Blu-ray Review: David Bowie Tends Bar In ‘The Linguini Incident’

Usually when someone says they have an audition, it’s for an acting role, not for getting out of a mail bag in handcuffs. For aspiring escape artist and Harry Houdini enthusiast, Lucy (Rosanna Arquette), however, that’s exactly the kind of gig she wants – even if it means robbing the restaurant where she currently works to afford a ring once owned by Houdini that she thinks she needs for luck.

Richard Shepard‘s The Linguini Incident has a number of alternate titles (all of which, excluding Shag-O-Rama, make more sense than the actual title). Released the same weekend as the LA Riots, it had a horrible theatrical run in the 1990s. Shepard (who also co-wrote the film with his then-partner, Tamar Brott) wasn’t given any say over how it was recut … and yet Arquette’s co-star in the film is David Bowie, making it an absolute curiosity of a romantic comedy where the pop star plays a bartender who needs a green card and tries to make a deal with Lucy to get one.

The heist in this movie is positively anticlimactic and, unlike in Arquette’s more famous film, Desperately Seeking Susan — where her and Madonna’s character spend the whole movie missing each other — The Linguini Incident is most memorable not for it’s romantic coupling, but for its female friendship. Eszter Balint plays Lucy’s best friend, Vivian, and besides sporting some inventive lingerie, she gets the best lines in the movie. The very last scene is Lucy and Vivian riding off on their bikes together and that’s the relationship that matters when everything’s said and done.

Despite being mostly filmed in LA, The Linguini Incident is a film that leans into eccentricity and definitely embodies the ethos that nobody bats an eye at anything in New York.

While usually a “Director’s cut” means longer, this one, at an hour and thirty-two minutes long, is actually shorter than the original theatrical version that’s also included on MVD’s disc (and runs an hour and thirty-eight minutes long).

In fact, the longest item on this disc is The Making of ‘The Linguini Incident’ documentary, at almost an hour and forty-five minutes long. Shepard, Brett, Arquette, Balint, and Marlee Matlin all appear on-camera separately to talk about the film, as do production designer Marcia Hinds, costume designer Richard Von Ernst, and producer Sarah Jackson.

The two new commentaries feel slightly redundant as a result. The first: a solo effort by Shepard while the second sees him joined by a moderator (Heath Holland), Arquette, Brett, Balint, and Jackson. I only started them both, but they seemed to cover a lot of the same territory as the documentary. Shepard does get into more specifics about the changes he made for the director’s cut in the solo one.

The documentary is excellent. Apparently Bowie was originally approached to play one of the restaurant owners (with the hope being Mick Jagger would play the other) and met eventual wife Iman (who makes a cameo appearance) during filming. Shelly Winters had to be fired from the production. Von Ernst provides some fascinating backstories on the costumes (including the liquid silver restaurant uniforms). Matlin talks about signing in-character with the actor who played her interpreter (Michael Bonnabel) in the background of some scenes.

Additional bonus features include an introduction by Shepard and a photo gallery narrated by the director. Unfortunately, the printing of the essay booklet was botched. All of the pages are completely out of order and, since they’re not numbered, it takes a moment to figure out which comes first. Shepard’s essay goes over the arduous process by which he and Jackson got the rights to the film back and were able to locate a print, while Graham Rinaldi considers Bowie’ performance.

The Linguini Incident is available on Blu-ray now as part of the MVD Marquee Collection.