Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Birdcage (1996)

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“Whatever I am, he made me! I was adorable once, young and full of hope. And now look at me! I'm this short, fat, insecure, middle-aged THING!”

            I am such a man eater the last time I had a boyfriend was, shit, eight years ago! Yeah folks that’s a long time! I am awkward as hell and I run this movie blog for fucks sake I do not have a very social life. I met the guy when I was working at Best Buy and he would come in all the time and we would talk about music. I was nervous about telling my parents I was seeing someone. I was not nervous because I thought my parents would not approve. They were the ones always pushing me to look for a guy! I was more nervous about my dad being a pain in the ass. Here is the thing about my dad, he thinks he is hilarious as hell and likes to bust chops. He is totally not funny he does not know when to stop himself or know when he is going too far. Of course the day I bring the guy home my dad automatically starts cracking jokes and trying to be funny. But the beautiful thing about my house is that I have a basement so me and the guy went downstairs.
            The 1996 movie The Birdcage takes meeting the parents to whole other completely hysterical level. The kid does not have to worry about his parents embarrassing him with bad jokes and stories he has to worry about his fiancé’s conservative parents not approving of his gay father and his father’s drag performing partner. Talk about an uncomfortable situation.
            Armand Goldman (Robin Williams) runs the popular drag show nightclub The Birdcage. The star of the show is his fabulously feminine flamboyant partner Albert (Nathan Lane). Albert is in panic mode because he thinks Armand is seeing someone else that night. Armand manages to calm his husband down and get him on stage for the show just in time. Armand is having another man over but it is not a lover. The man is his son Val who is coming home from school. Val informs his father that he has become engaged to a girl and her father is a senator who runs on a morality campaign. The girl and her family are coming down to meet a normal conservative family.
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            Normal is not in the cards for Armand and Albert. Armand knows how to put on the masculine act but Albert is full blown feminine without the sex change. He is outrageously emotional and becomes even more so when their apartment has to be redecorated to be less gay looking.
            The girl and her family are not having an easy time either. The senator’s partner in their morality league or club or whatever was found dead in a hotel next to a hooker. All the news media outlets are crowded around the senator’s house waiting for his comment. The family winds up getting away from the crowd but a few of the news crews are tipped off and follow the senator down to Miami. They find out the senator is in an apartment attached to a drag show club.
            The movie is really funny. I do not want to give too much away.

            The Birdcage is a movie I have wanted to see for a long time. My grandma loves this movie and so does my friend. My friend and I hung out tonight and told me to put the movie on as we were searching for something to watch on Netflix. I was cracking up with it right from the beginning. Robin Williams was fantastic, Nathan Lane was a panic he was so quick with his lines and his movements, and Hank Azaria nearly stole the movie from Williams and Lane as their gay house maid. The whole situation when the senator finally arrives at the apartment was so uncomfortable and nerve wracking but in such a great comedic way. It was not filled with dirty or crude jokes it was funny because Armand was trying to look and act straight and then Albert comes in dressed as a woman pretending to me Val’s mother! Oh my god that was so funny. The Birdcage was hilarious and almost twenty years later the idea of conservatives thinking gays immoral or wrong is still relevant. And parents embarrassing their kids when they bring over a girlfriend or boyfriend is always relevant and never ending.
 Image result for the birdcage 1996

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