Stars: Goldie Hawn, Steve Martin, Julie Harris, Mel Gibson, David Carradine, Stephen Tobolowsky, Bill Duke

Director: John Badham

Summary: Features the Goldie Hawn films HOUSESITTER and BIRD ON A WIRE.

Features the Goldie Hawn films HOUSESITTER and BIRD ON A WIRE. In HOUSESITTER, Newton Davis, jilted professional architect and owner of a dream house drowns his sorrows at an office party and comes home with a ready made wife. In BIRD ON A WIRE, Rick Jarmin is in deep trouble. An old flame has recognised him, even though he is part of the FBI witness-relocation programme. And the man he put behind bars is out to get him.

WIN DVDs by rating this DVD

Average User Rating:

WIN DVDS by being amongst the first to review this DVD. Reviewing DVDs earns you bonus entries and lets you WIN DVDs!Please login before reviewing this DVD. If you're a new user, register for free and enter to WIN FREE DVDs!

Housesitter

A slick, smart vehicle for Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, Housesitter offers an acceptably daffy premise and enough inventive business to sustain it through to the, not unexpected, happy ending. Architect Martin builds a dream home for his childhood sweetheart (Dana Delaney) only to be rejected when he proposes marriage. After a one-night stand, Hawn--a daffy waitress with a gift for making up improbable but convincing lies--moves into Martin's house and tells his parents (Donald Moffatt, Julie Harris) and the whole community that she is his surprise new wife. When he sees how this impresses Delaney, Martin goes along with the charade, encouraging wilder and wilder fictions and doing his best to join in so that he can rush through to a divorce and move on to the woman he has always wanted. Hawn has to recruit a couple of winos to pose as her parents and impress Martin's boss into giving him a promotion, but we glimpse her real misery at his eventual intention to toss her out of the make-believe world she has created because her own real background is so grim.

Its sit-com hi-jinx are manic enough not to be strangled by an inevitable dip in to sentiment towards the end, and Hawn, who always has to work hard, is better matched against the apparently effortless Martin than in their subsequent pairing in Out-of-Towners. Martin, often wasted in comparatively straight roles, has a few wild and crazy scenes as Hawn prompts him into joining her improvised fantasies. Director Frank Oz, a frequent Martin collaborator (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Little Shop of Horrors, Bowfinger), is the model of a proper, competent, professional craftsman when he sets out to put a comedy together--but the film misses streaks of lunacy or cruelty that might have made it funnier and more affecting.

Bird on a Wire

This action-comedy from 1990 makes the critical mistake of trying to mix a potentially suspenseful plot with the kind of humour that Mel Gibson can only get away with in his Lethal Weapon movies. It doesn't work here because the movie's supposed to be a Hitchcockian thriller and Mel's wisecracking--not to mention some implausible plot twists and ridiculous chase scenes--makes it impossible to take any of this movie seriously. It works best as a lightweight vehicle for Gibson and Goldie Hawn, who bring their own established appeal to their roles as old lovers who are reunited under unexpectedly dangerous circumstances. After testifying against some drug-running killers, Mel's been safe under the protection of the FBI's witness relocation program, and Goldie coincidentally enters his life again just as the bad guys are hot on Mel's trail. They join up and go on the run from the villains and ... well, let's just say director John Badham doesn't have any big surprises up his sleeve. Goldie and Mel are enjoyable, as always, but you'd have to be their biggest fan to watch this movie more than once. --Jeff Shannon

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive menu
Release Date:	February 26, 2007
Runtime:	203 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	8247545
Keywords:	English, House, Comedy, Bird, Wire, Sitter
Genre:	Comedy