Men

At first she is living on the East Coast with a male roommate who is a good friend, and a severe alcoholic. But she sleeps with lots of other guys. He decides that she needs to get away from him, so he gives her a plane ticket to California. She goes there penniless, but within two hours of her arrival, she has a fabulous apartment with a roommate to share expenses, and a job as an assistant chef in a trendy Hollywood restaurant. Man, that's some gritty realism, right there.

DVD info from Amazon.

no widescreen
no features
the print seems color-faded

Then she sleeps with some more guys, eventually falls in love with a young photographer, but he is killed in a drive-by shooting.

The End.

Well, there you have it. I suppose it is an application of some kind of existentialist film theory. Or not.

Tuna's thoughts in yellow:

Men (1997) is the film Sean Young made immediately before Motel Blue. She is a wannabe chef, who believes that the only way to discover what she wants in life is to experience it. This carries through to experiencing lots of men. Her friend/roommate finally hits rock bottom, and gives her a plane ticket to LA. She lands a job in a small restaurant, where she works with the owner/chef, and continues her sampling of men. She finally meets one she could stay with, but that ends tragically.

While the story is not strong, and not very believable, there are scenes of real charm, such as the one where she seduces her boss on a grill. Most won't enjoy this, but I did, mostly because I am a fan of Sean Young, or, to be more precise, Sean Young's sexuality. It came as no surprise to me that women rate this slightly higher than men, as it deals with a strong women who is frankly sexual.

Scoop's note: there is no statistical difference between the male and female scores. Women rate it 5.1, men 5.0, but only five women have voted. If even one woman had rated it two points lower, it would be score higher with men. Of course, IMDb doesn't seem to notice that a score of 5.1 from five people is not possible when the individual scores must use whole integers! It must be 5.0 or 5.2! It is not possible for any average of integers to end in .1 unless there are seven or more integers in the group. On the other hand, the salient points are these: (1) both men and women score it very low (2) their scores are statistically indistinguishable.

The Critics Vote

General consensus: one and a half stars. filmcritic.com 2/5, Apollo 70/100, Jacksonville Film Journal 1/5.

Rotten Tomatoes summary. Nine articles on file. 0% positive on the graded articles, but the L.A. Times did give it a good review.

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 4.8

With their dollars ... limited release a year after it was completed, so it was more or less straight-to-vid. No widescreen version is available, to our knowledge.

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, Tuna says "The proper score is probably a C-, mostly of interest to fans of Sean Young". Scoopy says this film is a D. "A C is not possible, unless 'Sean Young nudie films' is a genre. It's a rambling, unfocused movie, not appealing to fans of any genre. If Sean kept her clothes on, it would be a sure-fire E, completely devoid of any merit except clear photography. On the other hand, Tuna's point is that it does have a lot of very good Sean Young nudity, and that's really the info you need, not the specific score."