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OCH, MAN!: No stranger to awful movies, Gerard Butler turns up as a foul-mouthed leprechaun. Make that 90 minutes: The interlude titled "Super Hero Speed Dating," featuring Jason Sudeikis as Batman and Justin Long as Robin, has its moments. Alas, "shocking" went out years ago - these days, scatological gags are more likely to bore than offend - and without that edge of comic danger, there's nothing here except 95 minutes of utter embarrassment for all involved. Add a dozen directors and nine writers to the mix, and the result is a malodorous stew of filmmakers trying to one-up each other in terms of who can produce the most shocking segment.
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The jaw-dropping line-up includes three current Oscar nominees (Hugh Jackman, Naomi Watts, Seth MacFarlane), two previous winners (Kate Winslet, Halle Berry), several seasoned vets (among them Richard Gere and Uma Thurman), a few red-hot actresses (such as Emma Stone and Chloe Grace Moretz) and approximately two dozen more celebrities with varying degrees of name recognition (including Greg Kinnear, Dennis Quaid, Terrence Howard and. Movie 43, on the other hand, should be nothing but apologetic, as it strands an incredible cast in unwatchable shorts and then expects people to actually pay to witness this train wreck. A riotous spoof of commercials, television shows and Hollywood films with names like That's Armageddon! and Catholic High School Girls in Trouble, KFM was unapologetic as it laid waste to all sorts of societal norms. Along with Mel Brooks' 1981 History of the World: Part I, John Landis' 1977 sketch-comedy film (penned by the guys who would later make Airplane!) earns my vote as the best of the vulgar comedies Hollywood has consistently produced ever since the restrictive Motion Picture Production Code came crashing down in 1968. One of the producers behind Movie 43 publicly stated that he hoped the film would become this generation's Kentucky Fried Movie, a declaration that felt like a swift kick to the raunchy area of my soul. LACKING CONVICTION: The studio behind Movie 43 doesn't even have the balls to show Hugh Jackman's neck testicles in the press photos.
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