videorama-759-859391
I love low budget films that pay off and are very entertaining, especially Indie ones. Take Clerks as one example. Director Rifkin, is a very interesting movie maker. Just go back The Dark Backward- original genius, or Look, which had some very disturbing and realistic themes, like this one. At the end, of this 90 minute viewing, you feel like you've been slapped around the face a few times. Speaking of slapping: Vinnie Jones's performance here as a brutal and uncompromising pimp, who lures really young girls off the bus, with dreams of stardom, then turns them out on the street, is electric, playing one of the most scariest pimps I've seen, and I've seen a few. Another great pimp playing performance was that of Brian Tarantina in the little but potent straight to video drama, Runaway Dreams. Jones also plays the charm of the pimp, wonderfuly. ANATGE takes place in a run down, but kind of legendary old hotel, that caters for a lot of tricks, a few old people, ex cons, and we see at first sight, how pimps, pros work it, but too as people, we get underneath the characters, and see them as real people. Ann Marguson (Panic Room) is great as the worn hooker who really puts so much into her character, her and Jones really shine in this, while American Pie's Lyonne, really shows us, she can really act, and act up a storm she does. To say there's bad acting in this film, truly warrants 50 floggings. Newbie, Nicole Jacobs (what happened to her) with her fresh hot fifteen old looks, and fresh off the bus, completes the talent chain of great acting, for she really shines as Lorrianne, pimp Rodan's (Jones) newest profitable discovery, and he's a really smooth operator, where the little lass, busts her cherry the same night. Also exuding hotness, sexiness, Lyonne must be praised as the slightly older teen hooker, Amber, blowing us way with her presence. The performances are so believable, where a lot happens in one night, the plot involving two ex cons, one recently released, where they get involved in a real pickle, in an accidental manslaughter, and try to cover it up, which kind of backfires for one of them. The film has been shot in that grainy, brown swarthy color ala: 187 film, and it really works, especially for the atmosphere, where the nights are really hot and a lot indeed, happens over the night, in this low key movie, another gem that must be sought out. It's painfully evident, there was a lot of struggle to make this movie, whether production, or financial, but I'm glad the struggle was overcome. The movie though has more straight to video appeal. Not everyone will like this movie, but again, Rifkin, shows you don't need much moolah, to pull off something engaging or visually viable, and this movie really has moments that affect, with some real moments of unease, thanks to Jones. The outcome of the Lorianne character, coming to accept her life here as a popped virgin pro, is one of those affecting and sadly realistic moments.
Claudio Carvalho
After spending more seven years in prison, the criminal Tommy (Donnie Montemarano) is released and his former partner Mick (Vinny Argiro) is waiting for him to take him home. Mick is an ex-convict that is straight now, working as a janitor in a porno shop and living in the decadent and filthy Golden Eagle hotel in Los Angeles. He tells Tommy that he has saved 2.5 thousand dollar and has bought two tickets to Las Vegas for them. Mick's intention is to find a job in a casino and begin a new life with his old friend in a nice place. The dirty Golden Eagle is a joint where prostitutes meet clients and losers and decadent people live. When Mick goes to work his last night in his job, Tommy brings the prostitute Amber (Natasha Lyonne) to the room to have sex with her. Amber works with her friend Sally (Ann Magnuson) on the streets and their pimp is the strong Rodan (Vinnie Jones) that is luring the fifteen year-old runaway Loriann (Nicole Jacobs), promising that she will become a cinema actress. Tommy fails with Amber and she mocks him. Tommy gets angry and kills Amber. When Mick returns to his room, he finds her body. Will that be the end of Mick's dreams?"Night at the Golden Eagle" is a depressing feature with unpleasant characters. The story is awful, without humor or moral, and the subplots are repulsive. The lead plot refers to Mick and Tommy and is neither good nor interesting; the subplot with the young prostitute is depressive; the plots with the lonely old tapper and his dog and the television viewer are melancholic. In the end, "Night at the Golden Eagle" is a movie that will make you feel completely down. My vote is four.Title (Brazil): "A Iniciação" ("The Initiation")
sstmodels
This film is a gritty little piece that is both repulsive and intriguing, a work that offers a glimpse into the sleazy world of the skid row types as they interact within the confines of a seedy flophouse. The acting is sometimes a bit stiff and wooden, but the overall effect of the film is unforgettable and unsettling. The characterizations are generally archetypical, but the film is well directed and the camera work adds to the gloomy, depressing mood that the film captures in the characters' personas and daily lives. The film's flashback sequences add to the overall sense of decline while evoking a sympathetic reaction to the characters' spiritual and psychological dissipation. In some ways, this film brings a compassionate sensibility to the plight of the characters, while exploiting those same human frailties for shock effect and cinematic punch. The young, nubile hooker wannabe is an especially sad and depressing character who embodies the sense of a complete waste of a human life and potential, a point even more pronounced through her completely senseless death near the film's conclusion. Overall, I think this film is a very fascinating piece of indie film-making. Well worth seeing!
stewart0602
"Night at the Golden Eagle" is the kind of work that grabs your package and squeezes for 90 minutes. It's like careening around your own subconscious during night terrors. The film smacks of the depths of loneliness, despair and the threads of pure survival, filtered through a sublimely artistic prism of the characters' self-delusional hopes and desperate dreams. The direction is crisp, the cinematography excruciatingly magnificent, the acting expertly banal, and the characters out of some finely honed noir nightmare. A cheap indie full of unknown players exquisitely cast, with the awesome kick of an "L.A. Confidential" or "Seven". I couldn't look away, as much as I wanted to. A coarse gem for anyone who believes that movies can actually be art. Watch it very late at night, and then take an Ambien...otherwise you won't sleep.
