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Town & Country

Town & Country

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Should get zero if they allowed it!
Review: I doubt I will see a worse movie this year or next. After three years of rewrites, reshoots and re-edits, Warren Beatty's latest vehicle is released and falls mightily flat with a huge crash. All the post-production hoopla did nothing but destroy the film's chances of ever finding any artistic success or adding any glimmer to the careers of those involved. Beatty and Garry Shandling are idiot actors in idiotic roles as two men who can't stop cheating on their wives. Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton hardly fare any better as the women who are being betrayed by these philandering gits (this is a very far cry from The First Wives Club). All the other talented performers, from Jenna Elfman to Andie MacDowell to Joshua Hartnett, are wasted in thankless roles that for the most part don't even make any sense. The film's script has absolutely no humour beyond the odd moment, and most of its scenes end without ever having gone anywhere. Even Beatty can't avoid the fact that he is just too old to be in something so ridiculous; with no character strength written in, how are we supposed to believe that all these gorgeous women a third his age would fall for this twelve hundred year-old goofball? The enjoyment level here is equal to a non-novocaine-assisted drilling in a back-alley dentist's chair. Unbelievable that is written by the man who wrote To Die For and co-wrote Heaven Can Wait with Beatty.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Goldie Hawn & Warren Beatty: just don't gel
Review: I have always been a BIG fan of Goldie Hawn because of her extraordinary talent, and abitity to adept herself to unuasual situations. I don't understand why Goldie would lower her standards and appear in the aweful "B" grade flick.

This movie has a very basic story line where a married, elderly wealthy, old man is portrayed in being able to have sex with beautiful younger women and ends up being caught. The end I will leave for your imanination. :)

There doesn't seem to be any 'spark' between Beatty and Goldie as in acting together: again...heaven knows why she did it.

see this only if you are extremely bored. As a previouse reviewer stated: not a movie for Goldies C.V

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Real Turkey, Considering the Cast
Review: I understand completely why this movie sat on the shelf since 1998. It should have stayed there. I haven't seen a movie this poorly directed and unfunny since Breakfast of Champions. The story revolves around Warren Beatty's character, Porter Stoddard, a chronic adulterer married to Diane Keaton. Goldie Hawn and Garry Shandling play their friends also going thru marital problems of their own.

The actors were wasted in the movie and should have known better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Funny. Period.
Review: I'm giving this five stars mainly because I want the average rating for this to be high enough that people take notice of this film. I just saw this in a theater with about 5 other people. Why this movie isn't getting the crowds it deserves is beyond me. This movie is hilarious. Maybe the studios didn't think it would draw the 13 year old crowd looking for the gross out movies with Tom Green, so they didn't promote it. Well, I'm not 13. I know a subtle smirk when I see one, and this movie's got them in all the right places. Gary Shandling is better in this than his other movie (What Planet Are You From?) and Beatty is his usual charming self. What's odd is that if this movie were a Woody Allen film it would get about 5 Oscar nominations and the culture vultures would be lined up around the block. You want a good decent adult comedy? See this movie.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: All-star shambles wastes talent in all departments
Review: If taken at face value, you'd expect TOWN AND COUNTRY to be an excellent movie: The script is written by Buck Henry, (co-creator with Mel Brooks of the classic TV comedy GET SMART), directed by Peter Chelsom who made the vastly underappreciated THE MIGHTY and featuring an all-star cast including Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Jenna Elfman, Nastassja Kinski, Andie MacDowell and Charlton Heston. You'd think TOWN AND COUNTRY would be pretty special, right? Wrong.
As soon as you read studio press hailing this as FIRST WIVES CLUB (which starred Keaton and Hawn) meets ANNIE HALL (which also starred Keaton), you just know you're not getting anything new.
Anyway the plot: Porter Stoddard (Beatty) has been happily married to Ellie (Keaton) for a quarter century. But when his best friend Griffin (Garry Shandling) tells him about an affair he had and how great it was; Porter decides to give it a go- by cheating on no less than four women at the same time. These include Mona (Goldie Hawn- still attractive, but obviously uses a double for her sex scene) sexy cellist Alex (Kinski) who plays music in the nude, as well as a ski-er (Andie MacDowell) and a shop owner (Jenna Elfman). Yep, so in a sledgehammer-subtle dig at his wild past, Clyde Barrow himself; toupe clad and wrinkly, every elderly spinster's fantasy man; plays a womaniser! Didn't see that one coming. Another surprise is Charlton Heston's role as MacDowell's dad who just happens to be ... a gun nut. No subtle nuances present in this movie.
TOWN AND COUNTRY veers uneasily between light romantic comedy and screwball farce and doesn't really suceed as either. When will film makers realize an all-star cast is usually a recipe for critical and box office disaster? It all starts with the STORY, people
In summation TOWN AND COUNTRY isn't a total failure, but its more a lumbering actors' showcase than the light entertainment you'd expect. Given the talent involved this is a huge disappointment. I was expecting better from Beatty after his brilliant satire BULWORTH. Watch that instead. And Chelsom should stop trying to be Robert Altman- 90% of the time HIS all-star efforts are garbage- and get back to what he's good at.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Jenna Steals The Show
Review: Other than death, can anything get more laughs than infidelity? Apparently screenwriters Michael Laughlin and Buck Henry don't think so. And, after all, it is the stuff of which many a black comedy has been made. Unfortunately, "Town and Country," directed by Peter Chelsom, is anything but a black comedy. A comedy, perhaps, but one that lands more in a gray area; there's some laughs along the way, to be sure, and there's something of a moral to be found in the end. Maybe. But then again-- well-- it's just that kind of movie. It takes you on a ride, but it's like one at an amusement park-- by the time you get off, if you're not prone to motion sickness, you may have had a good time but you're right back where you started. And maybe a little wary of getting back on for another go.

Without a doubt, the star power involved with this project keeps it afloat. Beginning with Warren Beatty, who plays Porter Stoddard, an architect who lives and works in New York City. He's just celebrated his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with Ellie (Diane Keaton), and during all the years he's never once gone astray. Then he finds out that his best friend, Griffin (Garry Shandling), has been caught cheating by his wife of many years-- and also one of Porter's best friends-- Mona (Goldie Hawn). And at this point, some kind of domino effect comes into play apparently, because like a contagious virus, the next thing you know, Porter is in the sack with a young cellist (Nastassja Kinski) he's just met. Actually, that's the first scene of the movie, and from there it goes back to fill you in on how it all came about. Sort of.

What Chelsom has on his hands is a mishmash of plot lines and characters that are somewhat amusing and interesting in themselves, but like the frayed ends of a rope, they all just kind of hang out there blowing in the wind and lead nowhere. There's some really funny moments here that will make you laugh out loud, but they come more from a lack of context than anything else. When you have to put Beatty in a polar bear suit to fish for laughs, you know something is rotten in Denmark. The funniest part in the whole movie comes when Porter has a brief interlude with a woman he meets while on a trip to Sun Valley with Griffin. Her name is Eugenie (Andie MacDowell), and she's something of a whack-o; but she doesn't hold a candle to her shotgun toting father (Charlton Heston). It's funny, sure; but you get the feeling it came about because the writers were looking at their storyboard one day and said, "Hey! Why don't we put in a crazy guy with a gun here-- and we can get Charlton Heston, and..."

The redeeming factor of the whole movie is the cast. Beatty and Keaton are good together, and make you believe that Porter and Ellie have been married for twenty-five years. Shandling is perfectly cast as Griffin, the man with a secret, and Goldie Hawn is not only good, but gorgeous. In fact, the older she gets, the better she looks. And MacDowell is a treat, playing somewhat against type, but the real sparkplug of the entire film is Jenna Elfman, who plays Auburn, a young woman the guys meet on their trip to Idaho. She has a quirky and charming screen presence, and though her part is small, she brightens the whole show.

The supporting cast includes Josh Hartnett, Buck Henry, Mare Casabani, Marian Seldes and Katharine Towne. There's more dead-ends in "Town and Country" than the East Side Kids ever encountered, but it's good for some laughs and it's a passable evening's entertainment. But keep in mind, it's like cotton candy; it's fairly sweet, but the flavor-- what there is of it-- doesn't last very long. And it just won't satisfy your sweet tooth. Before you know it, you're going to want some real candy.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Highly underrated, misunderstood and misjudged comedy
Review: Surprisingly, after all the uproar of the critics, this movie is highly underrated, misunderstood and misjudged comedy of Hollywood. For whatever reason, critics just don't seem to get it but it is indeed one the most wittily written comedy of recent years about urban married life.
Critics and some marketing geniuses did a total unjust to this movie. Scripts is hilarious, didn't lose it balance at any time, character development, well, relationship development is very concise and to the point, comedic elements are intuitively funny... Show me one movie where one fine early mornning, a successful architect finds himself having breakfast in the privacy of his own home with uninvited boyfriend of architect's maid in his underwear and unexpected strangely foreign boyfriend (of many unknown origins) of his only daughter in his robe at the kitchen table when his only son just happens to enter into his kitchen. And breaking a awkward silence there somes hearty warm welcome "Ola!" Talk about multicultural harmony in work!
A great ensemble of cast such as Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Nastassja Kinski, Goldie Hawn, Andie MacDowell,
Garry Shandling, Jenna Elfman, Josh Hartnett, Charlton Heston and they all are hilarious in their situation comedy.
Of course, its not Oscar material but its one heck of a hilarious comedy movie of Hollywood! Out of 5 it should get 7 (2 bonus points for witty script).

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Thin Plot But Lots Of Laughs Along The Way!
Review: The American public really OVER does things sometimes. I've heard people say this is the worst movie of all time, and that it's the worst film of the year. I don't understand how and why someone would say that. Yes, I'm rating this movie 2 stars. And yes I didn't like it. But there appears to be two sides to this movie. Side 1- OK, yes it gets a bit confusing and yes the acting isn't great which is a suprise due to this cast. But, hey, it's funny. Go see this movie because you will laugh. Side 2- It's dumb! It has bad acting and isn't funny. It's also the worst movie of the year and the worst movie ever made. Here are my thoughts on the film. It has a very thin plot. There are moments in this film where we have scenes in this movie that make no sense. I mean, it doesn't movie the story along. I didn't get the purpose of certain scenes. For example, there's a scene where Porter Stoddard (Warren Beatty) walks into his kitchen in the middle of the night and soon his son,his daughter's boyfriend and his maid's boyfriend all find themselves in the kitchen too. What's the point? I guess the director, Peter Chelsom thought to himself, well, people might think this is a funny scene. Maybe we'll get some laughs out of this, lets keep it in. Bad idea Peter! We've all heard the on the set stories about this movie. About, how long it took to make, about the 90 million dollar budget, and about the script changes. So with that in mind it should come as no suprise to anyone when I say the movies doesn't seem complete. It moves briskly but things don't add up. The story isn't solid. We're going from scene to scene and the ONLY purpose of the scenes is the punchline at the end. Everything in the begining is setup for the joke at the end. And after they make they're joke the scene is cut to a new scene that has the same agenda. The story as we all know is about Warren Beatty (Porter Stoddard)and his wife Diane Keaton (Ellie Stoddard) who seem to have a good marriage. Unlike there best friends Mona (Goldie Hawn) and Griffin (Garry Shandling). Griffin has been cheating on his wife, but, not with a woman! Soon, they get a divorce. Now while this is going on, Porter (Beatty) for reasons unbeknown to me starts to cheat on his wife! But, it happens so fast! They didn't lead up to it, which I didn't like. There is also an amazing waste of talent here. Andie MacDowell plays Eugenie Claybourne, one of the women Porter was with. But her part is so bland, and she barely has any screentime. Why put a famous actress in such a small role? The answer- so people will go see the movie. The same is true with Jenna Elfin (Auburn). Now, I'm not really a fan of her's but she is given an even smaller role than MacDowell! And Nastassja Kinski (Alex) has 3 scenes! And oh my God does she look old! lol. I guess I never realized how old she is. She looks awful now lol. But, while I have all these faults with the movie, it is funny. I couldn't stop laughing at a bedroom scene with Beatty and MacDowell. And the scene where Beatty meets MacDowell's parents played by Charlton Heston and Marian Seldes. There were about 3 other scenes that I felt really worked and the rest of the movie is either smile material or just a failed attempt. It's NOT the worst movie of the year and it's NOT the worst movie of all time. If people are looking for a movie that's funny but not well made, it really wouldn't hurt to go see this movie, it's not a great comedy but it tries to be. ** 1\2 out of *****

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Bright and Funny
Review: This film is a hoot. I can only describe it as a less intellectual, brighter form of a Woody Allen film. It's got beautiful shots of New York, it's got the neurotic "uptown" socialites, it's got the midlife crises situations (a re-curring theme in Allen's films), and it's got careless laugh out loud sight gags. A must see...a perfect "sunday afternoon movie."

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Bright and Funny
Review: This film is a hoot. I can only describe it as a less intellectual, brighter form of a Woody Allen film. It's got beautiful shots of New York, it's got the neurotic "uptown" socialites, it's got the midlife crises situations (a re-curring theme in Allen's films), and it's got careless laugh out loud sight gags. A must see...a perfect "sunday afternoon movie."


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