kmk18@cornell.edu wrote:
> 
> I saw the film yesterday. I don't know what radio piece Ross was
> referring to, but Flynt comes off less as a constitutional scholar and
> more as a schmoe screwed over by the moral majority. The free speech
> battle serves as kind of a legitimizing factor for the God-vs.-Satan duel
> between hypocritical Reaganites headed by Jerry Falwell and Charles Keating
> and the garish porn crew around Flynt.

Wait. Which side is God and which side is Satan?

Anyway. Flynt did an hour on Fresh Air, during which Terry Gross refused
to refer to Hustler's spread-vagina photos as anything except "pink." As
in "how did you first decide to start printing pictures of . . . pink?"
or words to that effect. Strange.

But throughout that whole interview Flynt oscillated wildly between a
sort of perverse faux-naivete (pretending not to know why anybody would
be offended) and that trumped-up "constitutional warrior" stance, and a
half-dozen other personae. Based on that, I think the film's own wild
vacillation is actually the most accurate part of it.

> 
> The film itself is alright. It gets off to a bad start, with an annoying
> habit of jumping from scene to scene, leaving issues and evidence hanging
> out. It settles down about halfway through and finds a nice rhythm.

Which is where I think it goes wrong. I don't buy the whole standard
cinematic "man and lawyer bond and gradually come to mutually beneficial
understanding" bullshit. Though perhaps it's what really happened. God
knows the rest of his life has been one string of improbable cliches.

> Hole's surprisingly good and Harrelson's fair, especially in the latter
> half. Not too bad overall. Worth a matinee showing or a rental.
> 
Uh, I'm sure that the rest of the members of Hole would be surprised to
learn that they had appeared in the film. Courtney Love.

And yes, Courtney Love is really good. Period. No qualifier needed. Then
again, her character spends half the movie so junked up she can't walk,
so you have to figure that most of the difficult acting took place
during the few scenes where she had to carry on lucid conversations.

> On the positive side, both Crispin Glover and James Carville have roles,

I fail to see how that occurence can be referred to, without
qualification, as positive. I'd suggest, instead, that what's positive
is that this is a good chance to see what Crispin Glover's "River's
Edge" character would have been like if he'd smoked more pot and done
less speed, and had edited Hustler. He reuses all the same vocal
mannerisms, and it works. 

And yes, Carville is in the movie. I liked him better in "The War Room."

Ultimately, "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" is a pretty good biopic about a
fictional character. Tells us maybe 1/10th of what should be told about
Larry Flynt, and throws in a lot of extraneous bullshit. But it's funny
bullshit.

Wierdest part: despite a handful of stabs at being dirty (some fairly
racy group sex, a couple of quick shots of cartoons, and some
pictorials), ultimately Larry Flynt comes across as a guy with some kind
of non-specific day job, who repeatedly gets entangled in First
Amendment fights apparently in his spare time. Though the movie is a
tacky, tasteless smutfest in a certain sense, it makes little effort to
really give any idea of how crass Hustler itself is (unless you're
really looking and can see the 1/2-second shot of the naked amputee
shown during one layout meeting).

I mean, there is this watershed moment where Flynt poses his first
full-on spread-eagle shot, and the actress's vagina is intentionally
obscured by a bedpost. This is entirely predictable--I'm surprised they
pulled off the "R" rating as it is (though I guess the censors were
inspired (or scared) by the non-stop Bill-of-Rights-waving), and showing
a spread vagina would not have played anywhere near Peoria.

Yet each issue of Hustler features, oh, 30 or 40 of them. So keep in
mind that there's a little discrepancy here. I'm not arguing that they
should have been there, but rather that the milieu presented onscreen is
in no way accurate in that regard, so it's easy to lose sight of exactly
what pissed off all the right-wing Christians in the first place.

So don't think of it as an accurate attempt to portray the real story.
Instead, sit back and enjoy, at one point, a really fun montage of naked
bodies and grotesque war footage, with Woody Harrelson pacing the stage
in front of it, giving an impassioned speech about the relative
obscenity of sex and warfare.

One last thought: Larry Flynt, popping wheelies in a gold-plated
wheelchair, wearing a t-shirt that reads "I Wish I was Black." Greater
than, less than, or equal to Krapper Keeper?

Ross
--
http://sunsite.unc.edu/grady/ch-scene/
The alt.music.chapel-hill Guide to the Triangle.