AMBER BENSON | |||||
Reviews: Comics | Prime Gig | Chance | Taboo | Astray | |||||
Portrait | |||||
Interview | |||||
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"The Prime Gig" (2001) A very brief encounter with Amber Benson, movie actress | ||||
I
bought this DVD because shes in it, and also because both the always
interesting Ed Harris and a guy named Vince Vaughn whom you may remember
as a slightly befuddled but courageous investigator in "The Cell"
are in it as well. So was I right? Is she in it? Just barely: this is a film about turbo-capitalism, about the speculative mindset, big money, fraud over the phone, obvious and not-so-obvious twists and turns of plot, but theres just one important woman in this picture, and its not her, because, these people in Hollywood, theyre blind, you know, and I believe deafness, not paying attention and possibly brain-rot are also matters of some concern here, but never mind. The film, directed by Gregory Mosher and overall nicely done, finishes with an appropriate downer for an ending, although the audience is allowed to perceive some flicker of hope or at least the heros apparent readiness to finally start taking control of his own life instead of waiting for unearned riches to fall into his lap. Vaughns that hero, named "Penny Wise", and he, just like Amber Bensons character, a "batty girl" (as in: slightly unhinged but effective at what she does), gets hired by a broker with a cirminal record, Kelly Grant (Harris) and associate Caitlin Carlson (played by Julia Ormond) to sell shares of a (suspected? imaginary?) gold mine to assorted "investors" ranging from professional speculators to old ladies with sufficient savings. |
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So is there a payoff for Ambers fans in watching the film? Well, sort of. You see, once, we get "the grin", which is always worth waiting for, and then theres another scene that well talk about shortly, but batgirls a very minor role, which is a disappointment, naturally. She looks like a comic book character from DCs Vertigo line: very colourful sweaters, goth-make-up, hair thats sometimes braided; moves around on her seat a lot, uses her arms like a duck on drugs would use its wings, gets very agitated while talking customers into spending their hard-earned cash on a dubious dream. All this you have to catch with your peripheral vision, because shes hardly even there. But then theres that special scene its short, but its massively charming because of what she does with it. In that scene, set in the giant shared office where all these not-so-strictly-legal telephone merchants sell their shady stuff, Vaughn loses his temper because of the bosss CD player which annoys one presumes them all with classical music at an irritating volume. Vaughn gets up and screams to turn it down. The boss looks at him curiously. The leading lady looks at him funny. Yet he screams again, this time even louder, to turn it down. And so we suddenly see the batty girl, crazy hair, glasses down on her nose, a lollypop in her hand which seems to have just come out of her mouth, and shes staring at this crazed rebel like shes either a.) his grandmother who is just shocked, young man, veddy veddy shocked, or b.) mildly interested in a person apparently even more out of it than herself, or possibly both, and then she says two words to sum it all up: "Holy shit". The superiors actually turn the noise down. Stuff resumes. See? Told you it was charming. Dietmar Dath > back to top |
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