Conference bookie::movies

    I agree with the summary in .0.
    
    Here's the premise: Contemporary South Miami Beach. Robin Williams owns
    a gay nightclub. His lover, Nathan Lane, is the drag queen star of the
    club's main act. Together they raised a son, the product of a one-night
    hetero encounter between Robin and a very insistent dancer at the time.
    
    The son is stright, engaged to a young lady who is the daughter of a
    Senator from Ohio (Gene Hackman). The Senator is a co-founder of the
    ultra-straight Coalition for Decency (or some such name). Regrettably
    the -other- co-founder of this group has just been found dead after an
    encounter with an underage black prostitute. The press is hounding
    Hackman for comments on this situation, with camera trucks set up
    outside his house.
    
    His daughter has portrayed Robin Williams as an aristocrat -- no
    mention of sexual orientation -- so Hackman (and wife Dianne Weist,
    neither of whom knows Robin or Nathan) decide to go to Miami, meet
    them, and have a big press announcement about the engagement. This
    will defuse the bad publicity by promoting all those positive "family
    values". This visit forces the lifelong gay couple to act straight, 
    and the idea is that hilarity ensues when the Senator's family meets
    Robin's family, and things don't quite work out right.
    
    One can see the clever hand of Elaine May at work in the script, and
    the actors all do superb jobs in their role. But all this talent ought
    to do better than what came out on the screen. The humor is all too
    obvious and often redundant; it could have been a bit less heavy-handed.
    For example, not really a spoiler, Robin Williams has to go from one
    room to another. A curtain has been put in place to screen out the
    "offensive" outdoors. Instead of passing through the curtain and
    hitting a glass door once, Robin frantically tries one path, then
    another, then another, etc., looking more flustered with each try.
    We get the joke with the first bump. Adding more bumps tries to pile on 
    the laughs, but only succeeeds in reducing the humor of the situation
    and made me feel uncomfortable. Why is the theater crowd cracking up? 
    Peter Sellers did this sort of thing much better 25 years ago.
    
    **/*****, having lost points for letdown after big publicity buildup.
    
      John ("straight but not narrow")

    But the restaurant scene in which Armand is trying to teach Albert how
    to be masculine is quite funny. When he tells him to walk like John
    Wayne, everyone at the show I went to (including me) was laughing
    hysterically.

    I enjoyed it and would recommend seeing it at the early show or with
    discount tickets.

    Lisa

.0> I saw "The Birdcage" Saturday night.  While parts were funny, and Robin
.0> Williams, Nathan Lane and Hank Azaria were excellent, I think the late
.0> 70's original "La Cage aux Folles" was a better movie.
.0>    
.0> I found myself feeling sad and uncomfortable several times as the
.0> audience laughed at inappropriate (in my opinion) times.  Any comments?
	&
.1> I agree with the summary in .0.
.1> **/*****, having lost points for letdown after big publicity buildup.

  I completely agree with both of these assessments.  This movie is a simple
  retread of the original "La Cage aux Folles", which I likewise felt was a
  much better movie as well.  The original played like a movie made in the
  70's, which is what it was.  "Bird Cage" is riddled with so many extremely
  outdated stereotypes it should have been a '70's film itself as well, except
  it was made in the 1990's.  The material was so old, weak, and outdated that
  it wasn't that funny.  Perhaps becuase its comedy bits were old or perhaps
  because the remake is a simple rehashing of the directly telegraphed humour
  that worked in 1970 or perhaps becuase what was funny in 1970 is dated and
  not that funny in 1996, I thought the humour content of this film was
  shockingly low, despite the great hype over this film and Robin Williams.
  Like "Crying Game," this film has an enormous secret they don't want anyone
  who hasn't seen the movie to know yet - the secret is that Robin Williams
  isn't his usual zany funny self here.  Despite the hyped TV commercials which
  show Williams acting funny and zany in his one and only scene (a parody) of
  acting that way, "Bird Cage" is THE most subdued (and boring, for Williams)
  movie role of his entire career (even worse than his flop "Awakenings").

  I likewise felt "sad and uncomfortable" at the inappropriate moments that the
  audience laughed.  This is 1996, and the belittling outdated stereotypes of
  the 1970's didn't feel right in this decade and they just didn't feel updated
  enough (rather, at all) to 'jive' with 1990's sensibilities, in exactly the
  same way bell-bottoms and polyester leisure suits would not either.

  I'd give it *1/2 of ***** stars because all the laughs I had I had already
  had [just love the English language :-)] in the 1970's film "La Cage aux
  Folles," and those laughs rightfully belong there, in that decade and to it,
  instead.  There was pitiful little new material, new laughs or even updated
  laughs in this retread remake.  The few attempts at some updated humour
  failed miserably in my opinion. I didn't find the Rush lines and right wing
  conservative 'funny' lines to be that funny, they were surpirsingly weak and
  lame (the feeling you get from lame and weak SNL skits of recent).  I didn't
  laugh at those and neither did the audience.  

  Do yourself a favor and see the original instead.  If you do see "Bird Cage,"
  drop the idea of Williams being funny here at all, just to readjust your
  expectations in advance. 

  -Erik

    Not having seen the original....I found The Bird Cage a great way
    of spending a cold Sunday afternoon.  We all enjoyed it very much.
    
    I thought the house boy was a dear; Nathan Lane was great; and I loved 
    the ending although I think Gene Hackman was right, white did make him
    look fat.

    Saw it yesterday and loved it.  I never felt uncomfortable at all.
    Will probably rent it when it comes out.
    
    Mo
    

    This was better than I expected, with some good laughs.  (I saw the 
    original version a long time ago and didn't remember it too well.)
    I thought Robin Williams was excellent, his comic timing
    impeccable.  Dianne Wiest as the Senator's wife was also good, as was
    Gene Hackman in an unusual role for him.  Lane and the "Guatemalan"
    servant were pretty excessive, but still funny.
    
    -Stephen
    
    
    
    
      

  We Saw this over the weekend and it was great. Robin Williams does a really
good job, the guy who plays the singer was incredible, and all the others were
really good.

  No doubt if you felt cheated by West Side Story because it was a cheep rip
off of Romeo and Juliet you may find yourself disappointed but I thought this
movie was terrific. No dull spots, great acting, fall on the floor jokes, good
drama, really well done. 

  **** out of 5,
  George