Movers & Shakers

One of my favorite films of all time. So very quotable with an unforgettable performance from Bill Macy. This film stands up to many, many viewings. I've seen it over 25 times.

Most films start with good intentions by all the people involved in its creative process. It's a nightmare for the studio that produces a film like "Movers and Shakers" to watch the project turned into a lemon that no one will ever see. In fact, it was a surprise this showed recently on cable. Based on some of the names involved in it, we decided to take a look. Well, let's assume all the people that participated in it, won't include this experience in their resumes for future jobs within the movie industry.

It's also a puzzle as to why did a talented man of the stature of Walter Matthau ever saw in the possibility of this turkey having any future. For that matter, Charles Grodin, who wrote the screen play, is seen as a writer who hasn't figured out how to do an adaptation of the book the dying studio head wants to be made into a film. It appears that Mr. Grodin was writing about what would be his own role in this ill conceived movie.

Better keep surfing channels until something better is found.

"Movers & Shakers" is a film written by Charles Grodin and he also produced and starred in the movie. In many ways, it reminds me of "The Player", as it's a look at some of the insiders who run Hollywood. However, the film is no where nearly as clever or enjoyable at "The Player"...in fact, it seems to have little sense of direction as well.

The story is about a film project whose pedigree is odd. On a friend's deathbed, Joe (Walter Matthau) promises to make a movie using the same title as a famous sex book! The rest of the story is about the process...where the producers, director and writer all hash out what the film will be. Sadly, apart from the title, there's really not much more to their film.

Again and again, I kept hoping this movie would get better and funnier. It seemed like the folks who MADE the film thought it was clever....but it never translated to the audience and is therefore a directionless and mostly unfunny comedy with some good acting.

This is surely one of the worst movies ever made. A comedy without a single laugh. The stupidity of the script, blame Charles Grodin for the entire film, is amazing. Steve Martin's performance was low, even for him. In short, awful and without redeeming features.

The good: leave it to Charles Grodin to write a story that is full of subtle, sarcastic observations of life. This story is mondane and humbling. But very humanlike! And that's the point!

Lack of love, lack of communication is a perfect synopsis of how many relationships turn out to be in real life, but which isnt often shown in Hollywood movies. For good reason: people dont like to watch mondane, depressing stories in movies, because they get to experience that in everyday life, every hour of the day.

But that's the strength of Charles Grodin' sense of (sarcastic) humor, he is capable of making ordinary and depressing situations seem funny.

The bad; Charles Grodin mentioned on David Leterman that Movers and Shakers is not a slapstick movie, but that's it's weak point: it kinda is slapstick at moments. An even more serious approach would have increased the comedy effect.

I loved the Charles Grodin scenes though and Walther Matthau is always a charm to watch, but many of the other supporting actors were OVERacting, although just a bit, but I never like it when comedy actors dont take their roles seriously.

Something is less funny to me, when it is SUPPOSE to be funny, like Steve Martin is acting so plain silly that it smothers the comedy effect.

This movie was cheaply made, because no one in Hollywood wanted to invest in a movie that was attacking Hollywood itself. So Charles Grodin put his own money in it and a lot of the actors took a paycut because they were befriended with Grodin and wanted to see this picture being made.

In the end I would not recommend this movie, but it might be of interest for the true fans of this particular dry and sarcastic humor of Charles Grodin. I'll still rate it 7 stars because I am such a fan of Charles Grodin as well...(for non Charles Grodin fans I would rate it a 6).