Movie Review: Diner (1982)
After enduring the film Metropolis (1927), I decided it was time for a lighter, funnier movie. I decided on Diner, and Tommy and I settled in for movie night. Diner came out in 1982 and was written and directed by Barry Levinson, who also brought us Liberty Heights (a film we both really enjoyed, with an excellent soundtrack), Bugsy, Rain Man, and Good Morning, Vietnam. He is a solid film maker and I was really looking forward to seeing Diner, especially after having owned it for years. The film stars Mickey Rourke, who actually looks really good in the film. This is before his face melted and his brain…also melted, so it was nice to see him looking human again. Kevin Bacon, Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Paul Reiser, Tim Daly, and Ellen Barkin round out quite a stellar cast. I had high hopes.
Unfortunately, it was quite a let down. The movie tells the story of a group of high school friends who are graduating, going to college, getting married, and just generally starting to become grown ups in 1959 Baltimore. It’s not an easy transition, it never is, the problems exacerbated by what seems to be common place stupidity. Many of the scenes take place in the city diner (apparently, Baltimore only had one) where the guys hang out to eat, smoke, argue about stuff, and trade stories on the women in their lives. From what I’ve read, the dialogue was a mix of scripted and improvisation. They should have stuck to the script. Not less than 4 times during the movie I turned to Tommy and asked him, “Do straight men REALLY talk like this?”. He didn’t know. I have plenty of straight friends and I have to believe I’m incredibly lucky to have found the smart ones.
Here are the basic plot elements. Steve Guttenberg (“Eddie”) is getting married on New Years Eve (it’s almost Christmas, Hanukkah must be over because no one mentions it even though most of the characters are Jewish), and he isn’t sure if it’s the right thing. He’s even forcing his fiancé to take a 140 question football quiz that she HAS to pass if he is going to marry her. Seriously. As crazy as that sounds, it’s even crazier that everyone seems to think this is normal. They all worry about poor Elaine (his fiancée, who we never see from the front…ever), they hope she’ll pass. During the quiz, Eddie’s friends are all in the next room listening, trying to keep score. Elaine’s mom even calls to find out how she’s doing. I think the contestants on “The Bachelor” have more self respect. No one, not a single person, looks at Eddie and says, “You…yes you, are an asshole.” No one, not a single person, goes to Elaine and says, “Your fiancé, yes your fiancé, is an asshole.” I have to assume that Eddie just wants to marry one of his guy friends, in fact, in several scenes the men have so much sexual chemistry I thought they’d go all Brokeback Mountain on each other.
At least that would have been interesting.
Sadly, she fails the test. But don’t worry, there is a happy ending, if you can call marrying a man who called off the wedding in the first place because you failed a football test and then changes his mind because, well, she only missed it by one question, a happy ending.
The bulk of the movie has to do with the boys and how they try to figure out the opposite sex. Jane Goodall had an easier time understanding the chimps than these idiots do understanding women. Are they really THAT complicated? Based on the script, I have to assume that Barry Levinson is terrified of the opposite sex. Women only serve the purpose of “person to have sex with”, or “person to go on a date with”, or “person to marry, cuz that’s what we’re supposed to do”. At one time, Mickey Rourke’s character, “Boogie” (I’m not making that up), is on a date with a “hot chick” who never puts out. He makes a bet that he can get her to touch his penis. How does he do it? They go to a movie and he shoves his erection up the bottom of their popcorn container. His date is sitting next to him and she doesn’t notice him doing this. Lucky for him, she, being a woman, isn’t allowed to have peripheral vision-she just stares blankly ahead at the movie screen. Just exactly how small is his dick that he can do this? To make it even better, when she reaches in and finds the tiny member, she is outraged and walks out of the theater…only to be chased by “Boogie” who explains what happened…it was all an accident. And she believes him because, in this world, women are stupid.
“Boogie” (seriously, do straight men REALLY give each other nick names like this?) needs money to pay off a gambling debt. Would someone please tell me why bookies in movies are always extending credit to people? This sounds like a really quick way to be out of a job. Whenever I’ve gambled, I’ve had to have the money up front, then I get a little piece of paper that will either be worth something I can cash in, or it’s something I can put my chewed gum in and throw away later. But then, we wouldn’t have the ever so fascinating plot element of “bad guy who wants his money”. There is even a scene when the bookie comes to Boogie (that sounds like a disco song) at his work place, a hair salon (more on that later). They go outside, and the bookie gives Boogie (am I supposed to capitalize that? I’m honestly not sure) a, um, slight beating, I guess you’d call it. It’s the pansiest shakedown I’ve ever seen. And Boogie (boogie? Still not sure) collapses on the ground like he’s one of the old ladies who’s hair he just frosted.
The sad thing is, the scene in the hair salon was one of the best in the movie. I think if they had set more of it there than in the city’s only diner, it would have been much more interesting. Think of it, here we have a player who is only interested in women for their bodies, and he spends his days kissing up to old woman while he does their do’s. He’s actually really charming and sweet to them, in the pepto bismol pink salon, helping them into the hair drying chair, flirting a little. The juxtaposition of the two sides of his personality was interesting.
But no, back to treating women like shit.
Boogie (shoot me) makes another bet with his friends. He bets he can screw the woman who touched his popcorn pecker in the theater, and he’ll let them watch him do it from the closet! Sadly, she gets sick, so, instead, he convinces his friend’s wife, Elaine Barkin (looking very sexy in an horrifically underwritten role), to have sex with him! But first, put on this wig, that way when my friends watch, they’ll think I’m screwin’ the prude instead of my best friends wife. He brings her to the apartment he’s gonna do the deed in, two of his friends (one of them the husband) are already in the closet waiting for him, like they’re representatives from the Guinness Book of Records and he’s competing for the title of “World’s Biggest Douche”.
You win!
But, hark, Boogie (sigh) has a change of heart and can’t go through with it. See? He’s really a nice guy! Let’s root for him, shall we?
Later on, during one of the diner scenes, one of the friends (it doesn’t matter which one), storms in all a-flutter. Kevin Bacon is drunk and sitting in the manger in the church’s nativity scene and they have to help him before the police get there.
Now, remember, it’s 1959. There is no facebook, snapchat, instagram, or even myspace yet, so would someone please tell me how anyone would know where Kevin Bacon was? And why go to the diner, it’s winter in Baltimore and he’s in his underwear outside. Even if you found out what was going on by, I don’t know, the party line (google it, kids), psychic flash (which would have at least been interesting), or maybe a gossipy neighbor, why not just go DIRECTLY TO THE CHURCH AND HELP YOUR FRIEND! Do you really need back up for that?
There is one fully fleshed out, interesting, smart female character, Barbara, played by Kathryn Dowling. She is being chased after by Billy, Tim Daly, who, by the way, is absolutely adorable in this film. He loves her, or at least says he does, and tries to woo her. They had been friends for years, then they spent the night together in a hotel and had sex. She is now pregnant. Billy wants to marry her, but she wants a career instead. Again, this is interesting. In 1959 a woman choosing a career over marriage and family isn’t common. Sadly, the side plot is quickly forgotten and never resolved. I assume Barry Levinson got scared of the “independent, smart woman” and basically erased her.
This isn’t a wholly bad movie, it has some good elements to it. The music is great, some of the dialog is good. The acting is pretty solid. I would have liked to have seen Paul Reiser in the film a bit more, he’s in the beginning, and then the end, but not the middle. His character is…Paul Reiser, it doesn’t matter what he’s called in the movie, he’s Paul Reiser. He plays Paul Reiser. He’s sort of like Woody Allen, only if you brought him home to meet your parents they wouldn’t call the police.
Bottom line? Skip it. Unless you’re a straight guy who thinks women are basically aliens, never to be understood, and you like stupid nick names, and 50’s era cars, I don’t really see anyone really getting the movie.
I didn’t. Watch Liberty Heights instead.