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Moon over Parador Review:
Director Paul Mazursky is a very funny and fair man. His Moon Over Parador is a much better satire of the way politics and performing mix than Dave, yet it's also a devilishly funny tease of the relationship between actors and directors and Washington and Hollywood. Mazursky skewers others and doesn't let himself off the hook, either. It's one of his and Dreyfuss's best comedies and features a powerfully funny performance from the late Raul Julia. Playing off the stereotypical relationship between actors and directors, he and Julia are a great comic team. Setting a tone later mimicked by Marlon Brando in The Freshman and Robert De Niro in Analyze This, Dreyfuss zestfully sends up himself and actor-ish preoccupations. Mazursky sprinkles good supporting actors and wacky cameos from Charo, Sammy Davis Jr., and Ed Asner to keep the fun going, and writers Charles G. Booth, Leon Capetanos, and Mazursky throw in sly political references to everything from Reagan to national anthems (Parador's sounds like a sick cross between "Pomp and Circumstance," "Aud Lang Syne," and "Old Lavender"). Yet the best performance is Julia's. Few actors had his extraordinary power, and he uses it to amp up the bizarrely blond Strausman into a character equally scary and comic. See this movie and you'll mourn his death anew. Nick Sambides, Jr., All Movie Guide