Sour Grapes (1998)

Don't Believe the Hype

Absolutely Fantastic

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Unlike most of you, including Larry David (according to Wikipedia), I had fun watching it. I loved the music too that sounded to me similar to the music in Oscar (the US version), one of those catchy classical thingies from a well-known opera. Hence, I kept comparing it to the equally low rated Oscar that I also loved (and I loved the original Louis de Funes version as well). My judgment: Oscar was better but still I am glad I saw Sour Grapes. IMHO, Viola Harris was sensational.N.B. I am one of those gazillions of secular Jews for whom no topic is taboo to be made fun of. Have you heard of a rabbi, a priest, and a commissar in the gas chamber...

If you don't like this movie, there is something seriously wrong with your sense of humor. In other words, you might be better of watching reruns of Friends. (Or Guys & Gals.) Seriously, this movie is everything that makes Larry David great, you can even see him in each character. In the spirit of Seinfeld, Curb & even Arrested Development, this movie is so wrong, it's right. We'd been meaning to watch it after it was referenced on Curb, but never got around to it until now and I'm so mad it took us this long! How Sour Grapes isn't a cult classic like Big Lebowski or Office Space is beyond me but I'll say this - it'll never get dusty on my shelf.

I stumbled on this film by accident on Showtime and I laughed my a** off! The story starts with two cousins gambling at a casino. One runs out of quarters and asks the other for two quarters. You know what happens next, the guy hits the jackpot, however, he does not feel that he owes anything more than the 50 cents that was borrowed. What ensues is a series of related blunders and mishaps that all tie together. The strength of this movie is in the brilliant performances of the actors and the wonderful Larry David story. I don't know how anybody could not find this movie funny, it is a real knee-slapper! *** out of ****.

We know right from the beginning that this will not be a normal movie. At Leonard's funeral, his widow Selma hugs her son Richie and, in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, demands that he not let anything happen to him, because he is all she has left. Twenty years later, Richie is a patient of his cousin Evan, a brain surgeon,because of a growth on his head. Before the test results come back, the cousins go to Atlantic City with their girlfriends. While playing the slot machines, Richie runs out of quarters and asks Evan for some. He wins $400,000, and though Evan thinks he deserves a share, he won't ask for it. He doesn't have to. Richie writes him a check for the grand sum of ... $1,000. It seems everyone has an opinion on what Richie should do, including the limo driver who kicks Richie out in the middle of nowhere. Evan gives Richie a jogging suit for his birthday (Richie gives it to a wino) and Richie realizes he should give Evan more. He offers 3 percent. Evan gets even after the test results come back, telling Richie he has just months to live. Knowing his mother won't be able to go on if he dies, Richie arranges for the aforementioned wino to move into his mother's house. See, the mother has a heart condition, and the shock of a stranger in her house might ... anyway, Evan gets the news just before doing surgery on a famous sitcom star, surgery that if not done right could leave the actor, um, less of a man. The second half of the movie is even funnier than the first. The actor playing the wino gives a standout performance. One particularly funny incident: a neighbor who saw the wino apologizes to the African-American detective investigating the incident for the fact the man is black, and her husband assures the detective the next time the person might be white or even Chinese. A wonderful movie. Even the music is first-rate, mostly classical (well, there is the sitcom's theme song, which is fluff).