Lady Magdalene's (2008) User Reviews

First 30 minutes is of unintentional comedy gold....then outstays it's welcome

[bljonathan · 3/10 · 25 July 2013]

I saw this film after hearing about how the director got 'trolled' on IMDb , with 1/10 ratings. Many of those ratings obviously duplicates. Nevertheless, the director insists that we actually watch the film before judging. That sounds reasonable so I did. The film is even on YouTube.

The film is about some guy who works for the IRS and is accused of racially profiling some (arab?) guy on a plane, for having a violin thinking it was a bomb. To be fair the guy was also watching a video of 9-11. Anyhow he is demoted to an assignment administrating a brothel in Nevada, where he finds out that he may have been right to be suspicious after all.

The YouTube version actually begins with a 5 minute director presentation flogging his herbal merchandise. If you can't be bothered to watch the whole film I implore you to watch this first 5 minutes for it's unintentional hilarity. The director is asked questions by an overly eager interviewer, and the director himself admits to being tired as he hadn't had much sleep. I guess it's hard to describe in words but it just oozed with awkwardness. It's like a Bruce Willis interview.

The first 30 minutes I was somewhat hooked from the obvious so bad it's good. The acting and writing is clumsy and robotic. There is the scene early on where this IRS protagonist is appealing to the tribuneral. The response from the female head of this tribunal, and i'm not sure if it's the acting, writing or both, is is bland and overly long. It's like a long sentence with no punctuation. Unfortunately the so bad it's good loses it's appeal after the first 50 or so minutes. The film is surprisingly long for what it is and would have been better if it was at least 20 minutes shorter than it is. The film is also not so subtle in it's libertarian messages.

Is it the worst film ever? No, not even close. The sound is good. I can hear what the actors are saying and that automatically puts it above many of the dreadful indie films you see on those obscure TV channels. Enjoy it for what it is.

Occasionally gives the slightest hint of what it could have been, but the rest is all over the shop, over long and irritatingly amateur

[bob the moo · 12 August 2011]

I had heard very mixed things on this film on IMDb but the Amazon reviews and star rating suggested it was better and I thought to myself that it cannot be that bad. Watching the trailer looked odd, like it was a very weird mix of genres, with humour, action and songs but the main thing was it looked cheap. Having seen many low budget short films or student films from people taking their first steps into the medium of film, I decided that I would overlook the first impression and give it a fair viewing – the ability to afford all the trimmings doesn't stop you writing good scripts etc.

Reading the plot didn't inspire me with hope but at the same time it offers potential. IRS Agent Jack Goldwater is demoted down to running a state-claimed brothel in Nevada when he racially profiles a Middle-Eastern man on a plane. However, when the same man shows up in the brothel he smells a rat and uncovers a plot that threatens America. With the help of the working girls and their colourful madam, he has to try to overcome political incompetence to save the day. As odd as it sounds, the basic idea offers the potential for what was advertised – a comedy built on action, zany light comedy and comic dialogue. Even the characters and their interactions offer this. So why then does the film so powerfully fail to deliver any of it?

The problems start with the script. There are simply too many lines and scenes that offer nothing but words – they don't add colour, they don't add to the speaker's characters, they aren't funny and they have no dramatic worth. They aren't terrible by any means but after a while it is hard to escape the feeling of people, standing in a room, saying......things! There is no content – just words. Attempts at humour mostly fall flat; there were one or two lines that drew a little "hmph" of appreciation from me, but mostly there simply isn't anything to laugh at in the same way as there are few words to care about. The occasional attempt at comedy (I presume) ranges wildly from physical comedy with two character handcuffed together, through to prostitutes spitting into a condom to make a drunken john think he has already climaxed; none of it works but so much of it is weirdly judged, with no consistent tone.

The whole film suffers from this. So we have scenes in a brothel where girls are sexily introduced in a lightly comic fashion; scenes of running with guns; scenes of comedy terrorists; a gospel song performed on stage about Rahab; a dramatic (ish) murder scene and so on. None of them work individually but the combination of having them all beside each other while also feeling totally disconnected just undermines the film really badly. I have no problem with films trying to do several things, but it is hard to do them and be consistent – this film shows just how hard it is and how bad things can be when it doesn't work. Again I could see the potential for the wacky, the sexy, the dramatic and the comic to come together, but they didn't.

The budget doesn't help but I've seen so much more done with less – the problem I had was not the low-budget, it was the amateurish feel the film has. The direction is poor in terms of the cast and in terms of the shot selection. Cutaways are frequent and unnecessary, lighting (or maybe film stock?) changes give the film a different look within the same scene (although it is worst scene to scene). The musical score varies wildly from classical to "zany" music but it rarely matches the action and yet is always present. The editing is terrible – not technically perhaps but in terms of selection. Almost every scene is a few seconds longer than it should be and it makes the viewer feel awkward, like I was hanging around. Far too many shots were just "there" – the gun range was "there", lots of driving scenes are "there", lots of shots are just "there"; again it is hard to describe if you've not seen it but it feels very baggy indeed. And the irony is it doesn't need to – the DVD runs to 1h50m or so, far long that it needs to be (or can sustain).

The cast are very mixed. The big draw is Nichols but she is poor; she never finds her character and she overacts badly in most scenes – her first appearance is a wonderfully bad example of it. Against my worries Keogh was quite likable, as was Smythe – they showed some relaxed charmed and chemistry, just a shame that the script kills them. Lynx is stunning and surprisingly natural while Wraith is again quite relaxed and a cool presence. Schulman is amusing in a Dom Deluise way and again I would have loved him to have had better lines as his character could have been very good. Beyond these it is really amateur hour, lots of people doing first performances and the scenes are full of "pause – now say dialogue" moments (and the pauses are left in for the viewer), very few people feel natural, although the poor dialogue is a big part of this. At one point my girlfriend walked into the room, watched 2 minutes involving the brothel girls and simply asked me "have any of these people ever acted before?" and I could see her point.

Lady Magdalene's is a mess. It has potential but it fluffs it all and what few promising aspects (I actually liked several of the leads) are smothered by amateurish aspects. Content is poor, laughs are absent, action is dull, dialogue is so clunky it even kills the "ok" performances, tone is all over the place and generally the direction is poor.

Wonderful Movie

[donshackleford · 10/10 · 11 August 2008]

With the unsurpassed talents Nichelle Nichols this movie shines. Someone who can distribute this movie needs to see it.

Although the title might suggest something else this movie is very family friendly.

Bravo Miss Nichols still has got it and in abundance and I am a witness to that.

Laugh out loud comedy not in the rude sense but in the old way its made to be funny not vulgar.

I see this movie becoming a cult classic for those who see it will want it for there movie library.

Witty and inventive indy film that goes outside genres

[SteveReed007 · 7/10 · 18 September 2011]

"Lady Magdalene's" combines an inventive story with a cast and crew (and a writer - director - producer - supporting actor - composer - lyricist) who are clearly having the time and delight of their lives. Their enthusiasm shows up on screen.

It also ends up having "six genres in a head-on collision," as author Brad Linaweaver described it. That won't be to everyone's taste, especially for those wanting a straight-ahead plot. Yet it has considerable rewards if one is patient with it, as I admit that I had to be.

This "suspense/comedy" has an IRS investigator, on inter-agency exchange duty as a federal air marshal, being called out for making a misstep in apprehending a suspected terrorist. He's actually right in his suspicions, though he doesn't know that.

Yet his supposed screw-up gets him sent to one of the oddest corners of IRS purgatory: He's made the latest receiver and manager of a legal brothel, long troubled and owing taxes, outside Pahrump, Nevada. (This was inspired by an actual case.)

The lovely, erhm, working women all around him may be hiding a few surprises, including links to the case that put him in career limbo. And is the pleasure-fulfillment engineer he's falling for exactly who she seems? He's determined to track these mysteries, and his chase goes from a shooting range to Hoover Dam to a mysterious medical research facility. Oh, and to a Pahrump casino with two-for-one dinner buffets!

Nichelle Nichols is the determined, beset, but always sexy madam of this establishment, trying to clean up after her late lover (its former owner) and his losses at the craps table. She has the girls join her in a stab at gaining local respectability that's too pleasing and unexpected to be spoiled here.

The tracing-the-terrorists action, ultimately weaving through the silken curtains of Lady Magdalene's pleasure dome, does gets too intricate in the last half-hour, though the story leaves no loose ends. It also is more clearly told in the DVD / demand-video version than in the earlier theatrical screenings, with background details being placed in flashbacks.

Presenting all the detail without confusion finally gets beyond the acting confidence of most of the undeniably lovely working girls — though not at all for Nichols, nor for fellow leads Ethan Keogh and Susan Smythe. Yet they're all game for the effort, and their enthusiasm ends up winning out, right up to and through the closing credits.

I saw this film being developed over several years of updates from protean creator Neil Schulman himself at libertarian venues. (Although I have known him for a decade, I had no role in this production, nor did I write this review at his instigation.)

It doesn't have high polish, yet it makes more out of a half-million dollars than most big-studio "high concepts" do with fifty times the budget and a tenth the intelligence.

It did save money to have Neil's mother, daughter, ex-wife, and late father (!) manage to take part in the proceedings, as well as other friends who add anti-authoritarian asides that never lose the comic beat. (The plot does have digressions, but they end up being meaningful in retrospect.)

This is an independent creation that makes the most of current tools, but does suffer at times from the limitations of its budget. The sound levels and editing are inconsistent, though such faults are less evident on the small screen than on the large. Some of the visual contrasts and transitions don't work smoothly, though the DVD edit improves on earlier screenings.

Yet if you're in the mood for an audacious esthetic goulash — not at all evenly cooked to one consistency of tone — that combines thriller, comedy, musical, camp, satirical, and political sensibilities, you will very likely be well-entertained.

Review

[dorfmont · 8/10 · 15 May 2010]

I hate movies. I haven't seen a good one since about 1990. I'm sick of seeing blood, guts, naked people, and things being blown up all accompanied by foul language. I'm a live theater fan; even high school musicals are better than most movies out there. I had to see Lady Magdalene's because it was about an IRS agent and I'm in the business. It was hilarious. I especially liked the terrorists singing, like terrorists would actually sing. Mullahs don't like music. I have now seen it twice, once over a year ago at the Culver City Film Festival and again with friends from my own copy of the DVD. This is pure farce. Anyone who has been battered and hardened by the stuff coming out of Hollywood these days will not get it. Anyone tired of "Blow'em Up #6", "The Horror: one More Time", and such will find it a welcome change.