Movie Monday-Looking for Mr. Goodbar

I have decided to do a new thing on my blog each week. If you read my blog then you know I have a Richard Gere obsession! lol Since I'm still discovering a lot of his movies both old and new I figured that I would share my opinion of them! He has done so many movies, the majority I've never seen, so it should take me the whole year to review each one of them.
My first review is on the movie "Looking for Mr. Goodbar." This movie is from 1977 and stars Diane Keaton and was directed by Richard Brooks. This movie is based loosely on the novel that was written by Judith Rossner. While the movie has gotten some bad reviews, the novel is supposed to be really good. So I may have to check that out as well.

The movie is about the character "Theresa Dunn" played by Diane Keaton. She is a successful first grade teacher who teaches deaf children by day and cruises the bars of New York City looking for men at night. The movie to me was very bizarre. Diane Keaton has a lot of weird day dreams in this movie and I felt like I needed to be on some sort of drugs just to understand this movie! lol I guess that maybe it has to do with that whole seventies time frame.

Diane Keaton plays the role of an innocent school teacher who is discovering her sexuality. She gets into relationship after relationship with controlling men, much like the relationship that she had with her father.

Richard Gere plays the character of Tony Laponto." His character doesn't appear until about 45 minutes into the movie. Richard Gere's character Tony was one of the many men that she formed a relationship with. She met him in a bar. The one thing that I thought was somewhat funny was that she was reading the book "The Godfather" and Richard Gere made reference to the book that she was reading when they met. He said something like that he enjoyed watching the movie. I thought it interesting because Diane Keaton also starred in that movie as well.

Tony introduced Theresa to hardcore drugs and this spun her further out of control.

Tony walked into Theresa's apartment when she was with another man, and this led to a very violent encounter. It wasn't due to the fact that she was with another man, he got angry because she kicked him out. He beat her up. He returned to her school the next day. They were arguing on the playground and one of her student's brother (played by LeVar Burton) beat up Tony. I looked at my husband and said: "That Reading Rainbow guy really beat the crap out of Richard Gere!" My husband said: "What's Reading Rainbow? That guy's from Star Trek!" lol You can tell we are both from two totally different generations! lol

During that conversation with Tony at her school he said to her that she was a "virgin school teacher, pill popping, bar hopping, coke head..." among many other vulgar things. This led to her to have a daydream later when she was at home about getting arrested for drugs and her Catholic family would discover that her innocent teacher persona was all false. It was then that she decided to give up drugs.

The end of the movie was extremely violent and disturbing. She's was at a bar and it was New Years and she said that this was her last night bar hopping because her nightlife was interfering with her day life. She met a man and took him back to her apartment. During the sexual encounter they got into an argument, and she was brutally murdered. It was a very disturbing movie to say the least. It contained a lot of nudity, drug usage, disco, and violence. I will not be watching this movie again.

One thing that surprised me is that it is based on a true story of a New York school teacher named Roseann Quinn. And from what I've been reading about the story is that it caused awareness of how dangerous it is to take home strange men. It put fear into many women in New York City! I personally think I would know better than to take home someone I didn't know, but the seventies I guess were a whole totally different time!

But in closing I would say that I don't recommend this movie. Diane Keaton gave a really good performance, I will say that, but it's not worth the rental. On the other hand if you want to see a 26-year-old Richard Gere doing push ups in a jock strap, then it may be very worth the rental price! ;)

Sorry for such a confusing/weird review. It was a very bizarre movie that was very slow and hard to follow. Next week I hope to review something a little more upbeat! Stay tuned next Monday!