Women Movie Reviews

I can guarantee that this was a poor marketing decision and not what the remix engineer delivered. I know this because I was the remix engineer, and I was asked to deliver the stereo only mix that was originally done for the broadcast and pay-per-view version.

I encourage buyers to take up issue with DVD distributors who continue to market such poor quality.

Tom Davis
SeisMic Sound, Inc.
Nashville, TN

My favorite memories from the three Lilith Fairs I attended were always when the artists performed with each other and on this DVD those end up being the best moments, such as when the Indigo Girls, Jewel and Sarah McLachlan sang "Water is Wide" together and then were joined by Meredith Brooks on "Closer to Fine." Of course, there is also the All-Artist Finale of "Big Yellow Taxi." Some of the other highlights here are Shawn Colvin singing her Grammy winning "Sunny Came Home" and Brooks rocking through her big hit (you probably remember the title) as well as Sheryl Crow offering up "I Shall Believe." There is also a fantastic bit with Crow and the Indigo Girls in a dressing room working out something to do together. That particular segment probably captures the essence of Lilith Fair better than anything else on this DVD.

There is only one Playmate on the entire DVD, Layla Roberts, in her own vignette with a Western cowboy theme, where she takes a bath and oils up really nicely.

The only other segment with any Playboy regulars was a very nice locker room scene with Monica Mendez (also in Girlfriends and Lusty Latin Ladies DVDs), Patty Breton (in Cheerleaders), and hardcore pornstar Roxanne Hall making a softcore appearance. This was a very enjoyable 6 minute segment to watch.

The remaining segments star mostly amateur models whose only Playboy appearance is on this particular DVD. One of the other segments were quite memorable for me. It was in a photography studio, where a very tall, curvaceous brunette is a photographer who takes pictures of a petite, perky blonde (she kind of reminded me of actress Renee Zellweger with longer hair). The brunette slowly strips one article of clothing at a time, encouraging the blonde to do the same. It gets quite erotic when both have completely stripped off everything as they both pose for the camera together.

Except for Layla Roberts' scene, all of the segments have at least 2 girls in each one. Nothing really explicit, the most erotic one is probably the locker room scene I mentioned earlier, as Monica Mendez and Roxanne Hall rub up against each other a little.

There is one other girl-girl shower scene outdoors which was good, but the rest of them were just average, in my opinion.

This is not a clear-cut DVD to easily recommend, as your enjoyment will very likely depend on your opinion of the amateur models shown here. Definitely worth a rental if you can find it. If you enjoy Playboy DVDs that don't have many Playmates in it, this is worth picking up.

Even if you're desperate for more Fellini, you may want to avoid this one.

These women should only stay on the moon....

The whole adventure begins and ends in an hour, and concerns a group of astronaughts (including Sonny Tufts, Victor Jory and Marie Windsor) who are on an expedition to the dark side of the moon. When they get there, the exotic lovelies try to de-flower the male members of the crew and generally waffle on like little clones of Germaine Greer. Before you know it, there is a dramatic love triangle between the female co-pilot and two of her workmates, and many more impossible plot twists. There is also the laughable way that the crew discovers 'air' on the moon, when Marie Windsor decides to light up a cigarette!!!

Marie Windsor is the main standout in the cast. A perfect scream-queen, she chews up the scenery like an old pro, and would be a shoe-in for the Joan Crawford look-alike contest (complete with "Mildred Pierce"-style hairdo!).

Yes, there are few B-grade horror films that so perfectly embody the best (or worst) aspects of the genre that CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON.

This is the finest film ever made.

I must take issue with those who continue to assert the superiority of PLAN NINE and BRIDE OF THE MONSTER over this obviuosly transcendental and significant tale.

It is not a reliance on popular cat imagery that rescues this film from oblivion.

It is the obvious importance of a voyage to a lost vessel of a planet, populated entirely by Cat-females, which must somehow be rectified or modified by earthlings, that launches this stretch of celluloid into the immortality it deserves.

..and don't think it was easy for Victor Jory and Co.! These cat-women put up one heck of a fight !

So truly, a reorientation of prioirities in the film-world is in order. I have not yet seen the famous DEVIL GIRL FROM MARS. I am, however, familiar with the Ed Wood, and cognate, creations. Few connect up with CAT-WOMEN for sheer relevancy in our day.

Where would we be without the catharsis of dive-bombing spiders frightening the likes of Mary Windsor? Or the specter of evil she-demons speaking through her as though through tongues of possession?

Can we honestly admit to a seperation of soul from the desire of the sweeter Cat-Women to date earthmen, and sip coke by the seashores of earth, itself?

Who has not felt the frustrations of an amorous Jory, who must ride his affections for the alluring yet troubled Ms. Windsor over the quaking, surging plot of this mighty film?

I can, nor need, speak no more.

You can surely begin to sense now, why this film is a necessity, and why it transcends other cinematic efforts.

CAT WOMEN OF THE MOON has stood too long in the shadows of strong, but lesser efforts such as ROBOT MONSTER. Surely it deserves to stand along side of them.

Buy either edition now. I long for the DVD to surface, that I might always have an extra on hand when travelling.

All that said all DC fans will still want this.

There's no message here, but you'll enjoy the non-stop one-liners, and the "Beer, beer, beer" chapter will never leave your consciousness, no matter how hard you try...

The basic plot line is that the whole eastern part of Southern California is a vast avocado jungle, inhabited by cannibalistic feminist "natives" who eat men with guacamole dip. The US government claims to want to protect the "free world's last avocado source" by retaking the avocado jungle. They recruit a feminist scholar from Spitzer College (actually set at UC Riverside) to make contact with the cannibal women. On her mission she takes along a stereotyped "girly" girl, Bunny (who wears all pink, takes a curling iron, and has fantasies about being tied up with red licorice) and a bigoted but bumbling male chauvinist. The result is a hilarious romp. Academic types will love all the academic jokes: "Your methodology is shabby!"

I agree with the other reviewers that the picture and sound quality is not great. I've personally never been able to find a high quality version of this movie. I think it just doesn't exist. This is not the Matrix or some other high budget DVD. In some ways, though, the sound and picture quality is kind of classic. It very much goes along with the whole "feel" of the movie. A B-movie through and through.

Warning: there's a short scene with nudity at the beginning, for those who would be disturbed by this.

I am giving this film only three stars because, while "Pumping Iron II" is a well made film, it is a poorly made DVD. The film looks underexposed throughout and somewhat grainy in places. I realize the distributor is a small company but a little more effort could have been put into the transfer. If they could manage to get Geroge Butler (the director) to do commentary then one would think they could manage to procure a better quality print (or even make a print from the negative) for DVD release. The photos in the still gallery that come in the Extras are digital crisp, even when viewed with the "zoom" feature on your remote. They should have put the same cleanup effort into the movie itself.

Speaking of extras, why is there no commentary from any of the principal participants/competitors themselves? This film was such a big break for all of them that I can't believe the producers couldn't get even one of them to offer their insights. A film like this needs some historical perspective, IMHO. Still, it's a good movie, worth buying if you're a fan of women's bodybuilding, or interested in women's studies.

Female bodybuilding is still a fringe activity, and this film shows some of what the pioneers endured in the early days. And much like today, the officials and trainers are mostly male.

I enjoyed this movie for its camp value, but it's also a nice history lesson for female physique competitors.

It's clear that someone watched Bridge Over the River Kwai a few dozen times, but managed to do so without learning anything from it. It wouldn't be quite so bad if the abuse of the women POW's by their Japanese captors (while undoubtedly reflecting reality, and probably underplaying it) hadn't been staged in such an exploitative way. Someone has shrewdly cloaked the film in lofty bookends (Susan Sarandon doing dramatized "congressional testimony") and given it an honorable-sounding title, but there's no denying that not far underneath the veneer of disingenuous respectfulness lies a "women-in-prison" movie.

The development of the cardboard characters (Sarandon is the "loyal earth mother" to daughter-figure Kristy McNichol's "sullen rebellious one with a heart of gold") intrudes only as frequently as absolutely necessary to get us as quickly as possible from one rape, beating, or humiliation to the next. (The highlight(?), I guess, being when McNichol and Sarandon are forced by the "evil guard" to repeatedly slap one another across the face -- I'm sure that happened all the time in WWII prison camps.)

Since it was made for TV, we have to get by without the nudity, shower scenes, and lesbian love scene normally found in this sort of adventure; I guess we'll have to wait for the director's cut.

The Japanese are played to caricature as either socially inept, ridiculously "honorable," or insanely and stupidly mean; it's an amalgam of stereotypes.

Both McNichol and Sarandon do the best they can with what they've been given and McNichol, particularly, triumphs repeatedly over the bad dialogue and murky photography; she's worth ten times whatever they paid her.

An awful movie, of interest only to fans of McNichol or Sarandon.

I believe this movie had strong performances and that it is a significant one in how few movies portray a women's experience and view of war. For this reason, trashing this movie isn't fair. Sure, it isn't a "great" war film and some of the portrayals of Japanese aren't realistic and even laughable. However, I have to say that this movie clearly stated in the beginning it was a fictional account and was created in order to show how valiant many women acted during war. The one star reviewer was unfair in their assessment of this movie as a result. Acting needs to be considered when making such a review and he did not factor that in fairly in their overall rating.

I treasure this movie, especially Kristy McNichol's performance. This movie is between a 3-5 depending on how one chooses to view it. I give it a 5 because of its unique message and content, and because the acting was superb. Anyone who gives it under 3 stars perhaps is more upset at how men are portrayed in this film -- not a typical depiction in a war movie. Men are sometimes humiliated, but really they only humiliate themselves.