Word: rios
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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WHILE WATCHING director Stanley Donen's latest film. Blame It on Rio, the viewers feel like tourists who have spent a day without suntan lotion under the scorching rays of Rio-completely burned. Unlike the cast, who blame Rio's sultry steaminess for their inane behavior, we can only blame co-writers Charles Peters and Larry Gelbart for their soap-opera like script and contrived plot...
...film centers around a holiday vacation, in which two middle-aged friends. Matthew (Michael Caine) and Victor (Joseph Bologna) escape to Rio to offset their mid-life crises with some warn weather adventure. When the movie opens, Victor is already in the midst of a divorce, while Matthew receives a rude awakening when packing with his wife Karen, (Valerie Harper) for Rio. Karen informs Matthew that he cannot put his snorkeling equipment in her suitcase because she has decided to go to Club Med to think their marriage over...
Victor and Matthew are accompanied by their teenaged daughters, Jennifer (Michelle Johnson) and Nicki (Demi Moore). While the foursome drive along the strip of beach upon arriving at Rio and notice sun bleached bodies cavorting on the sand, Victor asks "Maybe we should talk about 'boys." We see however, as the film progresses, that Victor's parental concerns do not extend any farther than the brief car ride. In fact by the end of the film, we begin to wonder who the children really...
While Victor roams the beaches and cruises nightclubs. Matthew begins an affair with Jennifer, the adolescent. Gelbart and Stevens must have thought that Rio exudes an atmosphere that sparks improbable romances. How else could one explain the affair between the sheepish Matthew and the sultry Jennifer. Since no legitimate explanation can be gleaned from the script, we are forced to believe Jennifer's explanation, when she tells Nicki "I've always had a crush on your father...
...beauty of Rio and its pulsating population are perhaps the most spectacular features of the movie. As we witness an exquisite sunset, we begin to wonder how anyone could possibly blame Rio. It is far more inspiring and life like than both the film's plot and its characters...