Rating: 14/20
Plot: Marty Malt, a garbageman and hopeful comedian, has exactly one fan--fellow garbageman and accordion-enthusiast named Gus. He stinks, but his career starts to go uphill when he grows a third arm out of the center of his back. The pair find themselves an agent and shoots for the stars.
This is a weird little movie, one that's the equivalent of a really great joke that is delivered so poorly that nobody really gets it. I like that it's rated R for "brief scenes of bizarre comic sensuality." I think that's the nice way of saying it's got naked fat people and Bill Paxton's rear end. Director Adam Rifkin wrote both the very good and very funny Mousehunt and the almost-criminal Underdog, the latter which I wrote should have cost people involved with the production their lives. I kind of feel bad about that now. The direction is uneven, but there's a definite charm to the proceedings. The setting is one of urban decay, and the set designers are absolutely committed to this filth, a lot of it shown with circus music in the background. The performers are terrific, almost all of them stepping out of what I'd imagine are their comfort zones. Judd Nelson is unrecognizable, and thinking about this slow turn he'd do after telling a joke in order to show the audience his third arm makes me laugh. Paxton straddles the line between offbeat and overly-crazed, and Wayne Newton almost reaches Slim Whitman-esque territories as a sleazy talent agent, and Rob Lowe, Lara Flynn Boyle, and James Caan are also in this for some reason. I have no idea what Rifkin might be saying about show business or fame or artistic endeavor or anything else. And the movie's plot not only doesn't really ever go anywhere but seems to take forever doing it. However, this surreally comic nearly post-apocalyptic little flick smells like enough of a cult classic that I'm sure a handful of people would really like it.
Best moment in the movie: Apples Yonahan, the man of a thousand faces. There's also a scene with gratuitous little people--five of them in sailor costumes played as a human xylophone. One of them is Tony Cox of Bad Santa fame. (Billy Bob Thornton is also supposed to be in this somewhere, unconfirmed. Of course, there's a Tony Cox and Bill Paxton's rear end connection there, so it seems possible.) And if you know this blog at all, you know I'm probably going to look up the other little people. Tonya Renee Banks isn't in a lot--Death to Smoochy and Bad Santa in which she's credited with stunts. Cindy Sorenson got to work with Adam Sandler in what I'm sure is a hilarious movie. Arturo Gil has been in quite a few things, including a Mary-Kate and Ashley Christmas special that has me imagining the hottest menage-a-trois I've ever imagined. And there's John Hayden who was only in this movie. That's a pretty disappointing diminutive quintet.
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