♥♥♥♥
+ Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Best Parody of the Year
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| Two of Hollywood's biggest comedy stars meet for the first time in what appears a simple con plot on this poster for Frank Oz's Bowfinger |
Steve Martin (iThree Amigos! (1986)) plays Bowfinger, a man who desperately wants to make a Hollywood movie hit. With a persevering team of amateurs, one involuntary, unknowing major star, Kit Ramsay, and Ramsay's unknown, dim-witted brother, Bowfinger somehow succeeds in creating the action science fiction film, Chubby Rain.
Bowfinger is written by writer/co-star Steve Martin (L.A. Story (1991)) and directed by Frank Oz (The Dark Crystal (1982)).
While the film might be no major laugh fest, it works wonders as a major enjoyment for lovers of classic comedy and the Hollywood movie business, which it parodies gleefully. It is entertaining and very agreeable and a somewhat nostalgic trip to a way of making comedies that's not being done much anymore, (regrettably.)
The pairing of Eddie Murphy (The Golden Child (1986)) and Martin, two of big screen comedy's biggest stars in the preceding decades, is a merry success.
Bowfinger is a funny film with a slew of good supporting actors as well: Heather Graham (Wander (2020)), Christine Baranski (The Bravest Knight (2019, TV-series)), Adam Alexi-Malle (Hidalgo (2004)), Terence Stamp (Unfinished Song (2012)) and Robert Downey Jr. (Only You (1994)) are all very good.
Related posts:
Frank Oz: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) - Despite stale romance and Anakin, Episode II excites (voice actor)
1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Cost: 55 mil. $
Box office: 98.6 mil. $
= Big flop (returned 1.79 times its cost)
[Bowfinger was released 13 August (North America, Switzerland) and runs 97 minutes. The enormous cost is likely to be ballooned by sky-high fees for Murphy, Martin and Oz, but they are regrettably unreported. Shooting took place from June - September 1998 in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #2, behind hold-over hit The Sixth Sense, to a an 18 mil. $ weekend in North America, where it spent another 4 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#4-#4-#5), grossing 66.3 mil. $ (67.2 % of the total gross. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to a notch over this one. Oz returned with The Score (2001). Murphy returned in Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000); Martin in The Venice Project (1999). Bowfinger is certified fresh at 81 % with a 7/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Bowfinger?
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