At Your Stupid Theater!
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Orgazmo
reviewed by Mark Prindle
Written and directed by Trey Parker of "South Park" fame. Starring Trey Parker, Matt Stone, flabby porn legend Ron Jeremy and others too! Whoopee! Oh, where to begin.... Hmm...
I'll start with my conclusion - this film is not clever enough to be consistently funny, but it's dumb enough to be completely entertaining from start to finish. Like South Park! That show is not in the least bit "clever," but for fans like me, it's one darn hoot after another after another after another. You know, that counselor who always says "mmkay?" and that cute little talking waste log and Fat Abbot? Oh, Fat Abbot! And Mr. Twig? Heee! So this is the NC-17 equivalent of that fine brand of highly-celebrated television animation sort of.
The plot of the movie is that this Mormon dude who happens to be proficient in martial arts wanders onto the set of a porn movie at the exact moment that the asshole director is looking for a new actor to portray the superhero "Orgazmo." After politely kicking the asses of several belligerent guards, the Mormon relunctantly agrees to star in the film in exchange for $20,000 so that he can give his Mormon fiancee a nice wedding. Unfortunately, the movie becomes a huge crossover success and... and... oh the laughs!
Starting with the hilarious and tacky opening theme, this darn movie offers dozens of easy belly chuckles (fart jokes, sex sight gags, crude commentary) while not really bothering to go anywhere at all. But it doesn't NEED to go anywhere. If you're going to see this movie, you're going because you love South Park. And if you love South Park, you'll love this movie. Trey uses his South Park "announcer" voice while playing the great Orgazmo, and the scriptwriting is EXACTLY the same as the show, down to the "dude, that's fucked up!" response lines.
So why is it NC-17? Well, on the one hand, the whole movie is about the porn industry and it features dozens of orgasm references, fake sex scenes and hilarious dick props. But on the more logical hand, you might note that there is not a SINGLE bit of female nudity in the entire movie (in an uproarious repeated gag, every time a woman takes off her top, a naked man walks into the shot, filling the screen with his hairy ass), and it's essentially little more than a parody of Boogie Nights, which somehow got an R. As my girlfriend pointed out to me (and hopefully will point out in her review), the only real difference between this one and Boogie Nights is that this one also makes fun of religion. Could this be the reason for the NC-17 rating? Eh? Eh? Eh? Ahh, who cares. Kids shouldn't be seeing this trash anyway.
So yeah, the deal is -- every single joke in the movie is pretty much obvious, but that doesn't make it any less funny. It's even more "no brow" than South Park, but dude - cussing's funny if you have good delivery! And the freakish big-haired mustache guy portrayed by Matt Stone is absolutely hilarious in every scene he appears in. Just a fantastic character. Look for him by name!
I can't give it an 8 because there are some slow parts and I don't think it would be funny a second time (unlike, say, Happy Gilmore, which I could watch 40 times in a row without getting sick of it), but a high 7 easy. It's really hard to pull off a full 90 minutes of offensive nonsense without lapsing into the unfunny grotesqueries of, say, Kingpin (which I turned off after the first 20 minutes), but Trey and his crew did an pretty impressive job of it.
But if you hate South Park, you'll hate Orgazmo too.
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Orgazmo
reviewed by Mark's girlfriend, Brenda Aske
Frankly, I usually like to see more naked breasts in my NC-17 movies. But overall, Orgazmo deserves an 8 for its social awareness and offbeat humor. Trey Parker is an oracle of our time. He is the master of taking subversive, forward-thinking messages and slipping them into vehicles so inane, people mistakenly think they're eye-candy. OK, so Matt Groening really did it first. But he never got to use the word, "fuck" on air, did he?
To me, Orgazmo says America isn't about hicks, religious freaks, and Ken Starr puritanism anymore. It promotes a libertarian agenda of tolerance and sexual openness. The few hits below the belt on organized religion were a pleasure to see in a big-screen picture, too ("Gee, I don't know why they make it so expensive to marry at the church in Salt Lake City.")
Character development was kick-ass. Orgazmo himself balanced delicately on the premise of being a rural-turned-urban type without overplaying his ignorant side. Choda Boy was marvellous with voice, look, and mannerisms
which were endearing and totally convincing. And the supporting cast of characters was also excellent, and included an Idahoan fiancee, a semi-closeted homosexual, a middle-aged Japanese homeboy, a taut and arrogant porn star who uses his farts as a weapon, and a chocolate lab with a dildo on his head.
In spite of the fact that the level of comedy was limited to the locker room -- or perhaps because of it -- Orgazmo was highly entertaining. Just like South Park, social boundaries were pushed using only ridiculous humor. But unlike South Park, the best thing about Orgazmo was that as soon as you reached your quota of on-screen farts, orgasms, and fistfights, it was over.