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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: Walt Disney Video
Salesrank: 6273
Released: May 8, 2001 |
| Our Price: $7.17 |
| Used Price: $2.61 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Academy Award(R)-winner Gwyneth Paltrow (Best Actress, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY) and Scott Speedman (TV's FELICITY) are part of the stellar ensemble cast in a hilariously offbeat comedy! The lives of six stranges become outrageously intertwined when a riotous road trip culminates at the site of the national Karaoke championships. As they compete for the $5,000 grand prize, this unlikely group will eventually learn all about each other ... while discovering answers to the questions about themselves! Also featuring great performances from Maria Bello (COYOTE UGLY), Andre Braugher (FREQUENCY), Paul Giamatti (BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE), and Huey Lewis (SHADOW OF DOUBT) -- you'll agree with audiences everywhere who fell in love with this uncommonly entertaining comedy!
Description of Duets:
Karaoke is a way for average people to get on stage and sing cover songs. In Duets, it's also a money sport. No, really. As with other bar sports (pool, darts), the karaoke-for-money game is rife with hustlers. One such hustler is Ricky Dean (Huey Lewis), who takes time off the karaoke circuit to attend the funeral of his ex-wife, where he meets his estranged daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) and can't shake her desire to go on the road with him. The other hustler is Suzi Loomis (Maria Bello), a woman who literally prostitutes herself to get from gig to gig, until she meets up with a kind-hearted cabby (Scott Speedman). Then there's Todd Woods (Paul Giamatti), who gets so fed up with his sales job and being ignored at home that he hits the road, moving from karaoke bar to karaoke bar in a voyage of self-discovery. Along the way he picks up Reggie Kane (Andre Braugher), an escaped felon with a voice like an angel. All three couples end up in Omaha for the $5,000 karaoke finals. Chock full of bad writing and bad direction, the movie inspires a perverse fascination. Braugher and Giamatti chew up the scenery at every opportunity, but most interesting is the father-daughter incest subtext (compounded by the fact that the movie is directed by Gwyneth's dad, Bruce Paltrow). Eeeeesh. --Andy Spletzer
Duets Reviews:
An Altmanesque movie 
2009-07-18 - I watched "Duets" from Encore on demand. This is a quirky film about people who compete for cash on the Karaoke circuit. There are three main K teams in this movie. Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis a father/daughter team, Paul Giamatti and Andre Braugher; a burned out salesman and escaped convict, Maria Bello and Scott Spellman; a part time hooker and cab driver, all converge at a Karaoke contest in Omaha, Nebraska.
Many reviewers are correct about having to suspend disbelief. In the opening scene Huey Lewis out Cockers Joe Cocker and hustles $690 to boot. We're are asked to accept Gwyneth Paltrow as Huey Lewis' daughter. Paul Giammatti belts out an acceptable "Hello It's Me" in his first Karaoke outing. So why did I like this? The unexpected happens.
We have the scene of a dangerous hitchhiker in the middle of nowhere seeming more sane than the driver. A salesman, played by Giamatti, comes home his wife, she rebuffs him and Giamatti mentions that he has to go out and buy a pack of cigarettes. Scott Spellman, playing a cab driver, is picking up his childhood teacher from the police station. The teacher then berates him as an underachiever. She's dressed in her bathrobe and has been charged with shoplifting BTW. When she is dropped off he mentions that he isn't an underachiever, that he's working on harmony.
I like Paul Giamatti in any movie. He has played such a diversity of roles from President John AdamsJohn Adams (HBO Miniseries) to an English teacher/wine aficionado in SidewaysSideways (Widescreen Edition). Huey Lewis also showed that he can act as well as sing. Gwyneth Paltrow is less believable as an ingenue and daughter of Huey Lewis. There just doesn't seem to be that big of an age gap to be father/daughter. Angie Dickinson also does a great star turn as Gwyneth Paltrow's grandmother. Maria Bello did a good turn as the Emerson quoting hooker.
I know this is a movie. However, couldn't they have at least one of the characters just think they could sing like Otis Redding but, in actuality sound like the everyday Karaoke singers with which we've had experience?
There are so many odd moments I thought of such Altman type films as Gosford ParkGosford Park, and Cookie's FortuneCookie's Fortune. Duets inserted the theater of the absurd into everyday life.
duets movie 
2009-07-13 - ok. So my friend kept talking about this movie i had to see. "But i don't like karaoke", was always my reply. Darned if she didn't keep on until i finally agreed to rent it. Wow! i watched it 3 times that day. Then i bought it and made my teenagers watch it. Then another friend. Now it's loaned out, and if i wasn't living in a hotel room i'd be screaming to get it back already.
Gwyneth Paltrow surprised me with her singing ability. You will fall in love with her. Maria Bello is always HOT, and her character is so awesome. Scott Speedman is a doll. Andre Braugher surprised me. And anyone who grew up in the 80's has to love Huey Lewis.
But i am now head-over-heels in love with Paul Giamatti, whose storyline could be about just any average persons decline of sanity. He seems so real as a person who is "losing it". I had to snap a screenshot of him as the wallpaper on my cellphone. Hubba hubba.
There is so much more to the story than it being about Karaoke. The stars singing are surprisingly quite good, and the others...well, it is karaoke, lol.
I laughed. I cried. And now I want to watch it again!
Duet DVD
2009-07-06 - Hearing the music is like seeing the movie over again, and I love it. Good quality; great price.
Great
2009-06-12 - This movie was really good, the relationship between the two men and the acting was top notch, their friendship was very believable. Loved all the music! You won't be sorry you bought this one!
Great movie.
2009-05-02 - I love this movie. It's as if I had bought a new product. It arrived quickly and safely. Thanks.
