Sept 8-14 Sketchy Comedy Week: “…plotless satires, many of which were only excuses for drug humor or gratuitous nudity sprinkled with the cheapest of gags. The typical form was a channel-changing structure, which would go from one sketch to the next under the premise that this was just another night at home watching the old boob tube. The medium is the message, baby!”
In 1999, Vince Offer made The Underground Comedy Movie, and wow… that was a tough watch. Somehow, his success as an infomercial salesman led to an even bigger budget and stars for this, a movie that remakes much of that film without improving any of it.
Vince Offer was born Offer Shlomi in Israel and came to the U.S. as a kid. He dropped out of school, moved to Los Angeles and started appearing on public TV and making his first film. During that movie’s filming, he went bankrupt, so he sold it with infomercials on Comedy Central and earnings from swap meet vegetable chopper sales. He took the skills he learned there and became known as the ShamWow guy. He even feuded with Billy Mays, as that salesman claimed that the offer stole the SlapChop and ShamWow from him.
That’s not the only controversy. He sued the Farrelly Brothers, claiming that There’s Something About Mary stole from his first movie; he sued Anna Nicole Smith for backing out of that movie; his former personal assistant, Jennifer Kosinski, sued him for sexual harassment, including his offering her money for her eggs. He also had a sex worker bite his tongue and not let go until he punched her in the face multiple times, which ended with them being arrested. Oh yeah — he’s also an ex-Scientologist.
Offer had used his connections within the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center International, a group within the church for artist networking, to cast his film. The film was so poorly received that Scientology pretty much cut ties with him, saying that he was violating Scientology rules by spending more on his movie than the church. I love this line I found while researching this: “Statements and evidence were collected and the CoS charged Vince with 23 crimes against Scientology, and he was forced to stand trial in Scientology Court.”
Vince didn’t forget this and sued them with the money he made from his first movie. I wish I could say that either movie was good.
That said, back to this movie. Offer touches app buttons — seven of them, fortunately, as twenty are shown — and this opens up sketches.
The height of humor in this is “Flirty Harry,” in which two-time Academy Award winner Adrien Brody acts like, well, a homosexual Dirty Harry, throwing filthy lines at people like “Go ahead, make my gay.” That’s it, that’s the tweet, as the late James Caan would say.
Rob Schneider, not yet a right-wing comedian, is in this as a psychologist and, later, as a reviewer of pornography along with Jonathan Spencer as the constantly jerking off Bob and Michelle Rodriguez as Harriet, somehow trapped in this film. She’s not the only one. Lindsay Lohan, not yet making her comeback, shot a scene for this when it was Underground Comedy 2010. She’s dressed as Marilyn from The Seven Year Itch, which we all understand, but to drive the point home, someone yells, “You look just like Marilyn!” She replies, “Did Marilyn have an ankle monitor?” as the camera pans down to show that yes, she has to wear an alcohol monitoring device on her shapely ankle. Then, lest this be the end of the infamy, the camera descends to the sewers where Theo Von and Offer stare up at her lady parts, which are in panties, but then a pudendum energy form takes over the screen.
There’s a recurring segment called “Blackass” that takes Jackass and has black men take over the roles. That’s it. That’s the joke, again, except it’s also wildly racist. This sense of humor continues into “The Amazing Racist,” which was bought from a web series and has Ari Shaffir — who celebrated the death of L.A. Laker Kobe Bryant by tweeting “Kobe Bryant died 23 years too late today. He got away with rape because all the Hollywood liberals who attack comedy enjoy rooting for the Lakers more than they dislike rape. Big ups to the hero who forgot to gas up his chopper. I hate the Lakers. What a great day.” — goes around and, well, acts racist. Literally, that’s as far as it gets.
This may be the first time I’ve agreed with Common Sense Media, which wrote, “Parents need to know that InAPPropriate Comedy is comedy with humor that’s beyond unfunny; it’s hateful, racist, sexist, and wildly offensive. Language is extremely strong, with frequent use of everything from “f–k” to “p—y,” and sexual innuendo is constant. Sexual situations are also very briefly shown, and in one sequence, characters critique porn movies. Violence is a minor issue; one character is a cop who shoots a few bad guys, with some blood shown. Bottom line? This is one of the worst movies ever made; don’t waste your time or money.” and “No positive role models; the movie is full of racism and discrimination, negative sexual imagery, and homophobia. During the outtakes at the end, even the actors appear to be embarrassed by what they’re doing and saying.”
This may be as bad as it gets, a non-stop deluge of material that wants to be offensive yet doesn’t even get to that level because it’s so inept. When I hate something, you know it’s bad. It ends with Lohan gunning down the paparazzi, and you wish she’d turn the weapon on everyone who was involved with this.
Don’t watch this on Tubi.
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