dpc61820

At first, I thought this was wonderful. It seemed very honest and funny and shocking-- someone really letting it all hang out, talking at the warts-and-all of sex and being single. But, MAN, did it become a grind. After a while I kept watching just to get to the end, which I figured would be soon. Seemed like about an 8-episode kind of show (but should be about 4). According to the web page at Showtime, it's 15 episodes. That is at least 10 too many. He keeps moving across the country, but the show itself goes nowhere. I guess it's a good illustration of what a book tour can become--same thing, different city and lots of time in a car... But if a book tour is a dull grind, that's not entertaining. After the first episode, I would have recommended the show. After 10-ish episodes, my advice is do not bother. I regret wading in.

This movie has a low rating for a lot of very good reasons. The main user comment on the IMDb home page (at least as of now as I write this, John DeSando's) spells them out well. It's a failure.

But--there's a real gem here. What happened was, they set out to make a short, the studio liked it for good reason, had the film makers expand it to a feature-length film, and the end product was the dog of film that failed with critics and audiences and goes down in history as a big collection of mistakes.

But if you rent the DVD, the original short is on there. It's well worth renting just for that. It's riveting, tense and provocative. Really ALL the problems users such as John DeSando rightfully point out (quoting him "a plot twist you can see all the way from Mars....The plot holes are as many as dot our own moon....") are in the parts of the feature-length version that are added.

Rent the DVD. Go right to the short. Skip the long version. Too bad the stupid studio had to ruin something good. (Shocking, I know--a movie studio took something good and tried to milk it for more and ended up spoiling it. Hard to believe, but true.)