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Bastevische
Reviews
Balls of Steel (2005)
I'd rather undergo open heart surgery than watch this again.
(and I have a mortal fear of open heart surgery) A handful of comedy wannabes try to make a name for themselves by outdoing each other in sub-Beadle style pranks. One wannabe interviews celebrities and semi-celebrities with a dildo instead of a microphone. Another wannabe pretends to steal things from shops and then runs away from the pursuing security guards while shouting "come on, fatty!" at them. Another wannabe seduces people's boyfriends on a beach. Another one gets into taxis and does something. A couple of people staple themselves to things. There may have been some other wannabes involved, but I'd begun channel flipping by the point they would have appeared. Mark Dolan (poor man's Clive Anderson) - who was slightly funny in "The Richard Taylor Interviews" - will obviously do anything to reappear on television, regardless of its quality. Please don't watch this - you'll only encourage them.
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
Another Williams paean to himself
If you approach this as another Robin Williams exercise in self-aggrandisement, (in the mold of "Patch Adams" and "Bicentennial Man") you won't be disappointed. The laughs in "Good Morning Vietnam" rely upon William's ability to talk so fast that the audience assumes that the bits they miss must be priceless (as an experiment, I listened really hard during a couple of soliloquies, and they definitely weren't funny). Some comedians are sharp enough to improvise and have the audience rolling around on the floor, but Williams really needs a script in order to prevent him falling back on his "camp impression" and other assorted wacky voices. Cue segues to the soldiers actually wiping away the tears of laughter at his routine, in order to convey to us how hilarious he is. Such guidance is a relief, as otherwise I would never have realized. This film falls into the (dominant) "please love me" category of his career, before his agent took him aside to say: "you're perceived as a bit mawkish Robin, you need to roughen up your edges by playing a psychotic film developer". To sum up, if - as I do - you positively enjoy watching a performance so cringeworthy that it will disjoint your toes, this is a must see.