bar girls
Directed: Marita Giovanni
Written: Lauran Hoffman
Run, don't walk from this utterly self-absorbed, completely annoying look at lesbian life in the bar scene. After watching this film I wondered if there was any lesbian stereotype that hadn't been worked for all it was worth in these 90 or so painful minutes. This director obviously never met a cliche she didn't like.
Lauren Hoffman wrote this script (based on her play of the same name) about bed hopping babes of the West Hollywood bar scene. Please please PLEASE tell me that this horror movie has no semblance to reality, otherwise I'm cashing my pink card in right now.
The story centres around Loretta (Nancy Alison Wolfe), a woman who starts hanging around a bar hoping to meet someone. Obviously she does, or else there wouldn't be much of a movie now would there? OK, OK, I'll try and do this seriously. Loretta eventually hooks up with Rachel (Liza D'Agnostino) and falls pretty hard.
After a duly noted period of domestic bliss, their happiness is disturbed by the entrance onto the scene of J.R (seriously, I'm not making this up!) a butch cop with all the right moves. She sexy, knows all the right things to say, and tries to snaffle up Rachel. This has all the makings of a bad porno, but alas there isn't even a decent sex scene to save this beast.
Will J.R succeed? Will our lovers make it, or will their lives be destroyed by a tall, dark handsome stranger? Will the bartender make any lame jokes? Can I just stop writing this now, please?
Poor production values, a miserably deficient script, poor acting and a poor idea, Bar Girls falls down in pretty much every category. What it might provide you with is an hour and a half of rolling around in stitches as the very worst of lesbian culture flashes before your eyes. See it with some friends and see who groans first. Maybe start a drinking game, one shot for every mullet hairdo spotted, two shots for every appalling pick-up line... (you get the picture)
I'm not even going to put you out of your misery by telling you the ending. Oh no, you need to go and see this one for yourselves. Weirdly enough, unlike all the *good* lesbian films out there, just about every video store I've ever been to has had a copy on the shelves. (No need to book ahead, it'll be there for you.) This is a stalwart of the gay and lesbian section and you can't really say you've seen it all until you've seen this "classic".
There just isn't enough sarcasm in the world to cope.