Word: elis
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...Cafe Central on Amsterdam Avenue in Manhattan provides the setting for most of the film, an appropriate meeting ground for the movie's two central characters, Eli (Michael Emil) and Zee (Karen Black). The way the two meet epitomizes the cuteness that fails to turn into a driving, enjoyable plot. Zee, a neurotic singer, walks down Columbus Avenue just after her husband has decided to move out. Switching from Zee's short dress and high heels, the camera shifts to Eli's office, where the balding, crotchety, middle-aged girl chaser is advising his friend Martin to "Just be natural...
...real fun begins. Predictably, Zee takes a break from walking, sitting down at Cafe Central next to Eli and Martin. When the waitress asks her if she's ready to order, Zee says yes, stares at the menu, and starts to cry. "I'll have a hamburger, no, spaghetti and bacon and sausage (all the things she feels she should have cooked for her husband), no, scratch that, I'll have chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce and a chocolate donut." By this point Zee is overwhelmed with tears, prompting Eli to inquire "Did you ever decide what you wanted...
...loves to eat and smoke but who, underneath it all, would like to think she has it all together. She delivers comic lines in the most serious manner to enhance their humorous effect, and is always quick with a witty response. At one point Zee tells Eli, "You've got lots of energy but it all gets struck in your forehead--you think too much." And when he chastises her for her smoking, she quips, "I love to smoke...in fact, I love to want to smoke...I like craving things...
Such unusual dialogue is interesting, and adds a unique and attractive aura to the entire film. However, too often the strangeness turns to triteness Eli reads The Sexually Active Man After 40 and attaches a pulse meter to his ear while he and Zee are having sex because he is doing a comparative study of his pulse rate with different women...
...Eli dismisses Zee's repeated insistence that someone is following her as total paranoia. However, at the Cafe is one of the myriad errant street performers filing New York City an the summer-time: a man with a domesticated pigeon. As the movie develops, Larry the pigeon-man also becomes an acquaintance of Zee and Eli, haunting the film with his creepy looks and weird movements. In between his acts he sits at the Cafe with a girl who reads with the pigeon perched on her head. In one scene Larry looks at a girl's t-shirt that reads...