Review

Lock the fuck in, because we are talking about What's Up, Doc?. If you're driving, take your hands off the wheel and pay attention. Now, I'm sure you've had the thought before: "Bringing Up Baby is literally amazing and I love Katharine Hepburn, but what if it were made during New Hollywood? And what if we had Barbra Streisand as our Katharine?" Well, let me tell you...

This move is amazing. It is in fact, just Bringing Up Baby. Both as a clear influence, but also we're explicitly making this film as a direct homage to it, as I came to read. Screwball comedies are one of my favorite comedic forms. I love the laugh-a-minute films that actually keep me laughing the whole time. I love how we begin in this one with Streisand literally causing multiple car crashes without noticing. We know exactly what we're doing here.

And when I tell you, everyone is giving a great performance. Streisand and Ryan O'Neil are great as our leads, but Madeline Kahn is doing great as male lead's fiancée. Every time we get into one of what I would call "the pileups" in this film, it makes me smile. Whenever we hit the crescendo of the madness of the last 15 or so minutes and there's a big explosion. The scene where we fully burn down that hotel room as Streisand is hanging off the window ledge is probably my favorite of them. Anyone that likes Bringing Up Baby or like an Airplane! would really like this. It's one of those very good comedies where the thing that's happening at the center of the frame is very funny, but we also have many blink and you'll miss it comedic bits. I would also point to Clue in the dialogue department. Lots of wordplay and sparring going on.

I was shocked to find that the director was Peter Bogdanovich. When last he was sighted during Watch times, he was administering depression directly into our veins via syringe in the form of The Last Picture Show. A movie best described as "what if you took a Lynch film and suctioned out all of the whimsy". So he apparently has some serious range with what he can do.