Wow! Such a good movie.

The Worst Film Ever

Must See Movie...

Good concept, poorly executed.

... written and directed by Blake Edwards. Jack Lemmon stars as a man having a late mid-life crisis of sorts, while his stoic wife, played by Julie Andrews, waits for the results of a biopsy. The whole film takes place over one fraught weekend as their grown children come to visit for Lemmon's impending birthday celebration.Jack Lemmon really grated on my nerves in this one, with all of his late-career mannerisms and vocal inflections ratcheted up to the top. Andrews is good in a thankless role, although I kept hoping she would kick Lemmon in the face. Upper-class malaise and fear of mortality are decent subjects better explored in other films. Lemmon himself even seems to be repeating his earlier turn in Save the Tiger, although this time with less restraint. There are a couple of humorous touches, but few enough to leave comedy off of the film's description.This is the only Jack Lemmon movie I can think of that I have not enjoyed, and that is quite a feat.

This Blake Edwards movie is like all Blake Edwards movies. That means it's fairly lame, has no particular style by which to distinguish itself, and looks like it's been airbrushed.This one revolves around some mid-life crisis topics afflicting a middle-aged couple played by Jack Lemmon and Julie Andrews. Andrews is diagnosed with a tumor and spends the film waiting for test results; Lemmon has the hots for Sally Kellerman (who wouldn't) and spends the movie dithering about it. Lemmon and Andrews are good actors, and they almost make the film worth watching, but only almost.Grade: C

An interesting misfire. Director and co-writer Blake Edwards tries for an autobiographical touch in this family-laden drama, and was rightly accused of narcissism by the critics (who probably wouldn't have pounced so hard had the picture been made with a bit more flavor). 60-year-old architect in Southern California expounds on life's woes while his too-patient spouse deals privately with her own agonies. Although Jack Lemmon does get to spout off with some well-written (if familiar) tyrannies, and Julie Andrews is allowed to put in her much-needed two-cents near the finish, I felt Edwards' film was far removed from reality. It seems to exist in a poor-sports netherworld in which only the wealthy are unhappy. Perhaps it's time for Edwards to get away from the beach-front condos of Malibu and see how the other half lives. *1/2 from ****

The part of Gillian, which Julie Andrews portrayed in "That's Life," gave me a queasy feeling: here was a character who was suffering from a possible career-threatening throat ailment. The film was made in 1986.In real life, ten years later, Andrews would be experiencing a like situation, and two years thereafter awaiting results of a throat operation with parallel consequences.This was not unlike a similar feeling I got when Elizabeth Taylor underwent her well-publicized brain operation in 1997. I vividly recalled her 1959 role of Catherine in "Suddenly Last Summer," in which the crux of that script was built around Catherine's receiving a brain operation.As fine as both of those performances were, the art vs. life aspects were equally as impressive, and unnerving.