Memories of Me

Abbie (Billy Crystal) is a surgeon who just had a heart attack. On his on again off again girlfriend Lisa (JoBeth Williams)'s insistence, he visits his estranged father Abe (Alan King). Abe is a failed actor/extra who is slowly suffering from dementia.

Henry Winkler directs this movie. He doesn't really have any vision or style. All he does is just turn on the camera and let the actors go. And that's what Alan King does. He's manic. He's powerful. Billy Crystal is playing the angry young man trying to reconnect with his crazy father.

The pace is slow and cumbersome. The jokes come fast and deliver flat. Everybody is grumpy. I hoped the movie to be better. I'm pulling for them. But Crystal is just too grumpy.

The stuff about being an extra just doesn't ring true. It may seem right if you don't think about it. But if an extra keeps causing trouble, he'd be quickly kicked off the set.

Really a good inside look at Hollywood and the movie making machine that it is today. Why do they not show it on TV or any other outlet, I found it well.,.......well just great. Best kept secret flick RussJFK loves it! You just get a good look at this film and the back-door of Hollywood. What the extras go through on a day to day basis on the set. I was one of them many years ago back in 1987 in LAX. Worked on a lot of films, enjoyed sitting on "the set" while we filmed. Every time I looked into the camera, I felt at home. I missed Dallas, Texas at the time and I was all the way in LA. But I found solace when I saw the camera, filming me, I knew that that was a portal back to my home in Texas and other homes across the country. I felt at home in front of the camera? Anyway, I loved this movie and wish I could find it on DVD for my collection, one of those good Saturday afternoon movies!!

It's hard to understand, sometimes, what can go wrong in the relationship between a father and son, when no physical abuse is involved. We know these situations do exist, as it the case presented by this movie that tries hard to presents a situation about the distancing between a son and his father, two people that are much alike.

Billy Crystal, working on the screen play with Eric Roth, try to make us like this story. As directed by Henry Winkler, this dramatic comedy doesn't add anything that one hasn't already seen already. In fact, most of it kept reminding us the work of Neil Simon with all its one liners and glibness.

"Memories of Me" makes a point to salute those unknown people working behind the stars because Abe, the father of this story is a struggling extra in Hollywood. The movie capitalizes on the star turn by Alan King, who plays the father. Billy Crystal underplays the son. Jobeth Williams also appears.

Mr. Winkler has gone for the sentimentality and the result is a film that doesn't go anywhere.

This film proves with JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT that Alan King was capable of a good film career. The story here does not deal with secretive billionaires and their angry mistresses, but with a man who left his family in New York City decades before to pursue a career in Hollywood. But Abe has never been more than a background extra. When his son Abie (Billy Chrystal) is recovering from a heart attack, he goes to Hollywood to see his father for the first time in years. Abie discovers that his father has never even had a real speaking part (the closest is when he was the sixth or seventh man in SPARTACUS to yell "I am Spartacus!"). Naturally, given the shattering effect that Abe's abandonment of the family had, it does not seem to Abie that his father had much to show for it. Abe, who has become part of the Hollywood community (he is usually seen with his fellow extras, but we see he does know Sean Connery by first names). He is reasonably happy - but Abie keeps dismissing him as a hack, not an artist.

The arrival of Abie's girlfriend Lisa (JoBeth Williams) does not help matters at first, but she manages to bridge the anger and contempt that the son feels for his father, and slowly they do find some degrees of similarities. Abie loves playing the trumpet, for example, and does it well. But Abie discovers that there is something physically wrong about his father - a sudden memory problem causing the father to recite a scene he liked from INHERIT THE WIND. The prognosis is grim. So Abie decides to help his father accomplish his greatest wish: get a full scene in a movie with actual dialog.

Most of the comments here have been fairly negative, insisting that it is a very lachrymose and overly sentimental tale. There is no denying that it is (ultimately) a tragic story - but the performances (particularly King as a proud and touchy man, who will not admit that his life has been less than a success) are good for the three leads. King's performance mingled pathos and comedy quite well. Witness the scene where he was trying to choose among his friends for the extras in a science fiction film, where he is dressed in a lobster costume. King shows his sauciness at a self-important assistant director, but he also shows the start of his mental/physical collapse in the same sequence (quite a change of pace). Similarly his interview with the casting director for the speaking part that Abie sneaks into is done with great charm and dignity. It was a first rate performance - and proved that King was an actor.

Okay, the movie really isn't that good but it really does make me wail like a newborn. It's the whole father/son relationship thing that works in this film. I'm not a big fan of Billy Crystal but he's okay in this. Alan King is the real star and he shines pretty bright. Give it a chance.