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MOVIES / ON DVD / CALIFORNIA SUITE
California Suite

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California Suite (1978)

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50 %
Reviews Counted: 20 Fresh: 10  Rotten:10 Average Rating: 4.8/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins

Synopsis: Neil Simon's bittersweet comedy, adapted from the Broadway hit, follows four separate stories of guests who've just checked into the swank Beverly Hills Hotel over the weekend of the Academy Awards gala. The four-part story line runs the gamut from touching introspection to outright... Neil Simon's bittersweet comedy, adapted from the Broadway hit, follows four separate stories of guests who've just checked into the swank Beverly Hills Hotel over the weekend of the Academy Awards gala. The four-part story line runs the gamut from touching introspection to outright slapstick. Bill and Hannah Warren (Alan Alda and Jane Fonda) are an angry divorced duo engaged in a nasty custody battle over their daughter. Marvin Michaels (Walter Matthau) is in town a day before his devoted wife (Elaine May) for his nephew's bar mitzvah when his brother sends him a present that is difficult to hide--a hooker. Diana Barrie (Maggie Smith) is an Oscar-nominated British actress in town for the Academy Awards with her husband, Sydney (Michael Caine), who happens to be gay. Competing doctors Willis Panama (Bill Cosby) and Chauncey Gump (Richard Pryor) have been busy containing calamities befalling them since they arrived and discovered they had to share a hotel room with their crestfallen wives. CALIFORNIA SUITE, in the capable hands of director Herbert Ross, is a simultaneously touching and hilarious vision of everyday people struggling to survive. (Smith, interestingly enough, won an Oscar for her role in the film.) [More]

Genre: Comedies

Starring: Alan Alda, Jane Fonda, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Bill Cosby

Director: Herbert Ross
Screenwriter: Neil Simon
Producer: Ray Stark
Composer: Claude Bolling

DVD Info

Release:

Jan 2, 2002

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Region 1
  • Keep Case
  • Widescreen
  • Full Frame

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital Stereo - English

Interactive Features:

  • Interactive Menus
  • Scene Selection

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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1 - 19 (sorted by date)
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Less than successful, veering from poignant emotionalism to broad slapstick in sudden shifts.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/03/07
Variety Staff
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
Ratings Image
3.5/4

An all-star bitch fest, slickly served.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/03/07
TV Guide's Movie Guide
Ratings Image
N/A

Means middle-class angst covered with a thin veneer of snappy one-liners and presented in the most anonymous directorial style imaginable.

Full Review | comment Comment
10/03/07
Dave Kehr
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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N/A

Quick and varied comedy, highly suited to Neil Simon's machine-gun gag-writing.

Full Review | comment Comment
06/24/06
Time Out
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2/5

Maggie Smith won a seond, Supporting Oscar for playing a hard-drinking, hard-talking actress who complains to her bisexual antique-dealer husband (Michael Caine), "Acting doesn't win Oscars. What I need is a dying father."

Full Review | comment 1 Comment
12/24/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
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2/5

No review available.

comment Comment
09/21/05
Chuck O'Leary
Fantastica Daily
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1/5

Dire: good actors playing the worst versions of one-dimensional Neil Simon joke machines.

comment Comment
09/16/05
Nick Davis
Nick's Flick Picks
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2/5

No review available.

comment Comment
07/14/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
Ratings Image
3/5

sharp script and acting

comment 2 Comments
02/26/05
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall
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0/5

Offensive, stupid, and embarrassing.

comment Comment
07/08/04
Jake Euker
F5 (Wichita, KS)
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N/A

California Suite offers audiences a fine blend of laughter and variety which is the spice of good comic cinema.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/27/04
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice
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4/5

No review available.

comment Comment
12/05/03
Carol Cling
Las Vegas Review-Journal
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1/5

No review available.

comment Comment
08/22/03
John Esther
Pasadena Weekly
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3/5

Middle-level Simon, bright lines, brightly delivered, but too theatrical.

comment Comment
04/04/03
Nell Minow
Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies
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3/5

No review available.

comment Comment
12/01/02
Dan Jardine
Apollo Guide
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3/5

No review available.

comment Comment
07/30/02
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
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3/5

All-star Neil Simon adaptation houses enough laughs to warrant a visit.

comment Comment
07/25/02
Scott Weinberg
eFilmCritic.com
Ratings Image
67/100

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
01/15/02
Ryan Cracknell
Apollo Guide
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3.5/5

Click to read the article

Full Review | comment Comment
01/01/00
Christopher Null
Filmcritic.com
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