I guess I’m supposed to say that I loved this, that cross-dressing has never been funnier, that I laughed and laughed until my intestines begged me to stop. But I only laughed a little, I don’t think cross-dressing is funny, and I only liked this just enough to give it the lowest positive score I issue. Billy Wilder’s comedy about two musicians who hide from the mob by pretending to be women feels uneven and drawn out. Of course Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis do a great job with the material, but it all seems very smirky, too good for the viewer who expects comedies to make them laugh out loud. And Marilyn Monroe was hot, and I like the way Wilder uses lighting to highlight her, um, feminine assets, but I could find a better actress at a elementary school Thanksgiving pageant. After watching it I had to adjust six different Listology lists, so there’s obviously something there, but how come I laughed more during the opening sequence of Billy Madison than I did this entire movie?
3 out of 5
2 comments:
I like this a lot more than you did, but it's far from Wilder's best- or funniest. It's certainly no One, Two, Three.
First of all, I detest the idea of you laughing at Billy Madison. Ok scratch that, it was funny but I hate Adam Sandler (excluding his work in "Punch-Drunk Love"). Other than that the idiot manchild should suffer a fractured jaw that mends wrong and leaves him unable to speak.
Moving on. It's a simple fact that some people find cross dressing funny (or fun) and other people don't. I myself don't find it funny, but think it can be used to quality effect in some movies. My favorite example of this is "To Wong Fo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar." Like "SLIH" the cross dressing in it is central to the plot. I guess it doesn't hurt that Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes are the stars. For some reason it was engrossing to watch two of the "manliest" men in hollywood at the time play drag queens.
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