2005: Dirty Love.

Rebecca (Jenny McCarthy) visits a psychic.

Release Date: Sept. 23, 2005. Running Time: 91 minutes. Written by: Jenny McCarthy. Producers (takes deep breath): John Mallory Asher, B. J. Davis, Rod Hamilton, Kimberley Kates, Michael Manassen, Jenny McCarthy, Trent Walford. Director: John Mallory Asher.


THE PLOT:

Would-be photographer Rebecca Sommers (Jenny McCarthy) is completely, absolutely in love with her boyfriend, Richard (Victor Webster). She is certain that she has found "The One."

Then she comes home to discover him in bed with another woman.

After a massive emotional breakdown, a psychic (Kathy Griffin) informs her that she must learn "many lessons" before finding her "white pony." Which is only slightly more helpful than her friend Carrie (Kam Heskin), who sets her up to accompany her on a double date with the nebbishy producers of a movie she's auditioned for.

That date ends badly (and messily), but this is only the beginning of Rebecca's odyssey. She searches for one normal guy to date and make Richard jealous, but every man she meets is a pervert or a lunatic - or, in the case of one stage magician (Guillermo Diaz), both at the same time.

And all the while, best friend John (Eddie Kay Thomas) offers emotional support while wishing he could get himself to express his own feelings for Rebecca...

John (Eddie Kaye Thomas) attempts to cheer Rebecca up,
while hiding his own feelings for her.

CHARACTERS:

Rebecca: She's supposedly a photographer, but she never shows the slightest interest in photography. Given McCarthy's general presence and the way her character dresses, it would make more sense for Rebecca to be a struggling actress. John at one point says that she teaches him to be a better person just by being his friend, and I wonder what he's talking about. All we see, across the interminable 90 minutes of this movie, is Rebecca feeling sorry for herself - when she's not trying to make her ex-boyfriend jealous, that is. The character doesn't seem to have any ambition beyond "new boyfriend," and that about sums up her personality, so it's hard to summon up much sympathy.

John: I hope Eddie Kaye Thomas fired his agent. First Freddy Got Fingered and now this? All he needed was an appearance in The Love Guru to complete the "worst comedies of the 2000s" hat trick. Thomas gets a few chuckles with reactions, such as when he stares up at a very tall woman who becomes inexplicably obsessed with him, but John doesn't have any more personality than Rebecca. I don't even know what he does for a living; all we ever learn about him is that he's in love with her but can't make himself say so.

Michelle: Carmen Electra's character is memorable... mainly because she spends the movie talking in exaggerated, stereotypical "black speak," as if she saw 1980's Airplane! and took the line, "I speak jive," as a personal challenge. At one point, a minor character actually stops to check: "You know you're white, right?" And... yeah, that's about all that's going on with her, though I suppose Electra gets a modicum of credit for taking her character's sole personality trait and running with it.

Richard: Rebecca's ex-boyfriend, a male model who keeps a life-sized underwear ad of himself prominently displayed in his home. He's vain enough that, after parking, he pauses to admire his own face in his side-view mirror. Rebecca's attempts to make him jealous continuously backfire, with her catching his attention just in time for him to see her in one humiliation after another, all of which he merrily laughs at.

Carrie: Rebecca's actress friend. Or should I say, "actress" friend. We glimpse Carrie's line readings at an audition, and they are truly horrible. The squeaky, little-girl voice that she uses could just about shatter glass, and she mostly dresses as if she's preparing for either a very specialized type of film or for midnight on Hollywood Boulevard. Kam Heskin's performance is deeply awful, bad enough to make the rest of the cast look good by comparison - and unfortunately, she's on screen quite a lot.

Rebecca's opening breakdown. It isn't funny,
but at least Jenny McCarthy's going for it.

"SAY SOMETHING NICE":

Jenny McCarthy's performance is fearless. Don't get me wrong, her acting is terrible. But she seems not only willing, but downright eager to abandon any semblance of dignity, and I can't help but have a certain respect for that.

After a brief prologue, the film opens with Rebecca having an extended, over-the-top breakdown on the street. She repeats, "Oh, my God!" multiple times in increasingly shrill tones, contorts her face, then squats like she's about to go to the bathroom with her clothes on. From there, she accosts prostitutes and a homeless man, all of whom respond perfectly rationally: by backing away from the crazy lady.

In the right hands, this willingness to go all-out could have led to some good comedy. Unfortunately, the director is John Mallory Asher, McCarthy's then-husband, whose directorial credits... well, let's just say that it's entirely possible that Dirty Love does not represent his worst movie.

Rebecca attempts to avoid her ex noticing her in a grocery store.

THOUGHTS:

Dirty Love is cheap, crass, and gross. None of these are disqualifying traits for a comedy. There's Something About Mary more or less pioneered the late 1990s/early 2000 gross-out comedy, and it stands up as a pretty good movie.

No, Dirty Love has a bigger problem - It isn't funny.

I laughed exactly once in the entire movie. When an emotionally anguished Rebecca orders a sundae, the sympathetic clerk delivers a veritable Everest of ice cream to her. The moment works because it actually suits the scene, and the movie contents itself with presenting the visual, with no commentary beyond a silent double-take by Eddie Kaye Thomas. Given what passes for humor in the rest of the film, I can only assume this bit was improvised by the crew.

The gags revolve heavily around bodily excretions. Rebecca's least bad date ends with her getting vomited on while her ex-boyfriend watches and laughs. Later "jokes" see her getting sudden menstrual bleeding in a grocery store, which involves her sitting in a lake of her own blood; I'm pretty sure that much blood calls for an ambulance, not a Maxi pad. Multiple gags involve objects inserted into people's butts, because butts are apparently inherently hilarious. Precisely none of this is funny.

Now, sometimes an uneven comedy can just about skate by if the plot is well-structured. This script, the sole screenwriting credit by star Jenny McCarthy, barely has a plot. What passes for an emotional core is the non-relationship between Rebecca and John. John is first introduced sticking up for Rebecca to her ex-boyfriend, something that happens before we establish either his friendship with Rebecca or his unspoken feelings for her. John and Rebecca don't share even a second of screentime until almost a full third of the way into the movie.

Not that Rebecca is best off with John. This isn't a person who's ready for any relationship. She doesn't need "a nice guy," she needs to become halfway comfortable in her own skin. Had the film moved in that direction, it might at least have had a decent message buried underneath this miserable, mirthless odyssey. But even as surface-level an insight as that is beyond this picture.

John confronts Richard (Victor Webster) over his treatment of Rebecca.
This happens before John and Rebecca share any screentime.

THE OTHER NOMINEES:

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo: I sort of liked the first Deuce Bigalow, which was surprisingly sweet-natured for a film starring Rob Schneider, who I usually find to be the comedy equivalent of severe underarm odor. The sequel is more what I'd expect: crude and unfunny in a vaguely mean-spirited way. To the extent that it's remembered at all, it's mainly for Schneider throwing a hissy fit at an early negative review, mocking the critic for not having a Pulitzer Prize. This prompted Roger Ebert to step in to deliver his own review: Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."

The Dukes of Hazzard: Bigscreen update of the late '70s/early '80s television hit. I watched the old show as a child, because approximately everyone of my generation did, but it's a piece best left to the past. I haven't seen the movie. I'm sure it's bad, but I doubt it's as bad as Dirty Love.

House of Wax: In-name-only remake of the 1953 Vincent Price thriller. The 1953 version is a well-structured film that holds up surprisingly well, with or without the (excellent) 3D effects. The remake is a mediocre slasher film, but it's no worse than any other mediocre slasher picture and probably doesn't belong on this list.

Son of the Mask: Infamously ill-conceived attempt to make a (too-belated) sequel to The Mask without Jim Carrey. By all accounts, it is wretched, possibly as bad as Dirty Love. It was also made for several times the budget of Dirty Love, which makes me think that it probably deserved the award. A low-budget indie comedy misfiring is standard; a big-budget effects-heavy comedy that's just as bad deserves more scorn.


OVERALL:

Dirty Love is a dreadful movie. It's cheap-looking, often disgusting, and relentlessly unfunny. On the plus side, if you're curious, as of this writing it is free to stream on Tubi (thank you, Tubi, for sparing me from spending any actual money on this offal). But even seeing it free, I can't help but come away wanting a refund.


Rating: Flushable Wipe - Used.

Worst Picture - 2004: Catwoman
Worst Picture - 2006: Basic Instinct 2

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2001: Freddy Got Fingered.

Gord (Tom Green) disrupts a fancy restaurant with his antics.

Release Date: Apr. 20, 2001. Running Time: 87 minutes. Screenplay: Tom Green, Derek Harvie. Producer: Larry Brezner, Howard Lapides, Lauren Lloyd. Director: Tom Green.


THE PLOT:

Gordon Brody (Tom Green) wants to be a cartoonist. He takes a job in Los Angeles making prepackaged cheese sandwiches, all so that he can be in the right location to pitch his concepts for an animated television series.

He manages to bluff his way into meeting animation studio CEO Dave Davidson (Anthony Michael Hall). Davidson sees right through him... but he also seems legitimately impressed at Gord's sheer gumption, enough to look at his drawings and determine that he has talent. The exec gives him two pieces of advice: To "get inside the animals" to come up with a concept that's actually funny; and to quit the sandwich job to focus on his drawings full time.

So Gord returns home to Portland, Oregon - much to the disgust of his father (Rip Torn). Gord meets and somehow strikes up a relationship with Betty (Marisa Coughlan), a gorgeous wheelchair-bound nurse with dreams of her own. Meanwhile, tensions between Gord and his father continue to build, leading to Gord using his more responsible (and employed) brother, Freddy (Eddie Kaye Thomas), as the centerpiece of a particularly vicious lie!

And I suspect this plot summary makes the story sound a lot more coherent than it actually plays...

Gord's father, Jim (Rip Torn) is appalled by his son. Which would be
relatable, except that Jim is also a pretty terrible human being.

CHARACTERS:

Gord: An immature, jobless loser who achieves his dreams in spite of... well, everything about him. There are clear similarities with Adam Sandler's characters of this period - except that Sandler's alter egos were generally presented as decent people underneath the surface childishness, while Gord is mostly horrible to anyone unfortunate enough to be in his general vicinity. Physical injuries follow in his wake like rats following the Pied Piper; and attempts to show a softer side via his relationship with Betty don't make him more likeable, mainly because he goes right back to being crass and destructive. His lie involving Freddy is so despicable that it would mark the moment I was done with him... except we had already passed me being done with him at least a half hour before that point.

Jim: Given how much I dislike Gord, I should be on the side of his father, Jim (Rip Torn). Jim's not wrong in disdaining Gord's refusal to get any kind of job, and his disgust with Gord's antics is well earned. There's only one problem: Jim is also a terrible person. When he meets Betty, he responds not with amazement that his unemployed, loser son managed to score a beautiful (and gainfully employed) girlfriend. Nope, Jim instead is vile as he mocks her for her disability.

Freddy: Really, I think Gord's whole family is a write-off. Freddy is more responsible than Gord, having his own place and a job at a bank. He's smug about it, too, smirking as he takes in Gord's failures. He's so smug that I doubt any viewer would mind him getting a minor comeuppance, some embarrassment that might cost him the job he's so proud of. Instead, he gets punished in a disproportionate (and utterly implausible) way.

Betty: Marisa Coughlan is an immediately appealing screen presence. Too bad, then, that Betty quickly gets reduced to a running gag centered around an oral sex fixation. Frankly, her journey - from disabled young woman to nurse to inventor - has the makings of a much better and more watchable film plot than Gord and his antics.

Julie: Airplane!'s Julie Hagerty is Gord's mother. Julie indulges her son, seeming to instinctively side with him against Jim at every turn. My head canon is that decades of marriage to the horrible Jim has left her secretly despising him. Hagerty doesn't get much to do; as bad as Tom Green is at writing for his male characters, his script is even worse with the female characters. Still, Hagerty remains gorgeous, and I got a mild chuckle out of her end-of-film circumstances.

Dave Davidson: Anthony Michael Hall gives one of the few good performances as the studio exec. Dave reacts surprisingly well to Gord dressing up (ineptly) as a cop to pitch his cartoon. He actually looks at the drawings and gives good (if almost instantly misinterpreted) advice. It's the opposite of what you'd expect from this type of character, and this well-scripted moment is one of a couple of decent early scenes that may lull some viewers into a false sense of security.

Gord takes the advice to "get inside the animals" a bit too literally.
The bit is stupid and gross, but I have to admit that it made me laugh.

"SAY SOMETHING NICE":

After quitting his sandwich job, Gord drives back to Portland and comes across a dead deer in the road. This prompts one of several infamous scenes, as he recalls Davidson's advice to "get inside the animals" and takes it way too literally, skinning the dead deer before running around in its hide.

Plenty of viewers were offended, and the scene is in poor taste (as is the whole movie). The difference between the rest of the movie and the deer bit, though, is that I actually laughed. Director Tom Green mixes in reactions shots from other animals as they look on in apparent shock and bewilderment. The scene is backed by The New Seekers' I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, which is about the most purely wholesome sounding song not to be performed by Julie Andrews. The combination of elements - Gord's insane behavior, the other animals watching, and the song - combine in a way that actually worked for me.

It's just too bad that I can't say the same for the rest of the movie...

Gord with his beautiful, wheelchair-bound girlfriend, Betty (Marisa Coughlan).

OTHER MUSINGS:

I have never seen The Tom Green Show. Based on what I've read, the humor for Green's television show arose not so much from him doing weird and obnoxious things as from the reactions of the people around him. Kind of like Borat, only minus the Middle Eastern cosplay.

Freddy Got Fingered does not follow that template at all. There are no non-actors, and there are no unscripted, undirected reactions. Come to think of it, there aren't that many reactions at all. Even when Gord is in public places, such as on a date with Betty in a fancy restaurant roughly halfway in, the focus of the scene is never on the surrounding people but on Gord himself.

Like a fair few of the films in this review series, Freddy Got Fingered has attracted a small but persistent following - but I'm going to side with the majority of contemporary critics who found this to be an inept endurance test.

There's a fair bit of physical comedy, but it's mostly not well staged. There's a running joke, involving escalating injuries to a small child, that should appeal to the more warped side of my sense of humor. If this was a Mel Brooks film, or a Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker, the horrors visited on this innocent tyke would probably have had me in stitches. But Green just doesn't do anything creative with the gag.

The kid appears in the background of a scene, at which point it's just a waiting game to him getting injured. I can picture Brooks, after establishing the joke, have the kid avoid a few calamities in one scene, only to fall victim to something just as the audience had decided that he was safe. ZAZ would probably have some elaborate staging of the tyke's misfortunes. With Green, the scenes play out and the injuries just happen, with no twists, no build, and no clever staging. Both the first and final times, the boy literally runs into calamity, with Gord not even doing anything to cause it. Something that might have been darkly amusing therefore ends up being mostly boring - and given the final shot, "boring" should have been impossible.

That's pretty much the whole movie. It's less a story than a collection of loosely connected skits that ping-pong between gross-out moments and dull would-be gags. Just like the scenes with the ill-fated child, the conflict between Gord and his father doesn't build. There's no sense of a battle of wills that's building to an explosion. Instead, it's just scene after scene of them being horrible to each other, until suddenly Gord tells his lie. Then Gord gets a final act of revenge that might have been amusing if Gord hadn't already become the more terrible of these two people, with a tacked-on reconciliation that doesn't convince even within the context of this thin script.

Freddy Got Fingered ends up being dull, irritating, and almost entirely unfunny. At least Battlefield Earth made me laugh, albeit without intending to.

Gord's cartoon triumph: Zebras in America.

THE OTHER NOMINEES:

I've seen all but one of the 2001 Razzie nominees... which is unfortunate, as these movies are a pretty bad lot:

Driven was Sylvester Stallone's attempt to do for car racing what Rocky had done for boxing. The result plays like a bad ripoff of Tom Cruise's already less-than-stellar Days of Thunder. Even by the standards of Stallone's late '90s/early 2000s career, this was a low point. Parts of it are so inept as to be funny, however, which is enough for me to rate it above Freddy Got Fingered.

Glitter was Mariah Carey's attempt to translate her music stardom into movie stardom. This is the only one of 2001's nominees that I didn't see, but reviews were scathing and Carey ended up winning the Razzie for Worst Actress. Not only did the movie bomb - even the soundtrack underperformed compared to her other albums.

Pearl Harbor saw action director Michael Bay attempt to make a serious film, setting a love story against the backdrop of the attack on Pearl Harbor. You know, like From Here to Eternity, only with an entirely surface-level script. The characters are shallow, and the actors lack chemistry. Even the attack scenes, which are well-shot, don't feel as convincing as those in 1970's Tora! Tora! Tora! Oh, and it's three hours long. From Here to Eternity did a lot more with an hour's less running time.

3000 Miles to Graceland actually sounds fun on paper: A group of thieves dress up as Elvis impersonators to rob a casino. The two leads are decent, with Kevin Costner having fun as a psychopath and Kurt Russell managing to be just likable enough as the antihero. But the story is tedious and predictable; and despite a $47 million budget (quite reasonable, by 2001 standards), it looks cheap. It's not as hilariously inept as Driven, and it's shorter than Pearl Harbor, but it's still bad.

So... A pretty poor bunch of movies, any of which might have clinched the award in a better year. But I'm going to have to agree with the Razzies' assessment this time: Out of the four I've seen, Freddy Got Fingered is the worst of them.

Gord and his father, after the most elaborate of Gord's pranks.

OVERALL:

"Offensive" isn't necessarily a problem for comedy. "Unfunny," however, is, and Freddy Got Fingered is almost impressively unfunny. There are a couple of decent moments early on, and I genuinely laughed at the deer scene. All of that's in the first 15 minutes, though, after which almost nothing even raised a chuckle from me.

The characters are unlikable. The protagonist is inconsistent, veering between being despicable in one scene, seemingly in need of psychological help in the next, and then becoming bizarrely prudish with his girlfriend. Gags that, on paper, sound potentially amusing are so poorly staged that they don't so much land as flop.

At least it's short. Even at 87 minutes, though, this movie is a chore to sit through. I'd rank it down there with Ghosts Can't Do It as being among the very worst Razzie winners.


Rating: Flushable Wipe (Used). Though I shudder to think about what Gord might do with said wipe.

Worst Picture - 2000: Battlefield Earth
Worst Picture - 2002: Swept Away

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