Angelica Bridges in California Heat (1996)

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Review

Imagine my surprise. I rented this movie because I thought the acting would be really good. After all, I reasoned, all the employees are employees of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Turns out that they are actually employees of the Royal Pudding Company. Oh, silly me.

While the cast isn't very strong by the standards of actors, it must be around average for pudding salesmen. I'm not sure, exactly, what the pudding acting standard might be now, since I missed the company's annual Spring musical at Royal Pudding the past three years. I had a conflict.

It was the same weekend as "Anchors Away!", the annual convention of the National Association of Anchor Manufacturers. I don't actually have a boat yet, but when I do, I want to make an informed choice of anchors, and I don't want one of those sleazy salesmen to sell me too much anchor for my craft.

But I guess the point is this: while the cast isn't that good at acting, I'd like to see how damned good Meryl Streep would be in the pudding biz. Let's drag her skinny ass down to the Food Marketers Institute convention and watch her try to compete with the Jello guy for more shelf space at Safeway.

I really didn't pay that much attention, but I think the movie is actually about this:

Two lifeguards have a bet. The male lifeguard is an inveterate Casanova, and the female lifeguard is always late. So they bet each other that they can change. He has to stay with one woman, and she has to be on time every day. First failure loses his/her paycheck.

Into this profound, nearly Proustian world, comes Mike, the evil lifeguard supervisor, and Rob, the boring boyfriend, then some other stuff must happen, but I kinda lost interest and started to do something more interesting, like comparing the savings on long distance phone plans. I think I even called my insurance guy and asked him if he thought I had enough insurance.

I did see some scenes where they ran on the beach in slow motion while wearing red bathing suits, so I guess it was good training for Angelica Bridge's role on Baywatch.

Nudity Report: The lifeguard's three girlfriends (Angelica Bridges, Tamara Landry, Brigitte Dazzo) all appeared topless, although there was never a very clear look at Ms. Bridges. Two women in minor roles (Yvette McClendon and Martine LeBlanc) were seen topless in a hot tub.

Critics Vote: No major online reviews.

IMDB Summary: 5.6 out of 10

Box Office: It did good. $46 million domestic gross

DVD Info: No DVD available.

Written by: Scoopy …Scoopy.net