Movie 43

Whatever the hellish impetus of Movie 43, a random collection of gross out short films cobbled together courtesy of twelve filmmakers and an A-list, it was apparently lost in translation en route to the screen.  Perhaps inspired, in a way, as a response or an ultimate say in toiletry humor by way of past, more delicate, omnibus films like Paris, Je Táime or as a sort of lurid extrapolation of the ongoing parody of whatever craze that steamed from the original Scary Movie.  It matters little, since this ugly, cynically-scoped whatever of a movie-- a ninety-minute train wreck filled with sub-MadTV quality sketches that dubiously attempts to out gross-out the confines of good taste-- accomplishes but memorable achievement in becoming the ultimate bamboozle and time waster of its audience.  While movie stars degrade themselves with half commitment to the witless, nonsensical material provided by folks like Peter Farrelly, Griffin Dunne and Brett Ratner, we wait for the punchline.  And either by design, the ultimate punk or something, it never comes.  In fact each pointless, humorless and irritating short comes and goes without any sort of meaning, purpose or laughter.

And so we meander through the unholy hell of Movie 43.  Kate Winslet goes on a blind date with Hugh Jackman, a seemingly perfect suitor-- except for the fact that he has testicles resting upon his neck.  And Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber play parents who home school their teenage child and seek to impart the "normal" horrors of adolescence by messing him up psychological and sexually.  Oh, and Anna Faris and Chris Pratt play a budding young couple who decide to add scatological "fun" to their romance, just as another young couple played by Keiran Culkin and Emma Stone swap naughty wordplay over a supermarket microphone-- admittedly the best installment, but that's akin to finding the cute one in a litter of rabid dogs.  Or perhaps Richard Gere's segment involving an iPod-like device in the shape of a naked female that's under fire due to mangled male organs promises more ensuing hilarity?  Or a half-witted speed dating short featuring superheroes that finds Justin Long kissing a boy for comic effect?  Or Chloe Grace Moretz having her period in a room full of moronic men?  Or Gerard Butler as a balls-obsessed leprechaun, perhaps?  Or Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant engaging in a one-ups-man-ship game of truth or dare during a first date that ends with a penis face tattoo and plastic surgery?  Or, Terrence Howard as a basketball coach for an all-African American team in the yesteryear and his motivational musings of impending victory, might be the ultimate play as it uses the films addiction to penises in a racially offensive manor?  All inspired...this may be longest ninety minutes in cinematic history.

The cynicism, and the recoil may rest in not just the shorts themselves are lame, scatter-brained and so earnestly made out of shock value, but just in how benign and listless they are to be begin with.  That said, the asinine banality may have sat a bit better had Movie 43 chosen not to frame itself with the ugly and nearly spiteful incision of a movie pitch itself.  The connective tissue that binds these sordid, wannabe outrageous vignettes is staged as the ultimate prank itself, a firm middle finger squarely in the air the audience members, as Dennis Quaid sells hapless movie executive Greg Kinnear his nasty ditties.  It transpires into further sequences of insipidness.  I offer a request: that the A-list cast-- all of whom must have surely lost some horrible bets in the past-- will bathe and atone from this joyless endeavor, as film executives at distributor Relatively Media should ever kindly burn the negatives, and that audiences in search of a stupid good time stay home at tune into reality television.  That's all.  F