Le Secret (2000) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

A French movie has been shot.

(pause)

Round up the usual suspects.

Yup, same old, traditional French movie theme. A 35 year old woman is married to a wonderful, boring guy with an uninspiring aptitude in the bedroom. It's La Femme Infidele without the murder.

Gosh, I guess you'll never guess what happens next. OK, I know you'll never get it, so I'll have to tell you.

1) affair

2) remorse

When married to Mr Boring and selling encyclopedias, she just felt that there should be something more in life, and that she was really missing something.

In other words, she had the same banal thoughts we all have when we get to a certain age and have not accomplished what we might have or seen all we should have. Unfortunately, some people think that they are the only ones who have these thoughts and have to make a movie from this unique concept.

As it turns out, the only thing Madame was really missing was a big macho guy who would rip off her clothes, then grab her ankles, pull them five feet apart, and point them at the summer moon.

NUDITY REPORT

Tony Todd showed his buns in two scenes.

Anne Coesens showed everything, but there are no gynecological shots.

Luckily for her, Candyman (Tony Todd) was in town for a horror villain convention. They always have 'em in Paris, at the insistence of the American Werewolf. All the masked villains would prefer to go to Venice during the masquerades, but a lot of the others are afraid of water - the Antichrist and the Wicked Witch of the West in particular. The bored housewife heads off to the horror convention to try to sell some Encyclopedias. Freddy Kruger is just about to slash her when Candyman intervenes. It turns out the Candydude has his own pad in Gay Paree, and he takes Madame back there and opens up her bodily orifices so wide that you could drive a humvee through 'em. In fact, in one scene I think he actually did that.

There is no Region 1 DVD at this time

Here's the Region 2 DVD info from Amazon.uk

  • no significant features

  • widescreen, letterboxed, PAL

As time goes on, she comes to realize that having a grade-B American movie actor use her as his personal Inflatable Judy doll is not getting her any closer to the future she once dreamed of, and her husband starts to get a little suspicious when she comes home from "selling encyclopedias" with her body covered with bruises, and her anus stretched out to the circumference of a volleyball.

So she has to figure out how to fess up and patch up with her boring husband.

Having dealt with her mid-life crisis, she goes to the next stage of life much wiser.

Not to mention much wider.

The Critics Vote ...

  • BBC 2/5.

The People Vote ...

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even 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. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). 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. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, this is a C-. Lots of sex, good photography. Adequate but below average movie. About half of the movie is in English, half in French. The French portion is subtitled.

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