fine whine

Or, rather, the best Ryan O'Neal and/or Barbra Streisand movie I've watched all year

What's up, doc? is delightful. It's the funniest movie I've watched all year, and I'm not being flippant in saying so.

Well, not too much.

It had me rolling on the floor*, laughing out loud.

It's certainly the best Ryan O'Neal picture I've seen so far this year, with Barry Lyndon being its only competition.

And it's the only Babs movie I've ever seen, since I wouldn't admit to watching the dreadful Meet the Fockers nor would I want to remember doing so. For some reason I'd avoided this and her other films based on some odd bias I've never quite determined that I have. I don't know her songs, know very little about why else she is famous, and don't really know anybody who either loves or hates her movies. Even then, every time I saw this on the shelf I'd leave it sitting there, even if I had nothing better to choose in its place. All because I thought I didn't want to watch a Streisand picture.

But I digress.

I've wanted to see this since when I enjoyed watching Paper moon so very much. With that film I was impressed both by the writing and the perfomances, and to have watched a number of Ryan O'Neal's films in the interim shows me just how much Peter Bogdanovich was able to squeeze out of him. Did I mention the writing was brilliant?

Well, What's up, doc? is all the more brilliant, and hilarious to boot.

It's probably the last great screwball comedy, and it was a pitch-perfect rendition of the genre. It was so good I almost watched it again right thereafter, except that it was getting rather late.

I'll certainly be watching it again sometime when I need a good laugh, or rather, lots of them.

* Of course I was already on the floor, since I still have not built a computer desk, but I hadn't been laughing before. Certainly not this raucously. I'm almost certain that I scared the cats, and possibly even woke Jessica up.