Hysterical Blindness

• DVD Details: Actors: Uma Thurman, Juliette Lewis, Gena Rowlands, Justin Chambers, Ben Gazzara
• Directors: Mira Nair, Laura Cahill
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC. Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 ; Number of discs: 1; Studio: Lions Gate
• DVD Release Date: June 1, 2004 ; Run Time: 99 minutes

In 2004, Juliette Lewis the punk rocker emerged with a bang. Now she's being reborn as a musical force in the studio as well as onstage. After four years, two full-length albums and countless high-profile tours and festival gigs alongside acts like the Killers, Foo Fighters, Muse and Chris Cornell with her roaring rock road show the Licks, Lewis is ready to unveil her new solo project.

Her new album, Terra Incognita, was produced by Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (The Mars Volta) and easily shifts from punky grooves ("All Is For God") to chiming ! guitar rock ("Fantasy Bar") and even includes a flashy pop song ("Uh Huh," which Lewis describes as her "make-out jam"). There's a ton of variety in the vocal performances, too, which leap from growly and rich to vulnerable and subtle. "I wanted to make a record that has full flavor and spectrum. Not the same song 11 times," says Lewis. "Terra Incognita means unknown territory and I wanted needed to go there. Not everybody wants to. But I got no one to answer to, so why not feed the muse?"Uma Thurman and Juliette Lewis, two of today's most sensational actresses, tackle what it was to be single in the 80's in a new movie with a terrific 80's soundtrack. It's 1987 in Bayonne, New Jersey. The bars are full and smoky and Debby (Thurman) and Beth (Lewis) are out looking for a good time. Debby is searching for the kind of love they sing about in songs, the kind that lasts forever. What she can't see is that most guys are only looking for a love that lasts one night. From Mira Nai! r, director of Monsoon Wedding and Mississippi Masala. Uma Thu! rman is painful to watch in Hysterical Blindness--and that's a compliment. Thurman completely gives herself over to her trashy character, a pathetically self-deluding good-time girl who hangs out in a tavern in Bayonne, New Jersey, circa 1987. She occupies the bar stool next to her best bud (a dead-on Juliette Lewis), willing herself to believe that an obviously indifferent pick-up is Mr. Right. Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) directed this familiar but nicely-rendered HBO production; her visual style, full of obscured sightlines and opaque glass, emphasizes the heroine's inability to see clearly. Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara, as Thurman's mom and her gentleman suitor, add an echo of Cassavetes realism. But it's Thurman's tour de force, capturing the kind of lost soul whose idea of first-date chat is to break an awkward silence by boasting about her best sexual skill. She will make you cringe. --Robert Horton

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