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My Dinner with Andre By Jeff Shannon
The sheer audacity of My Dinner with Andre drew throngs of
curious filmgoers who made the film the most talked-about art-house hit of
1981. After all, who'd ever heard of a movie consisting of nearly two
hours of nonstop dinner conversation? Ah ... but this isn't just any
conversation--it's the kind of mesmerizing, soul-searching, life-affirming
exploration that we feel privileged to listen to, and with unobtrusive
style, director Louis Malle invites us to eavesdrop to our hearts' and
minds' content. The film was written by two New Yorkers at the dinner
table, noted playwright-actor Wallace Shawn and well-known stage director
Andre Gregory, who essentially play themselves. They taped their
conversations for several weeks and Shawn gradually shaped them into a
scripted conversation, but you'd never know it by watching the movie. The
talk flows and flows until you're captivated by Gregory's stories of world
travel and spiritual quests in Poland, India, Tibet, the Sahara desert...
the tales of a soul-searcher who'd dropped out of the theater world to
rediscover his zest for living. Shawn plays the skeptic, the voice of
reason, his feet on the ground but his own mind willing to soar. The
cumulative effect of this conversation is almost hypnotic, and certainly
plays into our eternal appetite for storytelling. Both primal and
sophisticated, witty and profound, My Dinner With Andre is a film
that can be savored over time, offering new revelations with each viewing
as the listener-viewer develops his or her own appreciation of life's
great mysteries.
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"The 60s was humanities last gasp of air before being extinguished. This movie changed my outlook on life and opened my eyes to who we have become. Life today is boring. Pop culture is really no culture and the 'boob-tube' robs us of any imagination left in our spirits.
Yep, we are walking, no, running zoombies. And we don't even realize it. Andre is the kick in the pants we all sometimes need." --Scrooge |
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FILM
FACTS |
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|  | Director: Louis Malle
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| | Stars: Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Jean Lenauer, Roy Butler
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| | Released: October 11, 1981
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| | Availability: DVD VHS | | |
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