Powder Blue (2009)

Touches You

Just perfect...

Fresh and Exciting

Blistering performances.

Deep, moody film, unsettling, with an overdose of despondency. Ideal fare for those who wish to wallow in their own terminally depressive states. Me, I'm just a perv, I was checking up on STRIPTEASE on Wikipedia, when I Googled I got a link to the best striptease movies ever, so last week I watched CLOSER, this week, POWDER BLUE. I was thrilled to hear that Jessica Biel was in it, as a stripper, mind you, hell, she made me look at (I still can only shake my head) that show with the reverend, I'm not going to even mention its name, but really, me watch the Religious Right's flagship TV show? I just hovered around the TV and watched when she and her kid sister was on. This, of course, is way at the other end of the spectrum. Too dark, too melancholy, too depressing, but the sight of Jessica on stage is worth my every effort. So, it's a long way from the old days of a politically-correct holy-righteous TV show to this mixture of lust and redemption. Still, when I think of her, I'd always remember SUMMER CATCH, again, not my kind of movie, too much damned baseball, but what a dreamgirl. Show me all the nudity in the world, if it doesn't come along with the soulful eyes, what's the point? And Jessica has them. Lovely eyes you can gaze into, and see love. A thing of beauty, as that other reviewer said.Of course, the people who watched that unmentioned TV show wouldn't watch POWDER BLUE, unless on the sly, what with the straying-from-the-flock menfolk...Getting back to the movie itself, it is not exactly guaranteed to put you in a fun frame of mind. An ex-priest who lost his young wife and wishes to be put out of his misery, but who doesn't want to pull the trigger himself, entices all and sundry, including a transsexual prostitute, with the lure of big money, into doing the deed. He meets Sandy (Lisa Kudrow, downbeat from FRIENDS), a waitress, and life seems to begin to have meaning again. A stripper with a cocaine habit and a kid in a coma, is confronted by her long-lost, morose and dying Dad, even as she finds love with a mortician, a geeky misfit who shares her love for animals. Whole lot of drug use, origin of movie title, obviously.I have to stipulate, my DVD is just a plain version, no subtitles, and there are a lot of places where subtitles would have really helped. Watching for a second tine now, I catch on to stuff I missed the first time round. The blue snow bit I find to be overly-dramatic. After all, it hardly ever even rains in California, and here you have this blue ice...? Heaps of it?If it wasn't for Jessica, I wouldn't have been remotely interested in this. Yes, there are powerful emotions here, but, no, the story itself is not the kind of thing I want to watch. Not that there aren't cute romantic moments, like the trolley cart scene.P.S. Hell, that was Patrick Swayze???? Went through the entire movie without realizing.

This is a very poignant movie about the loneliness that pervades the human condition, and how seemingly coincidental events can affect people whose paths otherwise wouldn't have crossed. Jessica Biel gives a stellar performance as an exotic dancer (it seems she did her own dancing) who has unresolved family situations. Forest Whitaker is another main character whose performance is compelling as a grieving widower. Ray Liotta gives a haunting portrayal of an ex-con seeking some closure. And Eddie Redmayne portrays a mortician who also likes giving puppet shows for children's' entertainment. Lisa Kudrow also does well in a supporting role. I think it's a very well written and executed drama.

Multi-plot, hyper linked or mosaic films (as it is called here), whatever, I really love films like these specially when well made and with relevant things to show and tell. "Powder Blue" successfully is one of those since it has an good cast, a good story and memorable moments. Just fails a little in developing some of the moments, what can make of this film at times unbearably cheesy.Here we follow the days in the lives of an dying man (Ray Liotta) trying to connect with the daughter he never met after serving 20 years in jail; the girl (Jessica Biel) is an exotic dancer with financial problems and needs money to pay the medical bills of her comatose son; an suicide guy (Forest Whitaker) who can't cope with life anymore after his wife's death, but lacks courage to him pull the trigger and end with his life so he keeps finding someone who'll do that in exchange for money; and a young mortician (Eddie Redmayne) with lots of problems not only financial ones, almost going to bankruptcy, but also in dealing with girls. The story goes on with these characters who stumble upon each other trying to set their lives in a good way.Sure, "Powder Blue" is involving and has some relevance but it almost gets stuck in a enormous pack of predictable moments that is so obvious this character is going to meet that character that some viewers will find it a dull film. It's not dull, it just goes in ways it didn't need to go to such as the scene where Biel sexually offers herself to her son's doctor (so, so bad). Other times it almost achieves a sense of greatness with its sequences but when you have a film storage in the head like I do, you get the feeling that some elements would work in other film or they were taken from another film which doesn't make you say "It's taken from that film". Rather than that you'll say it's a copy! Example: the 1-2-3 hug scene is clearly an cheap reference to the great "Magnolia" (the kiss between Melora Walters and John C. Reilly), even the editing style is similar with the camera giving a zoom during the hug! It just lack some identity of its own.It is a beautiful picture, I loved its themes of giving second chances (or first at times) and loved the characters, all of them were interesting (Redmayne was my favorite even though the script said that the answer for his problems was to get involved with someone in similar conditions as he, with no money at all, and his change of profession wasn't all that cleared). The grandiosity of "Powder Blue" lies within these poor figures and if a movie gives, even if a small time, enough things to make you care about them, then you'll succeed it in making a film that is closer to life and relevant to it. Aside the problems it has, it's a good suggestion indeed. 8/10

I had such high hopes for this movie but was utterly and completely disappointed. The usually good Forrest Whitaker is wasted in this, and almost saves the movie but not quite. Ray Liotta tries manfully with a one-dimensional character, Eddie Redmayne is saddled with a character called 'Querty' who has more issues than a magazine and Jessica Biel, oh my...her 'acting' skills are dubious although her many assets are often on display for those who care to sit through this. The script is messy and painful and the scenes are choppy and disjointed. The added effect of having every scene being blue doesn't help either, rendering the movie a blue tinge which makes it looks like a porno flick. Avoid.