About Last Night... (1986)

I knew a guy in the late 80's who was a very successful womanizer. As a part of his regular modus operandi for seduction, he would invite his date back to his apartment after dinner, open a bottle of wine and pop "About Last Night" in the VCR. It was evidently the perfect aphrodisiac. But lust would be virtually the only reason I could imagine any guy could sit through this a dozen times or so. Rob and Demi really get annoying rather quickly in this. Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins, playing their best friends, seem as irritated with this relationship as most of us are and deliver the best lines and performances in the film and without them this picture would absolutely bomb. Watching it again, some 30 years after it was released it does have some value as a time capsule of the period, especially having lived in Chicago during the late 70's and partaking occasionally in single bar scene in the Rush & Division Street area.

Danny Martin (Rob Lowe) and his crude best friend Bernie Litgo (James Belushi) are restaurant supply salesmen. Danny starts dating Debbie Sullivan (Demi Moore) after an one-night stand. She has been sleeping with her boss. They eventually move in together to the dismay of her best friend roommate Joan (Elizabeth Perkins). Bernie isn't pleased either. The couple's happy relationship soon finds cracks. Danny is commanded to cut off a favorite customer. The pressures mount and they fall apart.Based on the 1974 David Mamet play 'Sexual Perversity in Chicago', this has some of his sharp biting dialog right from the start. The story is simple but well-executed. Lowe and Moore are reunited after 'St. Elmo's Fire'. Not to mention that these are two beautiful human specimens and have great chemistry together. It's a rom-com with a real emotions.

About Last Night is a romantic dramedy film that was directed by Edward Zwick.It features Rob Lowe and Demi Moore as Chicago yuppies who enter a committed relationship for the first time.The cast also includes Elizabeth Perkins and James Belushi as friends of the couple. The film is based on the 1974 David Mamet play Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Danny and Bernie are two single men who live in Chicago. When Danny meets Debbie at a bar in the Chicago Gold Coast, the two start a relationship from a one-night stand. The film follows the couple for the first year of their relationship: their meeting after a softball game, her moving in with him, mutual friction at Thanksgiving, their breakup on New Year's Eve, his apology and declaration of love on St. Patrick's Day, and their reconciliation at a softball game.In the end,the experience problems with commitment after their first time sleeping together. They find that the influence of their friends hinders them and eventually decide that they have nothing in common.The movie was definitely engaging as Demi Moore and Rob Lowe have great chemistry and provided great performances as the couple with the former avoiding to get used in a relationship and the latter now wanting to get serious in a relationship.Added to that,it was a film that tackles relationships in real life and with real people.There was nothing pretentious about it especially when exploring the positive and the negative aspects of romance.Overall,it remains a relevant movie about love after many years of its theatrical release.

I heard that this movie was going to be remade this year (2011)... This is yet another example that Hollywood has become bereft of original thoughts. About last night really only works as a period piece of the 1980's (I know it was adapted from a play in the 1970's but the decades weren't that different). If you put to modern a spin on it, it'll lose all it meaning and wind up a parody of itself. There are simply no modern taboo's left to explore in the film industry (unless we start getting into the realm of the illegal). I can't imagine a 2011 version of this story where we put a Snookie like character in for Debbie and another young, empty headed Hollywood body in for Danny. They won't be believable, they won't be likable and the movie will fall on it's face.About last night is a great movie on many levels... It's nostalgic, it's sentimental, it's pretty funny and relatively realistic (especially in terms of the psychology of it's characters). It drags you through the mud but lets you feel clean at the end. Does it use clichéd 1980's sequences? Yes it does! You just have to wallow in them a little.