Conference bookie::movies

1061.0. "Flirting with Disaster" by APLVEW::DEBRIAE (the wonder in gardening is, that anything grows at all-Jefferson) Wed Apr 10 1996 12:12

  I went to see "Flirting with Disaster" having absolutely no expectations for
  this movie, and ended up just loving it! I would not call this a movie great,
  but it certainly was a great movie to view.  Perhaps the movie just caught me
  with perfect timing for my mood, but I found it to be pure fun.  Despite the
  foreground topic of adopted children wanting to find their biological parents
  just as they themselves are becoming parents, the serious look at the topic
  is not achieved via a hard-hitting powerful film.  It is instead achieved via
  an extremely funny comedy featuring a surprising amount of star power where
  you can actually see the actors/actresses having fun in their roles (Mary
  Tyler Moore and Lily Tomlin especially).  

  _Here_ was the screwball comedy I've been waiting for to deliver all the
  hoped-for laughs that eluded me in "Bird Cage." "Flirting" delivered! (The
  former failed).  This wasn't a tremendous film but it did get me to laugh
  quite a number of times.  And it caught me off-guard with several totally
  unexpected twists and character revelations, making me laugh aloud.  I really
  enjoyed the uniquely different personalities and moods of 'coupledom' that
  "Flirting" displayed for each of the four distinctly different couples.  They
  were each unique from one another, yet they all rang so true to real-life
  couples and "funny but true" couplehood situations.  It was similar to
  watching Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt in "Mad About You," except here you had
  four couples to see yourself and others in instead of one.

  The matching up of actors and actresses into couples (as they picked them) I
  would have never have thought would work, but all the couplings were perfect
  together and made for an hysterical assortment of characters.  The four
  pairings were Mary Tyler Moore with George Segal as an older parents couple,
  Lily Tomlin with Alan Alda as a counterculture western artists couple, the
  hysterically funny deadpan Richard Jenkins and Josh Brolin as a gay couple
  totally void of the expected Hollywood stereotypical bunk, and lastly the
  young newly-wed couple with the major characters, the recently pregnant
  Patricia Arquette with new father adopted Ben Stiller.  They all worked great
  together.  The third main character was T�a Leoni who played the extremely
  perky and sexy but emotionally flaky long-legged slinky-dressed woman from
  the adoption agency.  Many of the players in the movie are exceedingly
  attractive.

  What you end up with from all of these pairings is an extremely funny movie
  with some complicated adult humour and some fresh adult scenes untypical for
  Hollywood that strikes a home run.  Much of the humour, the parts I
  personally found funniest, were not the typical hard-hitting "You are
  supposed to laugh here" scenes Hollywood is infamous for.  Many of the
  funniest scenes came just from the various nuances and situations captured in
  the actor's faces, very understated and occasionally dead-pan, as they
  continued on with the scene.  Many of the uncommented-on visuals alone were
  funny as well, such as seeing the darker complexion Ben Stiller of
  Armenian/Palestinian/Jewish middle-eastern descent standing with a tremendous
  smile on his face between two extremely tall, perky breasted, scantily clad
  (in lycra), blond and blue-eyed Scandinavian exceedingly athletic women fresh
  from playing volleyball who both tower several feet over him - Stiller with
  his facial expression intimating "so you two are my sisters, wow, yeah, I can
  see that." 

  The characters, the couple's dynamics, the humour and the comedic situations
  they find themselves in (many resulting from sexual attractions) rang true to
  real life people and events.  The film was not deep or heavy or haute cinema,
  it is a little film that is just a lot of fun.  I heartily recommend it for a
  casual easy-watching night at the movies.  The film had all the right
  balances.  I found myself laughing quite a bit, unexpectedly.  David Russell
  and everyone involved should be commended.

  -Erik

    
 > together.  The third main character was T�a Leoni who played the extremely
 > perky and sexy but emotionally flaky long-legged slinky-dressed woman from
 > the adoption agency.  Many of the players in the movie are exceedingly
    
  	Will see it just for this reason!
    
    ed

    Yup, cool movie indeed. Very funny. The same director did "Spanking the
    Monkey" which is also excellent, although in a more subtle, black humor
    way.
    
    - Bob