Today's Feature: Naughty & Nice
A cynical radio talk show host is banished to Colorado, where he has an on-air spat with his new co-host, a hopeless romantic.
So this guy's named Pepper, right? He's a fuckhead with a busted brain who likes to piss all over people. He uses his job as a popular radio shock jock to ruin people's lives with his hateful antics, and he thinks it's all a gas, man. He just can't get enough of kicking these working-class folks right in the family jewels from 8-11 every weekday morning in sunny Los Angeles, and there's a harem of girls at his palatial estate every day waiting to polish this guy's knob, I guess, so he's living the dream. I'm not sure if these girls are staying at his palatial estate willingly, or if Pepper's earning a little money on the side in human trafficking, but my gut tells me it's the latter.
One fateful December morning, Pepper pushes shit too far on the air and gets his ass transferred to a sister station in an unseasonably warm Colorado town called Buttstuff or something weird, and he hates it. The station's called K-JZZ, "The Jizz", and it broadcasts from the back of a shitty little gift shop that sells cowboy hats and black licorice and nothing else. His co-host is Hilary Duff, who hosts a call-in show for all the lovelorn bumpkins in this one-horse town, and- oh, I'm terribly sorry, that should read Haylie Duff, Not Hilary. Haylie Duff. Hilary's older, less talented sister. Haylie Duff. I think she's playing herself in Naughty & Nice, because everybody just calls her Haylie, or sometimes just "Not Hilary", which I think is rude, but I didn't write the movie.
Pepper just wants to break shit and fuck Haylie Duff until his corporate masters realize they made a huge mistake and ask him to come back to L.A. to save their sinking ship of a radio station, but Haylie Duff and her producer, some bug-eyed clown named JoJo who dreams about having Pepper's douchebag babies, are trying to be professionals or whatever. Then there's an avalanche and a bunch of kids get trapped in a school bus, and Pepper saves them all from an untimely end with a big shovel and some impressive snowmobiling skills, and he's suddenly Buttstuff's big hero.
Haylie Duff introduces him to her mother, who was Marcia Brady until she entered witness protection and changed her name to Barcia Mrady, marrying some old dude with a lot of money in Denver who knocked her up and later died tragically when she accidentally left him in their car with the windows rolled up during a sweltering August day while she went shopping for coffins. Barcia tells Haylie that Pepper is exactly like her old, dead daddy, and Haylie laughs this off until she takes a second look at the man and realizes that he does bear a striking resemblance to her old man, and for some reason this turns her on like nobody's business, and they start dating. I'm talking hardcore, full-on holding hands in the park in broad daylight dating. Oh yeah.
JoJo deliberately bungles Pappy's reservations at the town's only hotel because he wants to force his hero to live in his garage like a stray dog or something, which is really weird. And what's weirder is that Pappy agrees to this ridiculous living situation without much convincing. They never bone, however, because Pappy already sprayed his musk all over Haylie, marking her as his chosen mate, which breaks JoJo's fat heart, but at least he gets to smell Pappy's hair while he watches over the sleeping shock jock in the dead of night, and he really cherishes those quiet moments with his unconscious guest in that drafty old garage, and that's something special.
Then Pappy gets called back to the majors and goes back to L.A., then he gets sad and comes back because he's in love and a better man and I didn't really watch most of this movie because it was so fucking boring and derivative that I couldn't connect with it on any level. I don't want you to get the wrong impression, because I did sit in front of a television set for two hours and let the entire movie happen before my eyes, but my brain didn't bother to actually process the vast majority of the information that it was taking in during this time, slipping into a sort of "sleep mode" until Naughty & Nice was over.
It's the same shit I've already seen far too many times, and I just have no patience for it anymore. If you can't be bothered to try and engage your audience with your story, then you're just wasting everybody's time, and I'm sick and tired of wasting my time with these movies. Looks Like Christmas didn't exactly shock the world with its original narrative, but it was presented in such a charming manner, with two mature romantic leads and a modicum of style that none of the clichés bothered me at all. That's the difference between talent and ambition and ineptitude and complacency, which is Naughty & Nice's mission statement.
However, there is one moment in this wretched movie that I must single out, because it served as a reminder that even in the most fetid accumulation of dross, one can still find something of value. During one of Pappy & Haylie's shows, a 93 year-old man named Harold calls in, asking for a little sex advice since he feels uncharacteristically randy, wondering if he should dare to mount his aged wife so soon after heart surgery. Haylie advises caution, but Pappy tells him to go for it because he's a very old man and who even cares. Smash cut to Pappy & Haylie attending the old man's memorial service at the local retirement home. It seems old Harold expired mid-coitus, shuffling off this mortal coil like a bona fide stud. Everybody seems in good spirits, even Harold's widow, who is now confined to a wheelchair after their explosive and fatal lovemaking dislocated her hip. So the memorial turns into a swingin' dance party.
It's a funny and unexpected scene, a small island of hope surrounded by a sea of despair. There's also a moment near the end of the film when Pappy clearly says he doesn't give a shit about the radio show he hosts with Haylie Duff, but the word "shit" is obviously muted. This strikes me as bizarre, because Naughty & Nice is a made-for-television movie complete with awkward fade-outs before every commercial break, actually co-produced by UP TV, so why was this line ever included in the movie to begin with? Why does this guy say "shit" in a made-for-television family-oriented movie?
Look, Naughty & Nice sucks. There's no getting past that. It's just a pile of stinking garbage. But it was directed by some dude named Sam Irvin, the guy who also directed two of my most-hated films from last year's Schlock-Mas feature, Christmas Land and I'm Not Ready For Christmas, which isn't shocking at all. What is shocking is the rest of this guy's filmography. The guy started out working for Brian De Palma as a production assistant for The Fury and Dressed To Kill. He co-produced 1998's brilliant Gods And Monsters, the Oscar-nominated film depicting a fictionalized version of legendary director James Whale's final days.
Sam Irvin directed Out There, a 1995 Showtime original sci-fi comedy about a photographer who finds an undeveloped reel of film that features images of real-live extraterrestrials. I remember being very excited to watch Out There when it premiered twenty-one years ago, and it didn't disappoint me in the least. The movie is so weirdly funny, aiming more toward the awkward and uncomfortable comedy that guys like Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim would perfect a few decades later with their Adult Swim offerings, and it has a truly amazing cast of comedic actors that mostly appear in bizarre and silly cameos. Unfortunately, Out There was never officially released on home video in any format, and it hasn't aired on television since the 20th Century, and as such it's almost impossible to view, which is a tragedy.
Checking out the man's filmography, I'm actually impressed. Sam Irvin has had his hand in a lot of stuff that I've greatly enjoyed. That doesn't make Naughty & Nice any easier to swallow, however. Or I'm Not Ready For Christmas. Or Christmas Land. I'm suddenly rather depressed, now. I think I need to have a lie down.
VERDICT: MY ACHING HEAD
No comments:
Post a Comment