esrosedotblog

TODAY'S MOVIE

CALIFORNIA SUITE (1978): NYTimes1176BestFilms. Herbert Ross adaptation of the Neil Simon play. He opened it up and let the characters really be in California.

It is an anthology pic: four stories; two extremely well done; winners. The other two are awful. I will let you see it and figure out which are which.

Even the two good ones suffer from the Neil Simon syndrome: the actors seem to be wearing the lines as though they are parts of their costumes. This wears off, as the stories progress, but it is fucking irritating at the beginning. Too many polished bon mots. Maybe it is Simon who gets over it. He has to get the wise-ass stuff out of his system; then he lets the production take over.

I don't know what to do about the rating. If two are worth a 4 out of Netlix5 and the other two are a zero, then the whole thing is a net 2. But there is fast forward. Skip the Walter Matthau/Elaine May and the incredibly racist and poorly done Richard Pryor/Bill Cosby. Even for the seventies this latter is an embarrassment greater than Stepin Fetchit at his most eye rollin', finger poppin', minstrel show self. Actually, Mr. Fetchit was good at what he did. These guys suck.