Search - My Breakfast with Blassie on DVD

Hilarious spoof of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE

JamesNYC | New York, NY USA | 08/29/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

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The film "My Dinner with Andre," is made up almost entirely of a highly intellectual dinner conversation between two old acquaintances at an upscale restaurant on Manhattan's Upper West Side. So here, Andy Kaufman made a film about an anti-intellectual breakfast conversation between former pro-wrestler/wrestling manager Freddie Blassie and himself, at a very downscale pancake house in Los Angeles.

We are treated to Kaufman and Blassie discussing things like their aversion to shaking peoples' hands: Blassie notes that the person extending his hand could have just been wiping himself "and their finger could have gone through the toilet paper."

Kaufman and Blassie are being served breakfast by a very pregnant Thai waitress. Blassie rubs her belly, talking friendly to her and telling her it's for good luck. Then, after she walks away, he tells Kaufman, "Now we don't have to tip her so much." Later on in the film, he rubs her belly again, and then, after she walks away, comments: "That's another one we'll be feeding on welfare."

Kaufman's parody works, but it may not be for everyone. If you haven't seen "My Dinner with Andre," you may not fully get it. Also, this kind of humour is very different from almost anything you will see in a "mainstream" Hollywood comedy. But, having said that, I found "My Breakfast with Blassie" to be a real gas and recommend it highly!
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Deadpan hilarious and awkward low-budget response to "My Din

Nathan Andersen | Florida | 06/16/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Just in time to "scoop" the Criterion release of the engaging but much-maligned conversation film My Dinner with Andre comes the (long-awaited? maybe) dvd release of Andy Kaufmann's hilarious and uncomfortable low-budget improvised spoof: "My Breakfast with Blassie." Kaufmann, complete with neck brace and in the midst of his "intergender" professional wrestling phase, meets an old hero, the former wrestler and (then) current manager Freddie Blassie. Instead of intellectual conversation about art and life in a French restaurant in New York City, we are in an L.A. diner, where Andy chats with Blassie about breakfast, fame, germs and disease, and wrestling, where he harasses other diners, and eggs Blassie on to reveal his latent and disturbing racist and sexist attitudes (suggestive of the subsequent comedic work of Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat).

It's an intriguing look at Kaufmann's approach to comedy, and a funny counterbalance to the high-brow conversation in Louis Malle's film. Is it brilliant? Of course not. It's an improvised amusing and awkward encounter between an artist who creates comedy from pushing a certain persona to extremes and a former wrestler who has long since blurred any line between his persona and his personality. Well worth watching for both lovers and haters of My Dinner. (Note: this was originally shot on low quality video, so don't expect a high quality cinematic experience. I think that's part of the "charm" - or perhaps the whole point of the thing is that these guys are not about charm and the film aesthetics certainly mirror that.)"