Meeting Spencer

I was lucky enough to get to see this witty movie recently at a Sneak Preview. . Its a different kind of comedy, its really more old school, very sophisticated and intelligent - adult type of humor, subtle -- like a Woody Allen film, not like Jud Apatow films... Very smart and you really have to pay attention to get all the jokes,. It all takes place at one restaurant in New York on one night.

Jeffery Tambor plays a director trying to get his carer back on track with a famous play he wants to produce on Broadway. But while he's at the restaurant to get the financing set up, ten million things start to go wrong, such as accidentally bumping into a sexy reporter who it turns out, he actually has an affair withl years earlier.

Form there things get more and more crazed and its a comedy of errors - mistaken identities and people who turn out not to be who you think they are, and lots of surprises Very unpredictable and keeps you guessing to the end! I'm hoping thus will be out in the theaters soon, I want to see it again. You need to see it twice to get everything. A lot of familiar faces in the cast and great soundtrack too!

Never knew Jeffrey Tambor was THAT good an actor. But the supporting actors are just perfectly cast, so there's not a single wrong note anywhere in the film. Tambor really shines in this movie. It's like a British farce, but slowed down for American audiences, it seems to me. I can just imagine what this would have been like if Howard Hawks had directed it. ("His Girl Friday" anybody?). It's got that kind of witty dialog you might remember from Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway," but they didn't have Woody's budget (especially for music, though the music in this movie is perfectly good).

This is all done in a cozy Broadway restaurant in real time, so it has elements of a play to it. All Broadway types are represented in a clever way. The sassy Broadway agent (what was her name, Nina Diamond?), the ex-girlfriend actress, the coat check girl with high hopes, the Hollywood producer that Broadway types love to hate, the prima donna aging British actor, the dumb blonde girlfriend, the aspiring wannabes, the phony Broadway investors and then Spencer himself, the struggling actor who walks into the restaurant as a nobody and walks out as a star.

"Meeting Spencer" is a great send-up of Broadway types and has a timeless quality that will make it watchable for years to come. Anybody thought of a sequel? As soon as they get to the theatre (with that cow!), I was wondering what would happen AFTER all this.

Great movie if you just want to laugh and enjoy the experience! Slapstick comedy at its finest. Jeffrey Tambor is hilarious as a down-on-his-luck director trying to navigate the insanity of show business and the fickle nature of success. And who new Jessie Plemons had such pipes? I have to admit, after watching Friday Night Lights, I had no idea that Plemons had the chops to do comedy. His timing was perfect. I also really liked Melinda McGraw as the boozing, fickle actress willing to sell her sole for a part. Flawed yet endearing. The story has lots of twists so its easy to lose yourself and enjoy the ride.

The pseudo-sophisticates behind "Meeting Spencer" may think they have written and produced a clever insider's look at the "real" world of show business. Instead, it is an appalling hash of a movie that one watches in disbelief, assuming that it must somehow have a point. It does not. This film would get a B- as a film school project. As a commercially-released film, it is laughable. Which is NOT to suggest that it is, for one moment, actually funny. The stilted dialogue is at least partly saved by the incredibly poor sound quality, which prevents most of the actors from being heard. This is, I think, meant to be a satire on the pretensions of the world of "the theatah." Instead it is a savage indictment of the world of indie film making, and even though the budget was clearly minimal, one can't imagine who might have actually put up whatever was spent to make this embarrassment.

It was great to see Jeffrey Tambor carry a movie like this. He shows himself as a great talent, leading an ensemble. The material is a little complex because of being about the inside workings of show business, but it moves and it's funny & smart. It was particularity good seeing old Morgan Shepard as the cranky veteran Broadway star. Also I particularly liked seeing Yvonne Zima as the young and beautiful coat-check girl; I've been a fan of her older sister Madeline for some time. If fact all the women are wonderfully appealing and playful.

"Meeting Spencer" is my kind of movie because it reminds me of the great movies about Broadway and Hollywood like "The Producers" and "All About Eve." It was fluke that I ended up at a preview screening, so I'd keep an extra eye out for this movie.