bkoganbing
I had not seen Kotch for a long time before viewing my VHS copy today and I was really moved with how good it was. Too bad Jack Lemmon never wanted to try directing again. Maybe had the film won an Oscar or two, he could have been persuaded to try.I think I finally figured out who Walter Matthau modeled his Oscar nominated performance on, it's Casey Stengel. Casey without the double-talk, but the same non-stop garrulousness that I remember from my youth.But Casey had his captive audience of baseball writers and fans. Poor Joseph Kotcher is a retired salesman who lives with his son and his family. Though he's an excellent babysitter for his young grandson, he's generally underfoot according to his daughter-in-law Felicia Farr. Son Charles Aidman gently persuades him he ought to move into a retirement home.But Matthau is just a lonely old man, looking for someone to bond with. He finds someone quite unlikely in the person of Deborah Winters, the new babysitter who finds herself pregnant by her boyfriend Darrell Larson. She moves in with him and not in a retirement home and they have some interesting experiences.Matthau lost the Best Actor Award to Gene Hackman and Kotch similarly lost as Best Picture to The French Connection. Still I think this one has stood the test of time a lot better.Marvin Hamlisch and Johnny Mercer wrote the song Life Is What You Make It for Kotch and it lost for Best Song to the Theme from Shaft. That one was truly unfortunate.Kotch is a picture about the person who's your grandfather, old and a bit crotchety and some times a pain in the posterior as Deborah Winters says. But he's also the one with enough life experience to come through in the clutch.Come to think of it, one of the things that drove Deborah crazy was his insistence on a car with an old fashioned clutch as opposed to automatic transmission.
Charles Herold (cherold)
I had doubts about this movie the moment it started. I recorded it because it was rated highly in the TV listings and starred Matthau, who I always like, but during the opening credits' bucolic scenes of Matthau playing with a little boy to the movie's unutterably treacly score (the sort of thing you heard in TV movies of the 70s) I thought, oh god, what am I in for? Matthau's windbag character also instantly turned me off. So I came here to see what people thought, and saw one glowing review after another. And that inspired me to watch another hour before giving up.Besides the truly abysmal score, Kotch suffers from a surfeit of annoying characters. Kotch himself is genial but tedious, his son is bland and his daughter-in-law plays the requisite bitch. The girl he eventually helps is about as annoying as the title character.I can't figure out why people like this movie so much. I think it's a movie for people who like comforters with teddy bears quilted into them or something. It's simple-minded and just plain dull.
ajohns1
I watch this movie all the time I love it they don't make em' like this anymore. I like this movie mostly cause the music it's very comforting you can watch when your sad when your happy when your angry mostly it calms you down. I saw it first when I was 13 and I still watch not on a daily basis I dont even own it yet YET I'm going to bye it soon cause one of the only feel good movies I've ever seen. Thank you JACK LEMMON.
OldLeemo
Jack Lemmon did an excellent job with this script and produced a very entertaining movie with an unforeseeable ending. Matthau is outstanding as usual and his fate keeps viewers in suspense until the end. I recommend it to young and old.
AD
