Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16779 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-01-15
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 88 minutes

Synopsis
Reminiscent of SOME LIKE IT HOT, VICTOR VICTORIA and TOOTSIE, CONNIE AND CARLA is a musical comedy in drag written by and co-starring Nia Vardalos of MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING. Best friends since their school days, Connie (Vardalos) and Carla (Toni Collette) are airport lounge singers with dreams of someday making it big on the cabaret circuit. Past their prime and going nowhere in their hometown of Chicago, their break comes when they accidentally witness a mob murder, flee to L.A., and disguise themselves in drag. They dazzle the drag community with their singing talent and their suspiciously authentic feminine figures. Soon they become one of the hottest nightclub shows around with a larger-than-life secret upon which their fame depends. Their struggle to keep their secret becomes even more difficult when Connie meets Jeff (David Duchovny), the straight brother of one of her drag friends (Stephen Spinella), and begins to fall in love. A complicated affair ensues with Jeff believing he is falling for a man in drag and Connie struggling to keep her true identity hidden in a series of wacky mix-ups and close calls. Vardalos and Collette sing and dance in a variety of campy numbers, featuring classic show tunes from EVITA, CABARET, and GYPSY.

Customer Reviews

Hilarious Without Originality
Connie (Nia Vardalos of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding") and Carla (Toni Collette of "Murielle's Wedding") have been putting on silly cabaret style plays since they were little girls. Now adults, they are doing the same thing in airport lounges to a bored crowd. The comedy is original and the scenes are hilarious. However, as the Editorial Review states, this is a combination of "Victor, Victoria" and "Some Like It Hot". It's not original, but these two actresses have brilliant timing. After witnessing the murder of their lounge act boss at the airport, the two `high-tail' it to Los Angeles to disappear - `accidentally' into the gay drag queen night club scene. There is something incredibly funny about these two actresses in almost every scene they are in (steal). From the bag of exploding cocaine in the station wagon at 65 mph to the constant running and covering whenever someone is about to find out they are `real women'. They are manic and hilarious and carry the humor `over the top' without dumbing down the viewer. It's almost like a modern day Lucy and Ethel, only funnier. So the plot is unoriginal. The lines and delivery are priceless.

The deleted scenes, commentaries, etc. are the only mediocre material here. However, the direction is spot-on and the DTS sound is fantastic, which counts in a movie that is half musical.

Feel good fantastic!
Genius! The opening sequence and 1st scene of this film is one of the best comic scenes! The film is fab - but worth seeing for this singing scene alone. Both Nia Vardalos who wrote the script and plays Connie and Toni Collette who plays Carla are fantastic and work togehter brilliantly. David Duchovny also makes an apperance as Jeff, Connie's love intrest, although in my opinion is shown up by Nia Vardalos superior acting. The script is well written and has many laugh out loud moments as well as touching scenes.

Connie : We need to hide someplace where there are no dinner theaters. In fact, we need to hide someplace where is no theater period, no culture whatsoever.
Carla : Los Angeles.

Basic plot - after accidentally witnessing a mafia hit in chicago, Connie and Carla skip town for L.A., where they go undercover as singers working the city's dinner theater circuit ... as drag queens.

Dont think 'Some like it hot' - this film is better - film for both sex's and makes a great date movie.If u want a laugh out loud, feel good film with a well written script - buy this movie, if its for the hysterical 1st scene only!!!!!

Connie : We're gonna be LA girls now, we gonna have to work out.
[Connie and Carla think for a second, then laugh hysterically]
Carla : Good one.

Great for a laugh
With echoes of "Some like it Hot" and "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", this is a fairly predictble, but none-the-less enjoyable, comedy about two women who, in order to hide from the mob, disguise themselves as drag queens and become an immensely popular dinner theatre attraction.

The film is directed by Michael Lembeck who has more TV experience than film, which is why this comedy ends up having a little too much of the sit-com feel about it. Not helping that "TV" feel is Nia Vardalos and David Duchovny turning in two fairly two-dimensional, though still perfectly funny, performances. Hugely hilarious is Toni Collette, whose transformation into a drag queen would be scary in its believability if it weren't so funny.

There are instances where the dialogue becomes so sacchrine as to be sickening, and there is a sense that you are sometimes beaten over the head with "the moral of the story", but all that is worth it for the cabaret numbers. Brilliantly staged, at times hilarious, they make this film incredibly watchable.

The DVD transfer is also highly enjoyable - no problems here with the sound or video transfer, and a whole heap of extras. Particularly good were the extended musical sequences, and also the "making of" featurette.

Highly reccommended