Eccentric Flower:199810/the impostors
From Eccentric Flower
«October 1998 «Eccentric Flower
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twelve october ninety eight midnight the impostors We went to see The Impostors tonight. Really, I don't know what Entertainment Weekly was thinking. Don't believe them. Or, depending on your outlook, maybe you should. Let me explain. I have griped repeatedly lately (for some reason, it keeps coming up) that no one writes screwball comedies much anymore. (Oddly enough, before leaving for the movie, Nonelvis was watching one rare example on TV. It's a film we saw in the theatre a year ago or so, called Rough Magic, it has a great cast, and you should rent it if you are like me and don't like romances unless they're quite quirky. But I digress.) So Nonelvis read a better (and more thorough) review of The Impostors in the local alternative paper and said, "C'mon, read this, you'll love it - it's a screwball comedy!" I read the review and said, "This is not either a screwball comedy. If this review is faithful, they're trying to make a Marx Brothers movie." Actually, as we realized afterwards, it's a Laurel and Hardy movie - Stanley Tucci poker-faced, while strange expressions wander all over Oliver Platt's face. (I adore Oliver Platt.) A lot of this movie, though, will remind you of A Certain Marx Brothers Film, since Tucci and Platt are inadvertent stowaways on an ocean liner through most of it. All of the regular characters and complications are here, and all of them are done to a turn (including Dana Ivey in the Margaret Dumont role). Anyway. This is a wonderful, giggly film if you like only the best in farce. Farce has a bad name these days, since people think it means Chris Farley movies. Farce is not necessarily slapstick, not just physical humor. If I wanted that, I'd watch the thrice-damned Three Stooges. Even farce is sometimes a hit-or-miss thing. I like the movie Oscar, which is your basic film adaptation of your basic one-set slamming-doors farce, but the weird casting (read: Sylvester Stallone) puts people off. Honestly, though, it was casting judo! His character is the eye of the storm and only has to stand around looking completely puzzled by the events swirling around him. He's perfect for the role! Besides: Peter Riegert! Chazz Palmintieri! Sigh. I digress again. The film has a great cast and it is the best this type of material has been done in some years. If you like the material, see the movie. If not, trust Lisa and Owen over at EW, whom I suspect were expecting another Big Night and didn't get it.
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