I Shot Andy Warhol (R) *** Starring Lili Taylor, Jared Harris Directed by Mary Harron A Review by Frankie Paiva
Lili Taylor nabbed one of her first lead roles in this true life drama about Valerie Jean Solanas, the woman who shot Andy Warhol in 1968. But the film is more of a showcase to the ways of the 60s and the influence that Warhol and other artists had on the people at that time.
Valerie Jean Solanas (Taylor) is a lesbian feminist who as written a book called SCUM Manifesto, a book (which is now a classic) about the way that men (like disease, or so she says) have been ruling here for the millions of years before us. She tries to sell it on the street, and is thrilled when her drag queen friend is invited to Andy Warhol's pad. This is her chance to sell him not only on the book, but on some plays that she has been writing.
But Andy is just like all of the other men out there. When a publisher signs her to a fraud contract and a friend puts her on a television show discussing homosexuality where the host makes fun of her, she begins to think that Andy is all behind it. He's been constantly ignoring and making fun of her and she doesn't like it. Her increasing rage is about to bring on the deadliest of consequences.
Lili Taylor gives the performance of her career (at least so far) she puts every ounce that she can into this character and it's a great treat to watch. Flaws are abound however, most of the film is boring and needs something interesting to be put on the screen and the story was told harsher than it needs to be. Still, the film does a good job of examining the inner rage that overcame the woman and her actions thereafter. If your looking for a cool 60s noir piece, rent I Shot Andy Warhol, which gets *** stars.
The Young-Uns: The main character is lesbian and we see one lesbian encounter. She is also a prostitute and we see two (not very explicit) sex scenes of her servicing her customers. It also contains strong language and drug use. Good Age: 16 & Up
A Review by Frankie Paiva The 12 Year-Old Movie Reviewer E-Mail me at SwpStke@aol.com Visit my website at: http://expage.com/page/teenagemoviecritic
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews