Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Two people lost in the world somehow find each other.He is a nerdy, depressed Mr. Nice Guy, willing to pay to get close to people. She is a stripper who works out her anger as a drummer in her off-hours. When she tells him she won't let him get close, he takes it as a challenge.He wants to believe she's fundamentally normal, just great in bed. What she sees is a guy she can squeeze for money. Not understanding, or caring, what she's doing, he's willing to throw everything away for her. When she rejects his love, he's not such a nice guy after all. Yet they both keep going back for more.There is a tremendous amount of sex in this sordid Vegas-based movie and I sense it was used to pad a flimsy story. This film takes itself very seriously, but like time spent in Sin City, it doesn't amount to much.

"Oh, I'm coming inside youuu...!"If this is the sort of dialogue you want, I suggest you delve a little deeper into your DVD store (the hidden depths and secret passages), and get a porn film. Pornos are far quicker in getting to the point - and even the characterization is sometimes better than in TCOTW.However!... A warning, lest you think there is hardcore porn in TCOTW: this crap is strictly soft-core, so don't expect something like "9 Songs", "Intimacy", or "Sex Is Comedy", other similar sex-driven plot-less garbage, masked as "art".Alarms started going off in my little head the moment I read the credits: "screenplay by Ellen Benjamin Wang". Apparently, the director's wife (probably 30 years his junior) must have one day felt that her husband owed her a shot at writing movies, as return for everything she had done for him (hint hint). In fact, maybe the screenplay is loosely autobiographical? A lonely millionaire seeks out an expensive female escort to keep him company in a five-star Las Vegas hotel... I was also surprised that Paul Auster had sunk so low as to waste his time on such cretinous and pointless material.This is what I refer to as a "lifeless movie". D.O.A. The mood is dead, the visual style (filmed mostly on video - whoopdie!) is more bland than your dull neighbour's sea holiday footage. The "hip" shaky-camera shtick gives yet again the impression of a drunken "director of photography" who stuck his camera you-know-where and then filmed the movie from behind, randomly taking in images, sometimes missing the actors completely. The near-lack of a soundtrack only underlines the deadness of everyone and everything involved. Was this crap inspired by "Idiots 95", Lars von Trier's wonderful little crackpot cinematic-revolution firm? The wobbly camera, the sex, the ugly look, and the lack of music certainly adhere to the rules of "Morons 95". We're offered two lead characters who are uninteresting and bland. I could almost see Molly Parker as a stripper (although, they're usually rather mangy-looking), but when it is mentioned that she fixed car-locks and plays the drums, I could have laughed. I could have but didn't, because the movie had already put me in a semi-slumber during its first several minutes. Parker plays an uninteresting, mentally hollow stripper; Sarsgaard plays a run-of-the-mill nice guy: an uninteresting rich and polite semi-nerd. When the two of them were together sparks flew! No, not really... But I'm sure that Ms.Wang intended to have us see those sparks - wherever they may be. Where have those sparks gone? Or were they never even thrown in the film in the first place? Ms.Wang, you need to find out who took those sparks that were meant to be in all those "sexy", "emotional" scenes. I think someone stole them. Or perhaps the sparks abandoned the set, running as fast as their feet(?) could carry them, unwilling to have anything to do with this dull project.Thank God for the miracle of modern science! No, not the internet, computers, or DNA research; I'm talking about the remote control. Using this simple yet effective tool, I managed to finish this 85-minute movie in less than 70 minutes. I know, still too long for this malarkey, but that's at least 15 minutes of my life saved, and every minute counts when you're as bored as I was, watching Ms.Parker try to be sexy with her laughable stripping and tiny butt.So what was the ultimate point of this shamelessly plot-less film? Basically, this is a "when-is-the-penetration-gonna-happen" kind of story. At the outset of their Las Vegas "adventure" Parker tells Sarsgaard and the poor viewers that there will be "no kissing and no penetration", but even the most clueless viewer knows that that's exactly what has to happen at some point. And when it happens it's... it's... rather uninteresting, just like all the previous events. In that great finale they kiss, they have (un)emotional sex, Parker is still frigid, Sarsgaard is still in love - and sobs like a baby after just having semi-raped Parker. He did that to her because he was heavily frustrated. 10,000 bucks and such disrespect? Ts, ts... Maybe the message of the film is this: "rich semi-nerdy young millionaires are often unable to get the proper sexual escort service that they really need". Wow. That IS "deep".Or maybe the movie wants us to muse over whether the vagina or the internet is "the center of the world". (I'm not making this up.) Now, that's DEEP! A little correction. I just found out that "Ellen Banjamin Wang" isn't a "Wang" but a "Wong". Furthermore, she is not a real person but a pseudonym which Wayne Wang so very ingeniously created to represent all the great and inventive minds that put so much thought into this intellectual exercise. Maybe that's why the movie sucks this much: half a dozen writers collaborating on what is essentially a non-story... that can never end well.There is more entertainment to be found in reading the name "Wayne Wang" over and over than watching this film.

Wayne Wang has built most of his career directing films about unique relationships and this one is exactly that. But its also one that really doesn't have much to say. Peter Sarsgaard plays Richard who is a man that has a computer business and its on the verge of going public and earning him even more money than he has now. Molly Parker is Florence who is an exotic dancer in a strip club and she meets Richard in a coffee shop. They talk and he finds out where she works. Finally he asks her if she would come to Las Vegas with him for 10,000 dollars. She lays out the ground rules like no sex. But between 10pm and 2am she will do erotic things with him without intercourse. During the stay in Vegas Richard meets her friend Jerri (Carla Gugino) and at one point she says her boyfriend beat her up. Richard gives her money to help her out. One of the questions surrounding the story is if Florence and Jerri were in on it together to get more money out of Richard. Its possible. The center of the film is Parkers performance as Florence. Its the best thing in the film and Parker reminded me of Linda Fiorentino in "The Last Seduction". A very smart woman who doesn't compromise and is in control at all times. At one point in the film Florence is masturbating and I think the scene shows that whatever sexual pleasure she receives will be on her terms, when she allows it. *****SPOILER ALERT*****The end of the film has no revelation and the character of Richard is so predictable that one can't help but call him a big fool. Of course he falls for her and thinks that over the course of time she'll change her mind about him. But business is business and Florence tells him that she's here for the money, just as they had agreed on. The irony of the film is that Richard is a very successful man with a computer company making lots of money but when it comes to relationships, he's a failure. Florence is the one that understands what business is. She's a consummate pro! Film is moderately interesting without having any real message or angle to the story. We don't know if Florence and Jerri set up Richard and you can't feel sorry for him. He's portrayed as such a schmuck. We saw his intentions when he first asked Florence to Vegas. I guess that makes Florence quite the opportunist!

...Wayne Wang's notorious, controversial and explicit "CENTER OF THE WORLD" (Artisan, $.. is a much more polished piece of work than "Romance." It also explores the bleak terrain of emotional isolation. This time the protagonist is a rich internet geek (Peter Sarsgaard) who literally contracts with a rock and roll drummer and part-time stripper (Molly (Parker) for a sexual get-away in Las Vegas. The phoniness of Vegas and the impersonal internet are more than metaphors for what amounts to virtual sex in real life. The basic elements are familiar in countless other love stories, but here the physicality of the two main characters dominates everything. In many ways we root for them to break out of their protective shells and actually connect with the hearts.Sometimes the walls we build to keep out the bad cuts us off from life itself. This film, shot on high definition video, evokes a more personal and immediate response and is much more effective on DVD than it is projected in a theater. Longing for intimacy but in the grip of a fear of letting go leaves the main characters with only the option of exploring physical sensations as soulless.