Wonderfully offbeat film!
Very best movie i ever watch
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
View MoreThe story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
View MoreRevisiting familiar territory he explored in his breakthrough independent She's Gotta Have It, Spike Lee takes a bigger budget, professional actors and delivers a far inferior product. It's a case of Spike having it and not knowing what to do with it. Aspiring actress Judy get's a screen test for a film being done by Quentin Tarantino. QT gets ugly though and this sour's Judy's career outlook. Burning bridges with her agent and acting coach and desperate for work she takes a job as a phone sex operator. She develops a knack for it and soon as "Girl 6" is in demand with customers. Dealing with warped customers and a former lover who shoplifts for a living Judy begins to jade and fade from reality. Sloppy, disjointed and in a constant state of funk Girl 6 is filled with lackluster performances and insipid "goofs" by Lee such as a smoldering cameo by Madonna reminding us just how bad an actress and self parody she is along with an obnoxious turn by Tarantino as himself. Not to be outdone Lee piles the detritus on by jamming a parody of the Jeffersons (with himself as George) into the torpid proceedings as well as a ham fisted, film school 101 Foxy Brown take. Therese Randle as Girl 6 is beautiful, flat and dull. Given every male in the pic is an insensitive lout, ( though Lee doing his "... have It" Mars with some of the same dialog lifted from the film redeems himself to a degree) one might understand why she stumbles through the picture shell shocked most of the time. Isiah Washington as an ex also gives a fatigued and unprepared turn as the principled booster. Girl 6 is a slow moving bore with Lee failing to amp up the drama with any degree of passion or deliver any character of substance with depth. At a loss to develop Judy he compensates with misogynistic stereotypes to dramatize her plight ala SGHI re-worked, colorized, sensationalized, and amazingly puerile for a feature film. It's all silly surliness.
View More(SOME SPOILERS) With it's release in Spring of 96, "Girl 6" was called "the worst Spike Lee film". I am here to defend "Girl 6". Those that have seen "She's Gotta Have It" and understood it, you will understand "Girl 6". "Girl 6" is about Judy (Theresa Randle), a struggling black actress looking for work. She isn't able to pay her acting coach and she is let go. After working a night at a club, she's reading a newspaper and stumbles upon an ad looking for someone interested in working in the phone sex industry. She takes the job and becomes so involved in her work she loses touch with reality. Like most of Spike's films, there are the multiple stories (her ex-husband wanting her back, the sick guy that keeps calling her, the little girl Angela, Judy's friendship with Jimmy, her fantasies and Bob) The film did have it's flaws. The phone sex scene with the "kielbasa" man should've been left out. A plus for the film was the soundtrack by Prince and his related bands (Vanity 6's Nasty Girl was so perfect for this movie) This cast was a who's who of celebrities (Maddonna, Naomi Campbell, Quentin Tarantino, Ron Silver and a Halle Berry cameo) Michael Imperioli was sadistic and creepy as the crazed "Scary Caller #30". The cinematography is stunning. The elaborate fantasy scenes (Foxy Brown is the funniest one) are quite funny and award winning playwright Suzan Lori-Parks first and only screenplay is a decent one. "Girl 6" may have it's downs but it is an enjoyable film.Girl 6- rated R *** out of ****
View MoreAfter a confrontation with a director who forces her to take her top off in an audition, the title character of the film storms out and is subsequently dropped by both her agent and her acting teacher. Unable to get `proper' acting work, she moves into the world of phone sex. Getting a job with an office-call firm, Girl 6 is one of many girls, acting out whatever fantasy her callers want. However, the more confident she gets the more she starts to lose touch with herself.When I write a review of a film I have just seen, it helps me to write a little summary of the plot to help me think about what I have just seen. I sat this because I don't want you to think that my opening paragraph suggests that plot is a key part of this film - it isn't. What exists in the place of a solid narrative is a series of stylish scenes, spinning characters and good performances. I can totally understand why so many people just hated this film - god knows it does itself no favours - however fans of Spike Lee should find much to keep them watching as it is very much the director's film. Lee, however, cannot find anything to really build on in the screenplay and the plot is never very satisfying; the film's energy just about covers this until the end where Lee realises that he hasn't really gone anywhere to generate a traditional conclusion - this means that the serious stuff doesn't ring true.However Lee is the driving force behind the film and it is his stylish direction that keeps all the fragmented scenes/sketches/skits together. He uses different film stock to good effect and the stuff he does with the camera is typical of what we have seen in his other films - except here he does it a lot more. Of course, this is style with little narrative substance and that is not a good thing but, if you are going to do style without substance, then you'd better do it as well as Lee can do it. The film leaps all over different styles including the Jeffersons, Foxy Brown and many others; in a way I suppose this is meant to be 6 losing touch with herself on the way to finding inner confidence and peace but it doesn't really work (and the `falling down a dark lift shaft' subplot/snippets are too heavy handed on top of this).Lee's direction is the first reason for watching this film, but equally worthwhile is Randle (and not for the reason rather juvenilely suggested by many reviews here). Randle is a great actress and she shows it here - it is rather sad that she has actually done quite few films and too many of them have her in small supporting roles (Bad Boys I & II, Spawn, Space Jam, Malcolm X and so on). Here she has very little character to work with (not even a name!) but she made me forget that simply by the range of her performance. She is asked to do a lot and, despite lacking audience involvement in 6, her performance shows the range that she has - she should really be given better roles on the basis of this film, it's just a shame there aren't really that mean good roles for actresses approaching their 40's (never mind black actresses approaching their 40's!). The support cast features plenty of well-known faces - none of them actually have characters, but mostly they do OK whatever their contribution is. Washington is a good-looking guy and does OK with a character that I never understood. Lee himself does his usual role - he is amusing but contributes to the lack of narrative. The callers include people like Lee-regular Byrd, Peter Berg, Imperioli and Richard Belzer - they do what is asked of them and it isn't their fault the film doesn't work. Batson's acting coach is OTT, Campbell does nothing but look sexy, Madonna is actually OK but other like Berry and Silver merely show their face. Tarantino is suitably brash prior to his public falling out with Lee and Turturro just seems to be there for the sake of finding a part for him. Despite the many stars, it is Randle that carries the film - her character is poor but her performance is great.Indeed this sums up the whole film. To watch it is rather infuriating as it lacks characters, meaningful narrative and plotting. If you are a fan of Spike Lee then you will enjoy the style of the film and the fact that his behind-the-camera skills are there for all to see. Aside from this the only other reason to really watch it is a great performance by Randle that will almost act like an audition tape for her - no character but plenty of range and ability! The vast majority of people will dislike this film and I understand why. There is nothing to it but Lee and Randle make it worth a watch once.
View MoreThis movie is by far one of my favourite Spike Lee movies, along with "She's Gotta Have It" It follows the trials and tribulations of an actress trying to make it in New York City. She decides to take a job as a phone sex operator until she gets an acting job. Theresa Randle gives an excellent performance throughout. The musical score by Prince, which includes some of his classic '80s tunes, makes this a movie that you can watch over and over again. Too bad it's not available on DVD, like some of Spike's other movies.
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