Search - Love Her Madly on DVD

Calling all the dogs

mark twain | MA | 08/07/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Lucky for Ray Manzarek that he met with Jim Morrison on Venice Beach that fateful day, for his talents in film are not to be found in this banal hack-flick. They should resurrect the show MST3K for this movie alone. If you want a good laugh at Mr Manzarek's expense, see this movie, otherwise stay away. I can guarentee that Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek's idol, would have been disgusted to learn that his name was used in the opening credits as writer of this trash. Morrison did not write this script, as R.M. mentions in one of the extras sections on the dvd, but had only mentioned a scenario in passing. R.M., the forever opportunist, tries to cash in again on Jim Morrison's name. Ray Manzarek, have you no shame?
"

Hate this madly

N. Bowers | MA | 08/02/2004

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This movie is simply a vehicle for Ray Manazarik to yet again exploit his association with The Doors. It was painful to watch and if it weren't for the 34B's that were shown abundantly throughout the movie I don't think that I would have made it to the end credits. This is softporn masked as a serious independant film from a man who should know better. There doesn't seem to be any actual content to this movie and I can't believe that I was pursuaded to purchase this from the previous 2 reviews on Amazon.com, which were probably from the actors themselves. After watching the Bonus Material and seeing the Ray Manzarek interview I can now conclude that this former keyboard player of The Doors is desperately trying to revisit his past with Jim Morrison, as usual. He traverses their early stomping grounds with unamusing anecdotes, overstating "yes, I knew Jim Morrison!".
What is even more pathetic is that this entire movie was based on an idea that Jim Morrison had while drunk off his ass.
Even diehard Doors fans should avoid this stinker. In fact, it will only get them depressed, or extremely angry."

For Hardcore Doors/Manzarek Fans Only

Jym Cherry | Wheaton, IL United States | 05/07/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"In 1965 Ray Manzarek was said to be the filmmaker at the UCLA film school with the brightest career in movies. Unfortunately, he waited 35 years to make his feature film debut. As we all know instead of making films Manzarek went on to from the rock group The Doors with fellow student Jim Morrison.

Love Her Madly stars Jennifer Lothrop, who now co-hosts FX's DVD on TV, as Hadley, the object of desire of a three man love triangle, two fellow students and a professor. After setting up her relationship with each of the three men, and giving each a motive for killing her, she ends up dead and the whodunit murder mystery is on. There is a cameo by Ray Manzarek and Michael McClure as curmudgeonly musicians demanding to be paid.

As a filmmaker (and a novelist) Manzarek is exceedingly linear. His artistic point of view of is someone trained on the piano where logical progression from A to B to C work to create a coherent whole. What Manzarek doesn't understand is that art isn't a rational progression, it needs to take irrational leaps, Jim Morrison understood this, Manzarek hasn't learned that lesson. Love Her Madly is a logical progression of a plot but it's flat, monotone in tone and dialogue delivery, and there are no surprises in a genre that demands surprise. Although, a couple of the actors went on to better things T.J. Thyne (the TV series Bones), the performances here are also flat, no one does anything special with their part consequently 20 minutes after watching this movie you'll be struggling to remember what happened.

Jim Morrison is given a story credit in the movie, whether this is a cynical move on Manzarek's part to garner interest in the movie on Morrison's legendary status, or if, as Manzarek claims in the commentary he and Jim talked about making this movie. Depending on when that would have occurred in The Doors career it stretches credulity that anything of significance could have been discussed with Morrison.

There are no Doors songs on the soundtrack. Manzarek provides nothing to the soundtrack either using a frequent partner of his named Bal.

For bonus features there is a tour of Venice, CA where The Doors were born and created their early music and which is of much more interest than the movie. This DVD is only for a hardcore Doors/Manzarek aficionado who wants to complete their collection."