Amy's Robot

New Worst Movie Ever

Remember all that squabbling in the 1990's about how NEA money was funding art that a lot of people (mostly Republican Senators who did not appear to be frequenters of museums) found offensive? Well, now the UK has its own artistic scapegoat, in the form of a small, indepedently-produced movie called Sex Lives of the Potato Men. The reason for the uproar is that the film was subsidized with money from the British national lottery, which is a major funder of the arts, so some people argue that public money is paying for objectionable material. Of course, playing the lottery is hardly like paying taxes: if people don't want to fund artistic ventures that they might not agree with, they can not buy lottery tickets.

But at least over there, they get smart, educated movie critics to write pithy, adjective-heavy reviews in which they demonstrate their own wit while tearing the movie apart. All we have is Rudy Giuliani, in reference to Chris Ofili's 'The Virgin Mary', saying "I have a general rule that I follow: anything I can do isn't art. And if you want to throw dung at something, I could figure out how to do that. That is not art." Hey Rudy, if you're so clueless about how to make art, then keep your mouth shut.

The UK film critics got a few good jabs in, like Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, who wrote "The urgent debate for our native film industry seems to me to be as follows: should we put the gun barrel to our temples, or in our mouths for a cleaner kill?"; Will Self said the movie was "mirthless, worthless, toothless, useless." Just FYI, the movie features a lot of masturbation, nose-picking, dog poop, and fat people having sex. It doesn't look like it's slated for a US release.

categories: International, Movies, Politics
posted by amy at 10:28 AM | #