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Reviews
The Music Machine (1979)
So bad it's good
Check out this movie if you want to see a low-rent pastiche of Saturday Night Fever. Gerry is our zero (sorry, hero) stuck in rainy, 70's, low-aspiration North London, dreaming of a way out. Yes, there's a dance contest ("North London vs South London" - Music Machine vs Idon'tknowtheotherone)..yes there's a mid-Atlantic voiced DJ, yes there's an arch bad-guy (the gap-toothed bloke who appears in Sade's Smooth Operator video, fact-fans) and, superbly, there's big-name star-quality in the shape of Patti Boulaye in a bronze Ford Capri MkII with a beige vinyl roof. This was before the glitzy glamour of imported European lager (ok, maybe Skol or Lowenbrau were a treat)...instead halves of bitter and cheesy chat up lines fired at the out-of-his-league "bird" - "Can I get you a drink?" "I'm alright thanks.." "I know you're alright, but can I get you a drink...?". Always a winner. A brilliant film. (Another lyric - 'Dancin' on a Saturdy night..hopin' that there won't be a fight..' They don't write em like that any more)
Tin Cup (1996)
Predictable, gooey, formulaic, feel-good, syrupy.
This film is sickly. No, predictable. That's the word. A series of hugely unlikely scenarios vaguely connected by a formula that Hollywood seems to think can be rehashed over and again - an eccentric hero that people (they think) would take as some kind of hero, on account of his consistent failure. Would a successful chick like the 'doctor' look twice at a trailer-living, scruffy-but-apparently-philosophically-brilliant utter failure like 'Tin Cup'? I don't think so. And then, of course despite the "shanks", he gets into the U.S. Open. Of course he does...if only for the excuse to get golf-big-names exposed to the wider public.
So to make the movie work, simply take an unlikely scenario (golf), apply a twist or two (so-legendary-that no-one-ever-heard-of-him-golf-pro who is so far down on his luck he runs a middle-of-nowhere driving range and lives in a trailer) add a few unlikely eccentrics (failure-loving intelligent chick, business-savvy stripper (ok people, no stereotypes applied, but they do they exist??) and mix the whole lot up with a load of pseudo-psychology, and predictable situations like the golf-pro getting the 'shanks', or the psychiatrist calling her mentor to explain how cute the golf-pro is. Why does Russo get involved in this stuff (see the scene in Thomas Crown Affair on the patio in Brosnan's tropical shag-pad).
The result? A movie that, unless it casted two mega-stars would never have succeeded, appeals to only the kind of viewer who just wants to see Kevin or Renee on a screen no matter what they acted. Feel-good, whatever the phrase, this film is utter tosh. Don't waste your time.