Powerful

Awesome Movie

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

In the commentary track of the DVD of "Gemini," the writer-director-editor of this modest film is articulate about his goals, and he has some filmmaking skills. But his film was sluggish in the pacing and included too many clichés in the thriller genre.The film fails to capture the glitzy and high-pressure experience of being a Hollywood star. As an audience, we were never sucked in to the major drama of a personal assistant to a big star, whose murder leads the assistant to try to do the job of the incompetent police detective and prove her own innocence by solving the crime on her own.In the overall concept, the filmmaker had the obligation to provide a satisfactory resolution. In this case, it was not enough to merely identify who committed the murder and leave the audience hanging on the details. An explanation of what actually occurred at the crime scene was needed. In this regard, "Gemini" left the audience disappointed, especially in the subplot about an apparently obsessed fan who speaks in only one scene.It was also not credible that the bubbly personal assistant, who is so incompetent with a fire arm that the gun accidentally discharges while she is holding it, would suddenly turn into a skilled private detective. The most ludicrous scene was when she was hiding in a hotel room closet eavesdropping on a would-be suspect. It was not even credible that she could have driven a motorcycle as skillfully as the stunt performer did in the film. There was a wide range of suspects in this murder saga, and then the filmmaker pulled the rug out from under the audience with a plot device that seemed like a gimmick at the outset. This was a manipulative film that failed one essential test of Screenwriting 101: we need to care about the characters and get an explanation of the crime that was at the center of the drama.

Bad acting, story line. Waste of time.,one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Who the heck films a movie like that ?

Gemini starts strong. The set-up, if you will, is well done. Tension slowly builds and the event, the "heinous crime," happens as expected. The assistant/friend of the celebrity is under suspicion, as expected. There are some tense moments when questions are asked, and the assistant takes off to find her own answers. After this point, nothing that happens comes as a surprise, or adds to the film. In the end, it's not clear what the movie is trying to say. If it is saying the things that one thinks it is, then it's way too subtle. The events present an opportunity for the assistant to take charge, to have the upper hand, but she doesn't seem to? Not clear. At some point we're to think that the celebrity is a bit evil, manipulating everyone around her, but then again, maybe not. Back and forth, the film left us with a "meh, not sure what that was trying to say." There were also some scenes that did not really serve a purpose, or the same purpose could have been fulfilled in a better way (the meeting with Jaime, for example, or the coffee scene with the detective and Stan).

"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul." Marilyn MonroeGemini is cinematographer Andrew Reed's film, from the glamorous long shots of LA at night, the hideaway bars in the seedy sides, to the dazzlingly modern flats. Any weaknesses in the film itself are swamped by the visual grandeur. It's neo noir in muted neon and low-key suspense.Movie star Heather (Zoe Kravitz) has charmed everyone who attends to her, even her not-rabidly devoted PA, Jill (Lola Kirke).Trouble brews when Heather bows out of a starring role and compromises several interested parties. After introducing a gun, director Aaron Katz has nowhere else to go according to convention other than to have the weapon return with its bloody purpose.The thriller part is set, now, to be augmented by recurring motifs of friendship and loyalty, and something of a gay immediacy, lesbian to be precise. While the principals and their pals flirt with possibilities, the film is noir, after all, and requires detective work to flesh out the murderer with the attendant bad guys and girls and bleak setting.The surprisingly low-key denouement with no appreciable thematic commentary leaves the mystery solved but weightless in human terms. Even a gloss of the industry's shallow hucksterism and uncontrollable ambitions would have been appreciated. In the end, loyalty is the trump card that will propel the actors into another film with the same challenges and disappointments. Hollywood lives one despite intrigues and occasional murders. Thrillers about the biz will never die, and they will continue to draw us in given our fascination with tinsel town's ersatz loyalty. It's the only royalty we really have anymore.