ViewGuide

Created Feb 26, 2011 08:30PM PST • Edited Jun 01, 2019 09:32AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   LOL funny, bracingly cool, drop-dead gorgeous – The Fabulous Baker Boys scores across the board, a retro treat of romantic heat, musical standards and moviestar glamour.

   Its glamour begins when Jeff Bridges dons a tux after a one-night-stand, and spikes when Michelle Pfeiffer arrives in the wrong size-six dress, soon exchanging it for a series of oh-so-right ones. The WikChip’s got her in a little crimson number legendarily performing Makin’ Whoopee. Earlier in the movie she belts out the “I Love You Baby” chorus from Can’t Take My Eyes Off You in a fast cut of hot dresses, each more fabuloso than before. Ravishing.

   Jeff Bridges, icon of the slovenly 60s generation, stars as a brilliant practitioner, a player of standards. Standards are rarely played slovenly. Of course the FBBs – a 40s act set in the 80s – pretend like the 60s, 70s and 80s never happened. Jeff Bridges in an act that missed the 60s and 70s? Reverse type-casting, this.

   Crimson hot from Jack Baker & Susie Diamond’s romance, Los Fabulosos Baker Boys is an all-time great date movie, one that can be watched time after time as a timeless Hollywood standard.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Bridges & Pfeiffer at their peaks, she thirty, he forty, both lean, lithe and full maned. His hair – a pompadour for the ages – is even better than her’s. Other than that, Pfieffer outshines him: pipes, can, charisma. No star ever shone brighter.

   Beau Bridges deftly plays the older Baker Boy, a bit of casting that makes the movie all the more intriguing given that it could just as well be seen as The Fabulous Bridges Boys. The elder Bridges brings perfect timing, touch and pathos to the somewhat thankless role of a somewhat ridiculous character.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Writer-director Steve Kloves seems to have conceived his masterpiece by starting with real life trumpet idol Chet Baker, moving him to the piano, naming him Jack and giving him a lesser older brother. It worked.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Great 4.0

    Great fights, between the brothers and between Jack & Susie.

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Dave Grusin mixes in several pop numbers to go with the standards in his Oscar nominated score. Highlights include Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, The Girl From Ipanema, and of course Makin’ Whoopee.

    Credit also to Grusin for playing Jeff Bridges’ masterful piano parts.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0

    Check out the earrings Michelle’s got on in the WikChip.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.1

    Movies get no sexier than FBB, maybe because it’s more tease than consummation. Old school once again.

17. Sex Erotic 2.6

18. Violence Gentle 1.4

19. Rudeness Salty 2.3

21. Reality

    Glib 1.5

    A formal piano act making a living in Seattle area lounges during the grunge 80s? Not too damn likely.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.1

23. Biological Glib 1.4

24. Physical Natural 1.0