EDtv

Leave it to Hollywood to cram a great idea into its magic-fucking-movie-machine and come out with a mediocre movie. "EDtv" could have been great and could have been a funny essay on TV, but instead it chose to force feed more feel-good bullshit down America's throats.

You know what, Hollywood? It's okay to say TV is bad. Stupid Americans need to be told to get out of their God damn comas and do something. I'm talking about the dumb shits that laugh during the Coke commercial before the movie. The assholes that get in the ticket line and still don't even know what movie to see. The fuckers that say "What did she say?" and then "What did he say while I was asking you what she said?"

"EDtv" could have slapped these assholes and it didn't. It chose instead to be mediocre diversion designed to empty their pockets.

In EDtv, some TV gurus get the great idea to film a person living his life 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and of all the losers they interview, they select Ed, a piece of white trash living in San Francisco. Ed then falls in love with his brother's girlfriend, who becomes camera-shy. He must overcome the difficulties of being on television to win her heart, and to do that he must break out of his iron-clad contract.

Well, the basic premise is brilliant and touches on reality, what with Mrs. Filthy's damn "Real World" show being so popular. I could see a cable channel pulling a stunt like this and all the "Jeryy"-watching cocksuckers loving it. Watching someone deal with newfound fame and the ever-present camera is amusing, for about half the film. The movie eventually bogs down when it becomes obvious that it has one joke to tell, and it keeps telling it.

Matthew McCaunaghey does a fine job portraying the everyman being screwed by big business. Boy, ins't that a believable scenario! He might be a little too "golly-jeepers," but overall he's convincing. His character has graceful modesty and a type of average integrity that the movies rarely show. Donny "Ralph Malph" Most has a cameo that knocks you on your ass. I say Hollywood needs more Malph... in every God damn movie they make. There has been a sore lack of him ever since his cameo on "ChiPs" as Moloch, the satanic rock singer.

We want Malph...we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph... we want Malph...

Jenna Elfman is not as successful in portraying the girlfriend. She's too damn perky all the time, kind of like a TV star is supposed to be, but not a movie character. She's got a charmingly small-town appeal, except that she has no depth. Why are women in the movies always so simple? I think it's because screenwriters are the geeks that never got any pussy in college and are actually afraid of their wives. I can tell you that Mrs. Filthy is more complex than one of them intellectual shows on PBS. One minute she could be sweet as pie, and the next she could be throwing dishes at me. And it makes sense if you know her. That's the kind of ladies we need in the flicks. It would help if they also took off their tops.

This movie fucks up big time when it comes to making a statement about television, because it doesn't say anything. Ron "Opie" Howard is so desperate to please us that he's afraid of offending all the jerks that stopped watching TV only long enough to see his movie. But TV sucks. Jesus fucking Christ, television sucks every single night until Skinemax's titty shows come on after eleven. It's full of cornball jokes and bullshit characters I want to ram my fist through. But this movie never even says any element of television is bad. It makes the TV executives such laughably trite caricatures that there is no relationship between them and real TV executives. Then, the movie keeps cutting to pictures of people watching the Ed on TV, or discussing him on some high-brow talk show. The people discussing him on talk shows and who condemn the idea of filming a man's life, are made to look like Cadillac-driving snobs. In other words, the movie tells you that anyone who thinks TV is bad is just a hootie-hoo and we should laugh at his pomposity, not agree that TV can suck. Why? Because TV is wonderful and we should watch it at work, at home and in restaurants.

The everyday people who watch "EDtv" are average folk and we're supposed to like them for being like us. I don't. I think they're fucking losers for being glued to their sets instead of living life, pumping gas, and having sex with Mrs. Filthy. They suck corny assholes. And therein lies the message that Howard should have promoted. The point should be that the executives are assholes and people are assholes for watching. All the brain dead assholes should leave the theater saying, "what the fuck am I doing with my life? I will never watch Mama's Family again!" Instead, EDtv pats them on the back and says, "Good for you. Kill your brain."

It's just another Hollywood movie with no balls.

The movie is also undermined by the woeful script by the freakishly named Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. They have several non-starter subplots with characters we never give a shit about. Worse, they can't write a fucking gag. They throw in a bunch of "funny" shit that has nothing to do with the story to make us laugh, but it all falls flat on its face like I did after drinking two quarts of radiator fluid-laced egg-nog at the Ralston Amoco Christmas party.

The ending bites worse than a rabid dog. It is so contrived that even the butt-for-brains morons I saw the flick with didn't like it or buy it. They all just sat there silently thinking "Well, I guess if Hollywood wants us to watch this we better do what they say." It's just a sorry way to wrap a movie that never really had much of a driving plot to begin with.

I hear Mrs. Filthy hollering for me from upstairs so I better go. Three fingers for EDtv, and six fingers for Ralph Malph.