That was an excellent one.

Thanks for the memories!

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

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

What the Hell was that? I'm normally an Altman defender in all cases - I'm a fan of stuff like That Cold Day in the Park, Quintet and Pret-a-Porter - and I've never seen him as a hit-or-miss director who has directed half masterpieces and half flops, as his reputation tends to go. But this is truly a disaster! It's based on a stage play by Christopher Durang, who also adapted this screenplay with Altman. I just can't imagine anyone sitting in the audience watching this garbage thinking, "Oh, man, that would make a great movie!" unless the play was significantly different on stage. I kind of doubt it, though. It has such a peculiar energy, and it's not much like anything else Altman made. It feels like something pretentious people might have enjoyed on stage, more likely in the 60s than in the 80s, because it's just so odd. I'm usually a fan of odd, but this one almost made me violently angry at times. Jeff Goldblum stars as a bisexual man living with his boyfriend (Christopher Guest), but trying to branch out into women. He meets Julie Hagerty on a blind date, and they immediately hate each other. After therapy sessions and a second blind date (they both change their ads slightly but end up together again), they hit it off, much to Guest's chagrin. Every character in the movie is constantly going to their therapist (the two therapist characters are played by Glenda Jackson and Tom Conti). No one acts like a human being in this film, just weird simulacra making faces at each other. There's hardly a laugh in it, and the actors universally embarrass themselves. Better off completely forgotten.

Let's go to Paris, though it could be anywhere, in any big metropolis of the end of the 20th century, or maybe the beginning of the 21st century. Let's have a bunch of people, boys and girls, men and women, all going through therapy, I mean psychoanalytical therapy, with two doctors, a man and a woman, who are the links between them all. They all are disturbed in their sexual identification not because something is wrong with them, though the women are nymphomaniac and the men are all in between straight and gay, where the two meet, exactly where the straight line bends just before breaking. That situation has been used so often by Woody Allen that we may think Altman is making a farcical parody or a fanciful remake. But you would be wrong to think so. There would have been no reason to go to Paris then. In fact the farce is a satire, a twofold double entendre satire. The satire of all the comedies we get on the big screen that try to sound dramatic and are pathetic, those melodramatic comedies that are supposed to make us both cry and laugh and often manage none or neither. That is an easy satire, the easy level of the satire. The second level is targeting the modern middle class in western societies. They have become dead, uncreative, totally obsessed by themselves, just some dead corpses perambulating in the street that we have forgotten to bury last time they opened the gates of the cemetery. At this level the satire becomes cruel with those self-satisfied baboons we call the middle class who are essentially un-occupied, in one other word idle, and they have to spend and waste their time the same way they spend and waste the money they don't even spend any energy to make. They buy some kind of trinkets for themselves that have to be expensive and time consuming though harmless and useless. That's what psychoanalysts are all about: the circulation of a lot of money in a lot of empty time that gives you the illusion of being so busy that you get giddy and dizzy. I must say it is well done but after a while it gets to shallow to really fascinate my weary eyes.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

This movie has been trashed by a lot of folks, both professional reviewers and amateurs, and gets an overall little better than a "4" average in this site. Some I've seen have given it a zilch - not even 1 star. There are those who bemoan Altman's ruining Durang's great play (c'mon, he's a good one, but certainly not Shakespeare, and this story isn't "Hamlet"). Besides, he wrote the screenplay, too, and who - either writing or viewing this film - should be surprised at Altman's usual cacophony among the participants. This signature trait of his is why so many folks are at the opposite extremes in their opinions of Altman's work (I'm one of those who love his films). "Columbo" is one of my all-time favorite television shows, especially the earlier ones (after only the great "Larry Sanders Show;" don't know whether "Larry David" will settle into 3rd place, or nudge-out Peter Falk). My late mother couldn't watch "Columbo," although detective dramas were always her favorite genre. She couldn't abide his mumbling, and the way he always schlepped into and out of scenes, and always came back for "just one more thing." She was very intelligent, and didn't need me to explain that these were the key elements of this iconic lead character - she simply didn't like them. So it should be with those who watch an Altman offering and then bitch about it. Go watch some "Capra," no less great in his own way than Altman, but you'll keep your blood pressure down. This flick is outstanding, in my opinion. The characters are quirky (understatement), funny, sympathetic and interesting. The main cast - Goldblum, Hagerty, Guest, Conti, Jackson and Page - are wonderful, as are the supporting group. I'll admit - making the film in Paris, with a New York setting, is unusual, and seems at first an interesting puzzle - but not really (who wouldn't, for example, take the opportunity to film a story set, say, in Los Angeles, in Madrid, if the producers would approve?). This is one of those films, also, where I find myself rewinding the DVD to see certain scenes over again, every time I watch it.

Whoever thought of bringing Christopher Durang and Robert Altman together has never mixed oil with water. Never have two artists been more obviously mismatched. Altman creates dark little moody set pieces, and moves at his own leisurely (and idiosyncratic) pace; Durang's fast little funny script practically begs for a crackling speed-thru, and this movie goes on forever. Still, if you're not familiar with Durang or if you can watch this without any preconceived notions, there are some very funny moments, and Christopher Guest, as always, is priceless.