Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageNot for Publication (1984)
Director: Paul Bartel
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
The career trajectory that took Bartel from extremist satire to comfortable retro pictures with unthreatening undercurrents of outré humour (prefiguring a similar shift in John Waters' career) snapped into focus with this benign but anodyne pastiche of the Preston Sturges approach to screwball comedy. Lois (Allen, pert but vacuous) writes for a sleazy tabloid and dreams of turning it back into the crusading paper her father founded. Aided by an out-of-his-depth photographer (Naughton), she stumbles through exposés of a porn-baron and a bestiality club before uncovering evidence of the mayor's involvement in organised crime. Plenty of viable gags, but the tone is too innocuous and the performances are too one-dimensional for the film to work as anything more than a remembrance of comedies past. All Bartel and no bite.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Paul Bartel
Producer: Anne Kimmel
Cast: Nancy Allen, David Naughton, Laurence Luckinbill, Alice Ghostley, Barry Dennen, Richard Paul, Paul Bartel full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 87 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
What do you think?
Post your review now