This is the kind of movie that serves as a reminder that comedy is agonizingly difficult when it works, and even more trouble when it doesn't. But when I was laughing, I was genuinely laughing - there are some absolutely inspired moments. Rarely, for example, has an entire house been moved for less comic effect than in this movie. Among the good things are a batty performance by John Larroquette, as Basinger's insanely jealous former fiancee, and a completely new twist on a car chase scene.Įdwards also has fun with a long set-piece in a mansion with lots of rooms and doors and windows and trellises for a slapstick corridor scene almost as good as the hilarious one that took place in the hotel halls, rooms and balconies in " Victor/Victoria." But some of his other expensive inspirations don't work. If the movie lacks a strong human core that we can care about - the sort of core Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore have created with Edwards - it does have a lot of funny stuff going on. We should believe she's an unpredictable time bomb. She is always just exactly as drunk - or as sober - as the plot requires, and that's a mistake. She apparently has the stuff to be a comedian, but Edwards handles her too arbitrarily. Her hair is always in her eyes, and her eyes are her best feature. Looks really aren’t everything, and when you’re finally face-to-face in front of a person, you can’t hide behind your screen any more But rest assured, people generally prefer good humour to good looks on a first date, and they want someone with whom they can share an interesting. Basinger, so ravishing in most of her movies, looks dowdy this time. Finally, words say a lot during a first date in real life. Greek schlock-meister, Nico Mastorakis (Island of Death) goes 'high-tech' Hitchcock (the 1.98 version) in the voyeuristic 1980s thriller BLIND DATE, on Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing.Jonathan Ratcliff (Joseph Bottoms, OPEN HOUSE) has been working in the Middle East for the last several years and is not ready to go back to New York. Willis plays a nerd so successfully that he fades into the shrubbery and never really makes us care about his fate. There are individual moments in this movie that are as funny as anything Edwards has ever done, but they're mostly sight gags and don't grow out of the characters. Can he come up with a new angle? Well, sort of. This is familiar territory for Edwards: He has made a comedy about alcoholism ("10"), and his " The Party" (1968) was about the same kinds of social embarrassment that his heroes inflict this time. "She goes crazy if she drinks," he says, but the nerd takes this as a recommendation instead of a warning.Īnd on that fatal glass of Champagne, Blake Edwards spins his whole comedy of errors in which Nadia gets Walter fired, beaten up, chased, shot at and arrested, while the two of them meanwhile fall in love. His brother fixes him up with Nadia Gates ( Kim Basinger).
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