The Fabulous Baker Boys
1989 Directed by Steve Kloves
Synopsis
For 31 years it's been just the Fabulous Baker Boys... but times change.
Frank and Jack Baker are professional musicians who play small clubs. They play smaltzy music and have never needed a day job...
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Seattle never looked so pretty. *Saxophone solo* Sadly, the Bridges brothers can't make this snorer more than it is. Even Madonna thought the script was too mushy and declined to participate.
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Good cast. Michelle Pfeiffer is sexy. It was OK and only mildly interesting.
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I think this might be my favorite 80's movie!? Michelle's performance was fantastic and I would happily watch it again.
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The Fabulous Baker Boys taught my friends and me a valuable lesson when we were 14: that movies can be sexy without any skin. Of course, we went right back to trolling for nudity the following week. An accomplished hyphenate debut by a filmmaker who was egregiously punished for hitting the sophomore slump with Flesh and Bone, though there's so little levity in the picture's second half that it frankly starts to chafe. (I realize now why I didn't revisit it very often in my youth.) Is the appearance of Jennifer Tilly in this movie starring the Bridges brothers some kind of meta gag?
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Michelle Pfeiffer is perfection, at the top of her talents, and is very well-surrounded by the Bridges'. Well-shot by Michael Ballhaus.
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This review reportedly contains spoilers. I can handle the truth.
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The actors do a great job in this, a character piece. But it just never really connected with me. I found it slow, ponderous and at the end of the day, not very interesting.
I feel like I've failed as a film viewer.
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Jeff Bridges, Beau Bridges, and Michelle Pfeiffer deliver great performances in this story of a nightclub brotherly duo who find themselves a new girl singer who revitalizes their sagging careers and gives her a new life. There's not much a plot to speak of, but who cares -- the simple story just described is about these characters and the love affair that begins between Jeff and Michelle's characters. Pfeiffer is extraordinary and had that Academy not wanted to give Jessica Tandy a lifetime achievement Oscar for her reputation as one of America's greatest actresses, Pfeiffer would have taken home a much-deserved Oscar for her portrayal of a chanteuse. Pfeiffer is perfection in the role. The film, made up of little moments of pure magic, is worth watching again and again (and I've done so myself several times over). Easily one of the best films of 1989, it belongs on everyone's must-see lists.
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There are two reasons why, still today, one should return to The Fabulous Baker Boys. One, 1989; two, Michelle Pfeiffer.
Watching it for 1989 is perhaps a bit crooked; surely Kloves or anyone involved did not intentionally root a fundementally ageless rom-com so deeply in its era. However, instead of ageing as badly as they should have, The Fabulous Baker Boys’ dated haircuts, kitschy luxury hotels and stuffy-lounge piano tunes have inexplicably become increasingly charming over the years. Michael Ballhaus’ stunning cinematography gave Seattle an atmosphere at the perfect balance of noir and comfortable and allowed the film to become a landmark of its time, earning some sort of a cult status by way of nostalgia - nostalgia not for…