Everybody's Famous

Widescreen anamorphic, 1.85:1
no features

Josse De Pauw works in a bottle factory, but dreams of writing a song for his 18 year old rather large daughter Marva (Eva van der Gucht) so she can become a recording star like Debbie (Thekla Reuten). When the factory closes, he meets the famous Thekla on the road, and kidnaps her, bringing his best friend who was also laid off in on the plot. The plan is simple, hold Thekla until his song is produced and his daughter performs it on TV.

The record producer realizes that the publicity from a kidnapped star is worth more than actually having the star on TV.

Comments by ICMS in yellow:

The director (Dominique Deruddere) and most actors are Flemish. The name of the daughter, Marva, refers to a popular Flemish singer who retired many years ago who luckily for us over here had an excellent voice.

Avoid the Region 2 DVD. They used a VHS master for the transfer so you can imagine what the picture quality looks like ! There were many complaints about that here so I never bought it.

The Critics Vote

General consensus: two star or less. Ebert 1.5/4, filmcritic.com 2.5/5
Rotten Tomatoes summary. 52% positive.

The People Vote ...

With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDB readers say 7.4/10, which is very high for a foreign comedy with subtitles. The people like it, even if the critics didn't.

With their dollars ... it went nowhere. Total gross $74,000 on a maximum of 11 screens.

IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C+. I found the film very accessible, and lots of fun.