Pris sur le vif

I just watched this movie today again after having it sit on my shelf for a few years. I don't remember if I thought it was such a hot movie when I first saw it, or that I bought it because it was just cheap and might come in handy some Saturday afternoon that I might be searching for a little 80s entertainment.

It's not a bad movie, don't get me wrong. And you're likely to enjoy it if you've been impressed with Jon Cryer's catalog of 80s movies, given that most of them were mediochre. And, you're likely to enjoy it if you like Demi Moore's early 80s films as well. She'll even sing you a number or two.

I find this movie to be charming as an 80s version of an old Judy Holiday/Jack Lemmon movie called 'It Should Happen to You' in which Lemmon plays a documentary filmmaker and Holiday plays a young woman looking to get famous by posting her billboards up around the city. It's not quite the same story exactly, but there are similarities. Nonetheless, 'No Small Affair' is a nice little love story. Not boom boom grand, but just a pleasant little film.

It's not that it's an 80s film that makes it so bad, even though I dislike nearly everything about that decade. I mean, it has John Cryer and Demi Moore in it. They were leaders at that time. Both of these actors had quite extensive movie lists from the decade of the eighties. For some reason. Demi, especially, was awful. Her fake singing voice was OK, but her character seemed to be based on Madonna's character in that movie about Susan.

Her style was like a leftover from the eighties, nothing fresh and nothing cute. Just kind of messy.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, the last ten minutes of the movie came on...GOOD GRIEF, what a terrible movie!

John Cryer plays a young photographer who's older brother is intent on making him a man when Cryer's affections lay elsewhere.

Shot around San Francisco's more popular areas (there are no apartments on the aging SF docks, and never were) with some fictional locations, the film, to me, feels like a budget version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Cryer even feels and looks a little like Mathew Broderick, only the film with Broderick came out two years after this one.

The truth is it's a nice little film with some token nudity for the young male audience, and in spite of that it has charm, notably with the taxi add sequence.

For the geeky young photographers, gamers, science club and chess club types, this film is for us. It's designed to encourage the young shy types with solo shy oriented hobbies and pass to, as a fellow SF Studios intern once told me, "don't ever deny yourself to anyone..." I wish I had followed that advice thirty years ago, ah, but the Saudis and Turks had different plans, but I digress.

Anyway, it's a good hearted film that some of the more conservative might find ever so slightly offensive, but again the film means well.

Check it out on a weekend night if you have nothing better to do. If nothing else it'll remind you of how San Francisco used to be at one time.

Nice romantic comedy about a 16 year old guy (Jon Cryer), who likes taking pictures more as he likes girls, but that is going to change when he discovers a pretty girl on the pictures he shot in the harbor. He than falls in love and wants to find this girl, who sings in a rockband, and after some adventures they get an affair, till the point that she has to go to LA for her career, something he helped her with for the price of $6000 (I believe)....

Liked the performances of Jon Cryer, Demi Moore and also George Wendt. Although this movie is not that special, I always enjoy it when it's broadcasted.

I've seen this film about five times now and I never cease to be delighted by its charms.

Where do I start? Firstly Jon Cryer is truly excellent as the precocious adolescent amateur photographer who spouts sophisticated adult dialogue but is really naive on the romantic front. The way he blushes at the right moment is very credible. He plays the blushing virgin with gusto - we don't doubt for a moment that he's never had sex or kissed a girl.

Firstly I must admit here to being a major fan of Demi Moore's films in the 80's. I've seen all of them from that period and I adore the characters she plays - Moore is what I call 'value added'. Whatever role she plays she brings something special, whether it is a brilliant range in temperament, downcast eyes, the husky voice, the tearful eyes the shiny hair. Most Hollywood actresses can't manage this, but Demi manages to be the girl next door and screen siren all in one.

Anyway she plays this aspiring niteclub singer with bad taste in 80's clothes and even worse taste in music. To her credit she doesn't sing any of the songs as they were recorded by other people, so she just lip syncs along quite nicely. That song 'Hotheaded' is actually quite catchy in that Michael Bolton, Bar 'rawk' sort of way. Overall her character, Laura Victor comes over as a really likable human being. And the final scene at the airport is truly touching. Moore's says two simple words 'thank you' and we know she means it.

Another to reason to love this film is that it was filmed entirely on location in San Francisco, and studio interiors are very few and far in between. Most of the shots are on real locations which adds to the movie's overall charm. This combined with the corny dialogue: that scene where she barges into the High School language laboratory dressed in a coctail waitress (read hooker!) outfit in very high heels and pulls Cryer out of the language lab is really funny - especially when she says "F*** Off ez Vous" to the French teacher.

Some of the scenes are chauvinistic, including the one with frat boys and the hired hooker - which really doesn't have any relevance to the overall plot. And I agree with a previous poster who says that Cryer's on screen mother is one of the most irritating characters to appear in movies. That line about the sausage of Cryer's brother going cold is truly risible. When I watch this film I try very hard to ignore the flaws!

This is corny, cheesy and highly entertaining. It really captures the spirit of the 80's. I'll never stop watching it - I love it.

Bonus: watch out for Jennifer Tilly and Tim Robbins in bit parts playing Cryer's classmates. Robbins was 28 when he played this role. Teenage high school student he ain't! But it's still good to see him in this. Also the very catchy song 'Eiffel Tower' by Malcolm McClaren and the McClarenettes.

Moore wears some wacky clothes and has that 80's penchant for long evening gloves with hundreds of bangles, very Material Girl! I love that cabin on the boardwalk apartment she lives in while working at Jakes's as a singer. Very bohemian, very cool, very 1984!