Flirter avec les embrouilles

This is one of the few movies I find seriously funny. Stiller, Leoni, Moore, everyone does a killer job, and humor emerges from a variety of silly-crazy and intellectual sources, so you can respect yourself when you laugh. Human neuroses give rise to a lot of sympathetic laughter. Most of it is human frailty and absurdity. Tea Leoni is hilarious, and does a great job of getting on your nerves, and trying to get into Stiller's pants behind his wife's back while still being completely neurotic and self-absorbed. Her psycho-babble is highly effective. Stiller plays the usual awkward introspective man who lacks self confidence. His parents are magnificent, and so are his 'real' parents. I loved it. highly recommended. What else are you going to watch?

FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (1996) **** Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Lily Tomlin, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin. Hilarious and wickedly sharp satire about a young man (Stiller in a memorable turn) searching for his identity by trying to locate his biological parents while alienating his neglected and lovely wife (the yummy Arquette) and Leoni (simply wonderful) as his adoption broker. Fine ensemble cast (especially Moore in an inconoclastic poke at her image) and Alda (ditto). Subversive good, clean fun and seriously dysfunctional family values (thank God!) from filmmaker David O. Russell beating the Sophomore Jinx (in this his second turn at the helm).

I'm amazed at how much context matters when watching movies. I saw this when it was new and was impressed at how gently it moved. It wasn't frantic. It didn't rely on penis and excrement jokes. It mentions Jews comically but doesn't get mean. It deals with relationships straightforwardly: the humor from this end coming from our unease at natural misfits.

In short, it is everything that the "Fockers" movies aren't. I went back and watched it simply out of protest, out of feeling slimy from having to encounter them again.

And I was shocked that it seemed too slow until the third act. Part of the problem was that I knew where it was going, and much of the development depends on you having the same insecurity about the future as Stiller's character. But the larger part was simply that subtle, soft humor may be dead, even for someone like me who thrives on the slight brush.

Perhaps now "50 First Dates" is as soft as we can get these days.

I urge you to see this for a dive into gentle humor, even though it may be too faded. Screwball keeps. This stuff doesn't. It is a film that doesn't belong about a man who doesn't.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Did not expect to laugh so much i have to say for a film that i had no idea existed and was made 24 years ago.

What got me interested was it being a David O Russell film i had not seen and his stuff i had seen was consistenly very good.

Dysfunction brought to the extreme. The line that best sums up this film would be "you come in here and lick my wife's armpit"

Excellent, cheered me right up it has!

A truly unique comedy, haven't seen anything like it other than I Heart Huckabees, which O'Russel made a decade later. A neurotic man escapes from his neurotic family to go on a cross country search for his biological parents. Along the way we deal with his neurotic girlfriend and the neurotic families he encounters as he tries to find his true parents, whom are also neurotics.

The characters are non-stop nutty and their flaws are unique and hilarious. They talk over each other constantly and never seem to be really 'conversing' with each other other than pointing out each other flaws. All these moments were done well by O'Russel and he really nailed the talking-past-each other flexing that neurotics have when in a group together.

Only complaint is that the movie kinda overdoses on itself and barely leaves room for the audience to breath. The group-fighting gets tiresome/doesn't work in a couple of scenes but a hilarious ending makes it all worth it.