Robin Williams

Gene Hackman

Nathan Lane

Dianne Wiest

Dan Futterman

Calista Flockhart

Hank Azaria

Christine Baranski

Tom McGowan

Grant Heslov

Kirby Mitchell

James Lally

Luca Tommassini

Luis Camacho

Andre Fuentes

Tony Gonzalez

Dante Henderson

Scott Kaske

Kevin Alexander Stea

Tim Kelleher

Ann Cusack

Stanley DeSantis

J. Roy Helland

Anthony Giaimo

Lee Delano

David Sage

Michael Kinsley

Tony Snow

Dorothy Constantine

Trina McGee

Barry Nolan

Amy Powell

Ron Pitts

James Hill

Mary Major

Steven Porfido

John Pontrelli

Herschel Sparber

Francesca Cruz

Brian Reddy

Jim Jansen

Al Rodrigo

Marjorie Lovett

Sylvia Short

James H. Morrison

Rabbi Robert K. Baruch

Jay Leno

Kenneth Stephens

Rayder Woods

Kevin Loreque

Jody Millard

Scott Burkholder

Patrizia Barretto

Elisa Bridges

David Christopher

Nina Dolci

Justin Goudreau

Jordan Werner

Dave Knight

Claudio Sad

Rene Teboe

Bodo Goerisch

Thelma Gutiérrez

Louis Campos

Lisa Rhyne

Jan Citron

Orlando Delbert

Michael Thomas Daniel

Don LaFontaine

James MacDonald

Sal Pacino

Paul McMichael

Jordan Ancel

Mike Nichols

Arthur Schmidt

Elaine May

Emmanuel Lubezki

James Lee McCoy

Bill Taylor

Syd Dutton

Jonathan Tunick

Édouard Molinaro

Stuart Stanley

Philip Stockton

Mary Ann Valdes

John Dexter

Gene S. Cantamessa

Lewis Goldstein

Carol A. O'Connell

Marko Costanzo

Jim Vickers

Cheri Minns

Laura Civiello

Magdaline Volaitis

Jery Hewitt

Vincent Paterson

Kam Chan

Nicholas Renbeck

Steven Visscher

Joel Tuber

Raul A. Bruce

Lee Dichter

Rusty Geller

Francis Veber

Michele Imperato Stabile

P. Scott Sakamoto

Jean Poiret

Deborah Wallach

Ron Bochar

Dan Evans Farkas

Stan Parks

Marcello Danon

Mark Tobey

Sean Haworth

Stephanie Schwartzman

Jeff Okabayashi

Marten W. Piccinini

Bruce Pross

Tom Duffield

Bo Welch

Juliet Taylor

Cheryl Carasik

Neil Machlis

Ellen Lewis

Mary Bailey

Rodrigo Garcia

Brian W. Armstrong

Robert De Mora

Harry Zimmerman

Bradford Ralston

Kris Cole

Jeremiah O'Driscoll

Dana E. Glauberman

Mark Jennings

John Tedesco

Jules Fisher

Dayton Nietert

Richard Smock

Robert Gray

Kenneth E. King

Alan Shultz

Richard Crompton

Kimberly R. McCord-Wilson

Nicholas Meyers

Alan Silverman

Paul A. Levin

Ann Roth

Cheryl Beasley Blackwell

Bruce Ericksen

Sabrina Calley

Robbie Goldstein

Mark Wade

Randy Gunter

David Manhan

Michael Diersing

Nick Bridwell

Daniel Sudick

Catherine Schwenn

Rebecca Erwin Spencer

Carolyn Hagan

Patti McGuire

Barbara Gutman

Kelly Richards Ralston

Harry Winters

Doug Taylor

Patricia Kerrigan DiCerto

Gail Goldberg

John Laccetti

Comedy

The Birdcage

United Artists

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

United States of America

CinemaSerf

I remember thinking that Dan Futterman was quite attractive in this film as the young "Val", but boy does his turn out to be one of the most selfish and thoughtless of characters! He turns up at the eponymous nightclub run by his father "Armand" (Robin Williams) and his consort of twenty years "Albert" (Nathan Lane) to announce he is to wed. Thing is, he is going to marry the daughter of the rather puritanical senator "Keeley" (Gene Hackman) and so they are going to have to play happy, heterosexual, families when the prospective in-laws come to visit. "Armand" manages his disappointment rather better than his lover who, inclined to the histrionic at the best of times, takes it as all as a personal slight and a mega-strop ensues. Meantime, the worthy senator gets some shocking news of his own involving a colleague and a hooker! Suddenly he needs to get away, and so to the "Birdcage" he, wife "Louise" (Dianne Wiest) and intended bride "Barbara" (Calista Flockhart) duly head. The press get wind of this, and of the fact that it's a fairly ostentatious gay club - and so are just praying to get some snaps of this visit. Can the family stay on a even keel long enough for the estranged mother "Katherine" (Christine Baranski) to arrive, and can they manage to avoid implicating the holier-than-thou politician in the mother of all scandals? Time hasn't been especially kind to this, but Williams and an excellently hammy Nathan Lane do well keeping the momentum going as we to and fro with tantrums a-plenty. Weist and Hackman work well too, but the starring role has to belong to Hank Azaria's camp "Agador" who takes crop-tops to an whole new level. Jean Pouret's original play was written with it's tongue in it's cheek and this updates, but essentially carries on, the tradition of light farce. Stereoptypes galore? Yep, but they're still fun performances that are worth a watch.