Linkshoch Wonderful Movie

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

tbyrne369 Absolutely god-awful exploitation film is something of a rape/revenge story with a woeful lack of attention to the "revenge" part. The movie instead focuses on the rape of a lipstick model by a weirdo music teacher and no one believing that she was raped. It holds your attention because you want so badly to see the rapist scumbag get his just desserts. The worst part is that because the victim was a lipstick model who sometimes posed half-naked the rapists' lawyer drags out all these seductive ads she did and badgers her on the witness stand about her "wanting it". It's repulsive. Unfortunately, I'm sure this kind of stuff happens in real life. Chris Sarandon is excellent as the rapist creep (it's hard to believe he also played Al Pacino's transvestite lover in Dog Day Afternoon), Margeaux Hemingway is ok as the victim. Not great. Just passable. Young Mariel Hemingway is excellent playing real-life sister Margeaux's sister in the movie. This is one of those movies that could only have been made in the 1970s, a decade rife with cynicism and a total lack of nostalgia. People would actually go and see movies like this in a theater, which seems extremely odd today.

Dave_Violence ***Spoilers*** The general plot of "Lipstick" is typical fare for an episode of "Law and Order: SVU" - and it could be done, just take out the profanity and breasts.I saw "Lipstick" last night. I remember when it came out, and it being an "R" and me being 13, no way would I see it. My parents, after reading the poor reviews, had no interest in seeing it, either.So finally, the wife rents it - she'd not seen it either when it was released, but remembered it. Now, the blurb on the DVD envelope read as if this would have been a mediocre Law and Order episode. That, and just recalling the name of the film, there's a picture in my mind's eye of Margaux Hemingway holding a rifle.Too bad the film was marketed this way because it cheapened the product.This is a tense, psychological thriller; it's a great courtroom drama; and it's a showcase for great acting. The trial scenes and the pretrial work by Anne Bancroft as the District Attorney (or something - the prosecutor?) haven't been matched by Law and Order - yet. Chris Sarandon proves that he is an amazing actor. I don't know if I've hated an on-screen personality so much.And what an interesting character: not only does he have a sado-violent side, but he's an experimental musician - at a good time in history (the mid-1970's) as he'd be influenced by Can, Tangerine Dream, UK, Walter (not yet Wendy) Carlos, et al. And he's a tortured artist - so much so that he can't control it, etc., etc.The ending... Yes, the ending... That mental picture in my head - from some newspaper ad - is about half a second of the ending. This isn't about revenge, it's not about a woman who's had enough or is out for justice herself: it is about a woman who SPONTANEOUSLY does what needs to be done. It's the unexpected spontaneity of the act that takes what could have been a simply "vengence" movie and turns it into something as near=real as it can get. I'd compare the film with "Taxi Driver" though without the seediness (which was necessary to Taxi Driver).

MARIO GAUCI Manipulative drama about a glamorous model (Margaux Hemingway) who is raped by a geeky but unbalanced musician (Chris Sarandon) – to whom she had been introduced by her younger sister (played by real-life sibling Mariel), whose music teacher he is. While the central courtroom action holds the attention – thanks largely to a commanding performance by Anne Bancroft as Hemingway’s lawyer – the film is too often merely glossy, but also dramatically unconvincing: the jury ostensibly takes the musician’s side because a) the girl invited assault due to the sensuous nature of her profession and b) she was offering no resistance to her presumed aggressor when her sister arrived at the apartment and inadvertently saw the couple in bed together. What the f***?!; she was clearly tied up – what resistance could she realistically offer? The second half of the film – involving Sarandon’s rape of the sister, which curiously anticipates IRREVERSIBLE (2002) by occurring in a tunnel – is rather contrived: Mariel’s character should have known better than to trust Sarandon after what he did to her sister, but Margaux herself foolishly reprises the line of work which had indirectly led to her humiliating experience almost immediately! The climax – in which Sarandon gets his just desserts, with Margaux turning suddenly into a fearless and resourceful vigilante – is, however, a crowd-pleaser in the style of DEATH WISH (1974); incidentally, ubiquitous Italian movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis was behind both films.It’s worth noting how the two Hemingway sisters’ lives took wildly different turns (this was the film debut of both): Margaux’s career never took off (despite her undeniable good looks and commendable participation here) – while Mariel would soon receive an Oscar nomination for Woody Allen’s MANHATTAN (1979) and, interestingly, would herself play a glamorous victim of raging violence when essaying the role of real-life “Playboy” centerfold Dorothy Stratten in Bob Fosse’s STAR 80 (1983). With the added pressure of a couple of failed marriages, Margaux took refuge in alcohol and would eventually die of a drug overdose in 1996; chillingly, the Hemingway family had a history of suicides – notably the sisters’ grandfather, celebrated author Ernest, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1961.

loemoemba was the music.The same music which stands for the 9 out of 10.The composer - Michel Polnareff - was new in the US at that time but enormously appreciated in homeland France and most of Europe. He was a very successful singer/songwriter and had written music for numerous movies, many of these were hits.The music he specifically composed for "Lipstick" was a statement and I regret that it was not recognized as such.He still lives in the US and occasionally "comes back" to his fans who always were there waiting and until now were never disappointed.They are still hoping for a real true come back in good old France though.LOEMOEMBA