Word: harold
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Simply put, Harold Bloom is Falstaff...
Bedazzled, a Faust farce directed by Harold Ramis, is quite close in silhouette to the Peter Cook-Dudley Moore Bedazzled of 1967--with the petty distinction that the old film was funny, the new one mostly not. A lonely dweeb (Brendan Fraser) is so desperate to win the affections of a co-worker (Frances O'Connor) that he signs a pact with the Horned One (Elizabeth Hurley) that offers him seven shots at ecstasy for his puny little soul. Alas, the skitcom format soon becomes tiresome; comic inventiveness should have been Ramis' first wish...
...basic plot-type rundown on the Harold Ramis comedy Bedazzled is that it's about a lonely Brendan Fraser-type guy who's got the hots for one of his coworkers. He sells his soul to an Elizabeth Hurley-type devil in exchange for seven wishes, with an eye toward getting the girl. He uses his wishes to change himself in ways to make himself more appealing to the girl, being defeated by Satan at every turn, until he learns that he doesn't have to change himself to find love. For all its computer animation and dot-com references...
...great thing, historically, about comedies from Harold Ramis (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day, and Caddyshack) is that they keep mutating on you. Just when you think he's maxed out the comedic potential inherent in a setpiece, he'll change the rules just enough to allow the comedy to flourish on new ground (e.g. Bill Murray's wild progression from hedonism to suicide to philanthropy in Groundhog Day). Ramis' mistake with Bedazzled is that he tips his hand to the audience in the set-up of the movie. Because of the seven-wish structure of the film, you always know exactly where...
...Harold Ramis...