L.A. Story (1991)

Director: Mick Jackson

Cast: Steve Martin, Victoria Tennant, Richard E. Grant, Marilu Henner

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: It’s hard for a comedy to have any staying power. Tell a guy a joke once, and he might laugh. Tell it to him again, and what other reaction is left? I had mentioned in my recent review of There’s Something About Mary (1998) that some kind of heart has to exist at the core, or the older comedy inevitably becomes unwatchable**.

And yet, there is the joy of rediscovering a comedy that you may have dimmed in memory over the years. All of the jokes here still work. The quiet mystification of vapid attachment to gadgets seems aimed at the absurdity of Los Angeles thirty-plus years ago, it seems all the more appropriate for everyone now. Weird to find a film’s running gags that are dated, but only work better now.

But the point still remains, the heart is what will make a film live beyond its shelf life, and this film would have been forgiven, possibly, for not going so aggressively for our hearts in its final minutes. The vast majority of romantic comedies are content to show the situations unfurling both before and after a couple gets together. This film makes its final impression not a joke***, but an almost silent scene depicting the sort of quantum inflection point in a romance—filled with nervous desperation—where love may or may not be requited, before it irretrievably happens or doesn’t.

I’m not sure what else a movie could hope to accomplish.

*I don’t even have a footnote, but this is a side note that must be addressed. Isn’t that a great poster? Hints at the mood of the movie, but gives away nothing. Good luck finding a mention of the movie from after the year 2000 that isn’t fixated on bad photoshops of Martin and Sarah Jessica Parker. That’s undeniably selling people a false bill of goods.

**Unless you’re the Marx Brothers, of course.

***Ok, there is one more joke centering on Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy” (which I only learned that was the title of the song just now), but if that’s your takeaway from watching the film… Boy, have I got a poster with Sarah Jessica Parker for you.

Bowfinger (1999)

Director: Frank Oz

Cast: Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Robert Downey Jr.

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. It feels like one of those movies that everybody had to see in the summer of ’99.

Did I Like It: There’s an easy criticism of this film that compares in unfavorably to Ed Wood (1994). It’s easy because it is, fundamentally, true. The story of Ed Wood and Bobby Bowfinger (Martin) are roughly the same. The down on their luck scurrying creature of Los Angeles stops at nothing to make a movie—any movie—and brings the people in his orbit along with him. Ed Wood is the superior film, but between being a black and white movie about a transvestite (complimentary), there was never any hope that it would play in Poughkeepsie. Reaching to make everyone funny, and filming it in the same colors everybody expects to see in any other movies, means that the film is ready for all time zones.

The film is lucky that it is quite funny, owing to able and steady direction from Oz. The film winds up taking skillful shots at both Anne Heche* and Scientology**, thanks to a wry script from Martin.

But the real secret here is Eddie Murphy. Certainly the most popular comedy movie star of the 80s—even Bill Murray often needed backup, and even Chevy felt compelled to make Oh! Heavenly Dog (1980) and National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985)—Murphy spent most of the 90s quietly becoming less and less funny. Here, he is back in fine form, thanks in no small part to the fact that he is able to let go of his well-earned leading man ego to alternately be the least cool guy in the room and make fun of his own image.

*Don’t believe me? Martin didn’t even try to hide it all that much.

**How is Tom Cruise expected to complain about the cracks, when MindHead is depicted as being almost too into psychiatry. People really should take lessons from him in how to make fun of someone not only to the point that they don’t know that they’re being made fun, but that the mockery actually reinforces their prejudices.