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FUNNY BONES |
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Tommy Fawkes' (Oliver Platt) debut as a Vegas showroom comedian is a complete disaster. With flop-sweat dripping, he flees the stage, leaving his disappointed dad, the beloved comic George Fawkes (Jerry Lewis), to cover for him. Tommy then travels in cognito to the one place where he had always been happy and the sun always seemed to shine. That place is the English seaside resort of Blackpool, a proving ground for variety entertainment and the starting point of his father's remarkable career. The younger, less talented Fawkes begins auditioning local acts with an eye towards buying funny bits for use in his own re-vamped comedy act. It's then that he realises his father, "Mr. Originality," isn't quite the man he once seemed. He also discovers why his family had to leave England so abruptly. Mixed-in with all of this, we have side stories involving French seamen, an English crime boss, an emotionally disturbed yet gifted young man, a fountain-of-youth substance, and a pair of dismembered feet. Cross Bill Forsyth's eccentric villagers with Fellini's flamboyant performers and you'll get something like the unusual personnel who inhabit Peter Chelsom's movie.
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