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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

The Hamptons (or "Why aren't you touching my legs?"--The Movie)

12:49 / 02.06.02

Evidently this was on Channel 4 awhile ago in the UK and is showing tonight on ABC. I'll be watching it for no other reason than Barbara Kopple directed it. She's most famous for doing the documentaries "Harlan County USA" (about striking miners in W. Virginia) & "American Dream" (about striking meatpackers in Minnesota). In the latter, a meatpacker disowns his own brother for crossing the picket line. His own flesh & blood. Fucking harsh...

Seeing as her other films are so in favor of the workers, I don't think these subjects are gonna come out of a proverbial shitpatch smelling like a rose. Besides I want to see this moment of total ego overkill:

"There is, for example, Jacqueline Lipson, a twentysomething Manhattan attorney who looks upon the summer as a time to meet Mr. Right and goes about it with lawyerly sharkishness -- handing out her number to many guys at many parties, cooing aggressively to one flustered date, ''Why aren't you touching my legs?'' Beneath her gleaming white smile, Lipson seems sadly desperate; it's hard to believe she didn't know she'd come off this way to the camera. Then again, if there's one thing ''The Hamptons'' is about, it's self-delusion."

What kind of idiotic comment is "Why aren't you touching my legs?"???? Christ almighty....

Oh yeah, blurbs from different sites on AICN.

Matthew Fluxington

13:25 / 02.06.02

I've got to see this. It's really amazing how many people like this exist, and I just feel so badly for all the clueless guys who end up with these women. It's Sex and the City gone mad, really.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

17:05 / 02.06.02

I want to see this, not because I want to laugh at the people involved or any other reason than to just see how people who make a LOT more money than me think.

As much as people talk about racial differences, I find I have more in common with people of other races of the same social strata than people of my race who are much wealthier than I am...funny how it doesn't work that way down the social ladder, as I have no problems with people who make less money than me.

Matthew Fluxington

00:11 / 03.06.02

I'm watching it right now - I'm about 15 minutes in, and these people are already making me feel ill.

06:06 / 04.06.02

Man, there was alot ot think about in that documentary. So much that I wish I would have taped it. The sheer ego & emptiness. It's almost so overpowering that even the locals felt sorry for them rather than pissed off. In fact, the only person who seemed to have more than one facet to their personality was the writer who had to put down his dog. The fact that he brought flowers to his neighbor for telling him that his dog isn't sick enough to be put down just yet was the only really touching moment. Everything else was so detached & vain.

In it's own way, it did come off as some sort of utopia. Despite all of the exclusivity, even the working girls Helen & Ellen (reality really is stranger than fiction) got their picture published in the slick magazine. I think the most telling bit was (apart from the upcoming observation) was that there were no kids hardly in the thing. As if the fact is that these people are so rich that they don't need a kid for a tax write-off or some tchoke (sp?) to be shown off. Besides, it'd take too much effort. In fact, the only effort you ever saw anyone exerting was washing the hubcaps of their Range Rovers.

The bit with the kids playing musical chairs showed just how early this selfishness is ingrained. The hostess had to explain to them that the purpose was to grab a chair--any chair--when the music stopped. Chairs are just chairs, right? Well, they had to insist that they couldn't have their chair back. the fact that their chair could be someone else's chair kinda eluded them. Almost an allegory (albiet a flaky one) for Capitalism.

06:51 / 04.06.02

i was pretty into how he was going on about how this is a golden age, a peek moment of prosperity, then cut right to julien schnabel talking about a plane crash dream on september 10th. was that too heavy handed? i thought it worked, that the whole show about excess and braindead hedonism on the coast of a nuclear reactor was bookended by september 11th.

how did the lisa grubman thing turn out, by the way? i was always pretty fascinated with her whole evil scene.

12:39 / 06.06.02

I almost forgot about Robert Wilson's part in this documentary. All I kept thinking was "What's Tom Waits doing with this wanker?" Sweeping the forest?! What the hell's up with that??

14:55 / 06.06.02

i was pretty into how he was going on about how this is a golden age, a peek moment of prosperity, then cut right to julien schnabel talking about a plane crash dream on september 10th. was that too heavy handed?

Maybe a little heavy handed, but certainly a nice contrast between the shallow hedonism of the rest of the summer. Actually the bit after that (with the 'regular folks' walking in the pouring rain and the shot of the newspapers with pictures of Mohammed Atta and the Trade Center on fire) were very effective.

I was wondering if she was going to include 911, especially since it happened the weekend after labor day (when you would think the story would end) but maybe she felt it was too big to ignore.

The Apple-Picker

15:22 / 06.06.02

I was absolutely amused for a good part of the show. The humorlessness, self-importance, and complete lack of depth were horrifying but entertaining. It took tragedy for the horrifying entertainment to appall and disgust me. A restauranteur died in a car crash. It’s kind of hard to describe my reaction, but maybe I won’t need to describe it. You’ll have it yourselves when I tell you the things that led me to my reaction. “Is this going to be an invitation-only funeral?” “People are already worried about what they’re going to wear to the funeral.” A man commented on the high-profile mix of mourners in attendance. It was like a fucking benefit, some high society who’s-who. I was almost disbelieving.

Luckily, things were lightened by this soul-less couple. Some woman talking about how the guy she was dating was a mother’s wet dream. That he had everything she was looking for: “he has the height, he has the eyes, he has the eyelashes, he’s got all his hair, and he’s Jewish.” I can understand the “he’s Jewish” part. That’s a big cultural thing. But the rest? I had to smirk. %Yeah, what else could you possibly want in a man?% %Certainly not humor, intelligence, wit, talent, or passion. Those things all fade with time.%

The Australian woman bugged me, too. All her complaints about having had no intellectual conversation coupled with her neglect to actually *start* one didn't save her from being vacuous like the rest; she was just self-conscious about it.