Echo Park

Excellent film, great cast and didn't anyone notice the pictures that were put in there on purpose (yet done in a subtle way) Like the photos of "Elvira" on the wall in the apartment (when the actress who played Elvira was also in the film sans the black wig.... Or when Tom Hulce and the boy went to deliver the pizza and Hulce stopped briefly to pause to look at the photo of Wolfgang Amadeus on the wall of the house? (Hulce was nominated for an academy award for his depiction of Amadeus two years earlier before this film)

I really thought the writing was superb too and ...God it even made me miss Los Angeles!

I give this film a 9 out of 10. I hadn't seen it since my teens when it came out and was so glad to get to see it again on cable.

I highly recommend it...an intelligent well directed pic for all.

Low-budget item about three would-be stars living together in a section of Los Angeles: Susan Dey is the single mother and acting-hopeful who ends up delivering Strip-o-Grams, Thomas Hulce writes songs and delivers pizzas and Michael Bowman hopes to be a celebrity bodybuilder. The set-up sounds overly precious--though it certainly doesn't play that way, thanks to sharp, acute writing and savvy directing. Of the ensemble, it's Susan Dey who surprises with a fully-dimensional performance; cynical, wise, exhausted, and yet still clinging to hope, Dey's first assignment (stripping at a small party) is excruciating to watch (for all the right reasons), making her eventual accomplishment at this profession almost joyous to behold. This is one of the few films I've ever seen to visually equate self-confidence with success, and the tangled relationships between the roommates is well-realized, wistful, funny and touching. *** from ****

I liked this movie a lot. Kind of ad and depressing.

A single mother working hard in LA just to make i work. I watched it when I was about 15,

I don't remember if she used drugs in the movie or not maybe. Well it show different side the glamors Hollywood and Beverley hills anyway.

At that time there were not a lot of movies on Swedish television. around 1988.

I hope it will appear an a swedixh channel again some tine.

Susan Dey who to me is Grace Van Owen in LA Law and nobody else make a good performance in this movie. I recommend it.

This movie was recommended to me by a person who I believe has great taste in movies. But I have to admit that I totally missed the mark on this one. I lived in LA for 12 years and I enjoyed seeing some of it again, but that is about the only redeeming value I got out of the movie. The opening and closing sequences seemed totally bizarre and out of place. I thought the acting was sub par and where the story was going was totally predictable until the jump cut to the scene at the end where everyone was suddenly running through the Alps like the opening sequence to the Sound of Music. This was billed as a comedy. I don't think I laughed out loud once though it had some mildly humorous moments. I could have skipped this one easily.

A cute film. Echo Park is apparently a fairly seedy district of Los Angeles. Susan Dey plays a bartender who wants to be an actress (unheard of in L.A., huh?) and gets a job doing Strip-o-grams. The pathetic thing is, she considers this her big break. She takes in a roommate, Tom Hulce, who delivers pizzas for a living. He immediately falls for her, but she is enamored of a neighbor, an Austrian who spends all his time pumping iron. He is convinced that he will be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is completely oblivious to how miraculous it is that there is one Arnold, and hardly a big market for another. Anyway, Hulce's character spends much of the film suffering that terrible pain of loving someone, but seeing her throw herself at someone inferior. I had never heard of this film, but I liked it fairly well. Cassandra Peterson and Cheech Marin have small roles, also. Grade: B