Thanks for the memories!

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is a great Greenaway film. And like most Greenaway films, it is stuck in its own little universe. If you step into that universe and not like it, you will most likely walk out, never to return. But for us that love Greenaway's universe, we will stay and make ourselves a pot of the strangest tea and drink it, greedily.The plot revolves around an older man, who had just lost his wife of many years, and his son. They watch Fellini and decide to capture some woman to make a harem of their desires. Some women come there to satisfy a debt, another comes of her own free will, as long as they pay her $75,000 a year. Each woman has an interesting back story. One is addicted to gambling, one loves her horse, one loves to have babies, one is a nun, one is a martyring maid, one is in a wheelchair. Each of these woman could be a character from a Fellini film.The movie is filled with a lot of wit and irony, once the women come to the house. The women start making demands and by the end, the movie is dropped into a metaphoric and Shakespearian tragic end. I won't give any more details than that.The lighting, mood and story of this movie is completely original. Some viewers might not like the frankness of the dialog and/or the nudity of both sexes, but I feel it ranks right up there with Greenway's other films, like Tulse Luper Suitcases, The Falls, Zoo, Drowning by Numbers, etc. I heard it was a sexist movie, but I have seen more sexism in slapstick comedies and films like In The Company of Men. I usually look for a good story and interesting characters, be they flawed or not, and 8 !/2 Women delivers both. I wasn't bored for a second watching this.The director makes his own little world. It's an odd world and has different moral standards, but that is part of its charm viewers tend to miss.

To overcome the death of his wife, an old man does what anyone in his position would naturally do (at least in a Peter Greenaway movie): he and his son populate their home with eight and a half (one has no legs) women and embark on a sexual odyssey. This being a Greenaway film, there is lots of pretentious and uninteresting blabbering and of course there is unnecessary male nudity. In fact the father and son share a bed sleeping in the nude. Gross. Besides, who wants to see an old guy full frontal? For those who are not into the homo-erotic scene, one of the women likes to do the nasty with horses. There is no story - just a random collection of dull scenes.

Greenaway's films pose as clever, erudite and innovative. Yet his style and grammar originate and remind viewers of films made in the World War 1 era of film-making: the frame composition, use of mid-shot, the static camera. It may be well to rub against mainstream movies with this style but it is not new. Perhaps like that other "innovator", TS Eliot, he draws more from the past than in looking forward as an authentic innovator would or could.Yet Greenaway's biggest failing is that he cannot write. His dialog and even plot structure is mechanical and logical but without the vitality of another dramatic logician, Brecht. Where this weakness is most apparent is in his humor, which is poised and logical, so the joke is dead before it's delivered. The result is tedium: if it's not funny, it has failed: ask a stand-up comedian to justify their act if the audience doesn't respond. Perhaps the well-read director could learn something from Freud on humor.Finally, like Woody Allen, Greenaway has manipulated his actors over the years to work like clones. They speak the lines with a bored, smug air like narcissistic adolescents.This film, despite its design and lighting, is meretricious.

I always expect Peter Greenaway's films to push the envelope cinematically and in terms of sexuality. I've looked forward to seeing this movie for a long time, especially since it was a homage to Fellini's 8 1/2, but I was very disappointed. Although there were brief moments of captivating imagery and witty dialogue the story was uncompelling and perverse. It's wonderful to push the envelope as he has in previous films but this was too far. The characters were unbelievable and their actions without real motivation. In previous Greenaway films the characters were well-drawn, actions motivated and the images were both innovative and exciting. I hope this movie is not a sign of things to come.