hepcat70

By nearly all standards of moviemaking, the movie's a mess - there's little story to speak of, the pacing is curious, and more than one scene will just make you go "huh?"

But if you throw enough stuff at the wall, some will stick, and there are some truly hilarious gags and scenes, and the second half picks up a fair bit of steam.

I think the movie's gonna do well - It's essentially 85 minutes of scenes that straddle the line between funny and cruel involving characters who are all quirky or nigh on retarded in a Todd Solondz/Vice Magazine/American Movie kinda way. Throw in a few choice retro 80's tunes and it's as contrived and by-the-numbers for its chosen audience as a big budget romantic comedy.

This movie is the nadir, horrifically bad. There's nothing to like about the 4 leads - the geeky guy is tolerable, the main "cool" guy gives you nothing to hang your hat on to root for, one guy is a total rip of Matthew McM's character in Dazed and Confused, and the gross-out guy is utterly lacking in comedic timing and is as far from funny as one gets. The casting director should never work again.

Oh yeah, the pace is brutal, the dialogue stupefying, and the movie misses some golden opportunities (e.g. the boys need a sponsor but they come and go from a Clown College - could've been this generation's version of Chico's Bail Bonds)

I'm all for toilet humour, but this movie has about 12 references to fecal matter or flatulence. But in the end, it's fitting, coz this movie is SH*T.

Heather Graham, in one of her better performances, and Dennis Farina as comedic relief, provide much of this film's minor merits.

Otherwise, it's a pretty cynical exercise, and the device of having the characters talk to an unseen interviewer is made doubly annoying by the fact that the characters' observations are banal and uninteresting (the device was used to great effect in a French movie A Pornographic Affair).

I found all the male characters to be thoroughly unsympathetic, ranging from pathetic (the doorman), totally lacking in introspection (Burns), and venal (Tucci). While I'm sure Burns would say the point was to show how screwed-up men can be, I don't think it does anybody any favours to repeatedly depict men stalking and showing up unannounced to exes and flames' apartments/houses. Reinforces that this is somewhat understandable and normal behaviour.

And, aside from the one couple (perhaps), these characters' dwellings are preposterous given their station in life, unless we're to believe they all have large trust funds.