A Woman, Her Men, And Her Futon

Stars: Jennifer Rubin (The Doors, Delusion), Lance Edwards (Soapdish), Grant Show (TV's "Melrose Place"). Following a brief appearance on the film festival circuit, this extraordinarily tiresome "art" film is winging its way to video. Jennifer Rubin stars as Helen, the "woman" of the title. Besides being a lackey at a video production company, Helen is apparently working on a screenplay and she sleeps with everyone who enters her field of vision (ergo, the "futon" of the title). The "men"--Don, Randy, Paul, Ted, and Max--are pretty much indistinguishable, except that most of them work in film or video in some capacity, and Don happens to be writing a screenplay. Believe it or not, Helen and Don sit around a lot discussing the merits and demerits of the screenplay they finally end up collaborating on (saying things like "that isn't enough," and "it goes much deeper than that.") All of this is just a little more tedious than watching the grass grow. In the book world, this is the equivalent of the first novelist writing a novel about a writer who is writing his or her first novel. In other words, what we have here is extended navel watching. Since there's doodley squat to sell when it comes to story, the cover art focuses on the "erotic" aspect of A Woman, Her Men, And Her Futon, by showing a half-draped Jennifer Rubin. However, the frequent sex scenes in the film are separated by some of the most absolutely banal acting and dialogue we've ever seen. Audience The cover will draw some viewers, but the snail's pace of the utterly banal story will bore most people to tears.