THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 12, 1995 TAG: 9509120043
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
`EVERYTHING'S frustrating! Every single thing!'' fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi exclaims into the camera, as much in ecstasy as trauma.
Isaac, you see, is like Woody Allen on speed.
``Unzipped,'' the comedy-documentary, is not so much about how a modern woman dresses after 8 p.m. as it is about an on-the-make career guy who just happens to be selling fake fur.
Presented in grainy black-and-white (except for several fashion runway scenes in color), it's an oddity that is creating attention as much for its booking into Lynnhaven Mall's upper level theaters (usually commercial-mainstream) as it is for the flamboyant behavior of its subject.
It's several days in the life of Isaac Mizrahi as he struggles to overcome the disaster of one fashion show and prepare for another.
It's the movie that never quite got made about the late Perry Ellis, the famed Portsmouth native.
There's no denying that Mizrahi is an extremely funny guy - witty, bitchy, irreverent and eventually vulnerable. To spend time with him is great fun (especially for those who are into his frequent references to pop art in general and movies in particular). It's a pleasant, party-time visit.
Early on, Mizrahi watches a TV telecast of Robert Flaherty's documentary masterpiece ``Nanook of the North'' and goes ape over Eskimos and their furs. He comments, too, on the 1935 Clark Gable movie ``Call of the Wild'' in which Loretta Young is perfectly coiffed and made-up as she prepares to freeze on the tundra. ``That's the way you should look if you're going to freeze on the tundra,'' he explains.
He is inspired - fake furs. Add bright, garish colors, and you have his vision for the women of America.
Directed by fashion photographer Douglas Keeve, ``Unzipped'' is funniest when it attempts to be most serious. Mizrahi modestly listens as his mother expounds on how she recognized his ``genius'' when he was just a child.
He comments on how Bette Davis invented the word ``Yarn't'' in the movie ``Whatever Happened to Baby Jane'' (When she snarled to poor, crippled, Joan Crawford: ``Yarn't ever going to leave that wheelchair, Blanche.'').
His theme song for life is the opening number from ``The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' as he points out that ``Between Mary and Jackie Onassis, they shaped America.''
Along the way, we get a glimpse of Susan Hayward in ``Valley of the Dolls,'' and there are a few bars of Beethoven's Ninth somewhere in the background. There is a lot that is unexpected.
Watch closely and you'll glimpse Liza Minnelli, Sandra Bernhard, Richard Gere and Eartha Kitt (once the box-office-breaking star of ``Timbuktu'' on the Chrysler Hall stage).
Like ``Wigstock'' and a flock of current so-called ``cinema verite'' documentaries, this one lacks any real focus. It is lazy filmmaking. Keeve merely pointed his camera at Mizrahi and kept the sound running. When the character is as energetic as this one, that's about all that is needed.
Don't expect this to be any kind of meaningful or illuminating statement on the bizarre world of fashion. Those who claim it is what ``Ready to Wear'' was getting at are hallucinating.
Bona fide fashion models Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and others make an appearance, but Mizrahi is the star.
This is the kind of independent, unique, production that usually finds a local home only at the Naro. It's sending some puzzled, uninformed folk running from the Lynnhaven Mall theater in panic, asking for their money back. After all, an R-rated movie called ``Unzipped'' starring Cindy Crawford promised something quite different than a witty fashion designer talking about life. The expression on their faces when the black-and-white film flashes on the screen is as panicked as anything Mizrahi suggests in this slice-of-an-unusual life. ILLUSTRATION: MOVIE REVIEW
``To Wong Foo''
Cast: Wesley Snipes, Patrick Swayze, John Leguizamo, Stockard
Channing, Blythe Danner, Chris Penn
Director: Beeban Kidron
Screenplay: Douglas Carter Beane
MPAA rating: PG-13 (some language, sexual abuse subplot)
Mal's rating: **1/2
Locations: Chesapeake Square in Chesapeake; Main Gate, Military
Circle in Norfolk; Lynnhaven, Kemps River Crossing, R/C Columbus,
Surf-N-Sand in Virginia Beach
by CNB