RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Kirpianuscus ...and you do not know why. maybe, for its courage and high art and wise manner to show simple things about human relations. maybe for the great acting. or only for Aidan Alda. for its charming way to translate basic things in great scenes. for the seductive atmosphere. for the beautiful vision about conflicts and sickness and friendship, and love and need to be part of the other. nothing new. but real important. this is all.

owenmmccaffertyii I think this movie defines Alda's talent for writing. He uses situations and feelings that people face or have faced in real life. Ever since I first saw Alan's first M*A*S*H episode that he wrote, I made it my job to see every movie that he stared and wrote in. His talent is unsurpassed and cannot be reproduced. I first bought this on Selectavision Videodisc, and now I own it on every format. Every time formats change, I make sure to get the updated copy of it. This is a must see movie for any Alan Alda, or Carol Burnett fan. "It all adds up to warmhearted enjoyment and sidesplitting fun in this fabulous new RCA VideoDisc" (Susan Zucker, quote taken from the RCA VideoDisc "The Four Seasons")

Ed Uyeshima Twenty-five years since its initial release, this 1981 comedy from Alan Alda, its director, writer and nominal star, still holds up pretty well. In fact, I just saw Norman Jewison's 2001 film, "Dinner with Friends", which feels like a partial remake in following the friendships that evolve among married couples hovering around middle age. Using Vivaldi's familiar string concertos as a transitional device, Alda's film concerns itself with three upscale couples who take vacations together every season, consequently we get four vignettes over the course of a year. It's a contrived plot machination with no sense of climax, but it all seems to fit the contours of the story.Jack is a lawyer who would like nothing more than have group therapy sessions with his friends, while his wife Kate, a magazine editor, is a no-nonsense woman who sometimes gets frustrated with Jack's constant emotional insulation. Danny is a neurotic, penny-pinching dentist married to Claudia, an artist with the hot temper of her Italian roots. Nick is a philandering insurance agent who wants to divorce his wife Anne, a housewife frozen by her self-doubts. It is the dissolution of this last marriage that provides the impetus for the group to examine the state of their relationships with their spouses and friends. The group starts out with a spring fishing trip when Nick confides to Jack about his need for a divorce, followed by a Caribbean summer boat trip when Nick brings his new nubile girlfriend Ginny, a wide-eyed stewardess. The fall has them visiting their kids in college, and a soccer match proves to be a test of wills among the men to prove their virility to Ginny much to the chagrin of the wives. The last piece takes them to a wintry cabin where true feelings are exposed, especially as Ginny exposes the women for their vindictive exclusionary tactics.The acting is solid. Alda seems to be doing a send-up of his own sensitive male persona as Jack, and a wisely cast Carol Burnett is actually pretty subtle as Kate. These two were such huge TV icons in the 1970's that the impact of their goodwill is almost instant. As the most comic pair, Rita Moreno and Jack Weston provide most of the laughs as they banter and bicker like Fred and Ethel Mertz redux. Broadway actor Len Cariou manages the insolence and liberation of a husband set free, while Sandy Dennis brings a palpable dimension of sadness to the socially ejected Anne. Bess Armstrong plays Ginny with an apt sunniness masking a burning need for acceptance. The story leads to little beyond a funny sight gag and an implication that Ginny will become more integral to the group, but the dialogue is often shrewdly observant and sometimes cannily witty. Alda doesn't quite have Woody Allen's sharp acumen in producing genuine laughs out of the human condition, but the film generates a good time while it lasts. The 2005 DVD has no extras.

oceanave Although it has great actors, this movie bombs. The characters spend most of the movie squabbling with each other and make a point of saying exactly what's on their minds. The camera coverage of "nature" elements doesn't do much for the story itself, which is super weak. There's some good dialogue here and there, mostly between Burnett and Alda - Alda was one of Carol's favorite guest stars on her variety show. It was good that Sandy Dennis's "lamest of the lame" character, Anne, was divorced out in the early part of the story. Bess Armstrong (as Ginny) comes in and nicely mixes things up, providing Len Cariou (as Nick Callan) with a partner who satisfies him sexually and emotionally in ways that the flighty/flaky Anne could not. Burnett and Alda are a cute couple, but Moreno and Weston have ZERO chemistry. Alda's two (unattractive) daughters do nicely in their brief five minute appearances. The music (by Vivaldi) is about all the movie has to really recommend it. I think I laughed the hardest at some of the trite and trivial things these "close friends" argue about - perhaps this was the way groups of friends interacted 30 years ago? AND, I couldn't help but ROTF-LOL at the scene where the three guys "race" on their motorcycles in the woods...and at Alda's goofy fall (that is supposed to look bad enough to warrant him breaking his ankle.) Watch this movie on a weekend if you have absolutely nothing else in the world to do, and definitely don't watch it with a date or a spouse.