Madonna must be bored.
She must be bored with her singing-dancing-acting-fashiondesigning-babymaking-Ashtangayogapracticing lifestyle. Because she is now a film director too.
At this year's Berlinale Madonna debuted her directing skills in "Filth and Wisdom." I haven't seen it and I'm not sure I want to. (Except for the fact that Gogol Bordello is in it as themselves with Eugene Hutz in a lead role. That does intrigue me somewhat.)
Here's what the NY Times has to say about it all:
"But no first-time filmmaker received a bigger spotlight than Madonna, whose directorial debut, "Filth and Wisdom," screened out of competition, in the Panorama section. While her public appearances drew fans and paparazzi, the press screening attracted a throng of rubbernecking journalists, anticipating a vanity disaster of epic proportions. Madonna's last film as an actress, after all, was the universally maligned "Swept Away," directed by her husband, Guy Ritchie, a punching bag for critics. Her "director's statement," in which she declared herself eager to follow in the footsteps of Godard, Pasolini and Fellini, was not going to help her cause.
But "Filth and Wisdom," while often broad and corny, is by no means a disaster. In fact this comedy about three struggling London roommates, whose respective aspirations broadly reflect the Madonna career (singing, dancing, helping African orphans), has a surprising sweetness and a charismatic lead performance by Eugene Hutz, frontman of the Gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello. In a quite unexpected development, Mrs. Guy Ritchie just might turn out to be the best filmmaker in her family."
I dunno Times...I think I am inclined to believe this commenter on IMDb more:
"Godawful, Trite and a waste of celluloid, 14 February 2008
1/10
Author: adamcool from United Kingdom
Saw this at the Berlinale. All I can say is it's an insufferable mess. Dreadful acting and a script so full of crass banalities that it almost collapses under its own dreadfulness.
One to miss.
The Material One says she's thinking of releasing this on the internet - small wonder. I doubt there's a distributor anywhere that would touch this appalling car-crash of a movie. The music is quite fun, to be fair and there is a lot of it (probably because there's really not much else - perhaps she should think about directing a rockumentary next time). The dialogue is full of pretentious, meaningless attempts at 'insight'. Sadly, you'd get more insight looking at an unwashed pair of underpants."
Screening at my house!
Find and post the trailer!