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Very Cool!!!

Sadly Over-hyped

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Various guests arrive at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Hannah (Jane Fonda) and Bill Warren (Alan Alda) are a troubled couple getting a divorce. Chauncey Gump (Richard Pryor) and Willis Panama (Bill Cosby) are bickering Chicago doctors vacationing with their wives. London actress Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith) travels with her closeted husband Sidney Cochran (Michael Caine) for her Oscar nomination. Marvin Michaels (Walter Matthau) is surprised by the call girl sent by his sleazy brother Harry and then his wife arrives.The four stories have varying effectiveness. I most wanted to see this movie for Pryor. His and Cosby's section has the foursome in quirky slapstick comedy. It's odd. Pryor is more known in slapstick with usual partner Gene Wilder. Cosby's present day troubles is problematic. Matthau's section has one main scene. It suffers a little due to the fact that he's not an innocent. It would be infinitely funnier if none of it is his fault. Imagine him finding the hooker naked in bed and immediately his wife arrives. That way he does nothing wrong and is left with all the blame. That would be infinitely funnier. The Fonda Alda coupling is rather forgettable and it could have been more. Maybe if their children joins them and they have to deal with them. Smith and Caine have the best part. In fact, Maggie gets an Oscar which is ironic for this story. They do great work and have room to do the work.

Opening credits mingling with British artists David Hockney's artwork, California SUITE has a pleasing promise to be sophisticatedly funny or creatively witty, it is based on Neil Simon's successful play and directed by Herbert Ross in his prime (after THE TURNING POINT and THE GOODBYE GIRL, both in 1977). The film is composed of four independent stories of guests in a hotel, visitors from London are Diana Barrie (Smith), an Oscar nominated British actress attending the ceremony with her bisexual husband Sidney Cochran (Caine); visitor from New York is Hannah Warren (Fonda), who comes to settle a deal with her ex-husband Bill (Alda) about their teenage daughter; visitors from Chicago are two Black couples (Pryor and Cosby with their respective wives) who are on holiday, they cannot refrain from squabbling with each other, it is a disgraceful slapstick; finally, visitors from Philadelphia are Marvin Michaels (Matthau) and his wife Millie (May), they are attending their nephew's Bar Mitzvah, Marvin has a one-night-stand with a prostitute whom his salacious brother sends to him the night before Millie's arrival, the next morning, with the prostitute is unconscious after a Vodka binge, things become difficult for him to cover up. The four stories equally use up their carefully allotted screen-time, and narrated chronically, Smith-Caine and Fonda-Alda's parts are more drama-skewed courtesy to their incessant bickering, while Pryor-Cosby burlesque is almost interpolated like an interlude, and Matthau- May farce is left last with a foolish slant of getting redress for men's adultery with women's consumerism.Dame Maggie Smith won her second Oscar for playing an Oscar loser in the film, what a unique coincidence, her flair never shies away from being ridiculous and vulnerable, but her comical superciliousness does make a great pair with Caine's self-righteous sarcasm, not a worthy win in my book but she and Caine are no doubt the pick in this otherwise lukewarm and patchy flick, it is intriguing to follow their storyline since they are equals in this love battle, unlike Alda and Fonda pair, the ex-husband is eternally subordinate to his condescending ex-wife, and their repartee is intolerably obnoxious, they are not teenagers anymore. A final note, it is quite regrettable to watch two top Black comedians are degraded into a completely stereotyped mockery and the best thing can do is to laugh about it and act as if it has never happened.

Neil Simon's four story comedy about the goings on at a posh Los Angeles hotel is only funny about 1/2 the time. Alan Alda & Jane Fonda spar as exes deciding who should have custody of their teenage daughter. Fonda is venomous taking on earthy/crunchy Alda. Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor and their wives experience the vacation from hell as they bicker, flood their guest room and assault one another. There's nary a laugh there. Elaine May arrives after husband Walter Matthau and finds a hooker in his room. It's always great to see the witty May on screen, but she's left stranded along with Matthau in this laugh-less segment. Maggie Smith is an Oscar nominee, fretting about losing the Oscar while seeming to not notice she's already lost husband Michael Caine. That last segment is the keeper of this group. Smith, who won an Oscar in real life for this part, is excellent and Caine is every inch her match. Their funny/pathetic verbal assaults are really cutting. Directed with little finesse by Herbert Ross. There is a pretty good smooth jazz score by Claude Bolling.

Despite a talented all-star cast, "California Suite," which was based on a hit Neil Simon play, is a wildly uneven film. The episodic story traces several unrelated couples from across the U.S. that check into a Beverly Hills hotel. Like a comedic "Grand Hotel," the film cuts between the stories, although the editing makes no comments, ironic or otherwise, between the episodes. Actually, the often foolish, self-centered characters make "California Suite" more a "Ship of Fools" in the sunshine than a "Grand Hotel" under the palms. The original play was a follow-up to the more successful "Plaza Suite" and demonstrated Simon's shakier take on the West Coast than on the East. For the most part, the hotel guests speak and behave like the transplanted or visiting New Yorkers that they are.Jane Fonda portrays the ultimate New York snob, and her bitchy banter with ex-husband Alan Alda only underscores her arrogance and intolerance of anything that exists west of the Hudson. Alda is a New Yorker's stereotype of a Californian with pastel sweaters and perpetual tan. While a few amusing lines pass between the terminally mismatched couple, Fonda and Alda's episode is more grating than funny. However, the New York couple display Noel-Coward wit in comparison to the wasted talents and misfires in the scenes that involve Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby as vacationing doctors. The premise of two couples that arrive to find a reservation for only one has promise. However, director Herbert Ross should have studied Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd before he devised the broad, unfunny physical stunts that will leave viewers grateful that both Pryor and Cosby survived the mess and moved on to better material.However, the film does have some fine moments between comedic experts Walter Matthau and Elaine May. When Matthau arrives in LA a day early, his brother surprises him with a prostitute, who passes out from too much tequila and cannot be awakened in the morning. Of course, Matthau's wife, the always-delicious Elaine May, arrives, and the comedy moves into high gear. The best episode in the film, however, involves an English actress, Maggie Smith, and her bisexual husband, Michael Caine. The couple arrives to attend the Academy Awards, because Smith is a Best Actress nominee. While Smith has some of the best-written lines in the film, her role also has a depth and poignancy that goes far beyond the cardboard characters in the other episodes. Although Caine is equally fine, Smith's role is showier, and she won a deserved Academy Award for the part. The film's special irony is that the part of an Oscar-losing-actress won an Oscar for the actress who played her."California Suite" is one of those films in which a few superior scenes make it worthy entertainment, and the Smith-Caine episode pulls the film several notches higher than it otherwise deserves. Add the sparkling Matthau-May scenes, and there is at least one-half of a good movie. Although the Fonda-Alda episode is bearable and occasionally amusing, the Pryor-Cosby scenes are often labored and unfunny. However, with a strong finger on the fast-forward button, there is a good hour of comedy and fine performances to be had in this inconsistent film.