Potins mondains & amnésies partielles

When Goldie Hawn and Garry Shandling's marriage crumbles because of his infidelity, their friends are shocked. How could he? How could she not suspect? Does every man cheat and he was unlucky enough to get caught? Diane Keaton's mind whirls while she proudly defends her own faithful husband, Warren Beatty, not knowing he's been far from innocent in his marital conduct.

Much like a 1960s sex comedy, this witty situational comedy has a lot of jokes but very little vulgarity. For example, there's a scene where Warren Beatty goes to the kitchen in the middle of the night for a snack. He's soon joined by his daughter's boyfriend, the cook's boyfriend, and his son. They're all in their underwear and it's clear what they were doing minutes earlier, but nothing is shown or explicitly talked about. Modern comedies actively promote show-and-tell, and it's refreshing to go back a few years and rent something cleaner.

While Warren juggles his wife and his brief distraction, Natasssja Kinski, he's also tempted by Goldie Hawn, Andie MacDowell, and Jenna Elfman. You'll also see Charlton Heston, as a silly, gun-toting protective father, Marian Seldes as a foul-mouthed grump, and Josh Hartnett as Warren's son. Check this one out if you prefer your movies on the tame side.

You have to wonder what combination of roofies and blackmail

New Line's former kingpin Michael DeLuca used to lure Warren

Beatty into this grotesque travesty of a Philip Barry comedy. TOWN

& COUNTRY is one of those rare movies that preoccupy you for

their entire running time with questions bearing in no way on the

story onscreen. Questions like: How did this get greenlit? Why

would someone send a comedy into production with no script?

Why would someone let a comedy finish production with no script?

Did these very gifted people (there are good, hard-working, clean

and industrious performances from Beatty, Diane Keaton, Goldie

Hawn, Jenna Elfman and Nastassja Kinski) think this was funny

when they read it? When they were shooting it? Did the crew just

kind of stand there in stony silence?

Considering the combined ages of the cast, and the movie's

splashy failure in an era where teen mediocrities rule the earth,

and the movie's damage to the career of its director, Peter

Chelsom, a talented man who's not to blame, the whole thing

provokes, not bitchy snickers, but a sigh of profound sadness.

This thing was beyond crap, and I don't use that word often. I had heard it was bad, so I rented it for dud night, and called my sister to come watch it, because we need to bounce our comments off each other. Well, she left halfway through, vowing to watch Lord of The Rings, to try to cleanse her brain. I'm going to use a toilet brush on mine.

I should have known it wasn't an ordinary bad movie in the first scene. There's Grampa, aka Warren Beatty, sitting in a bed, trying to cover his wrinkled shoulders with the sheet. Talk about stomach-turning. That's the plot in a nutshell, old Warren pretending it's 1966 when swingers like him hopped on the nearest woman as regularly as they hopped on a plane.

Seriously, there is no plot. Every washed-up actor or actress in Hollywood is invited to drop by to make an ass of him (or her) self, including Charleton Heston, who must have already been in the grip of his recently-announced Alzheimer's Disease. I know rents are high in Los Angeles, but how badly do these people need money? And did any of them even get any? This stinker can't have made a nickel.

I can't summarize this mess because there was no rhyme or reason anywhere. I can't describe the wild over-acting, except to call it amateur night. All I can do is recommend that nobody, and I mean nobody, watch this thing. Don't inadvertently let your dog or cat see it. It's so bad you can't even make fun of it. That's how bad it is.

Town And Country is brim full of snobbery. Its about rich affluent couples making fools of themselves. Are the cast actually playing themselves in real life? Who knows, but that stands as probably the most damning element of this film. How many mansions could one have bought for what it cost to make this film? How many mouths could it have fed? Town And Country easily bought its own way into the Hollywood 'name and blame' game before it even reached the screens. I laughed a couple of times, I smiled whilst watching it, but only out of amusement at how much the film was lacking. Its a flat and hollow experience. The stars of course probably did their best but the whole enterprise was just too creaky and 'weird' to substantiate their efforts. It strived for outrageousness but attained stupidity. It strived for humble pathos but stayed in the shallows. Everything it grabbed for was lost for the mundanity - this film, whilst it did mildly entertain me for 100 minutes, alas made me feel and register nothing. It was just actors picking up a pay check and a few lovable antics. Whatever approbation I surrender here was surely only out of curiosity. The same goes for any renowned bad movies I seek out, that require viewing just to see just how bad. They can't all be masterworks you know.

Warren Beatty is one of those Hollywood icons that has had an inconsistant career. For every Bonnie and Clyde he has made, he has also made Ishtar (which I think is better than this movie). This movie is by far his worst. It feels like a desperate attempt by Beatty to make him feel young by having him sleep around with so many women. The whole cast feels lost in this movie. The characters are all unlikable, especially Beatty's. Why would I sit through a "comedy" where we don't want to be around these people? The usually charming Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton are rather shrill in this movie. I say read articles about this movie's troubled production. I think that story would be up there with the story of "Heaven's Gate," "Ishtar," "Bonfire of the Vanities," and "Waterworld" as the behind the scenes story is more interesting than the movie itself.