(out of ****)
_Jane_Austen's_Mafia!_ (PG-13) ** _BASEketball_ (R) no stars _Pecker_ (R) ** 1/2
The freshness date for the joke-a-second comedy style pioneered by the writing-directing team of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker in 1980's _Airplane!_ has just about expired--look no further than Abrahams's latest ZAZ-flavored solo effort, _Jane_Austen's_Mafia!_ (which is being promoted as just plain _Mafia!_ in spite of the onscreen title prefix). While Abrahams had been able to keep the style, which crams ridiculous sight and verbal gags within single scenes and shots, fresh, and funny in his _Hot_Shots!_ films, most of the gags in the film (which he co-wrote with Greg Norberg and Michael McManus) are simply uninspired. A spoof of _The_Godfather_, _The_Godfather_Part_II_, and _Casino_ (including riffs on _The_English_Patient_, _Forrest_Gump_, _Child's_Play_, and even _Showgirls_), _Mafia!_ packs no big laughs, only a handful of smile-inducing jokes. Not helping matters is the lackluster efforts of the cast, led by a bland Jay Mohr as the Al Pacino stand-in and the late Lloyd Bridges, noticeably frail, as the Marlon Brando-esque don.
While Abrahams tries to milk the old ZAZ formula for more riches (and coming up mostly dry), one of his former cohorts, David Zucker, tries to modernize it by incorporating the background-gag style into a '90s lowbrow, gross-out comedy. The result, however, is simply disastrous. _BASEketball_, about two losers (Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the cult hit TV series _South_Park_) who create a baseball/basketball hybrid that becomes the national pastime, is a painfully unfunny would-be satire of the commercialization of professional sports--or, rather, it _initially_ sets out to be a satire, with its sharply written prologue about how money became the center of all things athletic. But once that passage is done, Zucker, Robert LoCash, Lewis Friedman, and Jeff Wright's script degenerates into a tedious series of unamusing and rather forced gross-out gags, such as milk squirting from male nipples and the licking of a vibrator. There was only one funny gag, and that was when a familiar buddy-buddy reconciliation scene culminated not in a warm hug, but in a long, wet, tongue-heavy kiss (now that I've given that joke away, there's no reason for you to see the movie). As actors, Parker and Stone are... well, creators of a cult cartoon show. One has to wonder about Universal's marketing campaign that boasts "starring the creators of _South_Park_." I'm a big fan of _The_Simpsons_, but that doesn't mean I'll watch a film starring creator Matt Groening.
As low as Zucker or the modern masters of lowbrow comedy, _There's_Something_About_Mary_'s Farrelly Brothers, go, no one can tap into the uniquely warped wavelength of writer-director John Waters. His latest, _Pecker_, features more of his singular brand of cinematic dementia. Among the hilariously eccentric pieces of Baltimore white trash featured: a sweets-obsessed young girl named Little Chrissy (Lauren Hulsey), who guzzles Jolt cola and eats sugar straight from the sack; her mother Joyce (Mary Kay Place), a thrift-shop owner who enjoys offering her fashion "expertise" to the homeless; Chrissy's older sister Tina (Martha Plimpton), who works at a gay male strip bar known for "teabagging" (don't ask); and Chrissy's grandmother Memama (Jean Schertler), whose sacred statue of the Virgin Mary not-so-miraculously "speaks" (she makes the voice herself).
Toss in running gags about the pubic hair on lesbian strippers, and what could possibly be wrong? In short, the film doesn't have much of a pecker. The title character (a truly dazed Edward Furlong) is Little Chrissy's perky older brother, who snaps photos of everyone and everything he sees around him. Pecker's photos of his "culturally challenged" family and community come to arouse great interest in the New York art world, building to a rise to fame that causes the inevitable friction with his family; his girlfriend Shelley (Christina Ricci, wonderfully acid as always), who runs her laundromat with an iron fist; and his gleeful shoplifter of a best friend, Matt (Brendan Sexton III). This main thrust of the film, however, is downright flaccid compared to the comic potency of the fascinating and wildly amusing weirdness of all else. There's quite a bit to laugh at in _Pecker_, but the sturdy jokes stand up at the periphery of a very limp center. (_Pecker_ opens September 25)
Michael Dequina
mrbrown@ucla.edu | michael_jordan@geocities.com
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