Movie 43 (2013) Reviews

• I don't really take life too seriously, so....

  sdonancricchia2017-06-08

  I don't know, maybe I just have a strange sense of humor, but I thought this movie was funny. I always find it funny when serious actors do slapstick roles. I watched it several times and I still find it funny. I say if you like movies like Airplane or Blazing Saddles, just a hell of a lot nastier and rude, then this is the movie for you.

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• Find the humor in public defecation, a fifteen year old's menstrual cycle, Halle Berry degrading herself, and incestuous relationships before seeing this film

  StevePulaski2013-01-26

  Movie 43 is a collection of twelve short films starring twenty-five big name celebrities and not containing even a fraction of the laughs in its ninety-seven minute runtime. Connected in a disjointed manner and baiting the audience by a filled cast, this is one of the most unpleasant times at the movies one could have. Not since Garry Marshall's Valentine's Day have we seen so many shining actors succumb to such joylessly impotent material. Only this time, the material is not only impotent, but crass and well over the line of reprehensibility to the point where one shakes their head and assures their inner-self to walk out of the theater, walk to the nearest video store and rent as many foreign films as they can carry. Before I go into any of the shorts, let's have a small and formal discussion about offensiveness. At no point was I ever personally offended by anything Movie 43 had to offer, mainly because its attitude to offend in every way possible was distracting and artificial. When looking at the past films I've seen that were deemed "offensive" by some, say, Team America: World Police, there was not only fun in its premise, but satire in its writing. The outlying story concerns Dennis Quaid, a desperate man who is pitching a film idea to Greg Kinnear, a filmmaker looking to strike a deal. Quaid will be the one introducing all the setups to Kinnear, and we'll return to the two men after every short to watch Kinnear's contrived reaction and Quaid's facile justification. Let's begin. In the first short, how funny is it to see Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman go on a date, with everyone being oblivious to the large scrotum attached to his neck except for Winslet? How funny is it when Jackman accidentally gets pubic hair in his soup, and puts his neck-scrotum on a baby's forehead? The next short shows Shameless's Jeremy Allen White as a homeschooled teenager being tormented and manipulated by his parents who are trying to recreate the dangers and turmoils of high school. When the poor kid's mother tries to instigate incestuous sex with her son I wanted to leave the theater and never turn back. But such a thing didn't happen. We then watch Chris Pratt and Anna Faris, who are both married in real life, as a young couple on a romantic date when Faris pops the question; "will you poop on me?" she asks her boyfriend. I refuse to comment on where this goes. We are then given the awkward short of a supermarket employee (Kieran Culkin) confessing all the dirty and depraved details of his relationship to his ex-girlfriend (Emma Stone) while accidentally leaving the PA system on, as a crowd of anxious shoppers forms to watch this travesty unfold. Next comes Richard Gere as the boss of a corporation called "iBabe," which is a music player that is a lifelike naked woman, drumming up heaps of controversy. Then a speed dating event involving Batman and Robin (Jason Sudeikis and Justin Long) and Kristen Bell's "Supergirl," who is ostracized for having an unusually large vagina. But probably the most heartless, offensive short of them all involves poor little Chloë Grace Moretz, who is hanging out with her boyfriend at his home when she experiences her first period. As she is dripping blood as if she has just been stabbed, her boyfriend's older brother (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) helplessly runs around the house screaming and searching for things to clog her uterus (frozen peas and a sponge, anyone?). What follows is a dopey Leprechaun predicament involving Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville, a basketball game where Coach Terrence Howard tells his team that because they are facing a white team and they are all black they will win the game, and we end on a shallow and empty-headed note as we expected. The only short I neglected to mention is called "Truth or Dare," starring Halle Berry on a blind date where she initiates a game of truth or dare, which goes on to become a disgusting and repetitive affair. Berry crushes guacamole with her breast (a prosthetic, I assure you) and inserts extra-hot hot sauce into herself with a turkey baster. I can't fathom the thought that I'm explaining this as elaborately as I am. Did the seventeen writers and twelve directors (among them, Peter Farrelly, Elizabeth Banks, Brett Ratner, and Bob Odenkirk) have an ounce of self-awareness to the humor that made their past films work? How did they manage to allow their cast of champions to succumb to demeaning, scatological, desperately unfunny filth? Before you claim the actors did the job for the money, I must inform you that Movie 43 is reported in only costing $6 million to make (excluding marketing costs which I'm willing to bet are ten times more), so that argument is almost wholly invalid. Were they genuinely smitten by the idea and the script of it all, or did they just feel that they all played their careers safe and decided to challenge their comfort zones and the harmless audiences' by attempting to push boundaries? I left the multiplex knowing three things today I had not previously grasped; number one, the spoof/skit genre is uniformly dead, and can not even be revived by a large group of directors, writers, and actors, all reliable and capable. Number two, to not get high hopes for a comedy with large names being released in the month of January. Number three, that in no way, shape, form, or instance is a woman's menstrual cycle funny and to victimize a fifteen year old actress is a simple act of cruelty. On a final note, why is Movie 43 called "Movie 43?" Who knows, who cares?

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• Filthy, trashy, vulgar, stupid... I loved it... and was crying myself to tears till it hurt!...

  sinnerofcinema2013-01-29

  all throughout the movie.... as most don't see the puns because they are too worried being shocked and awed by its grotesquely politically incorrect visuals and low brow gags. The jokes, as intended, has its dark filthy, vulgar humor that would facilitate weak stomachs to throw up with anxiety quiet quickly if you did not already choose to dismiss the film. I loved it plain and simple. And no, I don't know the filmmakers nor was I paid to say this.. I may as just well have a filthy mind just like them... kudos to the filmmaker for taking cinema where most won't. a real breath of fresh air unless you are smelling something rotting in the trash, yet trashy as it may be, for those who choose to go against the current, as this film does, leave you brain at the door and just take it all in... If you are looking for an art film, or a "Licoln" or a light sweet romantic comedy or any spiritually stimulating film like that to engage in some sort of intellectual conversation over coffee after seeing this, the reviews here should give you a clue. You may want to dismiss this film altogether... it was obviously not made for you. Otherwise, if you are into gutter humor... you will cry till you gut hurts or until your anxiety of feeling guilty for laughing at such vulgar silliness sets in.

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• It's good. Sorry guys, it's good.

  curry-b-taylor2013-01-29

  You all are full of it. Look, Movie 43 is not a masterpiece of American cinema. But it doesn't even try to be that. Quit fooling yourselves into thinking you're better than the film. It is nothing more than what it is: tasteless, raunchy, gut-wrenching laughable humor. Yes, in fact I did say gut-wrenching laughter. I laughed my ass off through most of the movie. Why? Because it was funny. Yes, it was funny. Don't you all remember the days of Monty Python and Airplane! and There's Something About Mary and Scary Movie? Whatever happened to the light-hearted movies of decades ago, where it was more important to make light of life and just about everything in it rather than pander to some sort of artistic elite? Screw them! I still love Benny Hill! Hollywood has been full of itself for far, far too long. We are tired of every movie under the sun that we see having to be so serious and making some kind of a "social statement" or having some sort of modern-style realism. Enough. We want to laugh. We want to have fun. We want to find ourselves engrossed in the basest of the human experience because, well, that's something we all share in common with one another. The animal experience of human nature is just as important as our intellectual and psychological experience. Don't ever forget that. Every movie doesn't need to be over-analyzed with 50 paragraphs of explanation on how much you hate it. Has America become so sexually repressed that even the mere mention of sex, or seeing a nude body on the big screen, makes everyone automatically challenge the context of the sexuality? Some things are just as they seem -- indulgences which make us proud to be adults and experience adult humor. If you want to laugh at pompous violence and style, go see Tarantino's latest flick. If you want to laugh at something unfunny, try any of the latest Renée Zellweger or Meryl Streep borefest. Perhaps you all give Sasha Cohen a pass because at least his raunchy stories are "coherent"? Who cares? A movie is not bad simply because it does not conform to the Hollywood norm, nor is it bad simply because you don't think it was deep enough. I thought almost everybody in the picture (many talented actors and actresses) did a fine job making us laugh. I was on the floor for half of the movie, and my wife enjoyed it just as much as I did. Have you all forgotten how to just let go and enjoy the moment? Wake up, guys. There are plenty of genuinely bad movies out there. This is not one of them.

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• I would be embarrassed if I were starring in this movie

  imhlong2013-01-30

  I have to be honest- I walked into this movie with pretty low expectations to begin with. It is only on a rare occasion anymore that I actually buy a ticket for a movie with any hope that it might actually provide entertainment, which is a shame. This movie, however, just lowered the bar- by a LOT. Hands down one of the worst movies that I've ever seen- and that's saying something. It is just a gaggle of actors working on an acid-trip of a script. Every bit of comedy is based on shock value, which wears thin on your patience very early on. It's gross, lewd, and utterly lacking of any wit or connection with the audience. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this to anyone- as I nearly went up to the box office and demanded a refund. It isn't even that I'm a prude or hate gross-out humor, I'm 18 for crying out loud- I just have the ability to recognize when someone put actual effort and thought into making a movie funny and when Hollywood is laughing AT US, instead of vice versa. Miss this one. 1/10

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