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Reviews Counted:15
Fresh:6
Rotten:9
Average Rating:5.2/10
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: An intoxicating mix of private thoughts and public behavior, A Wink and a Smile exposes more than the human body by putting gender, power, sexuality and social identity under the glittery... [More]
Deirdre Timmons' empowering "A Wink And A Smile" follows ten Seattle women -- a homemaker, doctor, singer, taxidermist, student and others -- as they venture forth to self discovery by learning striptease and integrating the spirit of burlesque into their
Elegantly shot...and nicely paced, A Wink and a Smile is most appealing in its depiction of the growing camaraderie of the students.
These would be fascinating people to interview, but unfortunately the focus instead is on the more mundane concerns of the students, whose graduating performances are puzzlingly shown only in glimpses.
The filmmaker's inability to master the form that the film is clearly set up to fulfill, leaves the audience feeling cheated out of a promised warts-and-all payoff.
The movie is an excruciating documentary about ordinary women taking a burlesque class in Seattle.
What Wink and a Smile lacks in controversy and provocative material it makes up with pro-women themes and humanistic storytelling.
Skin-deep look at students in a Seattle school for stripping.
Just as burlesque loses most of its oomph when put on video -- no art is more dependent on the intimacy of live performance -- self-esteem trips are less compelling to hear about than to experience firsthand.
Top Criticself-important
Timmons shortchanges them by failing to show any of the graduating acts in their entirety. Talk about a strip-tease.
Highly entertaining docu A Wink and a Smile provides an eye-opening lesson in the theory and practice of stripping.
Top CriticIn Deirdre Allen Timmons’ A Wink and a Smile, she delves into the making of a sexy performer by infiltrating Miss Indigo Blue’s Academy of Burlesque in Seattle.
A Wink and a Smile struck me as 90 minutes of narcissism with a hyper-feminist slant, and no erotic charge whatsoever.
Hurray to these lovely ladies for summoning up the courage to serve up an evening's worth of genuinely erotic, yet somehow simultaneously wholesome, adult entertainment. But enough is enough. I just pray none of them are tempted to quit their day jobs."
The tension between wanting to root for these women and ultimately being faced with what you're rooting for goes completely unresolved.
April 30, 2009:
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April 28, 2009:
Hurray to these lovely ladies for summoning up the courage to serve up an evening's worth of genuinely erotic, yet somehow simultaneously wholesome, adult entertainment. But enough is enough. I just pray none of them are tempted to quit their day jobs. 
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