Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Flirting With Disaster (1996)

dir. David O. Russell
Viewed on 2007-04-16
Rating: 7

I guess I'm not on the critics' bandwagon that seems to think this is one of the funniest movies ever. For that matter, I'm not really on the David O. Russell bandwagon, either. Of the three Russell movies I've seen, Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, and this, Flirting is my favorite,* but it's not like I love it--or hate the others. To me, they're all good and worth seeing; not great or "must-see."

I think I liked Flirting, in part, because it felt like a Woody Allen movie. But at the same time it loses points for coming off too much as a Woody Allen wannabe. (I'm hard to please sometimes, I know.) As comedies about eccentric families go, I'd much rather watch Hannah and Her Sisters, or outside the Allen oeuvre, Raising Arizona. The latter being one of my favorite movies ever. As nutty as both plots are, I like Coen brothers-nutty much more than Russell-nutty.



* Probably for some of the lines, like: "You've got a lot of nerve. You come in here, you lick my wife's armpit. You know... I'm going to have that image in my head for the rest of my life with your tongue in there. "

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