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Thursday, Jan 31, 1991
I'm from Hollywood (World Premiere) with My Breakfast with Blassie
Lynn Margulies in Person Somewhere between theatrical persona and personality disorder lies the eerie art of Andy Kaufman, the late comic of TV's "Taxi" fame. His extended bout with wrestling-begun on "Saturday Night Live" as women-only matches-plied this ambiguity of identity in a way that was as unsettling as it was seamless. Conceived before his death, I'm from Hollywood is Kaufman's ring saga. Chronicling his rise as the self-proclaimed Inter-Gender Wrestling champion, Margulies' mock-doc combines news footage, interviews with past cohorts such as Robin Williams and Marilu Henner, and excerpts from the wrestling frays. The central match takes place in an arena in Memphis where local boy Jerry Lawler, some 100 pounds heavier than lanky "Latke," sends the anti-comic careening. What follows is Kaufman's fixation with beating Lawler by enlisting the aid of other wrestlers. In a final no-holds-barred strategy, Mr. Hollywood takes on the entire South in a series of queasy diatribes that should boggle even the most jaded among us. True to form, I'm from Hollywood gets in the ring with Kaufman, but it doesn't pin him down. When the doc is over, you wonder "Was that a choke, or a joke?" Thought to be a parody of Malle's My Dinner with Andre, Kaufman's take, My Breakfast with Blassie, is really the same movie with a different menu. Meeting wrestling champ Fred Blassie at a Sambo's, Kaufman serves up a droll epic of epicureanism. Glamorously ensconced, they discuss celebrity, foreign affairs, moist towelettes and the girl with the nice legs at the next table. Perhaps most important is what Kaufman has for breakfast: two scrambled eggs, pancakes, a large orange juice and coffee. --S.S.
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