A Perfect Couple (1979)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Absolutely the worst movie.

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

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

An absolutely miserable film from beginning to end. How could anyone conceive of putting Paul Dooley in the lead here?Perhaps the best part of this awful picture is the downpour at the beginning.Both Dooley and his new found girlfriend are with dysfunctional people if ever there were. Dooley was supposed to have been married before but seems to be unbelievably tied to his Greek family with a string. The father exhibits too much control and does it really take the sudden death of his sister to awaken him to the fact that he is a man.The girlfriend is living with all sorts of characters. Everything seems to get in the way of their ill-fated romance including themselves. I guess because they seem to be mismatched that they wind up as a match in the end.The writing here is terribly stilted and the performances aren't that much better.

Paul Dooley and Marta Heflin play a most decidedly IMperfect couple in Robert Altman's version of a romantic comedy. His claim at the time (justified) is that Hollywood had always allowed only beautiful people to fall in love, so he wanted to make a romance with a couple of ordinary folk. He succeeded when he found the paunchy Dooley and the distractingly skinny (nearly anorexic) Heflin for his leads, but the film itself is not much of a success. This came out during Altman's "experimental" period, meaning he threw together some disparate elements and hoped for the best. Actually, it's quite accessible for Altman, considering "Quintet" came out in the same year, and it's one of his least Altman-like projects. Unfortunately, it's those very qualities that also make it one of his least interesting and ugliest from a purely visual standpoint.The film does boast some good if dated music though, performed by the real-life band Keepin' Em Off the Streets, led by Ted Neely, most known for playing the role of Jesus in the film version of "Jesus Christ Superstar" (and whom I saw perform the role on stage in a touring version).Grade: C

"Nashville" represented a critical and commercial high point for Altman. He followed it with a series of films that puzzled the critics and alienated his already slender audience (the critics loved his overlapping dialogue and generally unhappy endings but audiences didn't). "Buffalo Bill and the Indians", "A Wedding", and worst of all, "Quintet".Altman was running out of studio backing and critical support. He had never really been a money maker and by 1979 with "Jaws" and "Star Wars" Hollywood had discovered the special effects summer blockbuster. It was tired of auteurs like him and Bogdanovich and Coppola, particularly auteurs who didn't make money (auteurs who remain the darlings of the critics like Woody Allen and Scorsese and don't cost too much money are OK.). Altman needed to show Hollywood that he could make money."A Perfect Couple" and "Popeye" were Altman's attempts to make movies he hoped would reach out to the general audience and be hits at the box office.

I loved this movie from the first time I saw it. Sure, it's basically a new take on Romeo and Juliet, but it's still a good flick. The music is undoubtedly the best part {especially when "Bobbie" sings 'Lonely Millionaire (swoon)}--if Keepin' 'Em Off the Streets were a real band, I'd be their biggest fan.Does anyone know how I might get a copy of A Perfect Couple?