Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: Life Pod is one of those movies that you just watch and try not to analyze too hard. The acting is rather amateurish, at best. The special effects are obviously low budget, but not too bad. The story line is rather stock, but with an interesting twist. Computer run amok, but not exactly a computer and the running amok is very understandable when the truth is revealed. Still the movie has its moments and is quite watchable. For me, at least part of the allure of this movie is the prominent role of Kristine DeBell. She may not be the greatest actress in the world, but having been a former playmate of the month, she is cute enough. In all Life Pod is much like other low-budget Sci-Fi movies of the 1980s and somewhat predictable.

The White Star Lines bit is cute, if completely inaccurate. The last of the White Star Lines Company stock was purchased by the Cunard Lines 1947 and the last ship to sail under the White Star colors was the Britannic (not the sister of Titanic) which was sold for scrap in 1960.

Problem: Write a negative movie review.

Answer: Mario Van Peebles pops up for less than a five second cameo. Glenn Plummer shows up a little longer but its a ladies show all the way. Stacey Dash and Lisa Raye have been in better projects. Bobby Brown leers and mugs through his little time on screen. This is how it was pitched...Five tough women shootin' and lovin' in the Wild Wild West. Four black and one Asian. Oh and Lil' Kim is a tough talking' heartbreaker and Marie Matiko can bring in the pacific rim market. We can shoot it for less than 15 million. Straight to video and we'll double but more likely triple our dollars.

Greenlight that puppy.

You got it boss.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer: This is one of those movies that I've seen so many times that I can quote most of it. Some of the lines in this movie are just unbeatable. I particularly enjoy watching him stumble and fall while drunk, go out to the fancy restaurant drunk and the part with the moose.

I don't know how many times I have seen this sequence but it's funny every time. From the moment Arthur gets to Susan's Dad's place to the bit with the moose, you pretty much laugh the whole time. I remember watching the out-takes regarding the bit with the moose. It went down just like I'd imagined it'd be like. They were all laughing so hard it was difficult for them to film it.

The late Sir John Gielgud was a wonderful addition to this. His demeanor, his one-liners and the way he handled Arthur were all equally hilarious. It's always a funny moment when he whacks him over the head with his hat or tells him he's a spoiled little ____. I laugh every time I listen to the "I'm going to have a bath" and the lines that follow.

Problem: Write a positive movie review.

Answer:
I am not going to lie. Despite looking interesting, I watched The Notorious Bettie Page because I had heard (and it was fairly obvious just by looking at a synopsis or anything about the film), that Gretchen Mol got naked in it. I have never been a fan of Mol, but I cannot resist seeing an attractive woman taking off her clothes. Yes, that may be perverted, but its a theme and ideal central to the very core of the movie, and helps to make the film a lot stronger than it probably should be.

The film chronicles Bettie Page's (Mol) life from her physical and sexually abused days as a kid in high school in the South, and onto her new life in New York. She wants to be an actress, but she has to pay bills too. After taking a few seemingly innocent shots on a local beach, Page slowly becomes a modeling sensation, and quickly jumps from suggestive photos to sexually provocative pin-up photographs.

I feel the briefness of the film (just over ninety minutes) is both a curse and blessing for it. On one hand, the film never overstays its welcome. You get to know Page within a few short minutes, and then it gets right into her modeling career and does not look back. But it curses the film as well, because we never really get a chance to grasp everything that is going on. She just kind of jumps around between modeling shoots and the controversies that they create before jumping right into the major senate investigation that takes up much of the final act of the film. You just sit there, and attempt to absorb it all, and more just comes right at you. It feels like the filmmakers wanted to summarize too much material in too short a film. It begs for longer sequences, and begs more for even longer explanations. It does not feel rushed; it just does not feel all there.

Another bit of a fumble, although a bit more of a curiosity, is the use of colour throughout the film. The majority is in black and white, but frequently, splashes and sequences of colour do emerge. But while this may have been done as a symbolic gesture early on, it becomes a bit of a distraction as it continually pops up later on before cutting back to black and white. It gets confusing, and becomes more of a tedious interference than anything else as the film goes on.

While it may fumble a bit with the actions, the film stays dead-on with its themes. Page, who I know little to nothing about, is played off innocently, and her world is exactly the same. Save for a few shady characters during her teenage years, everyone she encounters is an innocent, and everything she does has an innocence to it. I never thought I would look at full frontal nudity as being something that was anything other than vulgar and depraved, but here, it truly is something to marvel at. All at once, it is beautiful and innocent. Even the most sexually perverted moments in the film (albeit tame compared to today's standards) have an innocent and angelic feeling to them. There is just something about the way Mol's nude body is portrayed that it just strikes at such a different chord than nude bodies in other films. It just feels so natural and so wondrous, that if there were any reason to watch the film, it would be to see the spectacular depictions of Mol's body as she plays Bettie Page.

The other reason is Mol herself. As Page, she exemplifies that 1950's Southern belle everyone knows (or can at least imagine). Despite her profession, she is still a normal person, and still looks at herself as being religious. Mol plays her exactly to the right amount of squeaky-cleanliness needed to make this character feel authentically from the 1950's. She plays her with such matter-of-factness that you would be hard-set not to think that Mol was actually Bettie Page herself.

Unfortunately, the supporting cast have very little moments to shine, and are totally overshadowed by Mol's wonderful performance. None of them do anything particularly pleasing, and none of them really have that same strength in their role as Mol does. This is not really the fault of the actors, but more of the fact that they do not have much to work with. Many of them are totally recognizable, such as Oscar-nominee David Strathairn (in a role a little too close to one of his better performances), Sarah Paulson (recent Golden Globe nominee for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), and character actor Lili Taylor, but you would be hard set to really place their performance in being anything other than okay. None of these characters are really developed, and they really just stand as character cut-outs who Mol runs loops around as she picks up steam in her brilliant performance.

Really, this film is worthwhile for its portrayal of nudity, and for Gretchen Mol's excellent performance of Bettie Page. Everything else is a bit too muddled and awkward than it should be. Had more work been done to develop supporting characters and not just blast right through the story, this film would have been a much better biographical film. As it stands, it is just a vehicle for Mol to really rise into the stratosphere of popularity as an actress.

7/10.