Personal Velocity: Amazon.ca: Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, John Ventimiglia, Ron Leibman, Wallace Shawn, David Warshofsky, Leo Fitzpatrick, Tim Guinee, Patti D'Arbanville, Ben Shenkman, Joel de la Fuente, Rebecca Miller, Alexis Alexanian, Brian Bell, Caroline Kaplan, Gary Winick, Jenny Schweitzer, John Sloss: DVD

Tag this product

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

3.9 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars ...intelligent and excellent cinematic experience., April 8 2004

By

Kim Anehall "www.cinematica.org" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Personal Velocity (DVD)

Personal Velocity is the story of three different women who collide with a life crisis at different times in their lives. Delia (Kyra Sedgwick) has frequently been abused by the man she loves, a love that has tied her down and made her incapable of escaping, but now she realizes that it is time for a change. Greta (Parker Posey) is mourning the death of her mother as she has settled down due to her parents divorce that is the origin for her hate for infidelity. On the exterior she displays a person who is content with what life has to offer her; however, when a big time author asks her to be his editor, she has a chance to get back to where she once was, on the top of the world. The question is whether she can take steps to remove the ties that hold her down. Paula (Fairuza Balk) has recently witnessed a traumatic death and found out that she is pregnant with a child. Confused, she begins to drive home to see her mother as she is desperate for some guidance or a sign. On the way she sees a hitch hiker, a teenager, that she interprets as a sign so she picks him up. The three women are reaching their life decisions at different velocities in their lives. Their personal velocities are clearly represented as one has children, one does not even think of having any, and the third has one on the way. This makes the story unique in regards to women and their choices, which often are influenced by external factors. In the end, Miller provides an intelligent and excellent cinematic experience.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

4.0 out of 5 stars Perceptive and ripe with ideas, Feb 5 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Personal Velocity (DVD)

Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity is comprised of three short films: Delia, Greta, and Paula. The characters span location, socio-economic background, and age but are psychologically threaded by the common experience of a crisis pertinent to each's feminine identity. The movie's interest in women may garner the misperception of it as a feminist polemic, but Miller's vision is more humanitarian than political. It's one of those movies that, even when unsuccessful, seems genuinely curious about human beings.

In exploring battered wife, Delia (Kyra Sedgewick) Miller uses flashbacks to show her deep-seated confusion with sex and power as a promiscuous teenager. Greta reiterrates such themes, but as opposed to Delia's battered wife syndrome, these now impenetrable psychological depths actually produce societally acceptable behavior. The more Greta (the deft Parker Posey) succumbs to her innate moral inscrutability, the greater success she earns in her profession as a book editor. The final short, Paula is much less clear in its themes, and you can see Miller exploring truly dangerous territory, feeling around for a lightswitch in the dark. It follows a young quasi-homeless goth woman (Fairuza Balk) whose quest for love and motherhood become manifested in unconditional love and care for a terribly abused hitchhiking boy. Though this short seems spiritually disconnected from the first two, I like its dark, emblematic emotions (ripe with abortion metaphors and images of child torture) and Balk's performance is appropriately painful.

Miller's larger point, I think, is to show a battle between these women's present goals and their histories which, whether or not they like it, dictate their decisions. I applaud Miller for exploring such quandaries and being able to convey them in artful, engrossing entertainment.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

2.0 out of 5 stars Out,Out Damned Spot!, Jan 18 2004

By

MICHAEL ACUNA (Southern California United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Personal Velocity (DVD)

Rebecca Miller's "Personal Velocity" is dull, drab and pretty much lifeless. It tells the story of three women who have little velocity, personal or otherwise. All three (Parker Posey, Kyra Sedgwick and Fairuzza Balk) are all without recourse, stuck in situations mostly of their own making and unwilling or unable to snap out of it and improve their lot.
Parker Posey as Greta a Cook Book editor, falls into a primo gig editing an up-an-coming fiction author and proceeds to mess it up making silly, unethical and un-professional choices. And Sedgwick as Delia, usually one to elicit sympathy, comes off as a pathetic slattern, undeserving of anything much more than pity. Balk as Paula rounds out this ungodly trio as a young woman bent on destruction who mostly succeeds.
I know that all of this is meant to be "real" and serve as a comment on Contemporary Woman but give me a break. We've all got it bad at some point in our lives but we also have it good a lot of the times. "Personal Velocity" ejects women back to the 1950's and beyond; a world in which women indeed had few choices but marriage and children and as such it not only demonizes Men, it degrades Women: those it is trying to glorify.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Report abuse

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 12 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Want to see more reviews on this item?

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 28 reviews 3.9 out of 5 stars

Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Endearing
When the movie begins you feel a little dizzy. The camera shots (digital filming) are so close on the actors you feel somewhat suffocated and want to tell the cameraman "move... Read more

Published on Dec 31 2003 by Tsila Sofer Elguez

1.0 out of 5 stars Awful X 3
I bought this DVD before seeing it because I love the three actresses who are the main characters in the three stories. They are all awful. Read more

Published on Nov 16 2003