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

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

btm1 "Forget Paris" is a feel-good romantic comedy about the on again off again relationship between Mickey (Billy Crystal, who also directed, produced and was one of the writers), an NBA referee, and Ellen (Debra Winger), a customer relations trouble shooter for an airline.Friends of sports writer Andy (Joe Mantegna) are gathering at a restaurant to be introduced to Liz (Cynthia Stevenson) before their wedding. Liz comments that how she and Andy met must be the oddest ever (a fax had one digit off in the fax number and went to Andy by mistake). Andy says no, how Mickey met Ellen is the weirdest. They met because she helped him bury his father. That starts the friends telling the story of Mickey and Ellen.Some critics consider this way of telling the story and the plot stale and schmaltzy; but it is so well done that I could care less.The film genre is romantic comedy; this film's strength is the comedy part of that term. I could give examples but comedy is best when the punchline (or its visual equivalent) is unexpected. Let me just say that one of my favorite bits starts with the focus on an organist going through the motions of preparing to play serious music.Billy Crystal is known to be a serious basketball fan and in part the film is like a documentary about refereeing NBA games, with a huge number of basketball stars playing themselves. I was bemused at the end of the credits when the standard disclaimer came up saying that all the characters and names in the film were fictitious. Not hardly in this film.I should mention that Cynthia Stevenson's hysterically tearful performance as Liz listening to Mickey's and Ellen's highs and lows was great.I also loved the sound track. Ella Fitzgerald singing "April in Paris" is so great; also, Billy Holiday doing the opening "Our Love Is Here To Stay." David Sanborn's saxophone version of the "Star Spangled Banner" is also particularly great.My one quibble is that I found Debra Winger's voice very sexy in 1982's "Officer and a Gentleman" and she didn't sound the same in 1995's "Forget Paris." I probably don't sound the same as I did 13 years ago either.

Brigid O Sullivan (wisewebwoman) This movie can't quite make up its mind as to what it wants to be, romantic comedy, light drama, slapstick, story of a modern marriage.Couple 'meet cute' in Paris. Debra Winger (Ellen) and Billy Crystal (Mickey) seem like a natural fit. One liner blitzfest, some funny.They get married after a few bumps and a few unrealistic plot contrivances.Then the story of the marriage as viewed through the eyes of Mickey's friends.The films gets seriously dramatic then with infertility problems, career problems, elderly father moving in.Some parts are brilliant - the elderly father particularly, and Mickey throwing his weight around with the twice-as-tall basketball players.Some parts are flat - the sperm rush to the hospital, the marriage counselling.The supporting cast add some value but the movie is all Billy doing his Harry redux from "When Harry Met Sally." It fell a little too flat for me. 6 out of 10.

moonspinner55 Sadly lackluster romantic comedy, co-written, directed and starring Billy Crystal, is told in deadly flashbacks. A group of friends recount a colleague's courtship (and eventual marriage) to an unfulfilled woman, resulting in comic disasters. French locations and a bright cast do help a little bit, but the screenplay isn't very funny, instead becoming weighed down with cheap, lousy sentiment that doesn't play (and has more than a whiff of "When Harry Met Sally..." besides!). Only a minimum of laughs surface, particularly when William Hickey is on-screen as Debra Winger's aged father. Otherwise, Crystal and Winger are not well-matched and their marital ups-and-downs have a depressive feel, with an uneasy give and take full of failed wisecracks and pregnant pauses. Forget it! *1/2 from ****

roghache I'm generally a lover of romantic comedies, but this one didn't really deliver the goods for me. It is unusual in focusing not on the courtship but on the course of the couple's early married life. I guess I objected to the fact that separation seems such an easy option for this couple when they aren't feeling self fulfilled. Plenty enough of that, alas, in real life. The method of story telling is certainly unique, and somewhat effective, as it's done in flashback at an Italian restaurant by their friends, each supplying a part of the tale as they wait for the couple (who may or may not be together) to join them. The couple meet in Paris when Ellen, an airline official, helps Mickey, a basketball referee, sort out the airline's error in sending his father's body to the wrong destination. They have a romantic whirlwind courtship, seeing all the sights. However, marriage of course proves a big adjustment back in the States, as Ellen misses her successful airline career. Also, Ellen's father, who's a bit senile, comes to live with the newlyweds in their apartment, driving Mickey crazy.Nothing the matter with the cast. Billy Crystal is okay here, though I prefer When Harry Met Sally (not my favorite romantic comedy either). He seems to have a consistent persona of crazy yappiness. As a rule, I really like Debra Winger, but this simply isn't her best role.The movie has some laughs certainly (Mickey's veal ordering rut, for example) and a few good points, such as the father-in-law issue and the fact that the pair do honestly attempt to compromise and make it work, with Mickey for a time sacrificing his travels as referee to be at home with his wife. However, all in all, it's just too contrived and deliberately modern. The young wife who wants her own career fulfillment. Ho, hum. Naturally, the couple has fertility problems. The wild drive where Mickey is racing his semen sample to the fertility clinic is supposedly hilarious but failed to amuse me much. It seemed with its sexual implications such a calculated attempt to elicit a guaranteed laugh. Sort of like the restaurant faked orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally. The old romantic comedies used to manage quite nicely without this sort of thing. They just don't make them like they used to.At least the film does make the point that marriage isn't just about romance (hence the phrase, forget Paris) but about sacrifice and commitment. So I suppose in a sense, something of a good message.