Babylon, USA

This is an overlooked and sadly neglected little gem of a film, primarily because of some wonderful performances, especially the sadly underused Barbara Barrie. The other 3 main players are also wonderful, Bob Dishy, Madeline Kahn, and Bette Henritze. Edie Falco is competent without reaching their high standards. I don't understand the negative comments about the score as it's one of the better one's I've heard in years. Certainly better than anything by minimalist Phillip Glass, which another reviewer compared it to, and light years better than Danny Elfman or any of his other bombastic compatriots could devise. And it was nice to see a film of this nature done in black and white for once...and done so just because black and white can be as beautiful as color (though it's clearly not up to the standards of earlier Hollywood films), not because it's attempting to be some kind of pseudo-noir film.

In a film full of wonderful, low-key performances by actors playing lonely, unhappy characters, Madeline Kahn is the standout as a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Unlike any other performance she gave in film, Kahn -- known for her comic roles -- turns in a marvelous, dramatic turn that should have netted her a posthomous Academy Award nomination. She is simply brilliant, and she should have been given a lot more dramatic roles in her career. After all, they say that comedy is the hardest thing for an actor to do, and with all the great comic roles she had -- in "Paper Moon," "Blazing Saddles" and "Young Frankenstein," just to name a few -- directors should have known that behind those funny faces was a great actress who could play any role.

In a day of eclipse in Babylon Village, in New York, the thirty-two year-old aspirant actress Judy Berlin (Edie Falco) is moving to California expecting to make her dream come true. Her mother Suzan 'Sue' Berlin (Barbara Barrie) is a bitter school teacher that likes to flirt with the principal Arthur Gold (Bob Dishy), who is married with the housewife Alice Gold (Madeline Kahn) that is close to a breakdown. Their thirty year-old son David Gold (Aaron Harnick) has just moved back home after a frustrating experience as filmmaker. While wandering on the street, David meets Judy who studied with him in the elementary school and they spend the day together. Meanwhile the confused Arthur kisses Sue during the eclipse.

"Judy Berlin" is a delightful low-budget movie with entwined stories in the suburb of Babylon. The performances are excellent, disclosing the intimacy of the characters in a realistic way. This movie was released in Brazil on VHS by Cult Films Distributor. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Judy Berlin"

After reading all the reviews of people complaining about either how pretentious or boring "Judy Berlin" was, I just had to write something about how incredible this movie is. It is the complete opposite of pretension. Real people, living real lives, catching us up in their emotion as we recognize and identify with their loneliness. I just don't get how this is pretentious. Perhaps it could be because "pretentious" is a word most people throw around to sound smart without knowing what it means. "Pi" is pretentious, "Judy Berlin" is not. Filled to the brim with haunting and incredible performances, it evokes Allen's more insightful dramas, such as "Interiors," as well as Ingmar Bergman's best work. And yet, Bergman is not in style now. Mass culture goes more for the insane mind-benders, like "Fight Club" and "Being John Malkovich." Even though both were great movies, "Judy Berlin" is better. It is an exploration of the souls of a small town. Madeline Kahn, Edie Falco, Barbara Barrie, and Bob Dishy are all superb, completely immersing themselves in their roles. Not to mention the gorgeous cinematography or the incredible harpsichord soundtrack. "Judy Berlin" has a lot to say, if you'll just listen to it.

JUDY BERLIN (2000) ** Edie Falco, Barbara Barrie, Bob Dishy, Madeleine Kahn, Aaron Harnick, Julie Kavner, Anne Meara.

The Sundance Film Festival has recently been the equivalent of the farm system in baseball: the pick of the crop for the big leagues. Once again it has managed to make a small, independent film a chance at the 'show' with the winner of the 1999 Best Director Award with new filmmaker Eric Mendelsohn's unique comedy/drama.

Edie Falco (the Emmy winning delight of HBO's juggernaut series 'The Sopranos') stars as the eponymous character as a slightly goofy woman whose desire to move to California to pursue her dream of being a real actress is set in the day in the life of her last day in the dream like visage of Babylon, Long Island, where her current gig is as a historical recreationist (i.e. like going to Colonial Williamsburg to see how the settlers lived).

Also included in the series of vignettes are her mother Sue (the wonderful character actress Barrie, late of tv's 'Suddenly Susan') as an elementary school student who inspires her students to prepare for the day's solar eclipse; Dishy as the school's sad-faced principal; Meara and Kavner (also vets of the comedy pantheon better known for the better half of Ben & Jerry and Marge Simpson, respectively) as the school's secretary and kitchen worker.

The only connecting theme overall is how mundane life can be when one's full potential is either aborted, forecluded or non-existent and equal parts could be argued for Dishy and Kahn's mopey 30 yr.old filmmaker son (Harnick, the real-life son of Barrie) who happens upon Falco and tags along for her last day home, discovering some little known secretive points of interest.

Mendelsohn's shoe-string budgeted production only enhances the simplistic yet well acted piece and provides a dreamy ethereal plane of existence with his economically yet artistically smart use of gorgeous black and white cinematography (kudos to Jeffrey Seckendorf) suggests an endless timepiece. What he lacks in big scale opportunity is compensated for a fine comic timed performance piece.

Sadly this was Kahn's swan song and she gives a nicely layered performance of daffiness mixed with an innate sadness – the best of all clowns by the way in their art – as the housewife to Dishy, who realizes that things aren't so great after all. Her sing-song deliveries are priceless in her dewy-eyed optimism.

What is lacking however is any real one character to root for or hold a more potent interest – more than the sum of its parts – when instead a sprinkling of eccentricities and divine human emotion predominate the film as a whole; not a bad thing at all.