Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I remember picking this script up with no expectations, but as I said when I reviewed it, I thought it had the potential to be very funny. Glad to hear at least one early reaction to the film, and it looks like they entertained at least one person. Here’s Carnegie Ape to tell you all about it...
Greetings all -
Longtime reader, occasional contributor, etc. Tonight I had the distinct pleasure of seeing a workprint version of the new Scott Rudin film, Marci X. The film was directed by Richard Benjamin (who also has a small, but important, part) and written by Paul Rudnick (In & Out, and the fantastic Jeffrey). It stars Lisa Kudrow as Marci Feld, the Jewish American Princess daughter of entertainment magnate Bob Feld (Benjamin). Now Bob, in addition to being a movie and television mogul, also owns a small gangsta rap label (think the comedy equivilent of Death Row Records) who's biggest star Dr. S (Damon Wayans in the P. Diddy knockoff role) just released a controversial CD who's lyrics has a Tipper Gore-esque US Senator (Christine Baranski, in FULL Tipper-mode) up in arms and calling for a complete boycott of FeldCo. This causes Bob to have a heart attack and Marci to take on the task of trying to do damage control with the controversial rapper. So it's the traditional fish-out-of-water story, this time with the JAP meets Rap angle.
I must say, I was not expecting much but it works pretty well (until the end). If you need one of those "it's this meets that" descriptions, the best I can boil it down to is it's Fear of a Black Hat meets Legally Blonde. Basically it has comedy, romance, and parody of several big name rappers and one big-assed wannabe-actress/singer. If you followed the Puffy-JLo thing, you'll see familiar sights... rapper and actress (with ass), nightclubs mixed with firearms, head of the record label in jail, etc. And being from NYC, that all worked relatively well for me. Let's break it down into good and bad:
The good: The parody of Death Row records seems pretty on the mark, and Christine Baransky in full-on Tipper-mode is very amusing. Watching the interaction and romance between Kudrow and Wayans was great, and the only backlash of an interracial romance is from the blacks, not the whites. Dr. S working a room of rich, elderly, society women looking for a charity donation was fantastic. Lisa Kudrow rapping. Dr. S's backup, the NNPP, provides the best gangsta rap acronym since NWH. And finally, the BOY BAND PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT that is recorded is almost worth price of admission alone (though admittedly, it won't be any less funny on video).
The bad: Kudrow's Jewish accent appears and disappears a la Costner's English accent in Robin Hood. Kudrow's friends (including Jane Krakowski) usually serve no useful or funny purpose except in two particular scenes. There's a scripted "embarrass the white girl in the press" scene that occurs that feels forced, even when it's a semi-necessary plot device. And the ending, when a Congressional hearing is called to determine if FeldCo and Dr. S are evil, is just so lame it just feels like they ran out of good ideas and picked the best of the crappy ideas as the method in which to extricate the characters.
All in all, it was fun and entertaining (up until the end) and it's definitely worth at least a matinee showing if not full price at the theater. I'm not expecting it to do well at the box office though... most people seemed to dislike the film strongly at the screening I was at (based upon crowd murmurs during the response card filling out).
If you use this, call me Carnegie Ape.
As always, we’d love to hear from anyone else who got a peek at the film, and let us know if you agree or disagree!!
"Moriarty" out.
