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From: training@rtech.UUCP (Training account)
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute"
Message-ID: <446@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 14:55:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.446
Posted: Tue May 28 14:55:35 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 01:49:15 EDT
References: <5618@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
Lines: 35

> Excepting the third episode (to a degree), there are no real resolutions 
> in the episodes.  Each is reminiscent of a miniature portrait, except 
> that the picture is moving, both in the most obvious sense and in the
> sense that we are seeing women in the process of changing.

I loved this film.  Although John Sayles only co-wrote the film
and didn't direct any of it, it has the feel of a low-budget
John Sayles movie.  To me, John Sayles major strength is his
ear for dialogue, and the dialogue in this film is superb.  
Overall, it reminded me a lot of "Return of the Seacausus Seven".

> Since the budget was low, largely unexceptional photography can be forgiven.  
 
The film was shot in l6mm, and at the theatre where I saw it, in Boston,
it was shown in l6mm.  I don't think it's being shown in 35mm anywhere,
but I could be wrong.  

The fact that it was so technically unadvanced didn't bother me a bit.
This is a warm, human film, one in which all the characters are portrayed
sympathetically, and are clearly cared about by the directors and the 
screenwriters.

After seeing the film, I read two of the short stories that the films
were based on and I didn't care for them so much.  John Sayles (and his
co-writer) took a lot of liberties with the stories: the dialogue
in the film is different, and more importantly, many scenes in the
film just don't occur in the story at all.  Single sentences in the
stories have been expanded into entire scenes in the movie; for example,
a throwaway line in a story which was something like "He hit his head 
on the bathroom tiles and lost two decades and four Presidents" was expanded
into a few long scenes (this isn't a criticism of the film at all - it was 
just interesting to see the differences).

Robert Orenstein
Relational Technology