S.O.B. (1981)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

As Good As It Gets

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

WOW! I have never read so many misguided negative reviews of such a great film!! Why are so many reviewers saying "Yes, I did not get it" then go on to blab about what they admittedly did not understand?It's more than just great comedy by great actors. For those of us who have lived in L.A. or worked in the industry, I can honestly say that in 1981 as much as 2010, SOB is so right-on-the-money that it is close to being a documentary. OK sure, it's Edwards in his funniest Pink Panther style of everything over the top, but the dynamics of the themes of Same Old Business nail it - greed, excess, sex, drugs, innocence lost, dreams traded for success, derived cynicism - as true today as probably back in the 1930's.And that's the funniest part of all - the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, but Hollywood never changes.

Writer-director Blake Edwards vents his frustrations on Hollywood (via Hollywood!) in telling slim story of a filmmaker on the edge after critics have trashed his latest family musical. His solution is to reshoot much of the picture as a blue movie...and have the G-rated star expose her breasts. Great cast struggles through what might have been a sharp satire of Tinsel Town; instead, the film is pseudo-cynical, putting down the movie business (and audiences) while catering to the lowest common denominator (are the changes made to the movie actually meant to appeal to the mass market? Ironically, the most effervescent part of the film is the opening musical number, which is then lambasted for us!). The characters are mostly ciphers, talking all at once, and Harry Stradling, Jr.'s soupy cinematography makes the whole thing look like bad cable. * from ****

Seeing this movie as a 21 year old was not a good idea. I was literate and mature enough to understand that this was an adult satire, but I was too much of a little boy to understand the grownup-ness of the characters. Ultimately, my 48 year old mind understands that I missed something in SOB, but I can't get by the quarter century old memory of thinking that this Blake Edwards comedy was a dud.I do remember laughing. And Rosanna Arquette's stripping in front of William Holden ("If that's nothing, I can't even conceive of what 'something' might be!"). There was lots of sharp dialogue and slapstick. Julie Andrews looked, well, perky, but by the time she did her newsworthy strip, what little attention span I was paying to the movie had spooled out. Yet that's all I remember. A lot of insider jokes and bared breasts. This isn't so much a review as a confession that I didn't get the movie. I remember feeling faintly disgusted with Mary Poppins popping out, in a repulsive, leathery musical number. I had a narrow window of opportunity to get SOB, but I missed it.I'm not really interested in giving it another shot.

Blake Edwards, "S.O.B.," is one of the funniest satires of the vicious machine known as Hollywood ever made. Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan)is one of Hollywood's most popular directors. All his films were box-office hits and everyone loved him...until his latest family oriented film is a HUGE flop. Farmer's life then goes down the toilet. His wife Sally Miles, America's Sweetheart(Julie Andrews),leaves him. Felix has a nervous breakdown, which gives in to suicidal tendencies. His 3 friends (William Holden, Robert Preston, and Robert Webber)try to keep his body and soul together. It's during a party at Felix's house (That turns into a orgy)that Felix comes up with an idea to save his flop: buy back his film and turn it into a sexcapade, which includes a nude scene with his estranged wife.Throughout the film, you see the backstabbing that goes on when Felix is re-working his film: studio heads that try to steal his film when it looks like it will be a sure-fire hit, assistants that try to get their foot in the door, youth pushing out the old, and sensationalism is the norm. It's also incredibly sad because it also shows that the Hollywood machine has no mercy: stars and directors are put onto pedestals, only for those pedestals to be cruelly yanked from underneath them (The once-famous star that drops dead on a beach, and remains on the beach for a few days, unknown and unloved). Felix soon becomes a victim of the Hollywood machine when they underhandedly steal his film, and goes through desperate measures to get it back. The result turns into one of the most poignant endings I have ever seen.The lines in the film are sharp enough to draw blood. Robert Preston practically steals the film away from the fact that you see Julie Andrews pretty much kill her "Mary Poppins" image by showing her boobs, swearing and being a total witch! This would make a great double feature with "The Player." Check it out!