Hey folks, Harry here. I know NADA about this whole 'lawsuit' thing mentioned here in the review (the creators of this film vs. THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY's creators), but when I get a review from an Amorphous Mass... Well, I read it, and ya know... Here's a film that I had heard not a single iota of a thing about. So, without further pussyfooting around, here ya go...
Hello Harry and all who read this:
Very few things can motivate me to shape my amorphous mass into human like appendages, but your website gets me out of my shallow pool every day. Having been taught that it’s rude not to give something back when someone gives you a nice present, I thought I’d contribute a review/backstory of a movie that will probably slip under most people’s radar:
The Underground Comedy Movie
Readers who are from the L.A. area may be familiar with “The Underground Comedy Show,” a public-access cable show. I’ve never seen it, so I can’t compare the series to the movie, although they do share the same producers, Vince Offer and Jeff Jaeger.
You may have heard about this movie because of their lawsuit pending against Ben Stiller and the creators of “There’s Something About Mary.” The story, as I understand it, is this: In late ‘96/early ‘97 Jaeger and Offer went around Hollywood, showing their scripts to any star who’d listen, on the off-chance they’d appear. Stiller told the two that he’d like to keep a copy. Overjoyed, they let him. A year or so later, they were shocked two find that two bits had been allegedly copped and used in “...Mary”: the homeless guy toting around a dead body, and an extended conversation about whether someone will or won’t have cookies. Not exactly the lynchpins of the film, but plagiarism is plagiarism.
I heard about the movie through the King of All Media, Howard Stern, who’d heard about the lawsuit and interviewed the producers on the air. Intrigued, I moved myself into a vaguely human shape and shambled off, with two friends, to the good ol’ Angelika Theater to see it’s NYC debut.
Before I review the film, I’ve got to drop some of the names who attended. Jeff Jaeger, one of the aforementioned producers, was giving out posters and postcards that cheerfully advertise “From the writer who brought you ‘There’s Something About Mary’s’ lawsuit... now brings you the original.” The only review mentioned is from DETAILS magazine, proclaiming it “unbelievably offensive!” Oooooh yeah. More on that in a second.
Also in attendance was “Melrose” Larry Green. Stern listeners might know him as the weirdo (from my college, no less!) who inherited a wad of money and now parades through the streets of NYC with big signs bearing slogans like “Howard Stern is King” and “Howard for President.” Green had apparently flown to L.A. (don’t ask me how) to see the movie, and liked it so much that he offered to warm up the NY crowd at the opening. They should’ve declined. Green was terrible, dressed like a color-blind rich homeless guy, his jokes drowned out by microphone feedback and an air vent, and the laughs were at his incompetence more than his humor. But he did take the opportunity to wave around a contract he had just signed with Latoya Jackson’s ex-husband/ex-manager to make him famous. I am not f***ing joking. Folks, if he succeeds, I am quitting my job to go to showbiz. I can whup him any day.... But I digress.
The movie, ah the movie. How was it? Let’s start with a visualization: Suppose movies came with a “taste” meter, one that you could set to any level for the desired amount of class and good taste. “The Ten Commandments,” for example, or “Meet John Doe” would be 10. “The French Connection” would be an 8. The South Park movie would garner a 2, perhaps 3.
Imagine if you could set that dial to negative 5.
More than any film I have ever seen (and this *includes* Rocky Horror Picture Show) this movie goes out of it’s way to surprise, disgust, and shock the viewer. Imagine Larry Flynt’s version of Monty Python and you get close. It’s arranged in skits, somewhat inter-related, that parody superheroes, talk shows, The Godfather, beauty, fame, and public access cable shows such as their own.
Now, let’s be clear: no one here will win an Oscar. The acting is spirited and energetic, but really bad. The special FX have been lifted from 50’s sci-fi flicks. I don’t even think the Academy could sit through this without ralphing. But that’s sort of the appeal here: you’ll laugh yourself silly, but you’ll also cringe at the heights (or more appropriately, the depths) to which they’ll go. Fake semen by the bucket. Decapitation of the elderly. Numerous bare bosoms. Giant penises. And the guest stars: Slash, of Guns ‘n’ Roses, puts in a performance during which I’m sure he was drunk of his ass. (Getting ready for the GnR reunion, no doubt...) Joey Buttafuoco as a.... family man. And Gena Lee Nolin as... I can’t even describe it here. Kids could be reading.
But I oozed out of the theater, adrenaline pumping as though I’d ridden a rollercoaster twenty times. I made it! I withstood the relentless grossness! My apartment now boasts the movie poster, with a little addendum on the top that reads simply: I SURVIVED. I don’t care how you’ve steeled yourself, this movie will make you shudder; half from hysterical laughter, half from horror. (Dig the alliteration.) Those who survive will be an elite fraternity, who have taken the raunchiest, most disgusting comedy in human history and conquered it.
To make a long story short (too late), every critic across the known galaxy will hate it. And with good reason: it’s terrible. But the reverse view is that these guys don’t give two hoots about the review, or the box office: they’re out to grab you, yes YOU, specifically, and test your limits. I nearly peed from laughing, died of embarrassment, and fled in terror. Any movie that can do that to me is OK in my book.
I survived. Can you?
Phreeform the Amorphous Mass
