Customer Reviews

Year of the Comet [VHS]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Tim Daly sports a very Magnum PI mustache and Penelope Ann Miller is an adorable frumpy ragamuffin in this romantic comedy adventure tale. I love Louis Jordan as the youth obsessed scientist determined to get his youth formula at any cost. Has some elements found in the Cary Grant Ginger Rogers classic Moneky Business- this is one of my personal favorite comedies from the 90s. Seldom seen on TV and hard to find on VHS I bought a copy several years back- this is one I want to upgrade to DVD- come on studio!

This is one of the best movies out there that has been overlooked by many people. It is a story of an apprentice wine-merchant,(Penelope Ann Miller), who discovers a bottle of wine that belonged to Napoleon called "The Year Of The Comet". The adventure starts when the bottle gets stollen and they have to chase after it.

This movie has been compared to Romancing the stone, and I think that is a fare comparison. If you buy this movie, you will love it.

This is the first entertaining movie i've seen in a long time. Penelope & Tim are both funny and appealing I would like to see more of these types of films. I love intriguing chase movies.

The plot line is very amusing with a significant amount of action. The chemistry between the lead actors is great. Excellent movie for when you don't want a "shoot em up" action movie or a sappy romance that would put a guy to sleep. We don't buy a lot of tapes but this one is a must. Strong competition to "Romancing the Stone".

I love this film - pure escapist comedy with romance and love of wine starting with mad dash across Scotland (beautiful scenery) - a perhaps unlikely pairing of Penelope Ann Miller and Tim Daly (of TV's Wings fame) works surprisingly well and Louis Jordan as the villain is a charming addition (he never could sing). Not well received by the critics, but a great time and a must see for wine lovers everywhere!

Tim Daly and Penelope Ann Miller have great chemistry in this different, but great comedy. The plot of this movie is something I have never seen before, which, in my opinion adds to it's value. If you like romance with a twist of laughter, I strongly recommend "Year of the Comet".

"They were your friends!" cries Maggie Harwood when she walks in on the pistol-holding, aged but well preserved Philippe. Lying on the rug behind him are his two, now dead, associates. "Well,' says Philippe, "we weren't that close."

Maggie (Penelope Ann Miller) is the heroine in this romantic comedy thriller. While the hero is the overly handsome, strong-jawed and mustachioed Oliver Plexico (Tim Daly), the real sex appeal comes from Philippe as played by 73-year-old Louis Jourdan. This was his last film. While many may remember him as the dashing and love-struck Gaston Lachaille in Gigi, he remains more fondly in my heart as Dr. Arcane in Swamp Thing. Like Dr. Arcane, Philippe is an incorrigibly well-mannered, egocentric and murderous creep. I suspect there are few actors as good as Jourdan who would be willing to semi-sing, while smacking his lips, leering and snapping his fingers, "There are chicks just ripe for some kissin'
And I mean to kiss me a few!
Then those chicks don't know what they're missin'
I got a lot of livin' to do!"

Jourdan does it. It's grotesquely funny.

The Year of the Comet is all about wine, and especially about an extraordinarily rare bottle of wine, an 1811 Lafite, that was once part of Bonaparte's cellar. In auction it could bring at least a million dollars. Maggie, who works for her father, the wine merchant Sir Mason Harwood (Ian Richardson), is sent to Scotland to appraise an extensive wine collection that Harwood and Company may be commissioned to place in auction. Maggie, who knows almost as much about wine as her father, may be "a funny, over-worked ragamuffin" but she got the assignment from her father by telling him he either gives her this chance to show just how good she is or she's quitting. Now she's knocking on the great oaken door of an isolated Scottish castle to appraise the wine. Unknown to Maggie, she's interrupting the torture of the owner by Philippe and his men. Philippe assures his victim that shoving the hypodermic needle with a certain drug right in the eyeball won't interfere with the man's vision...although it will cause exquisite pain later with each blink. All that we know is that there is a formula Philippe is determined to have. Maggie is taken to the cellar and this is when, brushing off centuries of cobwebs and grime while she looks at these hundreds of encrusted wine bottles, she makes her discovery...the 1811 Lafite. And it's just a short while later that Maggie makes more discoveries. First, she finds Oliver looking for her, the man who prefers beer and calls wine a beverage. She met him at a wine tasting at Harwoods. She and Oliver discover the body of the owner in the wine cellar and they discover Philippe and his crew absconding with the bottle of Lafite.

The chase is on! Sometimes Maggie and Oliver chase Philippe. Sometimes he's chasing them. They chase around with cars, motorbikes, helicopters, airplanes and rowboats. They chase scenically through the cold, rocky mountains of Scotland and the warm slopes of the French Rivera. Maggie and Oliver bicker, kiss, bicker, fall in love and bicker. And then they wind up having to listen to Philippe sing "Gotta lotta livin' to do." By now we've realized (this is no spoiler) that this adventure has as much to do with the secret formula and glands as it has to do with wine.

Year of the Comet strains to be a Hitchcock romantic thriller. While it doesn't come close it's an engaging, undemanding romp. The script is by William Goldman, a man who knows what he's doing with this sort of thing. Try Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or The Princess Bride. He works wonders with the clichés he deliberately uses. The direction, however, is a letdown. It's clunky and never lets the script build much steam, either in the chases or in the romance department. I don't know what happened to Peter Yates, but the director of Bullitt, Breaking Away and Eyewitness just doesn't seem engaged. Miller and Daly are attractive enough, although Daly is better at being handsome than at being an amusing speaker of clever lines. Cary Grant needn't worry. The real pleasures of the movie, other than the plot, are Louis Jourdan (now nearly 90 and living in France) and Ian Richardson, such a sly actor. Ian McNeice as one of Philippe's men holds his own.

Year of the Comet is amusing fluff, undemanding and a pleasant adventure. I liked it enough to have watched it twice in four years. The region 2 DVD transfer is average; all that Scottish and Riviera scenery could look better.

I love this movie! It is such a great date flick! It's got some funny lines, quirky characters, and adventurous plot. I have lent this movie to all my friends and they love it!

This movie has gotten some unnecessarily bad press. It's basically a Cinderella story with wine. The performances are excellent and the Louis Jourdan subplot is clever. This is a straightforward romantic comedy with some international adventure elements. The script is by the great William Goldman. I've seen it again and again. It's sweet and endearing and the wine information is accurate. Check it out. You have nothing to lose and you probably have a wine-loving friend or two who will find it fun.

Sir Mason Harwood (Ian Richardson) runs an auction. He sends his daughter Margaret Harwood (Penelope Ann Miller) to a Scottish estate to take inventory for a potential auction. There she discovers an extremely large and rare bottle of wine that was bottled during the year in which Halley's Comet was discovered (1811.) She informs her father of the find.

Not entirely trusting his daughter with the retrieval Sir Mason sends help, Oliver Plexico (Timothy Daly) that also has a different interest in the bottle. Friendly rivalry on this retrieval mission leads to romance.

But wait another pursuer of the bottle, Philippe (Louis Jourdan) appears on the scene. He wants the bottle for nefarious purposes and Margaret is in the way.

Will she come to harm?
Will Oliver rescue her from certain peril, or grab the bottle?

Watching this can be lots of fun for the whole family as you find yourself saying "don't do that"