ingenious.
- Making Me Wish A Movie Had Been Directed By Michael Bay
- The First Reverse Strip-Tease In Cinematic History.
Awkward Sex Scenes
Although this is closely tied to Reason #1, I feel it merits its own section and will only further support the fact that women should not direct movies.
Scene Breakdown:
There is one scene that truly displays both the awkwardness of the sex scenes and the shittiness of the directing in Another Nine & a Half Weeks. Rather than post a video, I've taken it upon myself to excerpt just four frames that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Anne Goursaud doesn't know what the fuck she is doing (excuse the poor quality and darkness of these pictures, that's how Anne Goursaud chose to shoot this and every other scene in the movie).
Exhibit A:
The scene starts off with Mickey Rourke showering Angie Everhart with lawn clippings. No, not just rose petals, lawn clippings. There are leaves, twigs, and possibly some grass in there as well. If you can't tell what's going on in this picture (and I'm sure you can't) Mickey Rourke is rubbing Angie's leg with a twig. Not exactly what I would call erotic, but hey, maybe that's just me. Maybe it's a completely new style that I just don't know about.
Exhibit B:
After about a minute or so of Mickey Rourke stroking Angie's poorly-lit goodness, we see this. It's too dark to tell, but I'm almost certain that the tuft of hair on the left part of the still is Everhart's bronze muff and Rourke is all up in that shit. Normally I would be ok with this, but Rourke doesn't ask for anything in return after braving her burgundy forest and that's both awkward and unrealistic. If I hadn't already told you, this would definitely tip you off to the fact that a woman directed this movie.
Exhibit C:
After The Wrestler gets his floss on, he begins to gleefully pour what appears to be Brer Rabbit Pure All-Natural Molasses all over her body. That's weird. Women might think it's erotic, but I as a man find it disgusting. I would never ruin my sheets just to get a lady's rocks off. But hey, that's women for you. A woman's idea of sexy is to have a man throw money away on her. I suppose one way of doing that would be for a man to destroy some 1000 thread count sheets just to give his lady an orgasm.
Exhibit D:
If all that wasn't enough, just when she is at the height of ecstasy, Angie starts sobbing. Uhhh, what? What is the audience's intended response to a scene such as this? Don't get me wrong, like any other red-blooded American man I try to incorporate tears into my sex life as often as possible but this scene makes absolutely no sense to me.
And that's not even the most awkward sex scene in the movie.
2 Things I Liked About This Movie
Thing #1:
Mickey Rourke constantly smoking.
Gotta love it when there is an actor who smokes in real life and decides that their character should be a smoker so they don't have to put out their cigarette when it's time to start filming.
Thing #2:
The Pure Moods-esque soundtrack that you've been listening to.
The Point At Which Most People Would Stop Watching:
It's very hard to pinpoint the particular moment at which someone would stop watching it. There isn't any one part that is worse than another. I think most people would stop watching this movie roughly around the 45 minute mark when they realize that they still don't know what the movie is about.
My Rating:
Meh. I wouldn't really consider this that bad of a movie, but then again I also wouldn't really consider it a movie. It has no narrative but it does have some nudity and therefore I can't hate on it too much. Mickey Rourke did a decent job with what he was given. I don't think this movie really belongs in the bottom 100. Although it's not good, it could have been much worse (see: Forgetting Sarah Marshall). This movie is probably only in the bottom 100 because apparently it's predecessor, 9 1/2 Weeks, is pretty highly regarded and people expected more out of its sequel. Well, that's no reason to give it such a low rating. Just because Carnosaur 2 wasn't as good as Carnosaur doesn't make it one of the worst movies of all time.