There Are No Walls in the House of Jearl - Mystery DVD #148

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December 29th, 2008
03:51 pm

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Mystery DVD #148
#147 is demanding somewhat higher production values than normal. We'll have to get back to it.

Little Man

I made the mistake of watching the totally endearing DVD extras right after the actual movie, which took the edge off my desire to bludgeon it.

Marlon Wayans plays Calvin, a 2' 6" thief. Kerry Washington is Vanessa, a woman with an indeterminate but successful corporate career, and Shawn Wayans is Darryl, her doofy husband who desperately wants to start a family. John Witherspoon plays Vanessa's obligatory crotchety father. Also with Tracy Morgan as Percy, an idiot man-child, Molly Shannon and various others as terrible, terrible people.

Percy and Calvin steal a giant diamond for a gangster, but their getaway goes awry. On the run, Calvin sticks the diamond in Vanessa's handbag while scuttling around the drugstore they're shopping in. Calvin and Percy elude the police, but naturally they must now recover their giant chunk of macguffin. Rather than just, you know, steal it back that night, they decide the best plan is to sneak Calvin into the house, disguised as a toddler. Being basically sensible people, though perhaps nearsighted, in the last moment of sanity of this film, Vanessa and Darryl immediately call Child Services. They are closed for the weekend.

And so we embark on at least a week's worth of disturbing childrearing adventures. It's pretty awful and wrong. Basically the next hour is a series of skits where fake-baby Calvin acts on an inappropriate impulse and gets away with it, because he's just a huge creepy baby. He does get beaten up by a hockey player at one point. Every now and then he makes an attempt to steal the diamond back, but it just gets more and more inaccessible. Meanwhile Vanessa and Darryl's friends descend upon them with baby stuff and dysfunctional yuppie-parent behavior. Generally most of these skits run on violence and bodily functions.

If I tried to rate this as a movie, it would check in just barely above Dirty Love, but that just seems unfair. It's a cartoon. Only in a cartoon you could believe that people would be this blind and this demented. Scenes that are pretty disgusting in live-action would be tame on Drawn Together or South Park. Plus it does star a visual effects shot.

Everyone learns valuable life lessons and there are a great many groin injuries. Those two things don't actually correlate, though you'd think they should. Molly Shannon appears for a minivan chase scene that is kind of awesome.

The extras include a featurette about the tiny child actor playing Calvin's body, and he seems like a very awesome kid. The visual effects are also explained and that's pretty impressive. I love when the technical film people geek out about the crazy stuff they had to do to make it all work. There's a whole line of discussion on a rig they built to make one of the yuppie moms' racks scary enough. But mostly they geek out about how awesome Linden Porco (Calvin's body) is.

In conclusion. Very cute extras. Impressive effects, not unlike having a film starring a horny version of Gollum. Terrible yet funny movie.

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From:[info]boylawyer
Date:December 30th, 2008 02:51 pm (UTC)
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I have to say, it seems that the Netflix Avenger has taken to punishing you for your sins this holiday season. I'm impressed that you actually watched this one (I assume) - if any movie ever called for a faux review where nobody could actually call you on it (I mean, what are the odds that any of your readers have actually seen this film), this was it. Ouch.
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From:[info]winterborne
Date:December 30th, 2008 05:48 pm (UTC)
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Did you just say "horny version of Gollum"?

[poink!] Sanity damage, ouchies.
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From:[info]jearl
Date:December 30th, 2008 06:22 pm (UTC)
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the boobies, he wantss them, yessss precious....
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From:[info]bombasticus
Date:December 30th, 2008 07:27 pm (UTC)

speaking of gourds

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Does it have a shot of non-VFX Marlon rubbing a pumpkin in it, just in case the Academy wanted to recognize his achievement or something? I do like me a shot of a non-VFX performer rubbing a pumpkin.
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