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F*CK / Steve Anderson (2005)

November 29th, 2006 by Scott Marks

Steve Anderson’s F*CK (2005)

F*ck (2005)

Directed by: Steve Anderson

Genres: Documentary

Cast: Reinhold Aman, Steven Bochco, Pat Boone, Benjamin C. Bradlee, Drew Carey, George Carlin, Billy Connolly, Nick Dash, Chuck D., Sam Donaldson, Janeane Garofalo, Ice-T, Janet Jackson, Timothy Jay, Ron Jeremy, Alan Keyes, Sandra Tsing Loh, Bill Maher, David Milch, Alanis Morissette, Eddie Murphy, Tera Patrick, Evan Seinfeld, David Skover, Kevin Smith, Hunter S. Thompson, Justin Timberlake

Aspect Ratio: 1.78 : 1

The though of writing this review without once slipping in the title expletive did cross my mind.

F*ck it! F*ck spews the word over 800 times averaging out to 8.88 “f*cks” a minute. When in f*cking Rome…

Neither as idiosyncratic nor assured as The Aristocrats, F*ck is nonetheless a very entreating feature-length documentary dedicated to everybody’s favorite adjective.

Forget about “Fornication Under Consent of the King” or “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.” Any truth behind the word originating as an acronym for these terms is quickly dispelled. In fact, aside from proof that the word first appeared in the late 1700s, there isn’t much more discussion of who coined it and why. According to the film, no one knows.

Almost instantly F*ck shelves any aspirations it had at becoming a historical document. Instead we are treated to social analysis/stand up delivered by a cluster of talking heads that either delight in saying the word or view it as one of the main reasons our society is in such a miserable state of moral decay.

The vast majority of the participants include comedians interviewed for the movie and politicians caught off guard while tape rolled. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Howard Stern are all introduced via archive footage. Drew Carey, Billy Connolly and Bill Maher take turns extolling the cathartic virtues of the word. And just wait till those wacky republican Dicks Nixon and Cheney crack under pressure and let loose with a filthy exclamation or two.

Even before this movie I never once thought about anti-gay poster child Allan Keyes without wanting to scream “f*ck.” No one is as skilled as camera whore Keyes when it comes to working the term “hedonistic” into a conversation. Borat’s former chocolate-faced target makes his second big screen appearance this month. By all means, Senator, do quit your day job.

Perhaps the most amusing participant is squeaky clean Jesus freak Pat Boone. Whenever agitated, Pat substitutes his last name for the lewd expletive. Were he to get one of his white bucks lodged in a revolving door, instead of letting out a long, loud curse, the former Little Richard cover artist would emit a resounding “BOONE!” Gangsta rapper turned small screen cop Ice-T is quick to add that he can’t wait to get home, hop on his wife and give her a good “Booneing.”

There are times when the film doesn’t know what the f*ck it wants to be. Cute cutaways by animator Bill Plympton do little more than run through the projector. Credibility wanes when the focus shifts to porn stars. Just because you f*ck for a living doesn’t qualify you a linguist.

Only a f*cker doesn’t love the word “f*ck” especially when it rolls of the tongue of a DeNiro or Nicholson. In closing, here are my Top Ten favorite cinematic variations on a f*cking theme:

10. “All right, Bud, your f*cking head is coming right off.” - The first “f*ck” ever spoken in a studio production, Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H.

9. “I’ll put your head in the f*cking toilet and f*cking hold it there.” - Bobby D. to Charles Grodin in Midnight Run.

8. “You f*cking piece of lousy s*it!” Danny “Crackers” Mills in John Waters’ Pink Flamingos.

7. “I am the motherf*cking shore patrol, motherf*cker!” Jack Nicholson in The Last Detail.

6. “I f*ck you right where you breathe.” - Bobby D. to one of his creditors in Scorsese’s Mean Streets.

5. “F****ck me!” - Clint Eastwood venting to himself in The Gauntlet.

4. “You pig f*cker. You goddamned f*cking pig-f*cking liar” - Marlon Brando venting over his dead wife’s corpse in Last Tango in Paris.

3. “That’s a sick question, you’re a sick f*ck and I’m not that sick that I’m gonna’ f*ckin’ answer it.” Joe Pesci in Scorsese’s Raging Bull.

2. “Is the f*cking you get worth the f*cking you get.” – From Russ Meyer’s Super-Vixens.

1. Jake: “You mean you want me to get him to f*ck you?”

Salvi: ”No, I don’t want him to f*ck me.”

Jake: I can do that easy. I’ll put ya’s both in the f*cking ring, I’ll gives ya’ both a f*cking beating and you can both go f*ck each other.” - Robert DeNiro and Frank Vincent in Raging Bull.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

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LA MOUSTACHE / Emmanuel Carrère (2005)

November 9th, 2006 by Scott Marks

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Moustache, La (2005)

Directed by: Emmanuel Carrère

Written by: Jérôme Beaujour, Emmanuel Carrère

Cast: Vincent Lindon,Emmanuelle Devos,Mathieu Amalric,Hippolyte Girardot,Cylia Malki,Macha Polikarpova,Fantine Camus,Frédéric Imberty,Brigitte Bémol,Denis Menochet,Franck Richard,Elizabeth Marre,Teresa Li,Au Hin Wai,Kwok Chan Chung

Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1

Running Time: 86 min.

Genres: Drama, Mystery

If the hair that you ripped from your head after seeing Cache has finally grown back, here is a new existential French suspense thriller that’s bound to leave you with an alopecia bouffant.

From its opening sights and sounds, a film should instantly set a tone and point of view to be followed and built upon over the course of however many minutes. Underneath La Moustache’s credits a distant light dances across waves at night. It will take a few reels before this watery image reappears. It comes back just about the same time you’ll begin to wonder whether or not these characters are insane, cause they’re certainly not in Siennes anymore.

Marc (Vincent Lindon), an upper-middle class architect, sits in a scalding bath wondering aloud, “What if I shaved my moustache off?” Agnes approves of Marc’s bristles; she assures her husband that “I don’t know you without it.” It’s a safe bet that a more loaded line of dialogue will not be delivered all year.

Not until a contemplative gaze in a mirror followed by total submersion in the tub does the purposely withheld opening title appear. We watch as Marc meticulously takes scissors, soap and razor to his upper lip. It’s a good thing that he remembers where he filed his old shaves. They will come in handy later on when Marc ransacks a trash bin in search of the discarded whiskers and his sanity.

Initially, Marc turns things into a game by doing his best to mask the recent deletion with sweatshirts and bath towels. Despite the fact that Agnes fully expects Marc to notice her “tarty” attire, she fails to acknowledge his new look. Even worse, when finally confronted she swears up and down that her husband never wore a moustache.

Close friends side with Agnes. A passport picture and dozens of vacation photos, which Agnes handles but never examines, are proof that a moustache once existed. Even a puzzled cop at a photo booth is quick to validate Marc’s claim. Is our hero going mad? Can one small action, no matter how thoroughly calculated, throw one man’s universe completely out of whack? Was Gaslight on Agnes’ Netfilx list?


This is novelist and screenwriter Emmanuel Carrere’s second directorial effort. (I must have been sick the week his first feature Return to Kotelnitch opened and it is not available on DVD.) Some were quick to complain that a film that clocks in at a little under the 90 minute mark shouldn’t drag.

In one hotly contested scene Marc repeatedly travels back and forth from one Hong Kong harbor to another. Those plot-junkies impatiently waiting for “something to happen” didn’t pick up on the filmmaker’s interpretation of a character desperate to find some continuum in his life.

After a second viewing several of the pieces still don’t add up, but that’s okay. La Moustache is all about character, paranoia, love and betrayal, madness, conspiracy theories, and just about everything but story. On those levels it’s a smashing suspense thriller. Just don’t try to make too much sense of it.

For a hair-raising good time, try your best to see this one on a double-bill with Fur.

Rating: ★★★★☆

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BOBBY / Emilio Estevez (2006)

November 6th, 2006 by Scott Marks

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Bobby (2006)
Written & Directed by: Emilio Estevez
Starring: Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Emilio Estevez, Laurence Fishburne, Brian Geraghty, Heather Graham, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, David Krumholtz, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy
Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1
Running Time: 120 min.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Over the past month multiplexes unleashed a reenactment of the death of the future Queen of England, the pseudo-documentary murder of George W. Bush and now triple threat Emilio Estevez “re-imagines” the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. While the war rages on, dead politicians seem to be quite the rage in Movieland.

According to the poster for Bobby, “He saw wrong and tried to right it. He saw suffering and tried to heal it. He saw war and tried to stop it.” Too bad Robert F. Kennedy didn’t live to read this script and insist on repealing it.

As a writer, Emilio Estevez has crafted a lumbering version of a not-so-Grand Hotel, that MGM warhorse that assembled a parade of dazzling star power under one enticing roof. Estevez goes so far as quoting the film’s most famous line, “The people come, the people go” Set it afloat and you’d have a special two-hour dramatic movie-of-the-week spin-off of The Love Boat. Sink it, and it’s called The Poseidon Adventure. Continue reading BOBBY / Emilio Estevez (2006)

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BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHKSTAN / Larry Charles (2006)

November 6th, 2006 by Scott Marks

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Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
Directed by: Larry Charles

Written by: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines

Genres: Comedy

Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Ken Davitian, Luenell, Ilham Äliyev, Bob Barr, Alan Keyes

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Rating: ★★★★★

Any film that has both the Iranian government and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) calling for its boycott must be devoutly cherished.

On September 28 the ADL issued a statement voicing concern over “one serious pitfall… the audience may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry.”

All this ado simply because the filmmakers chose to document the ceremonial “Running of the Jew” through the streets of Kazakhstan. Then there are the elderly Jewish proprietors of a Bed and Breakfast blessed (as all Jews are) with the ability to shape-shift. When the couple transforms into a pair of cockroaches, Borat wisely wards them off by showering them with money. And who can blame our otherwise plucky hero for insisting on traveling by car. Is he the only one terrified that the Jews will “repeat their attack on 9/11?”

Spike Lee can only dream of pulling off satire as subtle and effective as this.

Continue reading BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHKSTAN / Larry Charles (2006)

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