The Girlfriend Experience and Terminator Salvation

If you’ve ever wondered how call girls have weathered the economic collapse, Steven Soderbergh’s “The Girlfriend Experience” is the film for you. It follows the mundane day-to-day operations of a high-priced escort (Sasha Grey) who continues to rake in the dough while her clients complain about the stock market’s cataclysmic demise. She’s your typical materialistic pod person, motivated by a desire to have enough money to escape the world she finds such an utter disappointment. The relationship with her live-in boyfriend feels more like a fiscal arrangement than a genuine partnership and most of the picture consists of boring anecdotes surrounding their longing for social independence.

For an adult film star, Grey doesn’t bring much to the table in terms of acting and I couldn’t care less about another story diarizing the “woe is me” lifestyle of an upper echelon prostitute. I admire Soderbergh’s willingness to experiment with alternative techniques, but it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know about the profession. It assumes we’re actually interested in a joyless hooker with a heart of stone and I wasn’t about to let it draw me in with its flashy camera angles. If you ask me, it’s a snoozer just waiting to be discovered on DVD.

- ** out of 4

My biggest issue with McG’s “Terminator Salvation” is that it feels more like a “Transformers” scrap heap than the “Terminator” we’ve come to know and love. All the horror and menacing obscurity is ditched in favor of gawky, earsplitting battle scenes designed to make you forget about the nonexistence of drama and sense of direction. Not even the halfhearted presence of Christian Bale could make things more engaging and, when that happens, you know you’re in for a long evening.

I remember feeling chilled to the bone following my first viewing of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (I was seven), but walking out of this I just felt distraught that such a riveting concept could be reduced to another overproduced summer let-down. I’ll admit that a few of the action sequences were outstanding and I did think Sam Worthington did his best with the limited development he was allowed. In the end though, everything seemed too hollow and diluted for my taste, so I guess all I can say to McG is better luck next time.

- ** out of 4