"The Masturbation Chronicles". That's another title they could have considered for this lousy movie. Listening to Portnoy reminisce about his dull adolescent right-hand shenanigans reminded me of those "arty" Euro-trash films that deal with sex and sexual perversions and nothing more. There must be at least 10,000 French and Italian dramas that commence with the main protagonist's history of masturbation or leering at nude women through key-holes as a boy. Somehow pretentious European directors think that childhood masturbation and sexual fantasies give us vital clues and hints regarding the essence of the main character. (And it would - in a porno.) Or, and I think this is more likely, they just like to titillate both the audiences and themselves with some good-ol-fashioned smut disguised as "artistic expression". After all, what's more intellectually stimulating and philosophical than sperm flying out of the penis?
Phil Roth's trashy novel, which I haven't read and do not intend to, is just one in a long series of books belonging to post-war trash literature, written by bad writers looking for a quick buck; sex-orientated junk in the Erika Jong sense, it's all about hard-ons and tits, but with small doses of laughable fortune-cookie wisdom thrown in just for good measure to give the less intelligent book critics an excuse to over-praise them. I've always said that if you want to be that explicit then go all the way and make a decent porn film. Worse yet, Lehman and Roth tried to make this a comedy drama, which is one of the toughest genres to pull off. Far too challenging a task for two talentless dolts. The drama is dull and pointless, the humour sophomoronic. The worst bits are when we get protracted "glimpses" into Portnoy's family life as a teen. In these parts the movie almost looks like a bad sitcom, with cheap gags coming left and right: 60s-style TV humour, totally lame and predictable, based on some supposedly funny Jewish stereotypes, to which we're meant to fall off our chairs in uncontrollable laughter.
Speaking of those dull family scenes, how is it possible that Portnoy's parents do not suspect foul play when he fakes chronic diarrhea? Don't they wonder why that little toilet doesn't smell like a sewer every time Portnoy exits it? Don't his parents know that diarrhea leaves a stench behind it? Or did he grow up in a family that produced odorless excrement? One of the basic prerequisites for comedy to work is that it has to be based in reality to some extent. Or is the point here that his parents are so DUMB they can't even figure out the simplest 2+2 situation? Yeah, that's just hilarious.
Portnoy is an uninteresting and unlikable man, so why tell his story? He is continually horny, a mere sex-addict, somewhat perverse, and with a knack for picking out insane women. He can't get enough of the ol' in-out... and this is supposed to be what... deep? Fascinating? Funny? Yeah, a guy likes sex a lot: talk about a unique premise... Besides, Richard Benjamin is badly miscast. Listening to him use the "F" word, over and over, is like listening to 50 Cent recite Shakespeare. Watching Benjamin in a menage-a-trois is like Jon Bon Jovi conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
As for Karen Black, I guess she's solid, those weird eyes being easily suitable for playing nut-cases, but I do have a problem with her huge manly hands. Perhaps that's why she joined the Scientology sect; maybe one of their claims to fame is a cure for butch hands and fingers longer than some Yellowstone Park trees... She is supposed to be a ravishing beauty, a real catch for semi-geeky Portnoy, but somehow I don't buy it. Maybe they should have given the beautiful Jill Clayburgh that role, instead of miscasting her as that absurd Marxist Israeli woman.
One question to the makers of PC: why would you synchronize Jill - and with a 50 year-old woman's cancerous-sounding voice?? Do Marxist Jewish women all have voices too deep for Jill to sound convincing as one?
And yes, I suspect that the long-winded diatribe about the U.S. and Capitalism, that Jill (with the help of an old woman's voice) gives in the hotel room, reflects Roth's own retarded political views. No wonder they nominated him for the Nobel prize, the Pulitzer prize, and whatever other left-wing accolades there are.
Not even that enjoyable 70s feel can save the film...
Phil Roth's trashy novel, which I haven't read and do not intend to, is just one in a long series of books belonging to post-war trash literature, written by bad writers looking for a quick buck; sex-orientated junk in the Erika Jong sense, it's all about hard-ons and tits, but with small doses of laughable fortune-cookie wisdom thrown in just for good measure to give the less intelligent book critics an excuse to over-praise them. I've always said that if you want to be that explicit then go all the way and make a decent porn film. Worse yet, Lehman and Roth tried to make this a comedy drama, which is one of the toughest genres to pull off. Far too challenging a task for two talentless dolts. The drama is dull and pointless, the humour sophomoronic. The worst bits are when we get protracted "glimpses" into Portnoy's family life as a teen. In these parts the movie almost looks like a bad sitcom, with cheap gags coming left and right: 60s-style TV humour, totally lame and predictable, based on some supposedly funny Jewish stereotypes, to which we're meant to fall off our chairs in uncontrollable laughter.
Speaking of those dull family scenes, how is it possible that Portnoy's parents do not suspect foul play when he fakes chronic diarrhea? Don't they wonder why that little toilet doesn't smell like a sewer every time Portnoy exits it? Don't his parents know that diarrhea leaves a stench behind it? Or did he grow up in a family that produced odorless excrement? One of the basic prerequisites for comedy to work is that it has to be based in reality to some extent. Or is the point here that his parents are so DUMB they can't even figure out the simplest 2+2 situation? Yeah, that's just hilarious.
Portnoy is an uninteresting and unlikable man, so why tell his story? He is continually horny, a mere sex-addict, somewhat perverse, and with a knack for picking out insane women. He can't get enough of the ol' in-out... and this is supposed to be what... deep? Fascinating? Funny? Yeah, a guy likes sex a lot: talk about a unique premise... Besides, Richard Benjamin is badly miscast. Listening to him use the "F" word, over and over, is like listening to 50 Cent recite Shakespeare. Watching Benjamin in a menage-a-trois is like Jon Bon Jovi conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
As for Karen Black, I guess she's solid, those weird eyes being easily suitable for playing nut-cases, but I do have a problem with her huge manly hands. Perhaps that's why she joined the Scientology sect; maybe one of their claims to fame is a cure for butch hands and fingers longer than some Yellowstone Park trees... She is supposed to be a ravishing beauty, a real catch for semi-geeky Portnoy, but somehow I don't buy it. Maybe they should have given the beautiful Jill Clayburgh that role, instead of miscasting her as that absurd Marxist Israeli woman.
One question to the makers of PC: why would you synchronize Jill - and with a 50 year-old woman's cancerous-sounding voice?? Do Marxist Jewish women all have voices too deep for Jill to sound convincing as one?
And yes, I suspect that the long-winded diatribe about the U.S. and Capitalism, that Jill (with the help of an old woman's voice) gives in the hotel room, reflects Roth's own retarded political views. No wonder they nominated him for the Nobel prize, the Pulitzer prize, and whatever other left-wing accolades there are.
Not even that enjoyable 70s feel can save the film...