Customer Reviews

F.A.R.T. The Movie

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4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"F.A.R.T.: The Movie" is an odious and odorous piece of filmmaking. It is an extremely low-budget comedy about Russell (Joel Weiss) a man who lives for bad food, bad television, and high sulphur emissions, and his estranged wife Heather (Shannandoah Sorin) who can't stand the pungent emissions her husband serves up with incredible regularity and ferocity. Let me start off by saying I have absolutely no idea why the title is punctuated as if it is an acronym in some places. As far as I can tell, it's not. That complaint turned out to be the least of my concerns as I watched the movie.

You know you're in for a rough ride when "The Medicine Wheel Band" launches into the theme song, "Life Is A Gas" ("Blow it out of your behind...") over the opening credits while Russell stinks up an elevator and eats a Polish sausage. Clearly this is a one joke film. How much of a one joke film it is becomes evident very quickly after he breezes home on a bus to his 15,000 square foot house (What, he can't afford a car?) His little problem alienates his wife and her amorous advances (OK, gross) and he explains that "Passing gas is nature's way of putting a grin on your face." ("Please go smile in the bathroom" is a corollary that never occurred to Heather.)

The film occurs on New Year's Eve, and Heather wants to go out while Russell wants to stay in and watch TV. Once you see the party Heather ends up at you will likely side with Russell on this one as I did. Most of the rest of the movie becomes a tedious process of watching Russell watch television. Everything on TV is flatus related, stretching the premise to the bursting point. The film is not clever, and is very dated: the hairstyles scream early 1990s, and the film appears to have been made in 1991 though copyrighted in 2005. (There are pitiful jokes about Dan Quayle clearing out the Senate and in one scene gas cost $0.88.) Why do I bring this up? Because the TV shows Russell watches require you to know a lot about the TV of the era to get the meager humor they provide.

The TV shows start right off with a dreadful Andy Rooney impression, in which Andy Rudney (Kim Delgado) engages in a lengthy diatribe on flatus: "...so don't blame the dog anymore, just argue harder with the onions." Oh my ribs. An ad for the "Vapor Hotline" asks the eternal question "Is it stress or merely Mexican food?" Meanwhile Heather is at a simply boorish party missing Russell (why?) while terrible one-liners pass for dialogue. Russell finds the addleminded routines of what may be the world's three worst stand up comedians on "The Rude Dudes" show to be absolutely entrancing ("Do we have any flatulent people here tonight?") Any guess what the exclusive subject of the humor was?

I didn't think I could get much more appalled by the sheer awfulness of the film, but I was wrong when Russell played along at home with the TV game show "Who Cut The Cheese?" This is one of the most unendurable pieces of comedy ever filmed, yet it's also the reason I gave the film two stars rather than the one it likely deserves. My reasoning is twofold: first, it puts the film over the top in the category of films so awful that bad movie aficionados need to seek it out in furtherance on their B-movie education, and second, it features Ed Wood antihero Conrad Brooks in one of his most embarrassing onscreen appearances. (For those of you unfamiliar with Mr. Brooks' body of work, that is a huge assertion.) I don't know how the producers got Brooks, but he definitely makes the film more highbrow.

The film gets more blatant in its cultural references when it features a talent show (don't EVEN ask) called "The Bong Show" starring (brace yourself) Barris Chuck. Really; I couldn't make this up. An aside: Al Gore could do a better and less wooden Chuck Barris impression. "The Bong Show" fades to an image of a television preacher (Robert Axelrod) ranting about "The Devil's Thunder" (euphemisms like "barking spiders" abound throughout) and asking you to send him money. In an attempt to mine every cultural reference possible, Russell proclaims his constitutionally-protected status as a person of gas (my term) and then pays awkward homage to "Gone With The Wind."

Meanwhile at the party, Heather is pining for Russell's noxious stink (and drinking a glass of air) while the hostess announces a time-wasting and totally gratuitous performance by "The Medicine Wheel Band" of their hit "Life Is A Gas." Be sure to remember to laugh as the bluebloods dance to a country and western number about flatus complete with a rippin' and squeakin' slide guitar solo. Russell is at the same time watching an ad complete with spastic dancers in track suits hocking the album of "M.C. Gaseous'" latest dance hits including "Yo Yo Yo Beans," "Release It," and of course "Fresh Air For Mikey." (If you order now you'll also get the latest dance sensation "Do The Butt Fan.") Russell starts getting morose after finishing a 12-pack and eating old pizza from the trash compactor and tunes in to the news, where station manager Fred Rear gives a stirring commentary on rock concerts in what may be the single worst piece of acting ever filmed. (I am so not even joking.) Russell's viewing day concludes with an attempt at a film-within-a-film recap of the action thus far (NO!!!) The eternal question "Is your colon half empty or half full?" is discussed at some length, as is the ultimate cure for intestinal gas, "flatusuction." (Which is actually the only genuinely semi-amusing concept in the whole sordid steaming pile.)

Heather has a smelly Felliniesque new year celebration at the party (avert your eyes if you know what's good for you) and a stirring conclusion reinforces the theme that love overcomes all smells. The ending is allegedly a plot twist but given that the rest of the plotpoints are...ummmm...reminiscent...of other films, I am highly doubting that you won't see it coming, unless you are perhaps a trout.

I am generously disposed to Conrad Brooks, and he really helped this film in my final appraisal. This is an incredibly cheaply made, horribly written, ill-conceived, unfunny, smelly excuse for a comedy. If you can make it through the credits you will be amazed at the gigantic breadth of the cast as "The Medicine Wheel Band" shares another hit. If you wish to inflict maximal B-movie pain on someone over the age of 13 it would be difficult to do worse than "F.A.R.T.: The Movie."

I first saw this in High School circa 1995, my study hall teacher apparently knew someone in it (I think the star may have been his brother in law). Since then, I've seen a lot of bad films, and this is really the pinnacle of the genre. The only things which compare to it, in my opinion, are "Tromeo and Juliet" (yay Lemmy!) and "Bloodsucking Freaks" (which is the #1 worst film I've ever seen). If you like bad movies, you can't pass this one by.

J.Ja