scatman188 Hello everybody. It's my first review and I am not very sure It's gonna be the best. I'll try. I love cinema since I was a kid. It made me dream so soon and I tried my best my life to be the nearest to the fantasy world. This movie was very touching to me in some way. I don't know exactly why, but I felt very identified with its different characters. I think the story was very cheerful and funny. We all know that it doesn't have to be realistic to express that strange human nature in ourselves. I think this movie is a satire that talks about the immature people trying to give a sense to their lives. This premise doesn't change the fact that, even if it is silly, it is, to me, very endearing. Firstly, I like the principal character, because of his courage and his impertinence. Probably, this is which I will more identified with. Secondly, the rich family really made me laugh, each one of them, from the wife, so alienated in her superficial and material life, full of appearance, to the kid, the typical adolescent who doesn't know what to do with his life, so careless to his parents. Then its the servant, a sign that is a middle-high rich family of Beverly Hills, one of the most riches cities in the world. She is a Latin woman who doesn't have a hight level education and she soon choose to believe that she is oppressed by her boss. So she became Marxist. I know that this story sounds absurd, but I think that this picture is probably one of the best entertaining comedies I ever seen. I like watching it from time to time. I probably will watch it again soon. I like very much the rhythm of the film, its music and its montage. It's a very swift movie, easy to see. Nothing complex. Even though, you can always feel that the filmmaker is talking about deep matters. That is the good thing of art. You can always discover new reviews and feel new experiences across them. Im very sorry about my English. I'm practicing because it's been a long time a didn't practice. I hope to improve it on the future. I would like to write much more in the future. I have spent a long time watching thousands of movies and I want to share my experience and my opinions. I hope anyone to like it or find it useful. I'm sure there is many people here who loves cinema as much as I do, probably more. I'm not watching by now so many movies as I used to do, but I still feel for films a deep love and respect. I've been thinking a long time that films have many to give to the people, not only entertaining but culture, freedom and learning. I know this is to simple to be written, but I need to be clear, so I could find my way to be happier in the future. I think we are all destined to be happier if we make and effort for that, the right thing. Thank you very much to all who have red me. I hope to write soon again. Kind regards and wishes.

TOMASBBloodhound Sure it hasn't dated all that well, but look at this 1986 hit as a nice time capsule of L.A. from that time period. A period that basically ended with the sobering and terrifying riots of 1992. Down and Out in Beverly Hills deals with a well-to-do yet dysfunctional family having its priorities rearranged by a bum who first attempts to drown himself in their swimming pool. Nick Nolte, looking only a little scruffier than his 2002 Hawai'ian shirt mugshot plays the Jerry Baskin character on different levels. Early on he seems much like the typical run of the mill schizophrenic homeless person chasing after a dog who found himself a better owner. Then, after his dunk in the pool, we see that he is actually quite intelligent and observant. Almost instantly he sees what is wrong with everyone in the household. He just can't seem to point any of that intellect toward improving his own situation. Even when it is laying there right in front of him.The patriarch of the family is Dave Whiteman who embodies some of Richard Dreyfuss's better work. He is very successful, yet he it just too uptight. Something seems lacking for him. It isn't the appearance of the bum that sets him off. He actually is the one who most wants him to stay if perhaps to live vicariously through him in some ways. Bette Middler is on hand as Dave's sexually unfulfilled wife who mostly spends her time with worthless self-help gurus. She even has one hired for their cutesy little dog. Nolte is apparently the only man around who has what it takes to recharge her batteries in bed! The family has an attractive yet obviously anorexic daughter and an androgynous son. A sexpot Hispanic maid is also on hand for Dave to use at his will... that is until Nolte moves in on her as well. The film takes place over about a month's time and there really isn't much plot to speak of other than seeing how these characters are altered by Nolte's character.The film has several funny moments, and thankfully Ms. Middler is not allowed to sing too much. The theme song by the Talking Heads is always welcome to the human ear. Some of the comedy, mostly involving the cutesy dog reactions and Little Richard's exasperated yelling are more annoying than anything else. There are some great performances and many funny observations about successful Angelinos at that time. Not much of a message to be learned from any of it, however. Maybe that is why it works. 8 of 10 stars.The Hound.

blanche-2 Nick Nolte is "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," a 1986 film directed and co-written by Paul Mazursky and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Bette Midler, Elizabeth Pena, Little Richard, and Tracy Nelson. Nolte is Jerry, a street person so low even his dog leaves him for a kind jogger. While searching for his dog, he stumbles onto the property of Dave and Barbara Whiteman - Whiteman is a clothes hanger king living the good life in Beverly Hills. Filling his pockets with rocks, Jerry attempts suicide by diving into the Whiteman pool, but is saved and ultimately taken in by Dave. Jerry isn't particularly grateful - he wants Courvoisier instead of the alcohol offered him, and, given dinner, questions the meat on the turkey. Dave, guilty about his wealth, bored with his life, and wanting to do some good, buys Jerry clothes and lets him live at the mansion. He even offers Jerry jobs, which Jerry doesn't accept. Jerry's history is on the vague side - he speaks of doing the concert piano circuit, he is recognized in a restaurant by as a writer, maybe he did some acting...hard to know. Before long, he's taken over the entire household, becoming the only one in the house that the Whiteman's psychologically disturbed dog, Matisse, can tolerate, Barbara Whiteman's masseuse and the man who finds her G-spot, the lover of housekeeper Carmen (Pena) after Dave goes back to sleeping with Barbara, the man who gets the Whiteman's anorexic daughter (Nelson) to fall in love with him and start eating; and the man who convinces the androgynous Whiteman son to come out to his parents. Too late, Dave realizes he's Dr. Frankenstein, and Jerry is the monster.This is an entertaining film with dark undertones and good performances, particularly from Nolte, Dreyfuss, Midler, Pena and Mike (Matisse the dog). Little Richard is a riot as a neighbor. Nolte is in great shape here, as is Midler, who looks fantastic. The party scene toward the end of the film where Dreyfuss chases Nolte throughout the house and grounds is quite funny. The ending isn't the best, but it's a fun watch anyway.

Robert J. Maxwell I visited a deli on Rodeo Drive just before this movie was released and was staggered by the uniformity in grooming. It was like a small-town high school in the 1950s. All the women looked alike. Beautiful. Their long hair fluffy, each strand curled like Top Ramen. (Okay, okay. I lack the vocabulary. Excuse me.) They all seemed to wear the same dark rough-knit long-sleeved sweaters, tight Levis, and leather boots. This is what one kills for? The privilege of wearing a uniform? Paul Mazursky has got the milieu down pat and he skewers it. I haven't seen the French original but, though it may be different, it's probably not funnier than this version.I'll skip the story except to say that it's about a homeless man (Nick Nolte) who is taken in by a wealthy dysfunctional family, and he straightens everyone out by giving them what they want -- as he puts it. Some gags are funnier than others, helped along by Mazursky's direction. When the spoiled, bored wife has an orgasm with the bum, she screams so loudly that the neighbors a block away turn to listen. A flock of pigeons is frightened out of its tree. I can't think of another movie that features a psychiatric veterinarian.The climax, unfortunately, is more silly than funny, as if nobody could think of an ending that would stop what's already gone by. Mazursky had the same problem with "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice," at the end of which the sting of genuine phoniness gives way completely to fantasy and everyone does a ring dance to "What The World Needs Now Is Love..." In "Down and Out in Beverley Hills," a party ends with the accidental setting off of a fireworks display and everyone jumping into the pool. You almost wince at the desperation behind this scene.And then, in a denouement, when the bum decides to leave with the family dog, the whole family and their servants follow him into the mews behind the mansion and beg him with their eyes to come back, which he does quickly enough. Sure, it's a happy ending, but just exactly what is going to happen when Nolte returns after he's been exposed as a lying, manipulative, lazy scuzzbag who has given the son permission to be a transvestite and has been doing both his host's wife and daughter? All he had with him when he first entered the family was a pocket full of rocks. This time he's got a lot of baggage.Still, it's a light-hearted and engaging comedy, and none of the acting hurts a bit. Aside from the doggy's psychiatrist, I thought Little Richard was the most memorable character, especially when he complains about how much longer it takes the police to respond to HIS emergency alarm than his white neighbors'. (The dog chases him away, tearing at his golden robe.) Dreyfus is quite good too, reminding me of his performance as the exasperated and finally mad psychiatrist in "What About Bob?" Mazursky wisely avoided any attempt to insinuate overt signs of "seriousness" into the screenplay. A comedy doesn't need dark undertones to be successful, and this is successful.