I really love Zip.ca (Canada's polite answer to NetFlix). They send stuff quickly, they have a great selection and every now and then they mail me something I forgot I put on my Zip list but am delighted to see. So it was with the 1984 Dudley Moore hit Micki & Maude.
I was OBSESSED with this movie when I was 10. I watched it endlessly. I knew every line - every shot - every nuance of the soundtrack. I LOVED it. So I was eager to watch it again as an adult, to see if I still thought it was the shit.
Here's the description from the DVD case [SPOILER ALERT]:
Dudley Moore and director Blake Edwards are reunited in this laugh-packed romp about a lovable bigamist [emphasis mine]. TV reporter Rob Salinger (Moore) longs for a baby. But his career-minded wife, Micki (Ann Reinking) is too busy for motherhood. A romantic fling with a seductive cellist, Maude (Amy Irving) leads to her pregnancy. Rob receives another shock when Micki announces that she's also expecting! In love with both women, he marries Maude and starts leading a double life full of complicated and riotous situations. Micki and Maude reaches the heights of hilarity when both women are delivering babies in adjoining rooms while Moore serves double duty as the frantic father-to-be!
In the end, of course, Dudley is caught and Maude & Micki cut him off from seeing the kids. Then he spends the next 20 minutes of the film stalking them; then they both cave and let him back into their lives, each on the condition that he doesn't tell the other wife. The last sequence of the movie is Micki sitting on the bench, a judge at last; Maude playing the cello with the Philharmonic; and Dudley in the park with, like, EIGHT KIDS who are all calling him "Daddy." Hilarious!
When the movie was over, Katr turned me and said "Is there...anything you want to tell me?"
I came across several polygamist sites searching for the DVD cover of Micki & Maude. Polygamists LOVE this movie! But, along with spoiling me on the ending of Anna Karenina, I think the film taught me some questionable life lessons:
1. Lying is HILARIOUS.
2. Dudley Moore is hot.
3. Stalking your exes is the perfect way to get them back.
4. Cellists make $100 a year (when I was 10, I thought this was pretty good).
5. People who work in TV all lead double lives. I'm looking at you, Lloyd Robertson.
6. My parents wouldn't let me watch Little House on the Prairie because it was "too scary". But the lovable bigamist movie was okay. Although perhaps their lack of freakout over the subject matter of this film just made me more open to "alternative lifestyles". My parents are the coolest.
On the other hand, I have to say there were some genuinely funny moments in Micki & Maude. And Amy Irving might have made me a little gayer. And Dudley Moore won a Golden Globe for his performance in Micki & Maude, so I feel that I was not the only person a little too in love with his madcap shenanigans. But then again, I was TEN.
Speaking of madcap shenanigans, I'm going to be in Toronto later this month to film a kicky little web series! Exciting! I'll be more forthcoming with details soon, but suffice to say it's the kind of project every artist dreams of being a part of - the kind that pays in pretzels, beer, good karma and internet fame, but not in actual money. Jealous?
We're starting in three weeks (blaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg) and are in dire need of a few more folks in the area of "crew people with film experience of any kind". So if you're interested in lending your mad skillz to our madcap shenanigan-filled webisodes, drop me a line at rosemaryrowe[at]gmail[dot]com!!
Warning: no bigamy, but content will be extremely gay.
