Dinosauri a colazione

I am only giving this film a "5" out of respect for it's cast headed by Walter Matthau, Charles Grodin, Steve Martin, Bill Macy, Tyne Daly, Gilda Radner, Penny Marshall, and Vincent Gardenia. Otherwise it is a peculiar satire on Hollywood that never quite works.

Walter Matthau works at a large studio, now run by William Prince. Matthau is a successful producer there, but his mentor was Gardenia, who was once a great producer. But Gardenia has been going downhill, both creatively and physically. He has wasted millions of dollars on a film about the prehistoric world, and has even set up a huge dinosaur from the film on the grounds of the studio (much to a fed up Prince's anger). But Gardenia is taken off all other projects. He is now dying, and Matthau goes to see him. Gardenia, on the death bed, forces Matthau to do a film on a book he has just bought: a sexual guidebook. Matthau says he will, knowing it is a ridiculous promise.

After Gardenia's death Matthau takes a close look into the sex book. This is the most popular sex guide in America, but the point is brought out in the film that if one thinks of sex lightly, as a powerful explosion from the emotion of love, it is easy to show in film, on stage, on television, on radio, in novels and short stories, or in paintings and sculpture. But if the actual physical activities involved were to be studied in a film (not a pornography film, by the way), it becomes boring.

Still Matthau tries. He consults with Macy, a fabled film director (involved in a torrid and complicated affair with Radner - it ends when they wound each other in a shoot out). Macy's approach is to remind us of all the great film lovers of the past (Bogart among them) and how "dependable" they were. Matthau talks to Grodin, a leading screenplay writer. Grodin can't see where the drama needed for the film will come in. Matthau is advised to see the last of the great silent film lovers, the "ageless" Martin (once a rival of Valentino). He keeps talking of decades old romantic moments - but all is for naught when Matthau and Grodin and Macy see Martin is now henpecked by his harridan wife (Marshall).

As you can see the film certainly had great direction in the script, except that despite the energy of the cast it just never rose above the one point: that discussing the physical activity of sex on film is not going to make a good movie. Somehow the script dropped a somewhat promising element: that a desperate Matthau might start dropping away from what Gardenia wished and produced a film that was a sex comedy. But for that to have fully worked, Gardenia's wacko character would have had to be alive throughout the film, and he would have had to keep the sense of taking the credit for the success of Matthau's changing the production plan to save the project. That never happens.

I think the film tried to be philosophical but never got beyond presenting the main argument. It was a poor choice to make. MOVERS & SHAKERS may never have been a promisingly great film, but it might have been an amusing one. It is not too amusing now. Definitely not worthy of it's cast's energies at all.

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.

"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.

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.

This movie has everything: Inane writing; heavy-handed direction; call-in acting; a voice-over that attempts to tie a series of pointless scenes into a plot line. Someone lacked the courage to say no, no, no. Anything that might have been edited out would have doubtless been better than what was edited in. Student films are better. What's Up Tiger Lily was better. A Woody Woodpecker cartoon is better. A George Burns/Bea Arthur porno would be better.