Pipe Dream (2002)

Very Cool!!!

Memorable, crazy movie

Good movie but grossly overrated

As Good As It Gets

There's a scene towards the very end of the movie, where Mary-Louise Parker .. bit.ly/Suuvwk .. (now the director) and Martin Donovan are talking about the filming setup. It is here that you see just how good an actor she truly is... watching her very subtle and natural facial movements adding depth to her character and the role. All the cast is good and the script is sharp and witty. This is a very good movie, smartly made and very well acted. It's easily four star.. even slightly higher. That same scene at the very end of the film shows a corner street sign.. anyone from the city know what part of town that is? (Good number of family members one time lived right around the corner.)

This is a movie where people come up with a great premise, then follow that with a sub-mediocre script. It's not nearly as smart as it thinks it is and never figures out whether it wants to be satirical or sentimental. It has waaaay too much implied humor where there's no actual punch line but the audience is expected to laugh simply at recognizing the situation. The main character has no redeeming qualities and his leading lady, while much more interesting, is given one of those scenes where she has to be a moronic nymphomaniac in order to remain involved with him. It also has that hallmark of the poorly written screenplay - the supporting character who's essential to the first half of the plot and then disappears from the second half of the movie.David Kulovic (Martin Donovan) is a plumber who is sick and tired of being treated like hired help. So, he enlists his casting director buddy RJ (Kevin Carroll) in a scam where David will play the director of a non-existent film and RJ will line up aspiring actresses to audition for him. The goal is to get David a roll in the hay, though it's never at all clear how the second half of that will ever happen. I mean, unless he's going to have sex with them during the audition, I don't see how this complicated a deception can be sustained long enough to get David laid.That problem quickly leads to David and RJ having to welcome a third person into their scheme. Toni (Mary-Louise Parker) is a woman with a script but no prospects of ever seeing it produced. They use her writing as the basis of the scam, but it runs away from them and they wind up actually making it into a movie. David pretends to be the director with Toni covertly telling him everything he should do. As David tries to get into the pants of his starring actress (Rebecca Gayheart), Toni finds herself becoming more and more attracted to him. Then (surprise!) the whole con job falls apart and Toni winds up disgusted with David. Will it all work out in the end? Have you ever seen a romantic comedy before?Mary-Louise Parker does her spectacularly sexy best and the story is consistently, but only marginally, amusing. That should have been enough material to work with, but there are just too many times when the storytelling is off or not at all thought out for Pipe Dream to ever work. Let me highlight the two biggest problems.David and Toni start out the film as neighbors and after Toni's boyfriend breaks up with her, she and David fall into bed. Almost immediately after that, we get David complaining about his lowly social status to RJ and hatching the plan where he gets to boink an actress. How in the world is the viewer supposed to identify or sympathize with David's complaints…WHEN HE JUST HAD SEX WITH A WOMAN WHO LOOKS LIKE MARY-LOUISE PARKER? If I had sex with Mary-Louise Parker, you could set my hair on fire and I wouldn't complain about a damn thing. It fatally undermines the whole concept of the story and of David's character. Now, if David and Toni don't have sex or if David's fraudulent film idea has nothing to do with sex and is only about him feeling important, that would have worked. As it is, the audience either doesn't understand or doesn't care about the cornerstone of the entire plot.Then later on, after Toni finds herself being more and more attracted to David, he tells her that he finally had sex with the lead actress. Upon hearing that news, Toni throws herself at David and jumps his bones. I will admit that I know very little about the mind of Womankind. If a woman is infatuated with me and I tell her I just boffed some floozy, will that really increase her desire for my body? Is that how it works? 'Cause if it is, I've been doing things all wrong. It also doesn't help that David spends most of the film seemingly indifferent to Toni. He displays as much romantic interest in her as he does in RJ.Those two examples are the sort of poor writing that occurs quite a few times throughout Pipe Dream, crippling it from the start and keeping it from becoming anything worth watching. Fortunately, there's about a billion other little indy flicks out there that cover virtually this same territory and not all of them suck.

It is a breezy comedy about identity crisis - a plumber, a screenwriter, a casting professional. Using the process/journey of making a film as the storyline, tying the various characters and relationship concerns together, "Pipe Dream" is rather amusingly fun. Watching Martin Donovan and Mary Louise Parker interact is a treat. They are both the leads in this film, front and centered. Their enjoyable pairing in supporting roles can be appreciated in w-d Brian Dannelly's "Saved!" 2004. Both appeared in Jane Campion's "Portrait of a Lady" 1996 with Nicole Kidman.Martin Donovan is a staple collaborator in Hal Hartley's films: "Amateur" 1994, "Simple Men" 1992, "Trust" 1991 (highly recommended. NFE: Not for everyone.) He's also remarkable in director Angela Pope's "Hollow Reed" 1995, about child custody situation, where Martin delivered a firm and sensitive role of a divorced father/doctor who lives with a male partner (heart-rending, excellent child performance from Sam Bould as Oliver, the 9-year old son). Donovan co-wrote (with David Koepp) and directed a film called "Apartment Zero" 1988, with Colin Firth in the lead - another NFE but for dark/psycho ventures/suspense (in Buenos Aires) if you're gamed.Mary Louise Parker is ever so marvelous and underrated. She's in w-d Jeremy Podeswa's "Five Senses" 1999 (Canadian production), Herbert Ross's "Boys on the Side" 1994 (written by Don Roos) with Whoopi Goldberg and Drew Barrymore, Jon Avnet's "Fried Green Tomatoes" 1991 with a stellar women cast.For an Asian (Hong Kong) flavor of a movie/comedy drama using process of making a film as storyline, try the forever versatile and talented Leslie Cheung in "Viva Erotica" aka "Se Qing Nan Nu" 1996.

I saw this film last night at the Seattle International Film Festival, and was absolutely delighted at the wit and wry humour that this film possessed. Each of the characters is endearingly flawed - ("this person could be me") and adds a lovely human factor. I guess this film is only going to be limited in it's release initially, but seriously, if you have a chance to see it - it'll brighten your week. It's very off-the-cuff, not contrived a bit and NOTHING like your usual romantic comedy. . .The characters are actually bright and original. The screenwriter, Cynthia Kaplan, was at the screening that night, and it was very apparent that there will be much more to come from her. She has a book evidently too: "Why I'm like this". Sign me up!