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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best film ever made about LA, June 19, 2002
Ten years after its release, Steve Martin's LA Story has a cult following for its adept interpretation of vapid and decadent Los Angelinos. Though LA Story came out in 1990 and seems to lampoon the 80s, Michael Tolkin goes way beyond his collaborative work with Robert Altman(The Player) with this pitch black comedy. The film is way ahead of its time. Hollywood has yet to examine the decadent 90s in any way. Here we have characters who are more Clinton era than American Beauty. Pretty astute, considering that the film was released in 1994! Look for top performances from Peter Weller, Judy Davis, and great supporting work from Adam West, Sandra Seacat, and a pre-Pulp Fiction Samuel Jackson. Hopefully, some of the great camera work an slick visuals will find its way on to DVD in the near future.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A brisk stroll through Yuppie hell, October 6, 2000
Michael Tolkin's "The New Age" was the most scathing movie indictment of the American dream gone Sonoma catalog since Albert Brooks' brilliant satire "Lost In America". "The New Age" re-teams the "Tracy & Hepburn" of indie film, Peter Weller and Judy Davis, who were also the wacked-out couple in "Naked Lunch". Instead of heading off in an RV to go "find themselves", Judy and Peter decide to "simplify" thier over-extended Yuppie lifestyle by chucking it all and opening up a Beverly Hills boutique. Hilarity ensues....right? Actually, the movie takes a more low-key,sometimes cruel, black comedy approach to its subjects as they proceed to go into a tandem midlife crisis. Along the way, most trendy southern California fads are lampooned, recalling the film "Serial", which savaged the Bay Area Yuppie/New Age scene in the same fashion. Good supporting performances abound; the biggest surprise is Adam "Batman" West, who is priceless as Weller's father. West plays the wryly acerbic, aging Lothario with much aplomb.(Where has he been?!) Highly recommended.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where is the DVD for Peter Witner's Sake?!, April 22, 2007
This is still one of the sharpest dark comedies around about LA, specifically, and failed yuppie dreams , generally, that I have ever seen. Makes such Steve Martin attempts, like LA Story, seem lame. Infinitely quotable lines: "Money isn't money! Money is an expression of something else!" Peter Weller and Judy Davis are pitch perfect. The NEW AGE trappings that abound in the movie are not just scatter shot- there is a flirtation with BDSM, there is alternative medicine, and assisted suicide; there is applied and misapplied Taoist and Buddhist philosophy and there is real satire on the Consumerist Culture. Plus there is Patricia Heaton well before Everybody Loves Raymond, and the enigmatic Patrick Bachau being ...umm...enigmatic, and Adam West as Peter's kind of slimy, slippery, and distant Dad. So good here!
For a kind of similar experience, see Albert Brooks' "Lost in America."
Then re-think "American Beauty."
THIS FILM is NOT a MESS, and I'd be thankful if folks who "review" in that vein would at least back up their opinions with some discussion about the film itself, beyond one sentence.
Please, powers that own the rights to this film! Release the DVD! Because every old VHS I've scrounged up plays like they were baking in the bargain bin sun at the dollar store's front window.
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