Anthony LaPaglia Books

This is one of the funniest movies of all time. Mike Myers best and most memorable performance. The scenes with Charlie's father (Stuart McKenzie, also played by Mike Myers) are so funny they will make you laugh until your stomach hurts. Heeeed, paper now!

I was looking to replace a lost copy of this movie and thought I put in my two cents. This movie has it all, murder mystery, martial arts, poetry, songs and dance plus bag pipes and yes, Phil Hartman. This was a great date movie for my husband and I before we got married, and now we watch it every year on our wedding anniversary. If you like the old Saturday Night Live type of humor you'll love this. This movie is like a fine old wine, it gets better with age!!

There aren't so much as five seconds of this movie that aren't hilariously funny. Mike Myers stars as Charlie, a San Francisco coffeehouse poet with a serious fear of commitment and a track record of ending relationships over imagined flaws. When Charlie finally meets the beautiful Harriet (Nancy Travis)--who happens to be a butcher--a series of revelations have him convinced she's Mrs. X, who marries men and murders them on their wedding night. The movie is full of very funny characters and great performances, including Amanda Plummer as Harriet's oddball sister Rose, Brenda Fricker as Charlie's lustful, conspiracy-obsessed mother May, Anthony LaPaglia as the frustrated undercover cop, Alan Arkin as his too-nice police captain, and funniest of all, Mike Myers in the additional role of Stuart, Charlie's belligerent Scottish father (evidently based on Myers' real father). Some of the funniest scenes involve Charlie's poems parodying the "beatnik" style, including the unforgettable "woman woman woman" poem and the "Harriet, hard-hearted harbinger of haggis" poem. You won't be able to stop quoting most of this uproarious movie.

Unlike most people I actually pay attention to critics as I have burned by the hype way too often. Like most great cult films though they really missed on this one. The one liners are top 100 classic and the great supporting cast get the film through potentially slow points. Nancy travis is especially brilliant in a role that is designed to be ambigious. Bottom line, get the DVD, watch, repeat.

Charlie Mackenzie (Mike Myers) has a bit of a commitment problem. It doesn't matter how perfect his girlfriend is, he finds some reason to end the relationship.

Then, into his life, walks Harriet Michaels (Nancy Travis). With just one smile, she melts Charlie's heart. It's love at first site, and Charlie is ready to leave his bachelor days behind him.

There's just one little problem. Reports are circulating the country about a Mrs. X who kills her husbands on their wedding night. And Charlie thinks that Harriet may be Mrs. X. Is he just coming up with another excuse not to commit? Or is he signing his life away by asking Harriet to marry him?

I'm not normally a fan of Mike Myers' comedy, and this movie reminded me why. The reliance on sexual jokes and situations for comedy never appeals to me. Mike also plays Charlie's dad Stuart, and I just found that character annoying.

To further complicate things, the story is rather dull. We know what's coming, and the movie takes too long getting there. If I had been enjoying myself along the way, I wouldn't have minded. But since I wasn't, I didn't. I actually enjoyed the sub-plot about Charlie's friend Tony (Anthony LaPaglia) and his disappointment in his job as a cop more then the main story.

The only thing that gives the movie that second star is the climax. It was actually funny and interesting. It's not enough to make the movie worth watching, but at least it was entertaining.

Die hard Mike Myers fans do love this movie. The rest of us can just move right along.

This play is way too sophisticated for my tastes. I am only half-way through it and I am only going to reach the end because I am the kind of obsessive-compulsive individual who must finish a book or a movie or an audio book once I start them. I do violate this rule once in a while, but this play is too short to resist...

Anyway, I think LA Theater Works is a FANTASTIC publisher and I love most of the many plays of theirs I have listened to, but this one is above my head. I find the actors truly outstanding, but the story and the dialog are broken and confusing. Once in a while a short sequence will hit me as meaningful and compelling, but usually this is in the midst of other rather obscure dialog or monologues.

I have loved all other plays by Arthur Miller I have listened to so far, so I guess I just do not like this form or disconnected high-brow semi-autobiographical story telling. I really do not want to be dismissive. I can believe that there is much more to this play than what *I* can understand, but I just don't get it.

Enthralled by Anthony LaPaglia drawl and Amy Brennemann's squeaky blonde (I know, it sounds strange but it's really all there), I loved these CDs. The brilliant text of Arthur Miller is brought to life. Rarely put on, this story of man, searching for himself and for a woman he will not repeat the same mistakes with, is fascinating and sad. It's also disturbing and moving that an author should commit to paper, and thusly to posterity and for everyone to read, his own questions and failings. Because the line is terribly thin. Miller shows at the seams of every scene. It's him fighting with Marylin, it's him redeaming God know what past... It's good. Try it.

Having read most of Miller's previous work, I hold it to a high standard. "After the Fall" shows many of the simmilarities of his other works. Unlike the other ones, he is symbolically the main character here. In this work, Miller writes a cathartic explanation of his life including two failed marriages, one to Marilyn Monroe. Rather than entertaining, it comes off as rather unsettling.

The main character, Quentin narrates to the audience in the show. He is viewing his past as the various people in his life appear in a sequence of events. Through his childhood, we see hints of the origins of the problems the character faces, such as a manipulative mother. This seems to be the justification he uses for failed relationships. By Holga being the last character we see, it seems that he is insinuating that he should have never left his first wife. At the same time, he clears himself of any fault in the demise of Maggie (the veiled symbol for Marilyn Monroe).

In reality, there was a lot going on in the play. Perhaps it was even too busy. But even more worrisome is Miller's use of the stage to justify or rationalize his life. I love Miller's work. This play, which was intended to be disturbing, is disturbing in a way which Miller could have intended. It is one play the work could have gone without.

Arthur Miller's After the Fall is a highly autobiographical account told by a man named Quentin who has suffered through a difficult family life, two marriages, and the McCarthy Trials. It is depicted artistically by freely flowing from scene to scene with no regard to time or location, but the artistry in the continuity does not make up for the dullness of the overall story. The play reads as if this man is in a therapy session describing the painfully dull events of his life. He explains his shaky family relationships along with minor events from his childhood, his nagging first wife Louise and the attractive neighbor who made him start to think disloyally, and the struggles of co-workers faced with deciding between integrity and their careers. Although these events might seem like they could be earth-shattering, especially the McCarthy bit, Miller manages to drain them of any excitement or intrigue.

The bright spot in the play is Maggie, a highly self destructive but free spirited girl who becomes Quentin's second wife. Though when I first read the play, I had no idea of the connection, Maggie is Miller's interpretation of Marilyn Monroe. This is the sole reason that anyone who is not a fan of Miller's work would want to read this play; one gains insight into how immature and below him Miller considered Monroe to be.

If you are interested in Arthur Miller outside of his relationship with Marilyn Monroe, you might enjoy this book. If you are interested in the human mind and the way experiences shape a person, you have a slight chance of enjoying this book. If you are looking for a story with a rising action, a climax, and a fall, you probably will hate this play.

Arthur Miller, having divorced actress Marilyn Monroe and married photographer Inge Morath, and in the aftermath of Monroe's still-controversial death, wrote this as part catharsis and part explanation of the recent events in his past. Treating Monroe as it does, it inspired a groundswell of revulsion for Miller that after forty years has not fully abated.

Nonetheless, this is a fascinating work that on its own merits has some appeal.