Pretty Things

Away from home this past weekend, I caught most of an HBO doc called Pretty Things. It's supposed to be about burlesque stars of days past but the idiot filmmaker, Liz Goldwyn put herself into it so much that it turned to crap. The interviews w/ the aged dancers were very interesting as long as the filmmaker didn't ask stupid questions, which she did about half the time. What tells me it's a bad movie?

1) the interviewees are visibly incredulous at her idiot questions and remarks, getting what appears to be very close to asking if she's an idiot

2) Goldwyn decides to cap off the film with her own version of a burlesque dance (not that she gets anything close to nekkid, which is a relief) and puts clips of her "practicing" throughout the film (amusing to see how she starts w/ ballet moves after several of the real dancers point out that they had no dance training)

3) a commenter at imdb agrees with me

4) over the closing credits she uses the Bowie song 'Oh You Pretty Things', not that the song has anything to do with burlesque dancers (give it a listen!)

I have to think that she's related to Samuel Goldwyn; I can't really think of any other reason this crappy doc would get made and put on HBO. She probably should have been featured in Born Rich. Reminds me of an observation Ms. Goat made a while back about how Tolstoy was born rich but still contributed to society; sad this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

In a nice coincidence, I just saw Tony Goldwyn (her brother?) last week in a decent Arnold movie called The Sixth Day. It's a somewhat Phildickian story you can probably enjoy for the action, unlike Pretty Things, which you can enjoy for the badness.