Rating: 6/20 (Josh: 2/20; Fred: -1/20; Jeremy: did not rate; Jennifer: 2/20; Libby: only watched a little after returning home from a sex toy party)
Plot: A somewhat-fictionalized look at how the Indian, the cowboy, the construction worker, the cop, and the biker guy formed the Village People.
At a bit over two hours, this is the longest Bad Movie Club film we've watched, and afterward, I felt bludgeoned by the thing. A week later, however, I still can't get this thing out of my head. "Can't Stop the Music" and a song about milkshakes have worked themselves into my soul like infections. I find myself stopping strangers in grocery stores so that I can tell them that "Leather men don't get nervous!" I've scoured Ebay and the rest of the Internet for Bruce Jenner Wheaties boxes to start a collection. And, perhaps most importantly, I am now a homosexual.
There's a lot wrong with this movie, but here's what it all boils down to--the makers try to pull off this balancing act where they simultaneously appeal to the huge throbbing homosexual following the Village People have while at the same time staying appropriate for families and other squares. And that probably explains why this is the rare movie that has a PG rating but somehow manages to slip in a dick shot during the what-I-assume-is-infamous "YMCA" montage. My guess is that the ratings people watched an hour of this, decided they couldn't take it anymore, and gave it a PG rating before the dick showed up. Of course, any movie that starts with the amount of a white-pantsed Steve Guttenberg rollerskating through the streets of New York that this does probably deserves an R rating anyway. Steve Guttenberg throws 120% of his being into this role, almost threatening to burst and spew little pieces of Steve Guttenberg all over the set and the Village People and Bruce Jenner. He twitches and thrusts and somehow manages to draw attention to himself in a movie where a gay biker guy--a leather man if you will, and I think you probably will--jumps on a piano and sings "Danny Boy" or a scantily-clad Native American named Felipe repeatedly gives this war-whooping howl that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck or a scene with Jenner in a half-shirt and cut-off jean shorts that might be the sexiest thing I've every seen in my entire life. Watching Jenner, it's obvious why his acting career failed to take off after this. The lovely Valerie Perrine plays Sa-sa-sa-sa-sa-samantha and provides a little eye candy for the one or two straight viewers to this thing. Honestly, the musical interludes are little (and by little, I mean lengthy) pre-MTV music videos that work very well even though they've got the stench of the late-70s all over them. They help stretch what they're calling a story into something that seems to take an eternity. Still, this is a bad movie that is a lot of fun, and I'd recommend it to any of my bi-curious readers.
No comments:
Post a Comment