Forget Paris

Plot synopsis:
At a restaurant in New York City, Andy prepares to introduce his friends to his fiancée, Liz. As the couple waits for the rest of the party to arrive, Andy tells Liz the story of how his friends Mickey and Ellen came to fall in love. As each of Andy's friends arrive, more of the story is unfolded.
Mickey Gordon is a National Basketball Association referee who honors his recently-deceased father's wishes by burying him at the resting site of his World War II Army platoon in France, of which he was the sole survivor, but the plans are delayed after the airline misplaces the casket.
Ellen Andrews, an airline employee from Wichita working in Paris, assists Mickey in locating and retrieving the casket. She surprises Mickey by attending the burial so he won't be alone. Mickey rides back to Paris with Ellen, and the two get to know each other along the way. Mickey decides to delay his return trip to the United States to spend time with Ellen. The two fall in love, but Mickey is forced to return for the beginning of the NBA season.
Mickey's loneliness leads him to lose his temper during a nationally-televised game. Mickey is suspended by the NBA for a week. During the suspension, he returns to Paris to see Ellen. Mickey learns Ellen is married but separated, and is unsure if she and her husband will get back together. While Mickey is in Charlotte to referee a game, Ellen arrives to meet him and reveals that she has gotten a divorce. Having quit her job in France, Ellen marries Mickey. After a honeymoon period spent on the road during the NBA season, the couple settles in the San Fernando Valley outside Mickey's hometown of Los Angeles.
When the next basketball season begins, Ellen takes an entry-level customer service job with American Airlines, while Mickey travels with the NBA. Hating her new job and only seeing Mickey a few days each month, Ellen becomes lonely and depressed. She asks Mickey to quit his job; he compromises by taking a one-year leave of absence and briefly working as a car salesman. Ellen gets promoted and climbs the corporate ladder, leaving Mickey at home to tend to her father, Arthur.
Mickey, unhappy at home with Arthur, decides to return early to the NBA. He comes home from a road trip to find Ellen gone. Before he can read her note, she arrives and explains that she had simply returned to Kansas to deliver Arthur to her siblings so she and Mickey can be alone and repair their marriage.
Ellen approaches Mickey and says she has been offered a transfer to Dallas. Mickey refuses to move away from California, so Ellen takes the airline's other offer of a transfer to Paris. Now separated, the two are seemingly content in their original arrangements: Mickey traveling with the NBA, and Ellen working for an airline in Paris. It is obvious to all of their friends that they miss each other's company.
At the restaurant, Andy's friends have caught Liz up to date, with the latest development coming four months prior. A basketball fan enters the restaurant and informs the group of an odd occurrence during the traditional singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to that night's New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. Mickey decides to go AWOL from his job and immediately return to Paris to find Ellen. Before he can make it across the basketball court, he spots Ellen in the arena. The two meet and reconcile at mid-court, and as the arena lights come on after the anthem, the entire crowd sees the two kissing. Mickey and Ellen arrive at the restaurant together and re-tell Liz the story of their relationship.

Tags: boring, flashback

Review:
Forget Paris is admittedly a film carried almost entirely by Billy Crystal, but with such witty delivery, he's perfect.
Rose-tinted views of Paris, alongside near slapstick sketches in the States, makes for a fast-paced tale that you can just sit back and enjoy.Mickey (Crystal) travels to France to bury his father, only to find that the airline has accidentally sent the body to the wrong airport.
But with lives on different sides of the Atlantic, there are going to be a lot sacrifices...And if the movie ever begins to feel as though it might be getting bogged down in the romance, it steps out to the "present day" restaurant scene where friends are sharing the story, each telling a different part and eager to find out what happened in the end.An entertaining, funny and above all, charming story..
FORGET Paris is a sweet romantic comedy which Billy Crystal made after his best romantic comedy, WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.
And there are more serious problems about infertility, including a funny routine when Crystal is repeatedly delayed running to a fertility clinic.The story of their love affair and marriage is related by Joe Mantegna, Richard Masur, Julie Kavner, and John Spencer, at a dinner party in an Italian restaurant.
This movie is interesting and unique, in the sense that it focuses on love AFTER marriage, and not before.Billy Crystal plays a basketball referee who travels to Paris in order to bury his recently-deceased father.
However alone the way the casket is lost and he's stuck in Paris, where he meets another single woman (Debra Winger) who's under similarly unfortunate circumstances.They go out, have a fun time, and then resume their normal lives.
Crystal goes back to basketball in the US but soon finds he can't concentrate and keeps thinking about his relationship.Eventually they reunite and get married but it's an uphill struggle.The movie kind of reminded me of "GoodFellas" (!) due to its structure and how it focused on the downfall of the marriage.
Some very funny moments like this, as well as good chemistry between the stars and an interesting narrative structure, make it a worthwhile - if not particularly memorable - romantic comedy, better than many others in its genre.
Mickey Gordon, played by  Crystal is  a referee (When Harry met Sally, The Princess Bride) who has to go to Paris because his father wanted to be buried in France.
Just look at the names:  Joe Mantegna (Up Close & Personal)  is Andy;  Cynthia Stevenson is Liz, Richard Masur (none other than the director of SAG himself) is Craig;  Julie Kavner  (Jake's Women, This is my Life) is Lucy who is on diet;  William Hickey (I) is Arthur;  Robert Costanzo, is the witty waiter his very funny lines;  John Spencer (I) is Jack; Tom Wright (I) is Tommy; Cathy Moriarty is Lois; Johnny Williams (I) is Lou. Then there are all the athletes one can come up with.
Funny lines: " you asked for it, you got it Toyota!".My favorite scenes: them driving around Paris; the bird glued to her face; when she shows up at the game and at the restaurant.
Sadly lackluster romantic comedy, co-written, directed and starring Billy Crystal, is told in deadly flashbacks.
French locations and a bright cast do help a little bit, but the screenplay isn't very funny, instead becoming weighed down with cheap, lousy sentiment that doesn't play (and has more than a whiff of "When Harry Met Sally..." besides!).
Narrated by several of the characters in the film, it has a special quality one can never forget.From beginning to end, the narrators tell the love story of how the two leads meet, fall in love, and have troubles.
It's comedically written, but then, Crystal is the genius behind that, and it was well executed acting and directing wise.Anyone who enjoys beautiful cinematography and great lines in a film, you'll enjoy Billy Crystal's "Forget Paris"..
Billy Crystal was his normal funny self, evoking a number of laughs in here BUT, lest you think this is a comedy, it's more of a drama....much more.
Things don't work out between Crystal's "Mickey Gordon-" and Debra Winger's "Ellen" and many of the scenes with them arguing are not fun to watch.
I'm not a fan of Winger's low and raspy voice, nor seeing marriages crumble.Thus, my favorite parts of this film were all in the beginning, especially when "Mickey" was an NBA referee.
Crystal is a big sports fan so I'm sure enjoyed that segment of the movie.Also commendable are the nice shots of Paris.
Even the guy who plays the waiter is great!Billy's Referee character goes to Paris where his father is to be buried.
They are attracted to each other and a relationship is born.The story of their relationship is told through Joe Montegna, who's character is engaged to Cynthia Stevenson, as all the old friends gather together at an engagement dinner.This is a warm, funny, engaging comedy and shouldn't be missed..
He seems intent on doing a retread of "When Harry Met Sally" but this time following a seemingly incompatible couple through marital discord.Crystal plays Mickey Gordon, an NBA referee who tries to abide by his estranged father's wishes to be buried in France.
A solid supporting cast has been assembled as the friends - Joe Mantegna, Julie Kavner (particularly funny), Richard Masur, Cathy Moriarty, John Spencer, Cynthia Stevenson - though they act more like a chorus to the proceedings.
"Forget Paris" is a feel-good romantic comedy about the on again off again relationship between Mickey (Billy Crystal, who also directed, produced and was one of the writers), an NBA referee, and Ellen (Debra Winger), a customer relations trouble shooter for an airline.Friends of sports writer Andy (Joe Mantegna) are gathering at a restaurant to be introduced to Liz (Cynthia Stevenson) before their wedding.
Let me just say that one of my favorite bits starts with the focus on an organist going through the motions of preparing to play serious music.Billy Crystal is known to be a serious basketball fan and in part the film is like a documentary about refereeing NBA games, with a huge number of basketball stars playing themselves.
Not hardly in this film.I should mention that Cynthia Stevenson's hysterically tearful performance as Liz listening to Mickey's and Ellen's highs and lows was great.I also loved the sound track.
Ella Fitzgerald singing "April in Paris" is so great; also, Billy Holiday doing the opening "Our Love Is Here To Stay." David Sanborn's saxophone version of the "Star Spangled Banner" is also particularly great.My one quibble is that I found Debra Winger's voice very sexy in 1982's "Officer and a Gentleman" and she didn't sound the same in 1995's "Forget Paris." I probably don't sound the same as I did 13 years ago either..
Part of the emotion comes from the honesty of this, that it isn't your usual romantic comedy of "boy who looks like a male model meets female lead who appears to have stepped right off the train from Glamourville", and so on and so forth.
Hilarious romantic comedy with Crystal (one of my favourites) as a NBA ref who meets cute with Winger in Paris, and their assorted romantic travails.
Crystal, having already ripped off 'Annie Hall' with the vastly overrated 'When Harry Met Sally' now rips off the lesser 'Broadway Danny Rose'.And, on date 13 March 2002, IMDb user "Movie-Robot" from New York agreed:>The guy here who called Crystal "The poor, stupid man's Woody Allen" has a point.On the other hand, on date 2 March 2002, "The Movie Buff" from Nyc had written:>This movie holds the record of earliest advanced screening before being released of all-time, 18 years.
The film was shown at an advanced screening back in 77 when it was under the working title ANNIE HALL!!!Does it mean that Woody Allen, when directing "Broadway Danny Rose", ripped off "Annie Hall"!?Ok, I apologize to these users, whose comments I found anyway very interesting, and suggested me a point of view I had not taken.
I was not able to see any unforgivable pillage from Allen's movies.I think Billy Crystal did not want to Explain The Mystery Of Love neither to portrait New Characters Of Modern Times.
This is mostly Allen's trade.Forget Paris is essentially a light comedy, and Billy Crystal is a brilliant guy.
During the meal Liz is told the story of another of their friends, Mickey and Ellen who met when Mickey had flown to Paris to bury his father.
After a romance in Paris they marry, the story follows their ups and their downs.Billy Crystal is effortlessly funny when he has good material and a good vehicle.
Here the plot is interesting  it strays away from a normal romantic film by following Mickey and Ellen through the bad times and good times in their relationship.
The couple meet in Paris when Ellen, an airline official, helps Mickey, a basketball referee, sort out the airline's error in sending his father's body to the wrong destination.
Billy Crystal is okay here, though I prefer When Harry Met Sally (not my favorite romantic comedy either).
As a rule, I really like Debra Winger, but this simply isn't her best role.The movie has some laughs certainly (Mickey's veal ordering rut, for example) and a few good points, such as the father-in-law issue and the fact that the pair do honestly attempt to compromise and make it work, with Mickey for a time sacrificing his travels as referee to be at home with his wife.
They just don't make them like they used to.At least the film does make the point that marriage isn't just about romance (hence the phrase, forget Paris) but about sacrifice and commitment.
If I leave someone out, it's just because I am mentioning those who stood out the most.Billy Crystal does a wonderful job in movies like these.
That means he was very good and quite funny.I was surprised to see this compared to 'Annie Hall' because I didn't care for that movie, but I enjoyed this one so much.If the comedy wasn't enough, the music was great too.
Why???I highly recommend this movie, especially if you liked 'When Harry Met Sally'..
Also, using a cast of storytellers really helps keep it fresh throughout.Debra Winger does a great job, and Billy Crystal was his usual charming and funny self, and there really wasn't a weak link in the entire movie.
Kudos to the late William Hickey (who was also a famous acting coach) for his funny portrayal of Winger's feeble-minded dad and also Cynthia Stevenson who played the woman that's being told the story.
From beginning to end, I found Forget Paris to be a sweet movie, filled with romance, humor and heartbreak.
I frequently recommend this movie to people I know, and I have never had someone come back and tell me that they didn't like it.It's a great date film, goofy and silly and romantic -- with believable characters that you want to beat the odds..
I love "Forget Paris" I think Billy Crystal is hilarious as Mickey the referee.
Produced, Directed, Co-Written by and Starring Billy Crystal, 'Forget Paris' shows the comedic legend at his most confident.
Of the supporting cast, Joe Mantegna is excellent as Crystal's best friend & The Late/Great William Hickey is funny as Debra's dad.
Agatha Christie would be proud.Where this movie falls slightly short, and the reason why I'm docking it a few stars, is the chemistry between Billy Crystal and Debra Winger.
Though both fine actors, I never found them convincing as a couple, not the way we saw with Billy Crystal & Meg Ryan a few years earlier in "When Harry Met Sally".
Billy Crystal does his usual schtick as he romances Debra Winger, though the structure is pure Woody Allen - the whole film told by a group of friends at a party - and the foreign funeral set-up half-inched somewhat obviously from Billy Wilder's underrated Avanti!.
For me, the best definition for "Love" is when you can forget yourself, and for that instance, Crystal is very deficient and it appears like a totally different person he was in Paris: he doesn't want to quit his job, he doesn't speak to her father At the same time, Winger shows a lot of compassion and faces great pain for her femininity!
there should be more movies like "forget Paris".
WOW everyone of those movies were blockbusters I started thinking about Debra Winger when I was watching Forget Paris and I was saying to myself...Wow..she turns down "Fatal Attraction" but Foret Paris is OK....well...the bottom line is...there should be more movies like "forget Paris" The Scene where Billy Crystal throws Kareem out of his farewell game and then Isiah...I'm laughing my ass off...the fact about "forget Paris" is this movie is fun and frivolous and you don't'need to pay that close attention....The cameo's with the NBA all stars is just my cup of Tea...
I like Billy Crystal...I like Debra Winger...
It is also reflecting life in a positive way: it is difficult, entertaining, funny at the right and at the wrong place.Just realized how many funny Billy Crystal punchlines are in the movie.
Finally Billy Crystal and Debra winger are playing it perfect: emotional and touching, but not overly dramatic.Keeps being one of my favorites..
Billy Crystal is the nice and funny person i like him to play.
And we all know, Billy Crystal can't help it to be very, very, very romantic (just remember "When Harry Met Sally...").
And in the end he has a film for people who like to cry during movies and for those who usually laugh at them.
I'm the second type and I found this was one of the most original and funny movies from/with Billy Crystal, much better than "Memories of Me"..
Billy Crystal should be commended for his writing in this movie.
Good romantic comedy; great casting.
Like most typical romantic comedies, the ending is predictable, but then most movies are.
1st watched 1/6/1996 - (Dir-Billy Crystal): Very funny movie !!
Billy Crystal surprised me with a movie full of humor, romance, etc..
Julie Kavner, John Spencer, and Cynthia Stevenson are particularly good in their roles as friends of the struggling couple played by Winger and Crystal.
It has some great comic scenes, however, I would never call this movie a Romantic Comedy.
Always been a big Billy Crystal fan as well as Debra Winger.
Billy Crystal is Mickey Gordon, NBA basketball referee, traveling to Paris to bury his suddenly deceased father.
The airline loses, then finds the body, in the process of complaining Mickey meets pretty American Ellen Andrews (Debra Winger) who works for the airline.The movie actually takes place over a couple of hours in present time at a restaurant, friends of Mickey are at a table waiting for him to arrive after the Knicks game is over, and in turn the friends tell the story of Mickey and Ellen.
One of them indicates that both Mickey and Ellen were expected, but others thought they were not together anymore.Billy Crystal is perfect, Debra Winger is good, but the story itself is pretty simple -- can these two professionals with widely different interests make it together?
For starters, who casts Billy Crystal as a leading man in a romantic love story?
This movie can't quite make up its mind as to what it wants to be, romantic comedy, light drama, slapstick, story of a modern marriage.Couple 'meet cute' in Paris.
Debra Winger (Ellen) and Billy Crystal (Mickey) seem like a natural fit.
It seems like Billy Crystal wanted to make the perfect sequel to When Harry Met Sally (1989), a movie he starred earlier with Meg Ryan, where they portrayed 2 persons who fall in love.
Now, in Forget Paris, we follow 2 similar persons who fall in love THEN get marry (You won't deny how Debra Winger looks like Meg Ryan in some moments).
However, while jazz itself is a creative hint that marriage has no known system, and is based on the best improvisation you could ever do—the movie dwelled on that jazzy mood, enjoying a series of mostly uninteresting sketches, leading to common, so laconic, climax which didn't live up to Casablanca or When Harry Met Sally endings.Forget Paris is a rom-com that wanted to be different, and it did, but lost being fast enough, and comic enough in the way.
Billy Crystal is, like Allen, a diminutive New Yorker who started as a stand-up comic before moving into acting, and his character in this film, Mickey Gordon, has something in common with Woody's self-deprecating creations.
The title, "Forget Paris", a phrase used a number of times in the course of their marriage, therefore becomes shorthand for "We've got to put the courtship phase of our relationship behind us and move on to dealing with the problems of married life together".And Mickey and Ellen have plenty of problems.
Of course, it would have been quite possible to turn the story of Mickey and Ellen into a serious study of a failing marriage, but "Forget Paris" was never intended to be a film of that sort.
He was, of course, the star of "When Harry Met Sally", one of the best romantic comedies of the eighties.
I never cared for that lugubrious romantic tragedy "Terms of Endearment", but the fact that Winger won a "Best Actress" Oscar suggests that a lot of other people liked it.The point of casting two such dissimilar actors may have been to emphasise the contrast in character between Mickey and Ellen, a contrast that would have been lessened if Ellen had been played by an experienced romantic comedy actress such as Meg Ryan, Crystal's co-star in "When Harry Met Sally".
Crystal is very funny in this film, and most of the best lines go to him, although there are also some good contributions from the assembled diners.