My Blue Heaven (1990)

the audience applauded

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Just perfect...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Steve Martin, Rick Moranis and Joan Cusack star in this 1990 comedy. Martin (Planes, Trains & Automobiles) plays mobster, Vinnie Antonelli who is in the witness protection program. Moranis (Ghostbusters) plays Barney Coopersmith, a square, FBI agent who is assigned to protect Vinnie in a suburban town in California. Vinnie starts off getting into some trouble, but betters himself trying to help Barney build his self-confidence as well as help provide for the community. Cusack (In & Out) plays D.A., Hannah Stubbs who finds romance with Barney. Daniel Stern (Home Alone), Carol Kane (The Princess Bride), Bill Irwin (How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and the late, William Hickey (Tales from the Darkside: The Movie) are also featured. I've always enjoyed this film and Martin and Moranis are great together. I recommend this good comedy.

My Blue Heaven (1990) came as a very welcome surprise. I had written off writer Nora Ephron because of her brief stint in TV at the beginning of her career. But she turns out to be a really inventive and clever writer who knows how to deliver socko comedy at the start of a movie and then keep topping it up right to the very end! Director Herbert Ross also made a false start to his movie career with the disastrous re-make of Goodbye Mr Chips, followed by the disappointing Owl and the Pussy Cat. Admittedly, Play It Again, Sam is great fun but how much of that success is due to the input of Woody Allen? On the other hand, whichever way you look at it, My Blue Heaven is brilliantly directed from start to finish with every episode topping the ep that went before! Credit must also be showered on the players, particularly Steve Martin and diminutive Rick Moranis. In fact, all the acting is top notch, and I loved the music score too! Available on an excellent Warner Brothers DVD which also features the French-dubbed version. Whatever you do, don't listen to this French version. It's awful! It's hard to believe that as recently I imagine as 1991 such execrable dubbing was still being recorded with absolutely no attempt at lip sync, let alone a bit of effort to match the vocal inflections and timbre of Martin, Moranis and company.

This Rick Moranis/Steve Martin film is relatively fun and entertaining, but also quite forgettable--mostly because the film is mostly founded on a single joke that isn't all that funny. Martin plays an obnoxious crook that Moranis has been assigned to protect and it's the standard "buddy film" where two totally dissimilar guys are thrown together with "hillarious results". Generally, while the results are slightly amusing, that's all there really is to the film. Martin hams it up with an over-the-top stereotypical cheap hood performance (which, frankly, isn't too good, since it's so broad and overdone) and Moranis plays a dull befuddled FBI agent. Really, this is only a very slightly better than average time-passer and nothing more. If it comes on TV and you have nothing more important to do, then give it a watch. Otherwise, it's pretty skip-able.

This movie is from the period when Rick Moranis and Steve Martin were still at the very top of the comedy-genre. This movie shows both of them in top-form and they make this movie a fun and certainly above average one.It's not the most clever or best comedy movie even written but the movie does serve its purpose. There are quite many different plot-lines. It doesn't make the movie confusing to watch but it does make it a little bit less interesting to watch at times. Therefor the move never really reaches the level of true greatness but it still is a bit of a forgotten and certainly underrated comedy that deserves some more recognition.This movie features Steve Martin in one of his best and most entertaining roles. He is perfect as the ex-gangster, who now is in the witness protection program. He goes perfectly over-the-top as the Italian wise-guy. Rick Moranis' role is a bit smaller (too small) but not any less entertaining because of that. Moranis and Martin form a pretty good and funny comical duo, mainly because the two characters are very different from each other. The movie also has a really strong supporting cast, with some big and well known respected names in it.It's a movie that really mostly relies on its two main character. They make the movie and its comedy moments work. The movie doesn't really have that many memorable moments, although the dance sequences are definitely fun, original and amusing. Its more the sort of movie that amuses and entertaining throughout its entire running time, without making a too big or lasting impression. The movie tries to be clever at moments with its story but it only succeeds partly in this. The story is too messy and too disconnected to make it really fully work.There are too many issues with this movie to really regard it as a great comedy classic. The story is not always told in the most interesting way and not everything in the movie really connects with each other. Also the ending was a bit of a disappointment. It was like they wanted to solve every plot line and problems in the last ten minutes in just a couple of sequences. It made the ending a bit of a too easy and unsatisfying one.Overall an entertaining, bit of underrated comedy, that is fun to watch, mainly thanks to Martin and Moranis who were both in top shape at the time of this movie.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/