Archives: A
- E F - N O
- Z Posters Message
Boards
Who
We Are and Why We Do What We Do
BLU-RAY DVDs:
Batman Begins
Black Hawk Down
Blade Runner
Casino Royale
Dark Knight
District Nine
Defiance
Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious movies set
Fifth Element
The Hangover
Incredible HULK
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man
Kill Bill 1 & 2
James Bond Ultimate ed v1James Bond Ultimate ed v2James Bond Ultimate ed v3
Julie & Julia
Moon
Public Enemies
Rambo box set
Silence of the Lambs
Sin City
This is Spinal Tap
Terminator
Terminator Salvation
Terminator 2
Top Gun
Total Recall
300
Transformers: Revenge of Fallen
Ultimate Matrix coll
Twilight
Underworld
Watchmen (dir cut)
X-Men Trilogy
X-Men Wolverine
BLU-Ray for family DVDs
Bolt
A Bug's Life
Cars
Chronicles of Narnia set
Coraline
Ghostbusters
Harry Potter & Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Order of Phoenix
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
Ice Age/Alvin + Chipmunks set
The Incredibles
Jungle Book
Juno
Kung Fu Panda
Monsters Inc
Nightmare Before Xmas
101 Dalmatians
Pinocchio
Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy
Pixar short films
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Sleeping Beauty
Spiderwick Chronicles
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White & 7 Dwarfs
Star Trek motion pictures set
Star Wars Prequel Trilogy (1-3)
Star Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Transformers SE
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
We're Kidlet Safe
Search engine
by FreeFind
click to search site
Now in Release:
2012
A Perfect Getaway
The Blind Side
A Christmas Carol
An Education
Fifty Dead Men Walking
Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Invictus
Is Anybody There?
It's Complicated
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
The Lovely Bones
My Sister's Keeper
New in Town
Nine
Pirate Radio
Precious
The Proposal
Red Cliff
The Road
Shrink
St. Trinian's
The Strip
Surrogates
Taken
The Uninvited
Up in the Air
Young Victoria
DVDs on Sale:
Aliens Quadrilogy (set)
An American in Paris
Batman
Begins
Blade
Runner
Coraline
The Dark Knight
Day the Earth Stood Still
Defiance
Die Hard collection 1-4
District Nine
Last Days of Fillmore West
Fast & Furious movies set
Forrest
Gump
Gone
With the Wind
The Hangover
Alfred Hitchcock set
Indiana
Jones trilogy
Inglorious Basterds
Iron Man SE
Lord
of Rings 12 discs
Marx Bros set
Ultimate
Matrix set
Milk
Monty
Python - Holy Grail
Moon
Public Enemies
Sin City
South
Park Movie
Star
Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Terminator Salvation
Up
Wall-E
Watchmen - Ultimate cut
Woodstock
X-Men
Trilogy
X-Men Origins Wolverine
DisneyPixar & family DVDs Looney
Toons
Alice
in Wonderland
Bambi
Beauty
and the Beast
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
Bolt
Cinderella
Coraline
E.T.
Harry
Potter yrs 1-4 set
Harry Potter
& Chamber of Secrets
& Goblet of Fire
& Prisoner of Azkaban
& Sorcerers Stone
& Order of Phoenix
Kung Fu Panda
The
Lion King
Mary
Poppins 45th LE
Pinocchio
Ratatouille
Santa Clause
Santa Clause 2
Shrek Trilogy
Simpsons Movie
Spider-Man Trilogy
Star Trek movies set
Star
Trek TOS (TV)
ST:TNG complete tv set
Star Wars Trilogy (1-3)
Star
Wars Trilogy (4-6)
Wallace and Gromit
Wall-E SE
Golden Age DVD
Volume
1
Volume
2
Volume
3
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Rocky & Bullwinkle DVD
Season
1
Season
2
Season
3
Popeye the Sailor DVD
v.1 1933 - 1938
v.2 1938 - 1940
v.3 1941 - 1943
75th anniversary coll.ed.
The Birdcage
Starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane,
Gene Hackman, and Dianne Wiest
Directed by Mike Nichols
Once upon a time there was a French film called La Cage Aux Folles (Birds of a Feather) which was a big hit. It made its way to the Broadway stage and to the big screen as a musical, and once again has been adapted for the screen, as The Birdcage.
It's been done to death. So what? It's a farce -- the characters are bigger than the stereotypes they present. And when it doesn't work, you'll be sitting in the theater thinking, "I thought this was a comedy." When it does work you'll be chuckling, then laughing, then guffawing, then straining at the screen to hear the dialog ('cuz you can't hear, there's too much laughter).
Armand (Robin Williams) and Albert (Nathan Lane) are a content gay couple, having their little spats and growing into upper middle age (50-something) together. They've raised Armand's son Val (Dan Futterman) together, and as the film begins they are greeted with the news that Val is about to marry into a prominent Washington family.
The father in law is a homophobic, totally right-wing U.S. senator named Keeley (Gene Hackman). The morality committee he runs has been rocked with scandal, for it seems his partner did not do as he said you should. Keeley's wife (Dianne Wiest) suggests that a nice "white wedding" is just the cure for the bad PR.
'Course Val hasn't told the senator about his "parents." In fact he has lied up the wazoo as to who they are, what they do and what their backgrounds are, to wit, the senator has no idea that Val is Jewish. And rather than fess up, he embarks on a plan to (essentially) humiliate the ones he loves.
I hate this kid. It's one thing to be a stupid, pea-brained, stick-in-the-mud, hoity-toity political hack. It's another thing when you turn your back on a good set of roots for the sake of appearances. Damned thing is that people do it every day, in many more ways than asking "mom" to stay away when the in-laws come to call.
The Birdcage, on the surface, is a broad slapstick farce with over-the-top stereotypes of gay characters inhabiting one central and a host of supporting roles. On a deeper level, it's about rejection of roots and all that kid/parent stuff we all go through, and sometimes never resolve.
OK, enough of that. Is it funny? Yes. Is it nasty, insulting funny? To the serious gay talk shows on cable here in Manhattan, yep. They've gone ballistic. Not to me, and certainly not to the paying audience I sat with. Maybe it's because us "straight" people prefer to look only at stereotypes. Realistically it's because if you live in New York City, you know gay people very much like Armand, and to some extent like Albert. I can't speak for people in Iowa, but the characterizations from both men go beyond stereotype.
Robin Williams, having done the drag bit in Mrs. Doubtfire, is the straight end (sic) of the loving couple. Williams lies back and lets Nathan Lane steal the show almost every chance he gets. The screenplay by Elaine May and direction by Mike Nichols gives him plenty of chances.
Except for the times it is making a not-so-heavy-handed point about family values not being restricted to strictly heterosexual couples. It is at these times Cranky found his liberal self thinking "I thought this was supposed to be a comedy?" But those times passed quickly enough.
Elaine May's script savages traditional right-wing political positions, includes a logical solution to the abortion "problem" and deflates the homophobia inherent in some parts of that political party with a hysterical (at least to me) one-liner about a particular religious minority. Mike Nichols has put together a most enjoyable film (and that the endgame hinges on a technologically impossible point -- you can't get anything past ex-Sound Guy Cranky -- will be ignored).
On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Eight Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price for The Birdcage, he would have paid . . .
$6.75
Why isn't it higher? Simple. As much as I liked it, as much as I laughed heartily as the film climaxed, 24 hours later I couldn't remember more than one really funny bit. Maybe that would call for seeing the thing again, but I can wait for my next show.
 |
Click to buy films by Mike Nichols |
| Click to buy films starring Robin Williams | |
| Click to buy films starring Nathan Lane | |
| Click to buy films starring Gene Hackman |